Exceptional Stories For Exceptional People With Karl Pontau
Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments
Imagine listening to a bunch of technical jargon and you have no clue what he or she is talking about. It’s because, as humans, we react to things on an emotional level. This is why Pixar movies work so well, it’s all because of their exceptional stories. Join your host John Livesay and his guest Karl Pontau as they unravel the power of storytelling and how you can sell products with it. Karl is the founder of Squash and Stretch Productions. He helps companies attract and maintain clients by the use of storytelling. Listen to the conversation to know how our brains work and why we resonate with personal stories. Learn how to catch your market’s interest with animation and storytelling today.
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Listen to the podcast here
Exceptional Stories For Exceptional People With Karl Pontau
Our guest on the show is Karl Pontau, who says, “Exceptional stories create exceptional connections with people.” He has a company, Squash & Stretch, that creates animation for people to take complex concepts, and turn them into stories that target those heartstrings. Enjoy the episode.
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Our guest is Karl Pontau, who is the Owner of Squash & Stretch Productions. When companies need to explain complex concepts, generate more revenue or strengthen their brand presence online, Karl and his team help them by telling exceptional stories using high-quality, custom animated content. The key to explaining complex concepts is not to throw information at your audience, but rather tell a story that provides context and structure. You can see why he’s on the show because we’re singing from the same songbook. Karl, welcome to the show.
Thank you. I’m glad to be here.
Our mutual friend, Caroline, who edited my book, is someone that recommended you. One of the things I love about that is I talk about how trust is transferred. That is an example of that in action. Let’s hear your story of origin of how you got into this.
I’ve been an artist my entire life. I grew up drawing, painting, sculpting big Legos kid. I got my passion for storytelling from my dad. He’s a good storyteller. I knew I wanted to study animation when I saw the first Toy Story film. I was like, “I’ve got to do that. That’s cool.” Beginning of 2002, I started to feel like something wasn’t quite right with me physically. I’ve been a competitive swimmer my whole life. I knew what that was supposed to feel like. It wasn’t like my shoulder hurts. It’s like a general blah feeling, but by August, they still hadn’t figured out what was wrong with me. I had lost 50 pounds and had sunken cheeks. I was pale. I started to get bad headaches.
My parents took me for an MRI up in Walnut Creek. We were waiting around for another appointment when my pediatrician called and said he’s going to drive up from Pleasanton to come to talk with us. We saw him walking up with this big envelope in his hands. You could tell he had been crying. He brought us into a little side meeting room. I remember I was sitting knee-to-knee with him in this big U-shaped chair with high armrests leaning forward towards him. He pulled out the results of the MRI and showed me I had two brain tumors. It felt like I got punched in the chest. I moved backward in my chair.
[bctt tweet=”When someone who has more experience than you gives you advice, take it and apply it.” username=”John_Livesay”]
For the next two weeks, everything sounded like the adults from Peanuts. I never had the flu, never broke any major bones, never been stung by a bee. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been bitten by a mosquito, so to get a brain tumor diagnosis at fifteen is a complete sucker punch out of nowhere. I got so much help from friends and family. My high school adjusted my schedule and got me a tutor so I can still graduate on time. People I barely knew were giving food, gifts and other supports. That inspired me to want to give back and help as many people as I could because I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for all the help that I got.
In undergraduate school as I was studying Animation, there was a big student Digital and Design competition I participated in. There was a big screening at the end of 1,000 people in this big auditorium. It may be ten people in the room. When everyone laughed at the joke in my animation, I was like, “It’s so cool. I can connect with people and have a bigger impact with animation and storytelling.”
After grad school, I started my company. We tell exceptional stories for exceptional people helping tech, biotech, health and wellness companies explain complex concepts, answer common questions, increase revenue and strengthen their brand presence online. A lot of people think they can explain something to us by throwing information at their audience. We use that story that puts information in context and structure by helping these companies that are working on huge problems facing the world like reversing climate change, renewable energy, battling cancer and preventing Alzheimer’s.
