The Narrative Gym For Business With Park Howell

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

 

Storytelling is a universal way of getting others to understand us. If you want to take advantage of this for your business, then you want to create a narrative gym to practice in. John Livesay discusses marketing and crafting narratives with advertising expert Park Howell. Park is a veteran in the advertising game with over three decades of experience, and he’s prepared to show you the ropes. Learn how storytelling helps you grab attention and keep it and use it for business success. Everyone has a story and now is the time to use it.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

The Narrative Gym For Business With Park Howell

Our guest is Park Howell, who is a storytelling expert. You can imagine how much I enjoyed interviewing him. We talked about why storytelling pulls at our heartstrings so much because there are high stakes. He says, “When you tell a story, it’s potential events. Events can kill us, but numbers can’t. Numbers make us numb when we listen to them.” You won’t read many numbers on this episode. Enjoy the storytelling.

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Our guest is Park Howell, who is known as the world’s most industrious storyteller, having grown purpose-driven brands by as much as 600%. He’s a veteran of the advertising industry and consults, teaches, coaches, and speaks internationally to help businesses, sales, and marketing leaders excel through stories they tell. He is the host of the popular weekly Business of Story Podcast, which is ranked among the top 10% of downloaded podcasts in the world.

Park published Brand Bewitchery in 2020 to help you use his proven Story Cycle System to craft spellbinding stories for your brand. In 2001, he co-authored The Narrative Gym for Business, which is a short 75-page guide on how to use the foundational narrative framework of the ABT. It makes you confident, compelling, and persuasive. Park, welcome to the show.

John, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

It’s great. We have to give a shout-out to your son, Parker, for introducing us. Your son lives here in Austin, where I do. We met through mutual friends. He said, “You’re like my dad. You’re both storytelling keynote speakers. You both have an advertising background.” I said, “Parker, your dad has the skills I don’t have, which is how to create the ads. I sold them.”

It is a brothers-from-another-mother feeling. I have loved your books. I’m interested to know all your tips and techniques on storytelling from an advertising standpoint. Let’s go back a little bit before you had your children and thought, “I might want to get into the world of advertising.” What was it that made you say, “This is something I’m going to pursue?”

I got to take you back to a show that I saw when I was a little kid. My mom and dad took my two younger brothers and me. There were seven of us in the family. We were known as the little guys. We were the youngest three. My brothers, Chris and Mike, and I went and sat right up front at The 5th Avenue Theater in Downtown Seattle. We went to see a musical, the first one I’ve ever seen in my life, called Yankee Doodle Dandy. The lead was David Cassidy from The Partridge Family.

[bctt tweet=”Without conflict there is no story.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I was a huge Partridge Family watcher because I played the piano and wrote songs. I wanted to be him. He showed up and did this marvelous musical. I was blown away, not only by the music, choreography, and all that, but the stage production and what was happening backstage because I could see over on the side. I was fascinated by that. When we left there that night, I thought to myself, “I want to do something like that, not be the performer or musician but to be in the business of bringing that entertainment to the world.”

I went to Washington State University and studied Music Composition and Theory. I got a degree in that one and also a degree in Communication, figuring I could make a living in communications but not as a composer. I tried my hand at the concert promotion, and I liked it. I wasn’t particularly great at it. I thought, “What’s the next thing that I could build a career around?” It was the advertising world, “How can I take the creativity that I love to do through music and writing?” I call it creative commerce. That’s what kicked me off into the advertising world and what finds me here with you.

Did you get to use your musical talent in any of the jingles that you worked on?

When I first got into the advertising world, I was a lowly writer. They threw me in a cubicle. I was writing press releases for the PR side of it. I wasn’t particularly inspired by that. One day, the ad department got overrun and didn’t have enough writers. I volunteered. I overheard this at lunch and said, “I’ll write that ad.” I wrote a print ad, and they liked it. I wrote another one, and they liked that. I got an agency job. It just so happened I lucked out, and they brought me in. It was a small agency and they were producing a whole ton of radio commercials. Nobody wanted to do them, so they threw them on my desk. I’ll go, “I’ll write them.”

