Thread by @UliKuenzel

Tesla, Patagonia, Zuora.

Their biggest asset: A sales story.

Here’s their story framework to 10x your presentation:

Did a pitch of yours ever fall flat?

Did you ever feel like you didn't hook a customer?

Have people ever tuned out when you showed them slides?

That's because there was something missing:

A powerful story.

That's now going to change ...

The brilliant @tientzuo, CEO of @Zuora, came up with one of the most effective sales stories ever.

@araskin identified the 5 key elements that made Zuora's story so successful.

Here's the breakdown:

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin 1/ Name a big, relevant change in the world

Don’t start by talking about your product, clients, or yourself.

Instead, name an undeniable shift in the world that creates 2 things:

• High stakes
• A high degree of urgency for your customer

Bonus: Show how the world got here

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin ❌ Contrary to most advice:

Don't start with your customer’s "problem".

It puts them on the defensive.

✅ Highlight a change around them and...

• You get your customer to open up about it and share their pain

• You grab their attention

→ Change attracts human attention

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin 2/ Show that there will be winners and losers

Trigger your customer’s ‘Loss Aversion’ (their fear of missing out)

How will adapting to this big change create highly profitable opportunities?

How will not doing so produce negative results?

→ Establish good and bad outcomes

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin 3/ Tease the promised land

At this point, you might be tempted to showcase your product.

Don’t.

Your customer doesn’t have enough context yet.

First, you need to show them a teaser of their future life:

• It needs to be desirable (Duh)

•And hard to reach without your help

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin ❌ If you now go:

“You’ll have the most innovative platform for ____.”

Don’t.

✅ Better:

The promised land is not ‘having your product’.

It’s what life is like ‘thanks to your product’.

→ The promised land is high-level. That’s by design.

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin 4/ Position your features as "magic gifts"

Did you notice something?

This is the story structure used by epic books or films:

Your customer: Luke
You: Obi-Wan
Magic gift: Lightsaber
Promised land: Defeat the Empire

→ Introduce your product like a lightsaber. A magic gift.

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin 5/ Show that you can make it come true

You've made a promise to your customer:

“We’ll get you to the promised land”

Now, back that up:

Ideally: Evidence of how you’ve already helped someone else

If you don’t have that: Product demo

→ Point everything to the promised land

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin Alright, let's recap:

✅ Change attracts human attention
✅ Establish good and bad outcomes
✅ The promised land is high-level. That’s by design.
✅ Introduce your product like a lightsaber. A magic gift.
✅ Point everything to the promised land

Now it's your turn.

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin Read @araskin's full article here 👇
medium.com/the-mission/th…

It’s brilliant.

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin If you enjoyed this thread, here are 2 things for you:

1) Follow me @UliKuenzel for more storytelling tools like this

2) Jump back to the top of the thread and share it with others

Bonus points for hitting reply with your best storytelling tip!

https://twitter.com/UliKuenzel/status/1545034572592582656

@tientzuo @Zuora @araskin TL;DR

1) Name a big, relevant change in the world
2) Show that there will be winners and losers
3) Tease the promised land
4) Position your features as "magic gifts"
5) Show that you can make it come true