Do you believe storytelling is an important skill when it comes to making a sale?

Our reader poll today asks: Do you believe storytelling is an important skill when it comes to making a sale?

– Absolutely. Great storytellers are much more effective salespeople: 80.3%
– Kind of. Storytelling confers a slight advantage in selling: 15.4%
– Not really. It doesn’t sway a sales decision much: 2.7%
– Not at all. Selling is about product, price and promotion: 1.6%

Tell me a story. Storytelling definitely drives sales. 80% of you found storytelling to be a critical skill for salespeople, and I’d venture to guess not all respondents were sellers but many were buyers. If you think more broadly about “selling” and consider you’re always selling ideas, shouldn’t you become a better storyteller, too? Any recommendation you’re making can benefit from your ability to tell a story. Learn the skill. Build your own inventory of stories to help you be more compelling and influential. You just might close that “sale” you’ve been working on for a long time!

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 210,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.