If we can help accelerate those processes by improving the company storytelling abilities, more people in the world get their problems solved and their lives improved. Our client’s business does better, we get a happy client, everyone wins. It’s a way for me to have a bigger, positive impact on the world around me. That’s why I do what I do.
There’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s start with the competitive swimmer. I was also a competitive swimmer. I talk about that in my TEDx Talks, “Be the lifeguard of your own life.” Unlike in a hurricane, no one is going to come to rescue us. We have to rescue ourselves. The lessons we learned from being a competitive swimmer are incredible. I want to hear what your big takeaway was from being a competitive swimmer. Mine was when I was racing against somebody in breaststroke, he always beat me. In this one race, I beat him by a few tenths of a second. They said, “You stayed focused on the wall. He turned his head to see if he was ahead of you.” By turning his head, I was like, “When I focus on my own progress and stay focused on my own goals, I win.” That’s true in business as well. We’re not comparing ourselves. Do you have a story of what you learned from being a competitive swimmer?
Exceptional Stories: The key to explaining complex concepts is not to throw information at your audience but to tell a story that provides context and structure.
One of the biggest things I learned from that was the importance of having a coach, listening to a coach and following the advice of someone who’s been there before, plays that trunk and knows how you can move forward. Something I’ve carried over into my business and in work life is that when someone who has more experience than the expert says, “Here’s what I recommend you do,” I don’t assume I know better than them. I’ll take that advice in him and apply it. It’s been a huge help.
I also think about racing someone else. I performed better, pushed to do more and achieve more. There is a sense of competition between someone else, not necessarily looking at them but you know they’re in the lane next to you. You’re both going for that wall and trying to get their first competitor in practice assuming against yourself. It’s hard to be super motivated when you can tell that someone is going for the same goal.
When you interact with that person, there’s a level of a relationship there. It makes an effort easier to find than dig deep and trying to achieve that goal first because there was a competition there. One of the things I’m trying to do with my company is going to build a community of people that are all going for the same goal, what I’m calling Collabetition. They know each other exist and they can share some ideas. I don’t want to say patent. They are not going to be giving away treats.
By knowing they’re going after the same goal and being in the same space, they’ll be pushed to do even greater things because they are not competing as each other. Instead of being super siloed and swimming in their own pools at their own pace, it’s getting in a race against someone else where you’re a little more aware of where they are and stuff. That way, everyone achieves the goals quicker.
The tweet for that is when competition and collaboration meet, everybody wins. You’re telling that story of a coach. When I was selling advertising for a fashion magazine called Speedo down in Southern California, I convinced them to advertise with me because I came up with a solution that they had not thought of with a fashion show around a hotel swimming pool of the sportswear and treating it like fashion.
They brought Michael Phelps in since he was on the payroll during the Olympics. I went up to him and I said, “Everyone says you’re so successful, Michael, because your feet are like fins and your lung is bigger than most. I’m guessing there’s something else.” He said, “Yes, John. When I was younger, my coach said to me, ‘Michael, are you willing to work out on Sundays?’ ‘Yes, coach.’ We got 52 more workouts in a year.” I thought, “If we want to be at the Olympic level of what we’re doing, the question becomes, “What are we willing to do that other people aren’t?” I’m imagining you have a story around something like that in what you do that other people in animation aren’t doing. Do you have something that you can share with us on that?
[bctt tweet=”When competition and collaboration meet, everybody wins.” username=”John_Livesay”]
What amazed me when Phelps is winning all the medals and breaking the records in the Olympics season where he kept racking up gold after gold was there’s a behind-the-scenes documentary style video they did showing what his routine was, his training regimen, and how much he had to sacrifice and give up to be that good at swimming. His life was wake up, eat, swim, eat, sleep, wake up, eat. He would eat thousands of calories because he’d burn them all off in the next three hours of the swimming session. Seeing that story behind what made him be able to achieve all those medals in the Olympics is what humanized him and made the difference between the person and the icon. The icon is standing on the podium with the gold medals or is on promoting Speedo. You can’t relate to him until you see the story and see what allowed him to get to that point.
