Leveraging Leadership

Using Story Arcs: From Stage Events to Successful Investor Pitches

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 197

Share episode

Steve Werner shares how he helps founders and companies run engaging sales events by building a story arc that keeps audiences interested. He gives practical tips for prepping investor pitch decks, including being clear about strengths and weaknesses, saying where you need help, and avoiding slides covered in text. The conversation covers how to sequence team stories in a pitch, build trust with investors, and handle tough Q&A sessions.

Links Mentioned:


Free Resources:

 

Get in Touch With Emily:

 

Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:39 Connecting Over Shared Interests
01:22 Event Planning and Production
02:07 Engaging Presentations
06:40 Crafting a Compelling Pitch
16:59 The Hero's Journey in Storytelling
19:47 Introducing Key Team Members
21:12 Crafting Different Pitch Segments
22:57 Building Trust Through Vulnerability
30:20 Handling Q&A Effectively
35:36 Final Tips and Personal Insights

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

My guest today is Steve Werner and he is here with a super clear hat on. It says Clarity, which I love. Uh, Steve, welcome to the show.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I am so excited, Emily,

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Steve and I are doing a pod swap. So I was on his show. He was kind enough to have me on and we just got to chat chatting afterwards and usually the host and guests will kind of chit chat afterwards. We spoke for a good, like. 25, 30 minutes afterwards. Cause we were just clicking on a whole bunch of things.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

I remember, when we were chatting, like there is so much, um, and we were, we were chatting around how to help founders fund, like capital raising. And then that led into the conversation all around chief of staff and how that should possibly be their first hire. It was so interesting there. I actually have a ton of notes from that conversation.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

And we were also talking about the fact that you, would you say produce or direct these multi day events and where you speak to a founder, a company, and you really. Pull out their narrative and their story arc they want to tell and what they want to get to by the end. And then you bring in different speakers, you set up different panels, you sequence the whole thing, and then you coach the speakers on how to do that. And I thought that was fascinating. Um, just you do the whole production of it, but maybe just give folks a brief introduction of yourself and what you've been up to and what you're doing now.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Um, so it's not a meeting planner or it's not an event planner. That's somebody who handles the technical details. Like what's the soundstage look like? What's the audio. What I look at is we've all been to one of those events where people are just leaving the room or they're on their phone, they're on their laptop. They're not really paying attention to what's going on because the speakers don't link together. The speakers aren't that great at presenting, right? Somebody probably told them they had to be up there. They've got slides with 251. Words on it that you can't

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

No.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

and like speaker number one, like you're kind of into what he's doing, but then speaker number two goes a completely different direction. And it's like, these events are expensive. Uh, an event budget can be anywhere from 250, 000 to, we did an event once with like a 4 million budget. If you're spending that much on the event, it makes sense. So we call it a story arc. It's a very clean one, step two, step three. It starts with why are you here? What's the big outcome? Stretch the gap, show people where they're going to end up, then have speakers lined up that take them on a journey. If you do the event correctly, people should be on their edge of their seats, excited, full of energy. They shouldn't even want to pick up their phone or their laptop. Learn That comes down then to once you have that arc laid out, how do you work with each speaker to make sure that their speech grabs the audience's attention is easy to follow, easy to understand, and entertaining as well as teaches a golden nugget. That's what I do. So we look at, we sit down with the event plant, like the event host, who's holding it, we find out what their end goal is, what's the big reason you're holding this event, and then we craft the whole event around it so that you get maximum impact. That's why you're holding an event, whether it's a sales event, your company is selling something from the event, that's 80 percent of our events. And then. The other 20 percent is like the internal company event company's paying to put it on and they're, they're hoping that their employees will become motivated, that they'll come together with a good corporate culture. But a lot of times that doesn't happen. So where I come in is to make sure that this is all planned out well and then we help with the marketing and getting everything out front, whether that's the internal event, internal marketing or external marketing to fill the event so that you maximize sales.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yes. Beautiful. So you're, I mean, I think of it as like the director or the orchestrator of the whole thing, kind of like strings and drums and all this stuff coming together to a beautiful symphony. And I, I've spoken about, you know, go into a presentation or an event and say, what do you want people to feel, think and do by the end, and then build your event towards that. And it sounds like you do that beautifully. And I like the fact that, you know, by the way. People don't get motivated or excited or are driven to action by reading. A great wall of text verbatim off of a slide. So if you take nothing else away from this, just please don't do that. Cause that's, that's not what you want.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

