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Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast
with Gregory Shepherd, brought to you by
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Startup Science dot Io. Greg is
an entrepreneur who has built and sold twelve
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businesses. He's a recipient of four
Private Equity awards and is a featured ten
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X speaker and Forbes author. Here's
Gregory Shepherd. Every founder needs to tell
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a story, and my guest this
week has been called the world's most industrious
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storyteller. Mark Howell has over thirty
five years of experience growing purpose driven brands
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by as much as six hundred percent. As host of the weekly Business of
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the Story podcast and author of the
best selling books Brand by Witchery and The
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Narrative Gym for Business, He's helped
thousands of leaders amplify their impact through the
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power of strategic storytelling. I first
met Park at a conference and thought,
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this guy is the bees knee.
So I'm honored to have you on the
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podcast. Park, Greg, thanks
for having me, and you know,
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I think that's the first time in
my entire career I've been referred to as
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the bee's knees, So thank you
for that. Well you are, and
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you're also a cool cat. Can
we just dive right in. Let's do
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it all right. What's the most
important thing for a startup founder you get
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right when crafting your brand story?
Yeah, the most important important thing is
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number one. There's two most important
things, greg. Number One, your
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story is actually not about you,
but it's about your audience and where they
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are on their journey and how you
are there to help them get what they
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want. And the second thing that
a lot of founders and a lot of
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a lot of business people, the
mistake they make is they tell a story
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about what they make versus what they
make happen in the world. And I
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always say that, you know,
stories about outcomes always trump stories about offerings
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because I hate to say it's spoiler
alert, but most people actually don't care
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about you and your brand and you're
offering. They want to know what you
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can make happen in their life.
That's a good point, It's true,
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right, they don't want to Nobody
ever wants you to talk about yourself if
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they want to hear about them and
how you relate to that absolutely, and
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you know how it is. I
mean, we've all started business, you
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in particular, I mean, you
really can appreciate this is you spend a
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lot of time and energy creating this
wonderful widget SaaS platform coaching service, whatever
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it is, and we're all very
proud of our work, right, but
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we should never lead with that in
our stories because people don't share that pride.
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They are more interested in like,
okay, dude, that's fantastic,
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but what does it mean to me? That is such a good point.
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So how can early stage companies who
don't have a long track record establish this
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credibility through storytelling? Because the first
the part of the brand story that we
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were just talking about, it's like, how do you express credibility? Right?
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How would you advise that they do
that even if they haven't had a
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track record? Gosh, you know, I would begin with the old Simon
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cynic things, start with why you
know, what's your origin story? Why
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did you create this in the first
place? What drives you beyond just making
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money? And let's face it,
sure founders all want to make a lot
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of money and get filthy rich on
their product, but there's always something else
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that is driving them to go out
and actually help people, help businesses,
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whatever that is. So there's nothing
wrong if you don't have a major track
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record, because you're early to the
game, then tell that story, that
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origin story, as to why you
made this in the first place. Who
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is that core audience that you were
going out to help, what was the
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major problem that you were helping them
overcome, and therefore, what is your
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solution moving forward? And boy,
there's nothing like that because people can't argue
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with that origin story. There's a
crack record built into the origins story,
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and then they can appreciate where you
are in this startup mode of all right,
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we're just getting our feed under our
our feet, under our legs,
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under ourselves. Maybe we're in it
six months, maybe we're in it six
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years and still struggling to find that
traction go with. I start with that
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origins story. So the origin story
is sort of basically your as you said,
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Simon Snex why, Like why am
I doing this? It's not necessarily
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what am I doing it for?
But why am I doing it in the
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first place? Right? Like in
my case, I'm trying to help founders
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succeed, to help with wealth and
equality across marginalized groups, right, And
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so that is my if I don't
have a track record, I start with
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that as the roots of my why
is that correct, That's a really great
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way of thinking about it. Greg. You know, in my case with
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the business of story, I've been
in the advertising, branding, marketing world
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for thirty years and I can't tell
you how many times I would sit through
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these horrendous meetings and PowerPoint presentations and
feel, Greg like I was completely wasting
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my time and burning all of these
brain cells trying to understand what the hell
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this business person, this leader was
trying to tell us. And I would
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look around the room and I would
see the same problem. I mean,
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really smart, brilliant people just completely
checking out and wasting their time with these
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communications. And it seemed like it
just kept getting progressively worse. More technology
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took over, the more our brains
got completely focused on this online world.
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It took us away from that offline
human connection, and people just started yammering
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on with data charts, graphs,
opinions and assertions. And I figured out,
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there's got to be a better way
to do this, you know,
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how can we actually excite people in
the shortest amount of time possible. And
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it was all in answer to the
question, Greg, when was the last
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time you were bored into buying anything? And if we're boring our audiences out
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there. We are in trouble.
And that's where I started studying story and
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found these frameworks that really have this
powerful connection to that limbic problem solving,
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decision making, buying brain. And
that's why I start a business a story.
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Yeah, so if you don't have
a track record, basically tell them
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what flips your pancakes? Yeah?
Right, and then yeah, go into
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that and then from their drive to
get get them involved emotionally, get them
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involved as a human instead of as
so apply to the persona instead of the
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icy absolutely right, instead of the
ideal Yeah, okay, got it.
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That's really good pointer. So let's
go into this now, which would be
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the next natural progression of this series
of questions, What are some of the
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common story telling mistakes that you would
hear a startup make, like, you
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know, what are the most common, you know, ways that they plain
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You were just talking about sitting at
a table and having your brain right right,
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What are some of the most common
scenarios of those that you see that
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you're like, oh, this is
just pains. So we started with the
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story's not about you, it's about
your audience. So that's number one,
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Number two, it's not about what
you make, but what you may happen.
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Number three is a lot of times
founders, and especially in the business
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of business world, very smart people
never get out of exposition. And what
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I mean by that, they never
get out of act one. They and
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and and and their audiences to death. And after about that third and man,
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we just check out. Because our
limbic brain is a problem solution brain.
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It's like, dude, you haven't
even gotten to the problem yet,
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so what's going on? So we
need to turn our messaging from non narrative.
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That again, our limbic brain the
tests into narrative, set up problem
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resolution and be able to do that
very quickly because we have learned that this
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limbic brain is wired that way.
It's like the algorithm to making meaning.
