From Storytelling to Storyselling: Why MSP Salespeople Need to Be Great Storytellers

Who doesn’t love a great story? You may have heard or told lots of stories in your lifetime- from the most trivial to the most significant ones that affected you in some way.

But why do people love stories? And why is it essential for every salesperson to be a great storyteller?

Here are a few reasons why:

1. Stories help customers to relate or visualise a situation

With the amount of information people receive each day, it’s not surprising that a bland sales pitch will be forgotten by the end of the day. Instead of just telling your customers the details and features of your solutions, get their attention by sharing compelling stories about how providing the right IT solutions turned the difficult situations of your existing customers around.

Dealing with the same experience, your prospects can connect to the situation that you’ve created in your conversation and place themselves on the same scene. 

2. Stories remove the technicalities and make it easier for customers to understand your point

Let’s face it, not all people understand IT terms that we all use in a typical day. Most of the time, you will be presenting to people who have the slightest idea about your solutions, that’s why they’ve asked for your help in the first place.

Conversations need to be tailored according to your audience. Sharing relatable stories and interesting anecdotes can establish rapport, build trust and remove all the gaps and confusion brought by technical terms.   

 

3. Stories keep things conversational

You just can’t just create a connection through simply presenting a Powerpoint deck. This often leads to a one-way conversation where you get to do all the talking and your prospect just listening the entire time. 

Aside from hearing stories, people generally love telling stories too. All you need to do is to provide a good starting point to get the conversation going.

4. People just hate being sold to

Buyers hate to be pressured into saying yes. The trick to being a great salesperson is not to sell, but help your prospects buy and make them feel that you’re with them in the decision process – not just imposing the idea of how they can benefit from the solutions you’re offering.

Storytelling can help you gain their trust and eventually open up to you about their situation. Sharing authentic and relatable stories can build a common ground between you and your prospects making them comfortable in revealing the challenges that their business is going through and also, their needs.

When you focus on telling engaging stories instead of just plainly selling, there are greater chances that you would win more deals and customer relationships. Always try to establish connection, understand your client’s problems, make them feel heard and of course add some creativity in your conversation to keep it going.

Together, we can tell great stories. If you’re still wondering how you can get to the next level of your client relationships, our team would be glad to help you move forward. Book a call with our Partner Success team to start the conversation.