Story Mastery in Sales: Listen, Tell, and Craft Your Way to Success with Adrian Davis
In this episode of the Experience Leadership podcast, host Marc Haine interviews sales storytelling expert Adrian Davis, president and CEO of Whetstone Inc. They explore why modern sales are trapped in a "product‑push" or price‑centric mindset that erodes margins and stifles innovation. Davis argues that the antidote is an outside‑in, story‑driven approach that positions the seller as a guide in the customer’s hero journey rather than the hero themselves. He outlines three phases—story listening, storytelling, and story‑making—supported by concrete frameworks: the GPS×2 discovery model (strategic and personal goals), a simplified hero‑journey map (goals, villains, pressures, suffering, success), and the SOCKET checklist (Strategic, Over time, Combined capabilities, KPIs, Embedded, Transformational) to vet solutions. A detailed case study of WBM Technologies illustrates how applying these methods lifted deals from $30‑40k to $65 million and reshaped the company’s culture. Davis also distills emotional engagement to four core feelings (scared, mad, sad, glad) and stresses the need for genuine empathy over polished technique. Practical advice on training, ongoing reinforcement, and avoiding “band‑aid” implementations rounds out the conversation. The episode promotes Davis’s upcoming book, Heroes, Villains, and the Thrill of Professional Selling (available for preorder on Amazon), and provides contact information for listeners.
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In an era where price wars rage on and competition is fiercer than ever before, businesses struggle with dwindling margins stifling their ability to innovate and to stand out in their marketplace. And of course, salespeople are caught in the whirlwind of offering more for less. But here's the thing. If everyone in your industry is singing the same tune, Then, the only competitive advantage that you can offer is what? Price? It's time to change the narrative. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.
Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights!
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Welcome to this episode. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. It is so great to have you here joining me. My guest for this episode is the master of storytelling for sales, Adrian Davis. We will uncover how to change the narrative in your sales process to become more compelling within the sales journey. Hey, and if this is your first time with us, I just want to say a quick hello. I invite you to check out the other videos on this channel. Each one is chock-full of information and learnings that you can apply to your business right this moment. You know, I was recently speaking to a group of moving professionals in Chicago, and the number one pain point that they have is that the first thing a customer will ask them in any kind of discovery call is, how much will it cost me? Their customers don't ask about their capability. They don't ask about the moving time. They don't even ask about the team of relocation specialists that they will be dealing with. First question out of their mouth is, how much is this going to cost me? It's a challenge. When I dug into the various different websites of the different moving companies and I checked out their online presence, each company were saying exactly the same thing over and over again. So, the only differentiation that they could truly make was unfortunately price. So that brings us to our Question of the Day. I would love to know how you in your business, how you are differentiating yourself from your competitions. Is it really a differentiation? I challenge you to go out to your competitors' websites and are they talking to your customers the same way that you are? I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Why don't you go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform? Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership so that I will get notifications and then we can have great conversations offline and online about this topic today. As I mentioned, my guest today is the master of storytelling for sales, Adrian Davis. As president and CEO of management consulting firm Whetstone Inc., Adrian has worked with the world's leading corporations. And I mean, the list is long. He is a certified speaking professional, a certified professional in business process management, and a certified competitive intelligence professional. He is the author of Human to Human Selling and his soon-to-be-released new book, Heroes, Villains, and the Thrill of Professional Selling. Adrian, welcome to the show. It is so amazing to have you here with us today.
Marc, thank you so much for having me. And just really appreciate your opening and just putting in context. I think everybody can relate to the moving example that you shared or the moving company example you shared. So, I'm glad to be here. I'm looking forward to this.
It's going to be a great topic. But before we get into it, could you tell us a little bit more about how you serve your clients.
So what I do at Whetstone is a boutique consulting and training firm that focuses specifically on the complex sale. So any organization— and we define the complex sale as anything where more than one stakeholder is involved in the decision maker and it takes more than one meeting to close a sale. That's who we're helping. And we really help them understand how to position their value so that it is strategically relevant to their customers.
And so, why do you think because we're talking today about storytelling and sales. Why do you think that this is such an important topic today in today's economy, in today's culture, in today's business environments?
