Accelerate! With Andy Paul

Paul Smith, author of Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale, and Ten Stories Great Leaders Tell, joins me again on this episode of the Sales Enablement Podcast. KEY TAKEAWAYS Paul Smith trains people to tell stories; his customer base is increasing. He says only 10% to 15% of the time you talk to people should consist of stories, two to three minutes long. That is six to nine minutes an hour. Stories are not like jokes with a punchline. Paul will not supply you with stories to tell. They are conversational. Some of them should be planned within your pitch, some are extemporaneous from a repertoire you’ve built. Paul shares the eight specific questions a sales story should answer. Don’t memorize a story but remember the short answers to those questions in the story. Andy shares a John Steinbeck quote: “If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. … The strange and foreign is not interesting — only the deeply personal and familiar.” Andy works to build the