The most effective communications leverage the power of stories. Archimedes noted:

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

One might observe that where facts are the world, and analogies and metaphors are the fulcrum, stories are indeed the lever!

If your demo or discovery conversation is like a sixty-floor high-rise building, facts occupy the lower floors, with respect to memory and retention. The view is blocked and limited by surrounding structures, and the air is full of dust from the adjacent streets. Analogies and metaphors find comfortable lodging in the middle levels, enjoying improved views and fresh air. Up top, effective stories reside in the penthouse suites, experiencing sweeping vistas and stimulating breezes!

Chip and Dan Heath identified and characterized the key principles of stories and storytelling in, “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” This terrific book should be required reading for anyone in a customer-facing role.

For a pragmatic guide on how to apply stories in your demos and discovery calls, see Chapter 14 in the Third Edition of Great Demo! and see the article on Effective Storytelling (links are in the Resources).

So far, we’ve explored examples and methods to generate, capture, and apply metaphors and analogies in our customer-facing interactions.

Next: What not to do!

Resources:

The Power of Analogies and Metaphors in Demos and Discovery Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5:

https://greatdemo.com/blog/

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

https://tinyurl.com/24m4m5jm

Effective Storytelling in Discovery, Demos, and More

https://greatdemo.com/effective-storytelling-in-discovery-demos-and-more-a-never-stop-learning-article/

Examples of Metaphors:

https://blog.udemy.com/metaphor-list/

Examples of Analogies:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/analogy

Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

Doing Discovery:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Discovery-Important-Enablement-Processes/dp/B0B8RJK4C2/

Great Demo! Third Edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

Visual Aids and Props:

https://greatdemo.com/remarkable-demos-what-makes-a-demo-truly-memorable/

“As a professional in the Scientific Software industry, I very much enjoyed reading this great collection. Peter’s stories offer the reader a window into “how the real world works.” I particularly appreciated the various examples of unexpected moments of revelatory insight – especially when potentially disastrous moments with clients are reengineered to become long-lasting customer relationships. The lessons highlighted in this collection can be easily applied across a wide variety of product/solution selling modalities. For readers interested in acquiring practical skills for prospect engagement – you’ll get some great insight as a “free prize” from the excellent storytelling by Peter :)”

And you can find “Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)” on Amazon here!

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

“I’ve been a longtime fan of Peter Cohan, and Suspending Disbelief did not disappoint. He’s one of the few authors who can genuinely plant me in a chair and keep me there cover to cover—and this book was no exception.

What makes this book stand out is how effectively it uses storytelling to teach. As Peter explains, stories are what make ideas stick, and he practices exactly what he preaches throughout. Each chapter delivers a short, engaging story with a clear takeaway!

I found many of the scenarios incredibly relatable (sometimes uncomfortably so!), and that’s what makes the lessons so valuable. Whether you’re early in your career or have years of experience, you’ll see yourself in these stories—and more importantly, you’ll walk away with practical insights you can apply immediately.

Entertaining, insightful, and highly actionable. Highly recommended.”

Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned)

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

00:00   Teaser and ad

02:00   Welcome and introduction

03:00   Have you ever seen a bad software demo?

The problem, and origins of the solution: A revelation!

08:45   Getting traction… When you are self-employed, you have a fool for a boss!

09:30   What happens when you are oversubscribed?

13:00   How were you funded?

15:30   Getting started, getting references…

17:30   What about AI?

21:00   AI, the Technology Adoption Curve, and the story of Buck’s Café

24:00   The magic wand question…

27:00   LinkedIn content and strategy.

28:00   The single most broken piece in sale processes is doing discovery:

A harsh but accurate analysis of a 30-minute discovery call.

31:30   Where do the Great Demo! and Doing Discovery methodologies apply?

33:00   What does a great demo look like? The key elements of the process…

37:30   How long should a great demo be?

39:30   A demo horror story!

41:30   The top three mistakes vendors make vs Buyer Enablement…

45:00   And champion enablement!

46:00   Moving forward from here…

47:30   Storytelling! Features vs Advantages vs Benefits vs Analogies vs Stories.

52:00   Good stories get retold!

54:00   What happens if you are gone?

55:00   What is one great piece of advice?

You can find the full recording here – enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZYaOdWXbnw

Similarly, “A Day in the Life” demo is not an effective story. It’s just a framework and is not compelling on its own.

Level 8 practitioners use stories when presenting their most important points, critical concepts and key competitive capabilities. Stories help make these ideas memorable, enabling prospect players to retell those same stories with high fidelity within their own organization.

