Why Storytelling Works

In this enlightening episode, we dive deep into the magic of emotional storytelling in sales. John Livesay, the "Pitch Whisperer," shares how a simple story can transform a sales pitch from good to unforgettable.
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• Emotions Over Logic: Buying decisions are often emotional, not just logical.
• The Power of Stories: A well-crafted story sticks in the mind better than dry facts.
• Structuring Your Tale: Learn the four-part structure that makes any story compelling.
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Dive into these gems and more, and find out how to change the way you sell.
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John Livesay, celebrated as "The Pitch Whisperer," is not just a master of sales but a storytelling maestro. With accolades like salesperson of the year at Conde Nass and lectures at top universities, John truly knows the art of the pitch. Join us as we learn from the best in the business!

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Key Takeaways

• The Emotional Foundation of Decision-Making - People primarily buy based on emotions and later justify their decisions with logic. Pure data-driven case studies, while informative, might not evoke the emotions necessary to influence a purchasing decision.
• The Power of Storytelling in Selling - Storytelling addresses the unspoken question all potential buyers have: "Will this work for me?" By presenting stories where buyers can see themselves, sellers can create a relatable narrative.
• The Evolution of Selling Techniques - The techniques of selling have evolved over time, with emphasis shifting from feature and benefit-based selling to storytelling and outcome-based selling.

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Top 3 Reasons to Listen

Expert Insights: Learn directly from John Livesay, renowned as the "Pitch Whisperer," who has transformed the art of pitching for numerous businesses.

The Power of Stories: Understand why emotional storytelling is more impactful than traditional sales methods and how it can make your pitch unforgettable.

Psychology of Sales: Delve into the human psyche and discover why people buy emotionally first and justify with logic later.

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More About Today's Guest, John Livesay

TELL BETTER STORIES, WIN MORE SALES.
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Recognized by INC magazine as "The Pitch Whisperer," John Livesay transforms ordinary sales pitches into riveting tales that captivate and convert. As a sought-after sales keynote speaker, he teaches companies to morph standard case studies into compelling narratives, ensuring they secure more business deals.

Drawing from his illustrious tenure at Conde Nast, John imparts strategies that metamorphose sales teams into revenue champions. His TEDx talk, "Be The Lifeguard of Your Own Life," resonates with over a million viewers worldwide.

Clients rave about John not just for his illuminating talks, but also for the enduring support he offers thereafter. This includes mastering the art of storytelling, a skill he delves into in his bestseller, "Better Selling Through Storytelling", and his online program, "Revenue Rockstar Mastery." His latest book, "The Sale Is in the Tale," is a gripping business parable centered in Austin, TX, chronicling a sales rep's journey of adapting to the evolving landscape of selling.

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A Transcription of The Talk

Mark Drager: So John Livesay, you are known as “The Pitch Whisperer”, right?

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John Livesay: Yes, I am.

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Mark Drager: Now, I did note that you've written books, you are a keynote speaker, you're hired by some of the biggest companies to come around and teach people how to really master the art of pitching. I mean, one testimonial here said, within six months after the team listened to you, they won $5 million in new business, specifically because of the storytelling skills that you shared with that group. So I cannot wait to dig into this with you. Great. So let's start with the idea that all of us in sales, we focus on case studies, right? Like, I know that it's my job to just convince you that we are trusted, convince you we have the best features, we have the best benefits, it's the best cost. It's all very logical, it's all very linear. Tell me why case studies are good, but they're not great.

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John Livesay: Well, my first premise is that people buy emotionally and then back it up with logic. That's the first aha. And so if you're just having a case study full of data and information and facts and figures, it doesn't stick. The old way of selling with case studies is, "Oh, let me get people to know, like, and trust." We've heard that phrase 100 times over the decades, and I flipped the script on that, Mark. So I say we need to start with trust. It's a gut thing. Is this email safe to open? Am I making eye contact with you? Do I have a referral to build trust? Then it goes to the heart. Do I like you? The better you describe someone's problem and show empathy, the more they think you have their solution. And then it goes to the head. Still not the time to push out information. Here's the unspoken question everybody has when they hear you pitch anything: Will this work for me? If they don't think it's gonna work for them, they're not going to buy. They might trust and like you, but if it's not going to work for them, enter storytelling. That's the magic sauce to get people to see themselves in the story and want to go on the journey with you.

