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Don’t Be Afraid To Be Replaceable: Preparing Yourself For The Next Growth Level With Michael Van De Ven

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

06.05.22

Are you afraid to be replaceable? Don’t be. John Livesay sits down with Michael Van de Ven, the National Sales Director for Vision Care at Bausch + Lomb Canada. Michael shares that being replaceable means, you’re a good leader and manager. Why? Because you succeeded in honing top talent that can take your role. When that happens, you’re ready for a promotion! Join in the conversation to discover valuable wisdom on passionate leadership.

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Listen to the podcast here

Don’t Be Afraid To Be Replaceable: Preparing Yourself For The Next Growth Level With Michael Van De Ven

Our guest is Michael Van De Ven, the National Sales Director at Bausch + Lomb Canada. He talks about how important it is to make fewer promises so you can make sure you keep those promises and without a story, you are just a commodity. Find out what he means. Enjoy the episode.

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Our guest is Michael Van De Ven, who was originally from London, Ontario. Michael graduated from Western University in 2011 and quickly developed his experience in the different fields of marketing and sales with the hospitality and consumer packaged goods industries. In 2016, he joined Bausch + Lomb as a Territory Manager, working closely with optometrists and opticians across the channels to build strong relationships and educate on new technology contact lenses.

In late 2017, he transferred to the position of regional sales manager for English-speaking Canada and developed the Bausch + Lomb Vision Care Canadian Program, which has played an instrumental role in developing the knowledge of the field sales team across the country. Throughout his time as a regional sales manager, he has continuously led and supported various projects within marketing, national accounts, development, and the education of student eyecare practitioners. Now he is the National Sales Director. Michael, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. It is a great honor to be on here.

You and I met because you honored me by selecting me as your sales keynote speaker for your annual sales meeting. From there, we realized that we share a passion for helping people tell better stories and how that led to us wanting to have you on the show to share your unique vision on what it takes to be successful in sales and sales and management. Why don’t you tell us about your own story of origin? You have a unique family background and then we will lead into how that led to you getting into the healthcare space.

It starts back with my parents. Growing up, I had a father. He worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. He made it a point with my mom to pay for the education of myself, my brother and sister, so we graduated from university. He said, “You will not have to work in the same environment that I did. I want you to be successful.” That is something that we all keep top of mind as we have continued to push ourselves and develop in our own careers.

When I think about where my career started, I graduated from university. I started in the hospitality industry as the marketing manager for a bar and restaurant in London, Ontario. Looking back at it, I have had different people say, “It was not that a waste of the first couple of years of your career.” It was interesting because the bar was owned by two very business-savvy gentlemen who had MBAs and owned different restaurants in London. They forced me to work at forecasting, come up with a marketing plan and learn all the different social media platforms, which was great. They were skills that I carried over into different businesses.

What was cool was I dealt with a lot of different people. I dealt with business school students, the average bar patron, corporate events, you name it. It allowed me to diversify my social skills, which has played a key role in sales moving forward for myself. After I took those skills, I left the bar and hospitality industry. I went into consumer packaged goods with PepsiCo. I sold on the beverage side and there was where I started taking some of those skills and integrating them more into a corporate environment. PepsiCo is a fantastic company for training, learning, culture, and everything like that. There are so many great relationships that I still have there. I was able to elevate myself into three different positions in a short period of time.

[bctt tweet=”Be curious and prepared.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Within that time, I was looking to break into the medical industry. My brother, at the time, had worked for Bausch + Lomb on the pharmaceutical side of our business. My sister is an optometrist. It was lots of eyecare already in my family. I have been trying for a while and I had interviewed a couple of different times, but I was unsuccessful mostly because I did not have medical experience. Finally, a role opened up with Bausch + Lomb in London for a new product that they were launching.

At first, there was some hesitation because I did not have experience, but I was able to make my way through the interview based on some of the values I brought to the table. In my very first year, I was able to win top performer in Canada. It was a pivotal point in my career where not only had I gone through the process and picked up other skills, but I have proven to myself that I could be successful in this medical environment, but also show the company that you can take chances on people if they have the right skillsets and develop them to success.

After about a year and a half as a territory manager, I was promoted to a regional sales manager for English-speaking Canada. I was 28 at the time. It was my first time being a manager. I had only been in medical device for a year and a half. I took the leap of faith. I wanted to build my foundation for success off of three things. The three things were always making sure that I am willing to lead my team into the fire with anything. I wanted to make sure that I could do everything well. I have done it myself so that I could teach them properly as I trained them.

The second thing was to make a few promises and keep them all. I only make a promise if I could make sure that I could follow through on it. The third thing was I always tried to fill the gaps that I faced for previous managers, which included investing more in development and coaching and everybody more than employee number but making sure that they had the opportunity to grow within our team. That is how I was able to develop and attract so much talent within our organization.

As I went to that position over various years, we had multiple product launches, revamped the sales team, and developed a lot of talent. Eventually, I moved into the role I am in, which is National Sales Director. As a National Sales Director, as someone that owns the strategy, it is important for me to maintain the culture that we have been able to build over the years, but further back from the front lines.

Be Replaceable: Learning all the different social media platforms is a great skill.

