July 10, 2024 • 55 mins
B2B Storytelling: Creating Compelling Narratives to Communicate Innovative Technologies
In this episode of Marcom Mode, host Kristin Jones sits down with Susan Lindner, Founder and CEO of Innovation Storytellers, to explore the art and science of B2B storytelling.
Susan shares her expertise on how marketing and corporate communications leaders can leverage storytelling techniques to communicate innovative technologies, engage stakeholders and drive change. As a veteran consultant who has worked with Fortune 500 companies and startups alike, Susan offers proven strategies and insights on:
- Crafting compelling innovation stories that resonate with diverse audiences
- Aligning storytelling with business priorities and organizational goals
- Overcoming common challenges in communicating change and innovation
- Implementing storytelling best practices to build buy-in and support
- Measuring the impact of storytelling on stakeholder engagement and business outcomes
- Developing leadership communication skills to inspire and motivate teams
Whether you're a CMO looking to drive organizational change, a marketing or corporate comms leader aiming to communicate complex innovations, or a business leader seeking to improve your storytelling skills, this conversation provides actionable advice to enhance your communication impact.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a master storyteller and innovation communication expert. Subscribe to Marcom Mode and tune in to this insightful discussion.
LinkedIn/X Hashtags:
#B2BMarketing #CorporateInnovation #ChangeManagement #LeadershipCommunication #StrategicStorytelling #B2Bstorytelling #B2Bnarratives
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Speaker 1Hello and welcome to another episode of Marcom Mode. Your podcast and webinar series for marketing leaders who enjoy the challenge of driving growth for a company but are overwhelmed by being expected to achieve the same or even better results with fewer resources. With Marcom Mode we bring you meaningful conversations with marketing and PR leaders who can provide real life examples of how to prioritize for success,
(00:36):
Speaker 1overcome common challenges and build effective teams. We also discuss what's working well and producing results while sharing best practices for generating a healthy pipeline, building brand awareness and achieving revenue goals. As always, I'm your host, Kristin Jones, and today we are fortunate because we have a special guest, Susan Lindner, who is the CEO and founder of Innovation Storytellers.
(01:01):
Speaker 1Welcome, Susan, and thanks for being on the show today.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, this is going to be such a fun conversation, Kristin. I'm so looking forward to it.
Speaker 1Me too. I mean, there are just so many things we can talk about, but I really want to dive into innovation, storytelling. What is it like? Why is it essential and how can
Speaker 1we overcome challenges that always arise with any time the opportunity to craft a compelling story?
(01:25):
Speaker 2Yeah, So innovation storytelling is a little bit different than regular old storytelling in that it requires a storyteller to paint a picture of the future that other people can't see yet. And it's especially true of entrepreneurs who are creating breakthrough technologies. These are anyone who has innovation as part of their mandate in their job description. If it's not specifically stated in their title, like a chief innovation officer
(01:52):
Speaker 2who is trying to drive change.
Speaker 2And so we need to take people from the status quo into a new reality and story is the bridge that gets us there. And so when we start to think about what that future looks like, it's our job as storytellers to talk about the most important word in my vocabulary, which is goodwill. The act of making somebody else's life better as a result of making a change.
(02:18):
Speaker 2And so when we keep that as the heartbeat of the story, goodwill, amazing things happen for both us as the teller and for our listeners.
Speaker 1I love that. I was just talking with a colleague of mine who was talking about
Speaker 1building purposeful brands, and she said some very similar things about, you know, it's just really important to make sure that why are you doing something and how are you, you
(02:42):
Speaker 1making life or the world better.
Speaker 1I recently read a just a small study conducted by Stanford at Stanford University professors names Chip, Chip Keith, and he asked his students to give one minute, a one minute speech on nonviolent crime.
Speaker 1And most of the students presented data, of course, like two and a half statistics per speech. But only one out of ten students told a story. And so when the professor polled all of his students just 10 minutes afterwards,
(03:15):
Speaker 163% of students remembered the stories and only 5% could remember a single stat. That's like that's eye opening, you know, because sometimes, you know, marketing and communications professionals, we come in with the stats and the survey questions and the ROI,
Speaker 1but if you don't have a story behind that,
(03:37):
Speaker 1then you don't have a story. And so I would love to have you talk about you know, you talked a little bit about how innovation, storytelling is unique, but also when we're innovating, we're using lots of stats and showing how we're better than the competition and in the B to B sales cycle particularly, it's about ROI.
Speaker 1So talk a little bit about how stats are important, but they have to underpin a story.
(04:05):
Speaker 2Yes,
Speaker 2they are. You know, I think of it as the ice cream rather than the whipped cream of the story. Right. That those statistics are really important. But what's imperative if we want people to remember it and I often quote Chip’s study in my own talks and and in consulting with big companies is we're 22 times more likely to remember the story.
(04:27):
Speaker 2Right. That's the statistic that you quoted. And the reason why that matters is that storytelling now becomes an executives think like the most valuable executive productivity device, because when we our lives, especially now post-COVID, are just filled with endless Zoom meetings. And if we are expected to remember and act on three bullet points and in the attached Excel spreadsheet, we are not.
(04:58):
Speaker 1Moved to act.
Speaker 2And so a great story. And even the numbers require the addition of narrative in order to drive human action. And so an innovation story in particular needs momentum. It needs to build and it needs to have owners of that story, not just the people who tell it, but for the listener to say, Wow, that is so fantastic. And the way you presented those numbers are so important that now I hear the story I internalze the story, and most importantly, I'm able to share the story with someone else.
(05:39):
Speaker 2Because without that last piece, we are missing out on memorability credibility and frankly, the ability to drive change. So that's why story plus data is so important. If we have an expectation of action, we're not moved by numbers alone. I mean, otherwise none of us would smoke, drink, over eat and sit on the couch instead of exercise. We know all the numbers.
(06:08):
Speaker 2None of them have compelled us to change our behavior necessarily. It's not until we actually get an emotion behind it. Like, I got to do this. I do this for my kids. I feel tons of shame. I feel tons of fear. I feel tons of guilt. I feel elated when I'm done exercising. Emotion drives action. That's why it matters.
(06:28):
Speaker 1I would love it if you could share an example of how you of an innovation and innovation story that you helped a client master and how you went about identifying what the story was, crafting the narrative, and then bringing it to fruition all the way through having the executives actually be able to tell the story or stories.
(06:50):
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2You know, and you raise a good point about making that plural. There's no one singular story, right, that moves people into action. You'll need like three or four, depending on first and foremost, laying the groundwork for the audience.
Speaker 1Right. So before I.
Speaker 2I'm happy to tell you lots of great stories, but perhaps it's helpful for your readers, especially folks who are in MarCom like all of us are. And I've spent 20 years as a high tech PR person running an agency. So using those experiences, step one, the most important thing before you ever tell a story is to listen. And I'm an anthropologist by training, so.
(07:36):
Speaker 1We use tools.
Speaker 2Like Angiography. We want to understand the demographics, the culture, that mindset of the people that we're talking to. We want to use a technique called Appreciative inquiry or US lay folk. That's surveys and interviews of really beginning to appreciate what is positive and what is a driving force for our listener that would change their behavior. If I'm working in innovation right, I'm not just here to educate.
(08:06):
Speaker 2I'm here to shift from the status quo to the future. So I want to understand what are the behaviors and the beliefs that will drive action on the part of my listener. So sometimes that, you know, I want to save time, I want to make money, I want to be more productive. Right? Your standard B2B sale But the question then becomes, so we need to fill in the blank as communicators and ask the next question so that what happens oftentimes are B2B sales.
(08:39):
Speaker 2And we're trying to get these three bullet points right. We save you this much, we give you this much productivity back, we save you this much time. But that is the basis of a B2B. So every single B2B company in the world saves you time, saves you money, makes you more productive. So my response to that is who cares if my lawyer saves me time, money and makes me more productive because I didn't have to waste three years in law school, go $200,000 in debt, and then, you know, and then be able to figure out my $600 an hour problem.
(09:13):
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2So we need to go beyond that. So if I'm a B2B storyteller, my next question is what is my customer doing with the time, money and productivity that I'm giving him or her back? So when I find that out, wow.
Speaker 1You're.
Speaker 2Going to use my product to expand to new markets, increase your product roadmap, take on new employees, fire more employees, you know, make decisions about what's coming next, our new business model or how will deploy capital in a way that we never have before, like those are the outcomes of this. So that question. So I might look at the very big picture and then the next level down, I'll say what about for you personally, maybe I want to save time, save money, make me more productive so that I can leave the office at 530 and see my kids soccer.
(10:08):
Speaker 2Maybe that my cybersecurity software is not going off at all hours of the day and night and actually get a weekend myself. You know, maybe I want very selfishly, I want this tech to work or I want this product to work so I can get a raise or a promotion in the next two years. Right? So do we actually know what the drivers are of our listener before we ever start telling the story?
(10:32):
Speaker 2So as communicators, let's make sure we ask those questions.
Speaker 1Before.
Speaker 2We dive into just blaring out a story. It's like pitching a reporter without even knowing what they write about. You know.
Speaker 1I hear you.
Speaker 2We're not knowing our personas. You know, the people that we're selling to.
Speaker 1The pain points of what their problems are. Yes.
(10:54):
Speaker 2You know, and oftentimes so my specialty is working with non-native English speakers who are coming to the US to make their mark on the US market. So they bring with them all kinds of delights and challenges coming to this market. And so I often say, you know, we're going to use a very New York example before I ever embark on the story.
(11:14):
Speaker 2Ask yourself, where is my customer bleeding from the neck? How can I be the tourniquet? Not just the vitamin, right? But how can I actually save them and make them the hero for stopping the bleeding? Right. Mine is just my thing. Whatever it is I'm selling is just a.
Speaker 1Tool.
Speaker 2To help them become a hero. Which leads me to the next question. If I could make you the hero of your own story, what would need to happen? And that for me, is the quintessential dividing line. And I came upon that discovery when I was working in brothels in Thailand, doing HIV education with sex workers and their customers.
(11:57):
Speaker 2And those women were in very tough position, seeing about eight customers a night in in in.
Speaker 1An.
Speaker 2Area where one in six sexually active people were HIV positive. And there are three AIDS funerals a day where I lived. And to help get women out of sight, out of the sex trade and into something different, we had to ask them, you know, number one, what is most important to you right now? And across the board, the answer was survival.
(12:28):
Speaker 2But when we said, what would it take for you to become the hero of your own story, the answer was, I want to be in control of my own destiny. So then the next question for us is development workers was how do we help them do that? And the answer for us was entrepreneurship. So helping women get out of the sex trade by training them while they were still in the trade to become their own small business owners was a way to put power back in their hands and rapidly reduce HIV infection because now they were motivated to use a condom every single time.