One thing that makes my company different is that we focus on the story, not just the animation. The animation does have the icons, the logos and the graphics, but if it’s not telling a powerful story, no one’s going to relate to it. It’s the story that makes people resonate with the message, the animation, and follow the call to action. People have an animation about this on my homepage. People don’t invest in animation because it’s an animation. They invest in something because it gives them the desired result.
Animation is a tool to tell a great story. The story is a great tool to inspire people, to follow a call to action or to respond a certain way. When we’re making animations for a client, the first thing we start with is, “What are you trying to achieve? Who is your target audience? What story is going to inspire them to do the thing you want them to do? How can we connect you from where you are to where you want to be through those key points?” Creating any content and throwing it up online doesn’t work anymore. You have to have that high-quality story and custom content to get the results.
You’ll agree with me that good stories show the hero having some vulnerability. Michael Phelps did a documentary called The Weight of Gold, where he talks about his battle and another Olympic athlete’s battle with depression after the Olympics is over. Who are you after the parades are done, all the adoration is over and you’re not an Olympic athlete anymore, especially if you’ve been doing it for ten or more years like he was? It is a crisis of identity. That made me connect to him even more that he was vulnerable enough to share that. I love to hear the story of origin. You’ve got a great one of the purpose of Squash & Stretch. Can you explain a little bit about what that is and how that became the name of your company?
I’ll touch on Michael Phelps, the crisis of identity and depression. I see him as a spokesperson for an online mental health service, which is perfect. The times ruin the importance of mental health and people being so aware of it. It’s perfect because you have that whole pressure. Your life is the one thing that you stopped doing and then you’re like, “What do I do?” I agree there. The Squash & Stretch name is homage to Disney because when we were starting the company, that’s Disney Studios, which is his second studio. His first business failed, which is a testament to not giving up for any entrepreneurs out there.
Back then, there wasn’t a best practice for animation that had been established. If you look at the content made around then, it’s pretty bad by standards. He sat down with his animation team and they came up with twelve animation principles that if their work is going to be considered good, complete, done and have these twelve aspects to it. Number one on that list is Squash & Stretch. If you take any one-on-one animation class, the first thing you learn on day one is the same twelve principles. The tools have changed a lot since Disney’s day, but what makes animation work is still based on the same twelve principles. It’s homage to the giants who shoulders anyone who animates standing on. Whenever other animators see my business name, they’re amazed and everyone else goes, “What?”
Exceptional Stories: Focus on the story, not just the animation. It’s a story that really makes people resonate with the message and the animation.
Let’s talk about how you use this in healthcare. Give us a story of a healthcare company that’s very detailed if you’re talking about bloodstream or something. Sometimes, they have a product to sell. It’s complex, and yet they want to get it across quickly and ideally in a story. Do you have an example of a healthcare company that you’ve helped?
We’ve done some work for a company that helps place people in clinical trials that can qualify participants. We made up some animations explaining the clinical trial process for a few of their trials. One of them had to deal with premature babies with respiratory issues. You’re trying to explain to people. The new parents are freaking out because their kid has breathing problems. They’re going to try and see this type of test, if there is a nebulizer and this system to help improve the lung function of these premature babies. It’s trying to explain the risks and everything going on to people that are already emotionally stressed and beyond the normal amount of stress and lack of sleep of a new parent. These are the ones with the kid who has some health issues. Being able to clearly explain what’s going on with the study and get the information clearly is valuable.
Let’s talk about that because I haven’t heard anybody describe it quite like that. You did such a good job of painting the picture of you’re a new parent, you’re stressed out from your child not being well on top, the lack of sleep that new parents have anyway. Imagine that you, as a new parent, are trying to process information. That’s fairly complex about clinical trials in this case. You’re emotional and you’re exhausted. I know myself when my sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she had to record what the doctor was saying because you are in a state of shock that you can’t even hear what they’re saying, let alone remember it or understand it. You’re solving that problem by being able to show people. We’re wired differently to hear information versus watch an animation and absorb a story like we do Pixar.
