I’m in the process of buying a new car. So last weekend I organised test-drives of three cars from three different car dealers. My first two test-drives followed a similar pattern. The salesperson showed me the car, I jumped into the driver’s seat, and we took a 15-minute spin up a freeway and back again. […]

Over the last six months, we’ve been approached by a number of luxury brands to help them with their in-store sales skills. Companies like Burberry, Gucci, Prada, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Versace, Hermès, Ralph Lauren, and Tiffany & Co. have all felt their sales soften as the market has readjusted to the growing […]

We understand that life gets busy. Between emails, meetings and projects it can sometimes be hard to deliberately think about useful business stories that you’ve encountered recently. We want to make it easier to become better business storytellers, and for that reason we’ve decided to post regular stories that include bite-size tips on how to […]

It was exciting to visit Mexico again. I was totally blown away with the beauty of Monterrey. It’s like having a city the size of Melbourne nestled among the bluffs of Yosemite National Park. For some reason I was expecting a flat, desert landscape. It reminded me of Singapore somehow but without the tropical downpours. […]

Oh no, not again: it’s the souvenir-vendors. I’m here on business, but they’ll mob around anyone here who even looks like a tourist. And every time it’s the same: “You want to buy? Low price, low price” – as if price itself is the only reason anyone would want the item. No attempt at a […]

You can learn about the power of storytelling in sales in the most unlikely places. We had first-hand experience of this recently when we took our chairman, Paul Honeywell, on a tour of the Yarra Valley wineries just outside Melbourne. Paul was over from England, so we wanted to show off some of our finest […]

Last week I returned to Australia from the US after a three-week business tour. (It was a remarkable time to be there, though my sense is that while emotions are understandably running high over the election result, there is also a feeling that the US system is resilient.) I started the trip in Seattle, working […]

We developed the first version of our Storytelling for Leaders program nearly 10 years ago. Subsequently, we were asked many times to modify the program for sales teams. The results were so effective we set about developing a specific program for sales, Storytelling for Sales, which was released in 2015. I’ve just finished reading a relatively recent book […]

I’ve had the pleasure of delivering Storytelling for Sales for companies in Europe, Asia and the US and I just love how sellers quickly work out that it’s those times they tell a story that the sales start to go well. I remember asking a group of sellers in Florida what stories they tell to overcome […]

Back in 2014, I was at the mighty MCG about to watch my beloved Tigers play a game of AFL football with my 15 year old son. I remember asking him where he would like to sit assuming he would respond by saying “behind the goals” or “amongst the cheer squad on the fence”. No […]