Stories about how other, similar customers successfully used your capabilities to address their challenges are engaging and stimulate interest: They generate hope and curiosity, “If they could do it, then we probably can as well – and I wonder how they did it?” This is where you harvest and apply Informal Success Stories in your demos.

Stories don’t need to be Norse sagas! Sometimes, simple is better.

Never tell a good story once! When you find stories that resonate strongly, practice retelling these to tune and improve your delivery and their impact.

Measurement(s) for Achieving Level 8:

1. Uses structured stories to support key capabilities or concepts.
2. Bonus: Prospects retell your stories internally!

Pros:

• Makes your demos particularly remarkable and memorable.
• Enables champions to recommunicate key ideas effectively.

Cons:

• Requires extensive personal experience or a team stories repository.

Grade: A

Want a couple of demo horror stories? (Of course you do!)

See “The Credit Card Story” and “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory”in Suspending Disbelief:

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

And here’s a bit more on “Effective Storytelling in Discovery, Demos, and More”

https://greatdemo.com/effective-storytelling-in-discovery-demos-and-more-a-never-stop-learning-article/

See Chapter 14 in the Third Edition of Great Demo! for a complete treatment of storytelling in demos.

Dr. Shannon Gregg is joined by Peter Cohan, the founder of the Great Demo! methodology and author of Doing Discovery. Peter shares his journey from a bench chemist who successfully freeze-dried beer to a global sales leader who revolutionized the way we present solutions to scientific audiences.

In this episode, we dissect:

• Doing the “Last Thing First”: Why flipping your demo upside down and leading with the end-state dashboard or report is the fastest way to engage senior leadership.

• The “Curse of Knowledge”: How to avoid the trap of assuming your prospect’s workflow and instead use discovery to surface their “perceived uniqueness.”

• Buyer Enablement vs. Sales Process: Why we must stop dragging prospects through our CRM stages and start mapping our actions to their internal buying journey.

• The “Menu Approach”: A tactical masterclass in handling large, diverse audiences (like 175 Swedish scientists) by letting them choose the agenda.

• The Least Expensive Form of Proof: How to determine the “minimal viable proof” needed to secure an order—from social proof to technical demos—without wasting months on unnecessary POCs.

Whether you are a Sales professional looking to reduce friction in the sales cycle or a leader aiming to truncate the “change management” burden for your clients, Peter’s insights provide a laboratory-tested framework for driving real results.”

You can find the podcast here – enjoy!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flipping-the-demo-the-results-first-blueprint-for/id1853940547?i=1000743984491

https://rss.com/podcasts/lifesciencessaleslab/

We were on booth duty the morning after a long, but enjoyable evening on Bourbon Street listening to Dixieland. Well, I’d been in a club taking in the music, Kevin had been elsewhere and had returned to the hotel on the late side of night or more accurately, the early side of morning.

While I wasn’t feeling my best, Kevin appeared to be his normal, remarkably chipper and vibrant self. Or perhaps it was a few healthy doses of caffeine.

While Kevin staffed a demo station, my job was to trawl for prospects lurking just beyond our booth. Many folks would stand just out of range, so to speak, and I’d learned that if you walked directly up to them, you’d likely scare them away.

Instead, I applied what chemists would call an SN2 backside attack. I would note my target’s location and circle around, finally approaching them from behind and sidling up alongside. After a moment, I’d ask, “What caught your attention about our booth?”

Surprised, they’d admit they were interested in one product or another but were clearly holding back, cautious to engage. I’d ask, “Would you like a brief demo of that offering?”

Most prospects replied, “Sure.” And I’d escort them to Kevin’s demo station.

To fully set the scene, you need to visualize a very bright, earnest, smiling character in his late twenties, attired in a button-down long sleeve shirt topped with a handtied bowtie. Nearly a clone of Pee-wee Herman (in his prime)!

The gentleman who I brought over to Kevin this particular time had a deep Texas drawl that was slow, mellifluous, and filled with inspirational homilies.

After showing a crisp, compelling example of what our chemistry tool could do, we would invite our prospect to suggest their own search.

“Would you like to look for something you are working on?” suggested Kevin.

“Could ah? Why, certainly!” he replied. He drew a few structures on a sheet of paper and Kevin got to work forming a search query. As Kevin labored, the mouse moved furiously around the screen and as he paused to think, the mouse twitched, circled aimlessly, and migrated wildly from location to location.

“Son, y’all should put the brakes on that mouse,” intoned our guest.

Kevin glanced up and smiled, then returned to drawing the desired reaction.

