THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STORY IS THE ONE OF YOUR CLIENT

Luxury brands have always told their clients beautiful stories about their brand and its history, about their creations, about the illustrious people who were or are clients of their brand, their innovations, creativity, aesthetic and technical prowess.

These stories move clients, make them dream but also give to these creations a soul, a desirability, a sentimental, emotional and personal value, that is timeless and immutable. These stories contribute to give all products a higher value in the eyes of the clients. This “Storytelling” is often told in an elegant manner in stores and showrooms by sales advisors. These stories are often an integral part of the brand communication itself. Marketing is no longer just about the objects or the pieces you create, but also about the stories you tell. Most clients are fond of these stories that touch their imagination, sometimes to the point of giving them the illusion of becoming someone else…

We believe that to boost your sales, storytelling is a behavior to be encouraged as it focuses on the creating emotions, which often drive decisions. Facts tells, story sells.

Clients are sometimes interested in your story telling, but sometimes they are not. Most of them have already done extensive study on your brand and creations before visiting your boutique or showroom.

But there is one story that they will always be interested in: Their own personal story. To them, that is what matters. As we often say when coaching sales advisors: “Tell me about myself, this is the only thing I care about”. To get into your client’s story, you must discover it, and that is not an easy behavior to master.

We detail hereafter some of the many tips that may be useful to sales advisors in discovering their client’s life and becoming part of their life’s story.

Discover your clients by asking Strategic Questions.

We call it “Strategic Discovery”. Strategic questions are not about asking open-ended or closed-ended questions, but about asking relevant questions that increase your client’s knowledge. There are many useless open-ended questions, especially “product” questions that can be answered by doing a simple search on the Internet.

“Strategic Discovery” questions are always focused on your clients and allow you to know them better. It is often about the who, when, where and why and not about the “what”.  Telling is not selling, but asking the right strategic questions is selling.

Strategic Discovery should also be part of your KBIs (Key Behavior Indicators) and should be measured. If a sales advisor, after a 20-minute interaction with a client or simply after a client’s visit, can correctly restate his client’s needs in detail and talk only about his client for 2 minutes, then the discovery has been fully mastered. If the 2 minutes seem a long stretch, there is probably some further client’s discovery to do next time. Have fun doing this simple test with your sales team and you will see that this can be challenging and a topic to reinforce.

Tailor your Storytelling

Some clients know your brand and your creations extremely well and sometimes better than you do…. Sometimes they know your brand but not the products, and sometimes they know the Star products but not the brand so tailoring your story telling is essential. Simply asking “what do you know about our Brand?”, “What do you know about this collection”, “Would you be interested in knowing more about it? “can improve your client’s experience by tailoring your communication to their knowledge and needs. Then instead of giving a lecture regardless of your client’s knowledge, the whole interaction can become more dynamic and more interesting for your client, whether he wants it.

As Bruce Lee said “You put water in a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in teapot, it becomes the teapot. Be water, my friend” and Tailor your storytelling to each individual client’s knowledge.

Help your clients write their own beautiful story by being part of their life.

Knowing your clients should allow you to be part of their life and to fully participate in writing their own beautiful story. When was the last time a sales advisor called you a month before your wife’s birthday or a few months before your son’s graduation to see if you had any plan for a celebration gift?

Matching your brand’s news with the ones of your clients is what it is all about. This is what really knowing your client is all about. We often say: “As a sales advisor, you start to know your clients when you know the name of their cat”.

Professional sales advisors participate fully in their client’s important celebrations or moments of their lives, valuing these pleasant moments, thinking of them, and contacting them when they have something specific to offer that could match their taste, cater their needs. When new creations are launched, they often already know which clients to contact. These sales advisors have become actors in their client’s lives. They master what we call “Storyliving” skills. 

The most beautiful story is not always the one we tell but the one our client tells and the one we help him write for himself. Luxury Selling is about making the client’s life more beautiful. If you look at it that way, selling can be a very admirable thing to do.