The “S” Word – Part 3: Know the Narrative

Editor’s Note: As part of our ongoing series diving into the world of sales, part three explores the three elements that help create effective selling narratives. If you missed it, check out the previous installment in this series, The “S” Word – Part 2: One Selling Step at a Time People!, or start from the beginning and catch up with part 1, The “S” Word – Part 1: Who’s afraid of the big bad “S”?.

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Our customers are smart. External clients and internal colleagues alike recognize a clunky pitch instantly. The prickling sensation down the back. A sudden awareness of the exits – physical and virtual. The fear of being trapped in an unwanted conversation.

Do you want your colleagues to value the data you provide? Or that Fortune 500 company to choose your SaaS AI-driven research platform?

Instead of launching head first into the elevator pitch, what if we took a more considered and collaborative approach? You’re the expert who has valuable information to share. You need to grab attention, hold it, and convert it into action. To sell. Before you can do that effectively, there’s a step you need to take. You need clarity. You need to understand, and then be able to communicate, your narrative.

Sales and story go hand-in-hand. I’ve been entertained and influenced by many a good tale spun by a great salesperson. At the centre of every winning sales story is narrative. The over-arching direction of travel. The place we want our audience to see, to experience. It’s the central truth that connects our idea of what a client needs to what they believe they want.

For me, a selling narrative is comprised of three key elements:

1. A coherent and succinct message
2. An deep familiarity with your audience
3. A clear understanding of your communication purpose

The Message

Do we really know what we’re selling?

One of the challenges for insights, data, and analytics teams is that the industry requires you to be thorough. Detail is essential. But what sometimes happens is that the high value placed on detail becomes the need to share everything. My heart sinks when I’m working with a client on a pitch or research deck and the second slide in is the methodology.

Please don’t get me wrong, methodology matters. But your audience just needs to know that you’ve done the research right. It’s an appendix, not the headline. And it’s this focus on detail that spills over into our selling conversations. It’s all too easy to overload the audience with mountains of data about our product, service, or idea, leaving our central thesis obscured.

In my work as a story specialist I’ve read a lot of books about the craft and science of story. But when I’m with a client, discussing the best way to help their team share research presentations with the CEO, I park that detail. Instead, I’m focusing on the elements that will help me make a stronger connection with the client. The key elements that help the client understand what I’m offering. And to do that I use a throughline.

The throughline is the overarching message that connects all the single dots of data. What do all the separate elements of your offer have in common? That’s where you’ll find clarity on what you’re selling.

What’s the one sentence that sums up your offer clearly for the customer?

The Audience

Do we know who we’re selling to?

Understanding the message is a great start, but now we have to understand who we’re sharing it with. We know our customer needs aren’t necessarily what they believe they want. By becoming more familiar with our audience we can get closer to closing that gap.

Gaining knowledge about your customer draws on your skills as a researcher. How are you segmenting your audience? What conclusions can you make based on the data you collect about them? Can you make an informed opinion about how they see the world from the way they speak, their online profile, etc?

Marketing and brand guru, Seth Godin, puts it like this:

“Every consumer has a worldview that affects the product you want to sell. That worldview alters the way they interpret everything you say and do. Frame your story in terms of that worldview, and it will be heard.”

Consumers, clients, colleagues. It’s the same concept. Go back to basics. Draw a pen picture of your customer so you can find the right way to frame your sales conversations.

The Purpose

Do we know why we’re communicating?

B2B selling generally means playing a longer game. As we explored in part one of this series, sales has changed. And now we’re all in sales, we must remember that the way we service our customers impacts their buying decisions. It may seem obvious, but we need to consider the reason why we’re having a conversation or interaction with a customer. And remind ourselves: this is a sale.

There can be any number of reasons why you connect to a customer. You may be there to inform them of facts and data. Or you may be there to instruct them on how to perform a task or why data has provided a specific insight. You may be there to inspire them to take action or change. But with a selling mindset in place you are more likely to be there to influence them.

Understanding your purpose in an interaction shifts the way you connect to the other person, in this instance a customer. Are you in problem-solving mode? Are you moving beyond the transactional, toward a stronger relationship?

In part four of the series we’ll see that focusing on influence as your purpose impacts the way you shape your interaction. The structure you use to communicate.

Step Back to Move Forward

Building your sales narrative requires you to see the bigger picture, the connections between things. By stepping back and planning before entering into selling interactions, we can create stronger connections with our customers.

By defining our message, understanding our audience, and being clear on our purpose, we can make each selling conversation a step toward a successful sale.