Our prospect watched the mouse gyrations for another moment then gently reached down and placed his hand on Kevin’s, saying, “Son, y’all’ve got a real zippy mouse there! Can ya sloooooooow it down?”

There were two pieces of good news that came from this interaction. First, this prospect did end up licensing our software and became a strong supporter, serving as a reference, and providing terrific talks at our users’ conferences.

Second, Kevin did learn to slow his mouse down.

Moral: Zippy Mouse Syndrome is curable!

From Suspending Disbelief: A Collection of Sales, Presales, and Marketing Stories (and Lessons Learned) https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

“You need a search capability, we provide that capability with a range of filters, enabling you to find the information you need.” Boring, insufficient, and this “pain, features, value” structure is definitely not a story that will be remembered.

There needs to be more to make it a compelling, resonating story that gets remembered and retold.

Chip and Dan Heath in their seminal work on storytelling, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, identified five key attributes to make a story successfully sticky:

Simple Message:         The concept or message needs to be clear and easy to understand

Real Experience:         It must be believable and perceived as being true

Element of Surprise:   An unexpected twist, event or outcome generates interest and tension

Evokes Emotion:          The best stories are those that generate an emotional response

Relevant:                     Good stories relate directly to the subject or key point

The “pain, features, value” structure may satisfy three of these five, but ignores two.

Is there an element of surprise? Nope. Does that structure evoke an emotional response? Hardly. And these two missing elements provide much of the drive that makes a story memorable.

Triggering our emotions is what makes a story great and unforgettable. For example:

• Empathy: “I’ve also been in this position!”
• Shock: “OMG – that’s terrible!”
• Surprise: “Oh no! What happened next?”
• Humorous: “Well, that’s sad, but also very funny!”
• Cleverness: “Oh wow, that’s a really elegant solution!”

Evaluate the stories you currently use: How many of these five attributes do they trigger?

Intrigued? See the full article on our website here!

https://greatdemo.com/effective-storytelling-in-discovery-demos-and-more-a-never-stop-learning-article/

You’ll find 35 delightful examples to draw from in “Suspending Disbelief”:

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy

And see “Storytelling” in “Great Demo!” for more on this important practice here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SNKC2Y/

A Never Stop Learning! Article

“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.”
– Native American Proverb

What’s in this article for you?

Some tactical nuggets and the occasional strategic gem!

This article explores stories and storytelling practices to improve your communications, drive conversions with your prospects, and secure renewals and enjoy expansion with your current customers:

• Immortality for the Boring?
• Storytelling in Discovery, Demos, and More
• What Makes a Story Good?
• Leverage Well-Known Stories
• The Hero
• Type Two Fun and Storytelling
• “Wrap a Story Around Your Demo…”
• When to Use Stories
• Situation Slides
• Images, Props, and Visual Aids
• Using Storytelling in Some New and Unexpected Ways!
• Never Tell a Good Story Only Once
• Story Libraries

Stories engage, illustrate and are remembered in ways that facts and features cannot. We are wired for stories, and most people can accurately retell stories that resonate with them days, weeks or even months after initially hearing the story.

In business, stories are effective mechanisms to help your prospects and customers remember – and recommunicate – the capabilities, use cases, and value of your offerings.

Immortality for the Boring?

Contemplate the following punchline: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

What is the name of this story, who first told it, and when did the author live?

“The Tortoise and the Hare,” one of Aesop’s Fables, was first collected by Aesop around 600 BC. Let me say that again: that story is now 2600 years old! Interestingly, the title of the story and the animals may change from culture to culture, but the key elements and the take-away message remain the same.

And what is the take-away message from the story? “If you simply persevere, my son/daughter/friend/colleague, you will do well…”

Frankly, this message is boring. By itself, that message would not last and would be quickly forgotten.

Run the experiment! Tell a teenager, “If you simply work hard and persevere, you will do well in life” and watch the reaction, “Yeah, right, whatever…” Your message will disappear and be forgotten in moments.

However, when you wrap this boring message inside a story that includes key storytelling elements, that message gets told and retold. And in the case of “The Tortoise and the Hare,” the story has been in use for 2600 years (so far!).

Storytelling in Discovery, Demos, and More

It is fascinating to watch an audience’s reaction when you offer to tell a story. When you ask, “Are

you interested in the true story of how this happened?” people lean forward in their seats, and their attention level rises markedly.

So how do you use stories in discovery conversations, demos, and other customer-facing interactions?

Use stories to underscore and illustrate key ideas and important concepts. Think in terms of the following levels:

Level 1 – Feature Statement: you present a capability and describe what it does.

