Paul Smith is an author, keynote speaker, and business storytelling expert.
On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Paul is sharing how we can use stories to differentiate ourselves from the competition.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Paul’s newest book: Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale
- LeadWithAStory.com
- @LeadWithAStory
- Paul on Linkedin
Transcript
Will Barron:
On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, you’re going to learn how storytelling can make you more money.
Will Barron:
Hello, sales nation. Welcome to today’s episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today’s show, we have Paul Smith. He’s a storytelling expert within the context of business, sales, parenting, and other verticals. And on today’s show, he’s sharing how we can implement stories to differentiate ourselves from the competition and essentially win more business. Everything we talk about is in the show note to this episode over at salesmanpodcast.com. And with all that said, let’s jump right in. Hi, Paul, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast.
Paul Smith:
Hey, Will. Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to be here.
How to Have an Impact in Sales Through Stories · [01:22]
Will Barron:
I’m excited to have you on, mate. I’m excited to dive into stories. And hopefully, we can get some practical examples and some real key takeaways for the audience here, because clearly they’re underutilised in business and sales. And clearly, they’re super-powerful. So we’ve covered the structure of stories, sales stories, business stories in the past. So I don’t want to gloss over that, but we can perhaps somewhat skip that step. And I want to dive into practical examples. And I’ll link to some previous episodes in the show notes as well. And if we tee up Sam, the salesperson who’s this imaginary character’s making an impact in a lot of these episodes recently, to try and make the show more practical and engaging for the audience. So let’s talk about Sam. He is somewhat successful. He’s in, say, software sales, for example. And perhaps he’s using stories day to day, but he’s not consciously writing them out, planning them, strategically using them is perhaps the best way to describe it. So for him to have an impact with stories in sales and business, where is the first place he should start?
“Storytelling is like music or art. Of course, some people are going to be naturally born with more giftedness in those areas than others, but you can learn it. And you can learn it well enough.” – Paul Smith · [02:08]
Paul Smith:
Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So I think the first place anybody should start is with recognising that storytelling is a skill set that would behove them to work on. So because a lot of people just think, well, some people are natural born storytellers and others aren’t. And if you’re not, well, you’re just never going to be one. And I don’t buy that at all. I think storytelling is like music or art. Of course, some people are going to be naturally born with more giftedness in those areas than others. And I, by the way, am not one of those people. So I have no musical talent or artistic talent whatsoever. But I’m convinced if I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, I could learn it in a few months and some rudiments of it.
Paul Smith:
And what I would do is I would go hire a trainer or go take a class, or read a book or watch a video. I mean, I would go intentionally learn it from somebody who knows how. And storytelling’s the same way. Yeah. You may not be a naturally gifted storyteller, but you can learn it. You can learn it well enough. And so that’s the first thing. I think the second thing that follows very quickly onto that, though, is knowing which stories you need to tell. Right? So I think a lot of salespeople have one or two or three go-to stories they have for the product or service that they’re selling. But one of the surprising things I found in the research for my last book was the breadth of stories that great salespeople have.
Paul Smith:
And I was really surprised. In fact, I probably interviewed professional sales and procurement managers at over 50 companies around the world. So both salespeople and professional buyers too. And by the way, adding those buyers in there wasn’t just a lark. I mean, in fact, at the end, I’m convinced I learned more from the buyers than I did the salespeople. Because who better to tell you which sales stories work and which ones don’t than the professional buyers who do nothing all day long, but listen to salespeople tell their stories? And decide which ones to buy from, and which ones not to. But the first surprise I had was the sheer number of stories that great salespeople have. And it was all across the sales process, right? Everywhere from the moment they introduced themselves to the buyer, to preparing themselves for the sales call.
Paul Smith:
Stories they tell themselves, by the way, not other people. To building rapport with the buyer, to making the actual sales pitch itself, to handling objections during that sales pitch, to closing the sale. Even service after the sale, managing the customer relationship after the sale. Great salespeople were telling stories throughout that entire process. And I would’ve thought it would’ve just been one or two key places. And at the end of doing the research for the book, I ended up documenting 25 different types of stories that I think every salesperson needs to be able to tell. And that’s just more than I expected. And so that, I think, is very quickly, behind knowing that storytelling is something you can learn, is knowing which stories you need to tell. That’s really the first couple of steps.