This has been a learning experience, but also it is cool to see that if I had been in this position earlier, the company would be feeling it a bit more from a personnel standpoint. I truly believe that we have developed top talent to a point where I am more replaceable. Some people say, “Never tell someone you are replaceable, so you can protect your job.” For me, if I am replaceable, that means that I am a good leader and I am a good manager. That is fantastic.

That is a good tweet. Do not be afraid to be replaceable as a leader. That shows that you are ready for the next level of promotion. Let’s take a dive into each of these three key things. The first one is about leading your team into the fire and not asking them to do anything you are not willing to do or have not done yourself. That builds a lot of trust with people, as well as you know it is possible because you have done it.

If I am asking someone to make X number of calls, for example, or start using storytelling in their presentations, you have seen it, done it, and seen it work. If someone is coachable, you say, “I know this is a new skill. It is like anything else. It is awkward at first, like riding a bike for the first time or driving a stick shift, but you will master this and the outcome will be worth it.”

This other thing is so valuable because whether you are a sales manager or a politician or anybody who has got to lead people, keep the promises you make. Therefore, to keep the promises you make, keep the number of promises to a manageable number. In other words, do not promise the world. I always tell people, “If you think you can be everything to everybody, you are nothing to anybody.” In your line of work, you are calling on optometrists. If you promise the optometrists 10 things and you deliver on 8, they are still going to be frustrated.

If you only say, “Working with us, we are going to promise you three things. We are going to help you find staff if you need it or we are going to help you be more profitable.” Those are some things that I learned of why the optometrists are using you from my interviews before I gave the keynote talk. The promises have value to them as opposed to, “The product will show up on time.” That is the minimum table stakes. I wanted to ask you more about that. If you agree with how important it is to keep the promises to a short, small number, but also that those promises have value to the people you are making them to. What do you think about that?

[bctt tweet=”Make promises that you can keep.” username=”John_Livesay”]

It works both ways, internally and externally. As a leader, everybody is always watching. Your margin for error is very small. With customers, especially a new prospects, your margin for error is extremely small as well. You want to make sure that if you are going to commit to something, you can follow through, and that is how you build the foundation for trust with your customers and your team.

When you have that foundation for trust, the business does not always go perfect in any world. When things are not going perfect, if you can show your team that there is a way forward and a light at the end of the tunnel and they have that trust that is already developed, that is how you are going to keep your horses riding versus seeing people deter to leaving the company or exploring other options.

Your third point about as a manager, a director, filling in these gaps, not everybody arrives with the same training, whether it is sales training or product knowledge training and how important it is to keep learning. Many people think, “Now I am out of university, I do not have to read another book. Maybe I have to learn a few new things about a product, but as far as my presentation skills, storytelling skills, or listening skills, I am done.” You are like, “No.” We talked about how you pride yourself and walking your talk on continuing to learn. Can you speak about that? You said before the show that you keep challenging yourself to bring some new, innovative ways of doing things that are resulting in people being successful.

I have a good story that can help us. When I first became a regional sales manager, I had six vacancies to fill. We already talked about how I was a 28-year-old first-time manager. Typically, we relied on our US counterparts for training and they did not have a training session scheduled anytime soon. I had to step up as a new manager and collect content and put together a training session in a short time. I always reflect back to that first session and it was perceived as great, but I knew it was not great compared to where we are because it was put together so quickly. Over time, it has quickly developed and we have changed the process. We have seen how different reps have learned. We have engaged with online learning versus virtual versus role plays. We diversified things to make it less didactic and more engaging.

We are going through a training process with a couple of new hires. What they are going through, I see some of the other leaders on the team be like, “I remember my training process and thinking it was great, but it has evolved so much now.” You can see that everyone is getting more comfortable and they appreciate that when you join a new company.

Be Replaceable: Commit to something you can follow through to build the foundation of trust with your customers.

When someone joins a new company, that is your first chance to create that feeling of culture and wantedness within the company and put yourself in a good spot. It is going to make them want to be with the company for a long period of time. That evolution of the training program is a great example of innovation within our team and for myself personally.

I have some marketing background, but I have never worked marketing in terms of medical device. I reached out to our company. I said, “I want to take some brand management courses with Cornell University.” I decided to do that. I would wake up at 5:00 AM, go for a run, and work on my certification for a couple of hours three times a week. That was me trying to fill some of the gaps I had because I knew as I grew further and further in terms of my leadership positions. It is great for me to understand the different functions of the business. I can lead in a way where I understand all the different aspects of the business and make decisions that are going to best support every single function.

This concept of your own personal story, how other people see themselves in that story, and this ability to break into a new industry, whether it is healthcare or anything. The skills you develop as a salesperson, storytelling, listening, empathy, and problem-solving are in fact, transferable so that you won top performer your first year out.

It sets a precedent of, “The ideal candidate does not necessarily have to check off ten of these boxes if they have these characteristics in place.” When you are now in the place of giving someone a chance or a break, what characteristics are you looking for? That you say, “I can teach them the product knowledge, but I cannot teach them this,” and because they already bring that to it, the odds are they will be successful.

I look for the talent. I always hire the most talented person. There is a difference between talent and skills. Skills can be bought. Talent is something that you have inherently. Personable skills, from a personality standpoint, are you going to be able to succeed in the social environment in a very heavy relationship-driven industry? How is your curiosity? What kind of questions are you asking me? How much preparation did you do for the interview?

