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How the characters in your selling story can kill the sale
One of the biggest mistakes you can make with business stories is to focus on the word “stories” and not on the word “business.”
In business stories, we focus on the purpose of telling a story. We might tell a story to build connections, explain why we’re passionate, explain the product concept, or sell by motivating the client to buy.
In a selling story, we create the feeling, “I want what they’re having.”
So we might make the story’s hero — the client — someone the reader admires. Or we might make the client feel “This could be me.”
We never make the guide a fairy godmother (although sometimes she feels like one).
We often have a villain who’s not necessarily pure evil.
And we have cheerleaders who help the client when the guide can’t be there.
A story that’s designed to sell will leave the reader thinking “Aha!” They’ll also be putting themselves into the story and they are easily turned off by questionable characters.
Once they dislike a character (or worse, don’t believe the character) they won’t be sold.
I’ve made this easier for you with an affordable workbook on creating your characters for a selling story. You get prompts, descriptions, examples, and worksheets. Just $19 when you buy now.
So if your story seems to be falling flat, it may be the characters, not the plot or the setting. Click here and get it sorted out.
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is a copywriter, storyteller, and strategist. She helps solopreneurs sell themselves and stand out from the crowd, through content creation and creative positioning. Visit her website here.
