Using Case Studies Effectively With Sales Teams

Back when I was ten-feet tall and wearing snakeskin boots on the reg, one popular sales objection-handling technique was called “Feel, Felt, Found.”

It went like this:

Prospect: “You know what? I think you are ugly, and you smell funny too.”

Snakeskin-Boot-Wearing-Salesperson: “Thank you for sharing, Mr. Poly-Blend. I understand how you FEEL. Many of our current customers FELT the same way before they started working with me. What they FOUND was my funny face and hard-to-place odor meant my product must be good, otherwise how could I afford these cool-ass boots.”

With this old school objection-answering format, you are using customer stories as PROOF (see Copywriting forum for further details on proof).

One of the best ways to tell customer stories is with case studies. Here are several ways to use them:

5 Ways Sales Teams Leverage Case Studies

But use “customer proof” any way that works for you.

Back in the dawn of time, I was selling for a rock radio station. Older business owners always had the same objection: “Only jobless teenage stoners listen to your station.”

Here’s the weird thing: We were the number one station overall, and dominant in ratings for men 18-34!

I knew we had some stoner listeners, but we also had 25-34 year old males who made good money, were getting married, having kids, and buying cars, houses, concert tickets, tools, clothing, etc. — they didn’t stop singing, “I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride,” in their cars at the top of their lungs with the windows up because they turned 27 and got married.

So one day I was talking to the DJs, and the promotion guy was in the studio, too. We had recently started a contest where people sent in a picture of them with their car parked in front of where they lived.

I forget how the contest worked or what it was for, but the promo guy had a thick STACK of photos (this was before digital photo/internet days). Lo and behold, many of the pictures were of clean-cut dudes with German luxury cars parked in front of nice houses.

After the promo, I asked if I could borrow those photos. Whenever a customer objected about the quality of our audience, I took out the thick STACK of photos and said, “You know, Mr. Golf-Pants, I understand how you FEEL. Many of my current customers FELT the same way before they warmed up to my snakeskin boots.”

I started laying out the photos on their desk. “What they FOUND was we have very loyal male listeners who make good money, drive nice cars and live in nice homes. These are your customers, too, Mr. Too-Many-Gold-Chains, at least for certain product lines.”

I used that STACK until it was dog-eared and dead.

Use customer stories as PROOF, and watch your sales “Fly Like An Eagle.”*

*Steve Miller Band does not condone or approve of the use of their song title in this piece.