1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:04,440 Storytelling is essential for everyone in business. 2 00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:08,000 If you're selling your ideas, you're selling products, you're 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:12,720 trying to convince your team to follow your idea. 4 00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:20,680 Today on Episode #794 of CXO Talk, we're speaking with Josh 5 00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:22,320 Bernoff. He's an author. 6 00:00:22,730 --> 00:00:26,450 He's a famous ghostwriter. It's funny thing, right, to say 7 00:00:26,450 --> 00:00:30,170 you're a famous ghostwriter, but but he is, he's a former 8 00:00:30,170 --> 00:00:35,330 industry analyst and most of all for us today, he is an expert 9 00:00:35,450 --> 00:00:38,330 storyteller. I spent 14 years as a startup 10 00:00:38,330 --> 00:00:42,850 executive in the Boston area and then 20 years as an analyst at 11 00:00:42,850 --> 00:00:45,530 Forrester. I wrote a book called 12 00:00:45,690 --> 00:00:49,010 Groundswell along with Charlene Lee, another analyst that sold 13 00:00:49,010 --> 00:00:52,170 150,000 copies. So since that time. 14 00:00:52,620 --> 00:00:56,860 I've been focused on books and stories, working with analysts 15 00:00:56,860 --> 00:01:00,460 at Forrester on those, and then for the last eight years doing 16 00:01:00,460 --> 00:01:04,420 that independently. And that's those. 17 00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:06,660 All that experience is what's in here. 18 00:01:06,660 --> 00:01:12,460 Build a Better Business book, which is how to plan, write and 19 00:01:12,460 --> 00:01:16,180 promote a book that matters, really a topic that anybody 20 00:01:16,180 --> 00:01:18,100 who's going to be writing a book, but especially. 21 00:01:18,750 --> 00:01:21,510 Senior executives need to pay attention to if they want to 22 00:01:21,510 --> 00:01:26,350 create influence. Why are stories so important in 23 00:01:26,350 --> 00:01:29,270 your book? You begin the whole book with a 24 00:01:29,270 --> 00:01:33,430 discussion about storytelling. Why? 25 00:01:34,070 --> 00:01:36,630 Stories are what resonate with people. 26 00:01:36,990 --> 00:01:39,870 The first time I tried to write a book, I sent the book proposal 27 00:01:39,870 --> 00:01:42,910 to to the agent we were working with. 28 00:01:42,910 --> 00:01:45,750 And he's like, well, I can't sell this. 29 00:01:46,780 --> 00:01:48,820 I said why not? He said well because business 30 00:01:48,820 --> 00:01:51,940 books are made of people and stories and there are no people 31 00:01:51,940 --> 00:01:54,100 and stories in here. Reads like a research report. 32 00:01:54,820 --> 00:01:57,020 Well, I was an analyst. I wrote research reports. 33 00:01:57,220 --> 00:02:00,300 But at that moment I was I thought that we're on this, that 34 00:02:00,300 --> 00:02:04,740 I can do that I can find people and stories and and since that 35 00:02:04,740 --> 00:02:09,340 time I have realized that that is essential to communicating 36 00:02:09,340 --> 00:02:13,260 any idea is to allow the person reading to put themselves in the 37 00:02:13,260 --> 00:02:16,370 position of the. Person you're describing and 38 00:02:16,370 --> 00:02:18,650 say, Oh yeah, that's what that felt like. 39 00:02:18,650 --> 00:02:21,170 That's what it's like for me. Oh, he did that and it worked. 40 00:02:21,530 --> 00:02:23,970 I guess that might work for me. Oh, she did that and it didn't 41 00:02:23,970 --> 00:02:25,810 work. Maybe I should learn from that. 42 00:02:26,290 --> 00:02:30,450 Companies are stories. You tell a story to every 43 00:02:30,450 --> 00:02:33,210 consumer and every employee about who you are and what 44 00:02:33,210 --> 00:02:36,330 matters to you. And if that story coheres and it 45 00:02:36,330 --> 00:02:38,170 resonates with them, you can succeed. 46 00:02:38,170 --> 00:02:41,570 And if it doesn't, then you're just a collection of people who 47 00:02:41,650 --> 00:02:43,610 who happen to be working together right now. 48 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:49,240 Josh, listening to you talk about your early experience 49 00:02:49,480 --> 00:02:52,640 writing a book where you were an analyst and you were used to 50 00:02:52,640 --> 00:02:57,640 writing research, I think many business executives, especially 51 00:02:57,640 --> 00:03:03,160 technology focused ones, come out of that very intellectual as 52 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:09,120 opposed to emotional mindset. And so there is a challenge in 53 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:13,260 translating. Our ideas, our intellectual 54 00:03:13,260 --> 00:03:16,820 ideas into stories that convey emotion. 55 00:03:17,380 --> 00:03:19,500 How does one go about doing that? 56 00:03:19,940 --> 00:03:21,900 It really is a question of empathy. 57 00:03:22,340 --> 00:03:26,220 I mean as to why this matters, I I like to cite this little study 58 00:03:26,380 --> 00:03:30,900 Dan Heath, the author I did with his students at Stanford. 59 00:03:31,340 --> 00:03:35,300 He had some people give a presentation that included some 60 00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:38,620 stories and some statistics. And then later he came back to 61 00:03:38,620 --> 00:03:42,080 the students and said. Do you remember the statistics? 62 00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:47,040 5% remember the statistics. Do you remember the stories? 63 00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:51,920 63% remember the stories. And that just shows you the 64 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:56,840 power here. Now, as far as what what CE O's 65 00:03:56,840 --> 00:04:00,680 need to do, you're going to be telling two kinds of stories. 66 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:05,920 One is a story about people who matter like a customer. 67 00:04:06,380 --> 00:04:10,060 Who whose life was changed by something that you did or 68 00:04:10,740 --> 00:04:13,100 another customer who had problems. 69 00:04:13,100 --> 00:04:16,500 And they we use that story to help illustrate why we do things 70 00:04:16,500 --> 00:04:19,820 one way and not another. But it also relates to the 71 00:04:19,820 --> 00:04:23,500 brands that companies have, because every company is a 72 00:04:23,500 --> 00:04:26,500 story. And that story basically says 73 00:04:26,940 --> 00:04:30,940 this customer has this problem, we come along and we offer this 74 00:04:30,940 --> 00:04:33,820 solution. The customer uses our product or 75 00:04:33,820 --> 00:04:37,080 our service. And therefore, they have a happy 76 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:39,720 ending. And that's certainly the kind of 77 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:43,320 story that marketers tell, but it also motivates employees and 78 00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:46,360 everyone else associated with the company to know this is our 79 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:48,920 story. We help these people solve this 80 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:51,720 problem with this product, and then they live happily ever 81 00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:55,000 after. But what about folks who are, 82 00:04:55,080 --> 00:05:01,920 again, technology oriented, who are used to speaking with other 83 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:06,930 tech folks? And in a kind of shorthand, this 84 00:05:06,930 --> 00:05:09,970 could be CIOs or Ctos for example, right? 85 00:05:09,970 --> 00:05:14,170 They speak in a kind of shorthand to convey the message, 86 00:05:14,330 --> 00:05:18,610 and the expectation is that you know I'm giving you the 87 00:05:18,650 --> 00:05:22,570 information and therefore you should act on this information. 88 00:05:23,050 --> 00:05:26,450 The idea that we can reduce everything to some simple and 89 00:05:26,450 --> 00:05:29,010 logical set of statistics is I think. 