The Business Storyteller show - Ep1 - Pilot

I just had a call earlier today, which is interesting. 20-minute call with a guy. I'm helping him. I'm enjoying. He's getting a lot of value. My only problem with that was that those 20 minutes were given as a gift to him, but I could have given those 20 minutes to you. So why should I talk to someone and that's it when we can talk to someone Record it, amplify it, and help more people.

Welcome, welcome to the first show. This is a pilot. I'm giving it a try, and let's see what happens. I think I might call this show The BS Show, which stands for No BS, but also stands for The Business Storyteller. Hello, my name is Nir Zaval, and I think it's time we get to know each other. I've done a lot of things over the last 20 years. I've taught in colleges and universities. I've written novels and books. I have a best-selling book called Fuck the Slides, teaching you how to become better storytellers instead of having bad presentations. I've traveled the world, I've spoken over 35 countries. I've had a marketing agency called Streetwise for over 13 years, and I worked with Microsoft, Unilever, and a lot of big companies, Chevron and others. I think now it's time. I want to get to know as many people as possible. I want to share knowledge, and the Business Storyteller has a lot to do with who I've become in the last few years, what I want to teach, and how I want to present new information and new ways of improving your businesses. Now you might ask, what's the point? Why are you doing this show? Why now? And what are you selling us?

I'm not selling you anything yet, I think, at least. The idea is simple. I love helping people, and I love doing these sessions, and I love doing the Q&As. What I've learned is I can't reach everyone. And as I've shifted to work with bigger companies, medium-large businesses, enterprise businesses, I don't have time, and I would like to help more. And then I started to talk to more people in the tech industry. A lot of companies came and said, hey, maybe we can do something together, or maybe we can help some accelerators or in universities doing maybe some master classes. And I said, you know what, that's great, but what if we can answer exactly what they need and not just hope we're answering what they need? So this is my goal. I want to help as many people as I can answer their specific things. So this will become like a radio show like old days where people come on the show, we do a short Q&A, what they need, we solve the problem and we move on.

We're going to focus on very specific things. I'm working on a book for the last almost year, year and a half, and it's called The Business Catcher. And it's why I believe we're all building brands the wrong way. Hopefully this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life in business. Find ways of implementing storytelling techniques in different ways to help business owners grow and scale. And the best thing is when you put the brand, the brand character in the center, a few things evolve and can help you scale very, very fast if done correctly. And these things are the messaging, the way you carry yourself and your audience and how— what do you want to tell them and how. The next thing will be your marketing. If you pick up that megaphone, then what happens when you scream to the world? And from there, the sales. You will learn during these calls that most businesses screw up this one small thing, and it's how to pitch, how to create the ultimate discovery call, how to measure if it's a good story.

And, and that's a lot of what revolves around the book, fuck the slides. The last thing that I think is the biggest miss, and I'm going to focus a lot in 2026 and beyond, hopefully helping you guys scale, is the customer journey.

How do people interact with your brand?

What does your brand tell them in each point, in each of those intersections? And I'll show you examples and ideas and things you can then go on to implement. If this is interesting in any way, my only ask is this: ask questions, and maybe you'll come on the show. I assume at the beginning this will be a bit of like me talking to myself, which is fine. I need to get used to it anyway. But I really believe that if we do it the right way, we can help a lot of people. I just had a call earlier today, which is interesting. 20-minute call with a guy. I'm helping him. I'm enjoying. He's getting a lot of value. My only problem with that was that those 20 minutes were given as a gift to him, but I could have given those 20 minutes to you. So why should I talk to someone and that's it when we can talk to someone, record it, amplify it, and help more people?

And yesterday, last night, we had a discussion with a friend of mine. He used to be a client for a short time when they needed help scaling their business. And what I liked is he said they just started a new ad campaign on Meta, so Facebook and Instagram. And he said, we're counting the leads. Mind you, this is the weekend at the moment, so they're not calling them back and they're waiting. And I said, what if you stop What if we only measure 2 things? How many actually converted into a sale? And how good can we become in every step? And during that call, we already understood something very basic. They get the lead and there's nothing on the other side.

There's no thank you email.

It just sends them to the website and that's supposed to be the thank you email. The understanding that you got the lead, why not take them to a specific page, to a specific video? We discussed a little bit about the idea of implementing WhatsApp messages. So the moment they leave the ad, they leave the details, they leave their phone, the next thing is something needs to happen. And he said, okay, that's great, but we're sending them to a thank you page.

That'll be easy.

Thank you page on the website.

And I said, that's lovely. What if we take it one step further? What if they get the WhatsApp message? And it's easy to connect the dots, right? Because Meta also owns WhatsApp. The API is very simple. They already have a WhatsApp for Business and you connect. So some people might say, oh, this is great. Thank you for reaching out. We'll be back shortly. We'll call you tomorrow, whatever it may be. And I'm saying add a question because if I leave details somewhere, I might have left them in your competitors and 4 or 5 of them even. I barely remember where I left it and you will call me what, tomorrow, the following day? I'm out. The lead is cold. It's not relevant anymore. What if we flipped it and we made them wait for us?

Here it goes. Thank you so much. It's amazing. We love the fact that you left your details, whatever it may be. We would love to get back to you as soon as possible. We're probably doing something depending on your industry. In their case, if they're a catering company, we're probably cooking something amazing in the kitchen and we'll be back shortly. In the meantime, we would love to learn a little bit about your needs or what you want. And the reason is the moment they took an action Guess what? They're invested, and that is crucial. Get them invested in the process as fast as you can.

