After hours spent making calls, giving demos of your product, sending out emails, and making even more calls, you’ve finally crossed the finish line and closed a record-breaking deal. If you want to write a success story, start by defining what success means. A sale never comes in a silo. You should tell your readers about the brand and why they should care. What problem, issue or concern needed addressing? Out of 10, 2 of them replied. “I had put my contact into trial and spent a while doing a lot of tech integration. Retelling a news story that naturally supports your sales positioning. What are the primary obstacles the customer is experiencing? In an ideal world, your target customers would see the same thing you do: they need your product to solve their pain point. It’s such a team effort, especially for a complex product like ours. A good example of a success story is to make the customer the star of your story. Ben Solari had just been promoted from Business Development Rep to Account Executive at InsightSquared, and it was his very first month with a quota. They want to know whether or not a specific business can offer an adequate solution to their problem and what the experience is like using the product or service. Here are fours ideas on how to share sales rep success stories. Then I learned that there was actually another person who built reports for the board, and I got in touch with her as well.”. Situation, problem, solution, outcome. Consumers want proof that the product or service they are considering fits their needs and is worth the investment. They want to know whether or not a specific business can offer an adequate solution to their problem and what the experience is like using the product or service. Customer success stories are easy to write. ”. I write and I write. This provides consumers with the information they are looking for to better inform their purchase. Pember said in the end, it was their intense commitment to making the implementation a success that closed the deal. Compelling customer success stories hold a high level of value and adding them to your web content should be a key component of your overall inbound marketing strategy. They were able to close the deal with the region’s biggest telco, Pember said. To make up for his inexperience, Solari relied on InsightSquared’s client services director to help answer technical questions, and the sales director to help negotiate the price when it came time to close the deal. Sharing a customer success story in the form of a case study. But the magic template? Here’s to 2021: Accurate, Agile Sales Forecasting, 5 Keys to a Revenue Intelligence Platform. There are several formats suitable for publishing successful ]po [ implementations at [www.project-open.com/en/customers]: This is the "standard". I am a Creative Business Writer/Editor. Over the last decade there has been a revolution in the workplace. Keep in mind, you want your reader to empathize with the customer so it’s important to keep the customer’s story relatable by humanizing the business. You should describe the benefits of your products and how those benefits factored into their decision to buy. To make sure your customer success story gets opened by the right people, your headline must be up to scratch. Rather than just a success story, add in the industry type (for B2B), or details about the person (for B2C). paulcoverdale. Further reading: 4 Ways to Leverage Customer Success Stories in Inbound Marketing. You’ll want to structure it around four important scenes: situation, obstacle, solution, and outcome. Testimonials and customer success stories offer real-life experiences with products or services by people who have already purchased them. Although using a success story is proven to be effective, one has to choose the best success story templates. Use this scene as an opportunity to outline the situation and introduce the customer. The Success Story Writer Taking pleasure in celebrating your success. He explained that in the last 6 months, sales has been targeting the telecommunications businesses specifically. Because not all success stories are compelling and encouraging enough to convert a lead into actual sales. How to write your (success) story. And, I interview – or research – and then I write. “For a sales gamification company like us, telecommunications is an ideal customer,” he explained. Using a historical anecdote to create an analogy to current market circumstances. It’s how we write the story that is the most important thing. It’s a true story about a customer, their issue/challenge, and how you/your company/product/service were able to help. James Pember is the CEO of Sparta Sales, but because the company is still an early-stage startup, he still holds quota and helps the sales team win deals.He explained that in the last 6 months, sales has been targeting the telecommunications businesses specifically. However, at the centre of any outstanding organisation, whatever its size, you will find its most valuable and important asset - people. Bakstran was able to close the deal — a huge upsell into a great company. He explained that the customer in question had five separate teams, and two of the teams had already bought InsightSquared. The other one ended up becoming our first client.”. Success Story Guidelines for USAID partners How to Tell Our Stories The formula is simple: use powerful statistics ; communicate progress ; and bring it to life with a personal narrative. ... You want to weave your case study into that story – or write it in a way that adds to the story you’re already telling. I never run out of energy or inspiring ideas and “angles” for articles. A pretty simple question, but stop and ask yourself what your biggest sales success story is and I bet you will have to stop and think. Customer success stories are often implemented in the consideration stage of the sales process. So, how exactly do you write customer success stories that effectively engage buyers and guide them down the sales funnel? A great sales success story can have a big impact on the other team members. The best way to get answers to these questions is by reading the experiences of people who have already bought and experienced the product or service. The VP was trying to get a discount as well, but the sales operation team was able to convince the VP that it was worth the price. Startups can use this tactic very, very effectively. It’s not just a coincidence. Here are seven proven steps for writing success stories. Please write a quick email to info at project-open.com with "Success Story" in the subject and your CV and/or some examples of your work attached. Why? Success is simply a story we tell ourselves. A Success Story is an edited-down case study or testimonial. This is how to capture the wisdom from the sales call for your boss, peers, or the … In the final scene, you should describe the result of your relationship with the customer. Convince the customer. “We figured out our software would save her a ton of time personally. You can adjust the titles of your sections, or provide more-granular sub headers, but the typical format of a customer success story is: Challenge; Solution; Result; 6. “It ended up being the two operations people and not the sales managers who really drove the deal forward.”