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If you and and and me an
exposition and never get to your point,
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then there's no meaning involved and it
will check out. So that's the next
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real big thing. Ask yourself,
whenever you're giving a presentation, are you
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and and ending your audience to death
without a setup problem resolution? That truly
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makes your communication narrative inform I mean, it's interesting. I was talking to
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a neuroscience right I was looking at
a deal the other day, an investment
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deal, and the guy was a
neuroscientist, and he was talking about this,
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and he said, he used some
analogies that I thought were really,
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really fitting, and I'm just going
to ask you if you think that you
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agree, He says. You know, when you walk outside of a grocery
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store and you see somebody with a
clipble it, your immediate reaction, whether
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they're giving you something or asking you
to vote on something or buy some whatever,
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your immediate reaction is no immediately because
your brain is trained to say no,
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because your brain is a gatekeeper and
usually thinks, well, if I've
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seen it before, I don't want
to see it again, And the answer
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is no. So the trick is
trying to get past the gatekeeper and get
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to the back of the brain where
all the logic actually, where the questions
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and the answers and the logic actually
takes place. So what you're saying is,
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if I understand you correctly, is
that the worst way to get yourself
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in that is to get trapped up
with the gatekeeper by saying something they don't
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care about, and the brain is
simply just going, now, I don't
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care that they're just talking about themselves
or and this is impossible, confusing whatever
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the thing is that turns off the
front of the brain and do a straightforward
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V line to the back of the
brain by tricking the front of the brain
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that it hasn't heard it before,
or that it cares because it's more emotional
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than it is abstract in business.
Is that? Yeah? And the way
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I boil it down, Greg is
this, And I'm known neuro scientists by
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any stretch, but I have read
and consumes so much information on this that
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our brain basically has one function,
and that is the survival of our being.
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Everything else is gravy. It's like, Okay, what's happening right now?
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Like that window over your shoulder right
there, If some big dude came
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and knocked on that window, your
brain would go and overmode. You would
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completely forget about me in this conversation. You would look over your shoulder.
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You would wonder, is this a
fight or flight or free situation? What
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do I have to do to protect
my being? That's what your subconscious limbic
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brain is doing. Then you notice, poet, you're pal Joe who helps
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you do the show, and he's
dressed up as a clown for to surprise
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you for your birthday. All of
a sudden, now the world is wonderful
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and you're having a great time.
Well, we have to understand that we
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as communicators are hitting that negativity biased
brain first and foremost. It's going to
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look at us and say, is
this a flight fight or free situation or
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is there actually an opportunity here.
That's why that set up problem resolution dynamic
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tickles the back of that brain.
Know, Jonathan Hype, one of America's
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foremost social psychologists, said, and
I love this line so much. He
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goes, our brains are story processors, not logic processors. We have to
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understand the impact first of that data, of that of that software, of
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that offering, and then we level
it up into that logic, you know,
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frontal cortex brain. But we buy
with that emotion first. So that's
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what we're trying to do is get
to that back of that limbic brain,
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hook it emotionally, and then level
it up into the logic. So it's
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almost like a hack, right,
It's almost like a cognitive bias hack right
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too, to get past the nose
that the naysayer and get back to the
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part and it's like, Okay,
this is something I can actually think about.
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It absolutely is. And you know
what, your audience doesn't even know
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this is going on because it's happening
in their subconscious. You want to open
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a story loop by inviting them in
with a statement of agreement. Here's what
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we want to have happened in our
life, you know, but we're not
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currently having that happen because of these
major obstacles we need to overcome. Therefore,
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here's the way forward in founders in
the startup world. This is a
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marvelous little messaging tool called the end. But therefore that enables them to use
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this algorithm a story of set up
problem resolution using just these three basic words.
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And but therefore that's how you first
hooked that brain, get it leaning
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in, and you know, great, you may have experienced that during my
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presentation at the ACE Tech conference.
I use the ABT throughout that whole thing,
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because all I was trying to do
is get all of those startup leaders
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leaning in, and then I could
dole out the information, first using an
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anecdote to make my business point,
then backing that up with the numbers to
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prove it to the logic brain.
But always start with the heart. The
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head will follow. So this leads
me to this. Okay, So everybody's
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guilty of doing a d D.
Right. Everybody wants to tell their vision.
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And there's so much to a vision. When you're the person that came
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up with it, right, and
you're saying, oh is this and this
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is you know, you sound like
an informal and it does this and that
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and that's not all it does?
Thinks this right, How does somebody get
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around that trap? How does somebody
talk about their vision and not fall into
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the end and D How do you
frame a vision as a as an able.
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Let's let's give your audience an example, Greg, and let's use you.
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Could I put you on the spot
here? Yeah, totally all right,
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let's talk about this show right here, or or start let don't.
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Let's talk specifically about this show and
your audience. I would like you to
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identify who is your number one audience
that you are trying to reach with this
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show and be as specific as you
possibly can. Early stage founders, so
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pre a round founders, what do
they want relative to the content from this
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show? They want an experience that
comes out of coffeetop type conversation. Okay,
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right, so let's just sitting down
chatting about the business of story and
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how to use your framework and kind
of like off, you know, as
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if they're listening as apply on the
wall. So you've got early stage founders
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and they're looking for additional invite advice
that they would get if in an anecdotal
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situation, you know, like you're
saying, if they were in a room
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full of leaders and founders to learn
from other people, and why is that
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important to them? Because these are
the things that aren't taught in accelerators or
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universities. These are conversations that happen
with experienced people between experienced people, because
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only two experienced people can ask each
other questions and elevate the conversation like that
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because they have experience. So you
are an early stage founder and you want
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to be able to tap into experienced
leaders that have seen there, been there,
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and done that so that you can
tellext your growth faster than ever.
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Fair enough. Statement of agreement.
Yeah, you're the space in between the
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topic there, So there's our and
statement of agreement. We've identified the audience
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what they want and why that's important
to them, so we understand who they
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are, and we appreciate what they
want and why that's important to them.
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Now the but here's the plot twist, But why don't they currently have it?
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What problem are you currently solving?
And I think you said it.
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You are sharing like minds that they
cannot get at regular incubators, Is that
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right? Yeah? Yeah, So
you are an early stage founder and you
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want to be able to tap into
brilliant minds that have experienced what it takes
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to ten x the growth of your
startup. But you can't find those minds
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because you are not in these you
know, close knit situations where you can
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really benefit from this knowledge. Therefore, how often does your show airs?