that is okay. So you said two things there. I'm going to start with the slide. Your slide should have most of your slides should have no more than 12 words per slide. Some of your slides can have a little bit more. The most you should have is 30 words per slide. And if you are reading them to your point, Emily, if you are reading your slide, you might as well. tell people to leave the room. They can read the slide themselves. What you actually want to do is have them paying attention to you. The slide should have a bullet point and then you should be expounding the slide so that people are paying attention to you. And this actually dovetails into the first thing that you said, which I love so much. It is about the feeling that people get. I want listeners, anyone listening to this, just think about the last event that you went to and your favorite presentation. You can probably only tell me a bullet point or two of what you got, but you can tell me how that guy made you feel. And that's what drives action is feeling and trust. That's what you can do from stage. And instead we see these people trying to put 800 words on a slide and cram everything they have in their brain into a 45 minute presentation, which never works well.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

And by the way, if someone remembers how you made them feel and one main point from your presentation, you've won like winner, winner, dinner. Yeah. Okay.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Yes.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Okay, so I wanted to get that out there because I love how you, you know, we talk about event planning and event planners are great and they do a fantastic job and you're just taking this to a whole different dimension with what you're doing and we talked a lot about how we would prep speakers and different things because People come out this from different angles and we can talk about that later in the show but what I want to get to is If we're talking to a founder, or perhaps a chief of staff who is prepping the founder or perhaps the management team for investor pitch decks, and how do they craft that story? So, to me, there's kind of a Kind of a couple of story arcs happening in parallel, which is the founder story arc and the company story arc. And when I speak to founders about this, um, it's, it's about you, but it's not about you and the story you want to tell. It has to be open ended at the end because there's a next chapter that you want to be able to tell if you get this next round of funding. So that's kind of the, the very basic structure I tee people up with, but how would you go about kind of coaching a founder for a compelling pitch deck?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

So there's, I'll, I'll lay out some of the things that I see that people do that are mistakes that I think actually hurt them and cause them to lose the offer, right? The first one is we, when we try to tell our own story, It goes all over the

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yeah.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

It's a big, crazy drawing that makes no sense. And if you say that to somebody, you are not, you are not in like, they don't have confidence in what you are going to say next or what you're going to do. If you can't be clear well formulated, They're not going to have confidence in you. Now, the second place that people go wrong is they don't tell the story. They tell a 32nd story and then they jump into really high level and deep details of the business. That is not what you want to do in a pitch deck. One of the things that I love, um, I always point people to good and bad pitches on shark tank. You want to To endear people, you have to be Chris, you have to have some charisma. You have to show them why they should trust you. And you have to be, this is the last piece where I see a lot of people be, have a challenge. You have to be vulnerable. And this is actually where the open ended piece comes from. If you say, Hey, I started this sock company and I love designing things. I love the colors. I love great people. and you have reasons for that built into your story and then you get somewhere towards the end and you say, okay, so the reason that I'm here is because I need help with X. It could be the marketing department. It could be sales and processing, but let people know where the funding that you're going to get is going to go and actually be vulnerable because Anyone that is looking at stroking a big check going to look at you. And if you say, I've got everything under control,

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yep.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

that is a huge red flag to me. If, but if instead you say, Hey, I was able to get this going here. And just through grit and passion, we've reached, you know, 3 million, 7 million, whatever, in sales, I'm looking for 20 million to put into manufacturing and to hire an executive team and to take the things that I'm not good at off of my plate. That's like, I bet some entrepreneurs right now are cold and clammy and like a little bit like, gosh, puckered up. But if you're honest about that, that's where the money comes from because people want to know that they can be helpful and they want to know that the money that they're giving you isn't just going to company parties, that it's actually being used for where you need to use it to grow.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