The Key Defining Traits of a Great Storyteller · [04:52]
Will Barron:
Amazing. So there’s about five points to go through here. So, because I could talk about this all day. Something I really enjoy talking about. Because it’s also applicable outside of sales, just communicating in general. And so these topics really excite me. First point of all of this. Is when we say a natural born storyteller, clearly there’s naturally born salespeople. There’s natural born athlete, which is perhaps different. Maybe that there’s a genetic element to that versus the nature-nurture argument. What makes up a great natural storyteller? And what I mean by that is, or the reason for asking that is what traits within that, before we get onto the stories themselves, which will be the meat and potatoes of this interview. What traits of a naturally great storyteller do we need to know so that we can then emulate so we can catch up to speed with them?
Paul Smith:
Great question. So one would just be somebody who’s comfortable in their own skin telling stories, right? That’s the first thing you notice about somebody when they’re obviously not a good storyteller, is that A, they get nervous when they shift in the conversation from just talking to telling a story. When they weren’t nervous 30 seconds ago, but now they are. And they stutter and stammer around and talk about the story in third person, like it’s this big behemoth in the room. And “Oh, well, so, well, so let me just tell you a story. Okay? Well, I’ll just… So I’m just going to tell you. Well, let me just start. So see it’s back… Well, it’s about me. See, and it happened… Well, it was a while ago. Well, I’ll just… Let me just go ahead and start.” And they just can’t get started, and it’s so awkward.
“The average sales story is two minutes long. It’s not five. It’s not 10. It’s not 15. It’s not 20. Naturally gifted storytellers know when to stop. They know how to tell a short, powerful, impactful story, and then move on. As opposed to this long, rambling thing that nobody wants to hear.” – Paul Smith · [07:11]
Paul Smith:
Because they’re thinking so much about the story that they just don’t tell it. Gifted storytellers just start telling the story. They don’t give you any preamble. They just start telling the story. Their tone of voice doesn’t change. It was conversational before they started telling the story, it’s conversational after they started telling the story. And great storytellers know when to stop. I mean, one of the interesting things I found out in doing the research for this book. And I’ve probably documented in the 300 or so people I’ve interviewed, and I’ve gotten eight to 12 stories from each person. So do the math, or I’ve documented over 2000 different stories. The average leadership story is about five minutes long. The average sales story is two minutes long. Okay? Two minutes, right? It’s not five. It’s not 10. It’s not 15. It’s not 20. Naturally gifted storytellers know when to stop. They know how to tell a short, powerful, impactful story, and then move on. As opposed to this long, rambling thing that nobody wants to hear. So there’s two or three character traits for you right there.
The Keys to Preparing, Memorizing, and Telling a Great Sales Story · [07:55]
Will Barron:
Amazing. And just on this rambling, because this is something I wanted to bring up and the question I wanted to ask. Even personally as well, because I do it sometimes. You’ll probably see it in the next 20 minutes on the show of, I’ll tell an anecdote. And I know the structure of a good anecdote, and very super-basically, beginning, middle, end, or the hero’s journey kind of structure. And I’m thinking I’m going to answer my own question here, but a lot of the time on the show, I’m processing it, and I’m recreating it in my mind as I’m telling it. Is that the problem of why it’s rambling?
Will Barron:
In that the sales process is very similar in most sales, the customer’s going to be different. There’s going to be different elements of the product. There’s going to be different priorities, but the process is somewhat similar. So should we be eliminating some of this rambling by having a story almost verbatim and ready to go, as in pre-preparing it before a meeting, or pre-preparing it for our sales process and then using it over and over and over? Or should we be trying to come up with these stories in the moment, and add them in when it’s super-organically? Or is that an excuse for just not preparing?
Paul Smith:
Yeah. So I’m going to give you perhaps a strange answer, but it’s a little bit of both. You definitely want to prepare. So no excuses for not preparing. You should know what your 25 stories are for each part of the sales process. And you should know, I guess, meaning memorise, the basic structure of the story. In fact, when I coach people, I tell them, “Don’t write your stories out word for word, because you’ll be tempted to memorise them.” And one of the things I learned from the buyers that I interviewed for this latest book was that one of the things that makes, in fact, I asked them this question. “What is it that makes a sales pitch sound like a sales pitch?” And I wanted to know that because they all told me that as soon as they could tell that the sales pitch had started, the hairs on the back of their neck just stand up.
