Episode 6: Great Stories Pull People Toward You

Every leader has heard the advice: "You need to be a better storyteller." The problem is that most people never explain what that actually means, or why storytelling can be one of the most powerful skills in business.

In this episode of Mitchell’s Moments Coaching Podcast, executive coach Mitchell Schuckman explores why great stories pull people toward you, whether you're leading a team, building client relationships, winning new business, or influencing important decisions.

Drawing on his experience leading global pursuit teams and helping organizations win competitive business opportunities, Mitchell explains why storytelling is far more than a communication technique. Great stories help people see themselves in your message, connect emotionally to your ideas, and understand the value you bring. Through examples from his own career, he demonstrates how the ability to tell the right story, to the right audience, can often be more influential than facts alone.

At its core, storytelling is about understanding people, making your message relevant to their needs, and helping them envision a better future with you alongside them. 

This episode explores:

• Why storytelling is one of the most misunderstood skills in business
 • How stories create stronger relationships and deeper connections
 • The difference between presenting facts and creating an experience
 • Why understanding your audience is critical to effective storytelling
 • How storytelling can help win business, influence decisions, and build trust

Mitchell’s Moments delivers short, focused conversations designed to provide practical leadership insights you can apply immediately.

Learn more about Mitchell Schuckman and The Schuckman Group at
 theschuckmangroup.com

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Each episode delivers short, practical insights on leadership, coaching, business development, and navigating today’s changing business world.

