Story Telling for Selling

The Promiscuous Nature of So-Called Partnership

I’ve never been to Ronda (Spain). From what I can see online, it's a stunningly beautiful place. So when I decided I fancied visiting the place, my first task was to find a hotel. Being of a somewhat lazy disposition, I decided to let google do the searching for me.

Low and behold the first site to grab my attention was Trip Advisor, which offered a plethora of hotels I could choose from. The top rated hotel (by feedback) was the Hotel San Gabriel.

I entered the dates that I wanted but was disappointed to get a message telling me that rooms were not available for the dates I have selected. Trip Advisor then offered me rooms in it’s other ‘parter’ hotels in Ronda.

I really like the look of the Hotel San Gabriel, so I decided to try their own site. Guess what? – plenty of room available. It certainly redefined the meaning of the word partnership for me.

Then I began to wonder........in the technology world all the big vendors have their own, often overlapping, network of partners.

Are these real partnerships working for long term mutual gain and support or are they of the promiscuous ‘Trip Advosor’ type.

I’m OK with the latter – just don’t call it partnership.

 

Why Can't More Companies Communicate this Way?

As buyers, so much communication we receive from businesses is incipid, turgid stuff at best. It often feels like you're doing business with a group of droids where all life, personality and style is sucked out of their interactions with us. Which is why I was amused and delighted to receive the following email from www.shockingfun.com today:

"Hello Paul,

It was a great day here at Shocking Fun. We woke up the gnomes that we have hired for help and from our state-of-the-art, climate-controlled warehouse, they picked the items you had ordered.

We then called in a team of German engineers who expertly packed your order using the latest technology.

The Dali Lama stopped in, lit a candle and rang a bell as good luck for your order while in transit.

Then the entire city of Neenah, Wisconsin turned out and we held a parade in celebration of your order. (Order#: 18115 placed on 03/19/2011)

To track your package visit the following link: You may also use the preceding link to review your order details or print an invoice We hope you had a fun time shopping Shocking Fun. We certainly had a great time being of service to you and hope to see you again soon!

Thanks again for shopping at shockingfun.com!

Fantastic!

What do you think?

St Patrick - Salesperson Extraordinaire!

If you want the change the behavior of your sales team and close more sales, you might find some lessons in the work of St Patrick who successfully changed the behavior of an entire nation

This famous Irishman brought Christianity to our land drove the snakes out of the country and is widely accredited with using the shamrock, now Ireland’s national symbol, as a tool to explain the holy trinity.

Only, St Patrick wasn’t Irish, he hailed from Wales. His name wasn’t Patrick either (his name is derived from the Latin ‘Patrician’). He never drove the snakes out of Ireland, as there were no snakes in Ireland (if there were, he also cleaned up all fossil remains). The use of the shamrock to explain the trinity was an 18th Century fabrication and Christianity existed in Ireland before he arrived here.

But of course something doesn’t have to be a fact for people to believe it is a fact.

Read on