The Ultimate Selling Story


Book Description

"Before I learned to sell with story, I struggled at both sales and marketing. Despite my grandest dreams, I just couldn't get consistent results for myself or clients. I tried nearly every selling trick in the book, with little improvement. Discovering these principles behind effective story selling changed everything. Now my selling messages make me and my clients a small fortune. And I've packaged my most powerful selling story formula here in this book." - Roy Furr Cut Through the Marketing Clutter... Today's prospect is over-marketed and over-promised, with their anti-selling filters turned up to 11. Your first job in any selling situation, in person or through media, is to cut through that clutter and get attention. Story is the secret. Forge a Powerful Bond With Your Market... Not only does story cut through the clutter, it forms a deep and lasting bond with your market. It's not about mere exchanges of cash. It's about forming a deep and lasting human connection. A connection that both stimulates and transcends business. Story selling is the quickest way to get your market to know, like, and trust you, a prerequisite for doing business with you. And Set up the Sale in the Clearest, Most Direct Way Possible... Ultimately, our goal is sales and profits. That's why we're in business. And so the right selling story must not only entertain and connect, it must move the prospect toward the sale. Using the Hero's Journey of Story Selling... The Hero's Journey is the universal story formula hidden underneath nearly every great work of fiction. "The Hero's Journey of Story Selling" is Roy Furr's affectionate title for slightly different story formula, The Ultimate Selling Story. This is the single-most effective story template for selling nearly any product, in any media, to any market.




Lead with a Story


Book Description

Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated "corporate storytellers." 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing "strategic narratives." Procter Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum. The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success. Lead with a Story contains both ready-to-use stories and how-to guidance for readers looking to craft their own. Designed for a wide variety of business challenges, the book shows how narrative can help: * Define culture and values * Engender creativity and innovation * Foster collaboration and build relationships * Provide coaching and feedback * Lead change * And more Whether in a speech or a memo, communicated to one person or a thousand, storytelling is an essential skill for success. Complete with examples from companies like Kellogg's, Merrill-Lynch, Procter Gamble, National Car Rental, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, and more, this practical resource gives readers the guidance they need to deliver stories to stunning effect.




Better Selling Through Storytelling


Book Description

“John Livesay creates a compelling connection between revenue, reviews, and influence and our ability to tell brand and personal stories.” —Tracy Leigh Hazzard, INC. columnist, brandcaster, product strategist The old way of selling is to push a message or product. The new way of selling is to pull people in with a compelling story—one that is magnetic to clients. Better Selling Through Storytelling helps people become master storytellers so they can truly love what they do and get off the self-esteem roller coaster of only feeling good if their numbers are up. John Livesay encourages readers to give up selling—and become storytellers instead! He teaches sales representatives and entrepreneurs alike how to become irresistible to their clients and what the best storytelling strategy is to get a yes. From learning how not to take rejection personally to overcoming the three faces of fear, readers learn to embrace disruption with new tools that prepare them for any unexpected waves that come their way and get the sale. “If you want to reinvent how you sell, let John Livesay show you how . . . [He] holds nothing back and fills his pages with new ideas, tips, information, and steps to becoming your own Revenue Rockstar.” —Josh Linkner, New York Times–bestselling author of Big Little Breakthroughs “Not your grandparent’s sales manual; it’s where the storytelling rubber and results hit the road. If you think it’s too soft for your ROI brain, you’re missing the whole story, which is why you need it.” —Dr. Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone




Building a StoryBrand


Book Description

More than half-a-million business leaders have discovered the power of the StoryBrand Framework, created by New York Times best-selling author and marketing expert Donald Miller. And they are making millions. If you use the wrong words to talk about your product, nobody will buy it. Marketers and business owners struggle to effectively connect with their customers, costing them and their companies millions in lost revenue. In a world filled with constant, on-demand distractions, it has become near-impossible for business owners to effectively cut through the noise to reach their customers, something Donald Miller knows first-hand. In this book, he shares the proven system he has created to help you engage and truly influence customers. The StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their companies. Without a clear, distinct message, customers will not understand what you can do for them and are unwilling to engage, causing you to lose potential sales, opportunities for customer engagement, and much more. In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller teaches marketers and business owners to use the seven universal elements of powerful stories to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses. His proven process has helped thousands of companies engage with their existing customers, giving them the ultimate competitive advantage. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching you: The seven universal story points all humans respond to; The real reason customers make purchases; How to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and How to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion-dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.




Storytelling with Data


Book Description

Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation. Storytelling is not an inherent skill, especially when it comes to data visualization, and the tools at our disposal don't make it any easier. This book demonstrates how to go beyond conventional tools to reach the root of your data, and how to use your data to create an engaging, informative, compelling story. Specifically, you'll learn how to: Understand the importance of context and audience Determine the appropriate type of graph for your situation Recognize and eliminate the clutter clouding your information Direct your audience's attention to the most important parts of your data Think like a designer and utilize concepts of design in data visualization Leverage the power of storytelling to help your message resonate with your audience Together, the lessons in this book will help you turn your data into high impact visual stories that stick with your audience. Rid your world of ineffective graphs, one exploding 3D pie chart at a time. There is a story in your data—Storytelling with Data will give you the skills and power to tell it!