90 00:05:30,240 --> 00:05:33,840 At the root of a lot of these problems I you know that 91 00:05:33,840 --> 00:05:37,280 companies have, you don't think Apple could have been where it 92 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:40,320 was now without a story about why it was better. 93 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:43,560 It wasn't just about the products, it was about the story 94 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,960 that they told. And I mean let's just talk about 95 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:49,960 technology products. We we before we got on the air, 96 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:54,920 we're talking about a Zoom, the the video conferencing company 97 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,650 and yes. They can tell people about how 98 00:05:59,010 --> 00:06:02,490 they're more effective and they work with large companies and 99 00:06:02,490 --> 00:06:06,490 small using the same technology and you know how dependable they 100 00:06:06,490 --> 00:06:09,690 are. But the story of Zoom is when 101 00:06:09,690 --> 00:06:12,770 you need to connect with somebody else on video, it's 102 00:06:12,770 --> 00:06:17,170 really easy and it just works. And therefore you can have a 103 00:06:17,170 --> 00:06:19,490 relationship with the person you're connecting with on video, 104 00:06:19,490 --> 00:06:20,930 even if you're not in the same room. 105 00:06:21,210 --> 00:06:25,730 And therefore that's really good for you and the when. 106 00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:30,680 Some other video conferencing company tries to come into, say, 107 00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:33,400 ACIO and say, well, you should use us instead of Zoom. 108 00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:37,000 All the people have heard that, you know, they're like, no wait, 109 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:39,480 Zoom is really easy. I've been using, well, can't we 110 00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:41,560 use Zoom? Well, that's because this, the 111 00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:43,640 Zoom story is stuck in their brains. 112 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:47,920 That's even if you're dealing with selling technology on a 113 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:52,560 technologist to technologist basis, somewhere beneath that 114 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:55,280 someone is like, oh, this just works better and it solves my 115 00:06:55,280 --> 00:06:59,220 problem. But the the message zoom is 116 00:06:59,220 --> 00:07:03,460 simple or any product is simple and easy. 117 00:07:04,140 --> 00:07:09,260 That's kind of a marketing message as opposed to telling a 118 00:07:09,260 --> 00:07:12,220 story, right? Or where am I not correct in 119 00:07:12,220 --> 00:07:13,220 that? No. 120 00:07:13,220 --> 00:07:14,500 Well, that is a marketing message. 121 00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:16,980 But a marketing message is a story. 122 00:07:16,980 --> 00:07:20,100 A purpose statement from a company is a story. 123 00:07:21,660 --> 00:07:24,300 A marketing statement is a story about customers. 124 00:07:24,700 --> 00:07:27,620 If this customer uses this thing, then they'll be happier. 125 00:07:27,980 --> 00:07:32,500 And when you see a commercial, let's say the commercial doesn't 126 00:07:33,220 --> 00:07:37,620 say, you know these things are better for these people. 127 00:07:37,620 --> 00:07:42,580 Now they have, they show a person who's actually has a 128 00:07:42,580 --> 00:07:44,260 problem and then solves the problem. 129 00:07:44,260 --> 00:07:46,940 But that's the story about a person that's not just a 130 00:07:46,940 --> 00:07:51,500 marketing message. What is it, then, about stories 131 00:07:51,500 --> 00:07:55,760 that make them? More memorable than the facts 132 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:57,560 and figures as you were describing. 133 00:07:57,560 --> 00:08:01,040 Earlier, I wish I could completely answer that, but I 134 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,920 think that solution is what's deep in people's brains, about 135 00:08:05,920 --> 00:08:09,120 the way their brains work. You know, we've been telling 136 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:13,120 stories to each other since we were cave people sitting around 137 00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:17,720 the campfire. So it's just how people think 138 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:21,590 and. I I mean, this comes up 139 00:08:21,590 --> 00:08:26,350 specifically in the books that I help people with where if you 140 00:08:26,350 --> 00:08:29,390 have a, you know, extremely logical and well supported, 141 00:08:29,790 --> 00:08:33,990 statistically supported set of information about why this thing 142 00:08:33,990 --> 00:08:37,350 is better than that thing, people may read it, they may 143 00:08:37,350 --> 00:08:39,590 even understand it, but they won't remember it. 144 00:08:40,549 --> 00:08:43,110 But if you say, Oh well, you know, this person had this 145 00:08:43,110 --> 00:08:46,630 problem and then they did this and it didn't work and they did 146 00:08:46,630 --> 00:08:48,990 this other thing and it did work and therefore it's better to do 147 00:08:48,990 --> 00:08:52,030 it this other way. The next thing that happens is 148 00:08:52,030 --> 00:08:54,470 they go into the somebody else and say, Oh yeah, well, I heard 149 00:08:54,470 --> 00:08:56,830 this story about this person who had this problem and they solved 150 00:08:56,830 --> 00:08:59,110 it. It's just how people's brains 151 00:08:59,110 --> 00:09:02,310 work. So you're really tapping into a 152 00:09:02,710 --> 00:09:09,550 fundamental psychological principle or truth of us people. 153 00:09:09,950 --> 00:09:15,070 Yes, it is absolutely part of the human experience And you 154 00:09:15,070 --> 00:09:20,770 know, people in India don't. Solve problems the same way as 155 00:09:20,770 --> 00:09:25,490 people in France, as people in Japan, but they're all telling 156 00:09:25,490 --> 00:09:29,650 stories. You can see a television 157 00:09:29,650 --> 00:09:32,530 commercial from Japan and get the message, even if you don't 158 00:09:32,530 --> 00:09:34,570 understand a word they're saying, because you see that 159 00:09:34,570 --> 00:09:38,330 people are solving problems and that's the story that you 160 00:09:38,330 --> 00:09:42,130 remember. Please subscribe to our YouTube 161 00:09:42,130 --> 00:09:44,170 channel. Hit the subscribe button. 162 00:09:44,170 --> 00:09:46,810 It's now at the bottom of our website. 163 00:09:47,140 --> 00:09:50,700 On almost every page, so you can subscribe to our newsletter so 164 00:09:50,700 --> 00:09:53,900 we can inform you of upcoming live shows. 165 00:09:54,260 --> 00:09:59,060 OK, we we have an interesting question from Twitter from 166 00:09:59,060 --> 00:10:01,780 Arsalan Khan. He's always, Arsalan always 167 00:10:01,780 --> 00:10:05,380 listens and he asks very intriguing questions. 168 00:10:05,380 --> 00:10:07,540 And so thank you for listening, Arsalan. 169 00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:12,740 And he asks a hard question. Here's what he says he says data 170 00:10:12,740 --> 00:10:18,640 transformation is a part of. Business transformation and it 171 00:10:18,640 --> 00:10:25,240 requires us to create a story to convey what the data is trying 172 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:27,960 to tell. And I'm you must be very 173 00:10:28,240 --> 00:10:31,440 experienced with that from your time as an analyst using data to 174 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:34,000 tell the story. Now here's his question. 175 00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:40,160 How do you address the challenge of a narrative and story and 176 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:44,800 bias that executives have even before you convey? 