Just Story It

What a great article about influencing, moving people to action, and sales.

Biz storytelling is all about that. Yet there's ambivalence around it too. Who wants to be a snarky salesman?!

Enter Dan Pink, one of my favorite authors, and his new book To Sell is Human. The author of this article, Heidi Grant Holvorson, reviews Pink's book and makes fabulous points on her own.

As Halvorson points out, Pink says that moving people (selling, persuading, influencing) is an essential component of nearly everyone's job in the modern workplace.

Doing so well and effectively without being a slime ball means making sure the ideas and products with genuine merit do the moving.

This helps avoid the traps of manipulation and intimidation. 

I really like Halvorson's insights, her willingness to tackle the stereotypes of sales, and bring us Pink's latest work.

I've commented before on transactional storytelling (using stories for sales) -- not because I think it is bad, but because I don't want us to lose sight that there is much more to business storytelling than at the level of mere transaction.

Pink, I think, helps us frame influence and moving people to action as we tell our stories in sales/influence/persuasion functions (these are not synonymous terms, BTW) -- in a way that really works. Now I certainly want to get his book to add to the others of his in my library.

Anyway, thought you should see this article. Lots of good material here (and it is not long). I hope you gain more comfort with sales and storytelling, and be able to conduct your influence/sales work in your business or organization with more confidence.

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it

Awhile ago I curated the research & article by Dr. Phillip Mazzocco and Melanie Green about Persuasion in Legal Settings: What's the Story? where they talk about when a story persuades, and when it does not. Here's the link: http://www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it?q=legal+settings 

Now here is an article -- based on their research -- that summarizes the 6 elements of better stories. 

The article is written for bloggers but applies to us all. I particulary like elements 2 (realism), 3 (delivery), 4 (imagery), and 6 (context).

Delivery is learned through practice -- and working on your oral storytelling skills is critical whether you are writing your stories, or meeting with prospects/customers face-to-face. I like the examples of good delivery shared here.

I see a lot of articles about imagery as it relates to visual storytelling, but little about developing visual language skills (metaphors, analogies, etc.). There are some great tips here on story imagery.

And context is king. If you can't change your stories to suit the context you find yourself in, you are most likely dead in the water. I like what the author, Gregory Ciotti, says about context and buildilng trust.

So go grab the insights from this article and keep sharing/practicing your biz stories!

This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling atwww.scoop.it/t/just-story-it