It's funny. You mentioned like cold and clammy and I can imagine some people I know like absolutely having that reaction. My reaction when you said I need help with and here's where I'm strong and here's where I need a leadership team and need further assistance. I like, like just leaned in and was like, okay, like tell me more. This person's self aware. Yeah. This person is a genius in their field and they also know what it takes to get to the next step and where the funding and where the focus needs to be. And it's not all about them. And, and I kind of have conversations with founders and it's like, it is all about you stroke the ego a little bit, but it's also not all about you. So let's, let's be realistic. So there's a, there's a balance to it, but I love what you said. And I love there's power in the phrase, you know, I need help with X, Y, and Z. I think that's a really powerful phrase. What else would you say in terms of like, just broad bros, broad brush structure of like, okay, someone saying, I have to tell a story. I need to be clear. I need to ask for help. What are kind of the main chunks of, of how to tell this story?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

So. Emily, do you remember clubhouse?

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yeah. I mean,

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

So when clubhouse first started coming up, I did a founder's room crafting stories and I thought it was going to be two or three hours. We did 16 hours straight. I'm going to take, because people kept coming in and it actually got, we had a couple thousand people in the room. We had like something like 12, 000 people. It was one of the biggest. It was ridiculous, but I kept going because I love serving. Um, I'm going to lay out the same framework I gave there. When you're telling a story, we just talked about how it goes all over the place and it's this big spaghetti ball. you need to look at is start with. Your pain points that caused you to lean in and develop, start developing or looking for the solve that you made. Right. Um, I'm going to use socks. I don't know where socks came from, but I'm gonna start with socks, right? Like lean into that, share some earlier experiences that link to this. So I'm going to show you how to do this. If I'm Saying I needed to create a great pair of socks. Like every time I put on socks, they kind of had the bacon around the top where they were all too stretched out. They didn't have good colors or designs. And I was like, you know, how hard is it to just make really great socks? I don't have to worry about that. Keep me warm. They, they wick sweat away and they're just amazing. that took me back to my childhood. I loved running. I loved X, Y, Z. I got bullied by people because I liked bright colors. You're dropping in little details that let people know who you are. You can drop a few in there that are endearing. You can drop a few in there that will relate to the person that you're talking to. Notice I'm not sharing things that don't link. This is where we start to, if it doesn't link directly to the thing, you need to cut it from the story. I'm not telling stories about sitting at the lunch table. I'm not telling stories about my parents, unless that has something to do with the story. The sock, right? So pain points in the beginning that led you on this, then start to go through the journey. And this is where you actually want to talk about your strengths and your weaknesses. I was really good at doing this. So we leaned in, we did this. I had to figure out how to do X, Y, Z. This part of the story, I'm going to give you some timeframes. The first pain piece should be about 20 percent of how long you talk. The next piece of the journey. Which is what you are on right now is going to be somewhere around 60%. It usually has four to five points. We did this, then we did this and you need to make them flow together usually by telling an overall statement. So then we moved into marketing and then you want to tell two or three bullet points of marketing. So when we moved into marketing, man, I was like, I don't know how to do this. I went and found Jeff and Jeff came from XYZ company. We had met at an event and he was amazing. We plugged him in and this was the result that he got. concise, but let people know what you did. Three or four of those. That's going to take up about 60 percent and then the last bit where you want to go. Okay, so that brings us to now here's our plan moving forward. You've learned what I'm good at and you've heard what I'm not good at. What I need help with is X, Y, Z. The reason I am here talking to you is because and do some research. This is a asterisk. Do research on who you're doing the pitch to. You can see this on Shark Tank. good pitches. They don't just say, Oh, Mark Cuban, we'd love to work with you, Mark. You're amazing. They've done research into why, and they know something personal about Mark that links to their story. more importantly, they know how their business will directly dovetail with Mark's business to make money. Or if you look at like, um, if you look at when people go to Damon, they go to Damon because he's got experience. In clothing and retail, but more importantly, he knows the grit of how to do things. So they'll tie it to his grit, but they really, they're like, Oh, this would work really well with your distribution networks. That's how you want to end your pitch and make it about them. If they're driven by impact, show them how your business will impact. If they're driven by challenging, solving, like challenging problems, show them a challenging problem. If they're like whatever they're driven by, make it about them. Because point, I think founders get in an echo chamber