Paul Smith:
And they immediately get defensive. And you don’t want that. You want it to sound authentic and genuine and organic. But the way to make it sound authentic, genuine and organic isn’t to completely make it up on the spot, because you’ll end up just rambling around and not knowing where you’re going with it. The way to do it is to remember the key bullet points of the story, the facts in the right order. But don’t memorise the full sentences that you’ll use to describe it. That way, every time you tell the story, much of it will be organic and improvised right on the spot, because you’ve never memorised a script. You’ve just remembered the basic outline of the story. And the basic outline will help you tell it in two minutes or less. So you’re not rambling, but the exact words will be a little bit different every time. So it will sound organic and unscripted, because it is unscripted, but it’s not totally fabricated on the spot. So it’s a combination of both of those things that I think yields the best result.
How to Build a Compelling Story From Scratch · [10:38]
Will Barron:
So I want to come back onto the buyer’s perspective on this, because that’s something that we’ve covered, storytelling in business a whole bunch of times. And that’s something unique to yourself, Paul, and that’s something that we’ve not talked about before. So I really want to double down on that in a second, but when, and if we can get time, we’ll cover as many of these 25 stories as we possibly can throughout the sales process. But just to put it in context for us all, is this an afternoon that we spend in the office, or a Sunday afternoon, whatever it is, where we list the steps of the sales process. And we come up with one or two quick anecdotal stories, bullet point them down, and do we need to physically do that? Is that the first step? Is it worth instilling that into the mind of myself and the audience, that is a process we have to go through to become proficient at story storytelling in sales?
Paul Smith:
Yes, I think it is. I think that’s a wonderful way to do it is list out the steps of your sales process, which might be slightly different than what I just said. But in interviewing all these salespeople, most of them are pretty similar. And yes, identify what are the one or two stories in each of these steps that will help you. And it may be an afternoon for you. It may be an hour, it may be a week-long process, that I don’t know what it will take for each person. But having that written down, I mean, take it seriously. If your boss asked you to do some analysis and write a report and send it in, would you just scribble down a few things and send it in without doing any research or work? Of course not.
Paul Smith:
So these stories are going to be some of your greatest sales assets. Take them seriously. Do the research. I mean, you might have to talk to some other people, interview other people. If other people were involved in the story that you’re want to use, it’s not something that happened to you personally, you’re going to have to do some research about it. You’ll have to talk to the company historian or the person that’s been working at the company the longest of anybody or the CEO, or other of your sales comrades, to find out what happened and get the details right. And be able to answer all the questions in your story structure. So yeah, it takes some work, but anything worthwhile does.
What Stories Do Buyers Want to Hear? · [12:35]
Will Barron:
I love the way you use asset, in that maybe it needs some data occasionally, but once you’ve done it is a physical, even a physical document that you can take with you. And what I also like about all this is it ties into people are coming down the show quite regularly… I hate the term, but as social selling is in the news. And it’s the exciting thing in the world of sales at the moment. People are talking about, you’ve got to have a blog, or you’ve got to connect with people on LinkedIn and share insights. This is still content, but you’re just giving it verbally on a one-on-one connection. Versus it’s something that you’re going to write out and share and put on a blog post that no one’s ever going to see. So keeping it in our mind as an asset, as a piece of content, I think, is really valuable in this. But coming to the buyer, what the heck do buyers want story-wise?
Will Barron:
Because the rest of the conversation is essentially moot. Isn’t it? The whole point of everything that we’re doing here is, assuming that we’ve got the right product and the right buyer and the right fit, everything else that we’re doing is just to make them happy, build trust, and to put our product, lubricate the process of getting our product in front of them. So what do they care about within a story? And then just in a conversation as well, because clearly the bits, either side of this that are teeing up the anecdote of the story, and then wrapping up and asking for that next action, are all entwined.