Level 2 – Advantage Statement: you present a capability, describe what it does, and communicate the potential business value for your prospect or customer.

Level 3 – Benefit Statement: you present a capability, describe what it does, and confirm the value, based on discovery.

Level 4 – Leveraging an analogy or metaphor: you use a metaphor or analogy to illustrate and connect to your prospect’s existing experiences.

Level 5 – Storytelling: you wrap the capability inside an effective, compelling story that engages, entertains, embeds, and enables recommunication of the capability and value by your audience.

Accordingly, articulating pain followed by a few features and then a value statement is not a compelling story. At best, it is simply an advantage or benefit statement: Levels 2 or 3.

“You need a search capability, we provide that capability with a range of filters, enabling you to find the information you need.” Boring and insufficient.

There needs to be more to make it a compelling, resonating story that gets remembered and retold.

Chip and Dan Heath in their seminal work on storytelling, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, identified five key attributes to make a story successfully sticky:

Simple Message:The concept or message needs to be clear and easy to understand

Real Experience:It must be believable and perceived as being true

Element of Surprise:An unexpected twist, event or outcome generates interest and tension

Evokes Emotion:The best stories are those that generate an emotional response

Relevant:Good stories relate directly to the subject or key point

The “pain, features, value” structure may satisfy three of these five, but ignore two.

Is there an element of surprise? Nope. Does that structure evoke an emotional response? Hardly. And these two missing elements provide much of the drive that makes a story memorable.

Triggering our emotions is what makes a story great and unforgettable. For example:

• Empathy: “I’ve also been in this position!”
• Shock: “OMG – that’s terrible!”
• Surprise: “Oh no! What happened next?”
• Humorous: “Well, that’s sad, but also very funny!”
• Cleverness: “Oh wow, that’s a really elegant solution!”

Evaluate the stories you currently use: How many of these five attributes do they trigger?

What Makes a Story Good?

Good stories get retold; others don’t. That’s a simple and very effective figure of merit!

If the stories you relate aren’t retold by your audiences, then they weren’t successful. Similarly, if your audience is not actively engaged while you are relating your story, it is not getting the job done.

We know good stories when we hear them. They often cause us, as audience members, to respond with a “Wow…!” or “Hmmmm…!” reaction. A good story often triggers us to share an experience or tell one of our own stories in response.

The five Made to Stick attributes give us a structured way to evaluate our stories. Let’s explore each of these.

Simple Message

In Great Demo! and Doing Discovery Workshops, we use stories to illustrate the concept of the Specific Capabilities needed by a customer to solve a business problem. There are typically tons of features and functions available in most software offerings, but it is just the few Specific Capabilities your customer actually needs to complete their desired tasks and solve their problems. The idea of Specific Capabilities is a simple one.

Unfortunately, if we simply said, “Remember, it is only the Specific Capabilities that your customer needs…” our Workshop participants would likely not remember this idea very well. However, by wrapping it inside a good story we give the idea of Specific Capabilities greater longevity.

Here’s an example I’ve used, typically at the very beginning of a two-day session:

“You are riding a bicycle rather fast. You skid on some gravel and fall, scraping your legs and arms. You are bleeding moderately, and you hurt, but your bike seems to be OK.

Someone sees you fall and comes to offer help. They offer you water, but you aren’t thirsty, you’re bleeding. They offer you a patch kit for your bike, but your tires are fine, and you are still bleeding. Now you are not only hurt but also irritated! They offer you food, music, asthma medicine, dancing girls and guys, a new chain, a map, handlebars, bicycle bags, and a phone.

All are very nice offers, but clearly what you need is:

1. A few bandages and
2. A couple of aspirin

Moral: It’s the Specific Capabilities that our customers need to solve their problems!”

Interestingly, a day-and-a-half later, when I asked the participants to recall that story – and retell it – they did so successfully and with surprising accuracy!

Real Experience

Why do customers participate in users’ group meetings (In addition to the free drinks, of course!)? They go to hear how other customers have addressed challenges or solved problems using the software.

The stories shared by other customers are perceived as real, based on actual experiences, and are therefore highly valuable and believable.

Along the same lines, stories presented by vendors need to be perceived as real to have solid impact in a meeting with a prospect. Often, the best stories are those about how other customers solved problems that are the same or similar to what your prospect is facing.

Accordingly, some of the best stories to use are customer success stories. These are often shared anecdotally, “Oh, I remember working with another customer who had the same problem…”

The skills here are to recognize relevant success stories, plan to reuse them, and then retell those stories at appropriate times when doing discovery or delivering demos.

