Selling in a Time of Corona – S3E4 – Stories That Sell – Elly Temelcos

Transcript - S3E4 - Stories That Sell - Elly Temelcos

 

Creative opening

My Once Upon A Time - Dove Cameron (Lyrics) [From Disney's Descendants 3]

“Life is not a storybook but life unfolds in chapters
Turn the page and start to make amends
There's no pre-written guarantee of "happily ever after"
Step into your greatness before your story ends
So when your story ends

They'll say once upon a time a girl flew higher
Once upon a time she made things right
Once upon a tie that binds
She changed her heart
To change their minds
That's got to be my once upon a time

This once upon a time
I'll finally see my once upon a time
This time”

Introduction

So someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between.

And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a far flung kingdom, called Melbourne, and years before the despotic king locked down the homes, the businesses, the playgrounds and the restaurants, she built an amazing career. This raven haired polymath worked in marketing and communications, and product management. Until one day, on a cold winter’s morning, she realised she had a gift – she knew the secret of telling stories. Real stories in corporate life that gripped and  grabbed customer’s attention. Suddenly a big giant emerged – Microsoft, and the giant said ‘ Can you tell a story about our video conferencing products (and this was long, long ago when the word Zoom was just a sound sports cars made).

The filmmaker went to work -day and night, night and day, without food, for Uber Eats was not yet invented.

‘Oh how do I tell a story about technology that is so much more interesting than boring features, bits and bytes, ‘ she cried.

She put both her thinking caps on and this is what she created for the big giant:

[ cut to https://organic.film/projects ( LYNDEN AGED CARE) ]

Elliot

A lifetime later, we now know that little product also became a giant, we now know as Teams.

Not satisfied with simply being wonderful at combining her filmmaking prowess with her corporate background, our coffee loving heroine went on to further studies in Screen and Media and now is now doing her PHD in the narrative structures used in streaming TV and…Her own series is not far away.

So, I sprinkled some fairy dust, wiggled my nose and like magic, she appeared and joined me to discuss how you can get so much more out of the stories you tell to your customers.

Are you ready? Look behind you? Here she is …Elly Temelcos.

Hey, Elly, it's so great to have you on Selling in a Time of Corona. As you know, I'm passionate about storytelling in presentations, in pictures and in the sales world as a whole. And as a filmmaker, you’ve produced some amazing work that tell brilliant stories.

And to be able to pick your brains today on what makes a good story, the elements within it and how to capture people's attention away from the boring and the linear is a great privilege. So thanks for being part of it.

And I wanted to kick off right from the start with a couple of reasons why people don't tell stories. And one of the things that I see is this squeamishness where people say, I can't mention my clients or my clients’ journey with us without permission or they're worried about probity or some other stupid reason as to why they can't do something and the story doesn't even get told at all.

So from your experience of corporate storytelling, what do you see and hear from people when you're even discussing how to tell a story and in what manner?

Elly

Thank you, Elliot. It's a real pleasure to be here. Certainly, I think, storytelling is innate in all of us. You speak a lot about the hero's journey. The hero's journey, as you know, is a concept created by scholar Joseph Campbell. He wrote a book about it called ‘The Hero With 1000 Faces’ and that actually looks at mythologies all around the world.

He's found a pattern that all human narratives are variations of a great single story. So what's exciting is that we all respond the same way to these universal stories, everybody around the world. So that's terrific. And it's great to know what the elements are of the hero's journey, because, you know, you're going to hit a lot of those key moments with most people around the world. But when you think about it, if we respond the same way to these stories, well, the flip side of that is we all know how to tell these stories as well.

And we've got thousands of years of being good storytellers, so it's a shame not to use storytelling in every basic human interaction. So when you think about that, we're in a story right now, we've got Covid-19 is a huge story for us. It's a story of survival at the end of the day, but it's one of those stories that has its twists and turns, and it's a very complex story, but we're all living through it right now. So we are the heroes of our own story right now.

And if you want to learn how to tell stories, just put yourself in the seat of being your own hero or your own protagonist. And you'll realise once you put your storytelling hat on, you know there are obstacles, you have a goal. Your goal might be to survive or to get through the day or to get through your meetings. But there are obstacles, constant obstacles to your goal, and they can take many forms. So I think storytelling is so innate in us, and if you're not mining that fantastic tool, then you're missing out.

