The Power of "Stories That Sell"

How powerful are your success stories? Do they just tell a story? Do they
talk about the customer's success? Or are they just something you check off that you've done every quarter?

One of my favorite writers, Casey Hibbard, covers this information extensively in her awesome book "Stories that Sell" and her great blog with the same name.

Casey is always talking about why it's important to include measurable results in your case studies and gives some tips. If you haven't visited
her site take a look. She's even been holding some webinars lately for case study writers great stuff.

One thing I really like about Casey is how she understands what a story needs. Stories need to be compelling AND include some measurable results, for example dollars saved, productivity time increases, avoidance costs, etc. A success story is like a cake. Cake by itself is fine but if you add some icing it take it to a whole new level! A success story without measurable results is fine but if you add them the story turns out so much more powerful. And plus you'll get some great quotes or value statements that your corporate marketing team can use!

Happy Referencing! I am off to eat some cake (with frosting)!

Not all Customers are Created Equal

In my post dated July 27 2010 I talked about the need to know your customers. I am a firm believer that in order to build a relationship with someone you need to know them first. Here are some thoughts from that post and some other things I've been thinking about lately on why it's so important to understand who your customers are:

• You need to know who the main contact is at the company. Will you be working with the IT Admin, Database Administrator, Chief Marketing Officer etc?" It's very different working with an IT Manager versus a Chief Marketing Officer.
• What industries does your customer work in? Although IT managers are similar there are differences between an IT manager at a university and one at a Fortune 100 financial services company.
  
• What types of business challenges do they face? For some it might be something easy as they needed a new phone system or is it complex like a global implementation that will include four very different products.


• What size company do they work at? It's a very different world for an IT manager at a huge enterprise company versus a SMB company.


• Even location plays a factor. Many years ago I managed phone representations for Matrix Marketing and I taught that it was important for the reps to parrot their customers including rate of speech, tone, formality, etc. While I don't recommend going to that extreme, I do recommend that you be aware of differences such as east coast/west coast personalities, fast/slow speakers, etc.

How well do you know your customers? Happy referencing!