Story selling: Using stories to persuade

Being able to persuade or sell to others effectively is a core part of many people’s occupation and position. For example, leaders need to persuade followers, managers need to persuade employees and, generally, many people are put in a position where they are trying to persuade others about ideas, concepts and products. The art of persuasion has received much attention over the years from researchers and authors.

Whilst many people and organisations don't like to think of it like this, getting people to accept ideas, practices and change is in fact a sales process. A number of previous studies have shown that storytelling is a hugely effective method of persuasion and selling.

A new (2019) study looking at the impact of storytelling on sales and persuasion and on the effect of teaching people to use storytelling throughout the sales/persuasion process has just been published which looks at the impact of teaching students to incorporate storytelling into their sales processes.

In this podcast Sarah Smith (Contributing Editor) and David Wilkinson (Editor-in-Chief) look at how to use stories to sell ideas and products.