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Mark Drager: Now, is this a generational thing? Because I'm younger, I say younger, I feel old. Sometimes I'm 40. But I remember 10-15 years ago, being at these different training sessions, these different events. And you know, the speakers would say like the old way of selling doesn't work, you know, being feature and benefit-based doesn't work, we need to move to like storytelling, we need to move to insight selling, we need to move to outcome-based selling, and I've spent the last 15 years hearing that the old ways don't work. I don't know if I was experiencing the old ways or not. But are people like, is this a generational thing? Or people who came up in business maybe in the '90s? Or the early 2000s? Are they just trained, and the world has changed because my generation and younger? I mean, it's not a new way, this is just the way.

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John Livesay: Well, I do think that the old way, if you go, if people over 40 were certainly trained to push out features and benefits and, you know, do an analysis and, you know, and instead of whoever made the best pitch would get the sale. I say whoever makes the best story gets the car. When I was selling advertising for Conde Nast, Lexus was one of my clients, and they said we looked at 50 different titles, we've narrowed it down to 10. Everybody gets to come in for 30 minutes and pitch back to back. Do not talk about numbers. We've already analyzed that. That's why you're in the final. And I went, "Oh," half the reps were deer in headlights. I can't talk about numbers. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. And that's when I realized this storytelling is really what's gonna make somebody see themselves as the best fit.

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Mark Drager: And so how do you go about, like, okay, you're thrown for a loop, you have a certain skill set, a certain set of tools that you used when you were at Conde Nast selling. And for those who don't know, Conde Nast owns a ton of publications from, I mean, I'm not going to list them all.

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John Livesay: But GQ, Wired, Vanity Fair, Pitchfork, Bon Appétit, yes.

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Mark Drager: And so you're thrown for a loop, and you're like, oh, shit, I can't just rely on what used to work. How do you process this in your mind? Do you have some steps? Do you have a framework? How do we move from relying on logic to now we're moving to emotional storytelling?

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John Livesay: Let me give you an example from Olympus Medical, the camera company that makes medical equipment hired me to be their keynote speaker at their sales meeting. And they said, you know, we have this equipment that makes surgeries go 30% faster. And we say that to doctors, and they're not really moving the needle. It's so logical; we don't understand. So I asked a series of questions and created this case story. It sounds like this: Imagine how happy Dr. Higgins was six months ago using this equipment in his surgery at Long Beach Memorial. And he could go out to the patient's family an hour earlier than expected. And if you've ever waited for someone you love, pick them out of surgery. You know, every minute feels like an hour, the doctor goes out to the patient's family and says good news. The scope shows they don't have cancer, they're going to be fine, then turns to the rep and says this is why I became a doctor for moments like this. Now this rep has this case story that he tells to another doctor at another hospital who sees themselves in a story so much nine times out of 10 they'll say, "You know, but that's why I became a doctor, I want your equipment too." So the client said to me, "Oh my gosh, that gives us chills. Not only are we not telling a story like that, it never occurred to us to make a patient's family a character in that story. So 30% faster turns into that short little emotionally engaged story. So the background on how I created that that everybody can use, as I said, "Okay, 30% faster. What does that even mean? What's the normal surgery? Well, three hours to 30% faster is one, two, okay? So we're saving an hour, who cares about that. And then as you just go through the list, well, the doctor is on his feet, or her feet, and thus, the hospital might be able to squeeze in more surgeries and make more money. But what's the real emotional outcome, not another left-brain financial thing. And that's when I thought of the patient's family, having gone through that with my waiting for my sister to come out of surgery with my mom, and how painful that was. So once we had that hook, the structure of the case story is exposition.

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You'll notice I said the doctor's name, how long ago it was, you have to paint the picture. The second part is the problem. And as I said earlier, the stakes have to be high in the problem, you have to describe that problem in a way that they care about what's going on. And you see how I pulled you in, Mark, with saying, even if you haven't, you could probably imagine what it would be like to wait. And then the solution is the doctor coming out and saying good news, they're going to be fine. But as the story ended there, that's not a great story. That's just a good story. What makes it great is the resolution, what is lifelike after and that's the real-time dialogue. So you feel like you're eavesdropping on the doctor talking to the rep saying, "This is why I became a doctor." And so other doctors get reminded of their purpose and their why through this simple case story. So it's four parts. And you structure that. And it'll totally change your outcomes when you're pitching against competitors who just push out facts like 30% faster.