Paul Smith:
There was an interesting study done by, I think it was Forrester Research a number of years ago. And they asked professional buyers, a thousand different professional buyers, different companies. In what ways were the salespeople that called on them prepared for a sales call? And the options in the answer, the multiple-choice answer was, they’re very knowledgeable about the product they’re selling. They’re very knowledgeable about their industry. One of the options was, they’re knowledgeable about my industry, the buyer’s industry. And they got various scores on that. And it’s not surprising that they thought salespeople were most prepared with the knowledge about the product they’re selling in the industry they work in.
Paul Smith:
A little bit less prepared in understanding the buyers’ industry and their business. But the lowest score in this survey question was, “Is prepared with enough anecdotes, stories and examples to help me understand how this product will really work inside my doors.” And so they are telling you that you need more stories. You’ve got plenty of sales pitch when you walk in the door, you don’t have enough stories to help me really understand how this will affect me and my business personally. So that’s the thing.
The Perfect Balance Between Telling a Story and Talking About Features and Benefits · [15:15]
Will Barron:
And Paul, let me just stop on this a second. And tell me if I’m right or wrong here, but is that because we salespeople are very likely to memorise a bunch of figures of 75 cents of the market, use our product, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And is that harder? It seems so simple, but I do want to, I want to verbalise it because it’s something that I’ve not done very well in the past. I was in medical device sales, very focused on figures, facts, because I’ve thought that is open to less interpretation, and so easier to understand. But I don’t think it’s the case in hindsight. Are stories useful in these scenarios because it paints a picture in the mind of the buyer, and it allows them to process this information rather than just see it?
“I’m not suggesting storytelling should replace the typical facts, features, benefits and logical arguments that you make in a sales call. I’m just talking about storytelling as an additional skill set to bring to that entire sales process. 10 or 15% of the time that you’re talking ought to be in the form of a story. 85, 90% ought to be just normal expository, logical, rational conversation. But that last 10 or 15% can be very powerful.” – Paul Smith · [16:15]
Paul Smith:
Yes. I think all the questions that you just asked. Yes, salespeople are typically prepared with all the facts and figures and features and benefits. And that’s what they’re selling is features and benefits. And so they’ve got all that memorised. And I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t have that. Of course, you need all of that if you’re going to sell something. So I’m not suggesting storytelling to replace the typical type of facts and features and benefits and logical arguments that you make in a sales call at all. I’m just talking about storytelling as an additional skill set to bring to that entire sales process. And I think you probably only ought to be doing storytelling, 10 or 15% of the time that you’re talking ought to be in the form of a story. 85, 90% ought to be just normal expository, logical, rational conversation. But that last 10 or 15% can be very powerful.
The Most Effective Ways to Tell a Sales Story · [16:46]
Will Barron:
So let me just ask you this then. And we might be overanalyzing it here. So tell me if you think we are. Does this story then fit in of, you have a fact. “So 75% of people use our product within your vertical.” And then you’d say, “And Mr. Blah, blah, blah, who is your biggest competitor…” Then you start telling the story. Can it be structured as fact, then story to make the fact real? Is that the process?
Paul Smith:
That is definitely one way to use stories, as an illustration or an example of a fact that you just stated, but it can also be used. And one of your questions was, what stories do buyers want to hear? So I asked them that question. And one of the things that they said was, “I want to hear stories about your product in use. Either at my competitors or some of your best clients, so I can see how they’re using it. So I’ll know if that will work for me.” But the other types of stories they were asking for was, they want to know how your company was founded. How did you get started? Right? Because nobody ever quit their day job and risked everything to start a business for a boring reason, right? That’s never happened in the history of mankind.
Paul Smith:
There’s always an exciting story behind why somebody would take all that risk and go start a business. Buyers want to know that because it tells them who you are as a company, not as a salesperson, but who your company is. And stories to help them understand your values. They want to know how honestly are you going to deal with me? And stories about your integrity, and where you’ve demonstrated it before, help them get a feel for that. But most of our stories about your product and other people who’ve used your product, or people that didn’t use your product and wish they had. Those kind of stories make it real and concrete, as opposed to a nebulous list of features and benefits that is hard to wrap their mind around.
