Book Review: Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell
Author: Mike Adams
Copyright: 2018
Price: $14.95 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle edition)

There are a lot of good books out there about storytelling. Many books mention the importance of telling stories, and they always indicate how people are more interested in listening to stories than presentations. We all know that when people hear a good story, they are entertained enough that they remember it and might even repeat it to others.

However, very few of these books take the time to explain the actual dynamics of storytelling, such as choosing what kind of story to tell, how to develop your story, and using the right story for the right occasion. Of all of the books I’ve read, none of them have done that until this one.

In Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell, Mike Adams breaks this all down for the reader. He describes exactly what the title indicates—the seven stories that every professional needs to tell. Adams examines what he calls the “hook” stories—the ones that are personally about you or a person you know—to the “land“ stories to close the deal, which are stories that show the value of your services or products. He provides a good, clear, and comprehensive study of each type of story including breaking them down and showing examples of each.

Of course, Adams spends a lot of time focusing on the all-important success stories, which he includes in the section he calls fight stories to differentiate.” He even includes a reference table for the seven stories, which is a breakdown on how to use each kind of story, when to use it, and who to tell it to. In the table, Adams also includes a story catalog describing all of the stories he used in the book and on what page they appeared so that the reader can easily find them for future reference.

Engineers and technical people will find this book very useful, especially since Adams himself is an engineer turned salesperson. He writes the way a left-brained person will find easy to follow and understand. This is especially important for those of us in technical fields where we deal with a lot of left-brained people. Overall, Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell is a great book for technical people to learn the art of storytelling and anyone else who wants to tell better stories. 

Dan Beaulieu is the president of D.B. Management.