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Oh yes.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

they, it all like, they're like, it's me, it's me, it's me. And people around them are, are constantly like feeding into that. And. we can separate ourselves from our ego, that's where true growth happens. Not just internal growth, but external growth as well.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Beautiful. Yeah. People rewind that and listen to the structure that Steve just outlined. Cause that's really powerful. Um, in the hero's journey, we talk about the hero's journey. Um, who is the hero?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Ooh, this is a great question. The listener, the listener is the hero. If you do this correctly, why do you love star Wars? Everybody loves star Wars, right? Because they become the hero. Who is Yoda in that he is the master storyteller notice. That he is not key character. The key character is Luke and Luke goes through the same struggles that you and I have. Yoda the teacher and our job as the storyteller is to make them the star. So how can, and this is, this goes back to linking feeling. If you're making a pitch in front of somebody, how can you make them feel like they are the star versus it's me, me, me. Because I can, I mean. I've invested in a few companies, like very small, like nothing, nothing crazy. I'm not an angel investor in order for me to write a check to support somebody, I have to trust them. And I have to feel like they, they're not a narcissist putting it nicely.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yep. I love it because yes, just human nature. I won't put it all on founders, just human nature. We tend to think of ourself as the hero of everything and it's really, you can switch that lens. Um, and that's what I do in coaching. Like, look, you're Luke Skywalker. I'm, I'm Yoda. I'm your guide. I will help you, but this is your story and this is about you and I want to make sure that you achieve what you want to achieve. So if you go into it, that lens, I feel like everything you do. Changes. So the content you produce, the delivery, like your countenance, just your body language, everything changes. And people can, again, feel that difference. You mentioned something else that was interesting. If, if you're telling a story about the founding team and perhaps you might have your CTO there, who've been with you since the beginning, how would you suggest they. Incorporate their story. Or if you're all presenting together, how do, how do you do kind of multi, multi, uh, big group presentation?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Sure. Okay. So I'm going to go back to the framework that I gave you. So the 20 percent in the beginning is on the founder, because that is Your story of how you started, where, where'd your idea come from? What problem are you solving? Why is it tie emotionally to you? And hopefully to the investor. Then when you get in that middle part, that is the 60%, that's where you can pull your other people in and they should tell a similar story. To the founder story, but it follows the framework that I gave you. So then I went and found Jeff and Jeff, like I need a head of marketing because I'm, to be honest, I'm horrible at marketing. I like to sit down and code things. Right. So I found Jeff, we knew each other, Jeff, I want to bring you up here. Jeff should say why he was attracted to the company emotionally. Now, you don't say that by saying I was emotionally attracted. You say, you know, I found Steve, like Steven, I met and his idea was so good and watching his passion for it and how he refused to take no for an answer. And he started building this. And then he talked to me and I was like, you know, I could really plug in and help here. And Like, I don't really care about socks, but I care about changing the world. And we're doing that through X, Y, Z. Right. That's why I'm here. And that's why I'm not going to leave. That's the, like, you can't say I'm not going to leave, one of the questions that founders have is how, how strongly woven together is your team? Why is your team there? And you want them to, to. Put that in the conversation.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, you've stressed that there's a sequence, everything should link, so everyone should know their part of this pitch and this presentation and know where to come in and then where to exit stage left and let Steve back on the main stage. So I think all of that, not in like a. Overly choreographed manufactured fake way, but just in a, like, we have our shit together. And like, here's the story that we're going to tell you. The other component to this is I often coach people who need like a 15 to 20 minute pitch when it's that initial. Call and then a two hour one, then like a four hour kind of half day. Um, like let's go into all the details. So you mentioned before, like don't rabbit hole into all these details, which I would agree with at the first and probably second, um, conversations. But once you get into that, it's kind of like an iceberg, right? Tip of the iceberg, second layer, then the whole, whole big thing. So what would you say in terms of how do you craft like those different segments?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

