Imagine yourself sitting down in a meeting room to listen to a presentation by a speaker.The speaker begins by saying. "Statistics show" and then proceeds to prattle off a list of figures aimed at making a point. Before long, though, you’ll probably be thinking about all
other places you’d rather be.
Now imagine that speaker begins by saying "Once upon a time"
You automatically start paying attention because you know you’re about to hear a story.
People love stories. And they’ll stop what they’re doing if they think they’re going to hear a good one.
The greatest teachers of all time have taught their lessons through stories, anecdotes, examples. Even parables.
And you’ll start getting loads of free publicity from media if you understand that they’re really in storytelling business.
Joan Stewart is a former newspaper reporter and editor with more than 20 years experience. She says that during her career, she got hundreds of calls from people saying, in so many words, "Cover me, pay attention to me, give me publicity."
Of course, what they really wanted was free advertising for some product they were selling. And when Joan would ask, politely of course, why public would want to know more about it, they’d launch into details about how wonderful their product was and all features it offered.
Among professional sales people, this is called "selling features instead of benefits."