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Mark Drager: This is so good. Because immediately when you said 3% faster, I started to move through the mental model as well. Okay, we can clear out the alarm room earlier, we can turn around more patients, 30% increase revenue. You know, I'm thinking about the purchasing agents. I'm thinking about the CFO; I'm thinking about how do we get them to make a rational decision to show an ROI on this investment? Because, frankly, your story sounds like nonsense to me, right? Like, I know, it's not; you said that it's working, I got little goosebumps. But as you're telling me this, I'm just going like this is nonsense. And yet, you're saying nine out of 10 times it works. So when I earlier, you've caught me now when I was like, this is the old school way of selling and I've been in the new school the whole time. And yet still I go to the features, the benefits, the rational thing, and the story that you're sharing with me, I'm going like this is nonsense. And yet, oh, there's like magic there. So, I hope you understand that I'm not calling you nonsense. I'm just reacting to how foreign this very concept is to me. How do we get more comfortable telling these stories and incorporating these into our pitches?

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John Livesay: First of all, is the awareness you need one. And then you want to start thinking of your brain since you're young, like a jukebox, or playlist, I say playlists for people under—

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Mark Drager: Jukeboxes, because they're cool and retro.

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John Livesay: Oh, yes, sir. Sir, oh, they're back in. But instead of songs coming out, you need different stories ready to go. So if you're in real estate, for example, I spoke at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services to the team about whoever tells the best story gets the listing. You tell a different story to a young couple buying their first house versus an elderly couple downsizing versus a family growing; you need three separate stories depending on who you're talking to. So that that particular prospect sees themselves in that story. So that's the first thing is, I need more than one story, I can't tell the same story to everybody; I need to customize my stories. So you figure out who your ideal avatars are, create a case story for each one of those. And then you have a little checklist, you say, Is My Story clear? Did it confuse them? Are there a bunch of acronyms? Is it concise? Could it be shorter? Why we want it concise so they can remember and repeat it and become your brand ambassadors? And then finally, is it compelling? Do you feel anything? Is there an emotional hook at all that emotional connection has to be there? So when you're crafting your case stories with your colleagues and your management team, ask them? Was that clear? And is it compelling as a checklist? Once you've got a story in place, keep refining it like you do any exercise, and you'll get better and better at it.

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Mark Drager: You know, we talked about the Conde Nast and the fact that you had to pitch for more emotional thing for Lexus, what would have been the pitch for something like that? I mean, imagine back then you didn't have this framework you were still figuring out and learning it but but you know, give me something a little bit more creative in nature. I guess that we might be pitching.

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John Livesay: With Lexus and Jaguar. That was another client I had. Jaguar's goal was we want people to think of the car as moving sculpture. Sure, but we don't know how to do that. And we want to be part of the conversation with our target audience. And we don't know how to do that. So now that I had a clear problem described, I put my head together with our amazing marketing team. So we said, we have the ability to target our subscription base and know who has a competitive model Mercedes, BMW with a lease expiring in six months. So really targeted, we're going to invite 10 couples to take a test drive, Jaguar will pick them up on Golden Globes night, go to our private Golden Globes party in the car, get the experience of it. And then after the party, they'll be taken to a restaurant with a private chef and a private dining room, there'll be somebody from the Museum of Modern Art in the room having a conversation about art. And in between courses, people can take yet another test drive in another car. Well, we sold three cars that night, and they gave me $500,000 worth of advertising because I solved their problems, and painted that picture and told that story of what we would do to move the needle specifically to become part of the conversation around art.

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Mark Drager: This is so good. Like, I'm JLR was one of my clients. And I remember sitting down; I'm Canadian. So we were working with Jaguar Land Rover, Canada, and I remember sitting down with the CEO, and he said, it's our mission to have a Range Rover and a Jaguar in every driveway. One for him, one for her, doesn't matter which one gets which. But we want one of these in each one of our driveways. And at no point in our work together or our conversation was it ever what you're talking about. And again, it's just like, if the audience, sorry, if you are experiencing me kind of geek out a little bit in real-time, but it's because what John is sharing with us is so powerful. And it's so important. And I don't normally do this on episodes. So, John, just so you know.

