For every salesman storytelling is easy and this is what makes them good at selling. Similarly, a CFO also attracts investors by telling good stories.
Most of business firms spend more on public relations and advertising than what they spend on their actual products. That is why most of the high-tech companies waste 50 percent of their revenue on popularizing their products. In order to compensate, they definitely have to reduce cost somewhere be it compromising with their employees’ salaries and benefits or reduce cost of production.
A book “The Challenger Sale” has recently been released by Brent Adamson and Mathew Dixon of CEB, formerly Corporate Executive Board, which gives a detailed analysis of a survey of 6,000 sales representatives. The questions asked in the survey were regarding skills that make effective salespersons. The author says ‘Challengers” were those who knew how to teach, tailor and take control of the things. Taking the first condition as primary, I must say that sales begin with teaching. Here teaching refers to the fact that a salesperson need to have knowledge about his business and have skills to pass that knowledge to his clients in way that he or she gets fully convinced.
Recently I came across the CIOs of Qualcomm, San Diego Gas & Electric and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. They expressed their dislikes any typical salesperson asking “what keeps you up last night?” However, this is not the way a salesperson should teach his potential client. It is recommended to watch some salesman or a team talking about cloud computing.
So stories are stories indeed. No matter what the truth is, as a CFO you need to explain about your company to your investors. But here the story needs to be told in a very effective manner to leave a long impact on investors. Thus communication needs to be here like an effective teaching that makes people rely on what you say. If you have ever heard NPR’s “This American Life” you can compare your own power of convincing people. It becomes trickier to convince people especially without visual aid but this particular program runs for an hour keeping listeners hooked. Imagine if your company’s salespersons get such magical communication skills!
Perhaps, it is possible. Being a student of a convincing teacher is never so bad. Ira Glass, who hosts and produces “This American Life” is visible on YouTube too in different video talks that you can view and listen to her to get trained as a storyteller. Also Melissa Marshall’s TED Talks are also good to get inspired. She teaches scientists to tell their stories in a way that even laymen can understand.
Peter Guber, the famous movie producer recently released a book “Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story.” Guber discusses several instances from his own experiences of storytelling that helped him rise in career.
So, if you want your company to be on the top, learn to present it like that. Unless your articulation convinces people, you can not become a successful salesperson neither a CFO.