I completely got into the theater of the mind. I would write some of the music in the background for it and bring in sound effects. I was always trying to find a story that I could tell to sell this crazy product, not even knowing that the story is the thing and I’m the story guy. It came naturally to me. I wrote and produced hundreds of those spots, and it was a blast. That’s where my Music Composition and Theory came in because I was finding the rhythm of that spot, tonality, taking an audience somewhere, and how you use sound effects and music to deliver and sell a product.

One of the questions that a lot of readers will have on how you were a creative director at an advertising agency is, “Do you ever have writer’s block? How do you keep yourself staying creative?” A lot of people want to be creative, and either has a mindset that they’re not and don’t even try, or they think, “I am sometimes but not all the time.” People come sometimes struggle about, “I don’t have a story to tell.” Are there any tips that relate to storytelling you can give people on how to find their story and stay creative?

 

Stop worrying about forcing it. You would have a commercial like, “I got to write this down.” I would write 3 or 4 different treatments for it. They’re all stupid and didn’t work. I would go to bed at night and worry about it. I would find if I got up the next morning and exercised or hiked and stopped thinking about it, I would get an a-ha moment. It worked almost every single time. I started saying, “I’m not going to worry about it. This is the process.” You got to give your time. The more you write and produce, the shorter that process is, and the smaller blanks you have because you’ve worked through so much material in your life.

That’s why a lot of people get their good ideas in the shower or exercising because you’re not trying to force something. I don’t think creativity or a good story can be forced.

Can I tell you about the one that came to me in the shower? It’s a cliché that comes to you in the shower, but it does because you think about other things. I will never forget this. I was newly married. Parker, our son, was new to the world. We had zero money, and we were renting this little house out in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was having to write this commercial for Robinett Roofing. Warren House was one of my favorite clients because he had this big roofing company out there. He was like, “Do whatever you want, Park. I don’t care.” I could come up with all these harebrained things. I was stumped on this one.

I wrote a bunch of different treatments for it, and nothing was working. I was in the shower thinking of water. It was monsoon season in Phoenix, Arizona. If you’ve ever been here in the monsoon season, they can come in the afternoon, drench you and take a 115-degree day down to a 95-degree day just like that. It was a monsoon spot. Here I am in the shower, water is coming down, and I thought to myself, “What if we open with this guy?”

You’re hearing the sounds of clocks going on. He’s talking and commenting about that amazing monsoon that happened the day before. Every time he throws in an expletive, you hear cuckoo when you’re expecting to blink out the expletives. He’s talking to someone in his shop. What you come to find out at the end of the spot is it’s a clock shop, and he’s fixing the guy’s clock that was damaged because of the rain the night before. All those expletives weren’t expletives. It was him dialing in the cuckoo clock, “Had you bought Robinett Roofing, you wouldn’t have this clock problem.” I thought it was funny.

We put it up there, and then the real magic happened. That’s when people started calling in and complaining that we were swearing on the radio. We said, “We’re not swearing. We don’t even suggest an expletive. You are just hearing this cuckoo clock go off where one might be, but you don’t know what the guy said.” Warren loved it because we were told to take it off. We had to take it down. We said, “We’re not going to take it down. We’re going to keep running.” We got a little press out of it. It was quite fun. It came to me in the shower.

[bctt tweet=”Events can kill us but numbers can’t.” username=”John_Livesay”]

That’s clearly a wonderful example of breaking through the clutter, which is what good advertising and stories do. It’s all of that. In Hollywood, there’s a saying about certain actors. No matter how talented they are, it’s not worth it. They’re too hard to work with. There’s the same concept in books. If they’re too long, people go, “It’s too long. I didn’t read it.” That was the thought behind The Narrative Gym that you co-authored, making it a great analogy of, “We know we exercise at the gym, but what are our exercises going to be for storytelling?” We hinted at it. There’s A, B, and T. Why don’t you take us through one of those first? What’s the first one that people should be thinking about?