The Type of Stories That Have the Biggest Impact on Buyers · [18:40]
Will Barron:
You just said something here, which I think is really important and I don’t want to gloss over it. And that is that they want to hear about the company and how it’s founded or the values and things of that nature. Because most sales trainers would tell you, they don’t really care about you, the company, the product, the service. They only care selfishly about them, which is clearly somewhat true. You perhaps have your foot in the door and you’re having a conversation. You’ve added value, given insights, you’re done whatever it is to make them want to have a conversation. And perhaps the company founder story, and the values of the company comes later on in the process. But that is a really unique insight. That unless you’ve interviewed these buyers, it’d probably be quite difficult to uncover. And that’s totally contrary to what other people come on the show and said, so I’m really interested in that. Is there any specific, so is there any place in the sales process where that comes up and has the biggest impact?
Paul Smith:
The stories about your company, your company’s founding, your company’s values, why you do what you do, things like that are all part of what I call the building rapport. So this is before you get to the main sales pitch, if you have this opportunity. And sometimes, a lot of people have six-month sales cycles, right? Between the time they meet the prospect, to the time they’re actually closing the sale could be six or nine months. And is going to have maybe a half-dozen or a dozen different touch points where you actually have a conversation with the prospect.
Paul Smith:
So you have lots of opportunities to tell stories. And those that we just mentioned are more often in the early stage before you’re actually making the really hard sales pitch, or after you’ve made it the first time, before you’ve made it for the fourth time. Because sometimes it takes that many, right? So it can be often during this, and early on. So don’t think of these stories as just something that happens during a 30-minute sales pitch. These are stories that you tell long before the sales pitch happens, during the sales pitch and after the sales pitch is done, you’re telling different types of stories.
How to Use Stories to Differentiate Yourself From The Competition · [20:38]
Will Barron:
So Paul, what are the biggest bang for buck stories, types of stories or where they fit in the process? That perhaps people aren’t using, that might be the best way to look at it, so that’ll have the biggest impact on them. Where I’m going with this is, because clearly we don’t have time to talk about all 25, and we’ll have you back on the future to cover more of them for sure. Because this is fascinating. But what are the, say, two, three that really stand out that will, I want the audience to be able to separate themselves from the competition using stories. Perhaps in a market with Sam, the salesperson, that the product is somewhat commoditized. The pricing’s somewhat similar. How can we use sales stories as a tool to separate us? And what are the best ways to go about that?
Paul Smith:
In order to separate yourself, so the story that does that the most is a story to explain how you’re different from your competitors. Right? In fact, it’s Story Number 11 in my list of 25 is how we’re different from our competitors. That’s definitely a story you need. And the best example I’ve heard of that was a guy named Sharad Madison. He’s the CEO of UBM, which is United Building Maintenance, which is basically a commercial cleaning company. His company goes in, cleans the offices of companies in big cities, right? And you can imagine how that could be a fairly commoditized business, like you said, and so how can he differentiate himself? So instead of just going in and saying, “We use the most modern equipment, and I have the best trained cleaners,” or “I have the highest-paid sales staff.”
Paul Smith:
“So they really care.” Whatever, he has some of that as well. But mostly what he does is he tells a story about what happens when he’s acquired a new client. He says, “Every time I get a new account, there’s somebody I’m replacing. It’s not like their building is not being cleaned today. I’ve convinced them to fire that company and hire mine. And there’s usually a 30-day transition period. Well, what I do during the transition period is, I go into the buildings at night and watch what they’re doing. And see how they’re cleaning the buildings today. Because the way the contracts typically works, I’m probably going to inherit those workers, just not the management and the ownership and the structure and the machines. But the temporary employees, I’ll probably end up having to hire them.”
Paul Smith:
And so he’ll say, “So I went into the Verizon building when we acquired it last month, and I watched what they were doing. And here, there was this guy out there cleaning this carpet, using the kind of carpet cleaner that you’d have for your home. A residential-style carpet cleaner, and these carpets are 12 feet wide. And it’s a half a mile long, just around one floor. And there’s 10 floors to the building. It’s going to take this guy a week to shampoo the carpets, and it’s not going to be very clean. Because he’s literally using the same Hoover that you’ve got in your closet at home. So of course, when we finally took over the contract, I put him in an industrial-strength, triple-wide powered whatever.” And he’ll tell the same story about the person that’s vacuuming the carpet, how he puts him in a riding industrial strength one that gets the job done in a single night, and gets the guy off of his feet so that you don’t have workman’s comp issues later.
