Boudica and Your LBBS

Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 3 minutes.

One of the most important sales skills is asking great questions, synthesizing the responses, and telling a unique story about your product/service to educate and inform the buyer.

No seller is elite until they can tailor their product's story to resonate with buyers on the fly.

Boudica was a historical figure from the British Isles around 60 AD. She is famed for leading an uprising against the Romans that ultimately failed, resulting in her death.

Boudica is such a powerful symbol that a statue of her is near the Houses of Parliament in London.

And, yet, we know almost nothing about her. We do not know:

• Where she was born
• When she was born
• How she died
• Her real name (Boudica is a title, not a name)
• The correct spelling of Boudica (it can also be Boudicca, Boadicea or Boudicea)
• Much more.

Everything we "know" was written by historians who never met her.

Tacitus, a Roman politician and historian, is one of our main sources. Born in 56 AD, he was 4 or 5 when Boudica died. Tacitus framed her rebellion as rising against the cruelty of the local Roman leaders who confiscated lands and mistreated her family.

Dio Cassius, also a Roman politician and historian, was born over 100 years after she died in 165 AD. Dio's retelling of Boudica's story is focused on taxes, poverty, and the enslavement of the Britons.

Tacitus and Dio wrote an entirely different version of Boudica's rousing speech to her troops on the eve of battle—a speech they both probably made up.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Suffragettes often invoked Boudica's story, highlighting her gender and occasionally paraphrasing her speech.

During the depths of World War 2, Winston Churchill referenced Boudica's resilience as a symbol for the British nation. Sometimes paraphrasing or quoting her speech.

With every retelling of Boudica's story and pre-battle speech, the focus shifts and portrays a different core message.

Selling involves changing stories

Anything you sell will solve tens, if not hundreds, of problems.

Buyers come to sellers to speed up identifying the root cause of their problems and then translate that problem into a solution they can purchase. Or, if they have already decided to buy your product, they need a story to justify the purchase internally.

By asking great questions, elite sellers will draw out the relevant problems. This is the easy part.

Then, the hard part is that the story an elite seller tells morphs to match the problems of this specific buyer, just like the constant reframing of Boudica.

Little Book of Boudica Stories (LBBS)

To use this idea in your next sales call, prepare for the meeting by picking three customer stories, use cases, or testimonials.

Ideally, these stories should be as similar as possible to those of the buyer you are about to meet with.

Next, write a few bullet points per story on what to highlight.

You want at least three stories as sales calls take unexpected turns, and you must be flexible.

Finally, prepare the same way for your next call and a third sales call after that.

Following the third call, collate all your stories and bullets into your very own "Little Book of Boudica Stories" or LBBS.

And anytime you prep for a new buyer, add the stories to your LBBS.

Over time, you'll learn to synthesize unlimited unique stories to tell the buyer based on their needs and problems.

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