The Human Advantage -Unleashing the Power of Story in Business | The Ultimate Guide Business Stories

Marc, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. We're going to be diving straight into telling stories, the power of stories, and that is where your expertise lies. Thank you so much for joining me, Shaun.

Glad to be here. I appreciate you taking some time to visit with me today.

Absolutely. And you know, story is a very relevant topic in any type of content that we hear in marketing. You know, it's actually something that we are pre-programmed to understand more effectively than anything else that's out there. Now, your book that you published, Mastering Storytelling, is all about how to turn your experiences into stories that not only teach, lead, but also inspire. So how do we do that? What do we have to focus on and why is this important?

Yeah, and you know, if I had to rewrite the book title again, I would also include sell in there with teach, lead, and inspire, because we find that that's a great audience that we have is people that are trying to sell. And telling a story is a great way to get that message across. I think, and you mentioned this, that we're kind of pre-programmed, we're kind of pre-wired forced story as human beings. This is how we make sense of the world is by hearing things in the form of story. And so that to me is one of the most powerful reasons you're going to do it is this is how you connect with people, particularly in a small business. You want to be able to connect with other people. Those are the people that are going to buy from you or the people who know, trust, and like you. And story is a great way to get that message across so that they will know, trust, and like you more.

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, every business owner has a story to tell, and for, for most people, they probably don't even know that that story is there, but it is there. How do you go to start to look inside yourself to find out what stories of my life could I actually bring into my business and start telling?

Yeah, I, I coach people to look two different directions for this. Number one, just look at any experience you've had that you had some kind of emotional reaction to. So, something happens and it sparks frustration, anger, fear, happiness, joy, exhilaration, whatever that emotion happens to be. There is probably a lesson embedded in that experience that you can draw out. I use an example recently, I was getting my garden prepared and I was putting some pavers in there. I smashed the soft part of my middle finger right on that tip, that part that you feel everything with. So, all the nerve endings are in there. I smashed that between a couple of pavers. And developed a beautiful, beautiful blood blister off of it. Well, I had an emotional reaction to that. Now, later I had to look back and say, okay, so what's the lesson there? And if I thought about it, it's like, well, the lesson really is we all have these little pinch things that happen in our businesses, these little moments where it's extreme pain in the moment. And if we let that distract us from our bigger picture, what we're trying to accomplish, it can get in the way. If we just learn from it and move on from it, then we're going to be more successful. Guarantee you, I'm going to be really careful moving pavers around from now on. I'm not going to experience that pain point again, but it's also not going to detract me from getting my garden finished. So, just an example there of you have an emotional reaction to something, there's probably a lesson embedded in that. The second approach I tell people to look for is what is the lesson you want to get across? What are you trying to teach people? And I'll use this as a sales example because this is very common that we have. What are the common objections that you hear from people in your sales process? And what's an example that you can find that shows how somebody could overcome those objections? So instead of just saying, oh, well, I know you say you don't have budget right now, but this is going to be well worth it. This is going to be money well spent. And we try to convince people that way. But if we could tell the story of, yeah, I had a client, Shaun, who had this same situation and he wanted to put it off for a quarter and he did, and he came back before the end of that next quarter and said, we have to do this because I'm losing so much money by not using your product. We have to get this going. I don't want to put you in the same situation that Shaun was in. I'd really rather have you move forward now and experience the benefits that you're going to get. And if I can tell that story, that's going to be more impactful and memorable. I'm not going to say it's a magic cure to get people turned around from their objectives, But it's going to get them thinking more and it's going to help them remember you more when they actually come back to make the buy. So I think that's two ways to look at it. What's, what's an emotional reaction you had to a situation? And then what's the, the story or the, the lesson in there? Or what lesson do I want to teach? And then where can I find examples? And you can ask other people, search your own life for examples of that specific specific lesson you're trying to get across.

Now, is there a difference between stories about a moment or an experience, or, you know, continuation of a story throughout your whole business journey? So, you know, your podcast will, you know, you just keep tying in, you know, evolution of how you've gone about your life so people can be along for that journey, versus here's an experience that I just had and it's kind of like a one-off type story. Is there a difference, or is it important to have both of those?