177 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:48,160 Your data story. So you walk into a room with 178 00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:52,640 your data story and people have a bias before you even begin. 179 00:10:53,120 --> 00:10:56,160 How do you address that? Basically you have to fight fire 180 00:10:56,160 --> 00:11:02,160 with fire. So I certainly executives, we've 181 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:06,280 all heard these these stories about how somebody comes in to 182 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:09,520 talk about you know what the business has to do from a 183 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:14,590 technology basis and the. CEO says, Oh well, my daughter 184 00:11:14,590 --> 00:11:19,230 just learned about this new thing and you're like, we're 185 00:11:19,230 --> 00:11:22,150 going to have to deal with this. But that's the problem is that 186 00:11:22,510 --> 00:11:27,470 the daughter's learned experience is somehow more real 187 00:11:27,670 --> 00:11:31,670 to that CEO and all of the data that you've brought. 188 00:11:32,110 --> 00:11:35,630 And that means that you need to put your own story together. 189 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:38,880 Now, a story supported by data is much better than a story by 190 00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:41,760 itself. And that very much was what we 191 00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:46,000 did at Forrester. We collected lots of data of all 192 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,960 different kinds, and then we would use it to support our 193 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:55,360 perspective, which was assembled based on lots of research about 194 00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:58,000 the truth. But in the end, it all boiled 195 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:00,200 down to well, here's a story that I'm going to tell you 196 00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:01,960 about. These people have these 197 00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:03,400 problems. Here's how they solve them. 198 00:12:03,400 --> 00:12:04,800 Here's an example of somebody who. 199 00:12:05,290 --> 00:12:08,370 Had this issue and here's some statistics so you know I'm not 200 00:12:08,370 --> 00:12:12,370 just making this stuff up. Let's jump on to another 201 00:12:12,810 --> 00:12:15,970 question from Twitter, another really good one. 202 00:12:16,610 --> 00:12:21,850 This is from Carmen Hill, and I'll thank Carmen for asking 203 00:12:21,850 --> 00:12:24,490 this in advance because I was thinking of the same the same 204 00:12:24,770 --> 00:12:29,250 question, she says. I often get pushback from sales. 205 00:12:29,250 --> 00:12:34,170 Typically that storytelling is just marketing fluff. 206 00:12:34,620 --> 00:12:40,700 Especially in the context of sales emails, she wants to know. 207 00:12:40,820 --> 00:12:45,660 She wants an effective response to that pushback. 208 00:12:46,550 --> 00:12:49,510 I love the idea that's that sales people are saying, oh, 209 00:12:49,630 --> 00:12:51,310 this stuff is just marketing fluff. 210 00:12:51,310 --> 00:12:53,710 Well, where does sales come from? 211 00:12:53,950 --> 00:12:56,190 What's this? What's the raw material that 212 00:12:56,190 --> 00:12:58,510 they have? You know, it's all coming from 213 00:12:58,510 --> 00:13:02,390 the marketing department. So already it's like, OK, yes, 214 00:13:02,390 --> 00:13:05,110 you can complain and whine about that, but in the end, that's the 215 00:13:05,110 --> 00:13:08,710 truth. But take a look at what 216 00:13:09,310 --> 00:13:14,190 marketers typically do assemble for salespeople to use and 217 00:13:14,590 --> 00:13:19,090 among. All of the speeds and feeds and 218 00:13:19,090 --> 00:13:24,090 the the statistics and the product descriptions are case 219 00:13:24,090 --> 00:13:28,170 studies, very powerful. It's like, you know, here's how 220 00:13:28,170 --> 00:13:33,570 we helped General Motors to streamline its supply chain. 221 00:13:34,050 --> 00:13:40,810 Or here's how we used agile processes to enable this bank to 222 00:13:40,810 --> 00:13:44,410 respond to its customers 40% faster and. 223 00:13:44,930 --> 00:13:49,610 Those case studies matter because then the the person on 224 00:13:49,610 --> 00:13:53,570 the other end of the sales calls like, Oh well, if they help this 225 00:13:53,570 --> 00:13:55,210 bank, I wonder if they could help me. 226 00:13:55,970 --> 00:13:58,490 And if you have those stories, you can succeed. 227 00:13:58,490 --> 00:14:01,770 If you don't and the sales guy for your competitor does, 228 00:14:02,130 --> 00:14:06,410 they're more likely to succeed. So I I guess I'd go, I'm going 229 00:14:06,410 --> 00:14:09,810 to make an extreme statement here, which is that any 230 00:14:09,810 --> 00:14:13,250 salesperson who's not adept at telling. 231 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:18,640 Stories about customer success is going to fail, because if you 232 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:21,720 can't do that, there's no way the person on the other end of 233 00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:23,840 the phone or the other end of the e-mail is going to feel 234 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:25,920 like, Oh yeah, this will work for me. 235 00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:30,280 I totally agree with that. I mean, even at the most basic 236 00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:38,560 level, explaining how customers are using whatever we sell to 237 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:42,940 support. The the goals of of of these 238 00:14:43,220 --> 00:14:47,900 customers and audience and to describe audiences that are 239 00:14:47,900 --> 00:14:50,780 similar to the folks that you're selling to. 240 00:14:50,780 --> 00:14:54,500 Again, I think it comes down to having that empathy that you 241 00:14:54,500 --> 00:14:57,340 mentioned earlier because you really have to have a good sense 242 00:14:57,380 --> 00:15:01,620 of who am I speaking to and what kind of story will resonate with 243 00:15:01,620 --> 00:15:03,900 that person. One of the things I want to get 244 00:15:03,900 --> 00:15:09,540 at here is talk about ideas, because in the end. 245 00:15:10,370 --> 00:15:13,170 Companies that really grow and are really successful are based 246 00:15:13,170 --> 00:15:17,530 around an idea. And that idea might be that you 247 00:15:17,530 --> 00:15:20,570 know, design is really important in the design of computers. 248 00:15:20,850 --> 00:15:22,570 In the you know usage of computers. 249 00:15:22,570 --> 00:15:26,370 Or that idea might be you should be able to do everything that 250 00:15:26,370 --> 00:15:28,770 you need to do with this bank without ever going into a 251 00:15:28,770 --> 00:15:33,650 branch. And but the ideas are abstract. 252 00:15:34,650 --> 00:15:37,930 Ideas can be motivational. But until you. 253 00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:42,400 Actually reduce that to stories. It doesn't resonate. 254 00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:47,560 I mean chewy, right? The the pet food company, their 255 00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:53,000 idea might be we know more about pet owners and pets and what 256 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:57,520 they need than anybody else. But you hear a story about how 257 00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:01,800 an owner says I need to send this product back because my dog 258 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:06,120 died and then the next thing you hear is that they they they. 259 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:10,760 Comped the product, told them to give it to the local shelter and 260 00:16:10,760 --> 00:16:14,120 send flowers to the person. That's what people remember. 261 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:15,960 And they're like, Oh yeah, chewy really. 