The Networker Zone
The ultimate podcast for networkers in direct sales, network marketing, MLM or any sales side hustle. You’ll learn the skills for the how to and the mindset to make it work.
From the author of over 20 best selling books and over 25 years in the business here’s your host Keith Schreiter.
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The Networker Zone
Short story techniques part 1 with Tom “Big Al” Schreiter
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You've entered the Networkers Home, the ultimate podcast for networkers and direct sales, network marketing, MLM, or any cell side hustle. You'll learn the skills for the how-to and the mindset to make it work. From the author of over 20 best-selling books and over 25 years in the business. Here's your host, Keith Schreider.
SPEAKER_02If you want prospects to remember and more importantly, take action on our offers, whether it's product, service, or opportunity, this episode is for you. The easiest way for prospects to remember what we have to offer is to share a story. More importantly, a short story. Most people want the short version, not the long version. So by saying short story, we automatically have their attention. So in this audio, which was taken from a previous master class, this is part one of two, and I'll make sure to put a link in the second part when the episode comes out in a couple of weeks. You'll receive tons of options in the next few minutes on stories you can use right away. But if you'd like some additional stories to use, I'll put a link to the story mastering package, which is audios and ebooks together. It includes both the mini-story guidebook for network marketing, plus how to prospect, sell, and build your network marketing business with stories. Both of those are available for a low price. But I want to make sure you get some stories right away you can use. So let's get into this week's episode.
SPEAKER_01If you were to talk to most distributors in network marketing, they probably don't know what a word picture is. They seldom use questions, they most often use examples. Even if they don't know how to say which means or is like, they still use an example with something that they can relate to as kind of a natural human thing, but we want to take it up a level as leaders. But a short story usually doesn't make the top of their list. Long stories, some people try to do that. Uh, you've been to presentations where somebody says, Let me tell you my life story, my rags to riches, and people that are thinking that's nice, that's interesting, maybe slightly entertaining, but how long is our attention span? So having a good, powerful short story uh is kind of a superpower that leaders have, and they say, I can make a short story about everything, about every product, every feature, every benefit. So why not take advantage of it? So uh all of these answers are good. We're just curious which ones you use. And here it's a surprise that most people here are highly skilled, so they at least can do good short stories. But let's move on. Uh, we have a lot of tools to work with. I just finished uh our book study group and we're studying the office book and all the different tools, and you say, Wow, most people just don't have um any tools to work with. But we might think of tools as an individual thing, standalone, when the reality is we can uh stack them up. So just think of a sandwich. You say, All right, so uh I'm gonna have a turkey sandwich, two slices of white bread, and you say, Okay, and I'll put turkey in the middle. But can we take another skill? We could probably add some, I don't know, salad or uh lettuce or some vegetables or uh some sauces of different things and upgrade it by just adding that, or maybe changing the bread. So we have a lot of things that makes it better when we can combine two or three of these skills. So let's do an example to show you how much better we can get by thinking, all right, I can put one or two of these skills together. So let's try this one priming. Do you remember the priming skill? The priming is where we tell somebody something early in our presentation when we're talking to them, and it gets them to say, okay, uh, that's how I'm gonna think about this. So here's an example of adding priming to our stories. So you're having a story, but you say, I would like my story to change their viewpoint from, oh, this is gonna be like I'm gonna have to pay $100 or $200 to join, and that's gonna be money out of my pocket. I I would like to prime them to believe, oh man, starting a business is really expensive, but when I hear this price is going to be a bargain. So it's their expectation, and how are we gonna do it? So here is an example. We can start off by saying I wanted to start my own business, but was scared to give up my job. They quoted me $600,000 to be a franchise owner. I thought to