Jason: Welcome to the Sales Experience Podcast. On today's episode, I have with me Paul Smith. So he is a best selling author with titles like The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell, Lead with a Story, Sell with a Story, Parenting with a Story. He's a keynote speaker and was voted one of Inc magazine's top 100 leadership speakers in 2018.

And his focus, if you didn't already tell from the list of stuff that I mentioned is all about helping the world be a better place. One story at a time, Paul, welcome to the sales experience podcast.

Paul: Hey, Jason, thanks for having me on.

Jason: So I'm super excited. We got connected through a great person who I actually had on season one, Brian Ahern, and he had recommended we talk.

And as soon as I saw your information, I looked up what you did. I was excited to talk to you about stories. A lot of people might think since I'm in sales and leadership and coaching, I'm all about the sales story. I've got to say, I think that's actually one of my weaknesses. And so I'm super excited to talk to you about it and kind of, you know, explore that.

Well, let's fix that here for myself and for others. So, tell me, I guess, how you got into this. I mean, I don't usually do a lot of background stuff, but I think it's fascinating when someone decides to go on this journey where they're now a professional storyteller coach leader.

Paul: Yeah, well, I certainly didn't, uh, set out in life to be that, right?

That's not what you pick in the third grade that I'm going to come up and be a Storytelling coach. Now, and you know, I didn't obviously didn't go to school for that. And I spent my first 20 some odd years of my working career, just doing regular corporate jobs. I was in finance and accounting for a while.

I was in consumer and communications research, spent 20 years at the Procter and Gamble company. Just along the way, I got fascinated with this concept of storytelling. Mostly I think because the leaders that I admired the most seem to have this ability, this uncanny ability to tell really compelling stories.

And I wanted that. I wanted to be that kind of a leader. And they didn't teach me that in business school. And they didn't teach me that when I joined the companies I worked for. So I was just kind of frustrated that I didn't know how to do it. Yeah. And I set out on my own little personal learning journey.

I started interviewing all the leaders that I thought were really good at it. Along the way, at this point, I think I'm up to 300 or so CEOs, executives, salespeople, marketers that I've interviewed for the books I write. Well, but early on, those early interviews eventually turned into an idea for a book instead of just my own little selfish learning journey.

Sure. That's what led to the career change of doing this professionally.

Jason: And so kind of to have this conversation, obviously there's a sales related show. So there's salespeople and managers, leaders, owners of companies. They're kind of in the sales funnel, which is what usually talk to or centered topics around.

Obviously stories are an important part of sales or can be now here's the thing. And here's why I say I'm not very good at stories is that my default mode is. Analytical. And problem solving, and it's not about the journey, it's the destination, which I've been working on for a long time to kind of refocus that.

But like when I'm talking to somebody or I'm giving tips or I'm giving information, like if people listen to season one of my podcast especially, it's like, boom, here we go. Let's get right into the meat. No fluff, no extra stuff. Let's just do it. And I use stories, but I just don't think of myself in that way.

And I'm sure you see that a lot.

Paul: Yeah. And I don't think that's unusual. In fact, I would describe myself the same way. I mean, I started my career as an accountant. Okay. I wasn't telling a lot of stories. It was, look, give me the numbers and I'll give you some numbers back. Exactly. So I think I would change slightly the way you worded it in the way that I think about it.

It's not that I am naturally or that you naturally want to get to the meat of it and no fluff and storytelling is fluff. The kind of stories I teach people how to tell aren't fluff. They're the meat. And so these aren't distractions or hyperbole or anything like that. The storytelling I teach people how to do delivers the leadership or the sales or the marketing message that they want better than if they were just, I don't know, talking to people and, you know, here are the three reasons why you should buy my product, right?

That's a sales pitch. And you need sales pitches when you're in sales, there's nothing wrong with that. But if along the way, if along that entire sales journey, you have a few moments where you share some compelling stories, you'll be far more effective than if you only use the rational list of here are the three reasons why you should buy my product, the feature and benefit, hitting them over the head with that.