Actually, you very well framed that up at the beginning in terms of this challenge of commoditization. What I call the product push trap, Marc. Where, you know, I'm trying to position my value to somebody. And how do I do that? I do that inside out. I start with my product and then I try to sell it to as many people as I can, trying to articulate to them the value, the features, the benefits of my product or my service. And that sets me up for exactly what you just described in the introduction, where I begin to sound like everybody else. And so for a customer who's serious about making a purchase decision, They're already going into, okay, when I choose the vendor, choose the supplier, make this decision and transition into implementation, what is this going to cost me? And so that actually is a buying signal, but unfortunately it's not a great buying signal because now we've been pigeonholed and we're forced into this race to the bottom around commoditizing our own service where we know it's valuable, but the customer doesn't understand. So today's hyper in a hypercompetitive environment is forcing everybody into this race to the bottom. And it's just not fun. All of the work, the R&D, the marketing, the selling, the promotion, and we're just not making the margins that we need to make. And as a result, many businesses are going out of business.
So, I mean, obviously, this is a trap I think salespeople fall into. Can you shed some light on why salespeople often fall into this kind of method of selling? competing solely on price even when it might not be in the best interest of the organization?
I think it's a great question. And it's not that they want to compete on price. I think what I have seen, my observation is most salespeople want to help. They really are experts in their field. They want to be out there solving problems. And as a result of that, they want to show up as the expert. And the easy way to do that is to focus on your product. To focus on your service, to focus what you're an expert in. And so they end up doing most of the talking, most of the explaining, most of the teaching, trying to get this prospect to understand how they can help. And that desire to show up as the expert and to end up being the one doing all the talking, that's what's putting them in this position where they have to compete on price. So I don't think they're choosing to compete on price, but they're choosing to show up as the expert. Which is backfiring on them. And paradoxically, it's forcing them to compete on price.
And so today we're talking about maybe a new way of them being able to approach it. How can salespeople use storytelling to shift the conversations towards the value benefits and long-term partnerships, the relationship part of the selling rather than the feature and benefits?
Yeah, great. Fantastic questions, Marc. So first of all, it's shifting from this inside-out approach, which is the default. I start with me, I start with my company, start with my solution, and then hope that you fit into that. In fact, when I go around looking at PowerPoint decks, and I hope the audience will forgive me if this touches a nerve, but when I look at PowerPoint decks, the first 6 or 7 slides, they're all the same. Different company logo, but it's basically, this is who we are, this is how long we've been in business, Here's our logo slide to show you the companies that have done business with us. Here's how many offices we have. And it's all about us. And that is the problem. So, it's really shifting from that inside out to a true outside in. So, if I were running a moving company and you're a potential prospect, rather than just showing up saying, this is who we are and this is what we do and this is how long we've been in business, I would rather in a discovery call— and I like that phrase that you use, discovery call, is do true discovery. So it would be, Marc, before we get into the details of who we are and how we can help you, I want to first begin with you. Why are you moving? What's important to you in your world? In your ideal scenario, what does success look like to you? And so there's a series of questions that I could ask that get you talking and me understanding. You're doing the teaching. I'm doing the learning. And that's the key to true differentiation. Because after you've shared with me what your true objectives are and your perception of success, I'm now in a position where I can say, you know what, Marc? I don't think this is a good fit. This is actually what we do. But maybe there's somebody in my network that could help you. Or hopefully, Marc, I'm so glad you shared that with me. Let me share with you how we might be able to help you. So it really begins with— I call this the 3 phases of story. Phase 1 is story listening. So once I understand the structure of story, I'm now in a better position to know what to listen for, what questions to ask, how to uncover your story. Once I've uncovered your story, I move to phase 2, which is storytelling. So first story listening, then storytelling. Now I'm in a position where I can share with you a story of how we've helped somebody similar to you. And what that does is it allows you, while you're listening to the story, to grasp the entirety of our value proposition. Instead of me trying to explain technical data, I'll just tell you a story, and you will then be able to envision and vicariously experience the impact of our value. That is very powerful and very convincing. Which then leads to phase 3. When you give me the green light, now we're in the story-making phase, where this move that we're going to perform for you is actually a story that we're going to tell in the future. So as we get you from point A to point B successfully, and you're able to say, wow, this went without a hitch, this is exactly what I was hoping for, your people showed up and did exactly what I was hoping, now this is a story I can tell in the future.
That's a story that they can tell as well.
Exactly. 100%. And that really, you know, for us in the, you know, small businesses, mid-sized businesses, but even large enterprises that I deal with, I keep reminding them, story is not some sort of superficial sales gimmick. Story is the essence of your business. It's your mission. It's what you show up every day to do is to help others be successful. And so, story is the foundation of our very businesses.
Yeah. And so, it's not the mission that's necessarily posted on the wall. It really is your true walking the talk of your why.
Your true purpose, why you get up every morning.
Love it. I've talked to some salespeople and I think one of the biggest frustrations that they have is a lot of times they'll get discovery calls, but the people don't actually know what it is they want. You know, they're responding to maybe a problem, which is a symptom of a bigger problem. How can people making these discovery calls uncover the true essence of the problem rather than what the customer's perceiving?