(13:03):
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2You make sure they, you know, they employed safe sex practices. And then that became the thing with.
Speaker 1The.
Speaker 2The customers who said, I'm not just here for pleasure as the hero. I want to be the protector of my family. I want to come out and have a good time. And I don't want to bring HIV home to my wife and my unborn kids. My future.
(13:25):
Speaker 1Kids. Right.
Speaker 2And even for the Mama Sun who own the brothel, she went from just being I'm here about the profit. I don't care about anyone else to. I want to be the protector of my community and I want to ensure the longevity and the reputation of my establishment.
Speaker 1So something.
Speaker 2That thinking about that shift was everything for me of like, how do I make the listener the hero and digging way deeper down than just like, saves time, saves money, makes you more.
(13:55):
Speaker 1Productive.
Speaker 2So I think for your listeners, asking even their clients to say, what are they doing with all that time, money and productivity you're saving them. Have them go back and have the sales team go back and say, How's life changed a year after deploying this technology, using our product, being in relationship with you, having this partnership, whatever it is, how has your life changed?
(14:18):
Speaker 2Not just how has your work changed?
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2Get a plethora of answers you never thought possible. That's just a bit of a circuitous way to answer the question What's a cool story you've told? But I think we really have to ground ourselves as storytellers in thinking about the audience before we ever started speaking.
Speaker 1Yes, I love that. I mean, that's such a great and,
(14:39):
Speaker 1just poignant example of how you can really make change. And like you said, behavior change is hard. Behavior change is hard anyway. But, you know, trying to any six year old
Speaker 1and, you know, like you said, even in B to B sales, we are actually selling to people and having them to make a big decision.
(14:59):
Speaker 1Often that is quite expensive and we're all emotional creatures and we all know that emotion drives and influences us way more powerfully than data or a PowerPoint presentation or, ROI. I mean, they have to have those things. Suppose you know to take it to their executives, but to, like, want to buy from you. They have people by the people they like and businesses that they believe in and ways that are going to help them.
(15:29):
Speaker 1Like you said, you become their own hero and achieve what they want to achieve. Now that not what the salesperson wants to achieve, they.
Speaker 1So let's talk about, you know, again, storytelling. It's hard. I mean, if it were easy, we'd all be writing blockbuster movies.
Speaker 2That's right. And AI will be doing it next week.
(15:52):
Speaker 1It's particularly hard, like you said, for companies and executives who are in that daily grind of trying to make a product and, you know, grow the company. So how do you get them? What are the what are the biggest challenges that you have faced or that your clients have faced or related to getting their innovation story crafted and told?
(16:15):
Speaker 1And how have you helped them overcome those challenges?
Speaker 2Yeah. So let's talk about some of those great stories that you were asking me about and how we do it. So I'll use this as both a how to and an example. So before we start writing the story, ask yourself as a storyteller are now thinking about the change that you want to enact. What do you want the listener When you are done speaking, what do you need them to think?
(16:40):
Speaker 2What do you need them to feel and what do you need them to do? So from a reputation standpoint or about a product or service, maybe we need to educate them about how the product works, or maybe we need to talk to them about the reputation or the brand, right? Maybe we want to talk about really sticky situation, like what we think about pending layoffs, right?
(17:03):
Speaker 2Or we're cutting that product that you've been working on. We're now going to redeploy you somewhere else. So what do we need? People to think? So I want to make sure that I have my data, my information correct in my presentation in a way that's digestible. What do I want them to feel? So if I go to my next my call to action, what do I need them to.
Speaker 1Do.
(17:24):
Speaker 2If I need them to buy something, if I need them to invest, if I need them to partner, if I need them to back off or get engaged, if whatever the end goal is. Now, make a map of the emotions your listener needs to feel in order to do the thing. So make a list of a mix of emotions.
(17:44):
Speaker 2Like I need them to trust me. I need them to feel energized. I need them to feel supportive or helpful. I need them to feel.
Speaker 1Fear or disgust or.
Speaker 2Rage. You decide as the storyteller, like any great screenwriter, when at what point do you add the suspense or the feeling that makes the listeners palms sweat and their.
(18:06):
Speaker 1Heartbeat.
Speaker 2Faster? That's all on you, the Storyteller. So think about what is the thing I need them to do. And now we back into their what do I need them to feel in order to do the thing? And then so I'll give you an example. So I got to Corning Glass, which is one of the biggest glass manufacturers in the world, and I was assigned to work with the team of Fractogrpahors.
(18:32):
Speaker 2I don't know if you've ever had the good fortune of working with Fractogrpahors? I had not, and I didn't know what they were.
Speaker 1Something about light, bright light.
Speaker 2No great gas. But these are the scientists who see how glass breaks. Very vital right way, how it fractures. Yeah. So. So these are the folks who determine when your head hits a windshield, whether or not the windshield will pop out, whether it will bend, or whether it will break into a thousand little rounded marble. So you don't get shards of glass in your neck.
(19:06):
Speaker 2Right. Very important people in a glass factory. And they were about to announce or to ask rather, the CEO and the.
Speaker 1Board for.
Speaker 2Funding for a new windshield that they were creating. So this windshield,
Speaker 2they decided they were going to present to the board with a 59 page PowerPoint deck that began the first two slides with an electron model of the sand that went into the making of the windshield. And I thought, my God, I'm going to die from boredom.
(19:38):
Speaker 2If we are starting off.
Speaker 1At the sand.
Speaker 2Level, we're never going to get to the benefits of this fantastic windshield. And so in the middle of that presentation, one of the Fractogrpahors became an ant and Amy was doing and I'm showing us the pictures on her cell phone of this adorable little baby that was just born in Ohio. And so after the oohing and eyeing, the Fractogrpahors went back to the sand diagram and we're getting into the protons.
(20:07):
Speaker 2And I was like, my eyes were just in the back of my head. And so I said, Amy, show us the picture of that baby one more time. I said, Guys, look at this baby. Imagine those tiny little neurons firing at a million miles an hour as it learns everything new, it absorbs. And imagine those capillaries growing and just bringing blood to every corner of this kid's body and their pancreas growing at just amazing proportions, right, with each heartbeat of this baby.
(20:35):
Speaker 2And they looked at me like I had three heads and they looked back at their electron model and said, We're getting a little granular, aren't we? Yes. And that's the worst sand joke ever.
Speaker 1I've seen it.
Speaker 2They didn't look at it.
Speaker 1So.
(20:56):
Speaker 2So with that in mind, I said, you know, we need to we need to zoom out and step back and really think about what matters. So long story short, we got down to a ten page slide deck with the storyteller beginning the story with Imagine yourself sitting in your self-driving Tesla cruising through traffic in the middle of L.A., but instead of stressing, you get to rest and recline and watch the second half of Bridget Jones diary or catch up on those last couple of emails you left in your draft folder at the office.
(21:32):
Speaker 2And that's because your windshield has now become your personal productivity and entertainment device. Imagine your 55 inch flat screen TV has now just replaced your windshield glass. That's the windshield that we're offering to Tesla today with your help of $1.5 million.
(21:53):
Speaker 1Let's we're going going.
Speaker 2From way too granular. And this is the problem, right? A lot of storytellers get either super granular or super grandiose.
Speaker 1We're going to die.
Speaker 2If we don't address climate change.
Speaker 1Right now.
Speaker 2We get down to electrons and there's oftentimes nothing in between. So storytellers need to meet their audience where they are. And and don't forget, everyone on that Corning board has a PhD after their name, you know, their PhDs in chemistry and physics and everything else. But that's not their day to day, and that's not where their brain is.
(22:29):
Speaker 2And so that's how we need to tell a story by figuring out exactly what matters to the people in the room.
Speaker 1So how did you get them to I mean, make that transition and get to I mean, how did you coach them and help them down that path to get down to ten slides in such a great story? You know.
Speaker 2First is a recognition, especially with innovators that like at some point in time, our school system has failed us right at the university level. One side goes to the humanities side of campus and the other side goes to the science side of campus. And the science side folks are told that everything that's happening in the humanities is bullshit, right?
(23:06):
Speaker 2It's fluff. It's nothing. It's it's not even verifiable. Everything we do is empirical and true and provable. And the deeper you get into your specific area of expertise, the more granular, the more focused the language becomes. And so what the scientists forget is that there's this whole field of communication science that the rest of us, MarCom folks have been working on for a very long time.
(23:32):
Speaker 2You know, and certainly Chip is one of the leaders in that discussion, right? So as we think about it, joining these two folks back together again is, first a reminder. We've got science, too.
Speaker 1That I'd like to share it with them.
Speaker 2And by the way, if you want to get this chocolate with this peanut butter together, you're going to have to speak a little bit of this other language so that we can understand you. Otherwise we're just lost. And so I also think some innovators never get to the customer at all. So while they're so thrilled, like they've fallen in love with their own invention rather than the client's problem.
(24:11):
Speaker 1On.
Speaker 2That and they don't get to talk to the customer so that the fact that they've invented a new kind of sand.
Speaker 1Is.
Speaker 2The most exciting thing to them. The fact that actually has to be applied and put into an automobile at some point is a reminder to reconnect back to like why it is that we're doing what is the goodwill that we're actually offering the market.
(24:37):
Speaker 1It goes back to your first statement of how are you making life better, You know.
Speaker 2And especially the audience in the room. Right. The fact that they're going to make. But Jillian's on it. Fantastic, right? That might be a good reminder for the board and the CEO. But also we're going to have the most cutting edge freaking coolest windshield on the planet.
(24:59):
Speaker 1Right. And we have the smartest scientists in the room making it happen with these new innovations in Sand.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 1This is why we can do it and no one else can. Right.
Speaker 1How do you make sure when you're telling these innovation stories, how do you make sure that it's aligned with business priorities? Now, I know that was a good example that you just gave about, you know, this great new windshield that we're going to bring to market and self-driving cars is a burgeoning market.
(25:30):
Speaker 1And so we're entering this new market of self-driving cars with new windshields. So obviously that ties in to the business strategy.
Speaker 1how do you what do you do? You go through a process of understanding what the business goals are and where they're trying to, you know, expand revenue as you're embarking on this journey.
(25:51):
Speaker 2Yeah, and revenue may not always be the biggest driver right.
Speaker 2For me, for my clients who are largely chief innovation officers in their teams, product managers, sometimes UX and customer experience folks,
Speaker 2oftentimes they're operating on fantastic experiments and they're at prototype level. And so the next rung of influence as we look at those concentric circles is maybe the engineering team whose plate is already full just trying to meet each quarter's demand.