So I think it's very important for organisations to let go of their fears and look at storytelling as a fantastic tool to connect with their customers and to also persuade them that through the emotion of their story, to persuade them that whatever they have, there’s a solution that's solving a problem for their customers is important for their customers to at least listen to. So one of the things Elliot, that customers or people who are producing stories worry about, is that turning point.

So the turning point in the story in any film or book or presentation is where we jolt the audience interaction, or we twist it in some way and they get a shock. And that often translates into a part of a corporate presentation. Where there are pitfalls, there are downsides. There are issues with either staying with the status quo, or there could be some risks attached to even transitioning to the vendor’ solution that's being presented. And yet there are many corporates that won't even go near that twist, that plot twist or that shock or jolt because they're worried about something.

How do you handle that? I guess it comes down to some basics. In storytelling, you're always going to have a hero who we call the protagonist. You're always going to have the forces against that hero, which is the antagonist, And there are two of them are locked together in a battle, if you will. So the protagonist story, the story that the salesperson might be talking or describing would have a goal. There is a goal to the protagonist, and the antagonist gets in the way of the goal.

So I guess what's important is to, if you want to create a turning point is to set up that goal. So the audience thinks they're going along on this track. The turning point then takes them off that track and turns them right around. So I usually call it a major reversal where the story just takea this big left turn that you didn't expect in order to create that reversal. There's a lot of set up, so you have to, actually, I guess you have to create a situation where you think it's one story, and then it turns into something else, and that jolt is really important because that helps with the persuasion and it helps get your message across, and it's also interesting.

That's the other thing. It's not a boring presentation. It's not. Not a boring story, so I think what's important in many stories is to be okay with investigating what we call the forces of antagonism. These are the things these are the obstacles that get in the way of that hero achieving that goal, and they're really important. And they're part of life. We all have forces of antagonism. What's interesting, and in order for clients to feel okay with having things go wrong without their organisation ooking bad, is to look at all the different levels of these forces so they could be physical forces.

It could be illness or disease. It could be changes in legislation or policy. If in technology, it could be old, clunky systems that are desperate, you know, they're not working together, it could be staff shortages, competition, or the big one, which is security and hackers. It could be the tyranny of distance. You know, Australia is a perfect example of where distance is such an issue for organisations. It could be natural disasters, dramatic shifts in demand and supply, for example, you know, a government body releasing year 12 results all on the same day, and that whole burden it's putting on the systems.

It could be too much data, not enough time. That type of thing really helps to create these forces of antagonism. It's what the heroe’s up against. And if you use those and you create turning points that way, you know, there has to be a story arc. A lot of my clients have spoken about digital transformation. That's the big buzzword. But you can't transform if you don't start from somewhere. You have to start. You have to go from a bitter place to a better place.

And I think if you can use some of those or look for some of those forces that are working against you, that's very useful in building a really compelling story. The other thing I just want to mention is that the ticking clock is always a good one, and it's used extensively in film and television because it gives pace to the story and it’s telling you that this is going to end at some point, and it creates suspense and that suspense is a really untapped resource. Yes, suspense is critical.

Elliot

You've given some excellent examples there, and what I think about the suspense in corporate presentations, there simply isn't enough of it. And yet many of the scenarios that you've just talked about are ideal for creating that. And the other thing to potentially add to that is that when you create suspense, you can't just do it in a second and then move on. You can't just mention. oh by the way, your systems might crash and then move on to the good bits. You have to let that sink in.

So the audience feels that tension and feels that discomfort, just like we would in a potential murder scene or a ticking clock scene in a movie, right?

Elly

Absolutely, absolutely. And what you do, I mean a lot of my stories are only less than two minutes long. So you have to. You have to create a lot of those little layers in the story and be aware of them in order to keep your audience attached to it and and connected to the story. So with suspense, it's important to, you know, we talked about story arc, but it's important to know that your story has a beginning, middle and end.

It doesn't matter how long or short it is. It's still going to have that structure. And you set up your goal at the beginning, or you set up what we call a central dramatic question. It's like, what is the question hanging in the air? This story is the answer to and you'll get the answer at the end so that suspense is crucial in setting up that story. But alongside with that, the stakes have to be high, too. So the best stories are those of life and death, because that's universal to everybody.

Every human, the world understands that. And so high stakes are good. So when we're looking for stories, if we had to choose between five potential customer stories will always choose the one that's going to involve life and death. Because that's the most compelling. However, there are other types of stories that do justice that are important as well. But what they usually start that is, with human basic needs. So usually something to do with food, safety, shelter, procreation. All those basics. Usually the things that start the story, and it's usually something you can you can see, you can visualise.