The And, But, and Therefore is what you’re referring to there. Fast forward after I’ve got my Music Composition and Theory and Communication degrees, I teach Story Composition and Theory and Communication. I started in the complex world of looking at the hero’s journey. Our son Parker is in film school at Chapman University. I’m like, “Send me your books when you’re done with them since I’m paying for them because I want to know what they are teaching you there.” I found the complex hero’s journey and said, “That’s a beautiful thing for business.” I tried to teach in the business world, and it’s too complex.

I jumped in the Blake Snyder’s 15 Story Beats. I tried to teach that. It’s too complex, but I knew it would work. There was the Pixar way. It’s too complex, but I also knew it would work. When I was talking to sales and marketing folks, what they’re looking for is that silver bullet in the story, “Where do I start without having to be a story theorist that I could apply right away?” That’s where I learned about the And, But, and Therefore. I learned about it in a surprising place. Dr. Randy Olson, back in 2013, introduced it to me.

Randy is a Harvard PhD evolutionary biologist and the co-author of the book with me, The Narrative Gym for Business. He went on to USC film school, graduated, and produced three documentaries on climate change and global warming. His most important work is the seven odd books he has written for the science world, teaching them how to communicate using the story frameworks he learned in Hollywood. He also knew that to make it work, he had to simplify it. His a-ha moment came through, from all places, South Park.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Rule of Replacement says, “If you find a script that is boring or you’re sitting across hearing from somebody who is boring, they are and-ing you to death,” meaning they’re in exposition. They’re in act one, and they never move on. They said, “Whenever we can replace an and with a but or a therefore, we will take it out of the script and do it because it moves the story ahead.” That’s what led to the And, But, and Therefore. It uses the three forces of the story of agreements, contradiction with the buts, and the therefore consequence, which our cause and effect and pattern-seeking brain love.

We even have images of our brains responding differently to stories versus other things. That is great because we can back up with science that people buy emotionally and then back up with logic. Most people think they need more information or more exposition. Good stories have a journey and a little bit of conflict. The stakes have to be high. It’s this concept of you starting to describe something and then adding one more thing to pull them in, and little did they know.

 

No conflict, no story. Without conflict, you’re boring.

It’s this concept of giving people this structure to allow them to craft a story. Let’s give an easy example of it in action.

I was doing some work at Home Depot, working with their inside sales and marketing team and teaching them the And, But, and Therefore. One of their various people there said, “What’s the shortest ABT you’ve ever written?” Here it is, “Most executives communicate and care but bore. Therefore, tell a story.” Let’s expand that and say you are a sales leader. You will kill to connect and convert your customers, but you’re not connecting because you’re boring them with logic and reason when what they want is the emotional pull of a story. Therefore, let me teach you about the And, But, and Therefore that will hack through the noise and hook your audience from the very start.

I love that there’s a short version and an expanded version. That’s the thing that I love about teaching people how to become storytellers. You need a concise one and a longer one. It depends on the time you were given and the audience you have. Most people don’t have that skill, especially in the sales world. I would go on so many sales calls, and they would say, “We’re giving you half an hour.” You walk in, and it’s like, “You only have twenty minutes.” A lot of people would completely freak out.

It has happened to me as a keynote speaker, “We want you for an hour.” You’re like, “I’ve got a great hour.” The CEO went on, “We got to keep this thing on time. We only have 45 minutes.” You got to figure out on the fly, “What slides and stories am I cutting to still come in on time?” That ABT framework can help you go, “I have a short version of that and a longer version of that. Which one am I going to tell here?” It’s ironic because we both work with a lot of salespeople. The old way of doing it was, “Always be closing.”

You remember ABC and the, “Coffee’s for closers,” from that movie. I framed it. You have ABT. I have ABK, which is Always Be Kind, because I teach people, “If you’re not saying kind things to yourself, there’s no way it can be kind to customers.” We should do a little marriage of those. ABT plus ABK is a nice little combo to take out into the world. It also impacts your personal life. I know you’re a great dad. I say, “Storytelling is not only going to help you in your career but also your personal life.” Can you give us the ABT of a parent to a child?

