Episode 293: Storytelling for Social Selling

Preview

0:00:00 – Bob Woods: Storytelling is such a powerful tool in social selling. So on social platforms, authenticity, and engagement absolutely rule telling stories can break through the noise and help you create meaningful interactions online that you can then take to that all-important first offline conversation. When we share stories, we’re pulling in listeners into our world, and hopefully their world, too, because if we’re selling to them, we should be all in that same world, essentially.

Intro

0:00:35 – Bob Woods: Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast featuring the top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Bryne Tillman, Stan Robinson Junior, 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. Welcome to Making Sales Social Live coming to you from the social sales link virtual studios.

0:01:06 – Bob Woods: I’m Bob Woods, a social selling AI and LinkedIn strategist, consultant, and trainer, as well as a LinkedIn top voice. Joining me today are the co-hosts of Making Sales Social Live. First is the guy who does everything that I do and is also our sales navigator guru, Stan Robinson Junior. How are you doing, Stan?

0:01:25 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Doing fantastic. Good to see you, Brynne, and Bob.

0:01:30 – Bob Woods: And speaking of Brynne, because she is last but most certainly not least because she’s the LinkedIn whisperer and the authority on things related to sales, social selling, and LinkedIn, as well as an official LinkedIn insider and sales. Brynne Tillman. How are you doing, Brynne?

0:01:46 – Brynne Tillman: Hello, gentlemen. Very happy to be here. I love our topic today.

0:01:51 – Bob Woods: Yeah, today we have a great topic as we are diving into why storytelling is such a powerful tool in social selling. So on social platforms, authenticity, and engagement absolutely rule telling stories can break through the noise and help you create meaningful interactions online that you can then take to that all-important first offline conversation. When we share stories, we’re pulling in listeners into our world, and hopefully their world, too, because if we’re selling to them, we should be all in that same world. Essentially, stories then foster trust and reliability, which are crucial in laying the foundation to build relationships, especially in our digital-first world, because a Walt-told story is memorable and can influence decisions more effectively than standard sales pitches. What do you guys think about all that?

0:02:52 – Brynne Tillman: He gets a mouthful.

0:02:54 – Bob Woods: It’s a mouthful. But we’re telling a story. We are. We are painting the canvas for a story.

0:03:01 – Brynne Tillman: Yeah, I love this. And, you know, people relate to stories you can pitch all day long, and it’s going to be so boring and disinterested, that people are going to click off. But if you’ve got a great story, something, and to your point, Bob, that they’re relating to that they can see themselves in all of a sudden, that not only are you engaging people at a very high level of credibility, but they can imagine working with you.

0:03:36 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Yes, yes. We’re wired to listen to stories, and as you both said, be drawn into stories and imagine ourselves within the story. So it’s, stories are a powerful way.

0:03:57 – Bob Woods: Of engaging, and it’s the storytellers and the people who do it effectively who are really going to, who have already stood out, let’s face it, and are going to continue to stand out as we all go out there and we try to get those, as I said before, all-important first sales conversations started. So now let’s go through some of the different ways and channels, if you will, where we can use specifically LinkedIn to distribute our stories, or however you want to put that, distribute or just tell our stories.

0:04:34 – Bob Woods: The first one I’m going to take really quick, just because I’m still kind of the profile guy here. So the LinkedIn profile is a great way to do that. It’s almost your personal storybook. So with your about section and actually with your headline, too, this is where you start building the story, but not necessarily your story, because you want to bring your audience of prospects in. So you actually need to identify who they are. But then you can weave that story through.

0:05:07 – Bob Woods: At the same time, use it as a narrative that speaks to who they are, and the challenges that they’re overcoming. And then you can start bringing in value that you bring into that, especially in the About section. The featured section is where you can go crazy with stories and actually feature stories that you have shared through some of the other channels that we’re actually gonna be talking about here in a second to really spotlight them and highlight them so that people know who you are and what you’re talking about, especially how you help them.

0:05:44 – Bob Woods: And then you can also use your experience section to not only share your story but to share success stories tied to specific roles. I think the profile is terrific when it comes to doing things like that. I have a feeling you guys are going to agree with that, but I want to hear your specific thoughts about that.

0:06:03 – Brynne Tillman: So I’m going to throw in. I think the recommendation section is a phenomenal place to have storytelling. And it’s storytelling if you are recommending someone else, or storytelling if someone is recommending you. If someone recommends you, you can actually connect them to specific roles inside of your organization. So we actually, one of the things we teach is to not just use LinkedIn as a resume, but as a resource so you can use the thread on your experience to represent different areas inside of, you know, the solutions that you bring. And so you can have recommendations for different topics or titles inside of your experience section.