(26:21):
Speaker 2But now we're like, We've got this cool new idea and it looks like it's going to work. Can you help us scale it? And the engineering team goes with what extra hands. Yeah. So it's all my innovation story now I shift and go. What matters to the engineer? What's going to make them the hero of the story? Not necessarily the customer sitting in his Tesla, but rather now my engineering team.
(26:43):
Speaker 2So now I get to think about what benefits they incur as a result, because frankly, for most of the innovation team, someone else always takes credit for the innovation. It's not that they created it, it's who got to scale it, sell it, market it, watch the stock price go up, All those other people take credit for it.
Speaker 1While.
Speaker 2The innovator is already failing in their next new experiment. Right. So it's figuring out that next level. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's it's hard stuff. It's how do we get people to be productive for the next six months knowing that we're about to lay them off? You know, I've talked to clients who said.
(27:21):
Speaker 1We're.
Speaker 2Embarking on an AI program that is absolutely amazing and groundbreaking, and everyone who helps set up the AI will be out of a.
Speaker 1Job, but they're.
Speaker 2Training their own robot to replace that.
Speaker 1Right? That's disheartening, I'm sure. So how do they motivate them?
Speaker 2So, you know, the story is you are going to be at the cutting edge of learning how to do this work. And if not here, you can take these skills and use them elsewhere. That feels quite self-serving. But in this age, the ability to get your get hands on experience for converting a call center, let's say, from what was to what will be that person's skills are now going to be in demand 100 fold.
(28:07):
Speaker 1Sure they didn't them before.
Speaker 2All they knew how to do was answer a customer call.
Speaker 1Right? That's very true.
Speaker 2So thinking about, you know, how do we find the positives and going and asking that team, what would you want to get out of this experience? Because we're going down, we're going down this route.
Speaker 1And then helping them get achieve that goal. Like you said, maybe they're just upper level in their skill set, so maybe they can get that not even just another job, but maybe a better paying job, because now they have this AI expertise.
(28:38):
Speaker 2That's right. And now they're the prompt engineer, the best prompt engineer for call center AI.
Speaker 1Which apparently those jobs are going for like $350,000 right now.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm changing my title.
Speaker 1Let's see
Speaker 1let's walk. Let's walk through an example. Okay? You engage the client to help them build a narrative. You understand their business priorities, and you've crafted a compelling story or like we talked about a series of stories to help them achieve whatever business goal they have. Where does this process, where does that process typically break down?
(29:17):
Speaker 1I mean, like, what problems get in the way of your clients actually telling the stories in a way that enables them to achieve that business goal? Is it do you have to give them, much like me, the training? Do you have to train them on how to tell the story? You know? So where does that breakdown happen? Yeah.
Speaker 2So ask anybody you know that you work with, and I'll say this to all my comms friends out there is ask them how many people have actively received storytelling training.
(29:45):
Speaker 1Right? It will be a very small group.
Speaker 2Even though McKinsey pegs it as one of the top 40 skills that any executive must have, because it used to be that those scientists that I work with could just toss it over to internal comms and marketing to tell the story to somebody else. Now they have to, and that's part of getting promoted, of being visible, and of being able to communicate across global teams.
(30:12):
Speaker 2Right. Most most of these executives have people, you know, from.
Speaker 1Peru.
Speaker 2To, you know, Peoria to everywhere in between. So so step one is getting the right training
Speaker 2around how to tell good stories and then flexing that muscle if you're not accustomed to it. You know, I like to remind people that virtually everything we learn in the world only happens two ways. The first is, you know, experience. I touch the stove, I burn myself, and the other is mom going, don't touch the stove, you'll burn yourself.
(30:47):
Speaker 2That's a story.
Speaker 1Right? You know.
Speaker 2We think of that as this kind of rarefied air, but in reality, the way that we communicate information all day long, if whether we got it from a teacher or a professor, our favorite chef, whomever, it's story. And then taking a step inside the boardroom strategy is just a story until you execute on it. It's a fiction, right?
(31:11):
Speaker 2We're going to hit this number of revenue, you know this amount of revenue, and we're going to put out this many products and sell this many widgets by the end of 2023. Well, that's a fiction until it actually comes to bear.
Speaker 1And I might add into that that that executive needs a really good story to motivate is his teams to it to execute against that strategy. So there's that story plus the story of when it's done right.
(31:36):
Speaker 2So many times what that CEO story is. I want to be the best. I want to be the greatest. I want to smash our competition. And if you don't hit it, you won't be here.
Speaker 1That's such a bad story.
Speaker 2Motivated now.
Speaker 1Although I think he's leading with the fear element. Yeah.
Speaker 2Right. And the rah rah like we're the best.
(31:59):
Speaker 1In a.
Speaker 2So getting people trained in that storytelling. And I like to give people examples. Many times people ask me, I want to do this storytelling thing. I don't know how to find the story. Help me find a story. I don't know what to use. And so, you know, for your listeners, if you're looking for a great story, instead of just staring at a blank screen, you can use chat.
(32:21):
Speaker 2GPP Help me write a great story about X, right? Give it a prompt, see what comes up for you. But if you want to delve and make it really personal and you want to make it stick so that people get to know you and respect you as a leader, I often direct people to four ways of finding a great story.
Speaker 2So the first is people who are the people that you admire, the people you respected, the people that you hated, the people who you feared. Big emotions around people. And the same holds true for places so we can all relate to having been to the Eiffel Tower or but maybe it was I hid under my bunk, you know, at sleepaway camp because I was so afraid that Bobby Ryerson was going to kiss me.
(33:09):
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2There was fear lurking. Right? So think about a place it doesn't, you know, the haunted house at Disney World, like the most terrifying place on earth, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1Think about.
Speaker 2That place. So people, places, events. I graduated from college. I failed my driver's test for the fourth time. Those are great stories, maybe about persistence or perseverance.
(33:33):
Speaker 1Or charm or cunning or.
Speaker 2I slept through all my classes, but boy, I put in a performance on that final.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Whatever it is that you need to convey, think about the people, the places, the events. And the last is objects. So a treasured heirloom you could bring in to tell a story about something. You know, something that your grandmother gave you or something that you lost that meant a lot to you. An object can really resonate with people.
(34:06):
Speaker 2It can also even become a symbol after you're done telling that story. And I remember being in a workshop when I got my first storytelling training and Christina Harbor, she's just an amazing human. She brought in a big bag of nothing. It looked like garbage, and then she just started hurling things at us and I wound up getting a straw like a regular old plastic drinking straw.
(34:29):
Speaker 2And she goes, Make a story about your business out of that straw. Go now. And I was like, I remember day in the winter of 1979 when me and my neighbors got decided to go out in the middle of the night and sleigh writing down our hill. It was already confirmed that we weren't going to have school the next day.
(34:53):
Speaker 2And I was so shocked because my mom came with me and it was the one of the greatest winter events of my life. We sat in a toboggan and went down our big steep hill, laughing and giggling the whole way.
Speaker 1While we were.
Speaker 2Thoroughly soaked and absolutely exhausted. Our neighbors invited us over and they made mint chocolate chip milkshakes with these silver straws, and they got colder and colder as we sucked up the milkshake and the chips got all stuck inside. But it was absolute heaven. It was like tasting the winter right outside. And I thought, there's nothing more special than being together with my neighbors on the block and having this super treat and feeling like I was in the perfect.
(35:38):
Speaker 1Place in the world.
Speaker 2And I could take that moment and then go, What is it like to pull together with the team when we want to do something special and accomplish the Uncommon? So then I took that story and told it to my team, serving them milkshakes, and they were sucking on them while I was telling the story and said, What could we do together as a team that would make for the most memorable year ever?
(36:03):
Speaker 2Because that's one of my greatest childhood memories, you know? And it was so improvizational it was so off the cuff. And I have no idea why that story came to me just from looking at a plastic drinking stock straw, which I've had in my mouth a thousand times.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And so I encourage any of your listeners to try that out with the comms team. Just do it on a Monday morning, bring in a big bag and nothing and watch creativity unfold as people look for people, places, objects and events.
(36:31):
Speaker 1That they.
Speaker 2Can tie back into it. So if I just ask you this question, Kristin, what do you remember most from the story I just told you.
Speaker 1Giggling with your mom as you're going down the hill, Mmmmm.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's a beautiful memory. And if you ask that question to ten other people, they would remember other elements of the story matter to them, right? And so then you begin to see, Wow. So from that story, what can we draw? What would be exciting to our audience? What would be exciting to the listener? What would actually move someone into action?
(37:06):
Speaker 2And now how do I take this idea of something that happened in my life and now how do I apply it to the business world? You know, do the unexpected surprise and delight them, as Starbucks would say?
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Think about that. How do we create a close bond and a connection with our customers in a way that they really care? And remember, like me and my.
(37:28):
Speaker 1Mom, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2So give it a shot, Right? It's a fun it's a fun storytelling experiment.
Speaker 1Absolutely. Do you think you like having a story bank or a bank of different separate stories to tell for different scenarios is a good practice. And is it something that you work on with your clients to create?
(37:51):
Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, I've come to find no one story is going to change. Change the world, right? Maybe one would start, but if we want to keep the wheel all going, then we certainly need more than one story. So base it on the emotion. Right. And based on what I need to do. So I typically start off with a theme.
Speaker 2So that emotion might be persistence or perseverance.
(38:11):
Speaker 1Or.
Speaker 2Breakthrough results or hitting our number, whatever that theme is. So I start always with the end in mind What do I need them to think, feel and do? And then I go back and say, okay, where is the story that I can draw from? But hit these themes of persistence or hard.
Speaker 1Work or.
Speaker 2Teamwork or whatever, I go back to my personal life and figure out from those four categories where I can pull examples and then I begin to map out the story. And I don't have to always start at the beginning. Right? Action Adventure Movie start at the car chase so it might be you start at this was never going to work.
(38:49):
Speaker 2Our team had already lost the championships and we were walking home sad right?
Speaker 1You know.
Speaker 2You can start with the end and sometimes it's like.
Speaker 1Damn, you know.
Speaker 2And then we can back into what it is. But we, you know, the next year when we came back or even though we lost, here's what we gained, even in the face of tough times, here's what we gain. So all of those things are possibilities. When you think about trying to capture and tell a great story, we need lots of them and we can start them and stop them in different places.
(39:22):
Speaker 2Even the same story. Stepping on what the audience needs.
Speaker 1I once took a A speech writing slash giving training course, and the woman was a very amazing coach. She had told me that it doesn't have to be your story. It can be a story you've heard or another situation that you've been part of that has nothing to do with you that you can adopt and create and tell a story about something that you saw or heard that's related so you don't have to, even if you can't find it within your own personal life or within your own employees or even your own customer base.
(40:06):
Speaker 1I think you can draw from, you know, the universe of stories and make them relevant for your audience.
Speaker 2That's such a good point, Kristin, because the way I got inspired to take that example from Thailand and bring it to corporate.
