Episode 286: Stories That Sell: The Power of Primal Connection

Intro

Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show.

Brynne Tillman: Welcome back to Making Sales Socials. I’m Brynne Tillman, and I am very excited about today’s guest. Jeffrey Berwind is my Tedx coach, and he is here to talk today about sales and storytelling. Jeffrey is a storytelling consultant, and obviously Tedx coach co-creator and director of the Once Upon a Nation storytelling program in historic Philadelphia. Jeffrey. Welcome to the program. 

Geoffrey Berwind: Great to be here, Brynne, and what makes sales social? Well, the world, according to me, as you add an S to that which is storytelling?

Brynne Tillman: Oh, I love that, that’s awesome. So that is our what? What does making sales social mean to you right off the bat. That’s fabulous. So then let’s jump into what is storytelling, and why is it so essential in the sales process.

Geoffrey Berwind: Right. Well, what does storytelling do versus straight information? Right? So we have data, we have information we advise to give, as in sales, we’re expected to be providing solutions. And all these things. But how are you going to build that human-to-human connection with your prospects? How are you gonna illustrate conceptual ideas and based on my 2 decades of work in the field, bring American history to life? I’ve worked with the Kennedy Space Center and talked to astronauts and everything. Storytelling is one of the most essential tools. More than ever, because we are a wash right? There are days when you feel like, oh, my God! If I have one more data dump on me. I’m gonna lose my mind. I’m disconnecting, right? Anything is at our fingertips on the Internet.

So what’s the antidote to that? And it’s the power of storytelling. We are a story-sharing species, and we always have been. We process the world through storytelling. We have for hundreds of thousands of years. So I call it the primal sales tool.

Brynne Tillman: Oh, I love that.

Geoffrey Berwind: So. It’s interesting. You know, one of the things

Brynne Tillman: You know, one of the things that I noticed here is right this once-upon-a-nation storytelling program. Well, history is his story, right? 

Geoffrey Berwind: Exactly. Need for a story, too. But yes.

Brynne Tillman: Absolutely. And so I think it’s brilliant when you see, this storytelling is been our culture since we have communicated. So that’s pretty cool. So talk about some of the most effective techniques that salespeople can use in the sales process using stories.

Geoffrey Berwind: Right? So again, the goal is building a connection and being relatable. What storytelling does so in the science behind storytelling Mris has studied the brain.

And what happens with storytelling versus data is the analytical brain does not have to be engaged because the creative and relational brain is the left brain, right, brain thing, numbers, data, information, teaching advice, left, brain right? We’re paid for that.

But the connection, the human part of it all the illustrating of teaching points is the right brain. Storytelling inhabits the right brain, the oldest part of our brain. It’s so technique wise. The goal is that the brain sees things.

We have more visual receptors than other senses. Dogs have what base they have, it’s through the nose. We are a visual species, right? So technique-wise. First of all, if we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’re scanning the horizon. For who, what, when, where, where am I? This is primal stuff. It’s happening below the surface.

So when you’re sharing a story right away, you start with who, what? When, and where are we? Establish the set. What you’re really doing when you’re sharing stories is making movies for the imagination.

So slight sideways, comment is, if you’re a speaker, many of us are, and you’re using PowerPoint. Or let’s say you’re on a sales presentation. And you’re using Powerpoint, and you’re about to tell a story. Close the laptop.

Why is that everything is on a screen right now everything is on a screen. So it’s not special. It’s not special. Your goal in sales as a business person is to tap the imagination, the primal imagination through scene painting as in a movie, when when who? So

 I’ll pretend for a second that I let’s say conceptually that I did sleep well last night. But let’s pretend I didn’t sleep well last night, hey, Brynne? I didn’t sleep well last night. Well, that’s a concept. All that is is a concept. But if I develop a movie scene

I don’t know if it was the Indian food I ate last night, or whatever it was. But, boy, around 2 Am. I glanced at my at my phone. It said, 201 am, and my eyes were open. I’m breaking out in the sweat, I’m like, Oh! And I walk out of bed. I glanced through the Venetian blinds, and the moon was pouring in. I go into the bathroom. I turn on the light, and I look in the mirror. I’m going, dude. How did you get to this point?

Yeah, which is more effective? Yeah, efficiently. I could say, I didn’t sleep well last night. You’re like, oh, so me no, alright. But when I painted the movie and I’m and as dialog notice, there was dialog dude. How did you get to this point? I set the stage. I’m in bed. I’m breaking out a sweat. I had Indian food, too. Spicy blah blah blah, but it moves us to a pivotal moment. That’s the other technique.

