Mike Bosworth is a legend in the sales training world. Back in the 1970s, he noticed the Pareto principle applied to sellers - 80% of a company’s sales are generated by 20% of the sellers.
In 2012, Mike published ‘What Great Salespeople Do: The Science of Selling through Emotion Connection and The Power of Story. In that book, he described why the Pareto principle applies to selling - only a small proportion of sellers use the single most powerful sales tool available to them - story.
Here are two examples, both from the wine industry.
Back in 2017, the Anecdote team spent a day in the Yarra Valley wineries and we were really well looked after. Shawn Callahan made a few thank-you calls the next week to people who had helped organise the day. One of them did research into the wine industry. They explained that in cellar door situations, salespeople who used stories sold a whopping seven times more wine than the rest.
I heard this next example a couple of days ago - thanks Marc Checkley. I’ve changed the names for this one.
Back in 2019, Marc was leading one of his famous wine tours in France. He always finished the tour at his favourite vineyard in the Jura region. It was a great experience and the groups always bought large quantities of wine at the cellar door. A few days before the tour, [Jean], the winemaker, rang Marc and said he had an issue with mildew in the vines, and with harvest looming, he had to be in the vineyards. However, his sister [Alex] would host the group. [Alex] was a generous and graceful host, and the wine was as good as ever. But the group did not buy a single bottle of wine at the cellar door. Not one bottle. Marc reflected that [Alex] didn’t share a single story about the wine, the winery, its organic origins etc.
The good news is that every salesperson can tap into the power of story. The skills are easily learned and practical.
#storypoweredsales #storytelling
Founder and Principal Consultant @ Cedar Root | Leadership Development
2moCongrats on joining a dynamic team and company! Cheers-