262 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:17,880 Does actually understand pet owners. 263 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:24,720 All of this begs the question of how do we put an effective story 264 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:28,000 together? What are the components of a of 265 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:31,040 a great story, An effective story? 266 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:35,560 At one point when I was at, Forrester hired a guy named Doug 267 00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:37,690 Lipman. Who is a professional 268 00:16:37,690 --> 00:16:43,010 storyteller to come in and address the analysts and explain 269 00:16:43,010 --> 00:16:45,530 storytelling to them. So I want you to imagine this 270 00:16:45,530 --> 00:16:49,170 guy who was actually known for Yiddish stories standing up in 271 00:16:49,170 --> 00:16:51,730 front of a bunch of technology analysts and saying this is how 272 00:16:51,730 --> 00:16:55,050 stories work. But all of our research reports 273 00:16:55,050 --> 00:16:58,690 in the end were were stories. And what what I learned from him 274 00:16:59,370 --> 00:17:03,050 is that the essential things about stories are that they 275 00:17:03,050 --> 00:17:06,089 start with people. And the things are told in 276 00:17:06,089 --> 00:17:08,690 sequence. First this happened, then this 277 00:17:08,690 --> 00:17:10,810 happened, then this happened, then this happened, and then 278 00:17:10,810 --> 00:17:14,369 this other thing happened. And we're all trained in that 279 00:17:14,369 --> 00:17:19,250 from childhood by looking at, you know, hearing stories in 280 00:17:19,250 --> 00:17:23,609 books and and in, you know, video programs and so on. 281 00:17:24,530 --> 00:17:31,290 So the the sort of archetypal business story is this person 282 00:17:31,290 --> 00:17:34,980 had a problem. These are the This is why it was 283 00:17:34,980 --> 00:17:36,780 a problem for them. These are the things that they 284 00:17:36,780 --> 00:17:39,140 tried tried this. They tried this, they tried 285 00:17:39,140 --> 00:17:40,820 this. It has to be in sequence. 286 00:17:42,100 --> 00:17:47,900 And then you explain what the knowledge was that they gained 287 00:17:48,460 --> 00:17:51,260 and how that worked to succeed with them. 288 00:17:51,260 --> 00:17:53,660 And I'm going to tell you something that I learned from, 289 00:17:54,060 --> 00:17:58,380 from many years of writing business books, that if you 290 00:17:58,380 --> 00:18:00,580 start a chapter with a story like that. 291 00:18:02,910 --> 00:18:05,870 The people will always read from the beginning to the end of the 292 00:18:05,870 --> 00:18:06,990 story. They always want to know what 293 00:18:06,990 --> 00:18:08,230 happened. And then at the end of the 294 00:18:08,230 --> 00:18:13,430 story, you can say anything you want is the lesson of the story. 295 00:18:13,430 --> 00:18:16,270 And people will nod their heads be like, Oh yeah, yeah, that's 296 00:18:16,270 --> 00:18:19,030 right. That's how powerful it is. 297 00:18:19,030 --> 00:18:22,750 It's like, you know, and that's, that's how you get ideas to 298 00:18:22,750 --> 00:18:25,550 stick in people's brains. And yeah, you're going to back 299 00:18:25,550 --> 00:18:28,510 that up and say, well, here's some statistics and here's what 300 00:18:28,510 --> 00:18:32,840 an expert had to say. And you know, here's why other 301 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:34,520 alternatives that you think of wouldn't work. 302 00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:38,600 But in the end, that story, plus the moral of the story is X is 303 00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:45,120 what sticks in people's brains. So the basic form Here's the 304 00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:53,720 situation, and here's why the situation is hard for whoever is 305 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:58,160 the subject of the story. And here's. 306 00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:04,520 The way it need it can be solved in order to fix the problem and 307 00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:09,120 everything turned out. And here's the summary, here's 308 00:19:09,120 --> 00:19:12,200 the moral of the story, Is that the basic structure? 309 00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:14,680 It is. I'm going to mention one more 310 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:20,320 thing, which is detail. So you know, when if you read 311 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:23,440 about somebody in a fiction book, it's like, Oh yeah, she 312 00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:26,360 had long flowing hair and penetrating blue eyes. 313 00:19:27,860 --> 00:19:29,580 That doesn't belong in a business story. 314 00:19:29,700 --> 00:19:32,500 That because unless it's a story about shampoo, right? 315 00:19:33,660 --> 00:19:39,940 But but it does help to provide little details that make you 316 00:19:39,940 --> 00:19:43,420 empathize with the protagonist of the story. 317 00:19:44,140 --> 00:19:53,020 So I when I ghost wrote a story about Echostar the the the 318 00:19:53,900 --> 00:19:57,340 satellite television company. In one of the books that I wrote 319 00:19:57,340 --> 00:20:03,540 about artificial intelligence, the protagonist grew up in a in 320 00:20:03,540 --> 00:20:08,420 a Indian family that's that spoke Hindi and always watched 321 00:20:08,980 --> 00:20:10,940 Hindi television programs on satellite. 322 00:20:10,940 --> 00:20:14,340 So the fact that he would then grow up to go work for this 323 00:20:14,340 --> 00:20:17,500 satellite company becomes a little more interesting because 324 00:20:17,500 --> 00:20:21,380 of that. Now is his in general ethnic 325 00:20:21,380 --> 00:20:23,620 background is not going to matter but in his case it was 326 00:20:23,620 --> 00:20:25,530 like okay. Here's a little detail that 327 00:20:25,530 --> 00:20:27,290 matters. You don't read that and say, 328 00:20:27,690 --> 00:20:30,250 what was he tall or short? That doesn't matter. 329 00:20:31,690 --> 00:20:35,890 But but his the idea that satellite TV was really 330 00:20:35,890 --> 00:20:39,570 important to these, these people in ethnic families and that that 331 00:20:39,570 --> 00:20:42,170 would meant that he had to help the satellite TV company to be 332 00:20:42,170 --> 00:20:44,450 successful. That helped to make the story 333 00:20:44,450 --> 00:20:46,530 resonate. OK, we have another question. 334 00:20:46,530 --> 00:20:50,930 Arsalan Khan comes back again and he says, I know he asked 335 00:20:50,930 --> 00:20:53,570 good questions and sometimes they are complicated, so but 336 00:20:53,570 --> 00:20:55,810 that's good you have you know. Have to put our thinking caps on 337 00:20:56,730 --> 00:20:59,290 you. So Arsalan says there are 338 00:20:59,450 --> 00:21:01,570 different levels of storytelling. 339 00:21:01,570 --> 00:21:04,850 One is conveying your message to customers, another is conveying 340 00:21:04,850 --> 00:21:08,850 your message to employees. And yet another level is 341 00:21:08,850 --> 00:21:12,130 connecting these stories together for a holistic view. 342 00:21:13,010 --> 00:21:15,530 Are there other levels of storytelling? 343 00:21:15,970 --> 00:21:19,010 At one point I wrote a blog post about business books, and I 344 00:21:19,010 --> 00:21:22,330 basically said they're like the turtles and that fable. 345 00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:24,520 It's narratives all the way down. 346 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,480 There's an overarching narrative. 347 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,040 Each chapter is a narrative and within that they're that they're 348 00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:32,720 separate stories. So really at every level of 349 00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,280 detail it's like fractal stories. 