DAMI I’m good! – Creating the perfect selling story

Presenting the clear facts and insights to a customer, with a logical flow and reason to purchase can sometimes feel like a big task. This is often driven by an overload of information provided from all directions: category teams, insights teams, sales data, market research; the list is endless. We often witness selling presentations with pages and pages of ‘insights’ that actually have no bearing on the ‘solution’ i.e., the product.

To create the perfect selling story, we need to ensure we present only the facts that are needed, and those facts should only highlight the need for the solution you are presenting. For example, if you are selling in a new product that solves for a gap in the market for young females who want a feel-good factor, focus on that gap and why there is one; there is no need to present what older females or males are looking for, it is irrelevant to your solution. So how can we best review all the information and make sure we present the key facts? Well, we use a tried and tested approach which we developed to simplify the development of customer propositions. We call it our ‘DAMI’ process:

• Data - Determine the Objective – what you are solving for, or what the need/solution is; Consider where you can get data and information, ensuring your sources are reliable and credible; Once you have the data, group into major categories such as purchase data, competitor data, consumption data etc.
• Analysis – Now you need to turn the data into useful concise information. Analyse the groups of data and simplify into one key point for each group.
• Mining – Turning the information into knowledge. Review the key points and seek commonalties. Now cluster into new groups with new headings. Challenge yourself to ensure the newly mined cluster is consistent with the objective and presents a business opportunity.
• Insight – This is where we turn the knowledge into that competitive edge. Develop the insight based on the new clusters and identify how you can action the insight to grow your business and your customers.

Following this process is proven to be much quicker in developing selling stories and more effective.  It aids in formulating your thinking and ensures you pull out only the key information needed. You only need one good insight, to be insightful.  It also means you sometimes only need to present a few slides to sell the idea rather than presenting ‘death by PowerPoint”! It is also important to remember that customers sit through selling presentations all day, if you can make yours short, concise and to the point, they will be more engaged and receptive.

If you would like to find out more about how to create the perfect selling story and the programmes we offer to coach your teams through the DAMI process, please contact us at: help@pureblueocean.com