So the stories are not fluff at all. They're just a more effective vehicle to accomplish the same objective.

Jason: Now, we didn't plan this in advance, but it wasn't a complete setup, but that's what I was hoping you were gonna say. I mean, that difference between the fluffy story and the pointless story, and it's just kind of, you know, here's this, versus a, I wouldn't say tactical, but a useful, almost parable, to help somebody see what it is, the lesson that you're trying to teach, or the information.

And I know for myself, I do end up using a lot of stories. I guess for me, I just don't think about them in advance. So I don't go into meetings thinking here's my list of stories. Here's how they go. Here's the script. Where do you see that happen? That's effective. How do you either coach or train people to like, do you tell them like have this list of stories or what do you do for Absolutely.

Paul: Yeah. So the stories you tell. In a conversation, whether that's a sales pitch or a discovery call or whatever should be just as intentional as every other word that comes out of your mouth, right? So you go into a sales call, for example, knowing that I want to cover these five topics, right? And you probably have an outline, you've got a sales pitch, you probably have a PowerPoint deck and you've got bullet points and like you've well crafted.

Every part of this 30 minute conversation, your story should be part of that. It shouldn't just be, well, you know, if a story pops out of my mouth, great. You might not be the right story and you may tell it terribly. So, or you might miss the opportunity to tell the three most important stories that you should have told during that 30 minutes.

So yes, you should be intentional. And craft the stories ahead of time. And you should rehearse them no more or less than you rehearse every other thing that you say. If you're one of those people that has to rehearse everything that you say in a sales call, you should rehearse your stories exactly that amount.

And if you're one of those people who never rehearses anything and you just walk in where you've got your mental outline and you just kind of wing the whole thing, that's exactly the way you should deliver your stories exactly like you deliver everything else they should be. Part of your plan. I teach people, you should have a whole set of stories throughout the entire sales process that you're planning to tell at the right moment.

Jason: Hey, it's Jason here. We'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to change the way you view your selling role and become a sales professional? Do you have a team that is hungry for new ways to improve and grow? If so, I have various coaching and consulting programs available that might be great tools to help you achieve your goals.

To learn more about the ways we can work together and to book your free sales power call, go to Jason cutter. com. Now let's get back to the episode. So it's interesting because I have done that mostly the model where it's more, I know the bullet points. I know the outline. I know the journey as a salesperson that I'm going to take somebody through.

And two, I know the finish line. I know we can get there. I know I want to go from California to New York on a road trip. Where we go, detour stops, car breaks down, I don't know, but I know we're going to get there and I'm going to take you there and then we'll see how it goes. So I've become more of that way because before I was super scripted, having to do a speech word for word.

And so sometimes the stories change, sometimes they're different, but I understand from like, it makes sense where you have them and put them in your roadmap where either maybe it's just a toolbox. Okay. This point in the story or the conversation or the sales process, I have this story or this one to use.

Situationally.

Paul: Yeah. And so again, stories should be the same as the other stuff. So if you're on that journey and that 30 minute call or that one hour call, you know, from your California to New York, you know, you can't control everywhere. The conversation, right. Oftentimes they'll have an objection.

They'll send you off on a detour. And a good salesperson isn't going to say, Oh, I'm sorry. I can't talk about that because that wasn't on my plan.

Jason: Let me get back to this. Cause I have to tell the story first before we can move forward.

Paul: Yeah. So of course, when an objection happens in a sales call or a detour, you go handle the objection.

And only after that, do you get back to where you were in the driving plan? Right. So stories are the same. You should have some stories that are on your plan. This is my planned route from hello. How are you? My name is Jason. all the way to thank you for the order. You've got a planned route and there are going to be some stories you plan to tell on that route and there'll be some stories you tell that you had no plan to tell at all but because they brought up this objection, well now I've got to tell story 317 because they objected on about something and that's my story that gets them to get off of that objection.