Yeah, this is fantastic. So first of all, to the sales folks that are experiencing this, my first word of advice is jump for joy, right? If somebody's coming to you And they're not quite able to articulate the problem, that is a fantastic opportunity. Where we get commoditized is when the problem is clearly understood and well-defined to the point where they can now write an RFP because it's so clearly understood. And that creates a box that we have to fit inside. You know, how long, how much, what color, how quickly. And we just have to answer these questions and try to fit in this box. But if the customer is coming to us and they are actually unclear about the challenge they're facing, just these different symptoms that are showing up, and they're not sure what to do with this, that means they're very early in the buying journey. And the earlier we can engage them in the buying journey, the better we can help them and the more we can influence their understanding of what the problem truly is because many times We're addressing symptoms rather than root cause. And many times we're addressing a dimension of the problem rather than the full spectrum of the problem. So again, in the book that I've— that's coming out, it's dropping September 5th. I'm really proud of this book. It's— Thank you. It's really a combination of theory, but it's very practical. So it helps salespeople to really understand what is, what is my craft really? But it also gives them some tools and templates to actually execute.
I love it.
And so, one of the tools that we give them, one of the templates we give them, Marc, is a discovery storyboard. So, it shows them the kind of things that you want to understand about the customer. And I use this acronym GPS. So, you think of a buyer's journey. If somebody's on a journey, they could get lost. And to orient them, you need a GPS. So, I actually use the acronym GPS times 2, which the G1 and G2 means what is their strategic or long-term goal? And then, G2 is what is their personal goal? So, that is the key. And I explain in the book the importance of goals, that goals really drive the emotional engagement of the customer, of the prospect. So, you have to begin with what is their goal? Where are they going? The hero in the hero's journey, they're going somewhere. They're trying to achieve something. You must start there. So, just helping them show up as a consultant. As an advisor and just helping them clarify before we get to problems. Let's back up. What is it you're really trying to accomplish? Once we've got that, the next element of the hero's journey we want to uncover is, okay, I understand strategically what you're trying to accomplish. Then, what we need to move to is what we call in the hero's journey framework the villains. The villains are external forces that are completely outside of the control of the hero. So, that's A, completely outside of the hero. And then B, they're adversarial to the hero's goals. They're going to put the hero in jeopardy of achieving their goals. But they're outside of the hero's control. This makes the hero realize how vulnerable they are. Once they're in that position of vulnerability, we need to show them, hey, if you do nothing, if you live in the status quo that you're in today, then here's where you're heading. And we call this the pit of despair. So, the hero heads into this pit of despair as a result of the world changing on them. And that's where they suffer. And suffering is critical in the plotline of the hero's journey because it is in suffering that we're forced into introspection. When everything's going well, I just keep going. And I'd be— in fact, I become overconfident. When suddenly something like the pandemic strikes and I can't meet with customers face-to-face. And we were talking a bit about this before we started today. I've got to innovate. I've got to figure things out. Well, I can't change governments. I can't change policies. I can't change the pandemic. What then? Well, what can I change? And the introspection forces the hero to look internally at their flaws. Okay. What is it about me that I need to change? And from a business perspective, we call these flaws the internal weaknesses, which are typically processes, Or infrastructure that may have been a strength yesterday, but in today's world, it's actually holding you back. And that's where you need this special resource. That's the next element of the plotline. And that's the role of the small business, the small business owner, the salesperson, is to show up as the special resource. And this is where the differentiation comes. Rather than just talking about my services or my product generically, Now, I can speak into your journey. And so, the G1, G2 is the goals. And then, P1, P2, the pressures, which is the villain. And P2 is the problems, which are the hero's flaws, the internal weaknesses where we can really truly add value. As a result of P2, the problems, the hero is going to fall into the pit of despair. So, that's S1. The suffering. How will the hero suffer if they do not address their P2 and the P1 continues to exert force on their goals? And then, S2 is success. If they allow you in, if they partner with you, if they allow you to intervene in such a way that you can address their weakness, then they're going to have success. And what does that look like? So, GPS times 2 becomes a very quick shorthand way of going into a meeting, Maybe I didn't get enough time to prepare for the meeting, but it allows me to go into any meeting and just quickly in the back of my head, GPS Times 2, know what questions to ask. Now, if they don't know what questions to ask, in the book, there's a section where I have a 100-question library that follows this GPS Times 2 format so that it's like a thought starter. Like salespeople are going to see some of my favorite questions and questions that they might not have thought to ask. And it's just a great like, hey, you know what? I'm going to go into this meeting and make sure I get this information.
