Tag Archives: customer stories

Can Emotion Change How Something Tastes?

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Why do some people drink Coke and some people drink Pepsi?  Is it strictly a matter of people making the decision based on taste?

Marketing people understand that having a strong brand is important, yet it’s challenging to show the power of branding. That’s because it is notoriously difficult to measure the impact of branding efforts. For example, if you ask people why they choose one soda over another, they will always say it’s because of the taste. They never say it’s because of the emotion they associate with the brand, and really, that’s what branding is all about – creating an emotional anchor to a product or service. Happily, modern technology is now equipping us with the tools to see just how powerfully emotion affects our perceptions of everything, even something as fundamental as how something tastes.

A study conducted by the Department of Neuroscience at the Baylor College of Medicine tested how brand impacts the perceived taste of Coke vs. Pepsi.  First, they asked people which brand they preferred. Then, they gave them blind taste tests to see which soda they preferred from a pure taste standpoint. Finally, they had them do additional taste tests, but let the participants know if they were drinking Coke or Pepsi. These tests were conducted while the participants were in brain imaging machines, so that the scientists could see exactly what was happening in the brain. The results were fascinating.

“When researchers monitored brain scans of 67 people who were given a blind taste test of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, each soft drink lit up the brain’s reward system, and the participants were evenly split as to which drink they preferred. But when the same people were told what they were drinking, activity in a different set of brain regions linked to brand loyalty overrode their original preferences. Three out of four said that they preferred Coca-Cola.” (Blakeslee, Sandra. “If Your Brain Has a ‘Buy Button,’ What Pushes It?”. New York Times, 19 Oct. 2004. Web. 1 Jul. 2006.) Read more here.

So, the power of emotion that branding can bring to a product is so powerful that it can change the perception of how something tastes.

Now that you know how deeply emotion impacts the perception of a product, what are you doing to build emotion around your products and services?  For consumer products, brand perception is largely based on advertising, but in complex selling situations, it’s different. 70% of your brand identity is delivered by your sales force.*

What are you doing to make sure that you messaging or your sales force’s messaging builds the emotion you want in you customers?

One of the most powerful ways you can build emotional connections between your services and your customers is to tell Customer Stories with Contrast.  Most salespeople share Customer Stories with potential prospects, but you can give those stories much more emotional impact by telling them using Contrast.

First, tell the story of what life was like for your customer Before using your solution. Then, tell the story of what life is like for the customer After using your solution. Tell the story vividly using visual support (whiteboard, flip charts, PowerPoint, etc) to create as much contrast as possible. Use contrasting colors, contrasting sides of a whiteboard, a t-chart, etc. It is in the contrast that the emotion will be created and the value perceived by your customer. It is through emotion that the “taste” of your product will be changed forever in your prospect’s mind.

By Erik Peterson, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.

*“Getting Sales and Marketing on the Same Team” by Harry Watkins, Consultant, Aberdeen Group. June 2003, B2B online.



No Need to Over Act – Be Yourself

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Everyone in Advertising knows that people buy on emotion. It’s true. Once the emotional decision is made the justification comes quickly. Unfortunately, as a salesperson, I was taught to keep emotion out of my sales presentations. “Just create a strong business case and they will buy!” I’ve learned, and so have you, that prospects need to be engaged at an emotional level. When they are, their ability to make a decision becomes easier.

One of the most powerful messaging techniques to accomplish this is the “mini-drama.” Acting out a day-in-the-life of your prospect is an effective way to create emotion. However, my experience working with sales professionals indicates this technique is rarely used. The reason for this is that sales people are uncomfortable with “acting.” After all, you probably did not take drama classes to get your job as a sales representative.

Mini-dramas do not need to be scripted, edited, well rehearsed Broadway productions. Costumes and make-up are not required. Nor is pretending to be someone you’re not. In fact, mini-dramas should be done with the same “best friend self” you bring to all your customer interactions. Your credibility should not be jeopardized by using this messaging technique. In fact, it should be enhanced. If you like being funny, use humor in your mini-drama. If you are sincere – be sincere. If you are serious – be serious. In other words, be yourself.

You can deliver a mini-drama by simply adding a bit more body movement and gesturing to a customer story. Here is an example I used when selling software solutions to business managers. I told a personal story of buying a new suite at a clothier. As I described the experience I walked to various parts of the meeting room to represent different parts of the retail store. My audience was very engaged and always responded exactly how I wanted them to when I asked follow-up questions. Neither I nor they perceived this interaction as a mini-drama, yet that is exactly what it was.