Paul Smith:
And then he’ll say, “Yeah, and we went into the offices where they’re dusting the cabinets. And I looked on top of the cabinets, and there’s this half-moon swiped out on top of the cabinet.” And he said, “I know exactly what that means. That means that the people who are cleaning those cabinets aren’t tall enough to reach all the way back. So they just reach as far as they can. And that’s what leaves the little half-moon swiped out. And the other part is dusty.” And he said, “The truth is, they’d be better off not even dusting it, because it’s the contrast between the clean part and the dirty part that makes it look so dirty.” He said, “But I know how to fix that too.” He said, “And I went and found the people and I was confirmed, yes, some of these people cleaning these offices are less than five and a half feet tall.”
“When telling a story, you want your audience to be able to see in their mind’s eye the difference. Not just hear a logical set of reasons, they need to be able to see the difference between you and the next company.”Paul Smith · [24:51]
Paul Smith:
“And those cabinets are six feet tall. They just can’t reach.” He said, “So I give them these little cheap, inexpensive extension wands for their cleaning swabs, problem solved.” So he tells two or three short, little anecdotes like that, about the difference between the way he does business and the way his predecessors do business. And that is so much more effective because you, and I can see it in your eyes right now. You can visualise all of those things happening. Right? And that’s what you want your audience to do, is to be able to see in their mind’s eye the difference. Not just hear a logical set of reasons, they need to be able to see it.
Will Barron:
What’s fascinating is if you put that on, I don’t know, a proposal of, “We are going to equip people with slightly longer cleaning brushes, and we’re going to bring in some newer technology so they can clean the floors.” I’d be like, “Well, great. But that’s your job to do that. That’s what I’m paying for. That’s the expertise that I expect.” But when you put it into a story of this gentleman walking around and seeing it-
Paul Smith:
At midnight, 30 days before, right?
Will Barron:
Yeah. And the realisation of, “Oh, I’ve seen this before. This is a shorter blah, blah, blah.” That makes it far more engaging. And I don’t know if you were watching me as I was doing it, but I kept seeing myself and everyone on audio. I’ll verbalise this so you can see it. But as you were saying, I caught myself looking up into the roof here. Because obviously, I was visualising the process of this really tiny person in a uniform, trying to reach on top of these cupboards where there was no way that it was going to happen.
The ‘Problem Story’ and Why It’s Most Important Type of Sales Story · [26:00]
Will Barron:
It wasn’t hilarious, but there’s a tiny little bit of humour and setup in that as well, which is fantastic. So clearly, that was a great example of a way to drive contrast between you and the competition as well. And you’re not necessarily slagging off the competition either. It’s very much, it’s almost saying, “That’s reasonable. That’s what people have done in the past, but we are that step ahead.” Which is fascinating. Okay. So we’ve got to separate. Okay. Go ahead, if you’ve got more. Go, drive straight in.
“You need to be able to tell the story about the quintessential problem that your product or service solves for the buyer. These stories are to help the buyer visualise what you are going to do for them, not what they’re going to do for you.” – Paul Smith · [26:49]
Paul Smith:
Yeah. Well, so yes, for two or three of the most powerful types of stories. So that’s one that you asked for was how to differentiate yourself from your competitor. One of the most common types of sales stories that salespeople need to be able to tell is, I call it a problem story. And so that’s Number 13 on my list of 25. It’s you need to be able to tell the story about the quintessential problem that your product or service solves for the buyer. Right? Because you said a lot of people come on here and say, “It all needs to be about the buyer, not about you.” And of course, I agree with that. All these stories are to help the buyer visualise what you are going to do for them, not what you’re going to do for you.
Paul Smith:
So the problem story is one you absolutely got to have. And so one of my favourite examples of that is a guy I Kevin Moulton, and he’s a salesperson for an IT-type company that does, the programmes they write are internet and financial transactions, security protocols. Which is I’m mouthful for what means is, the people that keep your money safe when you’re buying something online or getting money out of a cash machine. Okay. All right. And so his customers that he calls on, the prospects he calls on, are banks and credit card companies, because they’re the ones that need to have all of the security protocol. And in addition to the list of facts and figures and whatever that he has to go in with his typical sales pitch, he almost always tells him a story about a trip he took to Las Vegas.