myself, there has to be a cheaper way to start a business. Now, let's stop here for a second. We quoted $600,000 here. It's just a story, but now when we tell them to start our business at $600, it sounds like a bargain compared to $6,000 or $600,000. So we use priming plus a small story, putting them together. You say, Wow, that was uh kind of cool. And if you want to notice what we did here is we included something called conversation. Stories are more interesting when we give conversation. You say, um, here's what my mom said, or here's what the customer said, or here's what the boss said. As soon as we do that, people always like, oh, gossip, I want to know what they said. So there's just adding these little extra things can just make our story better and better and better. So let's move on. So, how primal and powerful are stories? If you've had children or took care of somebody's children, you know that they just love bedtime stories. Children never say, Please give me some facts before bedtime or a lecture. They want a story. Somehow the human mind is uh programmed that as soon as a story happens, it kind of goes into a state almost like hypnosis. And our human mind says, if it's a story, I have to listen to it because there's probably a lesson there that I should learn, a lesson for my survival. And this goes back to the caveman days. What did the cavemen do? They say, uh, I sit around the campfire. Oh, guess what happened today? You know, uh, my friend and I went out and he petted this giant lizard, the lizard ate him. Probably not so good. And people around the campfire says, Now I've learned that giant lizards uh we shouldn't pet them, you know, they're gonna eat us. So the stories are almost beyond primal. It's just a way that the human brain loves to learn, and it can learn very quickly by just sit just simply listening to a short story. So uh if you don't use the short stories, at least consider adding it to your portfolio of skills. But uh let's cover uh just a quick example here to clear our mind before we go deeper into the story. Uh, here's an example of a clear offer or benefit. Somebody says, Well, you know, you talk about all this stuff, I just need an example, obviously. And it says, Um, what what can you show me so get my mind thinking of how I can do this for my business? So I I showed them this ad. If you take a look at this ad, I don't know how big your screen is, but it's for somebody that uh likes cars. And the ad says you can buy a Ferrari Luce, whatever that may be. You can tell I'm not into cars for only $640,000. Or instead you can buy a Tesla Model S plaid, which is our luxury model X, and a Cyber Beast Cybertruck, and a Model Y and a Model 3. You can buy all of them, all five vehicles, and still have 109,000 left over cash. And you say, Well, that's a pretty clear offer. That if you're thinking about this luxury sports car, do this instead. And you say, All right. Now, that's the offer. I want everybody here to stop for a moment and think, yeah, that was good, but could we have turned this ad into a story? And if it was there's some story behind the ad, it'd be lots much more memorable. People would remember it. So, what kind of story could you do? And you say, Well, uh I'm not thinking about cars, and I don't want to give a story about somebody else. It should be something personal so people think that has legitimacy. So maybe you could say, I saw this ad, and here's what I did. And now you can pick up right the story right there, like well, I went down to the car dealership and said, Yeah, I could probably have these, but right now I can't afford this. Or you could say, I could just use this concept for my business. I could sell this multivitamin uh in a jar that replaces you know 200 bucks worth of groceries, or or or and you say, or I could sell uh my financial services replace a real expensive uh paid consultant. Okay. So ask yourself how can I turn something that I'm telling people right now into a story? And if you can, there's a better chance people are gonna remember it. And here's why. A thing about stories is facts tell, stories sell. If you think about being lectured to, like history facts, uh, not so good. But we watch a video about history, um we kind of get it more, and we tell facts, and people kind of turn off their desire, turn off their emotions, but we tell them stories, they put themselves into the stories, and they say, Yeah, I'm living it, I'm feeling it. I I get these emotions, and one good story might be all you need to change your entire career. You say, Well, uh, what do you mean? Well, uh, yesterday I had a man from Scotland come to visit me in Bangkok, and he says, Well, uh in this business now, I've been in it for six years, and I've got a good residual income. But my sponsor, he was in my house six years before that, and I became a customer. So for six years I