Responding to Questions with Questions

A key element of demo leadership is how you respond when the buyer asks you a question. Many consultants jump straight into answering, but a more effective move is to answer with a question that uncovers context, urgency, or intent.

For example:

• Buyer: “Can this export to Excel?” You: “Yes, it can. Yet I’m curious, why is that important to you, and are you doing that today?”
• Buyer: “Can we integrate this with our CRM?” You: “That is possible. Is the goal to reduce manual entry, improve data accuracy, or both?”
• Buyer: “Does your company do its own implementations or use 3rd Party consultants?  You: I can tell you are thinking ahead!  Which do you prefer and why?

This approach does three things:

1. It clarifies the real reason behind their question.
2. It links your answer to measurable value.
3. It keeps you in control of the conversation.

Responding with purpose transforms a technical question into a strategic conversation. That is how you move from vendor to advisor.

Element of Surprise

Memorable movies have one or more plot twists and turns. Successful stories include an element of surprise that engages audiences and are more effectively remembered.

Predictable stories are less interesting and won’t resonate strongly. Simply stating that another customer had the same pain as your prospect, followed by describing a positive outcome isn’t particularly compelling. It’s what happened along the way that makes the story compelling!

In Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare, we all expect the rabbit to win the race with ease. But because he takes a nap and oversleeps, the turtle beats that bunny. (Note: in the Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny version of the story, the careful observer will note that the turtle is cheating at the start of the race, with his feet sneaking beyond the starting line. This is an additional element of surprise; we didn’t expect that terrapin to be a trickster!

Elements of surprise can come from a range of possibilities:

• Turning a well-known phrase upside down: “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
• Presenting an unanticipated result: “Resulted in the loss of $245 thousand annually.”
• Offering an unexpected process or approach: “Turn traditional demos upside-down.”

When doing discovery or delivering demos, use stories that have a plot twist or unexpected turn. Here’s an example, The Credit Card Story from Suspending Disbelief:

“Not long after your training, I was doing a demo for a small but important prospect in oil and gas. The CEO of the company was, obviously, the key prospect player and he was in the room with a few members of his team. We were all seated around a small table; I ran everything from my laptop as there was no other display.

Well, I’d done a reasonable job with discovery and knew the CEO needed certain reports that he either couldn’t get with their current environment, Excel, or it took piles of manual effort from his team to produce. Even worse, he needed many of these reports on a daily basis.

So, I started the demo with a simple Situation Slide that I’d built for him, reviewed it, and confirmed that the information was all correct. He commented that ‘Things are even worse now, as the business grows…’

I then showed him examples of the reports he wanted and he leannnnnnned forward in his chair towards my laptop. After describing the reports, I asked, ‘Would you like to see what it takes to generate these?’

He said, ‘Absolutely!’

A few mouse clicks later, he’d seen me produce several of the reports. He smiled, took out his wallet, and slid a credit card across the table to me!

I thought, ‘Wow – I’ve got this sale!’ I could have stopped there; I should have stopped there!

But I didn’t…

Instead, I got all excited, forgot your training, and started to show more and more stuff our software could do. At first, he seemed to appreciate the additional features. But just a few minutes later, it seemed that with each new capability I showed, his smile faded further and further until…

He sloooooooowly reached back across the table and gently, deliberately, and painfully (for me!) he took his credit card back and returned it to his wallet.

Aaaaaaaagh!!! No sale!”

The element of surprise in this story is painfully tangible. And, by the way, its moral is, “Stop selling when your prospect is ready to buy!”

Evokes Emotion

Truly understanding a prospect’s pain requires real empathy, but that’s only one of many emotions that help make a story a great one. To connect strongly to a story, the audience needs to feel an emotional impact. It should resonate with them as a shared experience or situation.

A child comes home from school and reports to his parents, “Everyone did really poorly on today’s math test…” Most parents immediately respond, “Well, how did you do?” The parents don’t care about the balance of the class, as there is no emotional connection, but how their child performed is critical.

To introduce the idea that “We Are Programmed to Forget” I present an example situation in the form of a short story:

“Have you ever arrived at the end of a drive that you take frequently to the store, to school, or to the office, and you suddenly realize that you have no recollection of the drive itself? ‘I must have been on autopilot…’ is what we often think.”

For many people, this evokes emotional responses of recognition, wonder, self-aware surprise, and a certain degree of discomfort. At the same time, the realization that this also happens to others is reassuring.

An emotional connection makes the story that much more meaningful and personal.

In discovery and demos, the best stories have a similar emotional “hook.” One way to accomplish this is to begin with, “Have you ever had the following experience…?” followed by a story that has a high probability of having happened to this prospect as well.