Paul Smith:
He’s a sales guy. He says, “So I was at one of these sales conferences in Vegas. And you know how these things are, you go to the conference all day and then at night, then you go have dinner. And then you go to the casinos because you’re in Vegas. Right? So I was out at the casinos, and I was losing some and winning some. And then losing more, and then losing more. And eventually, I was tapped out of money, but I was still having fun. So it’s one o’clock in the morning. And so I went to the cash machine there to put my card in and put it in the PIN. And it said transaction denied. And I thought I just got the PIN number wrong. So I put it in again, same thing. Tried a different machine, same thing.”
Paul Smith:
“So I can’t get my money out. And I’m like, ‘Okay, I know what’s going on. I live in New Jersey, all of a sudden I’m in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s in the middle of the night and I’m trying to get a ridiculous amount of money out of a cash machine. Okay. The bank obviously thinks somebody stole my credit card and they’ve shut it down.'” He said, “So I’m not going to get upset about that. I mean, I’m glad they’re looking out for me and protecting my money. That’s great.” What did get him upset, though, he said was what they did about it. He said, “They called my wife in the middle of the night at four o’clock in the morning in New Jersey.” Right? And can you imagine what that half of the conversation would’ve sounded like? “Well, I’m sorry to wake you up, Mrs. Moulton, at four o’clock in the morning, but it’s 1:00 AM in Las Vegas and your husband’s trying to get a boatload of cash out of a machine at a casino.”
Paul Smith:
“Do you approve of this transaction?” And he said, “Can you imagine how upset she was, and how upset I was that she was upset?” And he said, “It did not take me long to get a new bank and a new credit card after that.” And he said, “Now that kind of thing. I mean, here the bank was, trying to do something noble and worthwhile. And what they ended up doing was actually getting in the way of me doing legitimate business with them. And worse off, they made my life miserable. My wife wouldn’t speak to me for a week.” And so he said, “This kind of thing probably happens all the time with your customers, and you don’t even know it. If that bank had used my company to do its security protocols, instead of that phone call to my wife happening, they would’ve simply asked me some security question. Or it would’ve asked me, or they would’ve called me on my cell phone, which they had the number.”
Paul Smith:
“Why didn’t they call it and asked me if I really meant to get the money out of?” And he goes through a list of all the things that they would’ve done instead of the silly, calling the wife at home. So that story goes a lot farther for him than saying, “Well, our survey suggests that 47.6% of your customers are slightly to moderately dissatisfied with their interactions with your bank.” Whatever. I mean, that data is nice, but the story makes it come alive, and makes it real and visceral and personal about what bad can happen if you don’t have my company, as your service provider.
The More Impactful Stories You’ll Ever Tell Will Come From Your Existing Customers · [30:47]
Will Barron:
I’m going to give a practical example of this. And then we’ll have to wrap up, because I’m conscious of time. James Pember, he’s been on the show before. He’s the CEO of Spartasales.com. They sponsored the podcast and he brought on positive ROI, great success. And he brought on in his own words, a new customer from a new area from, assuming I didn’t dive too far into it, but I’m assuming from the States, because he’s based over in Europe. And when I’m talking about the sponsorship with potential new sponsors and new people coming on board, I will typically not talk about him. And he’s fine for me to talk about him. He’s given me permission to use him as an example. And I will typically rather than talk about him on the phone with people who want to sponsor the show, I will just drop a quote from him. A reference, essentially, it’s saying exactly what I’ve just said of, we had positive return on our investment very quickly, a new customer and a new location.
Will Barron:
It’s great success. It seems to tie the whole conversation together of what we’ve had so far today, Paul. It seems like I should go and interview him, and find out who that customer is, what it meant for him as the buyer of my service of, maybe not even revenue-wise, because that might be somewhat strategic. He might not want to share that particularly. But to get a good sense of what that meant for him. And then that could be a story in itself, especially if it’s somewhat of an interesting customer perhaps. Or then his service has helped them in some way. And then that’s an even better story. I’ve got all kinds of neurons firing in my brain as we go through this, of examples of ways I can implement it, but am I on the right track here? Is that what I should be doing to take away from this show?
Paul Smith:
Yeah, absolutely. When I said earlier that you should see your sales assets as assets worthy of investing in your time, of doing research and analysis. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You might need to make a few phone calls to find out the details behind the story. I mean, imagine if every story you ever told was about yourself, was about you. What kind of person would that make you?