became a customer until I got frustrated with my career, and I called him up and started the business, and now six years later, I don't have to worry about trying to get a better job and all this other stuff. He has a built-in story, and people can feel his story. And I says, Hey, just tell that story better, and you'll probably get a lot of your present customers to say, Hey, tell me a little bit more about the business. Just a simple thing to do. Okay, so you say, uh why do people remember stories? And you say, Well, what's inside a story that's memorable, and it's them. Because every time we tell a story, um what happens? People change the story from who's the story is about, and they put themselves in as the main character. So I give the example if you watch Pirates of the Caribbean, you feel like you're one of the pirates. You identify with one of the characters, and that's what makes the stories unique. We always get rid of the main character of the character we want to be, and place ourselves in it when we see the story in our brain. And we are the most interesting people in the world. So it's as if we lived and experienced the story. So people will forget about our presentation, but they will remember the story they created in their mind, and we told our story. So, all right, that sounds easy enough. But we have biology on our side, the human brain is wired for stories. It's the best and most efficient way for the human brain to learn. It's the best way for us to visualize hard to understand concepts, and it's wired to release all these really cool uh chemicals in our brain to make us feel good. As soon as we hear a story, our interest levels go up, we feel relaxed, our sales resistance goes away, and we just say this will be a learning experience. So we don't have all that sales resistance when we tell tell a story to our prospects. They say, Well, that's good. I I hate handling sales resistance. So how does it do it? Here's how it turns on a natural movie projector in our mind. As soon as you start telling a story, they instantly say, Okay, that's me in the story. Why? We don't know, but they imagine themselves in our story. So even though our story was, well, for six years, I didn't do anything, I was just a customer, they can see themselves there. They see themselves sitting at the table. How this works, uh, we don't really have to understand, we just have to know that it works. So, all right, let's uh do an example of a story here. Because, like they say, one good story could change our careers. So here's a story from uh the book uh stories to help us prospect sell network marketing, and this is a famous story here food for thought. Uh this is the entire story, so we'll keep it up here on screen and take a look at it. It says uh one married couple goes out to a restaurant twice a week for dinner. They spend $300 a month on eating out, they get fat. Another married couple invests $300 a month in their own network marketing business. They stay slim and healthy, in a few years they retire at the end. Now uh I think uh in the book it's like $120 a month on eating out. Inflation has happened. But the point is, this is two paragraphs. I think a total of uh five sentences. But people see the story and say, okay, that's pretty interesting. I think I got it. But I'm gonna ask a question here. Story's up on screen. Did you notice the priming in the story? Let's go back and pull up that story on the screen. It says food for thought, right? Uh in the QA, can you uh tell us where the priming is happening? Do you notice that we snuck priming into this little mini story or micro story? And it works perfectly. So in the QA, if you uh, what do you think about the priming, or do you see where it's even happening? Or we're priming the prospect to have a different frame of reference or different viewpoint toward our business. If you haven't picked it up yet, um I give you an example. Uh one married couple goes out to a restaurant twice a week for dinner and they spend $300 a month on eating out. So notice the $300 a month? AJ's notice that and says, Yeah. So now they have a frame of reference that $300 is normal or close to normal. So when we say uh another couple invests $300 a month in their own network marketing business, they say, Well, okay, that's probably the minimum I'd put into the business. And you go, whoa. Auto ship plus uh some gas money plus plus plus plus simple priming. So uh Keith, uh, anybody else want to mention some priming ideas just from looking at this food for thought story?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, a couple people said obviously the uh $300 a month, so it's really not that big of a deal. Um yeah, there's more pictures in there. They got fat, they stayed slim and healthy, so there's definitely another benefit uh there as well. But yeah, a lot of a lot of the uh the $300 a month.
