71: John Livesay, “The Pitch Whisperer”, talks about how respect is critical to a Sales Pitch.

Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz, with the Center for Respect. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded when this show used to be called the Respect Podcast. So, you might hear that mentioned during this episode. Well, let's get to the show. John Livesay is our guest today. He is the Pitch Whisperer. A sales keynote speaker who shares the lessons learned from his award-winning sales career at Condé Nast. He, in his keynote, Better Selling Through Storytelling, he shows companies' sales teams how to become irresistible so they are magnetic to their ideal clients. John, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Mike. It's a great topic.

All right, well, let's dive right in there. So how did you become known as the Pitch Whisperer?

Well, it came from 2 different sources. I was being interviewed by Inc. Magazine And I was describing how I help people with their confidence, much like a horse whisperer calms a horse down, and make sure that they have a message that's clear and concise and compelling. And the person who was interviewing me from Inc. said, oh, you're the Pitch Whisperer. And I said, oh, I like that. So I put that on the COVID of one of my books. And then I was giving a talk to Anthem Insurance, and they had me stay and do a little workshop with improv. And I would stay on stage with them as they were role-playing handling objections. And if they got stuck, I would whisper in their ear something to say that would keep the conversation going. And then they just looked up and said, oh my God, can you be in my ear when I'm in the field? You really are the pitch whisperer.

From that moment— now, in theory though, if you're giving them what they need right in the moment, they don't need you when they're in that situation, right? Because they have all the skills.

Yes, but like learning anything, you need to practice it. And so in that situation, I was helping them practice what they had just learned. And so they want to— it was a very sweet way of saying, I'm going to hear you in my head, but it would sure be great in real life if I had you in my ear all the time. But eventually, learning to ride a bike, you don't need the training wheels anymore.

Absolutely makes sense. And, you know, we're all about respect here. So how does respect play into somebody in a sales pitch and the actual pitch itself?

Well, Mike, I think it always starts with respecting yourself. If you don't respect yourself as a professional and think of yourself as someone who has something to offer of value, then you become the used car salesman that's pushy. Nobody wants to do that. That's typically not respecting your profession, what you're doing for a living, and certainly not respecting people you're talking to. However, the new way of selling is to think of yourself as a storyteller, and you tell stories that pull people in, and people feel respected because there's no pushing going on.

What would be a good example? Can you give us an example of something, let's say, you could sell or someone could sell where you'd bring the story in?

Sure. I was just helping an architecture firm who has to pitch to get selected to redesign an airport or redesign a law firm, and they go up typically against 2 other firms. and they're given an hour to come in and talk about what their designs are and what it would be like to work with them. So the old way that they would do it would just be, you know, here's who we are, here's what the designs look like, any questions? There was no story there. It was very, do you like our designs or not? And I would work with them during that 1 hour that they had to say, you know, when I was 11 years old, I played with Legos, and that's what inspired me to become an architect. And now I have a son that's 11. I still play with Legos, and I bring that same passion to this job today. And now here's Sue on our team. Before working here, she worked at the Israeli Army. And Sue says, I bring that same discipline and focus from being in the Israeli Army to making sure your project's going to come on time and under budget. So now they have a story connected to each person that makes them memorable and makes them feel connected to them, and that's how they won that account.

And so people can also do this, for instance, like in a job interview. So can you give some examples of how to utilize that in a job interview?

You're absolutely right, Mike. It's a great way to do that. People will often be asked in an interview, can you bring your resume to life? And that's your cue to tell a story. And a story has a beginning, middle, and end. I just did a video on this for LinkedIn's #GetHired. And the very concept is, even if you've been around for a while, you still tell your story at the beginning. I was being interviewed. I said, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, went to school at the University of Illinois, and then I moved to California and I bring my Midwest sensibility to California, because the person interviewing me was in New York and a lot of New Yorkers think everybody in California is flaky. So by sort of handling that objection up front, the gentleman interviewing me said, oh, I used to live in Chicago, so I know exactly what you mean. Had I not started that story at the beginning, we would not have bonded over that, and I ended up getting the job. That's great.

That's a great example. Now, when it comes to using the story, yours are very short there, which is, I would think, key to this. If you get into a long story, you're going to lose them. So how does somebody know what's too short, too long when it comes to storytelling, either in an interview or when they're selling an idea or a product or a service?

