“Just the facts madam,” may have worked for Joe Friday in Dragnet but that approach can have quite a negative effect when communicating with prospects and customers.

Savvy salespeople understand that telling stories to communicate marketing information is the most effective way to help consumers process it and retain it.

Think I’m wrong?  Take a look at history if “storytelling” sounds too juvenile for your company.  Storytelling was one of mankind’s earliest forms of communication.  Evolutionary biologist Stephen Gould called humans “the primate who tells stories.”  Thousands of years of genetic engineering have helped people to crave stories in narrative formats.

Take a look inside almost any boardroom in America.  You’ll be amazed by the conversations that start with “let me tell you a story” or “what until you hear this one.”  Watch as people immediately show signs of settling in to listen.  That’s because stories are easy to listen to, they are easy to understand and the points behind the story are clear to identify and easy to recall.

Stories are also much more enjoyable ways to receive information.  A great quote from Andy Goodman best illustrates the point: “Numbers numb, jargon jars, and nobody ever marched on Washington because of a pie chart.”  Market research, product information, product features and more can often be complex and overwhelming to a prospect and quickly forgotten.  Stories allow us to disseminate information in ways customers can quickly understand and immediately use.

In the book Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story, author Kendal Haven says, “I have reviewed over 350 research studies from fifteen separate fields of science.  Incredibly, every one of those studies, as well as every one they cite – every one – agrees that stories are an effective and efficient vehicle for…the general consumption of factual information.”  He further explains in the book how he changed his approach to that of a storyteller because no one wanted to read his factual reports.

Want to sell more through your marketing and sales efforts?  Tell stories.