SPEAKER_01All right. We'll we'll learn uh one little technique later on here in the class. But if you notice it says they get fat, this is kind of an unexpected thing in the story, and unexpected things draws people's attention, which we have learned, and of course makes the stories more powerful. We'll talk more about that uh coming up. But let's move on. What's the payoff of learning this skill? I'll give you an example of one 30-second story. And if you listen to the big L audios, you know that what the story is. When I got started, my I said no to my sponsor. I said I sat through the three-hour opportunity meeting. And uh sat through it, I'm not interested, I'm out of here. And he told me a little 30-second story. And I have to say, my sponsor probably hit the lottery because that one made a lot of money. But the story was he said, When you join our business, here is what happens. Turned on the movie projector. He says, uh, six months from now, priming me for maybe it's gonna take a while to build. Six months from now, you show up in your boss's office and you kindly tell the boss, I can't fit you in my schedule any longer. And resign, go downstairs, get into your brand new car, paid for from your bonus checks, and uh drive down to the bank to deposit your your bonus check, because they didn't have electronic banking back then. As you pull up to the bank, drive in, tell the teller, uh, you can either put in a check in or saving, it really doesn't matter. I get these things every month. Then drive home and have a nice glass of your favorite beverage. And that 30-second story was better than the three-hour meeting that got me to say no. I said instantly yes, how do I join? And the rest is history. So a 30-second story can make somebody tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars. So it's worth it to take a little bit of time and say, I just need a good signature story, something I can tell people, so their eyes light up and they get it. So um here's the deal stories create emotion. This is one of the superpowers, and we know that's decisions. If we give people facts, it sounds like homework, and they don't really like that a whole lot because they remember their bad time at school. So um let's take a look at another story. Are you ready? Uh I don't know if you're familiar with the restaurant story or not. It's in the book uh How to Prospect, Sell, and Build Your Network Marketing Business with Stories. But the restaurant story um is again a little bit, a little bit longer, but it handles an objection. So, what's the objection a lot of people have? Oh man, I just don't know how to do this because I don't think I can do it, blah, blah, blah. And the answer to the objection is a story. Now think about the power of that. You're not arguing with them, you're just passing on a story, and they're going to listen to the story. And the restaurant story goes something like this. I'll do the short version here because it's in the book. But you say, uh, of course, you don't know how, but imagine you open a restaurant and you've never done it before. What if we spent the first week, you know, just uh setting up a place for two people to sit down in your living room? And uh next week we're gonna practice cooking. Next week uh I'll come over and uh I'll cook with you and we'll serve two people. Do you think we could pull that off? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and you say, okay, so we'll do that for a week or two until we make sure we're just pretty good at it, and then maybe we're gonna ask them to um invite maybe one of their friends over. So the you know, next week we'll have like four, and of course I'll be helping you along the way. Can you think we can pull that off? Well, yeah. And what we're doing in that story is priming them that they don't have to start big, they don't have to know how what to do, that we'll be helping them. It's a great story, and it illustrates how powerful that is for just killing that objection. Now, if you don't have this story and you don't have the book, here's the book, How to Uh Prospect, Sell and Bill. If you don't have that story, send us an email to master class, and I'll send you send you the story, the PDF of it, so you can uh master that. It's really worth it because it just makes people feel so confident. This is a business I can do, even though I don't know how now, but this is what I can do. So, ready to try an exercise? What we're gonna do is uh turn one fact into a story, just start practicing. Let's imagine uh we'll we'll pick an industry here. Ready? Here's the example. Getting older is not optional, but getting older without inflammation and pain is optional. So, yeah, that's really kind of catchy, uh, kind of wordy. They gotta figure it out on their brain. But could you turn this conversation to an instant story? So how are we gonna do it in this exercise? Uh I'll use that little uh conversation hack. I could say, Well, I went to the doctor, and you know, everything was hurting. So uh the doctor says, Yeah, you're gonna get older. That's not optional. It's guaranteed, you can't change it, get over it. I felt really depressed. But then the doctor said, But getting older without inflammation and pain, now that's optional. We can do something about that. And I said, How? And that leads into a conversation about you know some uh special pill or drink or liquid, something nutritional that fixes it. And you say, Okay, that was an example of taking just a simple fact and putting it into a story, but isn't that more memorable than just saying these words? And that's what happens in network marketing presentations. They just do one really good point after another, point, point, point, point, point, but they all end up being like facts and not stories, so nothing is retained by the people. So you say, okay, I I got that. Uh getting older is not optional, but getting older without inflammation and pain is optional is good to say, but it's not going to be retained unless we put it into a story. So uh here's another reason we should do stories. They're more viral. Um, people forget all the facts, but people repeat stories. Now think back to history class, how many dates you're supposed to memorize to pass this test. Yeah, it's