Part of our brain devoted to a sensory input analysis, 80% of that goes to vision. Also with animation, you get the audio and the visuals. The brain can engage and helps with recognition or memory and all that stuff.
You’ve also worked with tech companies. That’s a whole other very left-brain kind of thing, not necessarily related to technology and healthcare. My whole premise is that people buy emotionally and then back it up with logic, even for the most technical thing.
You might not be surprised to hear after the first story I told that I’m very interested in how the brain works. Reading a number of books on the subject, on the topic, we make decisions on the lower brain, which controls emotion and decision-making. Unless we’re presented with something that challenges our preconceived worldview or the way we see things. Our brains are lazy and designed to conserve energy as a survival mechanism. Unless we’re challenged by our worldview challenges information, you have a brain that isn’t even engaged when it comes to decision-making.
[bctt tweet=”Can you solve my problems?” username=”John_Livesay”]
The lower brain would take in something and think, “They’re not going to clash on what I think the world is.” We bounce it up to the upper brain, have the ratio and logic. Analyze this stuff and see if I can figure out how this will fit with my worldview. The brain kicks in, figures some stuff out and passes it back down to the lower brain when you make a decision. If you’re presented with something that doesn’t, can I call it to clash with how you see things? It doesn’t even kick in when it comes to decision-making.
When people are making decisions about all things, it’s 100% based on emotion and rationalized later if needed. That’s the reason why telling the stories is powerful and important, even for industries that are considering very left-brain and technical. Engineers often speak engineers. They don’t speak layman’s English. There’s one example of how we help a tech company. Early in 2021, we worked with a company called Enovix. They make next-generation lithium-ion battery technology.
They were spending about 45-minutes to 1 hour-long sales meeting trying to explain to other battery engineers how their technology can produce about twice as much energy and lasts about 30% longer than existing batteries. It’s about the same production process with a few drops in tweaks. We made this two-minute animation concisely explained the differences between their technology and the current technology and how they want to use this stuff. They loved it and they put it on their website for a while.
A couple of weeks after they posted it, they announced they’re acquiring a publicly-traded company and the valuation after the merger is $1.13 billion. Early in July 2021, they were awarded a $350 million contract with the US Army to make batteries for all the wearable tech soldiers wear. It saved them a ton of time and helped make their ability to explain the value of what their product does. It was two minutes instead of 45 minutes.
I have a premise that a good story should be clear, concise and compelling. With the steps that you’re using in your animation, it does all of that and more. When it’s compelling or you tug at heartstrings and people open the purse strings, people see themselves in the story and then they want to go on the journey with you. You talk about this in the steps about the appeal of a cartoon character has to correspond to what we would call charisma in an actor. Part of what people don’t realize is, “How am I being moved by a cartoon character? Why am I feeling something here?” Whether it’s Pixar or even something about the battery lasting longer than you would normally expect. If it’s helping save a life of a soldier, we’re involved emotionally. It’s no longer just, “That would be nice to have.”
It doesn’t have to be super cartoony either. There’s a ton of different styles in animation that are possible. When we’re picking a visual style for a client, we look at their existing brand, their target audience and figuring out what’s going to appeal to that audience and fit their brand. It’s popular and trending. It’s not all super cartoony. Things that are aimed at kids can be very sophisticated, more believable, realistic than other people would expect. You want to have the right characters because people empathize with characters on screen, empathize with people more than objects or concepts. You don’t even have to have a super detailed character, but as long as you’re talking about someone, you explain how they’re feeling and what they’re struggling with, what the conflict is and how they’re feeling about that, those situations or things that people can empathize with.
Exceptional Stories: Part of our brain is devoted to sensory input analysis. Around 80% of that goes to vision. Animation has audio and visuals, so the brain can engage at once.
If you’re trying to hook an audience, sorting your story with, meet this character, here’s what they care about, feeling, struggling with, people who share those feelings in situations are going to go, “I get this person. I want to see what happens to them.” If that’s your target audience of who you’re trying to reach, then showing them going through the experience of working with your business and how they’re going to feel during that experience and at the end, showing the results and how they feel afterward, how much their life is better because they hired your business for whatever you do, bought whatever product or whatever you’re trying to get them to do, showing that journey and that experience get people to be like, “I want that response.”