Speaker 1Boardrooms.
Speaker 2Was actually I double majored in anthropology and religion, and I was always fascinated as a comms future comms person. I didn't know I was at the time. I didn't know what PR or marketing and communications were really back in the late eighties. But I was fascinated with how the prophets move the word around the world.
(40:48):
Speaker 1Then.
Speaker 2Certainly in an era before Twitter, because 5000 years later we're telling the stories for them, right? I think of the prophets, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad Moses as like the greatest story viral storytellers of all time, because we didn't just hit the like button, like we're hit the share button for thousands of years. We're retelling these same stories. And so how did they do it?
(41:16):
Speaker 2And so I started to deconstruct how the prophets told their stories, to get their followers on board and get them to tell the stories for them. I think in addition to the word that they spread, that's one of the greatest things that they did was get the rest of us telling stories right? And that's another formula for that too, you know, in thinking about how to do that and happy to share it, that's wonderful.
(41:41):
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So what the prophets did was they first and foremost started off with a shared history. So the way I make this rapport with my audience, right, with my listener is what do we have in common? What is our shared history? So if I'm a prophet, I'm looking back on the calendar of events that shape our lives, whether it's Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, if you're Jewish or Christmas and Easter, right, we look back on our lives together and we think about what are those moments?
(42:08):
Speaker 2So in the corporate world, that translates into why did I come to work at this company? Maybe if I'm GE and now I'm enamored by the entrepreneurship and ingenuity of Edison, maybe the benefits in the people were great. And so I'm here for the camaraderie and and the folks. Maybe it's a purpose driven organization and I'm motivated by that.
(42:29):
Speaker 2So where's the shared history? Step one? Step two is they derived the unity of their message around values. So can you articulate what the core values are that you need for my group of innovators? What are the values that you need to hold on to the group together? And then the new values that you need to invoke change.
(42:50):
Speaker 2So if you're Jesus right, and I'll anoint all of your listeners as corporate prophets p-r-o-p-h-e-t-s, it's right, not the profits with a “f”.
Speaker 1Ask.
Speaker 2Don't get big heads though.
Speaker 1But if you think.
Speaker 2Of yourselves as messengers, as prophets of a particular message, imagine trying to take people from going from an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek. That's a behavior change, right?
(43:16):
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2So how do I get people to change their behavior? Well, you and I both come from the same background. We know that way of doing things. We share the same core values of family and ritual and understanding of both our enemies, foreign and domestic. And yet we need to add new values now of patience and forgiveness and maybe kindness.
(43:38):
Speaker 2And I'm not saying that Judaism doesn't possess any of those because they do in spades, but the way that we're presenting that now is moving those values front and center right. So it's a different positioning because Jesus never said he wasn't Jewish, right? The rest of us said that new way of looking at things. And oftentimes, by the way, innovation looks very different in the rearview mirror than it does when it's actually happening.
(44:02):
Speaker 2So that shift from an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek is an installation of new values and new purpose. And on some level, it says we have to leave the old stuff behind. We can't keep doing things this way anymore. It doesn't serve us. And then the next is the next is the message. So for us, for us, marcom folks, crafting the message is the hardest thing.
(44:27):
Speaker 2It's the most important thing, and it has to be the most memorable thing. So crafting that message is critical. And that message, an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek is a big one, right? But maybe it's read my lips, no new taxes or.
Speaker 1Better pop up.
Speaker 2And you can fill in the rest. Right?
Speaker 1Right.
(44:47):
Speaker 2So figuring out that message is critical. And it must say we can't do things the old fashioned way anymore. There will be winners and there will be losers. And the losers are continuing to do it the old way. The winners are moving into a new direction, and the last two steps are finding the early adopters, right? That's our tech term for it.
Speaker 2Jesus, look for 12 close friends, right? Who would have helped them spread the message or the Buddha that took 20 friends into the forest to give his teachings there? So who are the early adopters who will carry the message for you? It's really important if you're a change agent, to find allies in your network who can help spread the message.
(45:27):
Speaker 2And the last is great viral language. So we don't do it just by the three bullets, the Excel spreadsheet or the four paragraph email.
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2We need catchy language. So I'm going to ask all of your listeners to go back to seventh grade English when they first learned what a metaphor simile and analogy rhyme, you know, even alliteration, using all the same letters in a row. Think about what's going to make the message stick, because when it does, that gives people the power to transmit it to somebody else.
(45:56):
Speaker 2So we need to give them the right language. So those are the five steps history values message early adopters, viral language. That's what all the prophets did so well. So we can learn, take a page out of any of those particular books.
Speaker 1Absolutely. That's really good stuff. I'm just thinking about,
Speaker 1I'm thinking about messaging and positioning and telling stories and trying to differentiate a company from another company that does almost the exact same thing. And so many companies go through this exercise and they come out without good messaging and positioning or even a decent story. Right. So why do you think if you were going to give advice to someone who is, you know, a marketing executive or a PR executive who's embarking on a messaging and positioning slash creating a narrative, how would you what would you tell them to do?
(46:58):
Speaker 1Right? And what would you tell them to avoid? How do they know they're doing it? How do they know when it's being done wrong? Well.
Speaker 2What a great question, Kristin, wow. So first, I would say, you know, ask that question. If we're doing the save time, save money makes you more productive. Make sure they go back and ask the customer so that I can do the following. Right. Give me the big benefit to me personally, to the business, to the department, to the company.
(47:26):
Speaker 1To the.
Speaker 2Planet. Maybe. Right. So ask the so that question. The other is.
Speaker 1Our.
Speaker 2Differentiator. Oftentimes if you're an entrepreneur, it starts with your DNA. So you have a very particular I mean, there are probably 10,000 books written on storytelling, right? But everybody has their unique perspective. It's really important assignments. And I would say to find your own way. So if you're on the entrepreneurial side and if you're on like a big corporate, then you can tack back into some of those core values.
(48:00):
Speaker 2But the differentiator comes with ultimately how we're able to do right by the customer in a way that they haven't before. You know, and sometimes I think back to an example like the iPod, you know, many of us had M.P. three players prior to the iPod. If you're as old as me and mine was the size of a brick, it had 50 buttons on it.
(48:25):
Speaker 2It had a CD player and it had.
Speaker 1A.
Speaker 2Radio in it. And for me, this was heaven right? I could listen to. I could discover new music on the radio. I could put in my favorite CDs. I could.
Speaker 1Borrow.
Speaker 2And steal music from Napster and my friends who downloaded their music there.
Speaker 1And I had.
(48:45):
Speaker 2Infinite music. And somehow Steve Jobs managed to convince us that a thousand songs in your pocket was a better idea, that we didn't actually need all the songs on the planet. Yet all we needed was a thousand that we could stick in our pocket, because I certainly couldn't stick that brick in my pocket. And boy, the world shifted on that.
(49:08):
Speaker 2But for me, what's most intriguing about that is Steve Jobs also wore a turtleneck to work every day and jeans because he hated buttoning his shirt. He hated doing the same act every day. What an absolute waste of time, he thought. And also picking out new and different clothing gave him decision fatigue. And so he said to his designer, Jony Ive, he said, I want to create an MP three player, but I want you to make it with as few buttons as possible, because I hate
(49:38):
Speaker 1them.
Speaker 2That's a personal preference.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2And when we can find those things that we love and we hate, those things that cause big emotions in all of us, we find lots of other people hated all of those things too, right? Suddenly the click wheel is born and we're finding music in this whole new way of discovery. Just because this guy didn't feel like buttoning up a shirt every day.
(50:02):
Speaker 2Like so those.
Speaker 1Little those.
Speaker 2Little pieces of DNA that get stuck to the things that we create, you know, we take our why into the world and we create beautiful things with it. Those are oftentimes opportunities for differentiation When we ask, why did you make it that way? How does this relate to your bigger purpose of really changing things or shaking things up?
(50:24):
Speaker 2The why doesn't have to exist, you know, just exist, and why did I come into the world or what is my big purpose? But why did you decide to make it that way? What's different about how we make it or how we sell it, or how we package it? Like thinking about any product or service is being this incredible diamond.
(50:45):
Speaker 2And our responsibility as marketers is to find all the coolest.
Speaker 1Facets.
Speaker 2To bring to the surface. And when you can tell a great story about any one of those facets, then you know something sticking. If it's like, Wow, it has 50 buttons, okay, that might be exciting for my future. MP3 manufacturers, but it might not. So try out the stories around all the different facets and see which ones get your audiences most excited.
(51:14):
Speaker 2If I just asked the photographers, they would have told me how exciting the sand.
Speaker 1Was most.
Speaker 2Compelling story.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Maybe we should have taken a little more time to figure out why. Why sand could have been the best part of that story yet. Having fun? Yeah.
Speaker 1okay. One more question I just wanted to ask the question is, is there something I should have asked you that I didn't that you think would be really insightful to share?
(51:45):
Speaker 2So, you kind of asked me a different question earlier, and then I didn't answer it, which was how do I know I'm telling a good story or how do I know I'm in an environment where I can tell a great story and some environments lend themselves better to stories than others. I had the Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Scientist from 3M on my show and I told her that Corning Glass story could never fly at three m You know, we like our fluffed.
(52:09):
Speaker 2We are the manufacturers of the Post-it, the diaper, you name it, right? The adhesive that closes every Huggies. She has 77 patents in that technology alone is how a diaper closes. She goes, But you know your audience. So my engineers would laugh at that Corning Glass story. What they want to hear is tell me it's the stickiest or the least sticky like a Post-it on the planet.
(52:35):
Speaker 2Tell me about how you decided to make it that way. Tell me other things about this that really work. So I would ask, like, what is number one? Are you in an environment where you have safety, where you can tell a story and be regarded for that story? And if you screw it up, are people going to be like, try that again?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. So if you're in an environment that works and don't stop with the first story, keep trying. We would never put out a product without a B testing it first, right? Or launching a website. Do the same thing with your stories. Try it on a couple different people your spouse, your family members, your kids. See how they.
(53:11):
Speaker 1Respond.
Speaker 2This is all audience approval based, so we got to make sure we're testing and trying.
Speaker 1I love that. Okay. So that that wraps this up for today, Susan. This has just been such a great conversation. I've learned so much from you. I admire all you've achieved. And most of all, I appreciate you joining us on the show today. And of course, I would love to do it again sometime. To everyone listening, thank you for checking out Marcom Mode.
(53:44):
Speaker 1Make sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or real. Listen to your podcasts. But before you take off, Susan, where is the best place for people to connect with you?
Speaker 2so they can certainly listen to my podcast where I interviewed Chief Innovation Officers and their team members about the cool new things that they're working on, but most importantly, the stories they tell to get their innovation to their finish line. And those finish lines may include failure, and that's okay, too. The other thing is they can sign up for my newsletter and I'm happy to give all of your listeners for free the Five Steps to Innovation Storytelling.