all gone. None of that's stuck. Or if it stuck for one day, it was gone after two days. But stories and gossip and exciting things, people repeat. So the big word is social media going viral and stuff like that. Well, if you want to hint, try stories. So uh here's an example. Which would you rather hear? At an opportunity meeting. Our patented compensation plan pays 43%. He's like, Come on. Really? Yeah, I've heard that. Or my mom is thrilled. She added $225 a month to her retirement. You say, well, that's not much, but you think, oh, maybe the mom has had a really small Social Security retirement and adding $225 or more a month could really give her a lot more options and stuff. They're gonna remember that. They say, okay, uh let's do another one. Ready? Which one is stronger and more memorable? I make extra money. Or my daughter graduated from college debt-free. There you go, hmm. So in the QA, which one would you vote? First one, I make extra money, or my daughter graduated from college debt free. Which one do you think is going to be more memorable when after somebody hears your presentation? And um actually I stole this from Jerry Scribner, who's on the call here, and his daughter's graduated debt-free. And you say, Oh, easy to remember, because people think, oh, the terrible thing of college debt, etc. All right, uh, let's move on. All right, so people don't remember information, but they remember experiences. What is interesting is when we tell a story, they experience it in their mind. And our subconscious mind is not too bright. It does a lot of stuff automatically, but it's not a critical thinking. So when they experience it in their mind, it's practically the same as if they experienced it in person. You say, okay, so I can just get them to feel the experience in their mind. Ha. It's the same as if they did it themselves. So uh if you ever been to a convention or something, have you noticed that the top recruiters are great storytellers? You say, Yeah. If I think back on it, uh at the convention when the people talk about you know getting started, the top recruiters are up there and talking about their experiences. Most of them are great storytellers. So if you want to take that a little bit further, what about blue personalities? Are they great storytellers? They were made for this skill. But here's something you should be careful of with the blue personalities. They tend to tell long stories. We have to really work on them to tell short stories. But let's move on. Uh, here is a story technique that is a little bit more advanced. It's called nostalgic stories. Uh we have memories, good memories and bad memories. But if you can take them back to a good memory, they'll have that same emotional feeling as they did when they experienced it. And hypnotists use this a lot to get people to feel really good about something. So uh here is an example of using it. Are you ready? I'll just read this one. Do you remember when you got your first paycheck? We're taking them back, right? This is probably before you accumulated a lot of expenses, such as mortgage, big car payment, etc. Having more money than bills felt great. And they're saying, yeah, I remember that. And that's the feeling you'll have every week with your new part-time business. And they will at that moment feel the same rush as when they got that first paycheck, which is much better than just getting the allowance from mom and dad. Say, all right. So nostalgic, just taking them back in time. So here's a couple nostalgic ideas, and then it's your turn. Are you ready? So you could tell them if your company had a car program, do you remember the feeling of picking up a brand new car? Or maybe your first car, and say, wouldn't it be great to have it again? But if somebody else paid for it, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you could uh say, Remember when you can get out of bed pain-free, and your body didn't make a lot of weird noises? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or remember the time uh when we were younger where we can eat anything we want, we never put on weight, and people are smiling and thinking, now I just look at a donut and I gained three pounds. So these are just examples of taking them back to a time where they can have a feeling. So in the QA, what other nostalgic ideas could you come up with that would take people back in time and your prospect would have a feeling? So ask yourself, uh, what is something I could take them back in time? And say, well, since I talk about bonus checks, I could probably take them back to when they got their annual bonus. And said, Do you remember how it felt when you got that annual bonus? But what if you got that every week or every month? That'd have a pretty good feeling. That'd be a nice story. Or you could do the same thing with the tax return, couldn't we? You take them way back and say, hmm, remember when you got that big tax return check, how you felt because that felt like free money. And uh, yeah, I I could do that one. So, what else could we take them back to think? Where they're gonna say, Wow, I had this emotional rush, I'm creating the story in my mind, I'm reliving it now. And let's give this a try. So, Keith, in the QA, do we have a couple ideas that people come up with what they can do with some nostalgic ideas?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we have can you remember the feeling of having unlimited energy? Pretty cool. Everyone's gonna be thinking way back in time for that one. Uh, do you remember how it felt when you got your first real paycheck? Nice. That extra real does make a difference there. Uh, a time you were debt-free. Say a time before all the credit cards, the mortgage, the rents, whatever. All right. Do you remember how excited you were the day you heard that you were hired? That you got the job. So, yeah, the feeling of uh acceptance or success or things like that. So, yeah, we can these are great starts. I mean, everyone can use these, tweak them a little bit, add their personalities, and yeah, keep these coming in.