[bctt tweet=”Use your most positive face and bring the right energy because there are people out there who are living their best life. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

Your capacity to learn and develop, where do you want to go with your career? Are you asking me what the training program looks like and the expectations? For me, that is great. I want someone that is coming in and has all those different things. Having additional experience is always a plus, but it is never something that I particularly hone in on unless it is a rockstar candidate.

I have three quick examples. Sometimes I tear up talking about this because they are such great stories. One gentleman interviewed with one of our competitors and they told him that he did not have sales experience and did not give them a chance. I hired him as a maternity leave cover near Toronto. He did extremely well. He took a full-time job with us in Edmonton all the way across the country. He picked up and moved during the pandemic.

He proceeded to be a top performer in our business and then has been elevated to a team lead position with Ontario. I love that because that is somebody that had no experience. He had a degree, was curious, asked the questions, had the work ethic, and was so personable. I knew within five minutes that I was going to hire him. It is awesome to see how he has developed.

Another great example is that there was a rep that I took a chance on. She also had no experience, but she told me in her interview that she had sent twenty messages on LinkedIn to people in the medical device industry to make a connection every single day. She told me that story and I was like, “This person is hungry. She wants to win.” She showed that same curiosity. She has been extremely successful with us as well.

The last story is one of my favorites. This story was told at our national sales meeting. Different people on our team were in tears. The first person I mentioned who got promoted and moved to Edmonton, we still had to cover the remainder of that maternity leave. We hired somebody without an experience. She came in and was very curious, and then she finished her maternity leave cover.

Be Replaceable: Even if you think you’ll not hire the candidate, always give them the full 45 minutes of your time.

We ended up finding her a job virtually covering another maternity leave, even though she lived in a different area of the country. After that finished, we hired her for another maternity leave cover virtually. She continued to cover. She loves our company so much and was so passionate about what she did. Eventually, a position opened up where she lived, which was in Vancouver. She got a full-time job with us. She told us her story about how she wanted to break into sales so badly and she wanted to learn and how we have taken a chance on her.

Sometimes in business, not everything goes your way and you can get caught in a rut. Her name is Krista. I think about how passionate she is to be here and have the opportunity. Sometimes it helps you reset yourself and be like, “Today, I need to put on my most positive face and make sure that I am bringing the right energy because there are people out there that are living their best life, working this job.” It is something that they want to develop further with their careers.

We have to hit our own reset button sometimes. We can focus on the problems or the challenges or the frustrations. We can focus on, “Look how many things I have to be grateful for, including being in this industry, working for this company, and the team I have surrounded myself with.” Once you start to have that, and then you get into interacting with a potential client or touching base with someone who is a client, they pick up on your energy.

My whole premise that we talked about when I was the sales keynote speaker for your team is that people buy your energy. It is up to us to keep that energy and our mindset at the right level of coming from a place of, “You are not another doctor to me. I care about you and I am looking for ways to make you successful and make your patient experience successful. I realize you got your own set of challenges that we might be able to help you with.” I love this.

One of the things I talk about is once you have your own personal story that people can resonate with and helps you attract top talent, it also helps clients feel like this is not something you happened to fall into. This is something you care about and the company’s story. The point is that Bausch + Lomb has a fascinating history of innovation that people may or may not know about and the culture it creates. Can you speak about how you use the Bausch + Lomb story to get the right talent and get the optometrists and doctors you are calling on to see the value of co-branding with you?

[bctt tweet=”Without a good story, you’re just a commodity. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

We are fortunate enough to work for a company that has been around for over 160 years. We have provided a lot of innovation across various different channels over the years. Most of our candidates who interview with our company have already heard of us in some way, shape or form. It brings that value.

When you talk about that history, it gives you that recognition right away where someone can feel proud that they are even interviewing for the company. Within the interview, I got great advice from a previous mentor. Even if you think you are not going to hire the candidate, you always give them the full 45 minutes of your time.

That interview, they might have stayed up all night excited or that this might have been their big break. To me, that is a human respect aspect that I took seriously. They are going to interview for Bausch + Lomb. They probably know the company and had done the research like, “This could be my big opportunity.” The brand does help create that environment. When we think about the progression where we are moving with our company, we are moving in a way where the company has growing pains at times. We are almost on this comeback. Everybody loves a comeback.

It is such a well-known brand. When you are putting a fantastic talent into your team and your system, and then you are launching new products, you have this great brand, it creates an amazing vibe. It allows the reps to passionately tell their story about why they work for Bausch + Lomb and talk about our products passionately or be proud in general. They work for a great company with such great people.

That culture is integrity, flexibility, and going above and beyond the minimum. Even if it is not your job, you still do it. Those kinds of characteristics create a culture of, “This is a fit for me or this is not a fit for me.” The final part of all this is when you are in those sales presentations, instead of talking about numbers and case studies, turning them into case stories that tug at heartstrings to get people to want to open the purse strings of, “This is something I want to buy. You are the rep I want to work with versus a competitor.” Since the talk I gave, have you seen people starting to use stories more? Do you have any stories to share on how it is making a difference?