I think they are different and I think they are two different things. And you're right, your comment there at the end. I think it is important to have both of those. You're going to have your company story. You're going to have your business story. But you're probably only going to tell portions of that depending on who you're speaking to. And so, there's the tip that I give people in terms of crafting their experiences into stories. Think about who your audience is. What's the relevant part to them? This is hard for business founders particularly because they're like, well, the story is about me. It's my story. This is my founder story. But you need to make it about the audience. Make it about them and what they're learning from that. And with that in mind, that will help you edit out some things from that broad picture story that, I don't know, maybe an investor is not as interested in, or maybe a customer would be interested in something the investor is not, or vice versa. So it depends on who you're telling this story to that you'll want to get clear on which portions you use to actually connect with that person.

Now we're talking about story, and we use the word story, but in your content you really talk about bringing and incorporating humanity into your business. How is that different from like— and I think when once you start to understand the concept of bringing humanity, it brings the idea of story, you know, a lot closer and understandable. Let's talk about that importance of why humanity is very important.

Yeah, I think sometimes when we get put into leadership positions or when we start a company, we feel like, ah, now I'm a serious business leader. I got to do serious business stuff. And we think storytelling is a little too light for that. But there's so much research behind how story connects us as people. And how story helps enhance people's memories. And so, think of it this way. The research study that's coming to my mind is they took 3 groups of people. They were graduate students at a university and they shared with one group the information they wanted them to remember and they told them, "We want you to remember this information." They shared the information with another group and gave them charts and graphs to go along with it. And then the third group, they shared the information in the context of a story. They came back 2 weeks later, and they wanted to assess how much did they remember and how accurately did they remember and any of the reactions they had to that information. Well, they found the first 2 groups remembered about the same amount and with about the same level of accuracy, which was fairly low. The third group, the third group that got it in the form of a story, they remembered more of the information. They remembered it more accurately, And the most important finding to me is they found the information more credible. Think about that. As we're business leaders, we want people to find our information credible. We want people to remember what we're saying and remember it accurately. Story is a great way to help you do that. And it gets you beyond thinking, I have to just spout facts and figures and information and numbers and platitudes and rah-rah speeches to, if I can tell this story, that's going to bring my humanity out and people are going to be more willing to follow me because we connect through story.

That makes complete sense. It's an amazing result with that.

We could spend the entire episode talking about the brain science behind why story works, but I know we don't want to go on that long and we geek out on it just a little bit. But there's so much that shows that this is how we connect. And I think leaders and business owners sometimes discount that. They discount story as, well, this is going to be too light. But no, it's really a powerful way to connect with people on a human level. And that's the kind of connection that's going to lead us to the best results that we want.

You know, and as a father of a 7-year-old boy, I can think of this as You know, if they're upset and you come to them, you're like, what's wrong? What's wrong? They usually can't articulate that, but you're like, tell me what happened. And they start to tell you a story and then you can start to pinpoint what made them upset. And it's just because children really understand that. I think we carry that through, you know, our entire life that we can resonate with story a lot better that way.

And I love that example that you just gave there, Shaun, because as your 7-year-old is telling you this story, they're sharing with you the experience of what got them to that emotional state. Think about how that connects you to each other, how that connects you to him. And it connects because you can understand some of the emotions that he's feeling. And maybe you didn't have the exact same experience that he had in that moment. But you can, you have experienced the emotions that he's had in that moment. And so you're thinking of times that happened to you. And it creates that empathy and that bond between you. Now, we may not want the same bond with our customers as you do from a parent to a child. But It creates that similar kind of connection. And you do want your customers to remember you and to think of you as a person because that's who they're going to keep coming back to. I think of some of my best clients, and this is over decades, the people that continue to come back to me. Why do they come back to me? Because they feel like they know me. They feel like they trust me. And this story is one of the great ways that I've connected with these people over the years.

Now on your website, you mentioned that, you know, we're caught up in this whole get stuff done, do what I tell you kind of mentality. How do we kind of overcome that? Like, give us some actionable steps to start to think of, okay, I've got a story, like I've had an experience just like yours with the, the, you know, your, your finger with the, the stones, you know, and something like there's something here. How do I start to deconstruct that and, and kind of turn it into a a story that's actually going to have a message for my business?

