Facts Are Way Overrated

While reading a post at Seth Godin’s blog, I noticed these phrases in the body of the post :

“Facts don’t change people’s behavior.”

“Emotion changes people’s behavior.”

“Stories and irrational impulses are what change behavior. Not facts or bullet points.”

“If all we need is facts, then books alone would be sufficient.”

“When the Surgeon General announced that smoking was fatal, how many smokers quit right away?”

I don’t know about you. but to me that tells me that when I’m dealing with a customer, I’m wasting my time if I bother quoting facts and features as anything more than as throw-ins during the conversation.

What I really need to be doing is telling them a story that jerks their emotions towards my service or product.

Smoker’s don’t quit when they hear about cancer, UNLESS it’s THEIR cancer !

Once their emotions are activated, they take action.

This tells me that I need to activate my customer’s emotions to get them to take action.

How do I do this ? Not with facts and figures, according to Seth. I agree to the max !

Here’s some more good info from seth’s post :

” Conferences are designed to get average people to change their behavior. By “average”, I mean typical—the masses, the center of the bell curve. That’s a sensible objective. By definition, most people (in any given population) are in the middle of that bell curve. Change them and you’re golden. If this group would learn, take action and make things happen with just a memo, you wouldn’t need to have a conference. But we end up being flown on average planes to average hotels to sit in average conference rooms and hear average speakers doing presentations filled with bullet points. And it’s all beyond reproach.

But it doesn’t work. “

Notice here that he’s talking about the average person, which is basically the same person that you and I try to sell to everyday.

” It doesn’t work when you’re on a sales call either. Your facts and your service and your prices can be the best, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the sale. And it breaks down at an annual review and it even happens in a one-on-one encounter with a policeman or a teacher or a clerk. “

Don’t even bother going in with a price cut…without a story to back it up. Or at least with the most powerful word in the English language…Because.

Because our manufacturing costs have dropped…we’re cutting our price.

Because we recently developed a new method…we’ve been able to lower our costs.

Don’t go in without a because.

” People are irrational and they usually make decisions that have nothing to do with facts. And yet we spend most of our time improving our facts and very little concerned with the rest. “

If you waste your time memorizing facts, rather than learning how to communicate with and guide your customer with your stories, you’ll be less successful than you could be.

If more sales managers would find ways to teach their salesmen how to be better communicators, they be selling more of their product.

If you’re a sales manager and you find a person who’s able to engage people and hold their attention….Hire ‘em ! You can teach them enough about your product to sell more than your best fact memorizer ever thought about.

” Here’s the challenge, then: figure out how to do the atypical. How to change the interactions that people have with each other. How to change what they talk about in the elevator. How to create an environment where people walk in ready to learn and change and challenge…”

You, the sales manager have to find ways to make your salesmen more interesting, more likable, more balanced, better able to think on their feet and take a customers comments and run with them.

You, as a salesman, have to find new and differnet ways to engage your customer’s interest. Price ain’t gonna always do it. Features ain’t always gonna do it.

Number’s tell…but stories sell !

” Sure, it won’t work on everyone. But that’s better than working on no one. “

Could this new and improved method be the secret you’ve looked for all your life. No, probably not.

But I guarantee it will improve your sales calls and make you a better salesman.

For 10 Tips To Explode Your Sales, click here.

Want to learn about how to hire a salesman, click here.

Need some more info tell help you understand about stories, click here.