Be Replaceable: Be understanding of different people’s personal and professional goals, and do your best to support them as a leader. If you do that, that is the difference between people turning around at 4:30 to go home or doing that last call before 5:00.

The reason I originally had engaged you to be our keynote speaker at our national sales meeting was because storytelling has always been a foundational piece of how I have sold myself. I have taught the reps in our business to sell. When you came in and gave your presentation, it gives a structured approach to how you can integrate it and show it a lot of value.

Telling our story is a pivotal part to our business when we think about our strategy overall. When we think contact lenses, they are very commoditized and typically, an optometrist or an eye care professional is doing the contact lens fit. The patient is potentially purchasing from a different channel, and mail-in rebates are used to help keep patients into practice with optometrists doing the fits.

At Bausch + Lomb, we do not do mail-in rebates. Our story is we know there is low redemption and a hassle for the patient. We created a unique strategy. We are the only contact lens company to go this route to give patients instant value and differentiate. That independent eyecare professional who is spending the time to do the contact lens can see the fruits of their labor. As we tell that story to support independent optometry, so many great things get layered in. If you do not tell the story correctly, one of our customers might look at us and say, “You guys do not have rebates.”

If I see the reps expand the story and have seen it expand even further after the presentation you gave, they tell that story to the why. Why do we do this? We do this to support you because we want your patients to buy from you. We know that they take your brand recommendation. This is how we are going to support independent optometry to make sure they are also purchasing from your practice. It allows us to show our agility as a smaller company with a team that is passionate about what they do and everybody is behind the strategy. The storytelling part is key because without a good story, then you are a commodity.

That is true in every business. What I love about you embracing the storytelling concepts and structure for your team is it now can become an onboarding tool for the new site. That can not only start learning other people’s case stories to share, but the story of origin of each individual person is a great way for people to start to feel part of the culture of, “Your brother works here. Your sister is an optometrist, and your father taught you this.” They start telling their personal stories of what their childhood was like or their first experience wearing contacts. Whatever it is that makes them so passionate about this. Stories bond the team when people feel seen and heard and acknowledged.

[bctt tweet=”Stay open to learning and make sure that you stay passionate. If you’re not, you might have to check what you’re doing.” username=”John_Livesay”]

You do a stellar job of making your team feel that way. I see how well you work with the marketing department when you were putting on this sales meeting together in our preparation call. Marketing and sales, when they work in sync and everyone is singing from the same song and books, telling the same stories, expressing the vision in a similar way that, “This is what our brand is,” and what that means to you as an optometrist, it is no surprise you have got the success you have.

It does not come accidentally. It is you going, “Let me fill a gap and take a course in what this marketing stuff’s objectives are, and how that can make me and my sales team better, and that everything is working in conjunction,” that is part of the secret to your success. Do you have any last thoughts or a quote you want to leave us with?

One great thing with everything I have talked about is I talked about developing people and this training program. You mentioned how I worked so well with our marketing team. One thing that we are very proud of is we do a lot of promoting internally. Our marketing team is a team of two. Both of them were people that I took a chance on as reps. They have been promoted through the system.

Our managers and team leads have also been reps in national accounts. It shows the culture of developing from within and building up, which is a key reason why people also are enticed to work for our company. It is fantastic from a cultural standpoint, but also we get amazing support from our HR department.

My last quote is, “Stay open to learning.” Even with my experience, with everything that happens, I was at a training and I overheard it. Someone had been at the company for one week and said the line. I liked the way it sounded. I am going to integrate it into my presentation. I am the National Sales Director.

Make sure that you stay passionate, and if you are not passionate, then you might have to check what you are doing because you should always be passionate about what you are doing. People can tell when you are not. Stay passionate and stay focused. The last thing is always be understanding of different people’s personal and professional goals, and do your best to support it as a leader. If you do that, that is the difference of people turning around at 4:30 PM to go home or doing that last call before 5:00 PM.

That passion and openness are what drive the behavior to go the extra mile for your career and the clients. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. I cannot wait to see where the future takes you and your team. You can be sure that I am going to be watching and cheering you all on.

Thanks so much. I appreciate you having me on the show.

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Easier: 60 Ways To Make Your Life Work For You With Chris Westfall

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

20.04.22

Chris Westfall is a sought-after speaker, consultant and author who has helped hundreds of clients achieve transformational results. Chris knows that there is an easier way to make things work for you. This is what John Livesay and Chris get into as they look into how you can transform your business. Chris looks at leadership, storytelling and connecting with people as ways of transforming your business. Tune in and learn more from Chris as he delves into storytelling and sales.

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Listen to the podcast here

Easier: 60 Ways To Make Your Life Work For You With Chris Westfall

Our guest is Chris Westfall, the author of Easier. He talks about the best way to make things easy is to realize you always have a choice. Just because the train goes by does not mean you have to ride that train. We talk about storytelling and how important it is to make sure that you are not the hero of all the stories you tell. Make people want to see themselves in your stories and go on the journey with you. Enjoy the episode.

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Our guest is Chris Westfall, who’s one of the most sought-after business coaches and sales keynote speakers in the world. He has helped launch over five dozen businesses and has appeared on every network out there. He’s a regular contributor to Forbes, and worked with thousands of leaders at Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and high-tech startups. A coach to entrepreneurs and executives around the world, his clients have appeared on Shark Tank, Dragons’ Den, and Shark Tank Australia. He regularly consults with top-tier universities, and is the author of three other books, but the one we are here to talk about is Easier. Welcome to the show, Chris.