In Great Demo! Workshops, we ask questions like, “Have you ever had a demo go poorly…?” The answers are nearly always, “Yes…” followed by a stream of descriptions of what happened: no discovery, wrong audience, not enough time, no Internet, etc., all of which evoke head nods of agreement from the balance of the participants who have suffered through similar situations.

Shared emotions enable empathy and authenticity, and make your stories much more compelling than a list of facts!

Relevant

Stories need to be perceived as relevant or their impact drops precipitously: Stories need to truly resonate with your audience.

A prospect in the manufacturing industry won’t consider a demo that uses data from a banking scenario as credible. It is perceived as too distant from their situation and is not perceived as relevant, even if the capabilities are the same! Similarly, stories need to be aligned with how prospects view themselves and their situations.

When discussing online demos, I often share a story in which a rather embarrassing chat message to the presenter appeared during a webinar to a large audience. The message described plans for a date that evening in rather graphic and embarrassing terms! And while audience attention went up dramatically, it was not for a reason desired by the presenter. The moral of the story is to be aware of to whom and what you chat in online sessions.

While the specifics may be different, many people have seen or suffered from similar situations and so the story resonates and has strong relevance.

These five attributes of successful stories should serve as a guide for your own. To recap:

Simple Message:The concept or message needs to be clear and easy to understand

Real Experience:It must be believable and perceived as being true

Element of Surprise:An unexpected twist, event or outcome generates interest and tension

Evokes Emotion:The best stories are those that generate an emotional response

Relevant:Good stories relate directly to the subject or key point

Beyond these fundamentals, what else can be done to improve your stories?

Leverage Well-Known Stories

Relating ideas in your prospect and customer interactions to well-known, existing stories can be simple and very effective. Using stories taken from popular movies and other media is one approach. For example:

• “These are not the droids you seek…” The movie? Star Wars, of course. This is a great line to use when you get an unexpected result or bug in your demo!
• “One miiiiiillion dollars…!” The movie? Austin Powers. Usage? Ah, so many possibilities!
• The slow-motion cliff-hanger scene in Deadpool. Usage? Explaining the concept of “hooks” (or In Medias Res).
• “A Conference Call in Real Life” Usage? Illustrating the frustrations of using conferencing technology (old but still funny).
• The “Rockwell Retro Encabulator” Usage? A beautifully produced stunningly awful demo, with an emphasis on the use of technobabble (truly a thing of beauty!).

Each of these (hopefully) references and draws upon our previously stored memories of stories already in place. This can be a great strategy, particularly when trying to draw analogies or find examples.

The Hero

A popular story-telling technique is the use of a hero: someone or something that the audience can identify with. Traditional stories (e.g., sagas, Marvel movies) typically have a hero that encounters and overcomes trials and adversity before achieving success. (Check out the Wikipedia entry for “The Hero’s Journey”.

In discovery, demos, and related activities, heroes can take a number of forms:

• Your prospect or customer (as an individual): Your prospect or customer can be portrayed as the hero, with the payoff being the timely and on-budget completion of a project, accolades from colleagues, or a promotion. Add a twist and an emotion-touched component, and this can be a very effective approach!

From personal experience, it was gratifying to see customers I’d worked with over a period of years move from staff members to middle managers to senior and C-level management, partly because of using our software or services. These experiences provided excellent, real-life, highly relevant examples for compelling stories.

• Your prospect’s or customer’s team: This is the logical corollary to an individual. The team can be presented as the hero in a story.
• Your prospect’s or customer’s customer: In this case, the hero is the ultimate beneficiary, but everyone wins!
• Your product: Your software can be the hero, similarly, enabling your prospect or customer to achieve their objectives despite apparently overwhelming challenges.
• AI: This is a popular strategy, imbuing AI with human hero attributes while uncovering key trends or assisting their human operators and consumers.
• Your cloud-based product: Pairing your product with the cloud can be an effective hero combination (“The Terrific Two”). For example, “When our server room flooded and servers went down, we were still able to complete the project thanks to the ability to access the software and our data from the cloud…” This can be particularly useful in convincing Late Majority prospects to engage in a digital transformation.

I’ve heard several good examples of this: access to key information via collaboration tools or capabilities, group scheduling scenarios, and disaster recovery experiences (“…and we were able to get back up and running just in time for the opening!”).

Interestingly, Hero’s Journey stories may not invoke all five of the successful story attributes discussed above. Marvel movies, for example, may be a bit thin on “Real Experience” and “Relevant,” but they do leverage “Element of Surprise” and “Evokes Emotion in particular!