So what we just went through is like a 20 minute to, I would say maybe like 45 minute hour, like if you're going to a lunch meeting, right. Or if you're, if you're going to the office and you're given an hour, that's what you want to do. That's the first level. The second level that you are talking about is where you actually have to show them some details. So here I would show that you have had, and this is going to be less story, although you should still use emotion. Okay. And it's going to be about, okay, so this is where we're at in our company. How did we get here? And you want to show them how you solve problems, how you start, like how you, let's go back to socks, right? So we started with socks. I had a few, I had 20, 000 come from China. I needed marketing. Where do we start with marketing? We had a 10, 000 budget. Here's what we sat down and came up with. Jeff. And this is where Jeff should step up and take the lead, right? us through how he built the marketing, why he built it. And you have, this is, I'm going to challenge you all to be vulnerable again, show the mistakes that you made and show how you solve them. Because that again, gives the, the person writing the check confidence that you can take feedback. Nothing is worse and nothing will tank a business faster than somebody who makes a mistake and does not learn from it or correct it instead just throws more money at it or tries to bust

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Don't do that.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Unfortunately, I, was a comment. going to throw this out. It doesn't have directly do a story, but that founders and entrepreneurs come from backgrounds of trauma because we are comfortable thriving in the chaos, I, I, somebody told me I will. I went through and made a list and I can't find one that's not one of the challenges that comes with that is being vulnerable and admitting that we don't know everything and that we have to move through that. That was something like I look back at my journey and that was a big turning point for me where my life got a whole lot easier. Tim Ferriss, I, when I tell the story, I was talking about Tim Ferriss when he did brain quicken, he was working 80 hours a week. He was ready to self implode because he was the bottleneck holding onto everything when he released it all said, I need help. That's when his life like 50 X. Um, so going back to the storytelling, this is, you need in the deeper dive in that middle layer of the iceberg. This is where you need to show them those things. Now I would not get super detailed. The super detailed piece comes at the end when they're actually doing due diligence. So now you've gone through the first piece, they're interested, they're leaning forward. They're like, okay, let's go a little bit deeper. Okay. Then you get into that middle level, you want to show some details, but not crazy, crazy details. last piece is like due diligence. Okay, we're going to sit down, we're going to open our books, we're going to show you exactly what we did. You have to make sure that part three backs up to part two. Like if you're going to tell a story about Jeff running 10 K and beta ads and then they get to do diligence and they're like, Oh, you spent 500. I thought you spent if it doesn't line up, that's a huge red flag. So

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

The story has to build on itself. Yeah.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Correct.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Well, I mean, I think there's so much in what you just said there. The reason I say like, it is all about the founder and it's not is because at a certain point it was all about them and they had to figure stuff out and it had to be all about them and to your point, they have to be able to make that switch. And when I've seen, you know, VC and PE kind of investments implode is when the founder can't make that switch. And I've worked with PE firms where it's like, we have contingency plans. If you can't make that switch, so we want you to be able to make that transition. But if you can't, then we have a team ready to go. And I've been on that team ready to go. Inherent in all of this, I think we're talking about building trust because if I'm going to give you 20 million dollars. I better trust you like with my kids and with my dog and with my house and all these things and the, the vulnerability you're talking about and the self awareness you're talking about and they like, Hey, we effed this up and here's how we solved our way out of that. Here's how we think about things that makes me trust you more. We're like, okay, you can. Come clean on your mistakes and I know how you think and how you approach different challenges. And so that makes me trust you more. You're not hiding, hiding anything on me. You're just being transparent. So is there any other tools or strategies you would say to build trust and just build that, uh, relationship with, with the person you're speaking to?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Um, they're, they're, they're going to sound mundane, but they're 100 percent true. Uh, if you read the book, the four agreements be impeccable with your word. this is something I had to learn. Uh, when I transitioned, I mean, um, 12 years ago, I worked resorts when I went out on my own and started my own business. I had to learn to not over commit to things. It's not that I wanted to tell somebody something and not do it. It was, I wanted to say yes to everything, which led to me making commitments that I wouldn't keep. I would forget about most of them, but every once in a while, you know, something would show up and, and I'd be like, I can't do it. When you're talking to people, This goes right in line with the vulnerability piece. If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you're, if you schedule a meeting beyond time, I can't, I mean, you and I both spend a lot of time on podcasts. I can't tell you how many people show up eight, 10 minutes late, like a minute. I can understand because you're going from call to call, apologize, own it, move forward. But people that show up 10 to 15 minutes late to every meeting, That's that is a, that would be a red flag to me as somebody investing personally, I can't speak for everybody out there. Um, but be impeccable with your word. I think that is one of the biggest things. And if you do make a mistake, own it right away. Don't apologize. Don't don't make excuses. Just own it. forward and don't do it again. That would, that would be one. Um, the second one is be interested, do your research on the people that you're pitching, not to like, you can tell the people that come on shark tank again, that just want to like, Oh, Mark, you in, Oh, Kevin. like, you can tell the people that actually took the time

