Don't Use the Words Everyone's Already Saying - Nick Capozzi - Revenue Today - Episode # 018

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One of the things that's really key when you're telling your story, especially when it comes to go-to-market, it should never be about time or money. And this is a mistake that I see all the time, is people are constantly talking about saving time or saving money. And the problem with that is that everyone is claiming that you're— they're saving you time or they're saving you money. So what are better ways to describe what your product actually does. And if it really is about saving someone time, don't say time, right? Paint a picture of the pain point. So for example, if their issue is, if it's a, if your product is a time-saving solution, what you can do is paint the picture of what happens when they run out of time or when they don't have enough time. Or, you know, you ever been there where, You know, and we're working from home, maybe they got kids in the background, you know, late at night, you're still working because you do not have time with the family and the kids. And because this accounting software didn't work out, right? So frame it in a different way. Don't make it about their time or money being saved. Think of different words, descriptive words that again can help take them down that path, make them feel part of the story, make them feel like they're part of this journey and it's really about them. One of the most important things is evoking emotion. So if I, again, if I'm— okay, think about it this way. When I was on cruise ships selling Swiss watches, that was a very B2C purchase, right? Oh, Will's got a question. How do you help the customer be the hero? I worry some believe storytelling is for the salesperson. So, you know, as I was just describing, Will, the real thing here is that if you make them the hero, we take out the I's, the our solution, the we's, make it about Will. Will, have you ever dealt with this? Will, have you ever seen this in this situation? Right? Oh, you have? Great. So that allows you, which kind of ties in now back to evoking emotion. So what's really interesting about evoking emotion Is what I was saying about the cruise ships. When we were selling Swiss watches, this is not a purchase that they needed. They did not need to spend $5,000 or $10,000 on a Swiss watch. It was a luxury, often an impulse purchase. But an impulse purchase, if you evoke emotion, you're going to get— oh, sorry. To drive an impulse purchase in a B2C environment, evoking emotion is one of the key ways to do that by painting a picture, making them feel that they're part But what's interesting is that in the B2B space, we don't treat people like it's a B2C environment. We don't make people feel like we're selling to people. We make it feel— we make them feel like we're selling to businesses. But people buy from people they like, right? But people like people who like them. And again, when you take them on the journey and you help pull out emotion out of their pain points and their troubles, and all you need to do is just be descriptive about it. And when I work with companies, sometimes I'll see companies that come right out of the box, you know, going from a founder-led sale where they're selling to their friends to now, you know, the bullets are flying for real. Now we've got, you know, salespeople, AEs out there outselling, and they take an out-of-the-box approach to the story. Well, when we had the concept for this business in the first 3 weeks, here was our tagline, here was our marketing campaign, here's how we were going to describe the product. But the reality is, is to tell a really great story, you need to keep talking out the story. You need to be having the conversations. So I used to sit on a lot of demos for clients, and I'd always tell them I need to sit on 15 or 20 or 25 demos to really understand what questions are being asked and then turn that into a much better presentation, a much better story. that's actually gonna resonate. So, your story also needs to evolve, right? There needs to be a choose-your-own-adventure element to that. But by evoking emotion is one of the most critical things, right? Another one. This is another place where people get really stuck. And hey, hey, is evoking emotion about making people feel valued? Well, no. Making people feel valued is making people feel valued. But if you evoke emotion, right? So I noticed Will Taylor just had a comment. So I know Will's in Ontario, Canada. Hopefully, he's not a Maple Leaf fan because it must be really difficult being a Maple Leaf fan because the Toronto Maple Leafs are the worst hockey team in the world. Right? I did 2 things there. One is if Will is a Maple Leaf fan, I evoke some sort of emotion. But I also use a lot of negative words, which is the next thing I'm going to talk about. But yeah, Amir, what you're trying to do with evoking emotion is getting people to feel things, right? How do you get someone to feel a color? Right? Is it a blue shirt? Is it a powder blue shirt? Is it a navy blue shirt? Is it a periwinkle shirt? Right? Changing up your words, getting them to think, wait a minute. It looks like a blue shapery. I wasn't thinking periwinkle. I wasn't thinking powder blue. That is a nice powder blue Montreal Expos jersey you got there, right? If you know what I was talking about earlier, if they got kids in the background, you can tie that pain point to you know what's tough when you know you're so busy and the product didn't work and you know now you're missing out on time with your family, right? That tugs at a heartstring. That evokes emotion. So on to negative words. So, oh, Jermaine's got a question. What are the components of the hero's journey? Does the structure vary depending on channel used? So Jermaine, this is a much longer conversation. There's a lot of different ways to craft a storyline, but for this one particularly, it's really about going to market and the strategy of how we're going to present the product. So I tell you what, Jermaine, I'll make you a