Fantastic. I'm looking forward to it. You said the book is going to drop when? September when?
September 5th. And it's available on Amazon.
Great. And we will put a link to that book in the show notes when it's launched to make absolutely sure that if you're watching this in recording post-September 5th, that you'll have quick access to it.
It's actually available for preorder right now.
It is? Where can people order it?
On Amazon.
On Amazon. Okay, great. So you can just Google it and it'll be there. I'll make sure to put the link in the show notes.
Heroes, Villains, and the Thrill of Professional Selling.
Love it. You know, you're talking a lot about what people might be tuning in and thinking, well, that's all fine and dandy. Can you share a case story? See what I just did there? Case story. Or an example of a company that was able to kind of leverage what you've been talking about to become more successful in differentiating themselves beyond price?
Actually, as you ask the question, the first story that comes to mind is the company called WBM Technologies. And they're out in Saskatoon. Small business that has been growing significantly. One of my early clients, I've been working with them now for almost 10 years. And basically, when I started working with them, they're a technology company. I managed an IT services company. But when I began working with them, Marc, I kind of saw them as photocopier salespeople. I went to their small office. They had a bunch of photocopiers around. They were beyond that at the time, but that's how it struck me. Like they were selling hardware and trying to add some services to this. The owners at the time were employees that bought the company and had really high hopes for this, growing the company. They understood the potential of it. And they very quickly ran into a big obstacle, almost say a brick wall. And that brick wall was the procurement function of the companies they were selling to. They were selling to fairly large, some of Canada's largest companies with very sophisticated procurement who were ruthless in their negotiation and basically stripped out, talk about, you know, commoditization. They basically stripped out all the margin, the potential margin of these deals that they were putting together. And so, the CEO met me through TEC and was able— TEC is the executive committee. It's a CEO peer group. And just articulated to me some of the challenges that they were facing and particularly what procurement was doing to them and the risk that they were facing as a business. And they just appreciated the different approach that I had for sales. So, they brought me in to work with their sales team. At the time, a $30,000-$40,000 deal was a fairly typical deal. And they brought me in because they realized we're not going to get out of this commodity trap, this product push trap, this cash flow straitjacket that we're in unless we can do bigger deals at better margins. And so, they brought me in and explained to me what they were facing. And so, we worked together to put a training program together for their sales team. I remember the very first morning of the first day of the training. One of the salespeople, Marc, came to me and his name is Jeff. And he was in a bit of a panic at the 10:30 break. He basically pulled me aside, Adrian, can I talk to you? I said, yeah, Jeff, what is it? He said, I can't do this. So, this was all about approaching C-level executives. And having strategic conversations with them as context for your value. And he pulled me aside and said, I can't do this. I said, Jeff, why? He said, well, I don't have the education. I don't— he said, I don't have the words. I don't have the vocabulary to talk to CEOs. And I had to reassure him and say, Jeff, this is not about vocabulary. It's not about words. It's about having a genuine interest and care for your customers. And they're the ones who are going to do the talking. You just need to show up genuinely curious.
Yeah.
His VP, Brad, and I gotta say, just as an aside, WBM has just a beautiful culture. These 2 folks that bought the company, they genuinely love people. They care about their people. That's why it was so stressful for them to be thinking about letting people go if they couldn't get their cash flow right. But I've been working with them for 10 years and I continue to be impressed with how they care for their people. And Brett basically coached Jeff through this. And when they first started, they were a little bit clumsy, but they stuck to it. This is another thing I appreciate about WVM. When they execute, they execute. It's like, now we're doing this, and they stick to it until they get it right. So Brett coached him through this, and they just started using GPS Times 2, using the whole storytelling model. They shifted the way they show up in the marketplace. So, a couple of things. One is today, that same individual, Jeff, who said, I can't do this, it was a couple of years ago. He closed a— get ready for this. So, $30,000, $40,000 deal was the kind of deals they were doing. A couple of years ago, he closed a $65 million deal. 5-year deal, $65 million.
Wow.
This is now the typical kind of deal that WBM is doing. And they've grown significantly. They've acquired other companies. And the C-level executives of the companies they're calling on, they expect to hear from WBM. In fact, they made one call recently where it was a CIO, and he said, where have you guys been? I hear all about you. I was waiting. I was wondering when I was going to get to meet you. And so, they've completely redefined the market. And now, it's not about transactions. It's about customer journeys. And they have a flywheel concept of what are the 5 things we do to really make us successful. And one of them is we make the customer the hero. And so, they're obsessed with making the customer the hero. And as a result, customers, as they become more successful, they bring them back to do even more work for them. And now, I'm working with WBM. And they've grown significantly. They've acquired other companies. So, I'm now embarking on a project with them to train their leaders in this whole notion of story so that leaders will— the program's called Lead with Story. And so, the leaders are going to understand how to get their team to understand how we fit in the customer story. So, you're not just a cog in the wheel here. Your contribution matters. And as you contribute, We're making our customers successful so that now getting the— they want the culture to be filled with story and to be sensitive to story and to be obsessed with the customer's story and how we make it better. So that's an example that has come to mind.
