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Daily Sales Tips

A Daily Podcast and Blog for B2B Sales Professionals

Sales Tip 193: The Product Narrative – Chris Ortolano

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“Start writing your own product narrative framework and then use this framework to start crafting your own customer stories.” – Chris Ortolano in today’s Tip 193

How do developing your sales narrative? 

Join the conversation below and share your ideas too!

Chris Ortolano on LinkedIn
Outbound Edge
Chris Ortolano on Twitter
SalesStack
SalesStack on Twitter

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I’ve got another tip for you from Chris Ortolano, Principle and Founder of Outbound Edge. Here he is with the tip:

Chris Ortolano: Are you interested in developing a storytelling or narrative approach for sales and marketing? 

Product narratives convey emotions and ideas through tension related to change. 

Narratives can be hard to develop, and even harder to get started. What’s the first thing you should do before developing your sales narrative? 

If you’re in sales and marketing or developing a new product, ask yourself – how well do you know your customers? 

      1. Have you considered their goals?
      2. What are the outcomes they need to achieve?
      3. How does your product /service impact or change their process?
      4. Have you do define the new process requirements?
      5. And finally – who else benefits after the implementation?

If you can’t answer these questions, walk down the hall, and talk to your colleagues in Customer Success and Account Management. Ask these 5 questions:

  1. Who is using your product?
    1. Now humanize your customer, make them the “hero” of your story using a specific location, human references that allow us to empathize with this person. 
  2. What was a day in their work lifelike, before they started using your product or service?
    1. Describe how their old daily workflow contributed to bottlenecks and constraints. 
  3. How did those constraints create a need or desire for change? 
    1. Define the AHA moment when they decided to consider using your product
  4. What was the transition plan that gave them the confidence to embrace your solution? 
    1. Explain how you aligned their goals, specific outcomes with your process and new requirements 
  5. What changed in terms of a day in their life? 
    1. Describe the outcomes in terms of workflow, collaboration, data, decision-making and more!

At the end of the day, your product narrative is a story about change, full of hope, ambition, and maybe even a little despair. These are experiences that we can all relate to, helping your audience understand and relate to how you can help them. 

Spend 15 minutes asking your co-workers the questions above, start writing your own product narrative framework, then use this framework to start crafting your own customer stories.

Scott Ingram: To learn more about Chris and for some great resource links click over to DailySales.Tips/193. One of those links is to Chris’ LinkedIn profile. Connect with Chris and he’ll send you a free Lucidchart template to map your own 5 step product narrative framework that you can use to craft your customer stories for marketing and sales.

Thanks for listening, come back tomorrow for another great tip from Jeff Bajorek!