Once they have that and you share your call to action, that’s what inspires people to get off their butts and do something else. I’ll click on the computers because no one is going anywhere much. That story is powerful. A lot of people make the mistakes of not setting up the character right and not setting up the conflict right. Jumping right to what they do. Unless you establish why people should care in that first eight seconds or so, no one is going to watch the rest. All they talk about themselves too much is huge, companies talking about themselves too much on their websites and other content is about them. People only care about two things, which is to share my values, “Are you here to help me?” The weird thing our brains do when we’re presented with something new is subconsciously ask, “Is this going to kill me?”
It’s the leftover survival mechanism from back on the Savannah days if there’s a rustling bush in the distance. If you weren’t afraid there was a lion and when there was a lion, you got eaten. All the people that survived ran away when it rustled, even if it wasn’t a lion. You still have to provide enough information about your business that makes sure people know they can trust you and that you share their values. If they show, “Can you share my values? Can you solve my problem?” Then go right back to talking about the clients that they’re experiencing, how you’re going to help them improve the quality of life that they’re looking for. Most people talk about themselves too much, and people don’t care.
You gave us some real value bombs there. Let me highlight a few of them. What I heard you say was the better we describe a problem someone’s having before we jump into what our solution is, the more people are involved in this story. The other key element that I teach everyone when I’m teaching them how to tell stories as a sales tool is you must have a resolution to the story. The story doesn’t end when you say what your solution is. We fix the problem. We need to know what life is like after the problem has been fixed. We see it in classic stories like the Wizard of Oz. Imagine if that movie ended when she got in the balloon to go back to Kansas. There wasn’t that great scene of her with all those insights about no place like home and all that stuff.
This concept of once we feel safe and that people share our values is, “Can you solve my problem?” The big unspoken question everybody has when they watch a video, listen to someone present or pitch is, “Will this work for me?” They might trust you and like you but if they don’t think it’s what you have to offer will work for them, then they’re not going to buy.
[bctt tweet=”Exceptional stories can change the world. ” username=”John_Livesay”]
The magic of storytelling is you pull someone into the story enough where they are in the journey with the character and they go, “This person is like me. If it worked for them, I guess it will work for me.” Until that journey and that embodiment of who you’re taking on the journey unless you’re in the story is left-brain analytical, “Nice for them that that happened, but I don’t think it’s going to happen for me.” There’s where the big gap is between why people aren’t closing more sales or getting more people to understand what they’re doing. It’s because they’re not seeing themselves in the story.
They’re talking about themselves too much. When you’re telling a story like that, the clients are the hero, the company is the guide and helping them along the way. It’s not about you. When you show the results, it’s about the results for the other clients and how much better their lives are. I love that example of the balloon. It’d be funny to see a compilation of famous endings of films to cut them all off before that’s a complete entity. Triggered people get anxious or annoyed if they didn’t see the entire resolution.
That open loop is very annoying. It’s big to have explainer videos on websites. People don’t want to read. They want a short little video. It’s much more impactful if there’s some animation, music and all that versus just a talking head. What is the best way for someone to reach out to you?
They can visit www.SquashAndStretch.net. We also offer a free story assessment service on the website. There’s a five-point assessment we go through for their website and give them a report that shows where they can improve. We offer them some next steps that will help them close the gap themselves, or they can do a gap assessment and figure out how we could work together to make sure that their storytelling on their website and their other media is as optimized as possible. They can check me out on LinkedIn. Search for Karl Pontau and reach out that way.
Karl, thank you so much. Many people are drowning in the sea of sameness. There are many other people that do what we do, whether it’s insurance, coaching or whatever it is. With your skillset of animating and bringing your story to life that’s going to cut through the clutter and make people stand out and become memorable, a lot of people are going to be interested in exploring how you can help them do that.
Thank you.
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Tags: Animating For Healthcare, Buying With Emotion, Collabetition, Left-Brain, Relating To Something, storytelling