I love that. And what you also punctuated, which is something that we've talked on this channel many times, is the value of taking time and spending and investing in your staff to train them appropriately Because imagine for a second that the company didn't invest in bringing you in to start exploring new and different ways of doing things. They'd still be signing $40,000, $60,000 deals instead of million-dollar deals.
And this same, you know, a couple of the guys, Jeff, Ryan, they were there, you know, 10 years ago. They're here, they're still with the company. So the company retains this talent.
Yes.
Because they give them opportunity to grow. So Jeff is now a director of strategic accounts. He's got a team under him and he's just knocking it out of the park. And just to watch these guys succeed because they're obsessed with making their customers successful and seeing their growth and, and becoming leaders, it's been, it's been a phenomenal honor for me.
I love that. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to kind of uncover the idea, uh, this idea of storytelling. You've alluded to a lot of it, but I'd like to kind of put it into like a more concise kind of flow. And we'll get to that right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget.
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today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back. I am here with Adrian Davis. This has been such an enthralling conversation just because what you've been talking about, Adrian, is really crossing over to this idea of customer experience, employee experience, and so on, which of course is my wheelhouse, which, you know, just tickles me when, when you say stuff and I get goosebumps. Am I right in assuming that when we talk about storytelling, we're not talking about a 3-step process we use to make widgets or a story around how we source components for our doodads? Can we delve a little bit into actual storytelling techniques? You've mentioned the hero's journey many times. You've alluded to some of it. But can we talk a little bit about the flow of storytelling and how sales fits into that?
What an important question, Marc. So, and I really appreciate the question because I wouldn't even— sometimes you're so far down a journey yourself that it's hard for you to back up and say, like, where are people starting?
Yes.
And so, I mean, it could be that starting out, I think I've got to tell them a story about how I make my doodads, and that's not the case at all.
Which is, by the way, official terminology for anybody watching.
Yes.
You can Google it, I'm sure. No, I'm kidding.
Yeah. So, it's not about doodads. It's really about— and it's not inside out, it's outside in. The hero's journey is an archetype. And when we say it's an archetype, what we mean is it is a framework that is embedded deep in the subconscious mind of human beings. So, the great storytellers— and this is something that Aristotle uncovered thousands of years ago, and we're still benefiting from it to this day. It is an archetype that the professional or the great storytellers, the compelling storytellers use in order to capture and hold our attention. So even though it may not have been spelled out for us, subconsciously we understand it and we know we understand it. And the professional storytellers know we understand it because when they release a movie, let's say, and it becomes a blockbuster hit and we watch it and maybe we want to watch it again and we tell our friends about it. It's because we can relate to it. And the reason we can relate to it is they've exploited this archetype. They've used this framework in order to structure their story. When we watch a show or a movie or read a book and it's like, ah, this isn't working for me, more often than not, the reason is they have violated the hero's journey framework. So, in sales, we can benefit from the fact that Subconsciously, the brain is prewired to accept stories in the form of the hero's journey. And the hero's journey, all— and for sales in the book, I simplify this, Marc. It's a man, Joseph Campbell. He wrote a book called The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It's a big, thick book. It's very complex. I think in theory, you're probably very familiar with Joseph Campbell. If we put something like that in the hands of salespeople, It's too complex. They didn't sign up to become psychologists. They just have a job to do. We want them to be emotionally intelligent, but we don't want them to be psychotherapists or psychologists. So, I've taken the hero's journey and I've simplified it, Marc, just to a few steps. And so, when we understand those steps, as I mentioned earlier, we're now in a better position to do discovery calls. But having done the discovery call, we're also in a superior position To tell our story like the professional storytellers, framing it using the hero's journey so that we know it's going to be emotionally compelling, that people are going to listen and want to continue to listen because they're just wired from— they were children and they were hearing about Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Whatever these stories were, these stories have wired our brains to receive stories using the hero's journey. So the first thing is, rather than talk about ourselves, which is the natural thing, to try to be the hero— the way the brain is wired, Marc, my brain is a storyteller. Your brain is a storyteller. In my mind, I'm the hero. And from the moment I was born, I was trying to understand how the world revolves around me. I'm the main character in the story. Same