0:06:57 – Brynne Tillman: And with premium, you can actually link a recommendation right into your featured section.

0:07:05 – Bob Woods: Yep.

0:07:06 – Brynne Tillman: So that’s pretty valuable.

0:07:08 – Bob Woods: 100%, Stan.

0:07:09 – Brynne Tillman: Anything you want to add to that?

0:07:12 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Only one of the beauties of LinkedIn is you can tell your stories in different modalities. So not just text, but images, video, audio, even in your little ten-second name pronunciation, you can add value statement in addition to your name.

0:07:29 – Bob Woods: So many. So many different ways to tell stories and actually videos were going to be the next section that we were going to talk about. Talk about an especially dynamic way to tell a story because you can convey emotion and authenticity directly. You have that eye contact with the person who is. Who is watching? And while it’s obviously not a two-way conversation, they could at least see you and hopefully feel the authenticity that you’re bringing through. Like customer testimonials, maybe behind-the-scenes looks, or tell the story of your products and services as well. And that’s just.

0:08:09 – Bob Woods: And that’s just the tip of the iceberg about how you can use videos specifically to tell stories.

0:08:16 – Brynne Tillman: So if I can add another thing that you can do is interview people or have conversations with your clients and have video around that. But, you know, you mentioned something that it’s a one-way, but I’m gonna add a couple in Sheridan.

0:08:35 – Bob Woods: Yeah.

0:08:35 – Brynne Tillman: Where we can. Yeah. So where we can actually encourage it to be a two-way conversation. Yep. So one of the things that we can do is, you know, in our storytelling, if, let’s say we post it first and then put it into our featured section versus uploading it directly, you can ask, you know, I’d love to hear your perspective in comments and invite it to be two ways. So I think, you know, I think, and I’m just doing this off the top of my head without preparation, really.

0:09:09 – Brynne Tillman: But I do think, although, you know, that although I agree generally, it’s going to be a one way when you’re posting publicly, I think there are ways that we can encourage that conversation.

0:09:22 – Bob Woods: Oh, yeah, 100%. With.

0:09:24 – Brynne Tillman: I know what I was thinking. If we use something like dub or loom, right, where they watch the video and they, you know, you, I think from dub you can see how long they watched it. They’re offered. Otherwise content, they can send comments. And so there are actual video apps that you can use. Vineyard, I think, is one. Dub is the one. I really like it. But there are apps that you can use that create a little more interaction.

0:10:00 – Bob Woods: Yep. I could not agree more. Could not agree more. Next, I’m going to let Stan handle this one. Telling LinkedIn. Telling stories and LinkedIn posts and shares, since that’s what all of us should be doing, is, you know, even though you do a video within a post, you know, don’t forget that you can also use just posts and shares in and of themselves. Stan, do you have any thoughts about this? About how to do that?

0:10:26 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Yep. So, one thing I will mention, just so I don’t forget it, whether it’s posts, videos, et cetera, is when you’re telling the story, you should not be the hero of your story. The client needs to be the hero. And I know it’s not. You know, it’s not. Okay. How do you tell a story in the post? Because we’ll talk about that. But it’s easy to forget because we always want to talk about how we helped and our solution, and we become the hero.

0:11:02 – Stan Robinson, Jr: And that’s where. When your client turns off, but when they’re the hero and you’re talking about them and they can see them in that position, you’re just the guide.

0:11:15 – Brynne Tillman: I love that.

0:11:17 – Stan Robinson, Jr: That’s. That’s important to remember.

0:11:20 – Bob Woods: That’s just pitch-perfect. Brittany. What?

0:11:24 – Brynne Tillman: Can you answer that? That’s pitch-perfect.

0:11:26 – Bob Woods: Tell me about it. That’s. That’s why I tossed it to you because I was like, I don’t know what I’m gonna say after that.

0:11:31 – Brynne Tillman: Yeah, no, that’s perfect. I love that. And, you know, it’s because we do. We want to be. As salespeople, think if we’re going to be the hero, we want to be the hero that they hire, but they hire us to make them look like the hero. So I think that was fabulous.

0:11:48 – Bob Woods: Yeah. And that definitely speaks to emotion, too. I mean, because it’s tough to feel an emotion when someone is making themselves the hero, but if they’re writing it in more of a way to where people can imagine themselves being the hero in that particular situation, it’s just. It’s so much more impactful. Without a doubt.

