Selling the Invisible: a field Guide to Modern Marketing \(Biz Books to Go\) pdfdrive com

After you say one thing, repeat it again and again.
One Story Beats a Dozen Adjectives
Pick up a good magazine and glance at a few stories.
You may spot a pattern that tells you something. Today, most nonfiction
writers begin their articles with an illustrative story. It’s a device so pervasive
there is a name for it: synecdoche.
Trial lawyer Gerry Spence almost always makes a point with a story. Spence
knows that for all the enormous changes in Western culture since the Greeks,
today, almost 2,500 years after Euripides, our primary form of entertainment is
still the dramatic narrative—the story.
More marketers should discover the power of stories. Just as stories make
articles more interesting and make Spence’s arguments more persuasive, they

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make marketing communications more effective.
Synecdoche works because people are interested in other people, and stories
are about people. Gerry Spence’s story of a person wronged by excessive police
force does not need the words “pain” and “injustice.” His vivid story makes
jurors feel the pain and injustice.
Like clever journalists and great lawyers, marketers who tell true stories
make their presentations more interesting, more personal, more credible, and
more felt—and more persuasive.
Don’t use adjectives. Use stories.
Attack the Stereotype
Almost every well-known service suffers from a well-known stereotype.
Accountants are humorless.
Lawyers are greedy.
Collections agencies are bullies.
Doctors keep you waiting.
The stereotype of your service is the first thing that a prospect thinks about. It
is the first hurdle you must jump, and the first one over usually wins.
Attack your first weakness: the stereotype the prospect has about you.