One of my favorite topics of conversation is how you can make things simple.
As a marketer, I believe that stories are our most powerful weapons in building the case for anything we want to achieve.
In many cases, it becomes tough for us to differentiate what is important to us with what is important to the person on the other end.
This becomes very difficult when you are talking to teams and markets of different people with many different worldviews.
You see, the most important thing you need to understand is that stories need to take place in the worldview of the audience you are talking to and not in the worldview that you hold.
For many of us that is the challenge.
We think that what is important to us is important to everyone.
And that can lead to your story becoming panicked.
By panicked I mean that you start to get the feeling that you aren’t connecting with the person on the other side of the conversation and you start blurting out fact after fact.
When in reality, the better solution is to drop back and tell a simple story…one built on change, performance, change, or results.
Here’s a simple example that I use with my some of my clients:
When I was involved in nightclubs, we weren’t really selling drinks and music and dancing. We were selling an experience.
Or, another one is:
If you are selling some sort of business service, you aren’t selling a product, you are selling a result.
No matter what you are involved in, you are selling the idea that you are improving something.
You aren’t selling a bunch of features and benefits, you are selling some brighter future.
And, when you are telling that story, think about how the great fables of our culture are…they are simple and hang around for a long time.
Simple sells.