Yeah, and the main thing there is getting to what's the point that I'm trying to make. It's being really intentional. It's not telling stories just to tell story. We've talked about the power of story and connecting us to people. And sometimes people think, great, I'll just tell stories all the time. But if you don't tell it with some intentionality, it's a nice story, but it doesn't lead to any action. One of the ways I like to think about it is a lot of times organizations will have their company mission, vision, and values on the wall. Right? So I have all these words up there. Well, people come in, particularly somebody new to the company, they might not know kind of your history with the company and why those words are so important. But if you can share with them, here's an experience of what it looks like to demonstrate teamwork. Maybe teamwork's one of our values. When we say teamwork, this is what we mean. And you can share with them an experience that happened within the company of people demonstrating teamwork. Then people have a clear picture in their heads. Okay, when those types of situations come, I need to step into that because that is something this company values. And so, it connects with them in a different way than just those words will by giving them an example or an illustration of what you're trying to get to. Same thing as if you're leading a team and you're saying, "Hey, we need to really step up for our customers." Well, what does step up for our customers look like? I might share an example, say, hey, you know, Shaun gave a great illustration of this. There was a customer who was struggling with something on our website and it was really their fault. They weren't doing the right things on the website, but Shaun never criticized them. He never said, you're just stupid and doing this wrong. He walked through them with what to do on the website to be able to get their order taken care of. And it took a little extra time. But we kept that customer and that customer is going to be able to come back and do it by themselves the next time. That's what we mean by going the extra mile for customers. Well, now I've got a clear picture and I can think of, all right, what can I do to demonstrate what Shaun did in that situation? And so it's highly motivating for people when they can see that example and they have that picture in their head of what that looks like.

Yeah, complete— completely makes sense to me. Now let's think of the marketing journey like I know a lot of people are probably listening to this going, okay, well, I can tell my stories in videos and podcasts and blogs and stuff from that awareness stage. But when I get somebody into that sales process, and you gave an example earlier when there was like an objection to then kind of tied to a story, are there other points in the sales process that story would be beneficial? You know, more so if somebody's like doing the right thing, you can actually like reinforce it with a story maybe.

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I'm going to answer, I can answer that question with a story, which you should expect from me by this point, Shaun. I presented on master storytelling to a group of sales professionals several years ago. And they were a little skeptical. They were like, well, but we got to talk about features and benefits and pricing and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, yes, you do. Those things are important. Those things need to be in there. But then can you also tell the story of the journey that your product or service is going to take this customer on? From where they are now to where they really want to be.. And that where they might want to be may even be a place that they're not familiar with yet. And so we talked about that as an option, as a possibility. 2 weeks after that session, I got an email from one of the sales professionals who said, wanted to tell you this because I was kind of surprised that it happened this way. I've been trying to work with this prospect for over 3 months and I've never gotten more than just kind of a lukewarm reaction from him and maybe later, maybe later, maybe later. I got on the phone with him and I was getting the same response and I said, well, let me tell you an experience that one of my other customers had that's in a similar situation as you are. And she told the story of how their service actually transitioned that company from a state where they were struggling with certain things to where they were achieving in those certain things. And at the end of her story, which is about 2.5 minutes long, the client said, you know what, write me up a proposal. Let's see where we can go from there. That was the first time she'd even broken through to that point. With the client. And she was just stunned that that opened the door. But think about what she'd done with that client. Instead of just, hey, you need to buy from me and here's all the stuff that we have and here's what we hope it accomplishes for you, she could see the picture of this is a journey that I need to take. This is a future state that I need to be at. If we can paint that picture for people more clearly in the sales process, it opens them up. It's not going to close every sale, but it will open them up to think about it more and also to remember you more as their contact, as their sales professional with that organization. And that's exactly what you want is you want those people to remember you.

And one of the things that I've incorporated in my business when I'm doing the initial consults is an intake form. And yes, you know, all the basic stuff. So what you're struggling with, but at the very end, it's like, if you were to overcome these challenges you had, what would that allow you to do in your life? Tell me that story. Right? And it's one of the last questions on there. And people are just floored by this. And it's interesting is that's usually the field that is filled in the most.

Right?

It's the longest bit of content that's there. And it's just because they have this aspiration of what they want that they're trying to get out of the way. And it's powerful because we get on the consult and we start to talk about that. So again, I'm asking the clients to tell me a story.