(54:21):
Speaker 2That is a worksheet, so you can start mapping out your story directly from it. You can just go to innovationstorytellers.com And there's a form to sign up right there for the newsletter and all the tips you need about storytelling to make your marcom life that much more fun and engaging.
Speaker 1I love that. Thank you, Susan. I'll definitely share that. When we share the podcast, we'll share that tip sheet as well.
(54:43):
Speaker 2Fantastic.
Speaker 1And thank you everyone for listening. Until next time, remember, stories spark engagement and every strategy needs a good story.
Speaker 1Hello and welcome to another episode of Marcom Mode. Your podcast and webinar series for marketing leaders who enjoy the challenge of driving growth for a company but are overwhelmed by being expected to achieve the same or even better results with fewer resources. With Marcom Mode we bring you meaningful conversations with marketing and PR leaders who can provide real life examples of how to prioritize for success,
(00:36):
Speaker 1overcome common challenges and build effective teams. We also discuss what's working well and producing results while sharing best practices for generating a healthy pipeline, building brand awareness and achieving revenue goals. As always, I'm your host, Kristin Jones, and today we are fortunate because we have a special guest, Susan Lindner, who is the CEO and founder of Innovation Storytellers.
(01:01):
Speaker 1Welcome, Susan, and thanks for being on the show today.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, this is going to be such a fun conversation, Kristin. I'm so looking forward to it.
Speaker 1Me too. I mean, there are just so many things we can talk about, but I really want to dive into innovation, storytelling. What is it like? Why is it essential and how can
Speaker 1we overcome challenges that always arise with any time the opportunity to craft a compelling story?
(01:25):
Speaker 2Yeah, So innovation storytelling is a little bit different than regular old storytelling in that it requires a storyteller to paint a picture of the future that other people can't see yet. And it's especially true of entrepreneurs who are creating breakthrough technologies. These are anyone who has innovation as part of their mandate in their job description. If it's not specifically stated in their title, like a chief innovation officer
(01:52):
Speaker 2who is trying to drive change.
Speaker 2And so we need to take people from the status quo into a new reality and story is the bridge that gets us there. And so when we start to think about what that future looks like, it's our job as storytellers to talk about the most important word in my vocabulary, which is goodwill. The act of making somebody else's life better as a result of making a change.
(02:18):
Speaker 2And so when we keep that as the heartbeat of the story, goodwill, amazing things happen for both us as the teller and for our listeners.
Speaker 1I love that. I was just talking with a colleague of mine who was talking about
Speaker 1building purposeful brands, and she said some very similar things about, you know, it's just really important to make sure that why are you doing something and how are you, you
(02:42):
Speaker 1making life or the world better.
Speaker 1I recently read a just a small study conducted by Stanford at Stanford University professors names Chip, Chip Keith, and he asked his students to give one minute, a one minute speech on nonviolent crime.
Speaker 1And most of the students presented data, of course, like two and a half statistics per speech. But only one out of ten students told a story. And so when the professor polled all of his students just 10 minutes afterwards,
(03:15):
Speaker 163% of students remembered the stories and only 5% could remember a single stat. That's like that's eye opening, you know, because sometimes, you know, marketing and communications professionals, we come in with the stats and the survey questions and the ROI,
Speaker 1but if you don't have a story behind that,
(03:37):
Speaker 1then you don't have a story. And so I would love to have you talk about you know, you talked a little bit about how innovation, storytelling is unique, but also when we're innovating, we're using lots of stats and showing how we're better than the competition and in the B to B sales cycle particularly, it's about ROI.
Speaker 1So talk a little bit about how stats are important, but they have to underpin a story.
(04:05):
Speaker 2Yes,
Speaker 2they are. You know, I think of it as the ice cream rather than the whipped cream of the story. Right. That those statistics are really important. But what's imperative if we want people to remember it and I often quote Chip’s study in my own talks and and in consulting with big companies is we're 22 times more likely to remember the story.
(04:27):
Speaker 2Right. That's the statistic that you quoted. And the reason why that matters is that storytelling now becomes an executives think like the most valuable executive productivity device, because when we our lives, especially now post-COVID, are just filled with endless Zoom meetings. And if we are expected to remember and act on three bullet points and in the attached Excel spreadsheet, we are not.
(04:58):
Speaker 1Moved to act.
Speaker 2And so a great story. And even the numbers require the addition of narrative in order to drive human action. And so an innovation story in particular needs momentum. It needs to build and it needs to have owners of that story, not just the people who tell it, but for the listener to say, Wow, that is so fantastic. And the way you presented those numbers are so important that now I hear the story I internalze the story, and most importantly, I'm able to share the story with someone else.
(05:39):
Speaker 2Because without that last piece, we are missing out on memorability credibility and frankly, the ability to drive change. So that's why story plus data is so important. If we have an expectation of action, we're not moved by numbers alone. I mean, otherwise none of us would smoke, drink, over eat and sit on the couch instead of exercise. We know all the numbers.
(06:08):
Speaker 2None of them have compelled us to change our behavior necessarily. It's not until we actually get an emotion behind it. Like, I got to do this. I do this for my kids. I feel tons of shame. I feel tons of fear. I feel tons of guilt. I feel elated when I'm done exercising. Emotion drives action. That's why it matters.
(06:28):
Speaker 1I would love it if you could share an example of how you of an innovation and innovation story that you helped a client master and how you went about identifying what the story was, crafting the narrative, and then bringing it to fruition all the way through having the executives actually be able to tell the story or stories.
(06:50):
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2You know, and you raise a good point about making that plural. There's no one singular story, right, that moves people into action. You'll need like three or four, depending on first and foremost, laying the groundwork for the audience.
Speaker 1Right. So before I.
Speaker 2I'm happy to tell you lots of great stories, but perhaps it's helpful for your readers, especially folks who are in MarCom like all of us are. And I've spent 20 years as a high tech PR person running an agency. So using those experiences, step one, the most important thing before you ever tell a story is to listen. And I'm an anthropologist by training, so.
(07:36):
Speaker 1We use tools.
Speaker 2Like Angiography. We want to understand the demographics, the culture, that mindset of the people that we're talking to. We want to use a technique called Appreciative inquiry or US lay folk. That's surveys and interviews of really beginning to appreciate what is positive and what is a driving force for our listener that would change their behavior. If I'm working in innovation right, I'm not just here to educate.
(08:06):
Speaker 2I'm here to shift from the status quo to the future. So I want to understand what are the behaviors and the beliefs that will drive action on the part of my listener. So sometimes that, you know, I want to save time, I want to make money, I want to be more productive. Right? Your standard B2B sale But the question then becomes, so we need to fill in the blank as communicators and ask the next question so that what happens oftentimes are B2B sales.
(08:39):
Speaker 2And we're trying to get these three bullet points right. We save you this much, we give you this much productivity back, we save you this much time. But that is the basis of a B2B. So every single B2B company in the world saves you time, saves you money, makes you more productive. So my response to that is who cares if my lawyer saves me time, money and makes me more productive because I didn't have to waste three years in law school, go $200,000 in debt, and then, you know, and then be able to figure out my $600 an hour problem.
(09:13):
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2So we need to go beyond that. So if I'm a B2B storyteller, my next question is what is my customer doing with the time, money and productivity that I'm giving him or her back? So when I find that out, wow.
Speaker 1You're.
Speaker 2Going to use my product to expand to new markets, increase your product roadmap, take on new employees, fire more employees, you know, make decisions about what's coming next, our new business model or how will deploy capital in a way that we never have before, like those are the outcomes of this. So that question. So I might look at the very big picture and then the next level down, I'll say what about for you personally, maybe I want to save time, save money, make me more productive so that I can leave the office at 530 and see my kids soccer.
(10:08):
Speaker 2Maybe that my cybersecurity software is not going off at all hours of the day and night and actually get a weekend myself. You know, maybe I want very selfishly, I want this tech to work or I want this product to work so I can get a raise or a promotion in the next two years. Right? So do we actually know what the drivers are of our listener before we ever start telling the story?
(10:32):
Speaker 2So as communicators, let's make sure we ask those questions.
Speaker 1Before.
Speaker 2We dive into just blaring out a story. It's like pitching a reporter without even knowing what they write about. You know.
Speaker 1I hear you.
Speaker 2We're not knowing our personas. You know, the people that we're selling to.
Speaker 1The pain points of what their problems are. Yes.
(10:54):
Speaker 2You know, and oftentimes so my specialty is working with non-native English speakers who are coming to the US to make their mark on the US market. So they bring with them all kinds of delights and challenges coming to this market. And so I often say, you know, we're going to use a very New York example before I ever embark on the story.
(11:14):
Speaker 2Ask yourself, where is my customer bleeding from the neck? How can I be the tourniquet? Not just the vitamin, right? But how can I actually save them and make them the hero for stopping the bleeding? Right. Mine is just my thing. Whatever it is I'm selling is just a.
Speaker 1Tool.
Speaker 2To help them become a hero. Which leads me to the next question. If I could make you the hero of your own story, what would need to happen? And that for me, is the quintessential dividing line. And I came upon that discovery when I was working in brothels in Thailand, doing HIV education with sex workers and their customers.
(11:57):
Speaker 2And those women were in very tough position, seeing about eight customers a night in in in.
Speaker 1An.
Speaker 2Area where one in six sexually active people were HIV positive. And there are three AIDS funerals a day where I lived. And to help get women out of sight, out of the sex trade and into something different, we had to ask them, you know, number one, what is most important to you right now? And across the board, the answer was survival.
(12:28):
Speaker 2But when we said, what would it take for you to become the hero of your own story, the answer was, I want to be in control of my own destiny. So then the next question for us is development workers was how do we help them do that? And the answer for us was entrepreneurship. So helping women get out of the sex trade by training them while they were still in the trade to become their own small business owners was a way to put power back in their hands and rapidly reduce HIV infection because now they were motivated to use a condom every single time.
(13:03):
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2You make sure they, you know, they employed safe sex practices. And then that became the thing with.
Speaker 1The.
Speaker 2The customers who said, I'm not just here for pleasure as the hero. I want to be the protector of my family. I want to come out and have a good time. And I don't want to bring HIV home to my wife and my unborn kids. My future.
(13:25):
Speaker 1Kids. Right.
Speaker 2And even for the Mama Sun who own the brothel, she went from just being I'm here about the profit. I don't care about anyone else to. I want to be the protector of my community and I want to ensure the longevity and the reputation of my establishment.
Speaker 1So something.
Speaker 2That thinking about that shift was everything for me of like, how do I make the listener the hero and digging way deeper down than just like, saves time, saves money, makes you more.