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John Livesay: Well, I've got another story for another client if you want to hear one.

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Mark Drager: More and more examples, more examples, please give us also like the most boring, I mean, it's cool 30% with medical equipment, but just give us like the most boring thing you can think of too?

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John Livesay: Well, Honeywell, a division of Honeywell makes a fan controller, right? Honeywell has controllers and all kinds of stuff.

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Mark Drager: Oh, they have so many products. But this particular product, you would think it's pretty boring, is a fan that they would sell into the operating rooms. And you can imagine they were talking about how fast that fan went and the particles in the air. And I was falling asleep just listening to the description of the fan and what it did. And so when you have a product that's a little dry, the question you want to ask yourself and the team to craft the story is what happens if this doesn't work? In other words, try to figure out why the stakes could be high. We need to figure out what the problem is here in order to make this have any emotional hook.

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John Livesay: Okay, so like an oh, shit moment, like when shit hits the fan when things go wrong, because you don't have the product or service that we're pitching.

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Mark Drager: Exactly. So I said to them, Well, what happens if this fan doesn't work or doesn't work properly or doesn't clean as well as yours does? And they said, well, the patient could get sick because they're being opened up. And if the room's not clean, they could get an infection. That Okay, great. That's stakes pretty high. But then I said two magic words I want to give everyone listening or watching today. Anything else? When you ask that question to someone, when you're getting them to describe what problem they're solving, you dig a little bit deeper. Now if you've ever gone to a therapist, the couple comes in they said you know our love life is a problem, we fix that we're back to normal. That's called the presenting problem. The therapists will say that's not really what the problem is. The problem is there's hurt feelings, there's lack of trust, something else is going on besides the presenting problem. So the clients in sales give us their presenting problem. Listen, the patient could get sick, if we dig down deeper, and the other reps are not, we're going to be the ones that get the better description of a bitter pain point. So I said to the people selling this fan, anything else? And they said, Oh, well, now that you mentioned it. And this is pre-COVID. By the way, it keeps the doctors and nurses in the surgery centres opening and cutting people all day long. And there's smoke from the lasers. And if they could get secondhand smoke damage. Oh, no, that's the problem that we're going to be solving. And we're no longer talking to purchasing people. This is an HR problem. This becomes a recruiting tool that you're giving them that we have state-of-the-art fans keeping our team safe. So you can recruit doctors and nurses, the price of the fan is out the window when it's a tool that helps them recruit the best doctors to that hospital. So that's an example again, of taking something fairly dry figuring out a deeper problem telling that story. And then they sold way more fans because they weren't even talking to purchasing anymore. They're talking to HR, and it became an emotional decision. Of course, we want the best for our team. And we're going to use it as a recruiting tool. I don't care what the fan costs. We're getting that fan.

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Mark Drager: You must be familiar with the five levels deep approach to asking questions. So you ask as you mentioned the present Same problem. And maybe our audience is aware of this, but but you ask the problem. And then they give you the answer to the surface shallow answer, as you mentioned, and then you might repeat it back and say, so what you're saying is XYZ, and as you mentioned, what else and then you just keep pushing them until they almost on the third or fourth time they've like, they're flabbergasted. They're like, What are you talking about? I have given you everything. I've said it all. I'm going to be repeating myself and you go, Yeah, but what else? It gets so upset that they just blurt something out.

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John Livesay: But if they hear the difference, I'm doing now is instead of asking the client, the hospital, the doctors, so the purchasing people, what else? What else? What else? You're turning that question internally to yourselves, say, what else are we solving here? That could give us an edge that other people selling fans aren't asking themselves.

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Mark Drager: And so I know in your background, you went to university for advertising, you've worked at Conde Nast, you've worked in sales, you're you're very clearly good at in real time handling what I would call the brand strategy. So understanding maybe the competitive landscape, the features, the benefits, the company perspective, and then the target audiences, the main audiences pain points, developing the personas, you're almost doing this in real time. It sounds like you're spinning out basically what a creative director and an agency would come up with as the pitch is this something that you believe anyone can learn? Or are you uniquely framed for this because of the like, you know, 20, or whatever years of experience you have doing this?