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It once a week? It airs
twice a month. Therefore, now twice
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a month, you can have access
to some of the top minds in the
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startup world right here on Greg's show. And he does this as you see.
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What we did here is we identified
the audience what's what they want and
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why that's important to them. So
that's our shared statement or agreement. You
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get your audience nodding, yes,
you know, you understand me. You
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appreciate what I want, but you
don't currently have it because of this problem.
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Oh, we've just demonstrated empathy.
Now we can appreciate what you know
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the problem is you are solving for
Therefore, picture what it's going to be
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like when you can plug in these
brilliant minds from around the world to help
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you grow through Greg's podcast. Through
Greg's podcast, Gregory Shepherd does not come
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in till the very end of that
statement of consequence. So this way we
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remain focused on your audience, the
problem that you are solving for them from
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their point of view, picturing what
it's going to look like when they overcome
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that problem through the product or service
I have to offer. That's the end,
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right. Therefore, I got to
say, like if I was if
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I wasn't afraid I would lose you
on the podcast, I would say,
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you stand up and throw your mic
down because you could just drop the mic.
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After that, everybody heard that,
I was beautifully done. But I
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have another question. So then what
about values, culture, all of the
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things that have to do with sort
of what when you talk about your why,
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you're also talking about your values and
your culture, right, You're talking
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about what flips your pancakes, right, So in my case, it's wealth,
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inequality and inclusion and environmental issues and
sustainability issues, stuff like that.
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So what part does that play in
the story in this process that you just
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went through, Well, we use
the process. I want you to think
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of the ABT like the chassis of
a car. It could be a card,
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you know, that chassis still kind
of looks the same. You've got
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an engine, a power train,
four wheels, you know, in this
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body to take you, this chassis
to take you places. Or it could
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be a dump truck pretty much the
same thing, motor drive, train,
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chasse, wheels. The ABT can
be used on virtually any sort of messaging
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you have. So let's say you're
not selling a product or service or a
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widget or a SaaS platform at the
moment, your audience is more interested in
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your vision. All right, let's
make your vision the brand. But it's
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got to be told from their perspective. So again, who's your audience.
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You've got to do that heavy lifting
up front? Or they want relative to
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your vision and why would that be
important to them? But why don't they
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have that? And therefore, how
is your vision the way forward? In
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order to help them get that?
So you could use this ABT. It
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is literally a narrative framework that you
could use virtually in all of your communications.
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It's not always a story in and
of itself, and that it doesn't
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necessarily have a time stamp, a
location stamp, a central character, but
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it uses the three forces of story
of agreement, contradiction, and consequence.
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That again that limbic problem solving buying
brain loves. So if you are now
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up there and you've shared your vision, now you want to talk about the
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mission you're on, that again,
assemble that message using the ABT, and
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then what I love to do is
say, all right, after you've done
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that, after you've set the stage
with your ABT, sprinkle in some personal
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anecdotes or some customer anecdotes. That's
when you use the short little story,
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which is essentially an expanded ABT,
but time stamp when did it happen?
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Location stamp where did it happen?
Single central character that your audience can relate
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to. Who is that person?
Introduce them what happened? What was the
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surprising outcome that makes your business point
for you? So I call those the
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five primal elements of a short story. You begin with an ABT to set
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the stage, and you can tell
that ABT in under fifteen seconds, and
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then you follow it up or illustrate
that ABT problem solution dynamic in action through
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a true story well told. And
you can tell that story and under a
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minute, so in less than ninety
seconds, you can use this one two
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punch of the ABT narrative framework to
hook them and then an anecdotal story to
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reel them in. You're playing totally
to their emotion. You've got them opened
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up, and now you can start
trotting out your logic and your reason in
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your data because all you're doing is
proofing out the emotional story that you connected
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with your audience. Let's step back
and apply this to some scenarios. So
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let's say you want to do the
ABT to attract super awesome talent that you
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know everybody wants to hire. You
would essentially take the same story, right,
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and you could apply it to that
conversation. So hypothetical, Well,
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who are we talking to? Are
we talking to a programmer that is just
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like, she's just unbelievable And a
lot of people are going after this particular
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person, And you've done your homework
and you really want her, but you're
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not you're not really sure yet as
to what's going to push your buttons to
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get her to come in. So
what you want to do is, you
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know, welcome Sally. You know, it's wonderful to have you here.
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And I can imagine you've got fifteen
years of experience doing this in Silicon Valley
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and you're looking for that next level
of job that gives you the challenge of
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writing the code and the outcomes that
you're seeking with the life balance that you're
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looking for. Right, she goes, Yeah, you don't. Great,
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That's exactly what I'm looking for.
But you don't currently have it or you
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haven't found it early in your career
because everyone's working you to death. Therefore,
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picture yourself, you know, here
and working at your pace for either
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here at home or whatever. You're
going to now pay that off with our
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program because we have a unique way
of treating our folks here. For instance,
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let me tell you about Greg.
He came in two years ago and
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he was so burned out from his
life at eBay that he thought he was
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going to give it all up until
we showed him what he could do here,
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and he thought we were just kidding. Until in September of twenty twenty
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one, he and his wife had
a child and realized that he needed six
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weeks off to really attend to his
family. We gave it. We happily
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gave it to him. Now,
Grey here is one of our pop performers.
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Is this something, Sally, that
would be of interest to you in
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your career? So what we've done
is setting up with an ABT, you
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know, focused on one problem at
a time, work life balance, and
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said we can deliver on that.
Let me prove it to you by telling
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you as quick anecdotal story about Greg
that she could relate to. And I've
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done all of that. Now I'm
just winging it right here. But I
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do that in the first ninety seconds
of that interview, and I get hurt
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and saying, well, yeah,
you actually understand me, you appreciate what
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I mean. It's totally a bypass, right, because the front of the
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mind isn't there's nothing for it to
block. It needs a conversation and that
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has to happen in the back of
the brain. It needs that emotional conversation.
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What's in it for you? So
let's apply this to a pitch,
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right, So let's say now you
have to pitch. You have to pitch
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an investor, you have a pitch
competition, or you have you know,
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an investor says, Okay, I'm
gonna give you ten minutes. Tell me
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you could use essentially the same thing, but instead of the candidate, you're
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talking to the investor, right,
so you're using the same structure. So
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can we run through one of those
real quick? You are going to be
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my investor, all right, Greg, and I'm going to ask you to
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invest two million dollars in the business
of story. All right. So the
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first thing I need to do is
I gotta understand you. What's in it
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for you? Why? Why would
you remotely want to do this? Well,
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one thing I've learned about you is
you are about a quality. So
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potentially I would I would I would
position that pitch again from your point of
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view, and I would say,
let's do a problem solution dynamic around a
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quality. Greg. You know,
thank you so much for being here today.