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yeah.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

learn about them as a person. Cause at the end of the day, the person writing you the check is they're going to embed with you. And you want to make sure

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

It's a marriage.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

yeah, like might be able to write the check, but if they're not the right fit, you will do better by saying no. Or, I mean, this goes for them as well. If they're sitting there looking at, at a business and they're like, this business has all the right things, but I don't vibe with the founders or I don't trust the founders that you should not stroke that check. Like, don't, don't sign it. Like it's not the deal of the year comes along every day.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yeah. I've spoken to so many founders and my team and I have had candid discussions with founders where like, look, there's different deals on the table for you. And you might take. Less of a monetary value because it's a better fit and they understand your industry. They understand you. It's just a complimentary thing. You're going to have to spend the next, you know, two, three, you know, five, seven years with this, these people, you better like them a lot and be able to spend an 18 hour flight to Dubai where you're going to have to travel to regularly with this person. So, you know, take the, take the hit on the, Top number, but overall that experience and the potential for the valuation growth goes up. So I would agree with that. Um, a hundred percent. Um, Oh my gosh, there's so much, there's like fireworks in my brain off of all the things that you've said. How would you, how would you guide people towards the Q& A portion? So you give your presentation, you're vulnerable, you say you need help, you have this sequence, you're crisp, you're clean, and then they go okay, and they have some questions. How would you, just some, what are some important things to keep in mind at the Q& A section?

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

So two things, maybe three. The first one is take whatever the hardest questions, you know, they're going to ask, build them into your pitch or at the end of the pitch, take them head on. Hey, what's going through your head is probably X, Y, Z. If you do that and you, you don't have to go in again, don't make excuses for it. Just say, Hey, what's going through your head is X, Y, Z. Let me tell you how we think about that. That shows that you're aware if they ask a difficult, like if you take the hardest questions head on, that will usually liquidate 90 percent of the questions. they'll, they'll be like, Oh man, they thought about this and they know their business inside and out. Take notes. If you're doing your first pitch and they start asking hard questions, we'll go into what to do then. But take notes of those and build those for next time. So that you're ready, like, don't wait for them to ask. Um, there's an idea called damaging admissions. So damaging admissions is a thought process of if I tell you something that I have done wrong, you will trust me more. And this plays into that. If you If, if you just take it head on, it builds so much trust. If you, if they ask a hard question and the answer is something they are not going to like, you have to be honest can, you can frame it by saying, Hey Emily, you're probably not going to like this. This might be a little bit difficult, but we don't want to hide anything from you. This works in relationships

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yes,

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

well. If you're, if you're fighting with your significant other, or there's something like sitting on the couch between you, that's what. Me and my ex called it, it works really well to say, you know, Hey, actually your name was Emily. Um, Hey Emily, um, look, this might be kind of an uncomfortable conversation, but I just want to take a deep breath. something we need to talk about. Let's unpack it. That's that gives them a little bit of warning. It primes their nervous system and it kind of makes it a lot easier than just slamming them into a brick wall. Right. Um, so that if they ask a difficult question, do that. The other thing that I would tell you, um, my very first mentor had me do this and it will serve you well in all facets of life, get index cards. And you write, when somebody asks you a question about something or somebody, there's a, uh, objection you have to overcome. If you're, if you're a salesperson or a belief, like a false belief that you need to change in somebody. Write out what that is, then write your bullet point story around it. People hate to be told things. They put up walls, right? And they push back even if they know it's the right thing. So if instead you lead with a story and then tell them the thing, because the story gets them to lean in and kind of like sneak attacks them like Trojan horse style. Now you can tell them the thing and they will fully accept it. So how do you use this in questions? Answer, you can give them the straightforward answer. Your story should not be long, but give them a very short story that frames what it is. I've done that countless times on this podcast.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

