It is a well-worn cliché that is repeated at almost every networking event I attend but is constantly restated for a reason – it works!
“People do business with people they like, know, and trust!”
Despite the constant reminders it is often forgotten. People slip into “selling mode” before building a connection with the person they are speaking to. It happens in a one on one conversation at networking events and it occurs during sales pitches as well.
Before you can share your expertise and sell your products/services you need to share yourself to the people in the room. Yet there is often reluctance… Why?
It comes down to two things… Impatience for the sale (slow down and you’ll get the prize – remember the tortoise and the hare story you were told as a child)! Secondly it’s about knowing what to share about your background and being prepared to make yourself the relatable hero. Someone who understands their situation and can help them find a better way.
A good story positions you as the hero that will be able to solve the problem you know the people you are speaking to are experiencing. To achieve this you obviously need to adapt your story to the situation.
Lets be clear. I am not proposing that you make up your story to suit the situation!
What I want you to understand is that your story needs to reflect the elements that will resonate best with the people you are presenting too. In our backgrounds we all have a range of experiences. Some are good and some are bad. Within each of those experiences there will be emotions, activities, challenges, and other people who the audience you are speaking to will find relatable. The key to a good background story is to select the right experience to showcase and highlight the elements that will cause the audience to relate to you.
The more they relate to you the more they will accept what you offer because they trust you.
A major inhibitor to finding relatable experiences is that we forget (and often discount) our personal history. We need to mine our background for anecdotes and memories that we often don’t recall without prompting.
One of my favourite activities with clients is to mine their background to find great stories that we can incorporate into sales pitches. The lighting of eyes as lost and forgotten memories are recalled is a magical experience.
With the long lost experiences recovered we are able to look at the challenges, and emotions to identify what elements are most relatable to the groups they are targeting and craft the stories to highlight those elements. You can do the same.
But the first step is find as many stories and experiences as possible. Shut yourself off from any distractions for thirty minutes and mine your memory for some great material.