Well, a good story has 4 elements to it. The exposition— you paint the picture: who, what, where, when. And then you tell a problem, then you tell a solution, and then most stories Need a resolution. What's life like afterwards? So again, an example in an interview situation, you will probably be bringing your resume to life, telling one of your success stories from a previous job. Paint that picture. So for example, when I was being interviewed, I was telling a story of, you know, 4 years ago when I was selling ads for W Magazine, we were trying to get the Jaguar car account to advertise with us. The problem was They said they wanted people to think of their car as moving sculpture, and they didn't know how to do that. So we came up with a solution of having some of our subscribers get picked up in the car and taken to an art exhibit where they could see some art and talk about art with people from Jaguar at a dinner after the art exhibit. And they sold 4 cars, and we got 10 pages of advertising, which resulted in $500,000 worth of revenue. So that's a story, and it had a beginning. It— I painted the picture of how long ago it was and who the client was. I described the problem the client had, how we came up with a solution that resulted in advertising and them selling some cars.

Is there any special tricks or techniques to making a story like extra memorable?

Uh, the more conflict, the higher the stakes are, the more memorable the story is. Let me give you another one. I work with my clients, as I mentioned, on their confidence, and, uh, one of the things I have them do is write down 2 or 3 times When they knew they nailed it. I call it stacking your moments of certainty. And this is certainly important before you go for an interview or to pitch a product or service. One of my clients, Martin, said, wow, that was a powerful exercise for me. I wrote down remembering that I was born in South America, but I grew up in the Netherlands. And when I turned 18, I was dropped off naked in the Amazon jungle to survive for 2 weeks because that's the rite of passage in my culture into manhood. I said, oh, that gives me chills, Martin. Let's work on that story. So then I said, what lessons did you learn in the Amazon jungle? He said, well, I learned how to focus and pivot and persevere. I said, great. And you're going to take those lessons from the Amazon jungle into the concrete jungle of being an entrepreneur. And when he had that all practiced and honed, he got his startup funded because the investor said, we're going to put our money on the guy that survived the Amazon jungle. Now, when he was practicing with me, sometimes he would forget to say, it's a rite of passage in my culture to do this. I said, if you don't say that as part of the exposition, It's gonna sound like child abuse. So there's an example of paint the picture strong enough that people see themselves in the story and they're riveted to see how it all turns out.

Well, that makes total sense. Is there other areas where storytelling can be used besides selling? You know, and if people think somebody's listening thinking, all right, well, I work in a job, so I'm not interviewing and I'm not in sales, how can story come into my life?

First, I would say almost everyone today is asked to sell something. If it's your idea, you have to sell yourself to get promoted. You have to, you know, so we're all selling on some level, even if our job title is not sales. But another example of storytelling helping people, I was interviewed on Talk of the Town in Nashville, and they said, you know, a lot of people who watch daytime TV are parents, stay-at-home moms. Do you have any tips for them? And I said, yes, so many of my friends say Especially teenagers or young teenagers, preteens, will come home from school, the parent will say, hey, Billy. Hi, Sue. How was your day? And they get these one-word answers, Mike.

Fine.

Good. So I said, if you reframe it and say, tell me a story about the best part of your day, then your child has to say, hmm, what was the best part of my day? And they start to learn some storytelling techniques. You start to pull out some information from them because they're telling you a story. You can just say, Max was running fast at school today? How fast was he running? Get them to flesh out the details.

That makes sense. I can imagine some people listening going, all right, that's just not in my talent skill set that I'm born with. It's not how I'm wired. Can anyone learn to be a good storyteller?

They can. We all have stories inside of us. And it's just a matter of, like anything else, realizing how important stories are in order to have people remember you and engage with you. And so just learning those 4 basic steps to a story and start looking at movies that you see and say, oh, like here's an example. One of the genres of storytelling is rebirth. And you start to think, okay, what movie used that? Well, It's a Wonderful Life, the Jimmy Stewart black and white movie. And you say, oh. And then you look at an ad from Prudential and they say, you know, your retirement is a rebirth. It's your third act. Let us help you plan it. So you can start to see movies and brands using storytelling genres and figure out which genre you want to use to tell your own story.

You also help people with, as you've discussed earlier, with that confidence, but it doesn't just have to be sales. You also help with resilience, which has a lot connected to it. And you came to that from your own experiences. For instance, you were laid off after 15 years with the company. So how did that change you? What's the story around that and how that took you to resilience?