350 00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:38,000 But these things all do have to come together. 351 00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:43,360 So if the story that you tell to customers is we're there for you 352 00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,920 no matter what time of day 24/7, we can be depended on. 353 00:21:48,850 --> 00:21:51,850 And the story that you're telling to employees is go ahead 354 00:21:51,850 --> 00:21:54,210 and knock off early on Friday, because we love you. 355 00:21:55,330 --> 00:21:57,330 Those stories don't connect up, do they? 356 00:21:57,810 --> 00:22:02,290 So you want to be able to inspire everybody with a common 357 00:22:02,290 --> 00:22:06,650 story and that's that's where you know, vision and purpose in 358 00:22:06,650 --> 00:22:10,810 companies comes together. And it's why the individual 359 00:22:10,810 --> 00:22:15,970 stories about customers or about problem solving. 360 00:22:17,270 --> 00:22:20,750 Connect up because they all align along that you know, 361 00:22:20,750 --> 00:22:23,030 whatever it is that that makes the company unique. 362 00:22:23,510 --> 00:22:25,910 Now I want to jump back to something you said earlier. 363 00:22:25,910 --> 00:22:31,990 You spoke earlier about case studies and of course many, most 364 00:22:31,990 --> 00:22:35,350 companies even write a variety of different case studies. 365 00:22:35,350 --> 00:22:37,870 You look on their website, you know we're great because of this 366 00:22:37,870 --> 00:22:42,630 and we're great because of that. What I see in many of these case 367 00:22:42,630 --> 00:22:48,140 studies is the. The study is not about the 368 00:22:48,140 --> 00:22:51,220 customer or we can even broaden this to marketing materials and 369 00:22:51,220 --> 00:22:55,500 marketing stories in general. It's not about the customer, 370 00:22:55,820 --> 00:22:59,900 it's about the company who's doing the selling. 371 00:23:00,700 --> 00:23:04,580 And so instead of having a customer talking, these case 372 00:23:04,580 --> 00:23:08,820 studies are really, you know, let me extend my arm so I can 373 00:23:08,820 --> 00:23:11,780 pat myself on the back and tell you how great we are. 374 00:23:12,180 --> 00:23:14,220 That's pathetic. All of us are. 375 00:23:14,870 --> 00:23:18,550 Programmed to be suspicious of marketing because we've been 376 00:23:18,550 --> 00:23:20,590 marketed too since we were small children. 377 00:23:21,070 --> 00:23:25,510 So the the more you talk about yourself, the the less effective 378 00:23:25,510 --> 00:23:27,510 it is. And I do think you're right. 379 00:23:27,510 --> 00:23:31,350 I read these cases I I recently did a ghost writing project 380 00:23:31,350 --> 00:23:35,350 where I had to take case studies that these these companies had 381 00:23:35,350 --> 00:23:38,230 posted on their site and turn them into stories for a book. 382 00:23:38,230 --> 00:23:42,150 And I was like, Oh well I need to interview this person because 383 00:23:42,390 --> 00:23:46,490 most of what I need is not here. If you read an actual Harvard 384 00:23:46,490 --> 00:23:49,930 Business School case that they use, you know that Harvard 385 00:23:49,930 --> 00:23:51,890 originated this at Harvard Business School. 386 00:23:52,570 --> 00:23:57,090 It starts with something like, you know, Ellen had only been 387 00:23:57,090 --> 00:24:01,610 the CEO for 41 days when this crisis happened and these things 388 00:24:01,610 --> 00:24:03,650 happen, and then she had to make this decision. 389 00:24:04,090 --> 00:24:06,930 You're like, OKI can put myself in the position of that 390 00:24:07,090 --> 00:24:10,090 protagonist and say, what would I do? 391 00:24:10,690 --> 00:24:14,100 What can we learn from this? And yet if you read the case 392 00:24:14,100 --> 00:24:16,660 studies that are published on people's websites, it's often 393 00:24:16,660 --> 00:24:20,060 hard to do that. So I'd I'd rather see things 394 00:24:20,060 --> 00:24:23,820 that that elevate the customer to the point where you can say, 395 00:24:23,820 --> 00:24:27,860 Oh yeah, that could be me as I I want to mention one other thing 396 00:24:27,860 --> 00:24:31,780 here, which is that, you know, there's all this anti woke talk 397 00:24:31,780 --> 00:24:34,300 here and people who are upset about diversity. 398 00:24:34,300 --> 00:24:38,700 But unless you have some diversity in your case studies. 399 00:24:39,970 --> 00:24:45,010 You are going to leave customers behind if all your case studies 400 00:24:45,010 --> 00:24:47,730 are about old white guys and there's a young black woman 401 00:24:48,170 --> 00:24:50,410 saying, I wonder if this product is right for me. 402 00:24:50,930 --> 00:24:54,290 It's an obstacle for her to say, Oh yeah, I guess I think just 403 00:24:54,290 --> 00:24:58,250 like these old white guys do. And I don't just mean ethnic 404 00:24:58,250 --> 00:25:00,050 diversity or gender diversity. I mean. 405 00:25:00,710 --> 00:25:03,270 Diverse industries, diverse situations. 406 00:25:03,630 --> 00:25:06,590 If you really want to hit all of your customers, then you're the 407 00:25:06,590 --> 00:25:09,670 stories you tell should be about a variety of different kinds of 408 00:25:09,670 --> 00:25:12,590 customers. But how do you overcome the 409 00:25:12,710 --> 00:25:19,870 issue that your marketing sort of takes inputs in and then 410 00:25:19,950 --> 00:25:23,670 regurgitates it out so that it's not about the customer, but it's 411 00:25:23,670 --> 00:25:27,950 about you as a company? This is endemic to technology 412 00:25:27,950 --> 00:25:29,630 companies and technology marketers. 413 00:25:30,180 --> 00:25:32,180 I don't even know why we're having this conversation. 414 00:25:32,180 --> 00:25:36,380 They companies that talk about how they help customers succeed 415 00:25:36,860 --> 00:25:39,820 and companies to talk about how great they are generally don't. 416 00:25:40,940 --> 00:25:47,580 And I it's really, really rare to see a company that that 417 00:25:47,580 --> 00:25:51,260 succeeds based only on one talking about itself. 418 00:25:51,860 --> 00:25:56,020 And I want to exempt Apple here. Apple's always the weirdo 419 00:25:56,020 --> 00:25:58,650 example that. That you shouldn't look at, 420 00:25:58,650 --> 00:26:01,410 because nobody can be like Apple, but if we put them aside, 421 00:26:01,730 --> 00:26:05,330 every other company on the planet succeeds because they 422 00:26:05,330 --> 00:26:07,330 talk about how they help customers. 423 00:26:07,690 --> 00:26:12,450 Well, the interesting thing to me about Apple is from a 424 00:26:12,450 --> 00:26:15,930 storytelling standpoint, you alluded to this earlier. 425 00:26:16,290 --> 00:26:22,050 It's all about the core message and the core set of values. 426 00:26:22,460 --> 00:26:26,260 And so everything, so the so the story therefore is everything. 427 00:26:26,260 --> 00:26:29,500 We produce, all these products, all these features. 428 00:26:29,500 --> 00:26:34,500 The only reason that we do this is because we are trying to make 429 00:26:34,500 --> 00:26:42,580 your lives better and come into our into our journey of helping 430 00:26:42,580 --> 00:26:45,180 you. There's probably better 431 00:26:45,180 --> 00:26:50,020 engineering inside of Apple than inside of any other hardware 432 00:26:50,020 --> 00:26:52,990 company you can think of. And yet that's not what they 433 00:26:52,990 --> 00:26:56,750 talk about, right? They're not saying, oh, we're 434 00:26:56,750 --> 00:26:58,710 four times faster than the other guys. 435 00:26:59,310 --> 00:27:02,070 They're saying look at this beautiful device you can hold in 436 00:27:02,070 --> 00:27:04,750 the palm of your hand that lets you do a thing you could never 437 00:27:04,750 --> 00:27:07,870 do before, lets you, the customer do a thing you could 438 00:27:07,870 --> 00:27:10,270 never do. Before, that's a very, very 439 00:27:10,510 --> 00:27:15,790 important point that you just mentioned because again most 440 00:27:15,790 --> 00:27:19,830 technology companies. Don't approach it that way. 441 00:27:19,830 --> 00:27:23,550 They approach their storytelling through features. 