I have a coaching client who is working as hard as anyone I know. Yet, he isn’t getting the results his hard work deserves. And, when I suggest changes he’s SO busy keeping up with his current commitments it’s a challenge to implement anything new.
In many third world countries children have to walk an hour in the pre-dawn darkness to the village square to fill her family’s pot with water. Then, she has to walk an hour back home lugging that pot of water. All that, so their family could start the day with a pot of water. These people are trapped because they must devote so much time to staying alive that breaking free from poverty is inconceivable to them.
You and I get to start the day with water, just by turning on the tap. We have a two-hour advantage. A tool that allows you to accomplish something in seconds that takes others a couple of hours of backbreaking effort gives you time to focus on more valuable opportunities.
It’s the same way in this business. One of the key tools my coaching client was missing was story telling. He was trying to teach his customers without illustrating stories. What’s harder, he was trying to sell without stories.
The symptoms of this problem were everywhere in his business. While his presentations were good in person, when he tried to translate them in an online automated sales process, his results were disappointing, generating almost no response.
Stories, especially of successful case examples are one of your best tools to make your work easier, both with selling as well as training. They make your words come alive and attract customers. While the crowds flock to buy courses on landing pages, traffic generation strategies or product launches, effective storytelling is the key factor in the success of any of those tactics. This is an area I often work on with my monthly coaching clients.
If this is an area you’d like to study more, here’s a great resource I created, How to Get Attention, Build Trust and Generate Better Customers, Simplified. It includes several years of study, practice and modeling in this topic. Yours, as an IMA member. It’ll have a big impact on your life and work.
Also, let me know if you are interested in contributing money to build wells in impoverished communities. A well changes the entire livelihood of a village of 5,000 people.
Best wishes,
2 Comments on “Critical and often overlooked”
Robert, I’ve been following you for awhile, having discovered you via Dan Kennedy, one of my favorite authority mentors.
Your posts are all good, and, as those like you and Dan who know their stuff, a lesson in engagement in themselves.
I have to say that this post was particularly seamless in its power and punch. In all the best ways. The circle of beginning with the problem; the anecdote about the third world as example directly tied into ‘our world’ situation; then to the solution; and wrapping up with an impeccably tied-in call to action on both levels – helping ourselves and the child we agonized with in the beginning of the story.
Awesome!
Very Kind. Thank you so much for your feedback. Best wishes.