It has to be in a concrete world, and that's difficult when you're talking about a product or service that is abstract. So I mean, what is the cloud at the end of the day? What is that? We can't touch it. So we have to look at how can we put this product or service out into the concrete real world? So that's why we set up characters so we can see what the characters are actually doing. The most important thing about stories. It's about action. It's about doing something, making decisions and going from one thing, one decision to the next.

So that's what compels us to actually watch. The story is, how is this character solving this problem?

Elliot

You raise a really interesting idea. There are so many corporate presentations that are a series of facts put into some kind of logical order, as opposed to what is compelling this story to get larger and more engaging. It is an action, as you say, and it's our job as presenters to compel that story. That too, right, something that is actually engaging the audience all the way through. And you know that leads us to the climax of the story.

As you know, so many corporate presentations and even videos end up quite drab. They end up with like a wet lettuce at the end in presentations just like, well, thank you for that. There’s  time for Q and A and even in videos it’s like a very simple call to action with a website or something boring like that. But the climax is so important, used to spend 20, 30, 40 minutes in a presentation or it might be a two or three minute video. Talk to us a bit about what sort of endings or climaxes we can have in a sales pitch and why it's so important.

Elly

Well, I mentioned that you know the three act structure, the beginning, middle and end. It's important to set that up. So the beginning sets up the world, and it sets up empathy for your character. Then you'll have your part two. You will have your obstacles, and then you'll have your crisis or your climax in your resolution. What's important is that you create rising action. The tension has to rise, so it has to get to that climax and then resolve from there.

The way I've structured my stories and I think you're right, I think you've got the product or service that's crucial to show, obviously, because that's the enabler. But what I tend to do is I use the basic format of a case study. So for those people who are familiar with case studies, you know that there will be the background, you know, we find out about the world of the customer, there will be a problem. Then the case study will go through and describe the implementation of a solution.

That's where the product comes in. Then there will be the outcomes and certain metrics, which are, I think, extremely important. And then there will be some benefits. And then now that we have a solution where we're going in the future, what I do with that is I take that basic format, and then I put it into the visual medium. So the way I structure it is, I create what I call a technology sandwich. So most of my videos are in technology.

So I book end the story with something human at the beginning and at the end, in the middle is the enabler or the solution or the product or service. So the human story is what bookends the overall story. And by doing that I create an arc which usually goes from isolation to community. So that's the human story, and I use not just the audio or the dialogue of the customer explaining what they did, but there's a visual aspect. So instead of just showing a standard B roll I used my bare role to actually create another story.

So I layer a second story, which is usually something a about a hero trying to achieve a visible goal. So the visible goal could be to save someone, to win something to escape from something, or to stop or prevent something. So I think that's important to actually see video, for example, and that's my medium is to see it as an opportunity to lay all these layer all these stories one on top of the other. So whilst someone speaking, at least you have something else you're seeing the illustration of what they're saying.

You're seeing a great example of what they mean and usually that human story is associated with the achievement of those goals, usually survival goals or something like that. And your human stories are terrific in corporate language, I would imagine. You know, we're talking about the impact of your special widget on employees upon your customers customer, upon the directors of that company, about the families of the people affected by that company, about the wider public or whoever is involved in it. And, you know, the fact that you concentrate on the impact on humans is so critical to the storytelling pieces.

Elliot

And most companies don't do this, they make their products the hero rather than the customer.

Elly

No, that's exactly right. And I think you've touched on something quite important is, I mean, from the get go, I didn't interview any of the sales people or any of the technology experts that were involved in from the supplier and that were involved in the implementation. It's all about the customer. What the customer says about your product is so much more powerful than anything you'll ever say.

So there's a recognition of how important is that customer. But you're also recognising that in B2B. There are many levels of the channel, lots of levels, so it's important to understand the concept of that so your customers can't survive without their customers. So it's important to understand all those levels. At some point, there's an ultimate end user of whatever solution you've provided. That's probably a consumer, and we're all consumers. So we get it. Consumers trying to solve day to day problems. So sometimes it's a case of not just my customer’s customer, but the equivalent of my customer’s, customer’s customer.