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So uh prospects are human, and humans have fears. Remember, we're our uh survival programs, number one in our minds. So, will they fear starting a new business? And they say, Well, yeah, that's a change, and I don't like change because uh and uh starting something new, I might fail, and people are gonna make fun of me, and uh I don't know, I've never done this before. Yeah, they're gonna have some fear. So let's use an instant business story. Are you ready? Now we're not gonna do the whole story here, but could you just create this on your own? You say, All right, so here's the instant business story. You can tell them that there's uh no setup, no inventory, no business permits, no employees. And you say, okay, that's kind of an outline, but how do I make that into a story? You can say, Well, I thought about uh starting uh McDonald's, and I thought, oh man, I'd have all these teenagers that are unmotivated, and uh I had to buy this inventory, and you can say that's pretty easy, but we have primed the prospect that they want a business that's simple, where the network marketing company has everything done for them. All they have to do is get people to make yes decisions. So just create an instant business story because think about it. Not not many people want to be employee all their life, some do, but not many. Some always had a dream of just doing something more or being their own business or having more time freedom. So we don't have to be great at this, but we're gonna say this is something you can do because it's gonna be simple, and that's gonna take away the fear. So let's remind ourselves of this. Stories are easy to remember, which is what we want to have, and facts are easy to forget. So, story, stories, stories. Uh as Jerry Scriber put it here, you know, blue personalities rock. All right. So uh here's an example of how we're attracted to stories. Ready? Uh you go to somebody's home, they say, come look at my vacation pictures. And they may be boring, maybe not, we don't know. But we as soon as we see the pictures, what do we do? We try to say, All right, that's a picture, but what was the story behind the picture? And we see a picture of them standing by the beach with um my tie or a bottle of beer or something, and we kind of create a story in our mind what was happening at that time. It's just how people think. People don't think in words. When I say you don't think in words, you don't spell out that in your mind and make little characters. And no, we think in pictures. So stories automatically create pictures because it turns on the movie projector. So without being a super technical here, as soon as you start a story, it's almost irresistible. And you're thinking, well, I'm really addicted to stories, and I already have read the stories book. What's another book that I could read? And that is the mini story guide book. So this book is uh really small stories. Here's a picture of the book, and if you haven't read that, we've we've done a master classes on it, but it just gives you just tons of ideas and making more miniature stories. Here's the problem. People read the stories, they start creating their own, and then they go back to the old habits. They just start adding more data, more features, more benefits, and they miss the point. The point is to stop facts, to stop data, do miniature stories where they see it and feel it inside their mind, and you'll absolutely rock. You'll be the most interesting person they talk to that day. So um let's say you don't read the mini-story guidebook or the how to sell recruit with stories. How about a couple opening prompts just to get you started right away? Are you ready? You start with saying a couple of days ago, that signals to the prospect you're gonna tell a story of something that happened a couple days ago. Now you could start your story by saying, you know, uh I got a good story, but a couple of days ago is much nicer. How about this one? Last night my mother called. Without going any further, how many people here I could think, yeah, I bet there's a story coming? Or how about this for a prompt? When they told me I could get paid weekly, comma, you want to know what the rest of the sentence is. Or how about this one? I'm normally pretty skeptical, but how many people think that's pretty much irresistible? Nobody could refuse that. They're probably wanting to know what to say next. So if you have a good opening story prompt, you can create stories on demand, just fill in the blanks because you'll always be on a roll. You think, all right, so uh this is a master class, let's do uh a couple cool things. How about the magic words, story prompts? And if you don't have any, you just go to this book and just pick up a couple and say, I could this is just a normal prompt, but I could use it for stories. So, ready? Let's uh nine words here. I have some good news and some bad news. How many people here figure that right now you own that person's mind? They cannot go on in life until they know what the good news is and the bad news. And they'll always want to know the bad news first because of their survival program. Or here's another nine words. There are two types of people in this world. What are they thinking? Uh which kind of I what what are the types? What's about? So it's so easy to have this control over our prospects' attention, we should take advantage of it. But these are just a couple examples of story prompts. Let's put on our thinking cap, especially people here that are blue personality and naturally tell stories in the QA. Uh, how about putting in one of your favorite story prompts that you can use? Let's see who's creative here. So, what story prompt could you put in the QA that would say, I just say this, and then the story would just flow. And we gave some examples already of last night my mother called a couple of days ago uh when they told me I could get paid weekly. I'm normally pretty skeptical. Those are nice ways of starting, but I bet there's a ton of others. And you say, Well, what about once upon a time? Well, that will signal a story's coming, but it's probably not the right kind of story for business. So it probably signals maybe like a kid's story. But what is a good story prompt that you can use that will create that moving their mind, that instant curiosity? So, Keith, uh, we'll have just one or two very quickly uh here in the um chat.