with you. So if I come now into your office wanting to sell you something, it's very clear to me I'm the hero in this story. So I need you to tell me your problem so that I can save you. And what this— this is setting up a subconscious conflict where in your mind you're the hero of your story. Who's this guy coming in to try to play the hero in your movie? Well, if you're really desperate, you may accept my help. But not without subconscious resentment because you have a sense of loss of control and you're just desperate. I'm going to have far more value showing up in your office realizing I'm not stepping into your office. I'm actually stepping into your story. And that is sacred ground. So, as I step into your story, I'm going to have the respect to listen and to try to understand what is the story you're telling yourself and how accurate is it. And can I help you reshape that story so that you can be more successful? So, that's number one. The whole thing I talked about story listening and that's in the book. But then, when I pivot to storytelling, I can just tell you a story not about me but about somebody like you. And so, I'm going to tell you the story of a customer that is similar to you facing a similar— wanting to achieve a similar goal, facing similar challenges. And in fact, in the book, I talk about the template for storytelling. I use it as training wheels. So, if you're not used to telling sales stories, follow this template. Just fill in your content and the words in the template will do the emotional lifting for you. And so, one of these key phrases in the template is like you. So, I would just start out saying, oh Marc, I'm glad you shared this with me. In fact, it reminds me of... Brett, like you, he's also a small business owner. And like you, he wanted to grow his business. So, I explained that you've got to— the professional storytellers don't tell stories about statistics. They tell stories about people. And in particular, one person. It's called the— I think it was Joseph Stalin, horrible person with a deep insight. He said, The death of 10,000 is a statistic. The death of one is a tragedy. That is so deeply insightful. I cannot relate to 10,000 people. So I get news that 10,000 people have died in some kind of catastrophe, and it's like, oh, that's terrible. But it doesn't move me emotionally. But I hear the news of a child that was burned to death, and I'm moved. I'm like, let's raise funds for the family. Let's do something about this. Because I can emotionally connect to one person. So, we need our professional salespeople to learn not just to tell stories about a business case or about the manufacturing of their doodad but about the person who they helped make successful, who is similar to the person that's sitting across from them. And this is making the whole intervention much more emotional, much more engaging, and far more relevant.
Love it. I'm sure that people are just tickled listening to this right now. How can people get in touch with you if this is resonating with them and they want to reach out because they need your help? How can they connect with you?
Easiest thing is just email me at adrian@adriandavis.com. That would be the quickest, easiest way.
Terrific. And the spelling is below your chin, so life is good.
Very good.
Adrian, you know, the storytelling journey, you know, when we're looking at the greatest stories of all time— Cinderella, Star Wars— I mean, We not only have everything you've been talking about where you have the hero, you have conflict, and so on. But you have a guide. Can you talk about the importance of the guide within the context of storytelling in sales?
Beautiful! So again, it's story listening. It's storytelling. And it's story making. And the guide is pivotal in all 3 of those phases. And pivotal, literally pivotal. In the sense that the guide is responsible for the plot twist. So, here I am. I have a particular goal that I'm trying to achieve for my business. The world has changed. There's a labor pool shortage. There's the pandemic, the economic lockdowns. There's rising interest rates, exchange rate rising, fuel shortage, whatever it is. These things that are happening around me that are outside of my control that are suddenly putting my goal in jeopardy. And now, my profits are falling. My employees are leaving. My customers are losing confidence in me. My investors are losing confidence. I'm heading into this pit of despair. And that's where I now— suffering humbles us. And I think it was Bruce Lee who said, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And that really is the role of the professional salesperson to represent all of the resources Behind them that their company can bring to bear, but they are the liaison and the guide. So again, using GPS by times two, I need to understand what's my custom? What's the journey here? What's going on? What's your story? And then having understood that, I'm now in the position to be that trusted advisor, to be that guide, to take all of my company's resource resources. And configure them uniquely to tailor them specifically to what you need and to help you through the rest of your journey so that you can be successful and ultimately your business is transformed. So whatever it is we sell, what we're selling first of all is advice, right? They've got to understand we've got to be credible. They've got to believe that we have an answer for them, a solution. And then we are that guide, but we're bringing capabilities to to help them through this pivot.
We are the expert, essentially.
Really, we're the expert of our experts. Yes.
Yeah.