Type Two Fun and Storytelling

“Comedy equals tragedy plus time.”

– Attributed to Mike Birbiglia, Mark Twain, Lenny Bruce, Thomas Hobbes, and others

Of course, everyone knows the three types of fun:

• Type One Fun: It was fun while it was happening, and it is fun to talk about it afterwards.
• Type Two Fun: It was not fun while it was happening, but it is fun to share the story.
• Type Three Fun: It was not fun while it was happening, and it is still painful to speak of it!

Intriguingly, Type Two Fun experiences often have many of the elements that enable a successful story, and the Hero’s Journey story structure, in particular.

For example, business travel frequently results in delays, cancellations, and other challenging experiences that, when overcome, can yield entertaining and satisfying stories. Most of us have endured these situations and, once the trip was over, turned them into stories that we retell (sometimes over and over!).

Similarly, seeing your customers overcome their business challenges (using your solutions) can provide you with great stories to use in your discovery conversations, demos, and other interactions.

If it was painful at the time, but is now enjoyable to relate, you’ve got a good candidate for a compelling story!

For a few examples, peruse the thirty-five short stories in Suspending Disbelief.

“Wrap a Story Around Your Demo…”

Many managers tell their teams to “wrap a story” around their demos, but teams often struggle to find and use stories that meet this requirement.

One unsuccessful tactic is to use a “day-in-the-life” to bind together a range of tasks, functions and multiple job titles. The result is not really a story but is simply an organizational framework and as such it fails to engage interest. How could it? How exciting is it to hear about executing one’s day-to-day job?

It is unlikely that a good story can be wrapped around most demos. I remember (but not in a good way!) a demo where the vendor used a series of different hats to indicate when different user job titles were interacting with the software along a series of workflows. It was amusing, but only for the first few minutes.

After the demo, I asked one of the vendor reps what they were trying to accomplish with their “hat dance.” They said, “We were told to wrap a story around our demo…” Oh, by the way, they lost the business!

Stories are most effective when used as punctuation, as reinforcement, and as mechanisms for making key ideas stick.

When to Use Stories

Use stories when presenting your most important points, critical concepts and key competitive capabilities. Stories help make these ideas memorable and enable the ideas to be retold with high fidelity within your prospect’s or customer’s organization.

As an example, consider a scenario where you decide to present a key competitive capability in your demo. You should:

1. Present the capability, describing what it does, how it works (if desired by the customer), and the business value it delivers. “Our SmartAutoRollback feature keeps you protected from disasters…” Those are the facts: important, but uninspiring.
2. Draw an analogy or relate the capability to a metaphor: “This capability is like having airbags in your car: You hope you never need to use them, but if you actually have an accident, you’ll be glad they were present…!” You’ve now connected the capability to something your audience already understands.
3. Wrap the capability inside of a story (in this case, a customer success story):

“Let me share what happened with another customer. She was close to completing a critical project when there was a terrific rainstorm, the roof caved in, and the server room flooded. Even worse, many of the systems had shorted out as the water engulfed them. All the storage, routers, switches, and servers were dead – even the ‘Uninterruptible Power Supplies’ were killed when they were inundated. The room was an absolute disaster!

When she heard the news and saw the photos of the flooded room, she was shocked and appalled. She called the facility right away and found the damage was even worse than the photos showed. That room was toast!

She thought all was lost, but because she had just implemented our Disaster Recovery software, she discovered that all the files were already on the machines at the backup facility – and she was able to complete her project ahead of time and under budget…!”

By the way, that’s a true story!

Situation Slides

Great Demo! Situation Slides provide a terrific framework for stories. Situation Slides from your current customers describe the goals they were seeking to achieve, the problems that were standing in their way, the capabilities they needed, the timing constraints, and the rewards they have enjoyed as a result of implementing your solution. (Thanks, Natasja Bax, for pointing this out!)

They enable you to establish relevance, relate a real and often emotional experience, while keeping it a simple message. It is up to you, however, to add an element of surprise as you tell the story!

Biased Questions also can serve as crisp, effective stories, leveraging the Situation Slide structure. (See page 183 in Doing Discovery if you are unfamiliar with this elegant and effective method!)

Images, Props, and Visual Aids

“One picture is worth one thousand words.”

– Attributed to Fred R. Barnard

Consider using images and physical objects to improve your storytelling. A good verbal delivery can be sufficient, but when you use a picture or visual aid you add additional dimensions. Here’s an example:

A Refreshing Example of Using Props and Visual Aids in Vision Reengineering

A terrific use of props (or visual aids) that I once saw went as follows (in a face-to-face meeting): The vendor rep was discussing how their solution eliminated silos and enabled improved consumption of a prospect’s internal data.