Makes sense?

Very simple. So try and have a lead, a thank you, get them invested with something— a questionnaire, one question, something you want to know, um, send them a video that they watch and ask them something. It might be a lot of different variations. In this customer journey, we're adding a level. If that level didn't exist before, it will convert better.

So remember, stop counting your leads—

not relevant.

Count the closings and count how many steps you have in your customer journey, how many of them are getting better every single week. That will help you tremendously. I want to give you an example for a bad customer journey.

2 weeks ago, we were flying.

We bought a ticket. I had miles. I did the upgrade. I added the seats and everything. And then my partner, she had to pay again for the flight seats. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like miles anyway. They always feel like some sort of a scam. I paid €10,000 for a seat or whatever it may be. And I'm saying, okay, I already, I paid. Why does she have to pay again? It was, I don't know, €12 or something. It's not about the money. Every time you ask me to open my wallet or every time your process isn't well structured, it annoys your audience. You can tell me what's gonna happen, I would appreciate it. But when do you actually say, you know what, I'm not going to charge you the €12? I think they had a problem because it was disconnected. So when I used the points, it should have already given us the free seat because I, I selected it. So I'll say maybe it's a tech issue, maybe it's a customer journey issue.

But you can also decide how you want to fix that customer journey and what you tell me. You see, hey, we know you purchased a ticket. We know you purchased it at what point. Just so you know, all you need to do to get a better seat is pay this €13 or €12. And not, if you want to select everything as paid and you have to choose. Don't make me feel like a prisoner. Make me feel like an opportunity to upgrade my seat, and that is important. So I think if you look at these steps, a lot of things will play in your favor. Last thing before I wrap up this short impromptu pilot session: Samsung, Samsung, you're a big company. What the heck's wrong with you guys? I just updated the version. And nothing works on my mobile phone. And every time that happens, every time that happens, more and more people will tell me, why aren't you using an iPhone? Why aren't you using an Apple? And every time it gets me a little bit closer to the edge where I'm saying I've never owned an Apple. Um, reasons I was a kid, a lot of stuff, and I always didn't like them compared to We had an Atari when I grew up. Anyway, the thing is, you're pushing me to the edge. Why aren't you asking me if I want to have that version because 1, 2, and 3?

But rather, I downloaded the version, I updated it, then I'm stuck, and now nothing works, and all the screens, and I have to redo everything. And look, you need to have a level Of what does this mean for the other side. I understand you worked on this shit for 6 months. That's great for you, and I'm happy you made it. It's good. The problem is it's invasive.

It's intrusive.

You go into my most intimate thing. It's the thing I spend the whole day. I sleep with my phone. You know, everybody has their phone with them all day long. And you made a change that makes me feel like you invaded my space, and I don't think it's cool. So I think the way you structure that process is, hey, these are the things we want to update. Are you okay with 1, 2, 3, 4? If I don't click on 4, 5, 10, whatever, however number you want to have Then say, hey, we're not sure this is for you. Or maybe roll it out in 3 steps. I don't know. But at the moment, I'm not enjoying this. And the funny thing, I was just about to go and buy a new phone from Samsung. So now I'm waiting. You know what?

One more thing. Here's a quick question for you all. What would you do for $100,000? What are you willing to do for a million That was a question I asked one client, then another client, then a third client, and all of this in the last week. And guess what? The questions started because they all said the same thing. There's no chance I'm going to learn all this by heart. 2 of them are pitching their startup ideas, and the other 2, which is the same client, are doing a 50-minute do-or-die unbelievable talk that we're writing at the moment. And what's interesting is everybody explains to me why you won't learn the text by heart. Get it, don't. Would you study, would you learn by heart 500 words, 1,000 words for the option of earning a million bucks or raising a million bucks?

You would?

Ah, look at that. Interesting. Please, if you are doing any type of sales, any type, and I'm going to say this a million times over the next shows, do me this kind favor.

Have a 500 epic pitch written down. Learn it by heart. Understand how it works. When do you say what? The pauses, the intonation, everything. Because if you know exactly what you want to say, guess what? You will close more deals. Now go here in the comments or wherever you want and tell me, no, I don't want to get more leads, I don't want to have more sales, I don't want to close more deals. Tell me that, because I believe you understand that if you learn more, if you understand how this shit works, if you know exactly what to say and to whom, you will be much more successful. Why? Because that's how it works. And trust me, I've been teaching companies, and the last one we did, that was epic. 560 words. They went from having an okay session at conferences to 91 qualified leads, and 61 or 62 already had the second call. My friends, this is a game changer. The funny thing, it's always been around. I wrote the book about it. You can start today and you can have a changed business by the end of this year, if not by the end of this month. If you get 20 leads and instead of closing 4 or 5, you close 8, Your business will double. Wow! I had fun. This has been interesting. Welcome to the pilot show. I have no idea what's coming up next. I'm excited. I'm gonna look at it now. I'm Neil Zavala.

Welcome to the Business Storytelling Show, the BS Show, the Business Story. Teller's Show, where I answer your questions, anything you need, as long as it's branding, marketing, sales, customer journey, and your messaging. We might talk a bit, a few other things, but basically let's scale your businesses together. Need anything? Amazing. Leave a comment, send me an email, sign up to the newsletter. You can answer there. Share this with a friend who might need help in their business. I'm happy to help as many people as possible. I'll see you on the next show. Boom! That was the pilot.

Loved it.

Talk soon.