John, thank you so much for that introduction. It’s great to be here.

You and I both share a passion for storytelling. You were all about whoever tells the best story wins, and I have a modern version of whoever tells the best story gets the sale, depending on what yours is a broader concept of what winning is. As storytelling keynote speakers, we love to help people tell better stories.

You would find this true too that it not just helps people’s careers but helps them in their personal life. With that said, let’s go into your personal life a little bit and tell us your story of origin. How did you get to be who you are? You can go back to high school or even earlier if you want, wherever you want to start.

[bctt tweet=”Things become easier when you realize you don’t have to hop on every train that passes.” username=”John_Livesay”]

I’m going to start in junior high. I’m in eighth grade, and my English teacher approaches me. She says, “I want you to give the speech at eighth-grade graduation.” I was not valedictorian and anything special. I was just a guy that got approached about giving a speech. I said what I have been saying my entire career, which is, “Yes.” I agreed to do it. That was the very first time that I stepped in front of a group and gave a presentation. There were probably 1,000 people in the audience. It’s a pretty large class of mine in junior high.

That was at age fourteen where I started as a speaker. I went on and lived my life, graduated from various schools, had a career, and all these things. I would always be pulled in front of audiences during my career to speak. I always fought it. I was always like, “This isn’t who I am.” It was a quest to come back to that place of realizing who I am, realizing the person that stepped on that stage at age fourteen is still inside of me.

To recognize that identity and step into it has been something that I have come to realize in my later life has been the most fulfilling part of my career. When you talk about storytelling and particularly storytelling in sales, it’s not just a part of my career. It’s part of my history. It’s something that I grew up with.

Look how far you have come in several years. You have been running a very successful consulting firm, and you speak at these different things. Who is your favorite client to give a talk to?

My client is typically frustrated. They are successful but they want more. My client asks themselves this question, “Is this all there is?” When organizations are looking for more and trying to access a greater market share, sales opportunities, places to make an impact in their careers, and employee engagement, these are a number of things that I touch on but ultimately, there’s a frustration. We know we can be better. We just need to understand how to get there.

Easier Life: Personal or general data protection, privacy law concept

It sounds like you give them a roadmap of how to get there no matter where they are on the frustration line.

A big part of the work that I do is to show people that while I may have a roadmap, they have an internal GPS. I’m going to speak about human nature. We all have inside of us that internal GPS. We have the ability to reroute when our thinking settles down. Even in the midst of very difficult circumstances, if we allow ourselves to see things in a new way, we can take new action.

From my point of view, that new perspective is always available. There’s always a new perspective, no matter what you are going through. It doesn’t matter whether you are going through a divorce or trying to hit a quota that is impossible. There’s always a fresh way of going about whatever it is that you are up against. That’s the premise behind Easier. There is always an easier way, even when life isn’t necessarily easy.

One of the things that stood out to me when I was reading it was not giving up on the concept that there’s an easier way to do something when it seems completely not easy. You feel stuck, and you don’t even ask yourself the question because it seems impossible. The first takeaway I’ve got from the book was, “I need to open my mind up to the possibility that there might be an easier way to get this sale, this funding for the startup, whatever it is I’m doing.”

Part of your background is that you have been helping people get funding and judging at Southwest some pitch contests. The show is called The Successful Pitch. I would certainly be remiss if I didn’t ask you some tips or thoughts on what makes a good pitch. Let’s talk about it in the framework of Shark Tank, where you are pitching investors since that’s part of your expertise.

[bctt tweet=”An Olympic swimming coach is out of the water to gain perspective.” username=”John_Livesay”]

You and I line up on one particular aspect of what makes an effective pitch. Your pitch is not a superhero story, where you stand up and beat on your chest and talk about your experiences. Not only is that insufferable but nobody wants to hear that. The story that people want to engage with is the story where the audience is the hero. Maybe you can’t make your investor or customer your hero, but it’s a good idea to start trying now, and taking your attention off of yourself will help you to create a greater connection in the sales conversation, investor conversation and in every conversation.

When you take that attention off of yourself, you are not going to forget your product knowledge and lose your ability to sell, compel or be engaging. That’s never going to be taken. Like the song says, “They can’t take that away from me.” The point is when we take our attention off of ourselves, what shows up? Here’s what I know from speaking on thousands of stages. You tell me if you see this too.

There are two questions you never want to ask yourself when you are in the middle of a high-stakes presentation. That’s a sales presentation or a presentation in front of 500 salespeople. The first one is, “Who am I?” The second one is, “How am I doing?” It’s a self-awareness that points towards self-consciousness. When you are focused on yourself, do you know what you are not focused on? It’s the sale and everything that matters.

I fell into that trap a few years back when I was hired by Coca-Cola to speak at their CMO Summit. The night before, they gave us a little program of all the speakers for the next 2 or 3 days. I’m like, “Harvard graduate, New York Times bestseller. What am I doing here? How did I get on the stage? The person who hired me is going to get fired.”