The rep took two full water bottles, held them up and said, “So, I understand your organization has its data sitting in silos, like these water bottles…” He banged the bottles together, pointing out that “You can’t bring this data together.” Bang, bang went the water bottles.

He then opened each bottle and placed a cup in front of him on the table.

He said, “What we propose is to enable you to combine data in ways you’ve never been able to combine before…” as he poured water from both water bottles into the cup. He then picked up the cup and continued, “…and enable you to consume your data in ways you’ve never been able to do before!” and he took a sip of the pooled mix from the cup.

He finished with a satisfied “Ah, refreshing!” Fabulous!

Similarly, when I tell the bicycle story related earlier, I show a photo of a bicyclist who has just crashed, and whose elbow and knee are bleeding. Looks painful!

Using Storytelling in Some New and Unexpected Ways!

Storytelling is used today in many customer-facing interactions including introductory calls, discovery, demos, and in some tactical portions of those conversations, such as handling objections. But stories can and should be leveraged more extensively.

Anything that is typically dry or fact-oriented can be brought to life by infusing them with relevant, compelling, engaging, and memorable stories!

Consider the following candidates:

• RFP responses
• POCs and POVs
• Product feature planning
• Startup pitches
• Resumes

Resumes are a wonderful example. Most resumes are factual recitations of one’s accomplishments and skills but lack any real insight into the person.

I know someone who is highly skilled at B2B and B2C email marketing, with deep experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, SQL, HTML, Tableau, Litmus, Google Analytics, and other tools. But her resume doesn’t provide the full picture; it’s only (literally!) black and white.

While she’s very thoughtful and analytical, she is also a quietly confident explorer. One day she is completing a major email campaign, two days later she is taking her first surf lesson on the beach in Nicaragua, followed by yoga as the sun sets! One day she’s reviewing campaign KPIs and the next weekend she’s on a solo twelve mile, two thousand feet (vertical) hike through a northwest forest to an exquisite lake with stunning views.

Perhaps including these stories in her resume would offer a richer, full color picture of her skills, experience, and personality.

I’d suggest using stories in RFP responses, similarly, and in defining and managing POCs and POVs.  Product folks can (and should!) use stories to support their cases for implementing certain features. And startup founders should leverage compelling stories in their investor and prospect pitches.

What other opportunities could benefit by including compelling stories?

Never Tell a Good Story Only Once

Good stories serve to punctuate key points and help make your demos remarkable and memorable. Collect them. Try them out. Refine them. Repeat. Practice and improve telling the stories that work.

Experiment and try out various stories for a range of situations. Test and refine and then share what works with your peers. After all, they’ll want to hear a good story as well!

Story Libraries

While I’m unaware of any bespoke tools to capture, organize, and serve compelling stories to customer-facing teams, I’m confident that these capabilities will emerge soon. Currently, I believe that most organizations rely on individual or tribal knowledge to determine what stories are being used successfully.

While that may be sufficient for a small team, as the group grows the ability to share stories gets tougher. Some organizations have implemented storytelling sessions, where each participant is generally expected to share a story and associated situational information that has worked well for them.

When I was leading a team, we held periodic “demo days” to share demo best practices, tips and tools, and to relate the stories that were particularly successful in moving prospects to customers, and customers to renew and expand.

Never tell a good story only once!

Copyright © 2018-2025 The Second Derivative – All Rights Reserved.

To learn the methods introduced above, consider enrolling in a Great Demo! Doing Discovery or Demonstration Skills Workshop. For more demo and discovery tips, best practices, tools and techniques, explore our blog and articles on the Resources pages of our website at https://GreatDemo.com and join the Great Demo! & Doing Discovery LinkedIn Group to learn from others and share your experiences.

“ Just finished Suspending Disbelief by Peter Cohan… and it’s a game-changer.”

“I truly enjoyed it and highly recommend it to anyone looking for practical inspiration and fresh perspectives.”

“And honestly, every SE should read it. It’s like grabbing coffee with someone who’s already made every mistake you’re about to make.”

“I finally had a chance to read Suspending Disbelief by Peter Cohan and let me tell you, it’s ”

“Just finished “Suspending Disbelief” by Peter Cohan – incredible real sales stories! ”

“If you work with people… read this book.”

“Get it for yourself, get it for your teams, but get it ”

You’ll find “Suspending Disbelief” here – enjoy!

https://tinyurl.com/yc7rsrmy