Storytelling is not a resume. It’s not a recitation of achievements. It’s not. I did this then I did that. It’s focusing on moments. So if I kept developing that movie. I just made up dude. How did you get to this point? I could now proceed, maybe into a crisis, maybe into a challenge. So techniques establish a setting focus on pivotal moments where either a crisis erupts or transformation occurs or maybe actions are taken using dialog scenes as in a movie.

Powerful technique. There’s without trouble in the story, dramatic tension. There ain’t no story, right? Visual descriptive language, and the other senses as appropriate. Don’t forget the emotions and one more tip one doesn’t.

And this is where most storytellers go awry. Most speakers do business. Most business people and nonprofits who are telling case studies are, we’re all gate. They go wrong. They interrupt their own stories. There are ways to interrupt a story going off with no tangent answering from now because storytelling is time travel into the past. So I’ve had speakers that I’ve been training, and they’re starting to develop a really cool story about a challenge they had to face, and this and that, and they go. Well, of course, I’m okay. Now.

What did that just do? It yanked us back to now. Or they use that horrible cliche. To make a long story short, well, that again removed us from the beautiful soap bubble that this story was developing in our brains.

So that’s a quick fly-by of some techniques for visually descriptive language scenes as in a movie focus on pivotal moments and establish a setting. What are the emotions involved? Don’t interrupt your stories, and in many cases how do you finish the story you started with a setting?

You finish with the lesson learned or the teaching point.

Brynne Tillman: Oh, I love that. Yeah, so. And that’s how you can kind of move the sale. Forward they go. I want that right start.

Geoffrey Berwind: Hey, Brynne, you could also start with that. So let’s say, people do want to know, why am I hearing this? So you just start right away. So let’s say you’re in the middle of a sale, and you’re talking to a prospect, and you know you need to give them an example.

So you say it, you know what let me share. I would avoid the word. Tell where adults now don’t tell me what to do, but share with me. Is this a very inviting word? Right?

So let me share a story you know I had this customer about 3 years ago. Wonderful woman! She’d probably mid a fifties boy. She knew how to dress. She loved the color orange, and she just popped when she walked into the room. I’m telling a story. And so I’m telling that story.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah. So I love that and probably in our world, we would talk about her role.

Geoffrey Berwind: And then I guess you’d go in. And this was her challenge. Right? Is that where you would go? Exactly. So you’re what I called strategic storytelling. You’re thinking ahead. What stories do I need?

And there are types of stories. I invite my clients to make what I call story inventory. And now the number one most effective stories are, gonna be your own, and then other people’s. So this is real-life stories, not fiction. It’s not myth, it’s not legend, it’s not historical figures. Necessarily. It’s your stories that are the best, and then others.

So you’re thinking about what makes this story universal. For one thing, what’s the predicament? And you’re thinking about the problem. This story faced right? And then what was the transformation in sales that you, your company provided? but what it is when you tell somebody else’s story of somebody who helped successful advice story.

It’s a testimonial, but it’s stealth. It’s a stealth testimonial cause. You’re not saying, well, I’m amazing in sales, or all my company is amazing. It’s like that sounds hype. But you just story, story, story, story, story storytelling. And provides a bit of a middle-ground between hype and something else. Yeah, I’m not sure what I want to finish that way, but it’s that safe place. It’s like, let me just tell you a story about somebody who came to us with this problem and needed us to tell the story.

Brynne Tillman: So what do you feel about it? One thing’s we do? Do, we ask permission for S to share case stories or case studies? I like case stories, right? So that’s great. So we asked permission. So you know what I just heard from you. Jeffrey reminds me a lot of a client that I worked with 3 years ago. Can I share that story with you?

Do you think that has any impact? Or is it necessary? Because always at, we always taught to ask permission to so tell those stories?

Geoffrey Berwind: Yeah, I like that idea. Again, you’re we’re avoiding that. Let me tell you something, or here’s what you need to do. I mean, there’s a place for that. But yeah, you boy, your situation really reminds me of something. Can I share a story with you of how you know this client came to us about 2 years ago, head of a nonprofit, and like, Oh, my God, you just. You’re teasing the story. Enough that they go. Oh, sure! Tell me the story.

Brynne Tillman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. I love that cause that we find when someone says, yes, they listen deeper like they’ve agreed to it. They’ve verbally said they are interested. And then we found that in our experience now, exactly. Also, I’m huge into stating the obvious, you gotta read your audience whether it’s a one person, or if you could see that they are leaning to the analytical brain, you would definitely want to convince them they want to hear a story. If they’re leaning into the relational brain, they’re gonna be all over the story. You don’t even really need to ask them. Cause you you can tell.

Geoffrey Berwind: Yeah. Oh, yes, of course, I love that, though that’s phenomenal. So what types of stories should sales experts be ready to tell? Yeah, I’ve identified 26 types. But there are 3 essentials, 3 essentials. We’re going to make it easy. Story number one, which I call your origin story origin. First.