Well, the story is that I realized when that moment was happening back in 2008, and I had a couple friends come and help me clean up my office because it had to be out in 24 hours, that I didn't panic and I stayed calm. And that's a lesson I learned from being a lifeguard. And so I said to my boss at the time, would you like I need to give you a turnover report so you know where these clients' ads are supposed to be running and what issue and what page. Well, that'd be great, but everyone else who's being laid off in the outside office is so mad, they're just storming out. I said, I'm not going to do that. Little did I know, Mike, that that respect that I showed for my clients and even my boss would turn out to benefit me later. As I was closing the door, saying goodbye to my job, I felt sad and scared and a little, you know, disappointed that that was over. And I realized that I lost my job but not my identity. And so I thought, okay, I'd better reinvent myself, much like some actors that were in silent movies had to learn talkies. And in my case, it was going from just selling print to learning how to sell digital ads. And so that's, I think, the big takeaway for people is to look at You know, stay in the learning zone, get out of your comfort zone and realize things are changing for all of us. We're all being disrupted. Even if you don't lose your job, your job's being disrupted. So that mindset of lessons I learned, I learned how to sell digital ads. That was part of the interview process I was describing earlier. And then ironically, I got hired back by Condé Nast 2 years later because I left on such a good note. And I ended up winning Salesperson of the Year for Condé Nast, not just for the magazine, but for the entire company against 400 other salespeople.

Wow.

around the world. So I realized the big takeaway for me is I'm the same person whether I'm being laid off or winning an award. And when you realize that, you're free from being so attached to any one thing happening to you, good or bad, that is going to affect your self-esteem and your self-awareness.

Yeah, you know, that reminds me of a story. Somebody was once— I don't remember who it was now, it might have been Scott Stratton— was talking about his first book and when it became a bestseller. And they, the day that they became the bestseller, they thought, oh, now I've written a bestselling book. But actually they were writing the bestselling book before it was ever even being sold. He was already a level of a writer. It's just, he got the acknowledgement on that day, but he had written it that well a year before, you know, and we forget that, that whether I've been fired or whether I'm working in my dream job, I Have all the still same skill sets in both spots. You know, it's just where I am. So, so what is the secret to resilience then?

I would say the secret to resilience is remembering who you are, that you're bigger than any one thing happening to you. And also the other secret is how fast do you bounce back after you've been knocked down? Suze Orman talks about this in real estate, that the key difference between those top 1% performers and everyone else struggling to make ends meet is The top 1% get a no or a deal falls through, they just, okay, on to the next. And the other people say they are doing it, but they don't. Their attitude for the next 2 weeks or longer is kind of still moping around and upset about that. When I gave my TEDx talk, Be the Lifeguard of Your Own Life, one of the other speakers is Bonnie St. John. And she had lost the lower part of her left leg at 12 years old and went on to learned how to downhill ski with a prosthetic ski leg at the Paralympic medals. And she said, you know, when they ski, they have to go down 2 mountains and you get measured, the compilation of both, whoever has the best time for both downhill races. And the first one, she was first place. And then the second mountain was icier and everybody was falling and you knew you were going to fall. And sure enough, she fell and then she got back up as fast as she could and Finished the race and they said, oh, you came in second overall. Because while she was the fastest one to go downhill, she was not the fastest one to get back up. So that's the secret to resilience is how fast can you get back up?

That's a great story. Now you've met Michael Phelps and I come from a swim family, so there's a lesson you learned from Michael Phelps. Curious what that is.

Yes. Well, the lesson I think starts with how did I even get to meet him? I also was a lifeguard and swam competitively, so that was a big dream. to get to meet someone like that. And, um, one of the clients I was calling on was Speedo Swimwear, and they were coming up with a line of sportswear, and they were probably going to run it in a, you know, a fitness magazine. And I went to them as a representative of fashion magazine, and I said, you know, what if, what if we treated your sportswear like it was high fashion and we had a fashion show around a swimming pool at a hotel, and the models could go around the pool and You could invite Michael Phelps since he's on your payroll as a spokesperson, and we could get all kinds of publicity that wouldn't normally happen. And they liked that idea and gave me some advertising that wasn't expected normally. And then I got to meet Michael Phelps. So I went up to him and I said, you know, Michael, everyone says you're such a great swimmer because you're tall and you have this huge lung capacity and your feet are like fins, but I'm guessing there might be something else. And he said, you know what, Shawn? Years ago, my coach said to me, Michael, Are you willing to work out on Sundays? And I said, yes, coach. He goes, great. We just got 52 more workouts a year than your competition. So the takeaway for everyone is, what are you willing to do that your competition is not?

Yeah. I love that. That's a great takeaway. Yeah. He's known for his work ethic and that's what a lot of people don't realize. Uh, even at a young age, he was willing to, to work that out. So in resilience, in storytelling, You have to face conflict in life. So how do you help people get out of their comfort zone?

Well, I think the best way to get out of your comfort zone is to first realize you're in it and the dangers of staying in it. For example, Blockbuster was in their comfort zone and Blockbuster said, you know, we're just gonna keep renting out videos. And meanwhile, Netflix is like, oh, we're sending out discs. That's different. But what if we got into this whole new streaming business? And so one stayed in the comfort zone and went away and one thrived. I think that's the aha moment for everyone, whether you're working for yourself or working for a company, is to realize the dangers of staying in the comfort zone and always be learning and stay curious as to what's coming up. The Wayne Gretzky quote, I anticipate where the puck's going. Don't just stay focused in the weeds.