Yeah. And so think about that. We've kind of reversed this storytelling or the power of storytelling here by saying, you give me your story. But as they start telling their story, in fact, I'll just kind of push back on you with this. What do you, what types of things do you hear from them other than just here's our budget, here's the size of our company, here's what our company does? What do you start hearing when they start saying, when you start asking them, what do you want? What's your aspiration with this?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, what I'm hearing is that they've got these goals and these dreams and it's like there's light at the other end of this tunnel, right? And that's the biggest thing that we try to do is, is get them more of their life back at the end of their workday. Right. And that's what we try to do is, is put stuff in place to help them not be, you know, chained to their business and actually enjoy life.

So and think about the emotion that's connected to those kind of things. And it's that emotional level that people can resonate with. When they start feeling the emotion of, ooh, I can feel the pain of that and I can feel the aspiration of what it would be like to overcome that pain. When we can get them to that point, then we've connected as people. This is leading like a person because that's what we do as people is we connect with each other on an emotional level. And I'm not saying overly emotionalize everything. I'm just saying that that emotional level of connection that we make through story gets people's attention and helps them see that I am not dealing with just an entity here. I am dealing with real people. And it's real people that they want to work with.

Comes back to the humanity. Yep. Right now, Mark, let's tell a little bit about your story. How did you get into this field of teaching people how to master storytelling?

Yeah, that's a story in and of itself. And that's a long journey story that I'm not going to tell you the whole thing around. Suffice it to say that my previous career was in public relations and marketing communications, where I did a lot of storytelling. I always saw that role as interpreting my organization to its various publics. And in interpreting to the publics, you're interpreting through story. Then I got into training facilitation. I taught as an adjunct at a university for a while, used a lot of storytelling in that. And then about 6 years ago, I helped a friend write a book. I basically did some ghostwriting for him. On this book that he wanted to write. And when I got done with that process, I said to my wife, "Gee, I feel like I should write my own book now, but I don't know what it is." And my wife looked at me as only those who are really, really close to you can do and said, "Oh, I know." I'm like, "What do you mean you know? How can you know if I don't know?" She says, "No, you need to write a book about how you just take these everyday experiences and turn them into stories that teach important principles and that lead people to action. And my first reaction was, there's no, that's not a book. There's no book in that. Nobody's going to read that book. But then I started talking to other people about it. They were like, man, I would love to get some guidance on that. I would love to get some instruction. Started to do some more research around it. And along with a good friend of mine who's also a facilitator, we outlined the book, we wrote the book, we created a workshop around it.. And we have found that there are people that are really interested in getting some structure around finding those everyday experiences and turning them into stories that teach, lead, sell, and inspire. So that's, that was kind of the starting point of it was just my wife saying, no, you do this more naturally than a lot of people. You need to find a way to transfer that knowledge to other people so that they can do it too and do it with great intention.

Now, what do you do on an ongoing basis? You've built this, this entity, this, this master storytelling book that then you built workshops off of. What do you do to grow your business and continue to tell stories that kind of lead into this?

Yeah, I do a lot. I post at least one story a week on LinkedIn. That's from a real experience. I'm trying to prove the point that our stories are everywhere. And so about once a week, I'll put something out on LinkedIn on my, on my page there. That shares a story and then encourage people to join us for the workshop. We also have coaching that we do with people, particularly a recent one that I was thinking about is this gentleman who's transitioning into doing some speaking from the stage. He was like, yeah, I need to get some power into my speech here. He had the content down, but he didn't have his stories down. And so, we did some coaching with him on getting better at crafting those stories. So, yeah, we help people along that path. Who may not feel like they're natural storytellers to just get a simple process to do it. And how do I try to get that out there to people? I tell a lot of stories because that's, I want to prove the point by showing the point to other people. So that's one of my big things is I try to get out in all the things that I do to tell a story that helps make that point. The stories can be powerful.

In your work. So what I hear is you can help somebody who's looking to do, you know, storytelling, start storytelling, or maybe get away from, you know, just their business and they want to go out and start to speak, or they want to do more presentations. Or really, it could come in anything, right? If you want to, you want to be a podcast host, you need to be able to tell some stories too, as well. So, you know, your website master-storytelling.com, that's where they can find out about what's going on. There's some online training as well, right?