The Ultimate Sales Machine


Book Description

NEWLY REVISED AND UPDATED The bestselling business playbook for turbocharging any organization, updated for modern audiences with new and never-before-seen material Every single day 3,076 businesses shut their doors. But what if you could create the finest, most profitable and best-run version of your business without wasting precious dollars on a thousand different strategies? When The Ultimate Sales Machine first published in 2007, legendary sales expert Chet Holmes gave us the key to do just that. All you need is to focus on twelve key areas of improvement—and practice them over and over with pigheaded discipline. Now, a decade later, Chet’s daughter Amanda Holmes breathes new life into her father’s classic advice. With updated language to match our ever-changing times and over 50 new pages of content, The Ultimate Sales Machine will help any modern reader transform their organization into a high-performing, moneymaking force. With practical tools, real-life examples, and proven strategies, this book will show you how to: • Teach your team to work smarter, not harder • Get more bang from your marketing for less • Perfect every sales interaction by working on sales, not just in sales • Land your dream clients This revised edition expands on these proven concepts, with checklists to get faster ROIs, Core Story Frameworks to get your company to number one in your marketplace, and a bonus, never-before-revealed chapter from Chet, “How to Live a Rich and Full Life,” that will put you in the best possible mindset to own your career. For every CEO, manager, and business owner who wants to take their organization to the next level, The Ultimate Sales Machine will put you and your company on the path to success—and help you stay there!




Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds


Book Description

Your career can be made in 60 seconds - if you make the right pitch! Master the Elevator Pitch, even when you've got less than 60 seconds. Get your screenplay or Novel read by the major power of Hollywood - guaranteed!




Rise of the Machines


Book Description

Get the book that has best-selling authors buzzing over the new age of publishing! ********* Here we are-the future is now. The machines have taken over. Everything is computerized. People no longer talk, they text. What number do we have to press to get a flesh and blood HUMAN? It's easy to feel like we're losing our humanity when surrounded by computers, cell phones, and text messaging, but here's the good news: The same machines that seem to be stealing our humanity also have the power to restore it. Yes, you read correctly. The more we embrace technology, the more distinctly human we can become. The new author in today's publishing world is a cyborg of sorts-part human, part machine. The machine part allows us to compose series of words, copy them, email them, and then send them across the globe with a push of a button. We can research faster and more accurately than ever before. We can communicate with people all over the planet real-time and virtually for free. The new power technology has given writers has made us, in effect, superhuman. Branding has broken free of marketing's shackles and merged with personal identity. If we want to thrive in our new environment, we need to adapt, to apply technology as an extension of our humanness. This is not a book to teach you 1,000 ways to blast people with advertising. The WANA Way is different than anything you've likely encountered. It is constructed using the timelessness of art, blended with the strength of human relationships. Platforms are more than a zillion ways to try to part readers from money; they are living works of art and meshed with the soul of the writer-artist. The machines are rising, but humans were here first. ******* WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: "For writers, the purchase price of Kristen Lamb's Rise of the Machines should easily become the best investment you'll ever make for your writing career. In Kristen's brilliant and easy-to-grasp book, not only will you learn how to become a successful marketer of your work-whether it's published by a legacy press or self-published-and achieve significant and ever-increasing sales of your work, but you'll learn how to without spending hours and hours each week to do so. Rise of the Machines is the standard-the cutting edge." -- Les Edgerton, award-winning author of HOOKED and FINDING YOUR VOICE "In Rise of the Machines, Kristen Lamb has provided an invaluable compass for navigating the uncharted waters of 21st century publishing. I pity the writer working today who doesn't take advantage of the wealth of valuable insights and breakthrough methods contained in these pages." -David Corbett, award-winning author of THE ART OF CHARACTER




The Best Story Wins


Book Description

How to use the principles of Pixar-style storytelling to meet the needs of entrepreneurs, marketers, and business-minded storytellers of all stripes. Pixar movies have transfixed viewers around the world and stirred a hunger in creative and corporate realms to adopt new and more impactful ways of telling stories. Former Pixar and The Simpsons animator and story artist Matthew Luhn translates his two and half decades of storytelling techniques and concepts to the CEOs, advertisers, marketers, and creatives in the business world and beyond. A combination of Luhn’s personal stories and storytelling insights, The Best Story Wins retells the “Hero’s Journey” story building methods through the lens of the Pixar films to help business minds embrace the power of storytelling for themselves! “Award-winning Pixar storyteller, artist, and writer Matthew Luhn has a message for CEOs, marketers, and business professionals: to capture your audience’s attention, you need to hook them with a great story.” —Seattlepi.com




I, Libertine


Book Description

DIVThe novel that began as a radio hoax, Theodore Sturgeon’s I, Libertine is a hilarious erotic romp through the royal boudoirs of eighteenth-century London/divDIV Inspired by a notorious radio hoax in the mid-1950s, popular radio host and prankster Jean Shepherd exhorted his faithful listeners to approach their local booksellers the next morning and request copies of the historical novel I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing—a book that had never been written, by an author who had never been alive. The hoax was so successful that I, Libertine became the talk of the town, even earning the unique distinction of being banned by the Archdiocese of Boston, despite the fact that it didn’t yet exist. Now there was nothing left to do but write the thing . . . and fantasy and science fiction legend Theodore Sturgeon was called in to work his magic./divDIV /divDIVOriginally written pseudonymously, Sturgeon’s I, Libertine is a glorious tale of close shaves, daring escapes, and wildly licentious behavior. It covers the bawdy misdeeds of Captain Lance Courtenay as he carelessly romps through the royal court and the bedchambers of London’s finest ladies. Chock-full of wicked wit and Sturgeon’s trademark twists and turns, it is a hilarious, picaresque adventure that Ewing himself would certainly have been proud to call his own, if he had existed./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Theodore Sturgeon including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the University of Kansas’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library and the author’s estate, among other sources./div