How does somebody do that? That's one of those that people go, well, that sounds good, getting out of my comfort zone. But how do I actually get past those barriers that keep me in my comfort zone?

Well, I think you need to look at your own specific industry. You know, if you're someone who's saying, here we are in print, print advertising has been going on for decades, and there's this new thing called the internet coming out, um, maybe we should look into getting into that as well and having a website for our brands. I mean, people had— it's hard to imagine back then, But that was a decision people had to make. Like, our advertisers are gonna have a website and they're gonna start selling clothes from this website, not just the store. Maybe we should get into this. And some brands and companies jumped ahead and were already there. And some waited until their clients and advertisers were already saying, oh, we're taking some of our print budget and putting it into digital. And some people were saying, oh, we don't have a website yet for you to advertise on. And other people said, great, we have a website and we have this many visitors on it already. So it's— that's how you do it. You always see what's coming and anticipate it versus being reactive.

Awesome. Now you're a big reader and you recommend one specific book that I noticed, Judy Robiney's Crack the Funding Code. What about that book do you recommend?

Well, first of all, Judy's a great writer and she shows a tremendous amount of empathy on putting yourself in the investor's shoes. And she helps so many founders get funded. and get their dreams to come true. That's her main focus. She's inspiring to let you know that if you just get in the right room with the right message, and how to do that in the book, you can get your startup funded. A lot of startups fail because they don't have customers and they don't have funding to keep things going. I recommend that because she really explains a step-by-step process for so many people who have a dream of getting funded and don't get it. happen, she shows you how to do it.

And there's another book you recommend called Disrupt You. What do you love about that one?

That's by Jay Samit. And again, it really plays to what we were talking about earlier of not staying in your comfort zone. Because if you stay in your comfort zone, then we know what happens. But Jay's book is all about disrupt yourself, learn something new, look, try to solve some problems that are going on in the world and see how you can Disrupt yourself before disruption comes to you.

That's awesome, John. I want to thank you for joining us. You've given us a lot of information in a short period of time. For all of our listeners, it's John Livesay. If, if you are, uh, looking to how to spell that, it's think of live and say L-I-V-E-S-A-Y and John. That's johnlivesay.com. So we want to make sure everybody can find you there. There, you'll also be in our show notes. There's a way they can text. So that'll all be in the show notes to get information from you. John, thank you so much for joining us.

Great! I have a free gift for your listeners. If they text the word pitch, P-I-T-C-H, to 66866, I'll send them a free chapter sneak peek of my new book, Better Selling Through Storytelling.

Awesome! For our listeners, you know what's next. It is Question of the Week. Today's question is, Mike, how does innovation and having a foundation of respect go hand in hand with an organization? How do they work together? Like most people don't think, oh, if we have a foundation of respect here, our company will be more innovative. But actually it absolutely will. Because here's the concept of having a foundation of respect. You respect all voices, all backgrounds, all ways of thinking as possibilities that further deepen your company's knowledge base, problem solving, creativity. So when you really create a foundation of respect, More people will feel safer being able to share their ideas, their problem-solving thoughts without fear of judgment or ridicule or humiliation. They're more likely to come forward without an overly competitive, somebody did it better, or I'm doing it better. No, when you have foundation of respect, it is with support, it's with gratitude that ideas are brought forward. So, so many more are brought forward. Therefore, you create greater services and products and solutions because you have more voices contributing. You also look for more diversity in who makes up your organization because you want that diverse voice. You want that diverse thought and ideas and problem solving. So, you bring more of that into you. You seek that out versus going, hey, we're all alike in the room. So, how do we think? In a way that's diverse, which is not a healthy way to be diverse. You be diverse by having a room of diversity. And that's what we want more of in any organization if it really wants to be founded in respect. It's why respect and innovation go so beautifully together, because when you have foundation in respect, you'll be feeding and nurturing innovation throughout your organization. And while others struggle with being overly competitive with organization, you'll have one built on support. and respecting those ideas and brilliance brought by each person, thus giving you a big, big up on the competition because of creating an atmosphere of respect and support for every person within your organization. We'd love to hear your questions, your thoughts, and your ideas. And the best place to leave those with us is on our Facebook page at facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast. Of course, you can always contact us on our website at mutuallyamazingpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe to the show so you automatically get it every week. And if you could take one moment to leave a review, that really helps other people find the show, which we are greatly appreciative of. So thank you so much for joining us. May you make today and every day a life full of mutually amazing relationships.