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You it's a true honor for me
because you have such a long head
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degree of success in this world,
and I know that a quality is like
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at the top of your list when
you are finding important investments in the world.
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But it is so hard in this
day and age to find that kind
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of equality across board, because everybody
seems to be in it for the money,
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and we live in such a divided
world that it's it's hard to vet,
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you know, the proper investment for
your portfolio. Therefore, I want
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you to picture the power story in
all of our customers lives and how it
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creates understanding and empathy in the world
to buoy the very equality that you want
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to see in your portfolios, Greg, I can show you over the past
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ten years, from major iconic brands
to individual leaders, how our product service
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offering in the three narrative frameworks we
teach creates that understanding in people, even
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in the most divisive of circumstances,
to find that common ground and build a
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quality across the board. For instance, let me tell you about Shirley,
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and I'm just vamping now. But
then I would tell you about a story
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and I would show it to you
in action. Now I would have completely
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boiled down that ABT because I was
just winging it there. I would have
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really worked on it and got that
down to be as concise as possible.
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So now that your brain and anybody
else sitting in that room has a singular
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narrative park is here to solve the
problem of equality in communication, finding that
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common ground, and then I would
leverage that as much as possible. I
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want to roll out two or three, or four or five different problems that
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I solved through my work. There
are plenty that we all solve them all
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work. I would start with one, the most poignant problem solution dynamic,
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and I would stay on that until
I've got them completely bought into that problem
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solution dynamic, get them only focused
on one thing at a time. That's
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how I would use the ABT.
So let's keep using these different scenarios.
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Because we talked about what it is, and now I'm trying to talk about
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application. So we talked about the
application and hiring good talent. We talked
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about the application in your pitch,
right, So let's talk about the application
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of the business of story and the
ABT to product and design. So if
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you're talking about your product instead of
your company, would you go, I
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mean this, it sounds like it
just fits for everything. You just use
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the same algorithm, if you will, and then put different places in the
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blanks. Is there any nuance between
talking about it from that perspective? Yeah,
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think about it this way. Greg, You're exactly right. You can
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use the ABT across support. It's
even a strategy tool. So say you're
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going into a meeting and how many
meetings have we been in that go down
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several different rabbit holes and you come
out of it ninety minutes later and you
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feel like you've accomplished nothing, if
nothing else, you maybe have created five
371
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more concerns you now have to deal
with. You use the ABT to set
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the agenda for that meeting. All
right, we're coming in to solve one
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problem, and one problem only.
We may have three or four fires we
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have to push put out in this
meeting, but they all level up to
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what what do they trend to towards
that one problem solution dynamic? Then you
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start that meeting with the ABT Ladies
and gentlemen. We are here because we've
377
00:27:52.799 --> 00:27:57.839
got version four of our SAS platform
rolling out in two months, and we
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00:27:57.880 --> 00:28:03.240
are extraordinarily excited about the new features
in it. But we have three major
379
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bugs that still need to be fixed. Therefore, in the next hour,
380
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we are going to determine what we
need to do with our coding team to
381
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be able to do this and this. So we got bug fixing. Yeah,
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we've got the excitement of vergeon before
coming out, but we got a
383
00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.519
bug. We gotta fix her.
In this case, three bugs, we'll
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just call it bug fixing. And
now what is our way forward? When
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anybody in that meeting gets off track, you just pull them back into your
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ABT. Nope, we're not here
to talk about that. We are here
387
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to talk about fixing these bugs.
So that's just one example of how you
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can use the ABT as a strategy
tool. It's also an amazing story listening
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tool. And I'm sure you've been
there, like we all have, where
390
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someone comes in and they vent,
they're so frustrated something's gone completely sideways in
391
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their life and their career and their
project, and they just come in and
392
00:28:55.480 --> 00:28:59.079
vomit on you. Right, You
spend like ten minutes and you go uh
393
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huh uh huh uh huh uh huh. Well maybe it's a customer doing that
394
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and you're gonnah hu. At the
end of that, you filter it through
395
00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:11.759
your ABT mechanism and you say,
Okay, great, Greg, what I
396
00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:15.319
heard you say? You want this
and it's important because of this, but
397
00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:21.920
this is the thing that's standing in
your way causing unbelievable frustration. Therefore,
398
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:26.640
what we really need to focus in
on is doing something this or hearing for
399
00:29:26.680 --> 00:29:30.880
this. And then three things happen
when you do that. Well. Number
400
00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:33.240
one, they'll go, oh my
god, you actually said that better than
401
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:38.039
I did, which leads to number
two, you actually listen to me.
402
00:29:38.279 --> 00:29:44.079
There's nothing that builds trust faster than
listening. And then number three, that
403
00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:48.240
sometimes happens, not always, but
when it does, it's like the most
404
00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:52.640
important outcome because you've already established that
trust. They said, you said that's
405
00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:55.240
so well, Greg, that I
forgot to tell you one other thing.
406
00:29:55.880 --> 00:30:00.960
And it's always that one other thing
that's the real problem. Everything else has
407
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:06.440
just been symptoms leading up to that. So the ABT is a fabulous problem
408
00:30:06.519 --> 00:30:10.839
solution listening device once you really get
it down, and then of course you
409
00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:15.160
can use it in all of your
communication, including social media, landing pages.
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I mean, you name it.
You just keep using the setup problem
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resolution dynamic. I love that,
and I want to get to how you
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can use ABT to handle failure,
but we have to take a break.
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Coming up in the second part of
my talk with Park Howell, the founder
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of Business of Story, Park shares
how Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey
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can help B to B companies.
The hero's journey is way too woo woo
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for lots and lots of B to
B business minds, And I say to
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them, you know, B to
B doesn't necessarily mean business to business.
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It quite often means boring to board. The Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shephard
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00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.880
is brought to you by startup Science
dot Io. Founders can log on to
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00:31:02.119 --> 00:31:07.000
startup science dot io and use code
Forbes to get free access. To connect
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00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:12.680
and find out more about greg go
to Gregory shepherd dot com. The Startup
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00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:17.200
Science Podcast is a production of Forbes
Books.
