{"id":1138,"date":"2016-01-04T15:34:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T02:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1138"},"modified":"2016-01-04T15:34:24","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T02:34:24","slug":"tell-them-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1138","title":{"rendered":"Tell them a story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Once<\/a>Our client was perplexed.\u00a0 His organisation had pitched to seven prospects, and only one prospect had said yes.<\/p>\n

The contracts for which our client had been pitching were not insignificant.\u00a0 The smallest (by value) would have been worth well over a hundred thousand a year; the biggest just short of four million a year.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think we need someone independent to go and talk to each of the prospects and see if they can find out what we did right and what we did wrong.\u00a0 Is this something that you might do for us?\u2019<\/p>\n

It was.\u00a0 And we did.<\/p>\n

The first prospect with whom we spoke said that our client had understood their RFP perfectly and had put forward a credible and competent proposal.\u00a0 But the company they had eventually gone with just had \u2018a certain something extra\u2019.\u00a0 Exactly what that certain something was, our informant could not quite say.\u00a0 It was just \u2018something\u2019.<\/p>\n

The second executive we interviewed had a similar story.\u00a0 \u2018Your people were very good, very professional,\u2019 she said.\u00a0 \u2018But the others had something extra.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what it was.\u00a0 But we all agreed that they had it.\u2019<\/p>\n

The third former prospect knew exactly what it was.\u00a0 \u2018In terms of the actual proposals, there was really nothing in it.\u00a0 But we felt that the other guys told a better story.\u00a0 They told a story that we felt we could engage with.\u2019<\/p>\n

By the time we had conducted all seven interviews it was clear that our client had, in each case, lost out on just one thing.\u00a0 They had ticked all the boxes bar one.\u00a0 They had understood the RFPs perfectly.\u00a0 They had analysed the situation.\u00a0 They had offered insight.\u00a0 And they had come up with impeccably logical solutions.\u00a0 But they had failed to present their solutions as part of an engaging story.<\/p>\n

As human beings, we have a natural penchant for stories and storytelling.\u00a0 Stories are how we make sense of the world.\u00a0 We find carefully thought-out logical arguments appealing, sometimes very appealing.\u00a0 But we find logical arguments wrapped up in a well-told story, even more appealing.<\/p>\n

The message is simple: if you want to win them over, tell them a story.\u00a0 And tell it well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our client was perplexed.\u00a0 His organisation had pitched to seven prospects, and only one prospect had said yes. The contracts for which our client had been pitching were not insignificant.\u00a0 The smallest (by value) would have been worth well over … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1138"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}