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John Livesay: Well, I'm like being in this incredible athlete. I know Canadians love their hockey players, or being this gifted singer and singing on Broadway or opera. Storytelling is something we can all develop, it's in our DNA, we're wired for it. That's why Fitbit works. So well, or video games, you reach the next level, the we love to be involved in the story and make progress. So if you learn the structure of a storytelling, the exposition problem solution, and then that magic resolution of what life is like after, because imagine if the Wizard of Oz ended when Dorothy got in the balloon to go back to Kansas, the end? Well, the story is over. But no, there's that wonderful resolution scene where she's going, Oh, my God, there's no place like home and you were there. And I'm so appreciative of everyone and everything. That's why that story is a classic. And so once you understand the structure of the story, and do little checkboxes on that structure, saying, Oh, I don't have good resolution here, or my problems, really not that compelling. Nobody cares, then you start to become a better a better storyteller. And like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get

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Mark Drager: a lot of our work that we do in our agency sales loop, we're working with business owners, and we're really focusing on things like customer awareness, the different levels of awareness, whether they are aware of the solution, whether they're aware of even the problem that exists, whether they're aware of you as a company. And so when I came across your framework of invisible to irresistible, I thought, this has some of the overlap with awareness. But this is a totally different framework. And one that's actually very powerful. I have been doing this for 15 years, I've read tons of books on this, I've listened to as much as I can. And I've never heard anyone speak on this. So can you share the invisible to irresistible framework and why it's so powerful?

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Mark Drager: Now when you are going through these steps, and for our listeners, you know, you started with invisible, the next level up is insignificant. Then there's interesting, and you said most people get stuck on interesting. Now the next level we're going to break into is intriguing. The whole Tell me more. And then the last step, the Holy Land is irresistible. But I noticed when you mentioned intriguing and what and what I noticed also in the breakdown is you talked about this idea of leaning in and for our listeners, even when John was speaking, he leaned forward and you know, I've I've run a business, we've had 300 clients, 2000 projects, I've been doing it for over 15 years. So there's a lot of projects that never moved forward a lot of sales meetings in that time. And I could always tell if someone leaned forward or not. And I would always say like, I need I need them to lean in. And I noticed with their body language, if we went through an entire meeting, the worst was RFPs RFP processes. No one leaned in on anything. You would say stuff and they would be cold face. And you'd be like, That's interesting. But if people lean in just like you did if people lean in to, like physically lean into the edge of their seat, I was like, I've got you now. Now this is a real conversation. Now I can I'm either asking a really pointed question or telling a great story. Now this is real, everything before the lean-in is like, not that important. And so in that step, you talked about how the power of the story but isn't that it? Like let's not overcomplicate this, get the stories down, memorize the stories deliver the stories get people to lean in on them?

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John Livesay: Well, when I was calling on Speedo when I was at Conde Nast, I was selling ads for fashion magazine, and I reached out and I said, No, I noticed that you have a line of sportswear coming out, would you consider running that in my fashion magazine? And they said, No, we're running it in a fitness magazine. And I said another phrase that I love, which is well, what if because when you say what if you start painting the picture that opens up the chance for a story, we treated your sportswear like it was high fashion. And Michael Phelps is on your payroll. We can have models run to Hotel Swimming Pool modelling the sportswear, you can invite Michael Phelps, I bet we get a lot of publicity be great way to launch your product and a new cutting edge way. And they said oh, we're intrigued. Tell me more. What else would that look like? Do you think we could get Michael Phelps and suddenly we went from a no to not just interested but intrigued because I started painting telling that story and painting a picture of what it could be.

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Mark Drager: Man, John, we are out of time. So many great tips here today. But I do want to ask the final question that we ask of every single guest, which is what is your number one tip or your number one strategy to help us sell more.

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John Livesay: The biggest tip I have for everybody is make sure that when you're telling stories, you're telling them with enthusiasm and passion. Whether you've told the story 10 times or 100, it's the listener's first time if you're bored telling the story, they're bored listening to it. People buy your energy.