Episode 675 | Storytelling as a Sales Superpower (Book Recommendation)

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Entrepreneurship, Management, Business, Marketing

4.9 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In episode 675, Rob Walling interviews Stephen Steers, author of "Superpower Storytelling." They discuss Stephen’s experience in selling and teaching startups how to sell better. They cover Stephen’s storytelling “AREA” framework and the concept of the problem stack. They also talk about when founders should consider delegating sales, the importance of documenting successful sales processes, and using humor in the sales process. Episode Sponsor: Find your perfect developer or a team at Lemon.io/startups The competition for incredible engineers and developers has never been more fierce. Lemon.io helps you cut through the noise and find great talent through its network of engineers in Europe and Latin America. They take care of the vetting, interviewing, and testing of candidates to make sure that you are working with someone who can hit the ground running. When it comes to hiring, the time it takes to write your job description, list the position, review resumes, schedule interviews, and make an offer can take weeks, if not months. With Lemon.io, you can cut down on a lot of that time by tapping into their wide network of developers who can get started in as early as a week. And for subscribers of Startups For the Rest of Us, you can get 15% off your first 4 week contract with a developer by visiting lemon.io/startups Topics we cover: 1:36 – Start Small, Stay Small 3:21 – Stephen’s book, Superpower Storytelling, and how to tell the story of you and your company 4:30 – Why is storytelling important for startups 7:47 – A valuable background in sales consulting 10:35 – The AREA mental framework 13:21 – The “problem stack” 18:42 – When to outsource sales in your organization 22:37 – The four reasons that businesses buy, consultative selling 28:01 – Using humor to your advantage when selling or as a founder Links from the Show: Stephen Steers | LinkedIn Steers Sales Consulting Superpower Storytelling by Stephen Steers Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath Taki Moore (@takimoore) | Twitter Scott Sambucci (@scottsambucci) | Twitter If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review:

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Startups for the Rest of Us, and I'm Rob Walling. This week, I have a great conversation with
0:04.9	Steven Steers. He's the author of the new book, Superpower Storytelling, a tactical guide to telling
0:11.4	the stories you need to lead, sell, and inspire. We get a lot of pitches from authors wanting to
0:17.5	promote their book on Startups for the Rest of us, And frankly, we don't interview almost all of them.
0:24.1	But Stephen is someone that we sought out based on his resume, his experience, and frankly, the
0:30.4	quality of the book that he's written.
0:33.8	This is another one of those short and sweet manuscripts, 150 pages, so you can read it in an afternoon or on an airplane.
0:41.7	And he really focuses on how to shape stories around selling, around positioning, around talking to prospects, getting customers excited to buy.
0:52.5	And then even has some tips at the end of the book about
0:55.1	how to be the most interesting person in a room, some thoughts on humor, because as you'll hear
1:00.2	in the interview, one of Stephen's hobbies is stand-up comedy. But what I like about Stephen's
1:05.7	experience is he has boots on the ground experience selling, and then as a consultant teaching startups
1:12.5	how to sell better, and he's put that experience into the book.
1:16.9	So with that, let's dive into our conversation. Stephen, thanks so much for joining me on the show.
1:33.0	Thank you for having me, Rob.
1:33.9	It's a pleasure to finally meet you.
1:35.9	Yeah, so we were talking offline,
1:37.7	and you mentioned that you had recognized my name vaguely
1:40.8	and start small, stay small.
1:42.8	That's such a cool connection you read it
1:44.9	years ago yeah i think i i don't remember how i came up to it i think it was 2016 2017 something like
1:50.9	this during my onechpreneur stage right like thinking about frameworks and everybody's raising all this
	...

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