I had to talk myself off the ledge of, “Do I care how many books the speaker has sold?” No. “Do I care where they went to school?” No. I care about how they make me feel. If you don’t trust yourself at the moment, maybe you trust the person who has been at Coca-Cola for over twenty years that she knows what she’s doing and saw something.

Easier Life: You got to keep your eye on the ball. It means keeping your eye on the customer, on the client and focusing intently on how you can serve them more deeply, more fully.

I think for myself that I had to focus on, “How do I not fall into that trap,” because that’s the worst mindset in the world before you get on stage the next morning. For me, the minute I start comparing myself to other people, I say, “Cut. Stop.” It’s like a movie. The gateway drug to Imposter syndrome is comparing yourself to other people, “He’s more handsome, taller, leaner, and smarter.” It’s endless. That’s in the dating world, let alone the speaking world. I would love to know if you have any tips for people on how to avoid that horrible Imposter syndrome besides not comparing yourself.

I will tell you a story that a coach of mine shared with me. It starts with a weird question, “Do you have to be an Olympic-level swimmer to coach someone who is swimming in the pool?” In other words, do you have to be an Olympic-level swimmer to be of service to someone who is swimming in the pool? The answer is no.

As a former lifeguard, I would say no.

How do we all know that it is True, not where it’s a matter of belief for a faith that someone on the side of the pool can coach someone in the pool? It is not because of their experience, height or color of their swimsuit. It is because of their perspective. The thing that you bring that is powerful is your perspective. That guidance and wisdom for your audience is a function of your experience but there’s more to it than what you have done over the course of your career. The experience that is so valuable when you speak to sales audiences is the experience you create for the audience.

It’s the same thing for salespeople. If you think, “I don’t carry enough quota to be in this room. I have not sold enough to be in this room,” that’s the wrong question to be asking yourself. The question is, “How is your client doing? How is the person in the pool?” Look at them. That’s where your attention needs to be. It’s because of your perspective, not because of your quota, experience or where you went to school, but because of your perspective. You can share and serve, and if you get out of your own way, you can sell.

[bctt tweet=”We know we can be better. We just need to understand how to get there.” username=”John_Livesay”]

What a great solution to that because I have taught everyone from infants how to swim. You are in the water, and we are having them blow bubbles and stuff to being coached in competitive swimming. If the coach is in the water, he can’t see if your elbows are at the right height. He’s eye level with you, not above. I love this concept of zooming out and getting a perspective.

The second problem you said or question we should never ask ourselves is, “How am I doing?” Whether it’s a talk or sales pitch because it takes you out of the moment. You are not listening anymore. You are worrying about whether people like you or not, which is always the kiss of death. We start making up stories in our heads. If someone gets distracted, “I lost them. They are on their phone,” or they went to the bathroom, or whatever is going on. It may not even be true but we are making it up, and we are not in the moment.

It’s like a field goal kicker in a football game. The reason I think of it like this is that my dad kicked field goals. He was a field kicker in college. He used to say to me, “When I’m kicking a field goal, where do you think my attention should be? Should it be on how I am doing? Should it be on what the coach told me last week? Should it be on the fans and the crowd? Should I be thinking about how I’m going to be the hero of this game if I make it through the uprights or how I’m going to be the absolute bomb if I don’t?”

He would say, “Chris, none of those things matter. You’ve got to keep your eye on the ball.” In this case, keeping your eye on the ball means keeping your eye on the client and focusing intently on how you can serve them more deeply and fully. If you think you can do that by putting your attention on yourself and worrying about your likability factor, you are looking at the wrong place.

I imagined a professional baseball player at home plate, getting ready to swing. As the ball is coming, he suddenly looks up at the crowd and goes, “Do you all like me?” He misses the ball. It’s like, “Strike.” That analogy holds up. I see that you’ve got this great testimonial from a mutual friend of ours, Brant Pinvidic, who wrote The 3-Minute rule. He has been on the show. I have been on some adventures with him. He’s quite the cool guy.

Easier Life: It’s not about controlling your mind. It’s not about controlling your thoughts.

He said that your book, Easier, is unlike any other coaching guide he has ever read. What is it that makes this book so unique? What’s an outcome someone can get? I can share mine, and Brant can share his but I love to ask the author. What was your intent? This book is for people who are frustrated and somewhat stuck and know they can do better but after reading Easier, they are not only going to ask themselves, “Is there an easy way to do this?” but fill in the blank.

The power behind Easier is the power of storytelling. Whatever people take from this book and the uniqueness that Brant is talking about, I would like to think that it comes from the story that unfolds. There are two ways to share information. One is to come down like Moses off a mountaintop and say, “Here are the Ten Commandments. Do these ten things, and the right results will follow.” The other way to tell it is via a story. What people will take away from Easier, whatever it is that they gleaned, the subtitle promises 60 ways.

I was going to get to that. It’s the old Kenny Rogers song, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. You came up with 60 ways to make your life easier.

The way that those discoveries are made is through a story. If you find the story engaging and see yourself in the characters represented and the challenges that they have to overcome, that is where the lessons are learned. It’s not so many lessons learned. That sounds like school. It’s more like the discoveries are made if you are looking for a way to blow your quota out of the water to create a deeper market share and an impact on your customers.