0:12:06 – Brynne Tillman: Yeah. And they go, that’s what I want to look like in my organization.

0:12:10 – Bob Woods: Exactly. Love it, love it, love it. So the last one.

0:12:16 – Bob Woods: So now we’re going to talk about LinkedIn articles more specifically. So. So these are the longer-form pieces. And the more blog type of thing, which a lot of people aren’t using. And I get why they’re not using it, but there is a reason why they should be using it. So it’s obviously just in general, articles are for more in-depth storytelling, so you can really drill into more of those stories if you wish.

0:12:44 – Bob Woods: So the reason why that they’re not used as much is because they’re tough to surface in LinkedIn itself. The flip side of that, though, is they get mad SEO in Google. Google will pop up a LinkedIn article every bit as much as it will, like a profile or, or something like that. So you actually get more off-platform eyeballs through LinkedIn articles than you do on the platform. And then hopefully they’re, they’re actually signed in at that point. And they can, and they can, you know, they can definitely comment, maybe even click over to your profile. Once they click over their profile, you know that they’re there because hopefully, you are using the who’s viewed your profile feature on LinkedIn.

0:13:31 – Bob Woods: So, you know, LinkedIn articles, it’s definitely a longer story, but there’s more strategic value in using that than most people might actually know.

0:13:43 – Brynne Tillman: Yeah, my articles come up on Google before my profile, before our website, before anything else.

0:13:53 – Bob Woods: Yep.

0:13:53 – Brynne Tillman: And there are people that will reach out going, oh, my gosh, I really enjoyed your article on X, Y, and Z, and it’s a LinkedIn article, so I love that. I’m going to just throw in, which I think we weren’t planning on talking about, but I think it’s really important that if you’re like, okay, I have a great case study. It’s not a great story. Like, I’ve got data, right? This is an opportunity to go into chat GPT and, you know, say, I’d like to write a case story.

0:14:27 – Brynne Tillman: I’m going to give you data. I don’t want you to make anything up, but this is the type of client, I want to be 100% authentic. It won’t be right. It’ll be 80, 85%. And then you have to just edit it to be the real story. But give chat GPT the data. And this is what I’d include here the challenge that the client was going through before they needed us. Here’s why they reached out to us or how they found us.

0:15:05 – Brynne Tillman: Here’s why they chose us. And I know it’s still about us, but I’ll get it to be with them. Here is the solution that, you know, that we worked on together and then implemented. Here were the results they got, and here is how it impacted their business. And I know based on what I just heard Stan say, I know I have to adjust that a little bit to make it less about us, because that’s how I think. But maybe saying in the story, make sure you’re emphasizing that your buyer is the hero that in. Right.

0:15:49 – Brynne Tillman: And then put in all those statistics and the concepts that you like, and it will write that case story for you and then just edit it.

0:15:59 – Bob Woods: Yep. Brilliance there. Absolute brilliance there.

0:16:05 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Yes.

0:16:06 – Brynne Tillman: Yay.

0:16:09 – Bob Woods: So now we. We’ve talked about, you know, the why. We’ve talked about kind of the what. Let’s go specifically now into the nuts and bolts of crafting a compelling story for social selling. So. So we’re going to go into these in. In specifics here in just a second. But generally, what you’re going to want to do is, you know, introduce the XYZ company and the challenge or the role or whatever that is facing.

0:16:42 – Bob Woods: You’re going to be doing discovery. Observe, doing discovery of whatever their situation is. The big one, I think, is the consequences of the status quo. What happens if nothing changes? And then you’re going to want to go into the solution, provided any outcome and insights that were gained from that type of thing. And again, just like Stan said, though, making them the hero and not you the hero. So now we’ve kind of done top line on everything. Let’s talk a little bit more about the first one.

0:17:16 – Bob Woods: Introducing either the company’s challenge or the role. Challenge that someone within who has a specific role, who may be more in, like, an industry or a vertical, may have.

0:17:30 – Brynne Tillman: Go to Stan.

0:17:31 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Everybody’s like, oh, so role, for example, it could be a VP of sales or CRO whose team does not have the pipeline that they need in order to hit their sales objectives. And that’s who it is. And that’s a little bit about the context of what they’re facing. One of the things that we were talking about beforehand that Bryn mentioned that’s so easy for folks to forget are the consequences of inaction.

