How Business Storytelling Builds Trust and Drives Results

0:00John Jantsch:So some people walk into a room with more credentials, more data, more experience maybe than anyone else there and still get ignored. Somebody else with less of all three changes minds instead and the difference always comes down to who knew how to tell a better story.

0:27John Jantsch:Hello and welcome to the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz and my guest today is Don Yeager, a repeat guest, national speaker, Hall of Fame inductee, 13-time New York Times bestselling author and longtime associate editor at Sports Illustrated. I can go on and on about all books about some of our famous sports stars. But for the purpose of this show, we're going to talk about his latest book, The Business of Storytelling, Inspire Action, Build Trust, and Drive Results Through Story. So welcome back, Don.

1:02Don Yaeger:Hey, thanks, John. I always appreciate the opportunity to spend a little time with you.

1:06John Jantsch:Well, so let's dive right into the book. You have some universal truths in this book. It's kind of based around that or structured around that. And this is the one that I wanted to test. It says no formula governs a great story, but then you give us like 10 elements to build a great story. So how do you square those two things? Ten elements are not a formula.

1:29Don Yaeger:The formula is plus, you know, insert hero here, insert challenge there, and out comes transformation.

1:36John Jantsch:Right, right, right.

1:37Don Yaeger:These are elements that allow a great story to come together. And I just know these elements to be true. And you cannot really tell a great story without covering that waterfront.

1:50John Jantsch:Now, you, occupational hazard, let's call it that, have interviewed thousands of people. You've heard thousands of stories and some of the people that you've chronicled books are amazing storytellers. So how do you translate that to the person that maybe certainly doesn't have that background, but maybe doesn't have a communications team, is really just kind of trying to be more authentic in a world of AI? I mean, how do you translate that to them?

2:21Don Yaeger:Well, first off, thanks for saying those words, because I think that's a real driver in all of it, right? I mean, I think there are so many people that think I'm going to see that. I'm going to I'm going to ask AI to tell my story for me. And the one thing I will promise you is that the one is that AI cannot tell your story for you. In fact, if you lean into it, you may or may not have any control about what your story shows up to be when you're when you're suddenly introduced. AI, as we know, likes to make things up. But on top of that, it also has weaknesses that remain and will probably always remain.

2:56Don Yaeger:The one thing AI can't do is bring heart to the equation, right? Obviously, it's not very insightful of me to say that a computer can't bring heart to the equation. But that's what a great story does, right? A great story takes statistics and numbers and everything else, and it wraps them in a heart. and that ability to kind of humanize a good story belongs to us.

3:22John Jantsch:So, you know, I think there are two ends of this because I have listeners that need to pull a story out of somebody. And certainly I have people that have a story they need to tell, particularly thinking about the person that needs to pull a story. When you start interviewing somebody, I'm guessing there are some people that just get right to the heart of it. I'm sure there are also some people that put up a mask and it's like, here's the story. Here's the story I want you to hear. I mean, how do you actually get to the real story when you, or do you just realize, hey, they're not going to tell me anything.

3:56John Jantsch:I'm done.

3:56Don Yaeger:So I don't give up on it. One thing I, one thing, you know, if you do the right prep work, right, you're listening to somebody or you're reading stories with someone's interview involved. One thing that happens is you become really clear. like these are the stories they're just used to telling, right? These are the ones that it's like, you know, they pull a little cord and then, you know, it just spews out. And at the end of the day, what I'm always trying to do is be aware of those stories so that if they start going there, I can immediately kind of start to shift it in another direction. I do not want the story everybody else gets when they're in conversation with John Jatch, right?

4:34Don Yaeger:I'm looking for something that I can pull from you that you may not have wanted to say when this conversation began. I have lots of experience doing that, but I think the real key is you have to know what you don't want in order to really start beginning to drive people to where you hope to get. And so research is an enormous part of what I do when I'm trying to pull a good story from someone.

5:03John Jantsch:Are you going to try to get me to cry, Don? Is that the goal?

5:05Don Yaeger:It will not be long, brother. I'm going to make that happen. So get ready, get your tissues out.

5:11John Jantsch:So let me push back just a moment because, I mean, you're interviewing, you know, Deion Sanders, Walter Payton. There's a lot out there about them. I mean, you can find all the stuff, but what about the CEO of a small, you know, private company? There's not a lot maybe out there? How do you do that research and prepare when there's not much to know?