[bctt tweet=”The more you write, the more you produce, the shorter that process is, the smaller blanks you have because you’ve worked through so much material in your life.” username=”John_Livesay”]

“Little Johnny, you had a wonderful day on the mound in your Little League game. I know that you are so excited about one day pitching in the pros, but you’re not eating your piece. Therefore, every outstanding athlete I know places their peas at the top of their food list. If you want to be pitching in the pros, I ask that you eat your peas.”

It’s the old spinach making Popeye strong.

That’s one quick example of it.

Your other wonderful book is Brand Bewitchery. My story of origin in advertising was watching the TV show Bewitched. I thought Darrin Stephens had the coolest job in the world presenting different campaigns. First of all, I love alliterations. When I saw Brand Bewitchery, I went back to that show. I was like, “I’m in.”

Mine was The Dick Van Dyke Show. He was also in the advertising world. He was writing more for the TV show, but to me, there was always an advertising play. I loved Morey and Sally and where they could sit down, play the piano, and come up with these jingles and stuff. That was the one I loved.

It’s so much fun to think about these things. Judith Light talks about how women come up to her and say, “I decided to go into advertising because you were an advertising executive in Who’s the Boss?.” The influence of TV and how people are portrayed is quite impactful because it’s a story. When we see ourselves in stories, that’s the magic.

It is what a story does. You know this from your sales background. I tried to get an ad sales job at KNIX Radio out here because I love writing radio so much. I thought, “I could sell radio and then write these commercials.” They wouldn’t hire me. I’m like, “What the heck?” It’s hard to get in your line of work, but you know this power of storytelling when you are trying to sell this printout or radio commercial.

It’s always about the emotional pole. You will show them the numbers like, “Condé Nast is who you worked for.” You have to show them the numbers, the reach, and all that stuff. Did you ever start with that? Didn’t you always start with getting another person and telling them some connection story to get them leaning into you?

When I was calling on Lexus’ agency, they specifically would say, “Do not come in here and talk about numbers. We have already analyzed that. We don’t need you to come in and tell us what we read about circulation, readers per copy, or income.” That’s where the a-ha for me was, “Whoever tells the best story about why they have come up with this marketing idea for this particular model and audience is the one that’s going to get the ads.” It was not necessarily that people needed you to regurgitate a bunch of numbers that they could look up for themselves to see if it’s a fit.

That’s table stakes. We are only going to consider magazines that have an audience that has a certain income that could even afford our car. Otherwise, we’re throwing money in the wind. We need to get them involved. What was so interesting working with Lexus, especially at the beginning of their launch, was that they explained that people are internally or externally motivated. I’m fascinated to know your thoughts on this as a creative person as well as a storyteller. People would buy a BMW or a Mercedes, which are their big competitors, and some would buy it to show off, “I’m an agent. I’ve got a BMW. I want to drive in front of my country club.”

Some people are like, “I bought this car because I liked the craftsmanship. I’m not trying to impress anybody. I bought it for me.” That’s who they had to target to buy a Lexus versus those who love the brand for the status. They didn’t have status when they first started. This is my question to you because you are such a brand expert. Have you ever had a situation where a brand was the challenger, and it didn’t have the rich history that somebody else did, yet they still had to tell their story and figure out a way to appeal to those who are more people internally motivated?

I’m working with a medical device manufacturer out of Chicago. I will keep their name out of this. As a brand, they’re very wise about stories only after they made the big mistake of leading with data. Turn your data into drama. All you have to think about is this. What is the first syllable in the word numbers?

[bctt tweet=”It’s not about what you make. It’s what you make happen.” username=”John_Livesay”]

It’s numb.

If you’re leading with numbers, our Homo sapiens brain was never created to make any context out of numbers unless we have already put the context in play, which means you have to tell a story that demonstrates the real ramifications of what you’re talking about. The best way to demonstrate that is to pull up your iPhone or digital device and look at the weather report.

What does it tell you? It tells you the data does 1 of 3 things. It is reporting what happened, monitoring the event that’s happening, or attempting to predict an event in the future. Our brain doesn’t necessarily care about numbers. It’s a trigger for the event. Why would we care way more about the event those numbers represent than the numbers themselves?

It determines whether we should take a trip, put a coat on, bring an umbrella, and all these behavioral things.

If you were to drill that down to the most basal thing, why do you think that is?