(13:55):
Speaker 1Productive.
Speaker 2So I think for your listeners, asking even their clients to say, what are they doing with all that time, money and productivity you're saving them. Have them go back and have the sales team go back and say, How's life changed a year after deploying this technology, using our product, being in relationship with you, having this partnership, whatever it is, how has your life changed?
(14:18):
Speaker 2Not just how has your work changed?
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2Get a plethora of answers you never thought possible. That's just a bit of a circuitous way to answer the question What's a cool story you've told? But I think we really have to ground ourselves as storytellers in thinking about the audience before we ever started speaking.
Speaker 1Yes, I love that. I mean, that's such a great and,
(14:39):
Speaker 1just poignant example of how you can really make change. And like you said, behavior change is hard. Behavior change is hard anyway. But, you know, trying to any six year old
Speaker 1and, you know, like you said, even in B to B sales, we are actually selling to people and having them to make a big decision.
(14:59):
Speaker 1Often that is quite expensive and we're all emotional creatures and we all know that emotion drives and influences us way more powerfully than data or a PowerPoint presentation or, ROI. I mean, they have to have those things. Suppose you know to take it to their executives, but to, like, want to buy from you. They have people by the people they like and businesses that they believe in and ways that are going to help them.
(15:29):
Speaker 1Like you said, you become their own hero and achieve what they want to achieve. Now that not what the salesperson wants to achieve, they.
Speaker 1So let's talk about, you know, again, storytelling. It's hard. I mean, if it were easy, we'd all be writing blockbuster movies.
Speaker 2That's right. And AI will be doing it next week.
(15:52):
Speaker 1It's particularly hard, like you said, for companies and executives who are in that daily grind of trying to make a product and, you know, grow the company. So how do you get them? What are the what are the biggest challenges that you have faced or that your clients have faced or related to getting their innovation story crafted and told?
(16:15):
Speaker 1And how have you helped them overcome those challenges?
Speaker 2Yeah. So let's talk about some of those great stories that you were asking me about and how we do it. So I'll use this as both a how to and an example. So before we start writing the story, ask yourself as a storyteller are now thinking about the change that you want to enact. What do you want the listener When you are done speaking, what do you need them to think?
(16:40):
Speaker 2What do you need them to feel and what do you need them to do? So from a reputation standpoint or about a product or service, maybe we need to educate them about how the product works, or maybe we need to talk to them about the reputation or the brand, right? Maybe we want to talk about really sticky situation, like what we think about pending layoffs, right?
(17:03):
Speaker 2Or we're cutting that product that you've been working on. We're now going to redeploy you somewhere else. So what do we need? People to think? So I want to make sure that I have my data, my information correct in my presentation in a way that's digestible. What do I want them to feel? So if I go to my next my call to action, what do I need them to.
Speaker 1Do.
(17:24):
Speaker 2If I need them to buy something, if I need them to invest, if I need them to partner, if I need them to back off or get engaged, if whatever the end goal is. Now, make a map of the emotions your listener needs to feel in order to do the thing. So make a list of a mix of emotions.
(17:44):
Speaker 2Like I need them to trust me. I need them to feel energized. I need them to feel supportive or helpful. I need them to feel.
Speaker 1Fear or disgust or.
Speaker 2Rage. You decide as the storyteller, like any great screenwriter, when at what point do you add the suspense or the feeling that makes the listeners palms sweat and their.
(18:06):
Speaker 1Heartbeat.
Speaker 2Faster? That's all on you, the Storyteller. So think about what is the thing I need them to do. And now we back into their what do I need them to feel in order to do the thing? And then so I'll give you an example. So I got to Corning Glass, which is one of the biggest glass manufacturers in the world, and I was assigned to work with the team of Fractogrpahors.
(18:32):
Speaker 2I don't know if you've ever had the good fortune of working with Fractogrpahors? I had not, and I didn't know what they were.
Speaker 1Something about light, bright light.
Speaker 2No great gas. But these are the scientists who see how glass breaks. Very vital right way, how it fractures. Yeah. So. So these are the folks who determine when your head hits a windshield, whether or not the windshield will pop out, whether it will bend, or whether it will break into a thousand little rounded marble. So you don't get shards of glass in your neck.
(19:06):
Speaker 2Right. Very important people in a glass factory. And they were about to announce or to ask rather, the CEO and the.
Speaker 1Board for.
Speaker 2Funding for a new windshield that they were creating. So this windshield,
Speaker 2they decided they were going to present to the board with a 59 page PowerPoint deck that began the first two slides with an electron model of the sand that went into the making of the windshield. And I thought, my God, I'm going to die from boredom.
(19:38):
Speaker 2If we are starting off.
Speaker 1At the sand.
Speaker 2Level, we're never going to get to the benefits of this fantastic windshield. And so in the middle of that presentation, one of the Fractogrpahors became an ant and Amy was doing and I'm showing us the pictures on her cell phone of this adorable little baby that was just born in Ohio. And so after the oohing and eyeing, the Fractogrpahors went back to the sand diagram and we're getting into the protons.
(20:07):
Speaker 2And I was like, my eyes were just in the back of my head. And so I said, Amy, show us the picture of that baby one more time. I said, Guys, look at this baby. Imagine those tiny little neurons firing at a million miles an hour as it learns everything new, it absorbs. And imagine those capillaries growing and just bringing blood to every corner of this kid's body and their pancreas growing at just amazing proportions, right, with each heartbeat of this baby.
(20:35):
Speaker 2And they looked at me like I had three heads and they looked back at their electron model and said, We're getting a little granular, aren't we? Yes. And that's the worst sand joke ever.
Speaker 1I've seen it.
Speaker 2They didn't look at it.
Speaker 1So.
(20:56):
Speaker 2So with that in mind, I said, you know, we need to we need to zoom out and step back and really think about what matters. So long story short, we got down to a ten page slide deck with the storyteller beginning the story with Imagine yourself sitting in your self-driving Tesla cruising through traffic in the middle of L.A., but instead of stressing, you get to rest and recline and watch the second half of Bridget Jones diary or catch up on those last couple of emails you left in your draft folder at the office.
(21:32):
Speaker 2And that's because your windshield has now become your personal productivity and entertainment device. Imagine your 55 inch flat screen TV has now just replaced your windshield glass. That's the windshield that we're offering to Tesla today with your help of $1.5 million.
(21:53):
Speaker 1Let's we're going going.
Speaker 2From way too granular. And this is the problem, right? A lot of storytellers get either super granular or super grandiose.
Speaker 1We're going to die.
Speaker 2If we don't address climate change.
Speaker 1Right now.
Speaker 2We get down to electrons and there's oftentimes nothing in between. So storytellers need to meet their audience where they are. And and don't forget, everyone on that Corning board has a PhD after their name, you know, their PhDs in chemistry and physics and everything else. But that's not their day to day, and that's not where their brain is.
(22:29):
Speaker 2And so that's how we need to tell a story by figuring out exactly what matters to the people in the room.
Speaker 1So how did you get them to I mean, make that transition and get to I mean, how did you coach them and help them down that path to get down to ten slides in such a great story? You know.
Speaker 2First is a recognition, especially with innovators that like at some point in time, our school system has failed us right at the university level. One side goes to the humanities side of campus and the other side goes to the science side of campus. And the science side folks are told that everything that's happening in the humanities is bullshit, right?
(23:06):
Speaker 2It's fluff. It's nothing. It's it's not even verifiable. Everything we do is empirical and true and provable. And the deeper you get into your specific area of expertise, the more granular, the more focused the language becomes. And so what the scientists forget is that there's this whole field of communication science that the rest of us, MarCom folks have been working on for a very long time.
(23:32):
Speaker 2You know, and certainly Chip is one of the leaders in that discussion, right? So as we think about it, joining these two folks back together again is, first a reminder. We've got science, too.
Speaker 1That I'd like to share it with them.
Speaker 2And by the way, if you want to get this chocolate with this peanut butter together, you're going to have to speak a little bit of this other language so that we can understand you. Otherwise we're just lost. And so I also think some innovators never get to the customer at all. So while they're so thrilled, like they've fallen in love with their own invention rather than the client's problem.
(24:11):
Speaker 1On.
Speaker 2That and they don't get to talk to the customer so that the fact that they've invented a new kind of sand.
Speaker 1Is.
Speaker 2The most exciting thing to them. The fact that actually has to be applied and put into an automobile at some point is a reminder to reconnect back to like why it is that we're doing what is the goodwill that we're actually offering the market.
(24:37):
Speaker 1It goes back to your first statement of how are you making life better, You know.
Speaker 2And especially the audience in the room. Right. The fact that they're going to make. But Jillian's on it. Fantastic, right? That might be a good reminder for the board and the CEO. But also we're going to have the most cutting edge freaking coolest windshield on the planet.
(24:59):
Speaker 1Right. And we have the smartest scientists in the room making it happen with these new innovations in Sand.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 1This is why we can do it and no one else can. Right.
Speaker 1How do you make sure when you're telling these innovation stories, how do you make sure that it's aligned with business priorities? Now, I know that was a good example that you just gave about, you know, this great new windshield that we're going to bring to market and self-driving cars is a burgeoning market.
(25:30):
Speaker 1And so we're entering this new market of self-driving cars with new windshields. So obviously that ties in to the business strategy.
Speaker 1how do you what do you do? You go through a process of understanding what the business goals are and where they're trying to, you know, expand revenue as you're embarking on this journey.
(25:51):
Speaker 2Yeah, and revenue may not always be the biggest driver right.
Speaker 2For me, for my clients who are largely chief innovation officers in their teams, product managers, sometimes UX and customer experience folks,
Speaker 2oftentimes they're operating on fantastic experiments and they're at prototype level. And so the next rung of influence as we look at those concentric circles is maybe the engineering team whose plate is already full just trying to meet each quarter's demand.
(26:21):
Speaker 2But now we're like, We've got this cool new idea and it looks like it's going to work. Can you help us scale it? And the engineering team goes with what extra hands. Yeah. So it's all my innovation story now I shift and go. What matters to the engineer? What's going to make them the hero of the story? Not necessarily the customer sitting in his Tesla, but rather now my engineering team.
(26:43):
Speaker 2So now I get to think about what benefits they incur as a result, because frankly, for most of the innovation team, someone else always takes credit for the innovation. It's not that they created it, it's who got to scale it, sell it, market it, watch the stock price go up, All those other people take credit for it.
Speaker 1While.
Speaker 2The innovator is already failing in their next new experiment. Right. So it's figuring out that next level. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's it's hard stuff. It's how do we get people to be productive for the next six months knowing that we're about to lay them off? You know, I've talked to clients who said.
(27:21):
Speaker 1We're.