So yeah you should be able to pivot where the conversation takes you with your stories just like you would with anything else in a conversation. Which by the way, means you need to have a massive set of stories, a repertoire of stories to tell. I mean, massive is too large, but you need to have a repertoire of stories to tell at the right moment.

Jason: Well, and I think that's important. The one thing I've always taught salespeople to do is have. That repertoire, that toolbox, that list in your brain of all of the different scenarios of people in that same situation as your current prospect, so you can pull those stories out when it comes up, right? So whether you're talking to a single mother with two kids.

Who's in this situation versus this guy who's never been married in this situation based on whatever you're selling is to be able to pull in these kind of testimonial stories, references of other people that you've helped, which I think is important. So I could see in your framework, there's the bullet point, which is tell a story here.

Like this is where we validate that it's safe to move forward. And then there's pulling from something relative.

Paul: Yeah. So your mental Rolodex of stories should be getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So you can do that.

Jason: And that's challenging. I see a lot of new reps who are like, I don't have stories. I don't have these things, or I haven't had a lot of experiences.

I see people who are selling, let's say, software to companies to help with their marketing. And they've never been in marketing. They don't know. And I usually tell them, you've got to like, either listen to your customers, listen to other reps, get those stories, get those information, like build that. Even if you haven't been there yourself, you've got to build that for yourself.

Paul: That's great advice. Yeah. When you're young and new, You have to try a lot harder to build up your repertoire of stories because you just started, right? Yeah, so latch on to that old guy that, uh, you know, he's going to be gone in five years, but he's got 30 years in the trenches and he's got all the stories, right?

Take that guy to lunch, right? Get him sharing a bunch of those stories, because then they'll become your stories that you can tell.

Jason: And I know when I was new, I would sit in the cubicle next to the veterans. And just fill in yellow pads full of stories and information and useful things to say and respond and build that.

Paul: Yeah. Smart. You definitely do that.

Jason: So one part, and this is, it might be a complete side note, but I've always been curious about this is for me, and maybe I'm alone in this. When I tell a story for the first time, it always feels authentic, energetic, exciting. When I see somebody or myself sometimes, but I see other people who say the same story over and over again, it just becomes robotic, right?

I've also sat in on demos. Where the sales rep is telling me a story and I know they do that story like eight times a day and they do it week after week after week and it feels like they're bored with the story. What do you do, like, what's your advice about how to keep it fresh and feeling like you just told it for the very first time?

Paul: Yeah, yeah. Great question. So one of the questions, the buyers, professional procurement managers that I asked them when doing the research for my book was what makes a sales pitch sound like a sales pitch, right? And almost all of them gave me the same answer, right? You want to guess what it was?

Jason: Rehearsed stories and sales process.

Paul: Yeah. So rehearsed. So they said the moment that the tone of the conversation changed from something that sounded just conversational and extemporaneous to something that sounded scripted and memorized. They said, that's the moment I knew the sales pitch had started.

And they said the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. And I immediately go into defensive mode. I'm looking to like poke holes and everything that they're saying. So you don't want to sound scripted and memorized. And this sounds like a blinding flash of the obvious, but. The best way to not sound inscripted and memorized is to not script and memorize what you say.

Jason: But you just said that you should script and memorize. No, I didn't. Okay.

Paul: No, don't script and memorize. Got it. Plan. Plan to tell this story, then this story, then this story. But do not script this story and this story and like word for word. Got it. Plan. Like I'm going to tell that story about that guy that did the, you know what, yeah, that thing.

Yeah. I'm going to tell that story. And Oh, the story about that woman that she bought it and then she'd returned it and it didn't work. And then I got her to buy it. That story. I'm going to tell that story next. Right. You're not scripting the story. So the way you should remember your stories is just in outline form.

Basically. So in fact, if we can get into it, if you want, but there are eight questions that each story needs to answer. All right.

Jason: That's it for part one of my conversation with Paul Smith, make sure to subscribe and tune in for the other parts of this conversation. And as always keep in mind that everything in life is sales and people remember the experience you gave them.