How Does Storytelling Build Trust and Influence our Decisions?

This is a trust O meter. You have one, right? Well, maybe one not like this because I made this one pretty sweet, right? But we all have one in here. Today I'm going to be talking about how trust actually intertwined with storytelling influences our decisions. I mean, for example, the decision for you to be here right now was based on trust. You're hoping your trust is that I'm not going to waste your time here today and I promise I won't. So, a couple quick things. Number one, please do me a favor and if you're here, please like this post, let me know you're out there. I really appreciate it. Number two, you should know that at the end of today's video, I'm going to be telling you about a prize that I'm giving away. So make sure you stay to the end. I'll tell you what it is and how you can win it. And number three, if you haven't been watching these videos for the last 29 days, today is day 29, my 30 day video challenge. I got one more day and tomorrow, be sure to stay and join me tomorrow, because tomorrow I'm actually going to explain how you can get your own video testimonial for free. So be sure to come tomorrow as well. All right, so now we've got that out of the way. Hey, if you haven't been following me on these videos this past month, I'll introduce myself yet again. My name is David Vogel. I'm a video marketer. I have a business called Remote Video Testimonials and I help businesses leverage the power, if I can find one, the power of your smartphone to shoot video that drives sales. Alright, so let's get into this conversation about trust and storytelling and how it influences our decision. So the first example I'm going to give that we all can relate to in our personal life is let's say you and your significant other decide that you want to try a new or a different Italian restaurant. You haven't been there before, you hear good things about it and you decide on Saturday night that you're going to go there. So I don't know about you, but there's a thing that I call food envy, which is when I go out to dinner with my wife, my wife Adrienne always orders the better dish and I'm always envious of why I didn't order what she ordered. So if I'm going to drop 100, $150 on a dinner for the two of us, I want to make sure I go out and I have a good meal. So what do we typically do to ensure that? So you might walk into the restaurant, you might take notice of the dishes that are on, you know, the meals that are on people's tables. As you head to your seat, you might, as the editor, sorry, as the waiter is telling what the specials are, you might ask him or her, hey, what are. What is the, you know, the top, the most popular dish here? And let's say he says it's scarpiello. It's chicken scarpiello. Everyone loves that. It's number one dish here. Okay, well, maybe consider chicken scarpiello for dinner. I happen to love chicken scarpiello. But let's say you take it one step further. You take out. Where's my phone? Take out your phone and you go to where else? Yelp. You're looking at photos, you're looking at reviews, and this is where the storytelling comes in. So up to this point, you're kind of leaning towards chicken scarpiello. And now you read this review from Christina. And Christina, in her review on Yelp, the restaurant is Mario's, goes on to describe, oh, I was at Mario's the other day and I ordered the chicken parmesan. And I have to tell you, when I was a little girl, I used to go over to my grandma's. My grandma came from Italy, and when I was a little girl, we used to go over her house and she'd make dinner and she would make the most unbelievable chicken parmesan. She died many years ago, and my entire life I've been looking for a restaurant that could replicate as good a chicken parmesan as my grandmother's. Well, I have to tell you, I had the chicken parmesan here at Mario's, and it transported me right to my grandmother Maria's kitchen. I felt like that 10 year old again. The chicken parm here is unbelievable. If you're going to order anything in this restaurant, order the chicken parm. Okay, now you've heard that testimonial from this complete stranger talking about the chicken parmesan. So you were over here and you heard about the chicken scarp, and now you hear about the chicken parm. What are you going to order for dinner? The chicken parm. I know I would. So you can put in the comments what you would order based on what I told you. Okay, so you have that scenario. Let's go take it to the business side. Now, if you're a business owner, if you are a marketer or salesperson, really important statistic that you need to know. 67% of the buying decision happens online before a prospect calls a business. That's almost three quarters of the process is done before you ever get to talk to them. Now, people buy from those they know, like and trust. So the question I have for you is how are you building trust online before they ever call you? Well, most businesses today, Google reviews are really popular, right? Written reviews on Google get five stars. But here's the thing, and I'm not knocking Google reviews. You should get Google reviews, as many as you can. Helps in the search algorithm. But here's the thing, many times you'll just get a five star. It will. Hey, David's great. Oh, love their service. They were awesome. That doesn't really tell you anything. So let's do another. We're going to do a side by side comparison. Let's say you're looking for a wedding photographer and you do a Google search. You find two wedding photographers and for all intents of purpose, you go to their website. They are identical, same years of experience. The photos are equally good, the website looks great, Everything seems all on the level. Who are you going to choose? But let's. There's one difference between these two websites. On the one, no video, no video testimonials. On the other, there are three video testimonials. And you click on the first one and you hear a bride talk about her wedding day and how Rich was unbelievable. He showed up early and one thing I loved about him is during the actual party and the service, he was completely unobtrusive. You didn't even know he was there. And the photographs, he, he caught the moments that mean the most to me. You know, very natural documentary style. And I have to tell you, one of the photos that he took of me is by far the best photograph of me ever. And you keep watching these other video testimonials and one after the other or just talking about how amazing this person is, how great the photos are, how great his services, how he, you know, he goes above and beyond. So now you're left with a choice. As I told you, 67% of the buying decision happens online. You have these two websites. Who do you call? Or who do you call first? Maybe. But who do you call? Well, those video testimonials did this right. You had great stories. You had authentic, genuine testimonials from real customers. Those storytelling combined builds the trust and gets you to take action. So I hope you enjoyed this. I hope these examples illustrate how important storytelling is both in your personal life and in your professional life. Now, I did say, and if you haven't liked this video, please do it now. But let me tell you about today's contest. So you have two things you need to do to win this prize. So the first two things you need to do is you need, in the comments you need to write, answer these two questions. Why should businesses invest in video testimonials? And number two, why aren't businesses investing in video testimonials? So what I'm going to do is you have up to 6 o' clock tomorrow, which would be Saturday, 6pm to put your comment and I'll pick one randomly and this is what you can win. It's called a review video. And what it is is where we take a written review and we turn it into a video review. So we're not interviewing a customer. What we do is basically take that written testimonial. It looks something like this. You'll see it on the screen now and it's the text of what they said on the screen in a video format with a voiceover. And it animates and you see the type appear on the screen. And it's a great way to turn what's basically text on your website into a video. And, and now you can obviously share this everywhere. It's a great little quick little cheat to get a video testimonial out of something that wasn't video. So this could be a Google review, this could be a LinkedIn recommendation, this could be a Facebook recommendation or review. It could be even a written review that someone did. If that interests you and you'd like to have that done for you, we're happy to do that. All you have to do is do those two questions in the comments. We'll pick one randomly, I'll reach out to you and we'll make that for you. So thanks again for watching. I know this one was a little long today. Wow, really long. Thanks for watching. Tomorrow's the last video, so stand by for that one I'm giving away. Or at least I'll tell you how you can get a free video testimonial. Thanks again for watching. Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.