7 Steps to the persuasive story for selling ideas

Your favorite song comes on and you're immediately engaged in humming or singing the lyrics. In your mind, time travel takes place and past memories take over, you're mentally there reliving your past experiences.

Why does a song, a TV ad or a story have such sticking power for us?

Perhaps you've heard the joke about every Country Western song having the same theme of the dog dies the wife leaves, the truck broke down and the beer is gone. Obviously more than one Country Music star or fan would indicate there is far more to it than that.

What it does demonstrate is the power of the story. Most songs tell some type of story which makes them memorable and helps us emotionally attach ourselves to them.

Do you want to be more persuasive, more influential and sell more?

It has been proven again and again that top persuaders are also master story tellers!

Just think the highest paid people in our culture are musicians; story tellers!

So how can you and I become these masters at story telling? ......

The first aspect of effective story telling is to understand what it is a story does that makes it work.

Stories engage us, they cause us to pay attention, to listen and be curious about what will be said or perhaps how the ending occurs. The first key to good communications is to get people engaged.

A good story will draw us in and disengage us from the surrounding environment as well as our previous thought process. (Important to remember when encountering and overcoming resistance.)

Good stories are very memorable and repeatable by others. This can create a viral type effect as to how your message is carried on to others.

Even the most stoic of people may respond emotionally to a well structured story that has drawn them in. It is this emotion of the story that creates the persuasiveness and creates motion.

The one thing that ties the previous points together is the image and picture created by a good story. We are mostly visual people and our brain process pictures and images. These images are how our memory recalls information which affects our current and future choices. With a vivid image the emotion, repeatability and engagement are all taken care of.

Now you may be thinking: "Yes, that is true, but I just am not a story teller. I can give examples of how others have done things but their far from persuasive or motivational!"

That's right, we all probably use examples of what we or others have experienced, yet they are not necessarily persuasive. So here are some tips to apply and some to avoid in creating a persuasive story from your examples.

1. The first key that many people violate is to engage the listener immediately. Far too many times people start their story by telling the ending or what the story is about. This causes the listener to filter and judge the story before it begins!
· Avoid, "Let me tell you about the time......" or "This is about..." or other such preambles.
· Use "Last Friday we were...." and allow the story to tell itself.
· Use "My friend Jerry had this kind of experience...." and allow the story to tell itself.

2. Use the senses in telling the story to bring out smells, sights, emotions and color. This helps the listener to visualize the story as it is told. It covertly brings them into the story and they "live" the story.
· Avoid, "He sat and said....."
· Try, "As he sunk into the soft green chair, his attitude changed and he said....."
· Try, "I quickly sat in the office chair, my mind reeling as to how I could respond..."

3. Create a sense of tension or conflict either within the character or with others. This is the reality of life and creates drama. It also can indicate covertly what action the other party has to take in order to get the results they want.
· Try, "I could see his forehead tense up with the thought of our request."
· Try, "It was obvious from her unsmiling face and stiff stature that we had an issue to overcome.."
· Try, "Personally I was not comfortable in the situation, yet I knew something had to take place, so ......"

4. Use pertinent detail that has an effect, all stories has detail, much of it irrelevant and time consuming. The irrelevant shuts down the listener, while the relevant peaks their interest.
· Avoid, "and we had to hurry and then wait, she is always late and it really gets to us, we wish she would change, but I guess it will probably never change. Anyway, back to the story..."
· Try, "we had to hurry despite the usually late procrastinator, as the wind kept building and the black clouds continued to get closer..."
· Try writing out your example in detail and then crop out any detail that does not add significantly to the picture of the story. Good stories often start with 2000 words and end up with 200!

5. Use terminology that continually brings the listener back into the story. The use of subtle questions or directives such as:
· "now if you can imagine this..."
· "just suppose it's you in ...."
· "can you see yourself..."

6. Keep it short and concise. The adult attention span is about 2-5 minutes in length, depending upon their behavior profile. A high D or Dominate will be much shorter than an Influencer or Steadiness profile. A long winded, over detailed story will do you more harm than good!

7. Create a sense of mystery by withholding some details till the end. If you have ever listened to Paul Harvey and his "The Rest of the Story" you'll know what I mean.
· Keep the identity of the characters till the end.
· Refer to people, actions or things in generic terms till the end.
· Keep certain key details till the end.

Yes there is more to this than we have here. Yet if you take just these 7 ideas and apply them to any of your current examples you use, bet you will find them more persuasive!

Then of course you need to practice them out loud in order to perfect the sound, emphasis and delivery. We all have voice mail of some type, might it work for this?

If you're still skeptical as to if you could do this, please set it aside for now and give it a try. You can always be skeptical later.

People like Zig Ziglar, Kevin Hogan, and Jeff Gitomer get up wards of $50,000 for one appearance! Why, because they are good persuasive story tellers!

Just imagine what it might be worth to you in getting more accomplished in your persuasive efforts!

Want more on persuasive stories, presentation, sales or management? Our web site is www.BusArcOnLine.com www.thesellinggap.com

Till next week, Be all you can be!
Harlan Goerger, Director of Training


© Harlan Goerger, 4-07