deal. If you connect with me on LinkedIn, I will actually send you some references that would be a really good guide for you on that. But back to the negative words. So one of the things with negative words is when you say something negative, right, and it's going to seem silly— can't, shouldn't, won't, redline, maybe, don't know, radical. So I remember once I was talking to this founder and they were talking about how radical, how radically different the product was. Yes, but what does radical mean? It means extreme. Right? We don't want extreme because that can also be viewed as very negative. And the reason this is so key is because when you say negative words, what happens psychologically to the person you're talking to is you shut down their frontal lobe. So, the first 2 things that go out the window are logic and reasoning. So, the only way to figure this out and remove these from your story and make your story a happy, positive place is by listening back to your story. Right? And this is one of the places where people miss, I think, a lot of opportunity is not listening back to their recordings, to their videos. I was working with a fintech company. They were talking about sensitive things. They couldn't record it. So we had them open up a Word document and click dictate and speak the presentation and finding those crutch words, finding that negativity. This almost never works. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt does not work in a business environment. What you're trying to do is build a champion on the other side. And if you build a champion, if you evoke emotion, if you evoke emotion and you get people excited about what you're doing, there's 10 people out there selling the same product as you. But if you can get someone on your side, you immediately come into the top 3, right? Everything can't be amazing, disruptive. It's incredible. My favorite website in the world is thesaurus.com. And the reason is, is that this goes back to the negative words. We also have a lot of crutch words when it comes to telling our story. And if everything is amazing or great or fantastic, the problem is, is that they've heard that word. Everyone's selling the same words, right? What's a different word, right? Like my title is Head of Storytelling at DemoStack. Am I telling great stories, helping people tell great stories? No. Tell tremendous stories. Change that framework. The words we use are so key. And it goes back to what I said a minute ago. If you record yourself and understand the words that are actually coming out of your mouth and what's being said, you can follow that talk track and that story and where that takes the prospect. But it allows you to put yourself in their shoes. Body language is a big part of the story. So here's the reality. We live in a Zoom world now. There's gonna be a lot more live events, but a lot of people are still in the Zoom world. And body language is so critical to telling your story. So the first part of this is knowing the story and being able to pivot. So one of the things is when you frame out your story to present, you want to have a script and you want to know it, right? Up, down, left, right, with all the different pivots inside. You need to know that. But then you take the script away, and for my sellers who are, you know, intermediate to not quite knowing everything, I always have them have bullet points up. So bullet point, even a little sticky note by your webcam, allows you to always kind of come back to your story. Um, but body language and how we express ourselves and how we talk to people and how we move is so critical to painting I just did this. What did I do there? Looks like I was painting with a brush, right? What that does is a mirror, it's going to evoke emotion, right? You're going to think that psychologically. You'd be like, oh wow, he's painting a picture. Facial expressions, smiling, making them feel comfortable. If your prospect is comfortable, if the person you're talking to is comfortable, they're going to be much more receptive to your story. The problem is, is that they become uncomfortable if you are uncomfortable. So you need to be comfortable with what you're doing, and that comes from knowing your story and where you're taking it. But body language is such a big deal. I'll give you an example. So when I was training people in the cruise business, and again, we're talking about luxury goods, one of the things that would happen all the time is, okay, that's a beautiful red Ruby. Well, first of all, it's not a red ruby. A red ruby could be a dime a dozen. I could see a whole plateful of red rubies. But if it's a beautiful, luscious raspberry red, that paints a much different picture, right? And what I used to do is I would have— so I'll never forget this one guy, Bobby. He's a great guy from Sudbury. Ontario, and Bobby came to work on cruise ships. And, um, big guy, bigger than me. He was like 6'5, 240, 250, looked like a football player. Great guy. But Bobby was trying to, you know, talk about these luscious raspberry reds, and he just couldn't do it. He could get the words out, but he didn't know how to add the theater to the story. So what I made all my people do was practice in front of a mirror. And the reason is, is It's very uncomfortable at first, same as listening to your recordings, but you need to do it. When you're in front of a mirror and you actually talk out and you see your body language and your facial expressions, it completely changes the dynamic of how you're presenting. A lot of times I'll go in and a client of mine will say, look, you know, we're talking about a technical product, and a lot of times they won't even turn the camera on. I guarantee you If your body language is welcoming and engaging, and you're only gonna get that from practicing in front of a mirror, you're gonna get way more cameras on. It'll be a situation where 2 minutes into the conversation, now the camera comes on, right? So if you wanna tell a great story, so much of the story is the delivery of the story.

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