0:18:08 – Stan Robinson, Jr: What happens if we don’t do anything because more sales are lost to the status quo than two competitors, in all likelihood. Now, I don’t have the data, but I’m pretty sure most. Most. A lot of sales are lost because it’s not because they went with company ABC. It’s because they didn’t do anything.

0:18:27 – Bob Woods: Right.

0:18:29 – Stan Robinson, Jr: So when you include. Okay, what happens if you don’t do anything? That helps us set the stage.

0:18:37 – Bob Woods: Yeah. So I like that because, I mean, it. It does go to that third point. But. But it’s important, though, because, um. Because one of the things that you want to do in any store in any story is to set up conflict. So conflict comes from, you know, not only the challenge in and of itself but, you know, the consequences of the status quo, I think, are big, too. And that in and of itself, just automatically builds in conflict there. So.

0:19:04 – Bob Woods: So there’s. There’s a lot of stuff there that.

0:19:07 – Bob Woods: That you can play within that. In that introducing the. The challenge that either the company has or the role has, you know, make, you know, make sure that you are determining what the conflict is and the consequences of status. Of status quo. And you do all of that through what the second stage is. And that’s observations that you make during discovery. So. And discovery is always used as, like, this big, you know, formal type of thing.

0:19:38 – Bob Woods: It’s just about talking, you know, just finding out what you’re, you know, what’s going on there when. When you’re exploring their problem, what are you observing there? You know, what are some of the recognized issues? What are some of the unrecognized issues? What’s the impact of the problem? Or, you know, even what’s some missed opportunities there? This is where you really are. And you should be doing this during a discovery call anyhow, but in this case, you’re. You’re looking to not only just discover all this stuff, but you’re looking at this in terms of building that story as well.

0:20:17 – Brynne Tillman: Great.

0:20:18 – Bob Woods: And then. So we’ve done the status quo already, after all, all this is done. And, you know, they use, you know, they work with you to solve their problem through the. Through the use of your product or service. You have to tell them what happened. So, you know, here’s how we did it. Here was the outcome. The outcome was, you know, should be positive and, you know, the insights gained as well. And I think that that’s the important part because.

0:20:53 – Bob Woods: Because you need to show your role not just as a solution provider, but as a strategic partner while making them the hero of their own story.

0:21:04 – Brynne Tillman: Awesome.

0:21:06 – Bob Woods: Yeah. Yeah. So then, like Brynne said, you can use leverage. You know, you can use, like, chat, GPT to not only through that very specific way that Brynne just said, which is brilliant, but, you know, even to help just brainstorm and draft stories in general, you feed it the basic elements, you know, background, challenge, observations, outcome, along with everything that Brynne just said. And, you know, when done right, it could help you flesh out a compelling story. And because we’re talking about stories and story writing and things like that, I’m going to bring in my older analogy of chat GPD being like a writer’s room in Hollywood, because I think this is where it really applies. Because in a writer’s room, you have like a head writer or showrunner or whatever who is depending on all of the writers in the staff to really flesh out a story and measure out the beats and, and do all the things that I won’t get into now, but this, the, the showrunner has the staff to help it out. Chat GPT acts like your writer’s room, especially in situations like this.

0:22:11 – Brynne Tillman: Well, what you can also do is have it written in your voice. If you add instructions, you can ask it to be a little sarcastic or a little funny. You could, I mean, I don’t know if you want to do that with a case story or you could say, write like Ts Eliot or, you know, if you have, you know, a particular author that you, you know, you want to get the tone and sound like so you can have a lot of fun with it.

0:22:48 – Brynne Tillman: But ultimately, what I, you know, I love about all of this is we’re taking a success story in this case, and we’re making it palatable for the average reader so that there’s not deep details that they get lost in that they don’t care about, but they read it quickly, easily, and then go back to Stan’s point and say, do I see myself being a hero in this scenario if I would do the same thing? So I think that’s huge.

0:23:26 – Bob Woods: And you can even put that into chat GPT, too. Ensure that I, the person telling the story, I’m not the hero. Ensure that the person who I am writing about is the hero in the story. Sometimes people may have a problem with removing themselves just because they are.

0:23:43 – Brynne Tillman: So involved in it.

0:23:44 – Bob Woods: So that’s, you know, that’s actually very understandable. Ask Chachi PT to do that work for you. See what happens.

0:23:52 – Stan Robinson, Jr: Fabulous point.

0:23:54 – Bob Woods: Yeah. So we’re going to go ahead and wrap things up here. Thanks again for joining us for this episode of Making Sales Social Live.

Outro

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