442 00:27:24,350 --> 00:27:29,070 Oh, our latest release now does this. 443 00:27:29,470 --> 00:27:32,550 Have you ever had Scott Brinker on this program from HubSpot? 444 00:27:32,590 --> 00:27:34,630 Oh, of course. I've known Scott for many years. 445 00:27:34,670 --> 00:27:36,150 OK. Yeah, so he makes these. 446 00:27:36,230 --> 00:27:39,550 Yes, Mr. Chief Mark on Chief, right, right. 447 00:27:40,230 --> 00:27:46,390 Yeah, so he makes these huge, huge charts of, like, the, the. 448 00:27:47,660 --> 00:27:53,740 1962 companies that make marketing technology or the, you 449 00:27:53,740 --> 00:27:57,300 know, 270 companies that do artificial intelligence. 450 00:27:58,900 --> 00:28:02,860 And it's impossible to look at all the logos of all of those 451 00:28:02,860 --> 00:28:08,060 companies and say, oh, well, we're going to succeed because 452 00:28:08,060 --> 00:28:13,740 we are, you know, our we're 11% faster than than the other guy. 453 00:28:14,610 --> 00:28:15,970 No. Well, those companies in there, 454 00:28:15,970 --> 00:28:18,810 they only succeed to the extent that they tell us a better story 455 00:28:18,810 --> 00:28:21,570 than the other people is at that level of competition. 456 00:28:21,570 --> 00:28:23,010 That's the only thing that stands out. 457 00:28:23,490 --> 00:28:25,610 Okay, let's jump back to Twitter. 458 00:28:25,610 --> 00:28:30,450 We have a few more questions. This is from Chris Peterson and 459 00:28:30,450 --> 00:28:34,570 Chris says from your blog, Does a quote UN quote Malcolm 460 00:28:34,570 --> 00:28:40,970 function as a form of bottom line upfront communication that 461 00:28:41,090 --> 00:28:43,770 business folks seem to like? So you need to explain that for 462 00:28:43,770 --> 00:28:45,940 us. There recently was a blog post, 463 00:28:45,940 --> 00:28:48,260 I don't remember the guy's name, that wrote it. 464 00:28:48,260 --> 00:28:51,580 It was a post on Medium about these things called Malcolm's. 465 00:28:52,420 --> 00:28:56,940 So he was complaining that he was reading business books. 466 00:28:56,940 --> 00:29:00,740 And they they always have these chapters that start with a a 467 00:29:00,740 --> 00:29:04,420 story about somebody in the problem that they had which is 468 00:29:04,420 --> 00:29:07,940 called a Malcolm because Malcolm Gladwell is famous for for using 469 00:29:07,940 --> 00:29:13,020 these stories and that it's become this this trite thing. 470 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:17,650 But. If you look closely at the stuff 471 00:29:17,650 --> 00:29:21,770 that he complained about, the problem is people who are using 472 00:29:21,770 --> 00:29:26,090 secondhand stories that have been told over and over and over 473 00:29:26,090 --> 00:29:36,050 again, you know, so you know the the the story about Dave Carroll 474 00:29:36,050 --> 00:29:39,330 and what United Airlines did when they broke his guitar, that 475 00:29:39,330 --> 00:29:42,170 was interesting in the beginning, how he got revenge by 476 00:29:42,170 --> 00:29:45,910 making a music video. But my God, we've all heard this 477 00:29:45,910 --> 00:29:49,030 story 100 Times Now. So if you start your chapter 478 00:29:49,030 --> 00:29:52,070 with that, it's like really you think that that's interesting. 479 00:29:52,070 --> 00:29:53,710 I've I've. I've already heard this. 480 00:29:54,230 --> 00:29:58,870 I. So I I think that that the idea 481 00:29:58,870 --> 00:30:05,510 of tracking down unique content, people who did things that have 482 00:30:05,510 --> 00:30:09,110 not been heard about before, and then actually telling their 483 00:30:09,110 --> 00:30:11,670 story in a way that connects up to the ideas that you're talking 484 00:30:11,670 --> 00:30:14,490 about. Is successful, and yeah, you can 485 00:30:14,490 --> 00:30:17,610 denigrate it and call it a Malcolm, but that's a way better 486 00:30:17,610 --> 00:30:20,530 way to start your chapters than it is to start your chapter with 487 00:30:20,970 --> 00:30:24,130 with a bunch of argumentation that puts people to sleep. 488 00:30:24,650 --> 00:30:30,610 So again, you're doing an emotional kind of grabbing them 489 00:30:30,610 --> 00:30:34,930 by their shirt, by the throat and pulling them closer. 490 00:30:35,330 --> 00:30:37,530 People want to hear stuff they haven't heard before. 491 00:30:38,010 --> 00:30:40,650 It's still successful and the fact that. 492 00:30:41,190 --> 00:30:43,630 I mean I think this the guy who wrote about this was writing 493 00:30:43,630 --> 00:30:48,990 mostly about economists writing stories about the economy and 494 00:30:48,990 --> 00:30:51,630 they don't have a whole lot of stories to draw on. 495 00:30:51,630 --> 00:30:54,870 So they go back and they they retell the story about how Harry 496 00:30:54,870 --> 00:30:57,830 Truman asked for A1 handed economist. 497 00:30:57,830 --> 00:31:00,230 So we wouldn't say on the one hand and on the other hand, 498 00:31:00,750 --> 00:31:03,270 right. Yeah, that was funny the first 499 00:31:03,270 --> 00:31:05,510 time I read it and it is sort of funny but. 500 00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,720 You can't really make the point that I have a unique perspective 501 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,600 here if that's all you got, is that Hackney thing that 502 00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:16,520 everybody's heard before. If you want to present a unique 503 00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,520 perspective, then you actually have to have a unique 504 00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,160 perspective. Otherwise you're you're not 505 00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,360 presenting a unique perspective. We have a couple of other 506 00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:30,040 questions from Twitter. This is from Elizabeth Shaw who 507 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:35,080 says assuming the story arc is important. 508 00:31:35,770 --> 00:31:41,130 How do you create a story arc and how can you use examples to 509 00:31:41,130 --> 00:31:44,250 serve that story arc? It's a really good question. 510 00:31:44,690 --> 00:31:50,570 When you talk about story arcs that relates to literature and 511 00:31:50,930 --> 00:31:56,850 television and movies where people have they, they have an 512 00:31:56,930 --> 00:32:00,250 ongoing growth. It's, you know, you look at the 513 00:32:00,290 --> 00:32:04,850 Joseph Campbell, you know, traditional hero's journey. 514 00:32:05,580 --> 00:32:10,100 They have to learn things along the way and have obstacles and, 515 00:32:10,340 --> 00:32:13,620 you know, have despair and then come out of the underworld and 516 00:32:13,620 --> 00:32:16,300 they have to have companions. And then at the end you're like, 517 00:32:16,660 --> 00:32:20,100 not only did they have a happy ending, but now they're smarter 518 00:32:20,100 --> 00:32:23,700 or more mature, or they finally realized that everything they 519 00:32:23,700 --> 00:32:26,860 needed was in themselves. And that's, that's wonderful if 520 00:32:26,860 --> 00:32:30,770 you were in Hollywood. But case study stories don't 521 00:32:30,770 --> 00:32:33,690 have an arc like that. Case study stories are, you 522 00:32:33,690 --> 00:32:41,450 know, you know, Alan I had was spending 25% of his time in his 523 00:32:41,450 --> 00:32:44,570 small business keeping track of expenses. 524 00:32:44,570 --> 00:32:48,210 And then he realized that he could use this, this product and 525 00:32:48,210 --> 00:32:51,530 now he now he can spend his time with his customers and he gets 526 00:32:51,530 --> 00:32:55,530 home in time to be able to read stories to his kid at bedtime. 527 00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,040 And that's not really a story arc, right? 528 00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,920 We don't know whether Alan is somehow realized something 529 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,280 important about himself that he didn't know before. 