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00:00:01.360 --> 00:00:07.120
Forbes Books presents the Startup Science Podcast
with Gregory Shepherd, brought to you by
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00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:13.240
Startup Science dot Io. Greg is
an entrepreneur who has built and sold twelve
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00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:18.719
businesses. He's a recipient of four
Private Equity awards and is a featured ten
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00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:24.760
X speaker and Forbes author. Here's
Gregory Shepherd. Every founder needs to tell
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00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:29.399
a story, and my guest this
week has been called the world's most industrious
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storyteller. Mark Howell has over thirty
five years of experience growing purpose driven brands
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by as much as six hundred percent. As host of the weekly Business of
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the Story podcast and author of the
best selling books Brand by Witchery and The
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Narrative Gym for Business, He's helped
thousands of leaders amplify their impact through the
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power of strategic storytelling. I first
met Park at a conference and thought,
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this guy is the bees knee.
So I'm honored to have you on the
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podcast. Park, Greg, thanks
for having me, and you know,
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I think that's the first time in
my entire career I've been referred to as
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the bee's knees, So thank you
for that. Well you are, and
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you're also a cool cat. Can
we just dive right in. Let's do
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it all right. What's the most
important thing for a startup founder you get
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right when crafting your brand story?
Yeah, the most important important thing is
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number one. There's two most important
things, greg. Number One, your
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story is actually not about you,
but it's about your audience and where they
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are on their journey and how you
are there to help them get what they
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want. And the second thing that
a lot of founders and a lot of
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a lot of business people, the
mistake they make is they tell a story
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about what they make versus what they
make happen in the world. And I
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always say that, you know,
stories about outcomes always trump stories about offerings
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because I hate to say it's spoiler
alert, but most people actually don't care
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about you and your brand and you're
offering. They want to know what you
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can make happen in their life.
That's a good point, It's true,
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right, they don't want to Nobody
ever wants you to talk about yourself if
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they want to hear about them and
how you relate to that absolutely, and
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you know how it is. I
mean, we've all started business, you
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in particular, I mean, you
really can appreciate this is you spend a
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lot of time and energy creating this
wonderful widget SaaS platform coaching service, whatever
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it is, and we're all very
proud of our work, right, but
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we should never lead with that in
our stories because people don't share that pride.
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They are more interested in like,
okay, dude, that's fantastic,
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but what does it mean to me? That is such a good point.
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So how can early stage companies who
don't have a long track record establish this
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credibility through storytelling? Because the first
the part of the brand story that we
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were just talking about, it's like, how do you express credibility? Right?
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How would you advise that they do
that even if they haven't had a
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track record? Gosh, you know, I would begin with the old Simon
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cynic things, start with why you
know, what's your origin story? Why
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did you create this in the first
place? What drives you beyond just making
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money? And let's face it,
sure founders all want to make a lot
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of money and get filthy rich on
their product, but there's always something else
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that is driving them to go out
and actually help people, help businesses,
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whatever that is. So there's nothing
wrong if you don't have a major track
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record, because you're early to the
game, then tell that story, that
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origin story, as to why you
made this in the first place. Who
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is that core audience that you were
going out to help, what was the
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major problem that you were helping them
overcome, and therefore, what is your
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solution moving forward? And boy,
there's nothing like that because people can't argue
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with that origin story. There's a
crack record built into the origins story,
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and then they can appreciate where you
are in this startup mode of all right,
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we're just getting our feed under our
our feet, under our legs,
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under ourselves. Maybe we're in it
six months, maybe we're in it six
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years and still struggling to find that
traction go with. I start with that
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origins story. So the origin story
is sort of basically your as you said,
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Simon Snex why, Like why am
I doing this? It's not necessarily
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what am I doing it for?
But why am I doing it in the
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first place? Right? Like in
my case, I'm trying to help founders
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succeed, to help with wealth and
equality across marginalized groups, right, And
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so that is my if I don't
have a track record, I start with
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that as the roots of my why
is that correct, That's a really great
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way of thinking about it. Greg. You know, in my case with
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the business of story, I've been
in the advertising, branding, marketing world
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for thirty years and I can't tell
you how many times I would sit through
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these horrendous meetings and PowerPoint presentations and
feel, Greg like I was completely wasting
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my time and burning all of these
brain cells trying to understand what the hell
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this business person, this leader was
trying to tell us. And I would
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look around the room and I would
see the same problem. I mean,
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really smart, brilliant people just completely
checking out and wasting their time with these
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communications. And it seemed like it
just kept getting progressively worse. More technology
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took over, the more our brains
got completely focused on this online world.
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It took us away from that offline
human connection, and people just started yammering
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on with data charts, graphs,
opinions and assertions. And I figured out,
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there's got to be a better way
to do this, you know,
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how can we actually excite people in
the shortest amount of time possible. And
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it was all in answer to the
question, Greg, when was the last
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time you were bored into buying anything? And if we're boring our audiences out
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there. We are in trouble.
And that's where I started studying story and
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found these frameworks that really have this
powerful connection to that limbic problem solving,
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decision making, buying brain. And
that's why I start a business a story.
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Yeah, so if you don't have
a track record, basically tell them
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what flips your pancakes? Yeah?
Right, and then yeah, go into
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that and then from their drive to
get get them involved emotionally, get them
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involved as a human instead of as
so apply to the persona instead of the
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icy absolutely right, instead of the
ideal Yeah, okay, got it.
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That's really good pointer. So let's
go into this now, which would be
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the next natural progression of this series
of questions, What are some of the
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common story telling mistakes that you would
hear a startup make, like, you
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know, what are the most common, you know, ways that they plain
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You were just talking about sitting at
a table and having your brain right right,
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What are some of the most common
scenarios of those that you see that
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you're like, oh, this is
just pains. So we started with the
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story's not about you, it's about
your audience. So that's number one,
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Number two, it's not about what
you make, but what you may happen.
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Number three is a lot of times
founders, and especially in the business
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of business world, very smart people
never get out of exposition. And what
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I mean by that, they never
get out of act one. They and
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and and and their audiences to death. And after about that third and man,
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we just check out. Because our
limbic brain is a problem solution brain.
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It's like, dude, you haven't
even gotten to the problem yet,
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so what's going on? So we
need to turn our messaging from non narrative.
