Reader ideas about telling success stories

In my latest tip, with the subject line, "Are your success stories ready to tell," I gave some ideas for avoiding "blank mind syndrome" when someone asks you for "success stories" and linked to a worksheet from our book, The Designer's Guide to Marketing and Pricing, to help you mine your own stories. (If you missed that, read it here.)

A couple readers responded with a few more ideas:

• Bob Bly, longtime Marketing Mentor client and inveterate marketer, wrote, "Here's what I do. I tell the prospect to go to www.bly.com and click on Testimonials. When he is on the page, I tell him: "Here are my success stories."
• Audeliz Perez wrote, "When I first started selling real estate, I didn’t have any success stories, but that didn’t limit my ability to tell one. I would listen to what the other realtors were doing and what success they had. Then I would relate those same experiences to my clients; sometimes I related them in the first person and sometimes I told it as an all-knowing, 3rd person outsider. Ironically, the successes were received the same, as long as I believed in the story. Maybe when you someone asks you for a success story, they are looking for reassurance and maybe they’re looking to be motivated. The morale to this story is: learn to tell a story in any business, even if it’s not your own."

Any more ideas from the peanut gallery?

Comments

[Audeliz Abgie Perez]

I'm still in the habit of telling other people's success stories as my own. Is this cheating? Not at all. I was a high school coach and one thing I learned from that experience is that you have to change the way people feel about a situation to get to ACT: Albiet play better or get to a YES or a buying decision.

Good Structure for a success story:
Characters (people), problem or challenge and solution. Stick to this formula. It works.