Speaker 2Embarking on an AI program that is absolutely amazing and groundbreaking, and everyone who helps set up the AI will be out of a.
Speaker 1Job, but they're.
Speaker 2Training their own robot to replace that.
Speaker 1Right? That's disheartening, I'm sure. So how do they motivate them?
Speaker 2So, you know, the story is you are going to be at the cutting edge of learning how to do this work. And if not here, you can take these skills and use them elsewhere. That feels quite self-serving. But in this age, the ability to get your get hands on experience for converting a call center, let's say, from what was to what will be that person's skills are now going to be in demand 100 fold.
(28:07):
Speaker 1Sure they didn't them before.
Speaker 2All they knew how to do was answer a customer call.
Speaker 1Right? That's very true.
Speaker 2So thinking about, you know, how do we find the positives and going and asking that team, what would you want to get out of this experience? Because we're going down, we're going down this route.
Speaker 1And then helping them get achieve that goal. Like you said, maybe they're just upper level in their skill set, so maybe they can get that not even just another job, but maybe a better paying job, because now they have this AI expertise.
(28:38):
Speaker 2That's right. And now they're the prompt engineer, the best prompt engineer for call center AI.
Speaker 1Which apparently those jobs are going for like $350,000 right now.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm changing my title.
Speaker 1Let's see
Speaker 1let's walk. Let's walk through an example. Okay? You engage the client to help them build a narrative. You understand their business priorities, and you've crafted a compelling story or like we talked about a series of stories to help them achieve whatever business goal they have. Where does this process, where does that process typically break down?
(29:17):
Speaker 1I mean, like, what problems get in the way of your clients actually telling the stories in a way that enables them to achieve that business goal? Is it do you have to give them, much like me, the training? Do you have to train them on how to tell the story? You know? So where does that breakdown happen? Yeah.
Speaker 2So ask anybody you know that you work with, and I'll say this to all my comms friends out there is ask them how many people have actively received storytelling training.
(29:45):
Speaker 1Right? It will be a very small group.
Speaker 2Even though McKinsey pegs it as one of the top 40 skills that any executive must have, because it used to be that those scientists that I work with could just toss it over to internal comms and marketing to tell the story to somebody else. Now they have to, and that's part of getting promoted, of being visible, and of being able to communicate across global teams.
(30:12):
Speaker 2Right. Most most of these executives have people, you know, from.
Speaker 1Peru.
Speaker 2To, you know, Peoria to everywhere in between. So so step one is getting the right training
Speaker 2around how to tell good stories and then flexing that muscle if you're not accustomed to it. You know, I like to remind people that virtually everything we learn in the world only happens two ways. The first is, you know, experience. I touch the stove, I burn myself, and the other is mom going, don't touch the stove, you'll burn yourself.
(30:47):
Speaker 2That's a story.
Speaker 1Right? You know.
Speaker 2We think of that as this kind of rarefied air, but in reality, the way that we communicate information all day long, if whether we got it from a teacher or a professor, our favorite chef, whomever, it's story. And then taking a step inside the boardroom strategy is just a story until you execute on it. It's a fiction, right?
(31:11):
Speaker 2We're going to hit this number of revenue, you know this amount of revenue, and we're going to put out this many products and sell this many widgets by the end of 2023. Well, that's a fiction until it actually comes to bear.
Speaker 1And I might add into that that that executive needs a really good story to motivate is his teams to it to execute against that strategy. So there's that story plus the story of when it's done right.
(31:36):
Speaker 2So many times what that CEO story is. I want to be the best. I want to be the greatest. I want to smash our competition. And if you don't hit it, you won't be here.
Speaker 1That's such a bad story.
Speaker 2Motivated now.
Speaker 1Although I think he's leading with the fear element. Yeah.
Speaker 2Right. And the rah rah like we're the best.
(31:59):
Speaker 1In a.
Speaker 2So getting people trained in that storytelling. And I like to give people examples. Many times people ask me, I want to do this storytelling thing. I don't know how to find the story. Help me find a story. I don't know what to use. And so, you know, for your listeners, if you're looking for a great story, instead of just staring at a blank screen, you can use chat.
(32:21):
Speaker 2GPP Help me write a great story about X, right? Give it a prompt, see what comes up for you. But if you want to delve and make it really personal and you want to make it stick so that people get to know you and respect you as a leader, I often direct people to four ways of finding a great story.
Speaker 2So the first is people who are the people that you admire, the people you respected, the people that you hated, the people who you feared. Big emotions around people. And the same holds true for places so we can all relate to having been to the Eiffel Tower or but maybe it was I hid under my bunk, you know, at sleepaway camp because I was so afraid that Bobby Ryerson was going to kiss me.
(33:09):
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2There was fear lurking. Right? So think about a place it doesn't, you know, the haunted house at Disney World, like the most terrifying place on earth, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1Think about.
Speaker 2That place. So people, places, events. I graduated from college. I failed my driver's test for the fourth time. Those are great stories, maybe about persistence or perseverance.
(33:33):
Speaker 1Or charm or cunning or.
Speaker 2I slept through all my classes, but boy, I put in a performance on that final.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Whatever it is that you need to convey, think about the people, the places, the events. And the last is objects. So a treasured heirloom you could bring in to tell a story about something. You know, something that your grandmother gave you or something that you lost that meant a lot to you. An object can really resonate with people.
(34:06):
Speaker 2It can also even become a symbol after you're done telling that story. And I remember being in a workshop when I got my first storytelling training and Christina Harbor, she's just an amazing human. She brought in a big bag of nothing. It looked like garbage, and then she just started hurling things at us and I wound up getting a straw like a regular old plastic drinking straw.
(34:29):
Speaker 2And she goes, Make a story about your business out of that straw. Go now. And I was like, I remember day in the winter of 1979 when me and my neighbors got decided to go out in the middle of the night and sleigh writing down our hill. It was already confirmed that we weren't going to have school the next day.
(34:53):
Speaker 2And I was so shocked because my mom came with me and it was the one of the greatest winter events of my life. We sat in a toboggan and went down our big steep hill, laughing and giggling the whole way.
Speaker 1While we were.
Speaker 2Thoroughly soaked and absolutely exhausted. Our neighbors invited us over and they made mint chocolate chip milkshakes with these silver straws, and they got colder and colder as we sucked up the milkshake and the chips got all stuck inside. But it was absolute heaven. It was like tasting the winter right outside. And I thought, there's nothing more special than being together with my neighbors on the block and having this super treat and feeling like I was in the perfect.
(35:38):
Speaker 1Place in the world.
Speaker 2And I could take that moment and then go, What is it like to pull together with the team when we want to do something special and accomplish the Uncommon? So then I took that story and told it to my team, serving them milkshakes, and they were sucking on them while I was telling the story and said, What could we do together as a team that would make for the most memorable year ever?
(36:03):
Speaker 2Because that's one of my greatest childhood memories, you know? And it was so improvizational it was so off the cuff. And I have no idea why that story came to me just from looking at a plastic drinking stock straw, which I've had in my mouth a thousand times.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And so I encourage any of your listeners to try that out with the comms team. Just do it on a Monday morning, bring in a big bag and nothing and watch creativity unfold as people look for people, places, objects and events.
(36:31):
Speaker 1That they.
Speaker 2Can tie back into it. So if I just ask you this question, Kristin, what do you remember most from the story I just told you.
Speaker 1Giggling with your mom as you're going down the hill, Mmmmm.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's a beautiful memory. And if you ask that question to ten other people, they would remember other elements of the story matter to them, right? And so then you begin to see, Wow. So from that story, what can we draw? What would be exciting to our audience? What would be exciting to the listener? What would actually move someone into action?
(37:06):
Speaker 2And now how do I take this idea of something that happened in my life and now how do I apply it to the business world? You know, do the unexpected surprise and delight them, as Starbucks would say?
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Think about that. How do we create a close bond and a connection with our customers in a way that they really care? And remember, like me and my.
(37:28):
Speaker 1Mom, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2So give it a shot, Right? It's a fun it's a fun storytelling experiment.
Speaker 1Absolutely. Do you think you like having a story bank or a bank of different separate stories to tell for different scenarios is a good practice. And is it something that you work on with your clients to create?
(37:51):
Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, I've come to find no one story is going to change. Change the world, right? Maybe one would start, but if we want to keep the wheel all going, then we certainly need more than one story. So base it on the emotion. Right. And based on what I need to do. So I typically start off with a theme.
Speaker 2So that emotion might be persistence or perseverance.
(38:11):
Speaker 1Or.
Speaker 2Breakthrough results or hitting our number, whatever that theme is. So I start always with the end in mind What do I need them to think, feel and do? And then I go back and say, okay, where is the story that I can draw from? But hit these themes of persistence or hard.
Speaker 1Work or.
Speaker 2Teamwork or whatever, I go back to my personal life and figure out from those four categories where I can pull examples and then I begin to map out the story. And I don't have to always start at the beginning. Right? Action Adventure Movie start at the car chase so it might be you start at this was never going to work.
(38:49):
Speaker 2Our team had already lost the championships and we were walking home sad right?
Speaker 1You know.
Speaker 2You can start with the end and sometimes it's like.
Speaker 1Damn, you know.
Speaker 2And then we can back into what it is. But we, you know, the next year when we came back or even though we lost, here's what we gained, even in the face of tough times, here's what we gain. So all of those things are possibilities. When you think about trying to capture and tell a great story, we need lots of them and we can start them and stop them in different places.
(39:22):
Speaker 2Even the same story. Stepping on what the audience needs.
Speaker 1I once took a A speech writing slash giving training course, and the woman was a very amazing coach. She had told me that it doesn't have to be your story. It can be a story you've heard or another situation that you've been part of that has nothing to do with you that you can adopt and create and tell a story about something that you saw or heard that's related so you don't have to, even if you can't find it within your own personal life or within your own employees or even your own customer base.
(40:06):
Speaker 1I think you can draw from, you know, the universe of stories and make them relevant for your audience.
Speaker 2That's such a good point, Kristin, because the way I got inspired to take that example from Thailand and bring it to corporate.
Speaker 1Boardrooms.
Speaker 2Was actually I double majored in anthropology and religion, and I was always fascinated as a comms future comms person. I didn't know I was at the time. I didn't know what PR or marketing and communications were really back in the late eighties. But I was fascinated with how the prophets move the word around the world.
(40:48):
Speaker 1Then.
Speaker 2Certainly in an era before Twitter, because 5000 years later we're telling the stories for them, right? I think of the prophets, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad Moses as like the greatest story viral storytellers of all time, because we didn't just hit the like button, like we're hit the share button for thousands of years. We're retelling these same stories. And so how did they do it?