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That again, our limbic brain the
tests into narrative, set up problem
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resolution and be able to do that
very quickly because we have learned that this
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limbic brain is wired that way.
It's like the algorithm to making meaning.
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If you and and and me an
exposition and never get to your point,
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then there's no meaning involved and it
will check out. So that's the next
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real big thing. Ask yourself,
whenever you're giving a presentation, are you
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and and ending your audience to death
without a setup problem resolution? That truly
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makes your communication narrative inform I mean, it's interesting. I was talking to
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a neuroscience right I was looking at
a deal the other day, an investment
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deal, and the guy was a
neuroscientist, and he was talking about this,
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and he said, he used some
analogies that I thought were really,
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really fitting, and I'm just going
to ask you if you think that you
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agree, He says. You know, when you walk outside of a grocery
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store and you see somebody with a
clipble it, your immediate reaction, whether
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they're giving you something or asking you
to vote on something or buy some whatever,
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your immediate reaction is no immediately because
your brain is trained to say no,
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because your brain is a gatekeeper and
usually thinks, well, if I've
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seen it before, I don't want
to see it again, And the answer
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is no. So the trick is
trying to get past the gatekeeper and get
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to the back of the brain where
all the logic actually, where the questions
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and the answers and the logic actually
takes place. So what you're saying is,
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if I understand you correctly, is
that the worst way to get yourself
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in that is to get trapped up
with the gatekeeper by saying something they don't
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care about, and the brain is
simply just going, now, I don't
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care that they're just talking about themselves
or and this is impossible, confusing whatever
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the thing is that turns off the
front of the brain and do a straightforward
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V line to the back of the
brain by tricking the front of the brain
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that it hasn't heard it before,
or that it cares because it's more emotional
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than it is abstract in business.
Is that? Yeah? And the way
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I boil it down, Greg is
this, And I'm known neuro scientists by
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any stretch, but I have read
and consumes so much information on this that
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our brain basically has one function,
and that is the survival of our being.
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Everything else is gravy. It's like, Okay, what's happening right now?
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Like that window over your shoulder right
there, If some big dude came
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and knocked on that window, your
brain would go and overmode. You would
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completely forget about me in this conversation. You would look over your shoulder.
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You would wonder, is this a
fight or flight or free situation? What
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do I have to do to protect
my being? That's what your subconscious limbic
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brain is doing. Then you notice, poet, you're pal Joe who helps
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you do the show, and he's
dressed up as a clown for to surprise
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you for your birthday. All of
a sudden, now the world is wonderful
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and you're having a great time.
Well, we have to understand that we
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as communicators are hitting that negativity biased
brain first and foremost. It's going to
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look at us and say, is
this a flight fight or free situation or
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is there actually an opportunity here.
That's why that set up problem resolution dynamic
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tickles the back of that brain.
Know, Jonathan Hype, one of America's
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foremost social psychologists, said, and
I love this line so much. He
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goes, our brains are story processors, not logic processors. We have to
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understand the impact first of that data, of that of that software, of
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that offering, and then we level
it up into that logic, you know,
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frontal cortex brain. But we buy
with that emotion first. So that's
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what we're trying to do is get
to that back of that limbic brain,
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hook it emotionally, and then level
it up into the logic. So it's
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almost like a hack, right,
It's almost like a cognitive bias hack right
159
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too, to get past the nose
that the naysayer and get back to the
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part and it's like, Okay,
this is something I can actually think about.
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It absolutely is. And you know
what, your audience doesn't even know
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this is going on because it's happening
in their subconscious. You want to open
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a story loop by inviting them in
with a statement of agreement. Here's what
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we want to have happened in our
life, you know, but we're not
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currently having that happen because of these
major obstacles we need to overcome. Therefore,
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here's the way forward in founders in
the startup world. This is a
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marvelous little messaging tool called the end. But therefore that enables them to use
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this algorithm a story of set up
problem resolution using just these three basic words.
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And but therefore that's how you first
hooked that brain, get it leaning
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in, and you know, great, you may have experienced that during my
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presentation at the ACE Tech conference.
I use the ABT throughout that whole thing,
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because all I was trying to do
is get all of those startup leaders
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leaning in, and then I could
dole out the information, first using an
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anecdote to make my business point,
then backing that up with the numbers to
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prove it to the logic brain.
But always start with the heart. The
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head will follow. So this leads
me to this. Okay, So everybody's
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guilty of doing a d D.
Right. Everybody wants to tell their vision.
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And there's so much to a vision. When you're the person that came
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up with it, right, and
you're saying, oh is this and this
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is you know, you sound like
an informal and it does this and that
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and that's not all it does?
Thinks this right, How does somebody get
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around that trap? How does somebody
talk about their vision and not fall into
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the end and D How do you
frame a vision as a as an able.
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Let's let's give your audience an example, Greg, and let's use you.
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Could I put you on the spot
here? Yeah, totally all right,
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let's talk about this show right here, or or start let don't.
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Let's talk specifically about this show and
your audience. I would like you to
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identify who is your number one audience
that you are trying to reach with this
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show and be as specific as you
possibly can. Early stage founders, so
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pre a round founders, what do
they want relative to the content from this
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show? They want an experience that
comes out of coffeetop type conversation. Okay,
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right, so let's just sitting down
chatting about the business of story and
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how to use your framework and kind
of like off, you know, as
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if they're listening as apply on the
wall. So you've got early stage founders
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and they're looking for additional invite advice
that they would get if in an anecdotal
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situation, you know, like you're
saying, if they were in a room
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full of leaders and founders to learn
from other people, and why is that
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important to them? Because these are
the things that aren't taught in accelerators or
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universities. These are conversations that happen
with experienced people between experienced people, because
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only two experienced people can ask each
other questions and elevate the conversation like that
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because they have experience. So you
are an early stage founder and you want
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to be able to tap into experienced
leaders that have seen there, been there,
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and done that so that you can
tellext your growth faster than ever.
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Fair enough. Statement of agreement.
Yeah, you're the space in between the
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topic there, So there's our and
statement of agreement. We've identified the audience
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what they want and why that's important
to them, so we understand who they
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are, and we appreciate what they
want and why that's important to them.
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Now the but here's the plot twist, But why don't they currently have it?
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What problem are you currently solving?
And I think you said it.
