Facts tell, stories sell. So say the experts.
Probably no one reading this needs an expert to tell them that, but it’s a very natural tendency to get on that soapbox when you’re talking about your product – to use the old bombastic boasts (“We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ”), or to use technobabble that’s uninviting, distant and arrogant to regular folks.
Since networkers, unlike other marketers, actually use the products they market (safe assumption, I hope), we have an edge: We can tell an authentic, personal story about it to someone else.
Challenge: How can you tell your story without falling into the sales-pitch soup and the over gushy-stuff that sounds so fake, even if true?
Remember, people out there are suspicious of marketers. One of the best selling business books today is entitled, All Marketers are Liars.
The Do Not Call Registry has 120 million Americans signed up. Are you one? Don’t sell me either, please.
That’s also why blogs are so much more fun to read than the corporate sites: “bloggers write because they have something to say, and companies write copy because they want to make money.”
Who isn’t sick of all their happy talk?
So if you sound like them, won’t you be too, be perceived as just another happy talk moneymonger?
Your first 10 seconds of talk or copy tells the other person whether you have a story to tell, or just a product to sell.
Reader challenge: How would you tell your product or business story, versus what most people unwittingly do now, which is sell their story?
Go ahead, have at it.
I dare you to tell, not sell, your story.
P.S. Winner gets a copy of the book, “If My Product’s So Great, How Come I Can’t Sell It?”