530 00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:09,080 So no, we don't need, we don't need Hollywood level stories 531 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:10,800 here. We really need something much 532 00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:14,120 simpler. You say that case studies, 533 00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,760 business stories, don't have a story arc. 534 00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,320 What do they have? OK, how do we, how do we decide 535 00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,560 what the flow should be? And if you could tell us that 536 00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,910 really quickly, that'd be great. What they have is a person who 537 00:33:26,910 --> 00:33:31,550 you can empathize with. That person has a problem and 538 00:33:31,550 --> 00:33:35,110 they have a method for solving that problem that shows why that 539 00:33:35,110 --> 00:33:40,950 method is new and works better versus something that that that 540 00:33:41,070 --> 00:33:44,390 maybe isn't. So I mean that's in the in the 541 00:33:44,750 --> 00:33:48,150 book that I wrote here. Believe it or not, this is 24 542 00:33:48,150 --> 00:33:51,150 chapters. It's got 24 case studies about 543 00:33:51,150 --> 00:33:53,230 authors. Each chapter starts with one. 544 00:33:53,710 --> 00:33:57,430 And that's because you can look at this and say, oh, how did 545 00:33:57,430 --> 00:34:00,190 this person get past writer block, writer's block? 546 00:34:00,470 --> 00:34:03,830 Oh, how did how did Charlene Lee actually differentiate her idea? 547 00:34:04,630 --> 00:34:08,670 What did the Laurie Gesner honing do that was so powerful 548 00:34:08,670 --> 00:34:12,150 in her book that one of the readers got the cover of the 549 00:34:12,150 --> 00:34:16,230 book tattooed on her arm? These these are things worth 550 00:34:16,230 --> 00:34:19,150 reading about but, you know, don't require investment in a 551 00:34:19,150 --> 00:34:22,800 huge story arc. So if I can summarize that the 552 00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:24,600 customer. Here's the case here. 553 00:34:24,679 --> 00:34:28,159 Here's the business story flow. Customer has a problem. 554 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,840 Your method is solving the problem, the great outcome, and 555 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,080 then a moral, A moral of the story. 556 00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:38,320 Yeah, and it would help in there if if we can talk about how 557 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,960 other methods of solving the problem that they might have 558 00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,800 tried before it didn't work because you need a little bit of 559 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,760 conflict, It's I can't resist saying this that. 560 00:34:48,230 --> 00:34:50,630 Occasionally I've I've interviewed people for a case 561 00:34:50,630 --> 00:34:53,670 study story and then somebody in PR says take out the bad parts. 562 00:34:53,670 --> 00:34:57,150 So your story then becomes they were happy and they tried this 563 00:34:57,150 --> 00:34:59,390 thing and then they were happy and that's not really a good 564 00:34:59,390 --> 00:35:01,790 story. Actually, thank you for that, 565 00:35:01,790 --> 00:35:09,950 because you know, we with CXO talk, we tell stories and. 566 00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:15,280 It's amazing to me sometimes that PR people want to sanitize 567 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:16,760 it. So it's exactly as you said, you 568 00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,360 know, everybody was happy and then we got involved and they 569 00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,280 were still really happy. The end. 570 00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,360 That's that's not a story. Sorry. 571 00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,920 That's a sequence of words, but it's not a story. 572 00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:32,200 I love that. OK, another another question 573 00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,200 from Twitter. I'm just going down to find them 574 00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,000 here. Arsalan Khan, for the third 575 00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:43,610 time, comes back to the well. And he says what is the 576 00:35:43,610 --> 00:35:49,530 importance of storytelling in the for business IT alignment So 577 00:35:49,530 --> 00:35:52,810 and and you have any examples. Can you help CI O's chief 578 00:35:52,810 --> 00:35:54,970 information officers help them tell stories. 579 00:35:55,090 --> 00:35:58,210 Really, what it amounts to is that every business has a story 580 00:35:58,210 --> 00:36:01,050 at the heart of it of of how they solve problems. 581 00:36:01,050 --> 00:36:04,010 The marketing department typically tells that story, and 582 00:36:04,010 --> 00:36:08,850 I T needs to find ways to become a part of of the solution there. 583 00:36:09,610 --> 00:36:13,010 If the story of it is we block it when you're trying to help 584 00:36:13,010 --> 00:36:14,730 the customer, that doesn't work so well. 585 00:36:15,250 --> 00:36:21,490 So for if you can, at Forrester, they call this the Business 586 00:36:21,490 --> 00:36:25,890 Technology Officer, because your job is to provide technology 587 00:36:25,890 --> 00:36:28,930 that will help the business to solve a customer's problem. 588 00:36:29,290 --> 00:36:32,290 This is from Steve Eisenberg. This is a very specific one. 589 00:36:32,290 --> 00:36:34,810 We're going to test you on this one, Josh. 590 00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:38,280 Oh no. He says. 591 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:43,480 What are the top three AI tools for B2B storytelling? 592 00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,360 AI tools are not good for storytelling because they say on 593 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,600 the edges off and they do the generic thing that's like what 594 00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:53,160 everybody else is doing. So the best AI tool for 595 00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,040 storytelling is your own damn brain. 596 00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:58,960 Steve Eisenberg comes back and he says are you aware of a 597 00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:03,440 directory of mastermind group for different industries? 598 00:37:03,990 --> 00:37:06,830 And functions. Alternatively A mastermind group 599 00:37:06,830 --> 00:37:10,670 for B to be book authors. The first I don't know about, 600 00:37:11,590 --> 00:37:15,110 and there are there are groups for B to be book authors. 601 00:37:15,550 --> 00:37:19,470 I'd encourage people to actually contact me at Josh at Bernoff 602 00:37:19,550 --> 00:37:22,670 Calm and I'll make those connections because the reason 603 00:37:22,670 --> 00:37:26,310 that those groups work so well is because they carefully gate 604 00:37:26,310 --> 00:37:29,150 the people that go into them. And I can't just be sort of 605 00:37:29,470 --> 00:37:31,470 sending everybody into a group like that. 606 00:37:31,970 --> 00:37:34,410 Another question. Wow, from Steve Eisenberg again, 607 00:37:34,410 --> 00:37:39,410 he's like rivaling Arsalan Khan. Here he says Do you have any 608 00:37:39,410 --> 00:37:45,130 opinions about Amazon creating AI to write books and cut out 609 00:37:45,530 --> 00:37:47,370 the human author? That would be you. 610 00:37:47,890 --> 00:37:50,450 I don't want to read a book written by an AI because 611 00:37:50,930 --> 00:37:55,530 there's, let me tell you in one sentence, in one word, what AI 612 00:37:55,530 --> 00:37:58,970 authors don't have that humans have wit. 613 00:38:00,170 --> 00:38:04,930 OK, what is wit? Wit is knowing when to switch 614 00:38:04,930 --> 00:38:07,330 from one mode to another. Wit is humor. 