Sell With A Story

Sell With A Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale, by Paul Smith.

Storytelling expert, Paul Smith, shares practical strategies to draw people in and actively engage them using stories rather than relying on the traditional, logical and dry sales pitch.

Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale helps salespeople discover a new tool for dramatically better results.

Beginning with the introduction, Smith shows how stories can trigger emotions and effectively prompt the decision-making part of the brain.

Smith shares a personal story about going to an art fair with his wife and finding a picture of a pig in the ocean, which caused them to become immediately connected to the piece.  

Smith describes how the artist’s story about what the pig was doing in the ocean sold he and his wife on the piece of art.  Compelling proof that stories sell. 

In the first chapter, Smith educates the reader about what a sales story is – and maybe even more importantly – what it is not.   He uses an excellent approach relating the top-of-mind story about the swimming pig to dissect the attributes of a good story.  

We'll get back to the pig story in a minute...

Sell With A Story: Part One

Next, Smith explains how buyers want more stories and specifically what kinds of stories are compelling and why.

Starting with Part 1, What Sales Stories You Need And When To Tell Them, Smith concludes each chapter with an exercise that translates the strategy to practical action. 

In Part 1 you'll learn how to:

•  Introduce yourself, simply
• Tell yourself motivational stories about how the work you do makes a difference for others
• Use stories to take the stress out of a sales call
• Get buyers to tell their story
• Build rapport through storytelling
• Use stories as a sales pitch, including overcoming objections, negotiating price and closing the sale
•  Incorporate storytelling for exceptional service after the sale 

Sell With A Story: Part Two

Part 2 is like a clinic about how to craft your sales stories.  

Everything you need to know to create your own sales stories is spelled out in easy-to-follow, sequential steps.  

Don’t skip the appendix.  It is packed with templates and worksheets to help people create more compelling sales stories, using all the ideas and tools from earlier in the book.

“Stories sell.  And the people who can tell a good sales story sell more than people who can’t.”  Paul Smith’s words ring true and he delivers exactly what a person needs to start selling with a story.

So What About The Pig?

I know you're wondering the fate of the unfortunate pig in the ocean.  Why on earth would a pig be swimming in the ocean?

Like most things in the Bahamas, many foods and goods must be shipped since the agriculture of the islands do not fully support the population.

Although I won't fully reveal the pig story, rest assured the pig is in the ocean of its own choosing and lives to swim another day.

Smith divulges the full story in the book and uses this example as a template for how you can create your own unique stories to be more successful. 

Stories provide a great sales tool to sell more, and a great leadership tool to more effectively lead your people to new levels of achievement.

Use the templates and worksheets provided in the appendix to help your team members create the stories that will resonate with their clients and improve their results.

Author Bio

Paul Smith is the author of Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale. He’s a former director and 20-year veteran of the Procter & Gamble Company, and one of the world’s leading experts on business storytelling. He’s a keynote speaker, storytelling coach, and the bestselling author of three books on harnessing the power of storytelling. Smith can be found at www.leadwithastory.com

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