So, I'm an expert, but I've got a team behind me. And depending on what your particular need is, I'm going to configure my experts to show up to help you. And what I configure becomes uniquely tailored to you and the situation you shared with me so that You cannot compare me to any other company. One of the, if you don't mind, one of the acronyms I use in the book is SOCKET. That when you're putting a solution in front of a customer, run it through the SOCKET filter. Why? Because if we really want to build a partnership with a company, with a customer, think of that joint. We want to have a joint, that ball in the socket. So, S-O-C-K-E-T. S stands for Is my solution truly strategic? Is it addressing the strategic objectives of the customer? The O means over time. Is my solution something that I'm delivering with the customer over time, over multi-years, which is what the shift that WBM made, looking at 5-year journey maps instead of a transaction? The C stands for combined capabilities. Am I just bringing moving? I'm a moving company. Is that all I'm doing is packing some boxes and moving? Or can I bring some other capabilities, maybe partners that look at what happens before you move, during and after the move that I can round out my solution? And that's where I was saying earlier, I have to be the expert of my experts so that I can tailor, think of it as pieces of Lego that, yeah, I've got a whole bucket of Lego, but I'm gonna configure certain pieces just The K stands for KPIs. Will my solution move the key performance indicators of this customer? What are the indicators that matter to them? What does success look like to them? How are they being compensated? Let's dial in on those indicators and let's obsess on moving them for the customer. The E stands for embedded. Is my solution something that's going to become embedded in my customer's processes? So let's say that we do such a great job that this company now says, you know what? Anytime we have employees moving, you're our go-to company. You're now embedded in how we show up. You've, you've got a portal that all we have to do is go to that portal, say it's this employee going from this date to this date, from this country, this city to this city. You're our guy. So you've become embedded. in their workflow. And then finally, the T stands for transformational. At the end of the hero's journey, the hero is transformed, so much so that they look back on all the suffering they went through and they say, you know what? I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't go through that. And from a business perspective, we want the same thing to happen. You know, you and I were talking about technology and setting up our studios as a result of the pandemic. And we, we could look and say, you know what? I wouldn't change a thing. Yeah. My business is so much more robust, so much more capable as a result of the innovation we had to figure out through that really economic blow potentially of the pandemic. We managed to turn it around, and now we have very robust, thriving businesses. Wouldn't change a thing. So that acronym of SOCKIT is just a good stress test to say, are we showing up as a commodity, or are we truly showing up with a transformational solution?
I love it. Before we wrap up, one question is percolating in my brain. This aspect of storytelling that requires the use of emotions, emotion words, the intent of generating emotions. Can you talk very quickly a little bit about that?
Sure. Just to really simplify it. And again, we need salespeople today more than ever to be emotionally intelligent. But that doesn't mean— and the latest stat that I heard in terms of human emotions, the neuroscientists have uncovered 34,000 emotions that human beings are capable of. So, we can't delve into that. We don't have the time. We wouldn't even remember. I really like to simplify it by turning to the professional. Rather than turning to the neuroscientists, let's turn to the professional storytellers. Because they're obsessed with emotion. In fact, if you ask these professional storytellers, what's your objective with this story? Then, 9 out of 10 of them will say, it's to elicit emotion. You're not going to sit in front of a screen for 2 hours or 12 times 2 hours or whatever if it's a series. You're not going to do that if you're not emotionally engaged. You're going to find something else to do or something else to watch. So, they're obsessed with emotional engagement. They take those 34,000 emotions, Marc, and they boil them down to 4. And what they say is this. People are either scared, mad, sad, or glad.
Hmm.
So, on the hero's journey, the hero, when they're pursuing their goal, they're glad. One of the greatest feelings of fulfillment we have as humans is achievement. My wife and I just put together a shed. I'm not a handy guy. I'm a technology guy. I'm, you know, I like ideas. But, you know, we put together this shed and we did it over a weekend. I am so proud of this shed. When it was done, I actually took a picture of it and sent it to my kids, right? There was a real feeling of fulfillment when we accomplished this thing. That's what we love. So the hero is glad while they're pursuing their goal and achieving, making progress towards it. Then on the horizon, there seems to be change. The hero is scared. What's going on here? I don't understand. I'm losing control. Once they lose control and they've lost their— they're out of their status quo, they're mad. And they're going to fight to try to get back into the status quo. When they realize they can't, it's gone. Then they're sad. And they're in this pit of despair where now they have to have introspection. And what do I do? And it's like, oh, wow, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And now you show up and you give me hope that, oh, there's a way out of this. And now I'm glad again. So, 34,000 emotions are in these 4 buckets of glad, mad, sad, and scared. So, that is really easy. Scared, mad, sad, and glad. But again, just to add one more dimension to this, notice 75% of the emotions are negative. Scared, mad, sad. And only 1 out of 4 is positive. What salespeople need to understand, and again, because we're problem solvers, because we really like people, want to help people. When we show up, we just want to solve problems and make people feel good. And that actually works against us and commoditizes us. We need to spend time and help the customer spend time in the scared, mad, and sad. That if they stay with the status quo, these are the consequences. This is the pit of despair you're facing.