I’m not going to say that training is not valuable but those discoveries you make when you are in front of your customer, when you are looking in the mirror and considering the ability to serve, that’s inside of you are much more powerful than these Ten Commandment-type lessons. Training is valuable. You have to understand how things work. You have to be onboard. You have to understand how you create connections, ask intelligent questions, and all those things. My question for the folks reading, and it’s a question in the book is, who are you when you aren’t on your mind?

[bctt tweet=”When you’re focused on yourself, you’re not focused on sales, on everything that matters. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

It’s very much like screenwriting. I took a course that years ago, and they said, “If you want to show a particular character is honest, don’t say it in dialogue. Show it in a situation where they could steal something and not get caught, and they still don’t do it.” You tap into this. It’s Chapter 4 where we are talking about, “Am I the person that eats all the Oreo cookies or am I the person that saved someone’s life? Which self do I put on the shelf? How can I integrate all the different parts of my personality that I’m judging? One aspect of my personality where I am decisive and able to not be afraid, why doesn’t that show up consistently?”

That’s an example of why this fable is so engaging because you start to think of yourself that rare is not the same all the time. Wayne Dyer, back in the day, who was a motivational speaker, used to say, “When you squeeze an orange, you always get orange juice. It doesn’t matter what time of day, in the middle of the room and the corner. What happens when somebody squeezes you, and you get stressed out? Do you get orange juice or do you get anger and fear?” That metaphysical question is my sweet spot of, “Who are we? How can we be more authentic? Why are we, at our best, not at others?” If you could speak to that a little bit and how easy it takes people on that journey of self-acceptance.

It is a journey of self-acceptance. You are right. One of the things that I have accepted in my career once upon a time, which I now reject, is this idea that peak performance comes from mindset and the idea that our minds are set is false. I anticipate that on any given day, we have between 6,000 and 60,000 thoughts running through our brains. Our minds are not set. If we try to set our minds, we are trying to stop the wind or waves from hitting the shore.

What makes things easier is when we realize that we’ve got some thinking going on at all times around a particular subject, and here’s the realization that has shown up for me that has been so powerful. Just because a train of thought shows up, you do not have to ride that train. It’s not about controlling your mind and thoughts and thinking about one thing all day long. That’s not sustainable. That’s not how thought and minds work.

When we get in concert with the way we work, we show up differently. We stop burning cycles trying to rope the wind or stop the waves. Instead of trying to stop the waves, we get on a board, get out in the waves, and start surfing. We start writing and understanding that there is a power inside of these thoughts that can lead us to new realizations and perspectives but we have to step back and stop spending our energy trying to grit and grind things out when there is an easier way.

Easier Life: Storytelling is always selective and sales is selective, and selecting the words that are going to help you most is the key to creating that compelling conversation.

I can relate to that because this concept of not having to respond immediately to something that somebody says or sends you in an email, sometimes, no response is an answer. A lot of people get all triggered. The front of our brain gets hijacked, and we are in fight or flight mode. We are like in that concept of sleeping on it. Get back to perspective, “Is this going to bug me five years from now? Probably not. Why am I letting myself get so upset?” All of that is a key lesson to learn about. Just because somebody says, “Let’s play tug of war,” doesn’t mean you have to pick up your end of the rope.

Many times, we zoom in on things, and it activates the front part of our brain. All of a sudden, we create these stories that don’t serve us, stories around our obligations and duties. The deadline is the deadline but isn’t there a way for you to relate to those deadlines, obligations, that email that you’ve got that can shift your perspective? That’s what you are talking about.

One of the things that I share in the book is a simple strategy. I call it the YAHOO strategy, which is not about the search engine but YAHOO stands for, You Always Have Other Options. If you are struggling in sales and wondering, “Why can’t I crack this customer? Why can’t I get in front of the people I need to get in front of?” You always have other options. What are those options? Thomas Edison said it best, “There is a way to do it better. Find it.”

Keep looking until you find it. As someone who writes books as we do, usually, our first idea is not the best. We go, “Is there another way I could say that? Is there a better way to say that? Is there a way to say that it’s easier for people to understand?” That’s where I see so many people in sales going down the rabbit hole of, “Let me prove how smart I am with all these acronyms and get into the complexity of everything as opposed to.” The simpler you make it to understand, the more likely you are to get someone to say yes. Just because you are making something easy to understand doesn’t mean you are not smart. That, to me, is a big takeaway from your book. It’s the reverse. The smarter you are, the easier you make things.

If sales is about proving how smart you are, that doesn’t sound very smart to me. Do you want to be smarter or do you want to be richer? Do you want to instruct or do you want to inspire? Do you want to describe or do you want to compel? Are you just there to relay information about the product or are you there to relay information so that your customer can take action, step toward you, and say, “Tell me more,” and continue the dialogue that leads to the exchange that is the transaction you are looking for? That’s so important, John.

[bctt tweet=”Training is valuable. You have to understand how things work. You have to be on board and you have to understand how to create connections and how to ask intelligent questions.” username=”John_Livesay”]

Otherwise, we are trying to impress other people as opposed to making that emotional connection that you understand their problems. That’s why you and I both decided to write fables because, through the lens of storytelling, people are not so analytical in a story like they are a movie or any other fiction that they are learning without realizing they are learning, and that sometimes sticks a little bit better.