. The best part of working in sales is celebrating your biggest wins as a reward for all of your hard work. Make sure your headline states: Your customer’s company name, or another relevant identifier (for example, “a global fitness brand”) This can help inform consumers on how a specific product or service addresses a problem, which offers a positive impact on their overall buying process. Follow. In short, the primary goal of a case study is to report. He said, ‘Let’s focus on walking before we run.’ But I just used that as motivation.”. Share it with us in the comments. Mike Oliver Design6550 N Wickham Rd Suite 1Melbourne, FL 32940, © 2020 Mike Oliver Design, Inc. | Powered by KINSTA, 4 Ways to Leverage Customer Success Stories in Inbound Marketing, 5 Important Business Website Elements Any Owner Can Check. “When I finally got the VP on the phone, I had the sales operations team on the phone vouching for us,” Bakstran said. What successes has the customer experienced since purchasing your product or service? Solari said he really got lucky that this company was both ready and highly motivated to buy. You’ll probably find that success is a mix of hard numbers (profit, number of inquiries, business growth) and soft indicators such as feeling passionate about what you do and enjoying positive working relationships. Remember that a great customer success story needs to be a great story, too. A compelling and engaging customer success story involves telling the story in extensive detail with lively language. First, let’s handle an objection you might have: “If I share customer success stories, I might sound like I am bragging.” Yes, you will if you do it the wrong way. Because I was new, I wasn’t afraid to go after bigger accounts. The NGO Joint Initiative for Urban Zimbabwe Phase II Start Up Workshop 18-19 August 2008, Harare “ Community Based Support to Vulnerable Urban Populations” Success Story Training Presented by Tigere Chagutah, JIMT Summarize the call – This is a story you tell the other sales people you work with. Hopefully, these trailblazing stories will give you valuable insights into the sales process that you can apply to your own sales team — and start winning more deals. You should aim to help the reader to feel empathy toward the customer. Earning success in sales is more a matter of preparation than of being in the right place at the right time. How to Improve HubSpot Sales Forecasting Quickly. Now that How to Write a Powerful Customer Success Story That Engages Buyers In a customer story, the use of characters, plot, conflict, and resolution engage the reader and impact them emotionally. All they had was a product that they believed would help salespeople, and they decided to use it strategically during the sales process. That means about 40,000 to over 1,20,000 words a year making a small or a large novel. The company has 34 million customers in 10 countries throughout Europe, making it one of their biggest wins ever. What goes in a white paper, ebook, report, webinar or brochure? Keep reading to find out. They take to the internet to browse through all available information before making a purchase. On top of that, their complex organizational structures make it’s tough for sales reps to target the right department and find decision-makers. So, what does success mean to you? Here are some questions you should attempt to answer in this scene: In this scene, you should focus on explaining how the customer knew your business provided a solution to their problems. Write in your own words. Most sales teams have regular sales meetings. Share in Team Meetings. Who had the challenge? “The deal we closed was small, but size was unimportant compared to what it meant — that we were building something that solved a pain point of a real company, with a product worth paying for.”, “If we can get one customer, we can probably get two. Clark Bakstran is a Mid-Market Account Executive at InsightSquared and was responsible for closing one of the biggest upsells in the history of the company. It will only be seconds before I start writing – … Continue reading Success Story Writing → There was no sales process, no track record, and no proof that their product offered real value to the market. How do you write compelling customer success stories that encourage prospects to book a demo or consultation? A customer success story outlines the customer’s precise problem and the change that occurred as a result of using a business’s product or service. Even InsightSquared CEO, Fred Shilmover, was concerned that Solari was going to crash and burn. When consumers are weighing available options to their problems, they often want to cut to the bottom line. “I ended up having a few bigger companies come to the table — 5 to 6 times our average deal size if they decided to buy.”. “He expressed some concern that I was wasting time with these companies because I hadn’t closed a single deal yet. “We overcame our toughest sales process to date, and came out the other side with a successful pilot integration, an internal champion and many more teams and departments to scale into. But here’s the thing: The best short stories typically include both a human interest lead that illustrates how a project has However, you should not only celebrate, but also reflect back on your biggest successes to find patterns and lessons you can learn from, especially when a deal is uncharted territory for your business. These content formats have some common staples or standards but vary immensely. It got to a point where I realized he wasn’t going to make any moves forward on his own and I had to figure out how to leverage other contacts in the company going forward.”. If we can get 2 we can get 10, and if we can get 10, we can get 100,” he explained. Here’s a customer success story example from Patagonia: Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get to work on how to write a customer success story. Success stories address a specific audience. In many enterprises, the customer is the number one factor that limits development of success stories. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading these sales win stories, and you also learned some valuable lessons for your own sales team. Here you will get the template to do it right so that people will listen and even take notes as you share with them your stories. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast like I typically do between the bi-weekly interview episodes that always feature #1 and top 1% quota-carrying sales performers, I’ve got a little bonus for you. You’ll want to structure it around four important scenes: situation, obstacle, solution, and outcome. He said he was a little over his head at first, navigating very complex deals. James Pember is the CEO of Sparta Sales, but because the company is still an early-stage startup, he still holds quota and helps the sales team win deals. Most things you write are far more open-ended than customer success stories. Often, these companies have home-built, on-premise solutions that are loosely tied together and really tricky to integrate with. He said it was a real struggle to close this deal, because the team was literally starting from nothing. Why was it important? Nothing beats the feeling of winning a huge deal. 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