You can also learn more about Mitchell Schuckman and his coaching and leadership programs at
www.theschuckmangroup.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to Mitchell's Moments Coaching Podcast. I think this is episode six. As you know, if you've listened to my podcast before, these episodes are designed to be 20 minutes or less, focus on one topic, give you some really useful food for thought, hopefully send you off and having a great day. That's the purpose of my podcast. That's the purpose of these episodes. And today's episode is on the topic of storytelling. It's important because I've had, first of all, I feel find that when it comes to storytelling in business, I think I'm pretty good at that. I tend to, I'll get into how I do that in a minute. But I have so many leaders come to me, and I hear so many people say, I need my people to be better storytellers. I need to be a better storyteller. Storytelling is a common phrase. It's overused, and I think it's very, very misunderstood. So just to give you a little bit of background, um, I have been operating my own coaching and consulting business called the Shuckman Group. I've been doing that for the past nine months, 10 months. I spent a very long career at a large global accounting and consulting firm. You can look me up and find out which one. But the last, well, most of my career, but formally in the last 10 years of my career, I ran a global pursuit team, a team that worked on competitive proposals to win new work from clients. And one of the reasons I got that role is I was pretty good at getting new clients before joining that team. And I did that on my own and with my teams. And so then I joined and became the leader of this pursuit team that helped other teams around the entire firm around the world win new work from prospective clients and retain work from existing for existing clients. So answering proposals. And I give you that background because storytelling is a big part of the proposal process. And I think people misunderstand that. I think people underestimate the power of it sometimes. But I'm going to get into storytelling in a bit more detail and give you some perspective on the power of storytelling in business. Why it's a in some ways it's an easier trait to learn than you think. In other ways, it's an easy one to take for granted and you shouldn't. How's that? So let me talk about a couple of experiences I've had as it relates to storytelling specifically. I'm going to give a shout out to the first person who actually brought me into a training program to be a better storyteller. The person who brought me in is a guy named Jack Tuber. Jack is retired now, but if he hears his name, he'll be excited. Jack invited me, I was going to say dragged me, but invited me into a storytelling training course being taught by a phenomenal instructor named Cindy Freeman. And Cindy taught us a lot about the concepts that go into telling a great story. And she taught me a lot of principles in how to deliver a very good story and what the elements of it was. And it was from there that I realized that storytelling in business was a thing. I thought it just came, it was a natural thing that I did, but it was really a thing that could make a difference in the room. And Jack inviting me to this training, Cindy teaching the training taught me a lot. So I wanted to give them a shout out. Now, people think that storytelling can be a formula. And Cindy did a little bit of formulaic teaching of storytelling. But there's a quote in a book by a guy who's really like a good storyteller, like professional storyteller. And his name is Matthew Dix. And he wrote a book called I can't remember the name of the story. Uh the name of the book, but it it Matthew Dix is the author. He's written several books on how to be a great storyteller. He deserves a shout out here. But anyway, one of his books made this comment that our lives are stories. Everything we do is a story. And he actually has an exercise in one of his books that I actually did. I did it a couple times and realized, okay, he's right. Um, but he said, if you could take a minute at the end of every day and spend not more than a minute or two remembering a highlight of the day and writing down a few key words of the story that made that highlight what it was. You will start to recognize that your life is full of stories. And once I did that a few times, I realized he's absolutely right. So the point is, you don't need to create a story. You need to be observant. You have a lot of stories, whether they're you or people around you or things you observe. There are stories all around you. So I took all of that. And um, for those of you who know me, I wrote a book. I wrote it, um, I published it about a year ago, a little less than a year ago. It was right when I started The Shuckman Group, my consulting practice. The book is called I'll Tell You a Great Story. And the subtitle is Building Closer Relationships and Winning in Business Through Storytelling. The book doesn't teach you how to tell a great story. The book tells stories that teach lessons about how to be successful in business and life. So that's important because I use storytelling as a medium to deliver lessons versus delivering theory. So storytelling can be a powerful tool. Okay, acknowledged it's a powerful tool, and acknowledge that we all have stories that are all over our lives. Now, let's pivot. Think about this. So I love the beach. You can probably see the photos behind me. Uh, those are photos uh by my beach house uh on Nantucket, where um is my favorite place on earth. I'm not there right now, but I love the beach, and on the beach you get great, great sunrises and sunsets. So imagine telling someone about a sunset, and you could say, I was on the beach last night, the sunset was gorgeous, it was a beautiful night, it was beautiful. Then imagine saying, you know, I brought my beach chair to the beach and I watched the sunset. I brought a cold, I brought a cooler, I had a cold beer in my hand, my toes were in the sand, the breeze was coming off the ocean, and I could even smell the salt in the air. And as I watched the sun setting in the sky towards the horizon, I saw the ripples of the sunset on the waves, and it was a serene and beautiful moment. That's a different story that takes the listener on the beach with you and makes them really experience the feeling of that sunset. So you can see the power of storytelling, and if you tell the right story to the right audience, you can make them want to be with you. Now, one important thing, and I use this all the time, I think it's a Mark Twain quote, but I'm not positive. Something about don't let the facts or don't let the truth stand in the way of a good story. And what I say is, why I say that is not every fact needs to be completely accurate. For example, in my