Pictures, Testimonials and Stories
Hey, welcome back. In this video, in the context of giving a great presentation, I want to talk about pictures, stories and references. Those are three very important elements of any presentation.
Pictures and References
I coach lots and lots of salespeople. If I’m coaching someone who walks into homes, let’s say they do remodeling projects, the first thing I’ll ask them is “Do you bring a book of other projects that you’ve worked on? Do you bring that book into the house?” They say, “Oh, we don’t have a book yet?” Well, that’s really not good because when you are talking to that customer, you want to show them picture after picture after picture. And actually walk through, “In this project, here’s the before. The kitchen looked like this. What we did is we removed the cabinets, da, da, da and then the kitchen ended like that.”
What do you have? So here’s your before picture and your after picture on one side of the page. What’s on the other side of the page? The thank you letter from the customer saying, “Oh, Alan, I was a little worried when we started this project, but my kitchen looks beautiful. I love it. Thank you so much. I would recommend you to anybody.”
Pictures and references and testimonials. If you sell something that’s tangible and if you’re in person, you always want to have pictures. Pictures of happy people – thumbs up. Let’s say you sell fishing trips, “Hey, we’re all out fishing. It’s great.” If you’re a doctor or a chiropractor or an acupuncturist, have a picture of the before and the after. Imagine being a plastic surgeon, all they have is pictures. Here’s what the person looked like before, here’s what they look like after.
Why do we do that? Pretty obvious, the brain thinks in terms of pictures. We create logical words and phrases, but the truth is if the mind has a picture, it understands intuitively. As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Me, I love to talk, so you can’t get rid of my 1,000 words, but the point is pictures, pictures, pictures.
Then right next to the pictures, testimonials and references. If your business is not one that’s conducive to pictures, then you should have a book that’s just letter after letter after letter of satisfied customers. When you overwhelm the customer’s mind and senses with references and testimonials, they believe it because they see it right there. They must believe it. If you walk into a house and you don’t have a book with pictures and letters and testimonial letters and third-party recommendations and awards that you’ve won, you’re missing a huge opportunity to give a great presentation.
Stories
The other thing I want to talk about in this segment is I want to talk about stories. Tell stories. If you don’t have pictures and you don’t have testimonials, then please tell stories. “I remember a customer, when they came to me; they had the exact same questions that you did. They weren’t really sure. This was their situation. They tried our service and after six months everything changed. Now they’re this, this, this.” Tell success stories.
If you’re selling vacations, build a picture in their mind. “Imagine yourself on the beach in Mexico. Imagine yourself climbing the mountains in Switzerland. Imagine yourself in the Balkans on a yacht.” Whatever it is you’re selling, if you’re selling vacations, sell the picture. “I had a customer that called me. They got back from their trip to Spain. They called me and they immediately booked their next trip. They were so happy.” Then go into detail. They loved this, this, this, this. Tell stories. Tell stories of customers that had a great experience and that love you.
I hope that’s helpful. In order to give world class presentations:
- You’ve got to sell value like we talked about in a previous video.
- You have to be excited and enthusiastic.
- You’ve got to build pictures. Either literally show them pictures or build pictures in their mind.
- Show them references and testimonials. Overwhelm them with the number of people that are happily using your product.
- Then, finally, tell success stories.
If you can incorporate all of those elements into your presentation, really, the sale’s already made. We’re going to talk about closing coming up pretty soon, but truth is you don’t have to be a strong closer if you do a great job in the beginning asking great questions and then do a great job giving them an amazing presentation that draws them in, gets them excited, makes them enthusiastic. That’s what it’s all about.