In terms of weather, it goes back to fight or flight, “Is it safe to go out?”

 

It’s the survival of the fittest. Events can kill us, but numbers can’t. When you are talking as a brand, your stories are not about what you make. That is typically a product or service that’s already commoditized because we live in the land of abundance. You don’t talk about what you make. You talk about what you make happen in people’s lives, like the event and outcome. When you get boiled into the trenches of what you make, you are now defaulting to logic and reason backed up by data and numbers. Your audiences don’t give a crap about that.

Let me give you a quick example. It’s one of my favorites. André-Martin Hobbs started this company up in Canada called Prêt Auto Partez. It is a used car dealership for risk-credited subprime Canadian car buyers. When I say that to you, the first thing you’re thinking is, “We see them all over the place. They’re a bunch of sharks. They’re preying on the subprime people that are going to have to pay through the nose for the loan on this car. They will make 4 or 5 payments. We’re going to go and repo it and do the whole thing all over again.”

That’s the anti-story. We talked about this. André has this most amazing thing. He goes, “I’m not so much about selling cars as I am about repairing the credit of Canadians. In doing so, I can sell cars to them.” What he does is you may not even realize that he’s going to put you through this. You show up at Prêt Auto Partez and say, “I finally got my act together. My credit is coming back. I’m tired of riding the bus. I want the freedom of owning my own car. I don’t care what it costs. I’ll make the monthly payments. Put me in a car.”

He says, “Not so fast. You first have to sit down with our financial planner. It may take three hours, but we are going to teach you what car you can afford. If indeed you can’t afford a car, how are you going to make these payments over the course of the next two years without ever missing a single payment? In doing so in the Canadian system, you will have repaired your credit and moved up a notch 2 or 3.”

He was about not just selling this car but also the outcome of helping Canadians repair their credit. Here’s the ABT for his brand narrative. It’s speaking directly to the customer, “You want the freedom of owning your own car and how it represents your self-esteem.” He knows that because that’s exactly what their research told them, but you have crappy credit, “Therefore, at Prêt Auto Partez, we are going to put you in a car you can afford to get you back on the road to financial freedom.”

It all led to the tagline that his entire company is built on, “Prêt Auto Partez, your vehicle to financial freedom.” It’s not about what you make. He sells used cars. It’s what you make happen. It’s helping Canadians reclaim their creditworthiness. He became the fastest car dealership in Quebec with that and is now taking that whole concept and franchising it throughout North America precisely because he got his brand story dialed in.

[bctt tweet=”It’s madness being a human being and stories are the only way we can create meaning out of that madness.” username=”John_Livesay”]

That’s such a great visual that you’re getting on the road to your financial freedom. It’s an unspoken fear back to the survival thing, “If something happens, my car is going to get repossessed.” Imagine if a brokerage company didn’t let people get loans for homes they couldn’t afford. We would have eliminated a big part of the mortgage crisis in 2008. It’s wonderful.

In your book Brand Bewitchery, one of my favorite parts is where you talk about, “Life is chaotic. Storytelling is the remedy that we seek to create meaning out of the madness of being alive. There is a science and bewitchery of storytelling.” I don’t think I’ve ever read or heard anyone talk about storytelling being a remedy to create meaning. That is needed now with all the chaos going on. How did you come up with this concept? How can people use this to get some meaning when they’re feeling overwhelmed?

I wish I could say it’s all mine and I’m so brilliant, but I’m not. I’m good at connecting dots. I was at Robert McKee’s famous four-day Story Seminar at the LAX Sheraton with my son Parker. He went for the film world. I went for the marketing world back in 2009 or 2010. I wanted to know what I could use from a screenwriting perspective in the advertising, marketing, and sales world. He stood upon the stage the first day and said, “A story is the only way we can create meaning out of the madness of being a human being.” I lifted it directly from him and thought, “If that’s good enough for Hollywood and the multibillion-dollar industry in telling that story, then it would work for us.”

