The core story, the brainchild of Chet Holmes, is a persusasive  idea… a way to initiate a relationship with a potential client… someone in your target audience, perhaps an “ideal client”. Chet Holmes uses a well-known sales process to create a marketing and sales concept that has some adherents.

Here’s the basic process: First you identify the pain of the prospect, then you agitate it with some third-party secondary data, then you tell them “it doesn’t have to be this way”. Next you describe the solution and identify what to look for in a provider. FINALLY, and no sooner, you talk about your company specifically.  It’s an old formula embedded in an extensive powerpoint presentation. It has some utility.

First of all, with all good marketing, it’s important to create a message that taps into the fears and challenges your propects face. This shows you understand them. You can also point to dangers they may not know about, or feel but don’t see the extent of the problem.  The message you are giving them might be — “Do something now, before you have bigger problems.”  Or your message could be — “No wonder you’re worried, look at how things have gotten worse over time.”

Pain is a great motivator. Pain backed by third party researched can be very convincing.  As long as you’re sticking to the truth, you will create a sense of urgency that will work in your favor when the time comes to ask for the sale.

Another strength of Chet Holmes’ core story concept is the excellent sales strategy of overcoming objections in advance–before your prospect has a chance to raise them. Again, this makes the close much easier when the time comes to ask for the sale. Every potential new client has certain criteria that must be met before they will buy. These are known as their “buying criteria”.  These buying criteria may be fully conscious or below the radar. In either case, they can get in the way when you are moving toward a “yes.” Best to catch the internal dialogue and address it, change their thinking early on, and set the buying criteria in your favor.

The core story makes use of these well-know sales techniques to create a presentation you can use to condition your potential client’s thought process to do business with you. Your prospect wants to make a good buying decision. You are initiating the relationship, building rapport, and educating them with need-to-know information.  It’s like leading horses to water… and making sure they’re plenty thirsty so they’ll drink from your trough.

Now for the core story concept downside–once you get your core story, assuming it’s the RIGHT core story to connect your target audience with your product or service, how will you USE it?

I managed and wrote core story projects for Empire Research Group, Inc., the core story team for Chet Holmes International, for the better part of 4 years. And when the story was right, and most importantly, the company had the skill to use it, the results were good, occasionally transforming. It could change the sales and marketing dynamic for the client.

But there’s the rub. The majority of the business people I worked with–CEOs, Presidents, Marketing Managers, etc…  didn’t know how to use it. Unless they were already skilled at presenting, or had the momentum and intiative to use their story in their marketing communications, they got little or no return from the exercise. At best, they learned to look at their business and prospects in a new light. However, the story itself would often never leave the digital file.

I return to the question in the title–Do you really need a core story? A more pertinent question is… once you get your core story, will you use it?

As soon as I no longer played on the Empire Research Group team, I was free to tackle this question head on for my clients. To find out the similarities and differences between a core story and a Key Message, stay tuned.  It’s the subject of my next post.

Until then, follow the tried and true formula–connect with your most likely buyers by tapping into the dialogue that’s already going on in their minds. Overcome objections in advance, educate them, create urgency… and back up what you are saying with some real research.

If you follow this well-known sales process, getting new clients to sign on the bottom line will be much easier.