615 00:38:07,650 --> 00:38:10,690 Wit is what makes human storytelling interesting. 616 00:38:10,690 --> 00:38:14,490 And if you read stuff that's written by AI, it doesn't have 617 00:38:14,490 --> 00:38:17,010 that. And so in general, people are 618 00:38:17,010 --> 00:38:19,050 just not going to be willing to settle for that. 619 00:38:19,410 --> 00:38:22,530 I use ChatGPT for various purposes all the time, and I 620 00:38:22,530 --> 00:38:27,650 asked ChatGPT to. Take something and write it in 621 00:38:27,650 --> 00:38:30,850 various very business dry and write it in various styles. 622 00:38:30,850 --> 00:38:35,410 You know, rap song in the style of Shakespeare, maybe in the 623 00:38:35,410 --> 00:38:39,770 style of Chaucer, and it's pretty darned funny. 624 00:38:40,250 --> 00:38:43,370 It's unintentionally funny. It's not trying to be funny. 625 00:38:43,850 --> 00:38:46,770 And that's the whole point, is that if you want to be 626 00:38:46,770 --> 00:38:50,010 imitative, if you want to write in the style of Chaucer, it's 627 00:38:50,010 --> 00:38:53,250 good at that. But that's not the originality 628 00:38:53,250 --> 00:38:57,720 that draws people to it. This is again from Carmen Hill, 629 00:38:57,720 --> 00:38:59,800 she says. Good question, thoughtful 630 00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,000 question here. One challenge in telling 631 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,560 authentic, resonant customer stories is the reluctance of 632 00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:12,520 customers to share unvarnished details about their pain points 633 00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,600 and weaknesses. How do you handle that? 634 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,360 Because nobody wants to present a bad face. 635 00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,240 They don't want to expose those weaknesses. 636 00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,880 If you have the confidence of a customer, if you've worked with 637 00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,800 them from beginning to end, you often can get them to admit that 638 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:32,760 they had a problem in the beginning, which is what you 639 00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,600 need to do. And as long as there's a happy 640 00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,520 ending, you can do that. And sometimes there's not a 641 00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:41,440 happy ending. I've certainly done business 642 00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:43,680 stories where things ended badly. 643 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,040 There are some in my book about authors that made terrible 644 00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:49,600 mistakes, but I don't identify people by name. 645 00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,090 We use pseudonyms because. Yeah, Nobody wants to have the 646 00:39:53,090 --> 00:39:56,610 story of how they've they ultimately failed be the thing 647 00:39:56,610 --> 00:40:00,770 that they're reading about. And you know, you don't need a 648 00:40:00,770 --> 00:40:03,130 whole lot of disaster stories. You only need one or two. 649 00:40:03,130 --> 00:40:06,130 And if those two are anonymized and everything else, as people 650 00:40:06,130 --> 00:40:08,290 mentioned by name, then you can do just fine. 651 00:40:08,850 --> 00:40:12,170 Can you distill down everything that you know and have 652 00:40:12,170 --> 00:40:18,930 experienced about storytelling into kind of capsule advice? 653 00:40:19,310 --> 00:40:23,790 For those of us in business who need to tell stories, and maybe 654 00:40:23,790 --> 00:40:27,230 we're not expert at it. Really at the center of that is 655 00:40:27,230 --> 00:40:32,470 empathy, and you help us to understand how somebody feels 656 00:40:32,990 --> 00:40:36,270 when something doesn't work, when something is a challenge. 657 00:40:36,670 --> 00:40:40,590 If you can do that and then make the connection to how your 658 00:40:40,590 --> 00:40:43,270 business makes a difference for them, then you will be 659 00:40:43,270 --> 00:40:45,430 successful. And if you can't do that, then 660 00:40:45,430 --> 00:40:48,230 you won't succeed. That's really interesting, so. 661 00:40:48,620 --> 00:40:54,700 At the very basic, at the most basic level, if you want to tell 662 00:40:54,740 --> 00:41:00,180 a successful story, you must establish an emotional 663 00:41:00,180 --> 00:41:05,380 connection with the audience, and that means understanding who 664 00:41:05,380 --> 00:41:10,020 your audience is and what they care about and what their pain 665 00:41:10,020 --> 00:41:13,900 points either are or like or are likely to be. 666 00:41:14,460 --> 00:41:17,640 Does that sound right? That's exactly right, and what 667 00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,160 you just described is also what makes the business successful. 668 00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,480 It's not just making us the storytelling successful, but 669 00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,520 understanding your customers pain points is pretty essential. 670 00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:33,360 Then I'm reminded of the phrase in Ted Lasso, which many people 671 00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:37,680 have seen on Apple, where one of the players says soccer is life, 672 00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:41,560 and according to what you just said, storytelling is business. 673 00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:43,930 OK. Sounds good to me. 674 00:41:44,810 --> 00:41:47,010 I think you're right. All right. 675 00:41:47,170 --> 00:41:51,970 And on that note, I, I want to say a huge thank you to Josh 676 00:41:52,130 --> 00:41:54,810 Bernoff. Josh, thank you so much for 677 00:41:54,850 --> 00:41:58,250 taking time and sharing your great expertise and storytelling 678 00:41:58,250 --> 00:42:00,130 with us today. I really, really appreciate it. 679 00:42:00,570 --> 00:42:04,850 Michael, what you do with CXO Talk is unique and excellent and 680 00:42:04,850 --> 00:42:08,890 just the ability to be a part of that is really means a lot to 681 00:42:08,890 --> 00:42:10,730 me. So I'm glad that you gave me the 682 00:42:10,730 --> 00:42:12,720 chance to be here. Well, thank you so much. 683 00:42:12,720 --> 00:42:16,280 I really appreciate that and everybody that watch, thank you 684 00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,240 for watching, especially those folks who ask such great 685 00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:21,000 questions. I always say this because it's 686 00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,280 really true. You're such an insightful and 687 00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:28,480 intelligent and thoughtful audience and your questions make 688 00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,160 CXO talk. Now before you go, please 689 00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:36,240 subscribe to our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe 690 00:42:36,240 --> 00:42:39,200 button, It's now at the bottom of our website. 691 00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,680 On now almost every page so you can subscribe to our newsletter 692 00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,240 so we can inform you of upcoming live shows. 693 00:42:46,240 --> 00:42:50,400 So you can participate and continue to ask your brilliant 694 00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,080 questions. Thanks so much everybody. 695 00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:55,840 We have amazing shows coming up. Check out cxotalk.com and we 696 00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:57,600 will see you again next time. Have a great day. 697 00:42:57,760 --> 00:42:58,280 Bye, bye.