I know you are interviewing me but I have to ask you a question. Why did you choose to write a fable? What was it that appealed to you about creating a story around The Sale Is In The Tale?

The thing that motivated me to write The Sale Is In The Tale was I kept thinking to myself, “I have given people the steps on how to tell a good story, and with my coaching, they are able to get better.” Having taken the screenwriting class years ago, they are always about show and don’t tell. I thought, “What if I did create a fable where I showed somebody going through this frustration of not making their quota, losing a big sale, not getting a promotion, and all the things that happened to people in their lives but made somebody see themselves in the story?”

You and I talked before the show that the gold standard of whether somebody takes action is if I see myself in your story, I’m going to buy, say yes or change my behavior. That’s what the motivation of, “Let me see if I can do it.” It was a stretch. I have never written a screenplay or anything that had characters in it, distinguishing that, and painting the picture and setting it here in Austin using real places that I enjoy going to and making that come to life. Having moved here years ago, the book is a love letter to Austin too.

We both set books in Austin. That is so fascinating to me. It’s Austin and Dallas for mine. What I take away from your story, and hopefully people take it away from mine as well, is that there’s an emphasis on relatability. That relatability is what makes stories compelling and engaging. Maybe not necessarily that you see yourself in the story but you see the circumstances and identify with what people are going through. That is certainly my hope, and it sounds like it’s yours as well.

[bctt tweet=”It’s no secret that sales is a people business. It’s where business gets personal.” username=”John_Livesay”]

That is the power of storytelling. Bringing that storytelling aspect back to the sales conversation and focusing on the sales folks who are reading this that are looking in the direction of relatability and receptivity. In other words, how open is the customer? Relatability and receptivity are not there. You are never going to get to slide 47 or if you do, they are looking at their phone.

One of the outcomes for us as sales keynote speakers is that people who have read the book are going to want to have us come speak because they are going to want to ask questions about the story like, “How did you come up with this idea? How did you decide to set this? I related to what you wrote in this book, which is different than other books you have written, which are some instructional tips on how to be better at sales, leadership or whatever it is.”

I heard Elizabeth Gilbert speak about her book around creativity, Big Magic. I was completely into the stories that she was talking about her own journey of creativity. It was very different than reading a book on how to be more creative because there were stories in there. The other outcome is it will get us engaged with the audiences before we even show up if they have discovered our fables.

The questions they may want to appear into the discoveries they might want to make on a personal level because it’s no secret that sales are people’s business. It is where business gets personal. To be able to share that perspective with an audience and give them an opportunity to ask you questions and gain the insights of the author, that level of personalization, from my perspective, I certainly welcome it. I’m early in this process. The feedback that I’m getting and the way people respond to this book are fascinating to me.

For us as sales keynote speakers, the key thing to remember is that aspect of connection with the customers, audience, and in a story that goes from point A, point B, to point C that takes you through on a journey that is realistic. That is not to say that it’s completely chronological like, “Let me tell you my life story from birth up until yesterday.” Nobody wants to hear that. Storytelling is always selective, and sales is selective. Selecting the words that are going to help you most is the key to creating that compelling conversation that doesn’t just describe or inform, it’s the conversation that compels. That’s the conversation that I’m here for, and you are too.

You have so many great quotes in your book. Everything in the past, from anonymous to a quote about being lazy from Bill Gates. Can you end this wonderful interview you gave us with a favorite quote of yours, either 1 of those 2 or something else that you like?

Here’s what I’m going to share with you, “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” That’s from F Scott Fitzgerald. Those are the words to live by. I don’t know about you but I have gone up in my head. This customer called it and went, “The way that I wanted it in is the end of the world. I’m going to get fired.” That’s a little extreme but we go there because we want to win and do well. I can relate. Me too, but never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat because, YAHOO, You Always Have Other Options. The battle is not over. As long as we live to fight another day, the story goes on.

If people want to find you to hire you as a speaker or as a coach, where should they go?

First of all, if they want to hire me as a speaker, I want to say they have excellent taste. My website is WestfallOnline.com. If you head to that website, you will see in the lower right-hand corner a little Contact button. You can send me an email or you can also set up a time to talk and chat for 30 minutes. If you’ve got objectives that you are trying to achieve, sometimes it’s better to parse that out in a conversation. I’m always happy to create that conversation, whatever that might look like. You can also find me on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, @WestfallOnline. That’s where you can find me at all of those places. You can also find me on Facebook as well.

Thanks, Chris. It has been a delight. What a joy to share a passion for storytelling, fables, and connection with people.

I’m grateful for the connection with you, John. Thank you so much for having me.

It’s my pleasure.

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The Narrative Gym For Business With Park Howell

Posted by John Livesay in podcast | 0 comments

14.03.22

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?

Narrative Gym: How do you use sound effects? How do you use music to deliver and sell a product?

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.

Narrative Gym: Most executives communicate and care, but bore. Therefore, tell a story.

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.

Brand Bewitchery: How to Wield the Story Cycle System to Craft Spellbinding Stories for Your Brand

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?”

Narrative Gym: Our Homo sapiens brain was never created to really 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.

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.”

Narrative Gym: We were never meant to create great relationships in this weird virtual world we’re in because we have a hard time reading the room when you someone on a one-dimensional screen.

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.

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