And help your prospects remember you better

I was on a Zoom call and I’m not proud of it, but by the third time I asked “why,” I was very close to hanging up.

At the time, I was responsible for choosing the help desk software for the entire company, so naturally, I did what any reasonable person in that situation would – I became slightly impossible to convince with standard answers.

• “But why do we need this feature?”
• “Why is this the right plan for us?”
• “Why X, Y, and Z?”

The sales rep was trying to answer my question, and bless him, he was doing his best not to show the frustration himself, but whatever he said, I kept thinking, “but that’s not what I’m asking”.

We were both stuck. He couldn’t understand why his explanations weren’t working. I couldn’t understand why I kept needing to ask the same question. And round and round we went – him over-explaining, me under-convinced and asking “why”.

The most frustrating part was that I couldn’t even fully articulate what my question really was. 

I just knew that something was missing – a thread that connected all his answers to my team and my specific chaos. I felt like I was being handed puzzle pieces with no picture on the box.

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He wasn’t wrong to walk me through how the software worked, but what we both didn’t realise was that I wasn’t just buying software. I was buying confidence. I needed to walk away from that call equipped with enough information to make me certain that this was the right choice for the whole company. And that is not something an explanation of how features work can give you.

It’s easy to assume that when the prospect asks so many questions, the problem is clarity. That if we just explain it better, or add one more FAQ, or make the feature list a little more detailed, they will get it. But that’s not actually the problem.

The problem is memory.

What made that call even harder was the fact that it wasn’t the first software I’d evaluated. I’d already scrolled through comparison pages and watched more ‘how to’ videos than I care to admit. And in that environment, features don’t stand a chance. Features, pricing tiers, integrations, limitations – they all start to blur together into one giant, forgettable cloud of information.

So the real challenge becomes sticking in the memory, so that when the moment to buy comes, your solution is the one the prospect reaches for.

You can’t rely on the charisma of your sales rep and their ability to effectively follow up. A Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers in 2024 found that 61% prefer a completely rep-free buying experience. Which means they’re scanning and they’re deciding, within seconds, whether something is worth their time and attention.

So how do you become memorable?

The answer is the oldest trick in the book: Story-led content.

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It’s no secret that we are naturally drawn to stories. A study by Stanford professor Chip Heath found that 63% of people tested could remember stories, while only 5% could recall a single statistic.

If your prospect can walk away and remember your story – or better yet, retell your story – you have automatically gained an unfair advantage. If you are remembered, you are winning.

Peloton used this concept very well with their campaign ‘We all have our reasons’. It featured 9 real members sharing their stories of why they chose Peloton and what motivates them.

Think about it: 

Peloton is a complicated product. Hundreds of features, multiple subscription tiers, live classes, on-demand libraries, performance tracking. You could spend a week just trying to understand what’s included. On paper, it’s overwhelming.

And yet they took that complexity and wrapped it in memorable stories that resonated and stuck in the mind of many.

They made the change from feature-first to story-first and from clarity to memory.

That is the power of storytelling.

You might worry that to use story-led content with your offer, you will need to do a complete overhaul of your marketing messages. That’s not true. You start by finding that one story only you can tell. A moment someone felt the difference, and someone else can recognise it as their own.

And you go from there. 

Speak soon,
Dot

P.S.

If you’ve made it this far – genuinely, thank you. It means a lot that you gave this your time and attention. If any part of this resonated with you, I’d love for it to reach someone else who might need to hear it too. Sometimes the right idea at the right moment changes everything – feel free to pass it on.