Yeah, and one of the groups that we work with a lot is we work with a lot of sales professionals. We have found— I mentioned that I would add that into the title of the book. I mentioned that several times. And when I talk to people, if I was looking back, but we found that the sales audience finds this really important and impactful for them. And so, that's another audience we work with a lot. Yeah, and the best place to start is probably our website, master-storytelling.com.

All right, and you have a free podcast gift for, for anyone who wants to go there, and we'll put the link with the show so they don't have to remember the URL, but just tell us what it is.

Yeah, it's master-storytelling.com/podcastgift, one word, podcast gift. So if you put that in, and like Shaun said, he'll have it in the show notes for you, that'll be the easiest way to get to it. But if you go there, I'll provide for you a free copy of our ebook. And that'll get you a place to start along that storytelling journey.

Excellent. Well, Mark, I mean, storytelling, you proved it, uh, it works, it's important, and it's actually probably not that hard to do once you understand the basics and the framework of it.

Yeah, and it's like a lot of things in our lives, you know, that when we haven't done it a lot or we haven't done it intentionally, it feels like it's a little awkward, it feels like it's hard, but the only way to do to really get better at it is to learn the structure, you know, get some background, get some coaching on that, and then just keep doing it, keep practicing. And you learn so much by doing it and getting the reactions from the other people. In fact, I do this all the time with podcast hosts. The first time you were a podcast host, were you as smooth as you are right now? No, no.

The show actually started as a solo show, so it was just me talking on the topic, which is even harder.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you probably look back on those and go, oh, I can't believe I even put those out there for the public to see. But the more you do it and the more you analyze it and get feedback, either feedback from how you felt about it or feedback from other people, you start to get better at that skill. Storytelling is the same way. When you find the structure, you start practicing it, you get some feedback on there, keep doing it and you're going to get better.

And I actually, you know, just to add on to this, I've started to notice this myself where I've switched to focus more on LinkedIn. And I used to be just finding other content and posting it or making a podcast or whatever. But I started to be more aware of things that are happening and snapping a photo here and there and then starting to put a story with that. Most recently, we have a coffee drive-through and they started to give out little dog treats if you have a dog in the car to the dog. So, we go through and the dog gets excited and we actually go there because of that. And there are some times where they don't give it to them and the dog's disappointed. So there's, there's a story about being consistent in business and, and that kind of thing. So like, as you start to do it, you start to become hyper-aware of everything around you and, oh, that's a perfect story for this and this, right? And it doesn't take much. You snap a photo of that experience and write it later, right?

Yeah, I love that illustration, Shaun, because you're so right. They're everywhere. They're all around us if we're paying attention. And if we're intentionally thinking about, so what is the lesson there? And you got it. You got a beautiful lesson out of that one little experience. All of a sudden, my dog's disappointed. You know what? So am I. I'm disappointed because my dog's disappointed. Because the doggy treat really isn't about the dog. It's about getting you to come back. The dog's not going to get in the car and drive out there. But you're going to go there because you're like, oh, I'm in the car with the dog. The dog's kind of excited. I'll go to the coffee shop. Yeah.

You know, and you actually make it a morning thing to go there because of that, right? Like I take the dog just for that. And you know, the coffee is not that great, but the experience is great.

So, and see, here's the other cool thing. There's multiple lessons embedded in that little story that It's about creating a customer experience. And you can even just take it from that perspective. Little things like that create a customer experience if you know your customers. So start noticing, oh, there's a lot of dogs in cars as they come. How about if we just give out a little doggy treat? And those customers are going to keep coming back because you've created an experience for them. So you can even take it from that perspective.

An experience that gives your customers a story to tell as well.

There you go. Right? There you go. The more you can get your customers telling the stories about you that are positive, the more that that builds and grows.

Absolutely. Marc, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for this. Like I said, we'll put all the links to everything in the show notes. Is there anything you want to add to the end?

No, it's totally delightful to talk to you and just encourage people. Look for those stories. Shaun's example there at the end was just fantastic. Look for those little moments because there's a story embedded in them and find ways to use those with good intentionality where you're trying to teach, lead, sell, and inspire. And you'll find that this is a skill that will help you grow your business.

Perfect.

Thank you very much, Mark. Thanks, Shaun.