In that same workshop, I’m guessing he did the same for you. He breaks down why Casablanca is such a great story and all the different levels of it. If you think about the madness going on in the world in that particular movie with the war, trying to have friendships, death could be imminent. There’s so much chaos going on, but there’s also a love story and a friendship story going on. That somehow is the remedy to all that madness. That’s another example of it coming together.

It’s a fabulous example. Hollywood used to do it well. I’m not sure if they do it quite as well as they used to only because it seems like they don’t take the time, and audiences don’t necessarily have the attention span they used to. You think about the brands or sales teams that you work with. They are all working in this chaos of the pandemic.

Our primal limbic system is all about survival and fight or flight. It was built to fend off that, “There’s a saber-toothed tiger. What the heck should I do next?” We have this killer virus that has been going on for years. There seems to be no end in sight. Our limbic system is jumping all over like, “Do I fight or flight? Do I get back or not? Do I wear a mask or don’t?” We have all of these competing stories coming in, and it’s left to our own devices what we’re going to do about it. Our limbic system is like, “I need something definite and a story that I can believe in.”

 

We’re all selling and marketing in this chaos. Let’s add to that virtual world. We were never meant to create great relationships in this weird virtual world we’re in. We have a hard time reading the room when I’ve got you one-dimensional on a screen. Add that to the chaos of what’s going on. What we’re trying to do, like Casablanca, is built somewhat of a love story between that audience or person sitting across from us and say, “I’m here to help, providing I can help you.”

Don’t waste their time if you can’t. Leave them alone, for crying out loud. If you can help them, then that’s where the ABT comes in. There’s one last thing for your audience to think about. Here’s how you write it. The ABT makes you place your audience at the center of the story. They are the protagonist or the hero. You start that statement of agreement to validate their state and what it is that they want. You identify who they are, what they want, and why it is important to them. You’re raising the stakes.

Next is, you’re going to introduce the conflict of the contradiction, but they don’t have it because of this. Therefore, the resolution is what I have to offer you to help you overcome and get what you want out of life. When you do that, you have to understand your audience. Understand who they are, appreciate what they want and why they want it, and empathize with what they don’t have. That helps you get super focused on telling a message from their point of view. I’m here to help you get it.

What great marketing advertising copy does is put words to someone’s internal thoughts. They think, “Are you in my head? How did you know I was feeling that way? I haven’t even articulated it that clearly.” That’s when you don’t have to push anymore because they feel like, “If you understand my problem, then you must have my solution,” which is what I see going on. When you said that we’re not designed for this virtual world, it’s interesting. I had an experience with my godson. I’ve watched him since he was a baby. He’s in New York, and I’m in Austin. I didn’t get to see him for years. I was in Manhattan between Christmas and New Year. I had seen him on FaceTime many times.

After I left, he said to his mom, “Uncle John is more fun in person than he is on FaceTime.” He was surprised by that. I thought, “Thank God.” Young people talk about IRL or in real life versus digital, the metaverse, and all these other things coming. You’re like, “I still think you need to be more compelling, interesting, and connected in person.” If you don’t learn how to tell stories, it’s going to be hard for you to have conversations with people because you don’t know how to connect. That’s the best way for us to connect as humans. If people want to find out about hiring you as a sales keynote speaker or have you come in as a consultant, where should they go?

Come on over to my website, BusinessOfStory.com. I’m like you. I’ve got a show every week that comes out on Monday. You can check me out on iTunes and those places. If you want to shoot me an email, send it over to [email protected].

[bctt tweet=”You have to really understand your audience, understand who they are, appreciate what it is they want and why they want it, and then have empathy for why they don’t currently have. That helps you get really super focused from telling a message from their point of view.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Thanks, Park. It has been great having you. Is there any last thought or quote you want to leave us with?

As you are working through your storytelling and trying to grow as a more confident and compelling storyteller, I’ll leave you with how I close every one of my shows. That is this. The most potent story you will ever tell is the story you tell yourself. Make sure it’s a great one. Thanks for having me here, John.

Thank you, Park. That was great.

 

Important Links

• Park Howell
• Business of Story Podcast
• Brand Bewitchery
• The Narrative Gym for Business
• Prêt Auto Partez
• Story Seminar
• iTunes – Business of Story
• [email protected]
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

 

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