(41:16):
Speaker 2And so I started to deconstruct how the prophets told their stories, to get their followers on board and get them to tell the stories for them. I think in addition to the word that they spread, that's one of the greatest things that they did was get the rest of us telling stories right? And that's another formula for that too, you know, in thinking about how to do that and happy to share it, that's wonderful.
(41:41):
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2So what the prophets did was they first and foremost started off with a shared history. So the way I make this rapport with my audience, right, with my listener is what do we have in common? What is our shared history? So if I'm a prophet, I'm looking back on the calendar of events that shape our lives, whether it's Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, if you're Jewish or Christmas and Easter, right, we look back on our lives together and we think about what are those moments?
(42:08):
Speaker 2So in the corporate world, that translates into why did I come to work at this company? Maybe if I'm GE and now I'm enamored by the entrepreneurship and ingenuity of Edison, maybe the benefits in the people were great. And so I'm here for the camaraderie and and the folks. Maybe it's a purpose driven organization and I'm motivated by that.
(42:29):
Speaker 2So where's the shared history? Step one? Step two is they derived the unity of their message around values. So can you articulate what the core values are that you need for my group of innovators? What are the values that you need to hold on to the group together? And then the new values that you need to invoke change.
(42:50):
Speaker 2So if you're Jesus right, and I'll anoint all of your listeners as corporate prophets p-r-o-p-h-e-t-s, it's right, not the profits with a “f”.
Speaker 1Ask.
Speaker 2Don't get big heads though.
Speaker 1But if you think.
Speaker 2Of yourselves as messengers, as prophets of a particular message, imagine trying to take people from going from an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek. That's a behavior change, right?
(43:16):
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2So how do I get people to change their behavior? Well, you and I both come from the same background. We know that way of doing things. We share the same core values of family and ritual and understanding of both our enemies, foreign and domestic. And yet we need to add new values now of patience and forgiveness and maybe kindness.
(43:38):
Speaker 2And I'm not saying that Judaism doesn't possess any of those because they do in spades, but the way that we're presenting that now is moving those values front and center right. So it's a different positioning because Jesus never said he wasn't Jewish, right? The rest of us said that new way of looking at things. And oftentimes, by the way, innovation looks very different in the rearview mirror than it does when it's actually happening.
(44:02):
Speaker 2So that shift from an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek is an installation of new values and new purpose. And on some level, it says we have to leave the old stuff behind. We can't keep doing things this way anymore. It doesn't serve us. And then the next is the next is the message. So for us, for us, marcom folks, crafting the message is the hardest thing.
(44:27):
Speaker 2It's the most important thing, and it has to be the most memorable thing. So crafting that message is critical. And that message, an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek is a big one, right? But maybe it's read my lips, no new taxes or.
Speaker 1Better pop up.
Speaker 2And you can fill in the rest. Right?
Speaker 1Right.
(44:47):
Speaker 2So figuring out that message is critical. And it must say we can't do things the old fashioned way anymore. There will be winners and there will be losers. And the losers are continuing to do it the old way. The winners are moving into a new direction, and the last two steps are finding the early adopters, right? That's our tech term for it.
Speaker 2Jesus, look for 12 close friends, right? Who would have helped them spread the message or the Buddha that took 20 friends into the forest to give his teachings there? So who are the early adopters who will carry the message for you? It's really important if you're a change agent, to find allies in your network who can help spread the message.
(45:27):
Speaker 2And the last is great viral language. So we don't do it just by the three bullets, the Excel spreadsheet or the four paragraph email.
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 2We need catchy language. So I'm going to ask all of your listeners to go back to seventh grade English when they first learned what a metaphor simile and analogy rhyme, you know, even alliteration, using all the same letters in a row. Think about what's going to make the message stick, because when it does, that gives people the power to transmit it to somebody else.
(45:56):
Speaker 2So we need to give them the right language. So those are the five steps history values message early adopters, viral language. That's what all the prophets did so well. So we can learn, take a page out of any of those particular books.
Speaker 1Absolutely. That's really good stuff. I'm just thinking about,
Speaker 1I'm thinking about messaging and positioning and telling stories and trying to differentiate a company from another company that does almost the exact same thing. And so many companies go through this exercise and they come out without good messaging and positioning or even a decent story. Right. So why do you think if you were going to give advice to someone who is, you know, a marketing executive or a PR executive who's embarking on a messaging and positioning slash creating a narrative, how would you what would you tell them to do?
(46:58):
Speaker 1Right? And what would you tell them to avoid? How do they know they're doing it? How do they know when it's being done wrong? Well.
Speaker 2What a great question, Kristin, wow. So first, I would say, you know, ask that question. If we're doing the save time, save money makes you more productive. Make sure they go back and ask the customer so that I can do the following. Right. Give me the big benefit to me personally, to the business, to the department, to the company.
(47:26):
Speaker 1To the.
Speaker 2Planet. Maybe. Right. So ask the so that question. The other is.
Speaker 1Our.
Speaker 2Differentiator. Oftentimes if you're an entrepreneur, it starts with your DNA. So you have a very particular I mean, there are probably 10,000 books written on storytelling, right? But everybody has their unique perspective. It's really important assignments. And I would say to find your own way. So if you're on the entrepreneurial side and if you're on like a big corporate, then you can tack back into some of those core values.
(48:00):
Speaker 2But the differentiator comes with ultimately how we're able to do right by the customer in a way that they haven't before. You know, and sometimes I think back to an example like the iPod, you know, many of us had M.P. three players prior to the iPod. If you're as old as me and mine was the size of a brick, it had 50 buttons on it.
(48:25):
Speaker 2It had a CD player and it had.
Speaker 1A.
Speaker 2Radio in it. And for me, this was heaven right? I could listen to. I could discover new music on the radio. I could put in my favorite CDs. I could.
Speaker 1Borrow.
Speaker 2And steal music from Napster and my friends who downloaded their music there.
Speaker 1And I had.
(48:45):
Speaker 2Infinite music. And somehow Steve Jobs managed to convince us that a thousand songs in your pocket was a better idea, that we didn't actually need all the songs on the planet. Yet all we needed was a thousand that we could stick in our pocket, because I certainly couldn't stick that brick in my pocket. And boy, the world shifted on that.
(49:08):
Speaker 2But for me, what's most intriguing about that is Steve Jobs also wore a turtleneck to work every day and jeans because he hated buttoning his shirt. He hated doing the same act every day. What an absolute waste of time, he thought. And also picking out new and different clothing gave him decision fatigue. And so he said to his designer, Jony Ive, he said, I want to create an MP three player, but I want you to make it with as few buttons as possible, because I hate
(49:38):
Speaker 1them.
Speaker 2That's a personal preference.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2And when we can find those things that we love and we hate, those things that cause big emotions in all of us, we find lots of other people hated all of those things too, right? Suddenly the click wheel is born and we're finding music in this whole new way of discovery. Just because this guy didn't feel like buttoning up a shirt every day.
(50:02):
Speaker 2Like so those.
Speaker 1Little those.
Speaker 2Little pieces of DNA that get stuck to the things that we create, you know, we take our why into the world and we create beautiful things with it. Those are oftentimes opportunities for differentiation When we ask, why did you make it that way? How does this relate to your bigger purpose of really changing things or shaking things up?
(50:24):
Speaker 2The why doesn't have to exist, you know, just exist, and why did I come into the world or what is my big purpose? But why did you decide to make it that way? What's different about how we make it or how we sell it, or how we package it? Like thinking about any product or service is being this incredible diamond.
(50:45):
Speaker 2And our responsibility as marketers is to find all the coolest.
Speaker 1Facets.
Speaker 2To bring to the surface. And when you can tell a great story about any one of those facets, then you know something sticking. If it's like, Wow, it has 50 buttons, okay, that might be exciting for my future. MP3 manufacturers, but it might not. So try out the stories around all the different facets and see which ones get your audiences most excited.
(51:14):
Speaker 2If I just asked the photographers, they would have told me how exciting the sand.
Speaker 1Was most.
Speaker 2Compelling story.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Maybe we should have taken a little more time to figure out why. Why sand could have been the best part of that story yet. Having fun? Yeah.
Speaker 1okay. One more question I just wanted to ask the question is, is there something I should have asked you that I didn't that you think would be really insightful to share?
(51:45):
Speaker 2So, you kind of asked me a different question earlier, and then I didn't answer it, which was how do I know I'm telling a good story or how do I know I'm in an environment where I can tell a great story and some environments lend themselves better to stories than others. I had the Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Scientist from 3M on my show and I told her that Corning Glass story could never fly at three m You know, we like our fluffed.
(52:09):
Speaker 2We are the manufacturers of the Post-it, the diaper, you name it, right? The adhesive that closes every Huggies. She has 77 patents in that technology alone is how a diaper closes. She goes, But you know your audience. So my engineers would laugh at that Corning Glass story. What they want to hear is tell me it's the stickiest or the least sticky like a Post-it on the planet.
(52:35):
Speaker 2Tell me about how you decided to make it that way. Tell me other things about this that really work. So I would ask, like, what is number one? Are you in an environment where you have safety, where you can tell a story and be regarded for that story? And if you screw it up, are people going to be like, try that again?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. So if you're in an environment that works and don't stop with the first story, keep trying. We would never put out a product without a B testing it first, right? Or launching a website. Do the same thing with your stories. Try it on a couple different people your spouse, your family members, your kids. See how they.
(53:11):
Speaker 1Respond.
Speaker 2This is all audience approval based, so we got to make sure we're testing and trying.
Speaker 1I love that. Okay. So that that wraps this up for today, Susan. This has just been such a great conversation. I've learned so much from you. I admire all you've achieved. And most of all, I appreciate you joining us on the show today. And of course, I would love to do it again sometime. To everyone listening, thank you for checking out Marcom Mode.
(53:44):
Speaker 1Make sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or real. Listen to your podcasts. But before you take off, Susan, where is the best place for people to connect with you?
Speaker 2so they can certainly listen to my podcast where I interviewed Chief Innovation Officers and their team members about the cool new things that they're working on, but most importantly, the stories they tell to get their innovation to their finish line. And those finish lines may include failure, and that's okay, too. The other thing is they can sign up for my newsletter and I'm happy to give all of your listeners for free the Five Steps to Innovation Storytelling.
(54:21):
Speaker 2That is a worksheet, so you can start mapping out your story directly from it. You can just go to innovationstorytellers.com And there's a form to sign up right there for the newsletter and all the tips you need about storytelling to make your marcom life that much more fun and engaging.
Speaker 1I love that. Thank you, Susan. I'll definitely share that. When we share the podcast, we'll share that tip sheet as well.
(54:43):
Speaker 2Fantastic.
Speaker 1And thank you everyone for listening. Until next time, remember, stories spark engagement and every strategy needs a good story.
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