They became highly engaged and emotionally connected to the value of my solution. That is the power of the mini-drama. Not everyone uses them, but your clients will appreciate your understanding of their world. It’s a great technique to master on your way to becoming Samurai.

By Dean Schantz, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.

Unique, Best, and Only Wins $35M Deal

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Kevin Molloy sells educational software to colleges and universities. He used the techniques he learned from Power Messaging®, to sell $35 million in software… before the application was delivered to market. Here’s how he won the business.

Imagine watching three weeks worth of presentations. Do you think prospects want to see every panel on our application? Well, that’s what our competitors do. What the prospects really want to know is how our application is going to help them. To do that, I made my presentation a story and experience for them.

In Power Messaging I learned to help prospects make a decision, and identify aspects of our application that make us unique, the best, and the only one that can provide a solution to their problems. These three words help prospects distinguish between my solution and our competition.

Since I didn’t have a product to demonstrate, I visually painted a picture very quickly. Initially, I let people find a comfort level with me so I understood who the players were. Then, in the first seven-minutes, I drew a Big Picture of what their life would be like with our application. I dramatized what they do today and how our product can help them tomorrow. On one board I listed things they’re doing today (hitting their pain and they all laughed) Then on another board I said, “Here’s tomorrow” , and made sure today’s list had five or six items on it and the tomorrow list had only two.

In order to know my prospect understood the key points in my presentation, I used a “Top 10 List.” The list contained the top ten unique aspects about our product and company. Throughout my presentation, I would direct all my points towards the Top 10 List. Then, at the end of the day, I gave them prizes for remembering what was on the list.

With this “tool set” of techniques, they could see why and where we were going to build this outrageous application. Prospects report after a presentation… “Your product looks easy to use and flexible, you understand our business and what we’re trying to accomplish on campus.”

I’ve been able to adopt these techniques with great success; I’ve replicated my presentation and had the people who work for me apply the same to their presentations. We are now winning all these deals! We closed deals with 55 schools before we had any software… $35 million in business.

So, am I doing my presentations differently now that our product is out? No way!

I do the same thing. I don’t show our prospect’s panels on our application. I show them how we’re unique, the best and the only choice for them.

Customer Stories: Do’s and Don’ts

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Telling good customer stories shows your prospects that you are more interested in solving problems than selling them your product or solution. Masterful storytelling is one of the fine arts of great selling. Keep these tips in mind when you share customer stories.

DO’s

• Keep it Personal. Use the names of people in the story or their company name (if possible.) The more personal you make the story, the more power it will have to connect and affect your prospects.
• Use Contrast. There are two types:
1. Before and After – before they bought your product and after they started using it.
2. You vs. the Competition – – if they had chose the other guys, what consequences might have been there? No bashing, just simple clarity to your differentiation.
• Live in the experience. Help them live in the experience of the problem being solved, not the product being presented. Try opening your story with the names of three clients. Ask “what do they have in common? They all had a similar problem like yours…” Here is an example.
• Use your imagination. Stories are about imagination. Remember Einstein’s quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Well, stories with their hypnotic ability to transport us to someone else’s world are more powerful than all the product data you can stuff into their heads.
• Mix it up with multimedia. Anything that brings the story closer makes it real. If possible, show a video clip of your key clients when telling their story. Ask your clients if they are willing to participate in a conference call with your prospects, or if you can hand out their business cards to decision makers.
• Show that you care. Demonstrate empathy for the pain/struggles they were having. “The stress was unbelievable to me. I don’t know how they were holding it together.” Or just “People shouldn’t have to work with that kind of stress. I’m always happy when I think of how different their lives will be with our product or service.”

DON’Ts

• Lead with product. Don’t place your entire focus on your product or solution. It’s not about what you sold them until the end of the story. At the ending, say something like “And guess how they got these kinds of results – only with us – it’s our Unique Feature. Would you like to see how that works?” Be careful about interjecting your product too early – otherwise it will feel like a pitch and not a story.
• Overload the details. Keep it short and relevant. And practice, practice, practice! Your story will undoubtedly run long the first time you say it, so practice and refine before you share it with your customer.
• “I’d like to tell you a story.” Do not start your story with this phrase! The speed demon “type A’s” in the audience will want to explode and they might even cut you off. As powerful as stories are, we are often afraid that when someone announces that they want to tell us one it will be LONG, boring and a time waster. It’s better to start the story with something intriguing like, “How different would life be here if you had a problem this big (share a statistic) and 6 months later only had (new statistic.) That’s what happened with (Client.) Then launch right into the story.

- Karen Sage
Founder of Corporate Visions Inc
Co-Author, Samurai Selling: The Ancient Art of Service in Sales