All right. So Q and A, I love that where you just hit it head on. Um, and I, I remember, I forget the exact, uh, the gentleman's name or the exact scenario, but he, he, he was presenting to us and he clearly got a question he hadn't thought through. Um, he was very prepared in general, but he hadn't, he hadn't gotten this question and he paused and just literally like thought about it. And then he was like, that's a great question. Can we just have a conversation around this? And here's what I'm thinking. What do you think about that? And it was amazing. Like, it was like, we're actually having a real dialogue instead of like, okay, you're presenting, I'm going to ask you QA, everyone just put their guards down to your point and just had a conversation about this problem and how we would do it together. And that was like, literally, I don't remember anything else about this presentation. I remember like what he was wearing and like the room we were in and like the fact that he. Was like, let me pause and I don't know, but let me just have a conversation around this.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

I mean, that is, is a phenomenal way to do it. Um, and you can't do that on every question, but it's, it goes back to you're being honest instead of trying to, you know, puff up your chest and make something up that makes you sound good. I don't, I don't know. I, I hadn't really thought about it, but let's just talk through it. Like all the negative energy goes and then you're collaborating with the person that you hope writes you a check, which is not like, that's the best way to show your skills.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Yeah. Steve, you've covered so much and it's been amazing. Anything else big that you were like, Oh, people need to know about this. If we're talking about this stuff, they also need to know about this.

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Um, I think, I mean, we covered, we covered a ton. I will say one of the things that I did early on in my career, I still do sometimes bring somebody a cup of coffee is the easiest way. I mean, depending where you live, if you're near them, if you need to talk to somebody, even if it's outside of doing a pitch, like doing the actual pitch, if you want to do an elevator pitch to somebody, taking people coffee or donuts or muffins. And make sure they eat that stuff, right? If they're gluten free or they don't eat sugar, take them something. They can eat that shows that you thought about them. You can usually get five minutes with somebody. done that a hundred plus times throughout my career. If you're listening to this and you're trying to design this big, crazy pitch, elevator pitch. Is 30 seconds or less don't talk so fast. They can't hear you instead, get them to lean in because you connect with them on an emotional level. that's, that would be my, my tip to get in the door with people.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

Get some coffee, get some donuts, or if they're like a health nut, get a veggie tray, whatever, whatever they like. Open the conversation with that. So Steve, we talked about the fact that you're this, Massive director and orchestrator of events, but you know, who do you help and how do you help them? What else are you up to that people should know about

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Yeah. The, I mean, I stay very firmly in my lane. Um, we, So people who do sales events, events that are built to sell something from stage, that is 80 percent of what we do. So I work as a consultant. I sit down with them. We take the end goal. We build the whole event around that. We help source speakers. We bring the right people in. I make sure that story arc that we talk there is there start to finish. Um, I will usually MC the events. The MC is actually the secret weapon for sales because the person on stage, they're expecting to sell the MC is there to break false beliefs, overcome objections. And then we do what's called the repitch at the very end of the event, which is an emotionally triggering speech. That gets the people that were on the fence to go by. Um, I love doing that stuff. other thing that we do is what we just talked about. I help people build their core talk, whether that is a Ted style talk or whether that is a pitch talk, we jump in and we just help, and I do it by asking questions and getting to know the person and what they want at the end of it, because it's not one size fits all.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

beautiful? I wish every conference was orchestrated by you because that sounds amazing Um, if people want to know more or like yep, please sign me up. I want to get in touch with steve Where is the best place for them to do that

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

Sure. Stephenphilipwerner. com is my main site. If you're just looking to connect with me, you can go to steve. coffee, C O F F E E, and that will get you, um, we have a couple freebies there, and then you can also book a call directly with me. You can also book one on the website. Again, it's Stephenphilip, P H I L L I P, Werner, W E R N E R.

emily-sander_1_12-12-2024_090710:

and we will have all of that information in the show notes as always steve Thank you so much

steve-werner_1_12-12-2024_110709:

It is my pleasure. Thanks, Emily.