Will Barron:
I don’t know if it’s the narcissist or the other kind of one that ties into that, for sure.
“Nobody wants to do business with somebody who, every story out of their mouth is about themself.” – Paul Smith · [33:04]
Paul Smith:
Exactly. And you don’t want to be that kind of person. Nobody wants to do business with somebody who, every story out of their mouth is about themself, right? I mean, nobody wants to do business with that kind of a narcissist or an egoist, right? So most of your stories need to be about other people. And because they’re about other people, you don’t have all the details of what happened. Well, guess what? You need to call them and find out, do some research. Do some analysis that goes into your stories, just like you would a report or any other kind of thing that you produce for professional purposes.
Paul’s Advice to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [33:58]
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, we’re really long on time here. Well, definitely if Europe, we’ll have you back on to dive into a few more of these. As you know all them all numbered off, half by heart, it’d be amazing to dive into more of these. And even just rattle through them, and just come up with one show that’s just 10 or as many as we can fit in. And then I can go back and fill out perhaps with a bit of a blog post around it, perhaps, to give some more context. And we’ll just wrap for as many as we can. So I think that’d be really good. But Paul, I’ve got one final question, mate. It’s something that I ask everyone that comes on the show. So I’m going to throw at you now. And that is, if you personally could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to helping become better at selling?
Paul Smith:
Oh, well, for me, I guess it’d be obvious is, tell more stories and deliver fewer sales pitches. I guess.
Will Barron:
Right. Let me just double down on that, then. When did you realise, or how did you realise the power of stories? What was that moment that led to this book, the new book and anything else? The keynote speaking, clearly everything’s tied around stories. What was the moment that you realised how important they are?
Paul Smith:
Yeah, well, I’m not sure there was a single moment, but I can tell you the general period of time was probably after 15 years of my career. I’d spent a couple years as a consultant for Andersen, and then 20 years at Procter and Gamble. And it was probably 15 years into my P&G career when it finally dawned on me that the leaders that I admired the most and wanted to work for and wanted to be like when I grew up in the company had this amazing skill of being able to tell fabulous stories. And I thought, “They didn’t teach me that in business school. They didn’t teach me that when I joined the company. It’s not been on any of my skill development needs assessment from the HR department or anything.”
Paul Smith:
And that made me realise, “I want to go learn that skill.” But it was hard to do because just, you don’t find classes on them or enough books written about them. And so that’s what led me down the path to write the first book there you’ve got there, Lead With a Story. And then that got me down the path of thinking about applying storytelling to other venues of life. So the second book is Parenting with a Story. The most recent book is Sell With a Story, and I can see very various others into the future. But yeah, it started about the 15-year mark into P&G.
Parting Thoughts · [35:45]
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, for everyone who wants to know more about you, for anyone who wants to accelerate this process, rather than having to listen to the show and perhaps doing a lot more of the work and research on themselves. Tell us a little bit about the keynote speaking, the training, and then you mentioned it then. So tell us where we can find the latest book as well.
Paul Smith:
So the books are probably all on online, wherever you buy books from Amazon or Barnes and Noble or whatever. And you can get them my website, which is leadwithastory.com. And there, you can probably find out about most of the stuff that I’m doing, because as I was mentioned to you before the show, I mean, I probably spend 75% of my time researching and writing the next book that I’m working on. But my primary business model is actually keynote speeches, half-day, full-day training courses for either executives or sales teams, in teaching them the art and the science of how to leverage storytelling to make them a better leader or a better salesperson, et cetera.
Paul Smith:
And because, so what I’m finding is a lot of people are like, “Well, that’s great, but I don’t have six weeks to read your book. I’ve got an afternoon next month on a Thursday. That’s what I’ve got. So, and I got a whole team to get through this. So you come out here and spend a half a day or a day with us, and teach us everything you know.” And so mostly what I’ve done is developed full training courses around these concepts to teach people in a short amount of time.
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, I’ll link to all of that in the show note to this episode over at salesmanpodcast.com. And with that, Paul, I want to thank you for your time. I’m looking forward to having you back on to dive into to this further. And I’ll thank you for joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Paul Smith:
Well, thanks for having me. It was my pleasure.