What led to now, you could have more than one depending on the topic, right? Depending on who you’re pitching what you’re selling. But remember the primary thing. Storytelling, does it? It? It expresses your, why you’re set. You’re trying to sell the what and the how gotta people today are gonna buy from people who are passionate, authentic, and real into it. Not perfect, not perfect, I’ll say. The third time. Not perfect. Brene Brown talks about the power of vulnerability that broke everything open. And if you’re feeling like everything needs to be Superman. Well, even Superman has kryptonite and people value the kryptonite because that’s where we’ll relate. So the origin story is why you do what you do. What got you into this? And it depends. How far back do we go? But it’s what drives you that somehow you could link to this product or service for selling. People want to get to know you as a person, and when they know that you care they’re going to be way more interested in buying from you.

Right? So the origin story has many ways to do it. By the way, I have my client’s script out. I talked to them about, the structure of that story, and we scripted it out so we could look at the wordplay. So there’s a formula like, so origin story firsts, what got you into this work? Why do you care?

Second type case stories? Or I will call them client success stories, whatever you want to call successful advice stories. All the same thing. We talked about the essentials to close a sale. We need to know that you’ve successfully given advice to somebody else. Right? The third major type of essential story is what I call 4 Example stories. Where it’s a teach. You’re you’re teaching a concept. And you go. Let me give you an example of that. And you tell a story that people can see sometimes through metaphors even.

And there’s always overlap, right? But the origin story, by the way, in many cases, can focus on a crisis that develops or a challenge in Hollywood. They call that the inciting incident. Okay, something starts this journey that gets you into now. So those are 3 major types of origin, successful advice, for example.

Brynne Tillman: So I love that, for example. Can kind of run a gamut of areas right? Like overcoming an objection could be a, for example, right? Yeah, I call that the yeah. But story.

Geoffrey Berwind: Oh, talk a little bit more about that. It’s overcoming objections. I just called the yeah. But so what you know, as we all know, in marketing, you want to enter the conversation already going on in your prospects or your audiences or your clients. Mind, right? So if you’re gonna enter that conversation, don’t you need to know what they’re yeah. But is, there’s money. It could be as simple as yeah. But I don’t have time for that, or yeah. But my, CEO is not gonna say yes to that or, yeah, but will this work? Or yeah, but it’s too expensive.

Brynne Tillman: Right.

Geoffrey Berwind: I love that kind of story. Also, another type of story related to that. Brynne

is the gap I’ve noticed in the market story. So you’re looking for, you’re looking for a solution and you didn’t find it. And the company or you developed it created it invented it. That’s the as a vendor. We saw a gap in the industry, and that’s why. So that could also be part of the origin story. Totally. There, there’s overlap absolutely spot on Yup.

Brynne Tillman: Oh, I love all of this.

Geoffrey Berwind: That’s awesome. So we went through a lot today and I thought it was  really valuable. The last question I ask everyone is, what questions should I have asked you that I did? Oh, why, you’re a master interviewer, so I don’t know if I have something.

What would people do the first thing they should do? And I believe circling back? Many people think, oh, you know, my stories. Isn’t that interesting? I never drove my car off a cliff and saw it. You don’t need to keep it. Put your seat, and belt, or don’t drive a car off a cliff. I’m a big fan of starting a journal, an Excel spreadsheet, whatever it is, just put down at the top of the paper the time when dot and put down one sentence story ideas, list them, list them. But here’s the key. No judgment. Oh, I don’t know if I ever use that.

Forget it. I don’t know if people be interested in that. Don’t worry about it. I’m from Philly. Don’t worry about it. The time when doctor and key, and by categories, Bryn, you could do it by family upbringing career. Health challenges, sports, and spirituality by listing as many story ideas as you can, and maybe in those categories, and then put next to it the possible use of the story, the lesson, the teaching point, that is, gold money in the bank, so that out of just know where you’re like. You know what? Let me share a story about the time when I and you’ve already listed it. You develop those key ones as a story. What happens out of that list as you start using certain stories becomes what is called a signature story, meaning every time you tell it. It works. It lands well, so that’s where should I start. Story inventory?

Brynne Tillman: I love that. That’s fabulous. Well, thank you for all of your insights. Where can people find you?

Geoffrey Berwind: Oh, thanks. You know, you could visit my website at storytelling success.com. And I’m a Tedx coach. I’m a speakers coach storytelling consultant who works with a lot of nonprofits, profits, authors speakers, and business owners, it’d be my pleasure to talk to you

Brynne Tillman: Terrific. Thank you so much, Jeffrey, and for our listeners when you’re out and about, don’t forget to make your sales social.

Outro

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