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You are sharing like minds that they
cannot get at regular incubators, Is that
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right? Yeah? Yeah, So
you are an early stage founder and you
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want to be able to tap into
brilliant minds that have experienced what it takes
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to ten x the growth of your
startup. But you can't find those minds
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because you are not in these you
know, close knit situations where you can
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really benefit from this knowledge. Therefore, how often does your show airs?
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It once a week? It airs
twice a month. Therefore, now twice
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a month, you can have access
to some of the top minds in the
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startup world right here on Greg's show. And he does this as you see.
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What we did here is we identified
the audience what's what they want and
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why that's important to them. So
that's our shared statement or agreement. You
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get your audience nodding, yes,
you know, you understand me. You
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appreciate what I want, but you
don't currently have it because of this problem.
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Oh, we've just demonstrated empathy.
Now we can appreciate what you know
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the problem is you are solving for
Therefore, picture what it's going to be
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like when you can plug in these
brilliant minds from around the world to help
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you grow through Greg's podcast. Through
Greg's podcast, Gregory Shepherd does not come
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in till the very end of that
statement of consequence. So this way we
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remain focused on your audience, the
problem that you are solving for them from
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their point of view, picturing what
it's going to look like when they overcome
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that problem through the product or service
I have to offer. That's the end,
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right. Therefore, I got to
say, like if I was if
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I wasn't afraid I would lose you
on the podcast, I would say,
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you stand up and throw your mic
down because you could just drop the mic.
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After that, everybody heard that,
I was beautifully done. But I
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have another question. So then what
about values, culture, all of the
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things that have to do with sort
of what when you talk about your why,
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you're also talking about your values and
your culture, right, You're talking
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about what flips your pancakes, right, So in my case, it's wealth,
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inequality and inclusion and environmental issues and
sustainability issues, stuff like that.
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So what part does that play in
the story in this process that you just
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went through, Well, we use
the process. I want you to think
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of the ABT like the chassis of
a car. It could be a card,
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you know, that chassis still kind
of looks the same. You've got
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an engine, a power train,
four wheels, you know, in this
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body to take you, this chassis
to take you places. Or it could
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be a dump truck pretty much the
same thing, motor drive, train,
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chasse, wheels. The ABT can
be used on virtually any sort of messaging
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you have. So let's say you're
not selling a product or service or a
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widget or a SaaS platform at the
moment, your audience is more interested in
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your vision. All right, let's
make your vision the brand. But it's
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got to be told from their perspective. So again, who's your audience.
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You've got to do that heavy lifting
up front? Or they want relative to
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your vision and why would that be
important to them? But why don't they
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have that? And therefore, how
is your vision the way forward? In
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order to help them get that?
So you could use this ABT. It
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is literally a narrative framework that you
could use virtually in all of your communications.
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It's not always a story in and
of itself, and that it doesn't
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necessarily have a time stamp, a
location stamp, a central character, but
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it uses the three forces of story
of agreement, contradiction, and consequence.
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That again that limbic problem solving buying
brain loves. So if you are now
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up there and you've shared your vision, now you want to talk about the
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mission you're on, that again,
assemble that message using the ABT, and
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then what I love to do is
say, all right, after you've done
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that, after you've set the stage
with your ABT, sprinkle in some personal
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anecdotes or some customer anecdotes. That's
when you use the short little story,
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which is essentially an expanded ABT,
but time stamp when did it happen?
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Location stamp where did it happen?
Single central character that your audience can relate
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to. Who is that person?
Introduce them what happened? What was the
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surprising outcome that makes your business point
for you? So I call those the
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five primal elements of a short story. You begin with an ABT to set
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the stage, and you can tell
that ABT in under fifteen seconds, and
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then you follow it up or illustrate
that ABT problem solution dynamic in action through
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a true story well told. And
you can tell that story and under a
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minute, so in less than ninety
seconds, you can use this one two
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punch of the ABT narrative framework to
hook them and then an anecdotal story to
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reel them in. You're playing totally
to their emotion. You've got them opened
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up, and now you can start
trotting out your logic and your reason in
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your data because all you're doing is
proofing out the emotional story that you connected
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with your audience. Let's step back
and apply this to some scenarios. So
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let's say you want to do the
ABT to attract super awesome talent that you
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know everybody wants to hire. You
would essentially take the same story, right,
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and you could apply it to that
conversation. So hypothetical, Well,
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who are we talking to? Are
we talking to a programmer that is just
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like, she's just unbelievable And a
lot of people are going after this particular
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person, And you've done your homework
and you really want her, but you're
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not you're not really sure yet as
to what's going to push your buttons to
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get her to come in. So
what you want to do is, you
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know, welcome Sally. You know, it's wonderful to have you here.
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And I can imagine you've got fifteen
years of experience doing this in Silicon Valley
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and you're looking for that next level
of job that gives you the challenge of
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writing the code and the outcomes that
you're seeking with the life balance that you're
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looking for. Right, she goes, Yeah, you don't. Great,
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That's exactly what I'm looking for.
But you don't currently have it or you
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haven't found it early in your career
because everyone's working you to death. Therefore,
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picture yourself, you know, here
and working at your pace for either
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here at home or whatever. You're
going to now pay that off with our
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program because we have a unique way
of treating our folks here. For instance,
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let me tell you about Greg.
He came in two years ago and
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he was so burned out from his
life at eBay that he thought he was
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going to give it all up until
we showed him what he could do here,
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and he thought we were just kidding. Until in September of twenty twenty
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one, he and his wife had
a child and realized that he needed six
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weeks off to really attend to his
family. We gave it. We happily
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gave it to him. Now,
Grey here is one of our pop performers.
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Is this something, Sally, that
would be of interest to you in
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your career? So what we've done
is setting up with an ABT, you
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know, focused on one problem at
a time, work life balance, and
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said we can deliver on that.
Let me prove it to you by telling
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you as quick anecdotal story about Greg
that she could relate to. And I've
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done all of that. Now I'm
just winging it right here. But I
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do that in the first ninety seconds
of that interview, and I get hurt
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and saying, well, yeah,
you actually understand me, you appreciate what
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I mean. It's totally a bypass, right, because the front of the
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mind isn't there's nothing for it to
block. It needs a conversation and that
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has to happen in the back of
the brain. It needs that emotional conversation.
