DustinMathews.com - The NEW Secret: Storytelling

May 1, 2007

I’ve noticed in that every area of life the secret to success is storytelling!

Let’s examine a few areas…

Sales
It’s seems to me that the best sales people are those that can relate to their prospect. I’ve interviewed sales reps, talked to friends, and just have sat back and looked at sales people - and I’ve noticed that those that the SUPERSTARS can tell stories. More importantly they share these stories.

Speaking
The best selling platform speakers and even those warm fuzzy (paid speakers) are those that can share stories with the audience. They use the power of the story to get the audience emotional and connected to the message they are trying to get across. In fact, I don’t think any speakers - even the worst speakers - don’t get up and tell some form of story to a crowd. It makes you human, but more on that later…

Marketing
One word…testimonials! Testimonials do the selling for you and are regarded as the single best way to market. Think about it - testimonials are stories told by your clients about you. Take a look at all the greats - John Carlton, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, Mike Fortin, Gary Bencivenga, - and you’ll not only notice the abundant use of testimonials, but you’ll notice a story (or multiple stories) shared throughout their copy.

So Why Storytelling?
Think back to when we we’re in school as children. They may be hard for some of us…

But what was our favorite time?

Story time! We’ve got stories at the breakfast table from our parents ranting, we got stories in school, and we sure did get a lot of stories when we went home to watch TV. It’s also interesting to note that during the early history of man - that’s all we had to pass down our past. They called it “oral tradition” - but I call it storytelling.

My advice to you: learn to tell stories…and quick!