Right.
And then, once they understand that, we can then point them to the solution to say, if we work together, here's where you can go.
Yeah. As people are tuning into this and kind of taking all this in, I imagine that there's a fear that we're going to make mistakes when we do something brand new. But there's also some people who are just band-aiders. Are there any cautionaries we should be aware of if we want to start changing our culture of sales to be this more relational, story-based, focused process rather than the, you know, get on the phone and just make sales.
Yes. So, I have a response. But when you said band-aiders, my mind suddenly kind of halted. If you don't mind, just explain to me a little bit more of what you mean by band-aiders.
Well, there's some people who will learn something brand new and go up to their team and say, okay, this month we're going to do something new. And they put a band-aid on it. It's not a long-term strategy. It's something to solve an immediate Or raising a flag to be the policy of the month.
Yeah. So, where my mind was going initially, and I'm glad I asked for clarification. And so, I think where I was going initially is still helpful. And that is that you really cannot go wrong with this approach. You don't have to be perfect. So, I give very clear outlines and steps in the book. But when it's time to execute them, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be human. You just have to be real. In fact, you could give your customer my book and say that, you know, this is what I'm trying to do here. Because it's not about manipulation. It's truly about helping people and to help them to act in their own best interest with a bit of understanding of psychology, understanding how the mind works and how the mind works against us. So, you're trying to help them through that. So, it's nothing nefarious. It's nothing that's manipulative that we have to kind of hide what we're doing. And if we stumble along the way, it's okay. It's amazing to me how many stories I've told that I haven't told perfectly, and yet they still had the impact because people can tell that I really care. So, I think that's number one is like, have your team show up in a genuine way with genuine caring. And the techniques are the techniques that we don't want to be techniquey when we show up. We just want to be real and we want to help. So, that's number one. Don't worry about not being perfect in the implementation. Just worry about being perfect in your intention. And then number 2, I think this is really a leadership issue, and I think maybe you would be far better to speak to this than I would, Marc, because of the work that you do and your expertise. But what I've been doing with my customers is getting away from the 1-day training or the 2-day training. And although we might do like a 1-day or a 2-day or a 4-day kickoff, We follow that up over time, every 2 weeks, every month. And we've got a whole online learning management system to reinforce the learning, to make sure that it's sticking in terms of remembering this so that I clear in my own mind. But also, we guide them through implementation. We don't try to boil the ocean. This month, we're focusing on X. Get everybody doing the assignments, working in the field with their customers. Okay, great. And it's funny how they thought they understood it. They did understand it conceptually. But when they actually go to do it, they begin to realize there's gaps in their understanding. Then we follow— now that everybody's on the same page there, great. Now we can build on that. Now we go to the next stage. Now we're focusing on X plus Y. And then over time, it just, you know, people learn it in a way that it becomes a part of their being. And people will even say to me, you know what? I realize this has as much applicability and relevance in my personal life as it does in my professional life. Bingo! This is about being human and understanding other humans.
I love it. This has been such an amazing topic, Adrian, and I can't thank you enough for you bringing it all to us. Do you have any last thoughts about today's topic before we wrap up?
I think just what I said is don't focus on technique. Focus on who you are. You know, character, your character is your destiny. So it's not the techniques that are gonna get you where you want to go. It's that people know you. And if I now, I'm gonna, somebody asked me about Marc Haine, I'm gonna talk about your character, the kind of person you are, how you treated me, the conscientiousness that I experienced from you. And none of that felt techniquey, although clearly you're competent in what you do, but your character came shining through.
Yeah.
And I think that's what's going to be critical as artificial intelligence and automation and supercomputers and hyper-competition come in. The folks who show up and can truly empathize and care, it's going to be very hard for them to be replaced.
Yeah. Human. You can't replace human. Could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?
Please. Happy to hear from you. I love this. adriandavis.com. And again, the book is Heroes, Villains, and the Thrill of Professional Selling. And that's available on Amazon.
Thank you very much, Adrian. This has been an absolute blessing and it's been so much fun. Thank you for doing this for us today.
Thank you. It's been my honor. Thanks so much for inviting me on.
Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? I would love it if you would put a review in the podcast show notes. Let me know if this was of value to you. As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to help you brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And if you enjoyed today's episode, why don't you go ahead and subscribe To this channel. And go ahead and please leave a review. I'd love to get anything back from you. I'd love to get your feedback. At the end of the day, I only grow because of what you tell me you want, you need, maybe what was lacking. I'd appreciate it. It has been so great being here with you today on Marc Haine Live. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.
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