So one of my technology clients did a case study for their banking services client. So it was actually quite a complex solution to do with data. So how I humanise this is that by focusing on the banking service customers, so the banking services customers were people who are applying for mortgages. So people like you and I had to take it down to that level of basic human needs. The need for shelter, the need to be to have your own home so we can all relate to that.

So that's important to understand how that ecosystem works. And I think that is the missing link of so many corporate presentations and sales pictures and videos. There's that core human connection, is so important. If there are people listening to this right now, Elliot that are in sales or sales leadership role and they're thinking, this is great gives me some ideas about how to change my presentation. But, you know, I don't get involved in the production of these videos. And yet it's not that hard to do in some respects to create their own customer journeys, and the technology is there to do it.

They're probably thinking, okay, what do I ask my marketing people to do? What do I ask my support team to do? Or, in fact, the rest of the sales team? What can I do to get more of these great stories about what our customers are achieving with us using the approaches that you've taken? So what are your thoughts on that? I think salespeople are instrumental to identifying these stories, and I think if you have this storytelling lens on and you look out for stories that will be compelling as case studies or generally are stories.

You can actually take them to your marketing department and pitch those because I think as a salesperson, you own the relationship of trust. And I work very closely with sales people because they are my conduit to the interviews that I undertake with their customers. Trust is so important in getting customers to really open up and take their technology, and just be real. So what to look for? I think you need to look for stories. As I said before, anything that’s life and death.

It's always great. There are some natural heroes that work really well for stories, police officers, detectives, anyone in the armed forces or doctors. People who are involved in life and death situations always make better characters. This is why we have so many TV shows featuring these types of heroes. So looking for those types of stories are really good, but also just looking at metrics. I know that sounds boring, but seeing how the solution can make a difference to a client and the client's environment, and seeing that how that transformation occurs is so important, I think metrics put in the right place can be extremely compelling.

So that is evidence that the solution has worked. So if they can demonstrate that and if the customer is  at that point where they do have something that they've measured, then that's important and that can be very compelling. Put in the right place.

I agree. It's amazing how many people don't even go back to their clients and say, Hey, you know that thing that you bought 12 months ago? How's that going for you? Because we said you’d get some pretty good results from it and then we just bugger off and decided to go and sell to some other people.

And we left you alone. And don't even check back in to say, we said you’d get some pretty cool results from this and that there are 1000 stories just by revisiting what you installed a year ago to say, how's that going for you? People are too worried about, yeah, there was a delay in the implementation there were a couple of needles along the way and they get scared off. And yet there are missed opportunities for literally thousands of stories. When you go back and say, hey, is that working the way you want it to?

Good, then tell me a story about how it's been working for you and then can you share that with us? And then all of a sudden, you've got an evidence bank in the whole company across the entire sales team of a couple of 100 stories. You can share in videos in emails, in pictures forever and a day, and it's a really easy thing to do. Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly because walking hand in hand with your customer is so important. If you've got a fantastic story, even if it has its bumps along the way, it is again the relationship of trust that your customer has watched you solve all those problems.

Why not talk about them? And I've seen organisations who have done this extremely well, whereby they will apply for partner awards and they need buy-in from their customer to be involved in those partner awards. They will tell the story about the solution. And when they're selected and they win the awards, both of them walk on stage and accept the accolade. And that is, if you don't do that, you've missed an opportunity. A fantastic PR marketing opportunity, sales opportunity as well. It does so much for your brand to be walking hand in hand with your customer along your journey through the ups and downs, because we know that's life.

That's how it goes. We can't always control everything. And then you can look at those things that go wrong and show or demonstrate to your market how you've overcome those challenges and become a hero of your own brand.

Elliot

Exactly. And that's what this is all about. The voice of the customer. It's our job in sales to enable that voice to be heard so that it becomes so much more interesting and compelling for your future customers. Elly, it’s been fantastic to catch up with you. Thank you so much for being part of Selling in the Time of Corona.

And I look forward to seeing your next video.

Elly

A pleasure, Elliott. Thank you so much.

Elliot

Well, boys and girls, did you like that story. You can see more of Elly's work at Organic.Film, or I can help you create that hero's journey in just one session so that clients will want to break out the popcorn. Just send me a note and I'll see it on my Batphone. You can also share this with your friends in marketing, PR communications, or sales and see what you can all do together to bring those tired, bored customers closer to you.

 

Remember, your ears are safe. Elly and I recorded this entire podcast whilst living happily ever after in Melbourne.

The end.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.