> [!meta]- Document Info > **Author**: [[April Dunford]] > **Full Title**: Sales-First Storytelling > **Category**: #articles > > **Summary**: Storytelling is a popular topic among marketers. But you know what rarely comes up? Sales. Or selling, for that matter. We might admit that we aim to inspire customers to take action with our storytelling, but selling rarely gets a mention. Sales, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have marketing's thirst for stories. > > **Source**: [Original URL](https://aprildunford.substack.com/p/sales-first-storytelling) ## 📄 Full Document → [[Sales-First Storytelling]] ## 🔦 Highlights & Commentary - data, emotions, customers, value, brand, purpose, and, of course, copy ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdv0g9g11meg11z9erktx6m)) - Note: data & stories as elements of storytelling vs discrete outcomes - Our marketing stories don’t fully serve what a salesperson needs to do in a first-call pitch. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdv2grxgneg5af01327rsg4)) - ***Sales needs room to stretch the story on the fly in a live environment***. They need to be able to swap out parts of the story for other parts that align with the customer, and sometimes, they need to do that while they are in the middle of a meeting with a prospect. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdv4s8nr9cw7egm1y755ysb)) - Note: Elemental objects in a marketing system to create relevance - stories - outcomes - jobs - pains/challenges - veer slightly toward the vision of where we see the product and the market in the future because many in our audience are not in a purchase process quite yet. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdv6xf1g9j69rrdm91h89ew)) - Note: 95/5 rule - ***Sales is dealing with a prospect that is in a purchase process right now***. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdv8csg4rgf82sbn7dzf9jn)) - Note: With our qualification motion, how true is this? Some of our conversion results might suggest we're engaging sales too soon. - ***sales and marketing should use the same inputs for whatever storytelling structure they choose, and those inputs should come from our positioning.*** ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdvbaz8p58wq34c27k5b3r5)) - Note: Strong case for investing in "positioning" instead of talking about Brand - ***Our positioning defines the inputs for marketing and sales content - we ultimately need commonality across marketing and sales because our positioning defines where we win and why.*** ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hgdvchph31dt3pzqcrgf8va3))