Want to Close More Deals?The Single Story You Have to Tell

There are a Million Growth Strategies Out There…

If you want to close more deals the challenge is figuring out which strategies to follow and which to ignore. Today I want to share with you the single story that you have to get right, and include in everything you do.

What I mean by that is that this story must appear on every call, on every webpage, and in every case study. If you get this right, everything else becomes much easier.

Every other strategy will be a “nice to have” but won't move the needle as much as this specific strategy.

So What's the Story?

It's called a transformation story. In other words, the story tells prospects what life could look like if their story matches those of your existing customers.

One of my favorite opening lines is, “if you're like most of my clients…” because it immediately puts the prospect into a group. It's also the perfect start to a transformation story.

These Are the Transformation Questions

Imagine you were writing a case study. At the core of every case study is a transformation story. And these are the four questions you'd ask (both for the “before” and the “after”).

1. What was / is the situation?
2. How did / do you feel about it?
3. What did / does a typical day look like?
4. What did / does this mean for you?

When I wrote about writing case studies I told you this:

The case study structure should highlight that the customer's past matches the reader's present while suggesting the reader's future could be the customer's present.

Chris Lema

The questions above help you create the transformation story that motivates readers to take action.

This Isn't Just About Case Studies

I talked about establishing your expertise as a way to close more deals. Embedded in that discussion is this transformation story. We looked at narrowing down your specialty because it gives you a greater grasp on the details of specific problems your customers are facing.

But let's back up a second and talk a bit about your website.

It doesn't matter if you sell a product or a service. You likely have a list of services you offer. Or product features that exist with your offering.

The problem with service lists and product feature lists is that they're still asking the prospect to do the hard work of converting those lists into the benefit for the customer.

If I want revenue growth, and you show me that you offer SEO services, or that your product offers a cart abandonment feature, you're expecting me to figure out how your service or feature maps to my growth.

This is why transformation stories are so powerful. They don't make me do the work. Instead they do the conversion for me by telling me the before and after situations.

They take what's obscured and hidden and expose it. They make it easy for prospects to make a decision. All they have to do is answer two questions:

1. Does that “before” feel like my “now?”
2. Does that “after” match what I want?

Some Questions For You

The story isn't hard. Getting it everywhere, that's the hard part.

Do you have these stories in your case studies?

That's likely the only place where you have your transformation stories. It's obvious and it's the easiest because you have room. You're not constrained in how you tell that story.

Do you have these stories in your testimonials?

This is harder because it requires that you get really focused on how to craft this narrative in 20-30 words. Testimonials are short. But they can be really powerful. “When we switched to ______, we stopped wasting __ hours manually doing ________, which saved us _________.” That's a powerful transformation story, but likely won't pop out of a customer's mouth without a little preparation.

Do you have these stories on your web pages?

This is even harder because it's no longer your customer (in either the testimonial or the case study) doing the contrast. Now you have to invest the time to really get good at writing contrast statements.

I wrote you the other day about Monday.com and today I'll use them in another example. Read this line and see if it feels like a contrast statement…

“Collaborate effortlessly with all stakeholders by centralizing everything you do in one place.”

It does, doesn't it.

Without ever mentioning any other software solution, it highlights the problems that come with using a bunch of disparate solutions that leave content (and updates) hidden in silos.

Close More Deals

When you want to close more deals, the last thing you have to do is train every single person – from sales to marketing to support – to tell these transformation stories. The contrast has to be clear and striking.

But when they learn to put them into every answer they give, every story they tell, the results will speak for themselves.