Parts of this post adapted from the Solution Selling Fieldbook (2005, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 978-0071456074 by Eades, Touchstone and Sullivan).

Imagine that you are at a social gathering with your significant other, and you strike up a conversation with another couple that you just met. The conversation naturally progresses to talking about their family. They mention how their youngest child has had a lot of trouble at school lately. They tell you how their child has been late to class several times, turned in homework assignments late and how he has been reprimanded by teachers for talking out of turn.

If this couple shared this type of experience with you, what is your likely natural response?

If you can relate at all to the couple’s story then you might respond by sharing a similar or worse experience. The natural reaction upon hearing a story like this is to respond with one of your own.

Now, imagine how you would feel if a stranger approached you at the same party and asked “So, do you have any problem children?”

At first, this may sound silly, but in essence that is what salespeople are doing when they prematurely ask a prospective buyer to share their critical business issue - their pain - with them.

To earn the right to ask about a prospective customer’s pain, you have to share some pain with them. Sharing a customer reference story is an effective way to establishing credibility, and to share something about a potential pain, so that they are more comfortable about sharing their pain with you.

A good reference story should be expressed in this format:

• Situation: A customer job title and vertical industry
• Pain: The pain of the job title above
• Reason(s): One (or more) of the reasons for the pain biased to your product or service
• Capabilities (when, who, what): In the words of your customer, the business event, the player(s) and specific capabilities needed to address the pain: He / she / they said they needed a way…
• We provided: If the “solution” is described properly above, all the person should have to state is: “we provided… him / her / them with those capabilities”
• Result: Specific measurement is best (articulated in $ or %). The “Result” should address the pain.

So, a good example would be:

• Situation: VP Sales, manufacturing industry
• Pain: Missing new account revenue targets
• Reasons: His customers were required to place all orders via their salesperson. Salespeople were spending all of their time servicing existing customers and not developing new ones
• Capabilities: He said they needed a way… (when) when wanting to order, (who) for existing customers (what) to place their orders directly on the internet thus allowing his salespeople to have the time to develop new customers
• We provided: him with those capabilities
• Result: Over the last six months, existing customers placed 96% of all orders using the internet. His salespeople have increased the size of the customer base 10% and overall revenue 6%

Note that the most important part of a reference story is the result.  A reference story without any kind of clearly expressed results is like ending with “…and they lived happily ever after.”  Great for fairy tales, but not very useful if you are trying to stimulate the interest of a prospect in the value of your solution to their problem.

You can use reference stories in three ways:

1. At the beginning of a sales cycle, after delivering the message in your business development prompter: after arousing the curiosity of a potential prospect, a reference story is the best way to pay it off, and to begin a conversation with the prospect about their specific business challenge.
2. In the early stages of the sales cycle, as part of an introduction during the first call or meeting: reference stories are a great way to break the ice and begin a good business conversation with a prospect.
3. Later in the sales cycle, to be used as a form of proof: reference stories are a powerful form of proof of value for your offerings, after you have helped a prospect develop a vision of a potential solution.

If you don’t have any reference stories, budget some time to call your current customers, and ask them about the kinds of results they have acheived.  This also gives you a secondary benefit of potentially finding some incremental sales opportunities.

Good luck and good selling!