SPEAKER_02I have a couple good ones here so far. You wouldn't believe what happened to me the other day. Please tell me more. There you go. Uh, our businesses like coffee. Most people like it, but some don't. A little bit of rapport building uh there as well. Here's what I did not know when I started my job. Ooh, drama, suspense, a little bit there as well. So yeah, keep these coming in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, wouldn't that be fun to tell this to a co-worker or somebody just joined the job? You say, here's what I did not know when I started my job here. Um they have no chance. This is almost unfair to say something like that. But their curiosity, which is their number two program, is just gonna overwhelm them. They just have to have this conversation. You say, okay, I got a lot of good story prompts, uh, good news and bad news, etc. Uh let's try this. Stories are about people, and uh the proof is gossip. If you go to uh certain communities or certain places, gossip is everywhere. But gossip goes viral. You say, what's in that makes gossip go viral? And the secret is people. People want to know about other people. So here's a question that illustrates it, especially in the world of AI. Are you ready? What is more interesting to watch? I'll let you vote. What is more interesting to watch? Hey, two people playing chess or two AI software programs playing chess against each other. So in the QA, which one is more interesting to watch? A or B? And Keith, what do we have here for some votes?
SPEAKER_02All right, not surprising. We definitely have everybody saying A people. There we go.
SPEAKER_01So all of a sudden we have the the big hint why AI isn't reaching people, or it's reaching people having no effect because it feels like artificial stories that don't even talk in stories, or the stories don't sound real. You say, ah, so the human element, people, draws the attention of other people. All right, so uh here's a question. Are you ready? Uh, what do you think of this story prompt? I thought I would get smarter with age, but in the QA, uh, what do you think? Yes or no for that story prompt? Do you think it'll be effective or not? Just by saying I thought I would get smarter with age, but will it work for you or not? Yes, yeah, I'm not sure. Okay. So let's try this one. Are you ready? Uh let's do this next uh story prompt. When I saw this, um the first thing I thought of was what do you think of that story prompt? When I saw this, it could be this business, this product, or this service, or this chart, or whatever you want to put in there. When I saw this, the first thing I thought of was will that be um attractive to people? Will they want to know the rest of the sentence? Will they start seeing themselves uh in the in a story? And the answer is yeah. And you say, Wow, I could probably create a hundred of these to go to Chat GPT or something if I couldn't think of one. And you say, Well, which one do you like the best? And I said, I don't know, it depends on you, depends on your personality or what item you uh want to place into their mind. But they all work, it's not rocket science, and here's the cool thing you don't have to be highly skilled in this because you are natural storytellers already. You've been telling stories all your life. You told stories to your mom, you know, the aliens from space came in and broke the cookie jar. It wasn't you. Or um stories why you why you arrived late. We've been telling stories all our life. It's not hard. And because the stories are so powerful, and with the how people feel about it, how we can add some skills like priming and stuff to it, because of the natural viral thing and how it turns on movie projections, because they're so powerful, even if you do a bad job, you're gonna be 10 times better than just facts. So don't worry about it, just tell some good stories. Now, once you know this, uh, one of the homeworks that you might want to do, that's optional, of course, is maybe I should start listening for some stories I can use for my business. And the answer is that would kind of be a fun thing to do. Always keep your ears open for a good story and maybe write it down so you don't forget it somewhere. And uh you might have a whole list of story ideas or prompts that you can choose from.
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