5 Ways to Boost Sales with Visual Storytelling

Whether using a whiteboard, flip chart, or a tablet PC and sharing software, sales teams can use visual storytelling as a powerful differentiator in a competitive landscape.

By Corey Sommers

The phrase "death by PowerPoint" is a common way to describe the lack of interactivity with, and boredom engendered by, slide presentations. Such presentations are not only tedious and clunky, but they can also become a crutch and reduce salespeople's confidence in their product knowledge and ability to communicate value in a convincing way.

A more compelling presentation makes use of "visual storytelling." Whether using a whiteboard, flip chart, the back of an envelope, or a tablet PC and desktop sharing software, sales teams can integrate visual storytelling into their existing sales methodologies and apply the approach as a powerful differentiator in competitive and complex selling environments. Here are five ways to make that happen in your organization.

1. Develop a powerful whiteboard "story." A presentation should be more than just a list of bullets--it should be a compelling visual narrative designed to showcase your products and services and how they provide unique value to your customers and prospects.

For example, you could create a story about a tragic hero (an anonymous customer) who overcomes adversity (the current situation) to attain success (the desired state, achieved uniquely by your solution or service). The story needs to be visually intriguing, with humorous iconography, and should have a script that follows each step. The whiteboard must also have interaction points when the salesperson will engage with the customer to ensure a two-way dialogue.

2. Train front-line salespeople to become storytellers. With the visual storytelling approach, it's essential to immerse field personnel in a role-playing-based learning model in which they present the material in a real-world situation. Salespeople should practice recreating the story multiple times until they've got it down cold. Many companies find that attaching this whiteboard training session to a planned sales event or kickoff meeting works well, or you can conduct small group or even remote whiteboard training sessions.

3. Go virtual. Using simple Web conferencing software and an inexpensive pen tablet, sales personnel can simulate a complete virtual whiteboarding experience. This can make a big difference in your return-on-sales: The salesperson doesn't need to travel, but he or she can still conduct an interactive and intimate sales call remotely. And you won't just save costs, but also command greater attention from your prospects. We've found that while 50 percent of WebEx viewers intermittently leave a PowerPoint presentation to access other applications, the attrition rate is less than 10 percent using the visual storytelling approach.

4. Empower inside sales to sell visually. Just because inside sales personnel aren't face-to-face with customers doesn't mean they can't use visual storytelling techniques. Virtual whiteboarding also enables the inside sales team to have interactive conversations and qualification discussions using remote whiteboarding. Imagine the difference between an inside salesperson who says, "I can send you an email with more information," and one who says, "Are you on your computer? Why don't we jump on WebEx so I can show you what I'm talking about?"

5. Measure knowledge ownership. One thing that's missing from many sales training programs is a way to measure knowledge ownership. That's why we recommend a formalized whiteboard certification process that ensures every member of the field organization can effectively use whiteboarding in a real-world mock sales call.

Apply a consistent scoring model across multiple geographies and make sure you're capturing the right metrics on solution knowledge, as well as how your team opens and closes meetings, their competitive knowledge, reference selling, and so on. You will guarantee knowledge ownership and end up with a valuable sales skills inventory that can help you identify future training needs.

COREY SOMMERS is co-founder and CMO of WhiteboardSelling, an Austin, Texas-based provider of sales enablement solutions. He has more than 15 years' experience in sales and channel enablement, account manager certification and training, and competitive intelligence.