beach story, I was drinking a cold beer while I watched the sunset. If the person I was telling the story to was a recovering alcoholic, I'd be drinking a cold bottle of refreshing crisp water or an iced tea. And that's not a lie. I mean it is, but it's changing the facts to suit your audience. Because if that person you want sitting next to you happens to be a recovering alcoholic, you're more than happy to drink iced tea or water with them while enjoying the beautiful sunset. So observing, telling a story, and making it relevant for the person you're telling it to are key facts or key attributes of great storytelling. Now, let me tell you the real issue of why storytelling is so important in business. True story, it's actually the first chapter in the book I wrote. So I'm gonna I'm gonna spoil the first chapter of my book if you want to read my book. But the true story is when I first joined the pursuit team, so I had become the pursuit leader, like I said, probably 12 years or so ago at this point. But when I first became the pursuit leader, I led a pursuit to do, I'll just I'll just say it like it is, it was to do tax returns for a client. And we, my team that I was helping coach to deliver this proposal, had created brand new technology that would generate a tax return without any human hands on keys. Of course, the humans would have to review the returns, but they wouldn't have to prepare the returns. And these particular returns, this was groundbreaking. We had just invented this, and the leader of the practice was sure there was no one else in the business at that time who had this capability because he was interviewing people and he'd hired people from other firms and no one had this. We just developed it and it was groundbreaking. We could take downloads from the client and it would go into our system and it would create a tax return. So we decided to go into this particular client with their data and show them that our technology could prepare a complete, accurate, and quick tax return for them. And we did. Our competitors went in and they did something because they won the work. And so our team was flabbergasted, and the partner who had created this technology or envisioned it and had it created asked me to go meet with the client and to do a debrief as to why we lost. So I met with the client, I met with the CFO with this client who said to me, Mitchell, um, both you and your competitors had the same technology. And I'm like, Well, wait a minute. We had the same technology? How is that possible? And she said, Well, they showed me the screenshots of the user interface, they showed me the input and the output screenshots, and they told me exactly how it I would experience working with them. How all I had to do is press a button and download a bunch of information to them, how my review time would be very minimal because the the returns were basically self-reviewed and self-corrected. Uh so there was really no review time required. And it was really just um going to be a seamless process for me, and it was going to make my life tremendously easy. So I said to her, but did they show you the actual technology working, or did they just show you screenshots? And she said, Well, they were just screenshots, but they're a reputable firm. I've worked with them before. Why would I not believe them? And that's when it dawned on me. A great story can actually be great real stuff. And that's when storytelling and business took on a whole new meaning for me. Now, this was over 10 years or so ago, but I was really focused from that day forward on show but also tell. Tell a great story. Now, I said earlier in this podcast that some people say we need to be better storytellers. There are also people who take it for granted and assume that it's not a big deal. Being a great storyteller, especially in the context of business, I just told you it can make a huge difference. And I'm also telling you that having someone who can help you tell a great story is a tremendous asset. I am a tremendous asset when it comes to that. Um, when I led this proposal team, I had so many people say to me, Why do we need to have you and your team prepare proposals for us? Can't you just give us a template and we'll fill in the client name for the particular service we're offering? We'll fill in the price, we'll fill in the team, and we're done. And I said, Yeah, sure, that'll help you get it done quickly, but it's not going to help you win. You win by telling stories, and the stories have to be resonating with the person you're telling it to. So, right, the story about the person or the story about the sunset. If you're telling it to a recovering alcoholic, I know I've used that example a few times, but you're drinking iced tea and they want to be there with you. If you're telling a technology story to a potential client and you know that client is really focused on accuracy, talk about the accuracy the technology will provide to them, giving them comfort that everything is completely accurate. If the audience you're talking to is interested in timeliness because they want to get things done quickly, because they've got a busy, busy schedule or a busy calendar, then talk about the the speed in which the work can be done. So telling a story, not just it'll get done quickly, but imagine this. We when we work with our clients, we understand their timeline and we build a timeline around that. In fact, we had a client recently that we built a timeline around, and they got their return so quickly and so easily that their agenda was freed up from the tax return so they could focus on other things. I did that quickly, but you can see how the client who wants quick and speed is going to appreciate that story and want to work with you. That's the point. In business, if you can tell a great story, make it relevant for the person hearing it and tell it well, they're gonna want to be sitting by your side and have you serving work to providing services to them. If you tell the right story to the person who you want to be sitting on the beach with you next time watching the sunset, if you tell the story well, they will absolutely join you in the beach chair next to you watching that sunset. So that's today's episode. Again, under 20 minutes. Today's episode is all about storytelling, particularly storytelling in business, but it's true in life. And I'm hoping that you will not just put storytelling in context, but I'm also hoping you'll appreciate the power of storytelling. And if you're not necessarily a good storyteller on your own or you can't figure out how to make your stories apply, find a good coach. Find someone who can help you because it can make a world of difference. Thank you for joining Mitchell's Moments Coaching Podcast, episode six, I believe. And I look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great day.