Story Selling: How to Know What Stories to Tell to Sell with Sylvain “Sly” Haché

Effective storytelling is an essential component to successful sales results. In this episode I dive into the components of “story selling” from the stage with my guest, Sylvain “Sly” Haché. Sly is an ex-chronic stutterer who has created a new public speaking system that turns regular people into ‘‘naturals’‘—without scripts, stress or memorization. Clients include international keynote speakers, TV hosts and national trainers. His methods have helped people from 18 to 81 years old get over stage fright and his systems have replaced yearly incomes with 20-minute talks and produced multiple 6-figure days from the stage. The Beginning of Sly’s Story Selling Journey Everybody knows you must tell stories if you want to sell something, especially from the stage. Sly’s first experiences on stage weren’t the best to say the least. One time he had a panic attack on stage and because of that panic attack he made no sales. And at the time he was still a part-time stutterer. Picture this. He started out as a chronic stutterer, meaning he was somebody that couldn’t easily form cohesive sentences. On top of that Sly was starting to learn English. He went from being a chronic stutterer in French (his native tongue) to now teaching international keynote speakers, TV hosts, and national trainers while speaking English. Getting Into Story Selling from the Stage The story selling part comes from the fact that if you don't have the proper conversational frame straight from the beginning of when you open your mouth on stage, it's nearly impossible to get people to take the action you want them to take by the end of your presentation. The only reason people do something is because they feel like doing it. The reason they don't do something is because they don't feel like doing it. So, the question becomes, how can you make people feel like doing the thing you want them to do? And how can you get them to do it when you ask them to do it so that your conversion rates go up, your buy-in goes up, and your sales go up? One of the best ways is to be a professionally trained conversational hypnotist. But it takes a long time and it's a difficult process. How do you get similar results without being a professionally trained conversational hypnotist so that you can do it without scripts, without stress and without memorization? The best way is to tell stories. So, when people hear that, they think, well, that’s easy enough. I just have to tell a story. So let me tell the story about how I discovered whatever the solution is to my audiences problems. And they start telling stories that, frankly, their audiences don't care about. You can't be making up stories just to say what you want the audience to hear, because otherwise it's inauthentic. How do you tell your story in a way that people care about your story? And so it makes them take the action that want them to so that they end up doing what you want them to do? Buy, vote, click, download, swipe, stop polluting the ocean, whatever you want them to do by the end of your story. With any story you're telling, you need to be mindful of this: What the purpose of each part of your story is so that you can chunk your information based on when the audience is ready to move on to the next section of taking some kind of action. Where Do Stories Start? You start to build stories by meeting your audience where they are. It might sound simple, but you can't know where they are before you actually know for sure. If you don't know where they are, you must ask them. When Sly is story selling he shares stories about him this system to have six figure days selling from the stage. He gets his audience to ask themselves “How do I have a six figure days” What he doesn’t do is immediately “go in for the kill” by just saying “Do you want to work with me? here's what you have to do. Let's do it. You ready?” That doesn't work. Then you need to know what their pain points are.