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What's in it for you? So
let's apply this to a pitch,
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right, So let's say now you
have to pitch. You have to pitch
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an investor, you have a pitch
competition, or you have you know,
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an investor says, Okay, I'm
gonna give you ten minutes. Tell me
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you could use essentially the same thing, but instead of the candidate, you're
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talking to the investor, right,
so you're using the same structure. So
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can we run through one of those
real quick? You are going to be
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my investor, all right, Greg, and I'm going to ask you to
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invest two million dollars in the business
of story. All right. So the
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first thing I need to do is
I gotta understand you. What's in it
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for you? Why? Why would
you remotely want to do this? Well,
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one thing I've learned about you is
you are about a quality. So
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potentially I would I would I would
position that pitch again from your point of
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view, and I would say,
let's do a problem solution dynamic around a
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quality. Greg. You know,
thank you so much for being here today.
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You it's a true honor for me
because you have such a long head
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degree of success in this world,
and I know that a quality is like
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at the top of your list when
you are finding important investments in the world.
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But it is so hard in this
day and age to find that kind
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of equality across board, because everybody
seems to be in it for the money,
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and we live in such a divided
world that it's it's hard to vet,
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you know, the proper investment for
your portfolio. Therefore, I want
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you to picture the power story in
all of our customers lives and how it
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creates understanding and empathy in the world
to buoy the very equality that you want
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to see in your portfolios, Greg, I can show you over the past
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ten years, from major iconic brands
to individual leaders, how our product service
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offering in the three narrative frameworks we
teach creates that understanding in people, even
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in the most divisive of circumstances,
to find that common ground and build a
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quality across the board. For instance, let me tell you about Shirley,
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and I'm just vamping now. But
then I would tell you about a story
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and I would show it to you
in action. Now I would have completely
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boiled down that ABT because I was
just winging it there. I would have
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really worked on it and got that
down to be as concise as possible.
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So now that your brain and anybody
else sitting in that room has a singular
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narrative park is here to solve the
problem of equality in communication, finding that
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common ground, and then I would
leverage that as much as possible. I
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want to roll out two or three, or four or five different problems that
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I solved through my work. There
are plenty that we all solve them all
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work. I would start with one, the most poignant problem solution dynamic,
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and I would stay on that until
I've got them completely bought into that problem
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solution dynamic, get them only focused
on one thing at a time. That's
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how I would use the ABT.
So let's keep using these different scenarios.
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Because we talked about what it is, and now I'm trying to talk about
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application. So we talked about the
application and hiring good talent. We talked
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about the application in your pitch,
right, So let's talk about the application
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of the business of story and the
ABT to product and design. So if
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you're talking about your product instead of
your company, would you go, I
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mean this, it sounds like it
just fits for everything. You just use
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the same algorithm, if you will, and then put different places in the
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blanks. Is there any nuance between
talking about it from that perspective? Yeah,
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think about it this way. Greg, You're exactly right. You can
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use the ABT across support. It's
even a strategy tool. So say you're
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going into a meeting and how many
meetings have we been in that go down
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several different rabbit holes and you come
out of it ninety minutes later and you
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feel like you've accomplished nothing, if
nothing else, you maybe have created five
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more concerns you now have to deal
with. You use the ABT to set
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the agenda for that meeting. All
right, we're coming in to solve one
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problem, and one problem only.
We may have three or four fires we
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have to push put out in this
meeting, but they all level up to
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what what do they trend to towards
that one problem solution dynamic? Then you
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start that meeting with the ABT Ladies
and gentlemen. We are here because we've
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got version four of our SAS platform
rolling out in two months, and we
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are extraordinarily excited about the new features
in it. But we have three major
379
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bugs that still need to be fixed. Therefore, in the next hour,
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we are going to determine what we
need to do with our coding team to
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be able to do this and this. So we got bug fixing. Yeah,
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we've got the excitement of vergeon before
coming out, but we got a
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bug. We gotta fix her.
In this case, three bugs, we'll
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just call it bug fixing. And
now what is our way forward? When
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anybody in that meeting gets off track, you just pull them back into your
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ABT. Nope, we're not here
to talk about that. We are here
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to talk about fixing these bugs.
So that's just one example of how you
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can use the ABT as a strategy
tool. It's also an amazing story listening
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tool. And I'm sure you've been
there, like we all have, where
390
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someone comes in and they vent,
they're so frustrated something's gone completely sideways in
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their life and their career and their
project, and they just come in and
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vomit on you. Right, You
spend like ten minutes and you go uh
393
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huh uh huh uh huh uh huh. Well maybe it's a customer doing that
394
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and you're gonnah hu. At the
end of that, you filter it through
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00:29:07.160 --> 00:29:11.759
your ABT mechanism and you say,
Okay, great, Greg, what I
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heard you say? You want this
and it's important because of this, but
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this is the thing that's standing in
your way causing unbelievable frustration. Therefore,
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what we really need to focus in
on is doing something this or hearing for
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this. And then three things happen
when you do that. Well. Number
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one, they'll go, oh my
god, you actually said that better than
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I did, which leads to number
two, you actually listen to me.
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00:29:38.279 --> 00:29:44.079
There's nothing that builds trust faster than
listening. And then number three, that
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sometimes happens, not always, but
when it does, it's like the most
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00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:52.640
important outcome because you've already established that
trust. They said, you said that's
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so well, Greg, that I
forgot to tell you one other thing.
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And it's always that one other thing
that's the real problem. Everything else has
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00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:06.440
just been symptoms leading up to that. So the ABT is a fabulous problem
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solution listening device once you really get
it down, and then of course you
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00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:15.160
can use it in all of your
communication, including social media, landing pages.
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I mean, you name it.
You just keep using the setup problem
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00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:23.680
resolution dynamic. I love that,
and I want to get to how you
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can use ABT to handle failure,
but we have to take a break.
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Coming up in the second part of
my talk with Park Howell, the founder
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of Business of Story, Park shares
how Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey
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can help B to B companies.
The hero's journey is way too woo woo
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for lots and lots of B to
B business minds, And I say to
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them, you know, B to
B doesn't necessarily mean business to business.
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It quite often means boring to board. The Startup Science Podcast with Gregory Shephard
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00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.880
is brought to you by startup Science
dot Io. Founders can log on to
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00:31:02.119 --> 00:31:07.000
startup science dot io and use code
Forbes to get free access. To connect
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00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:12.680
and find out more about greg go
to Gregory shepherd dot com. The Startup
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00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:17.200
Science Podcast is a production of Forbes
Books.
