A short coaching-moment video (Jim Johnson) advising hiring managers to prefer salespeople who are storytellers. The speaker contrasts typical sales behaviors (self-focused, fact/industry-language-driven, convincing) with storytellers (audience-focused, concept-driven, using the customer's language) and argues that storytellers earn more trust. Trust enables people to listen and makes a helping approach more successful than a convincing one.
Chapters
One of the stories I get asked a lot by owners and sales managers is what do you look for when you're hiring salespeople? And frankly, I look for storytellers. Why would you look for storytellers? Well, think of most salespeople, right? Who's the most important person in the room? Themselves. Storytellers. Who's the most important person? Whoever they're talking to. 2. How do most salespeople react and approach to get people to buy? They try to convince them with facts. What do storytellers do? They share concepts. What language do most salespeople use? Whatever the language of the industry is. What do storytellers use? Whatever language the person's most likely to understand. In fact, what success for most salespeople? Well, they heard me. For storytellers, it's, well, they understood me. So at the end of the day, storytellers earn more trust. And frankly, in sales, trust is the most important asset a person can possibly have. And when you have trust, people listen more closely to what you have to say. And if you're trying to help them versus convince them, which maintains trust, you're more likely to be successful. Does that make sense?