5:33Don Yaeger:So first off, I would disagree with you that in today's day and age, you know what they ate for lunch, right? In today's day and age, there are so many places you can go. I did an interview this morning, or I was on with someone this morning in which I actually, I shared with her, hey, you know, I saw in Classmates, and you may not even know it, Classmates actually shows you the yearbooks of people, you know, dating back 100 years. And I said, hey, I was looking at Georgia Christian High School where you graduated in 2005. I saw the yearbook and I noticed that you were not just a three-sport athlete.

6:10Don Yaeger:You were also a homecoming queen. And like, she was blown away. But it was a simple website. It's not a difficult one to get to, not a difficult one to track. It wasn't stalking. It's a yearbook. The yearbooks are available in libraries. And so she just understood that I had taken time to learn something about her. She wasn't even aware other people might know. And it gave me an opportunity to talk about being a three-sport athlete myself. And, you know, I was not homecoming queen, but I, you know. And then between that, suddenly we go from, I know something about her. I've now connected to her because we both have something in common.

6:49Don Yaeger:And then it allows me to go into different places in the interview process. So the idea of actually finding their unique websites out there, almost any one of these CEOs is on a charity board.

7:02John Jantsch:Yeah.

7:02Don Yaeger:There's amazing things you'll find about them in the charity board website.

7:06John Jantsch:Yeah, they put personal details down there sometimes, right? Yeah.

7:10Don Yaeger:Right. And about the things that they've done for the charity that might be really inspirational. And if I can know that, again, it's very public knowledge. I'm not finding stuff that isn't available to everyone else. I'm just doing it well enough that at the end of the day, they realize I've cared for them by learning about them.

7:30John Jantsch:So let's get back to the book, but one more stop. Let's unpack a little bit in your mind why storytelling is so effective. You know, the neuroscience actually even, you know, behind it, not just as a tool, but really as a, you know, I mean, just part of our human nature.

7:48Don Yaeger:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, think about it. It is the one thing that's been true over the history of mankind is that we relay knowledge through story. We relay history through story. We build relationship through story. And, I mean, you go to the caves, you walk into the crypts, and you see things that will blow your mind because you'll understand that this was the way history was recorded. It's just as true today. The way that I want you to understand me is through story. The way I hope I can relate to you is through story. And some people might argue that they don't need to know how to do this, that it's just a nice to have.

8:32Don Yaeger:I argue that it's an imperative. In today's day and age, revenue changes hands, money changes hands over storytelling.

8:41John Jantsch:Well, and just the human connection. I mean, you know, obviously storytelling in the boardroom, storytelling, you know, on a, you know, reporting, you know, call of the numbers and whatnot, but just even like making a connection in a sales call. You know, and my dad, you know, was an old kind of bag carrying salesperson. He'd walk in the office. First thing he did is like, here's Walter Payton's jersey. You got three kids. You got, you know, there's Muhammad Ali. It's like, I know how to connect with you now because I find that common thing. And, you know, it's corny as it and contrived maybe as it can sound.

9:16John Jantsch:You know, it just it speeds up the process of connection so much.

9:20Don Yaeger:Absolutely. And what happens? So, you know, sometimes we love to say people like to buy from people, you know, like them. Sure. People like them, right?

9:30John Jantsch:Yeah.

9:31Don Yaeger:So how do you make sure that they know that you're like them? You understand who they are and you try to draw that point of connection. So it's not just, again, this, it's funny. I started several years ago as I was really, I had been working for years to become known as a good storyteller, great storyteller. I've been fortunate, the likes of Simon Sinek, the likes of John Maxwell, people that I value greatly refer to me in that way. And that's awesome. But one of the things I started asking people is, would you be better as a salesperson if you could tell better stories? Would you be a better leader if you could tell better stories?

10:08Would you be a better parent if you could tell

10:11Don Yaeger:better stories? And the truth is, there almost is, there's not a question I could ask you where you would say no.

10:18John Jantsch:Yeah.

10:18Don Yaeger:There is, this is a skill that if mastered makes you better across the board.

10:27John Jantsch:So let's get to, we kind of flirted with them a little bit, but maybe you could unpack. You don't have to do them all, but just the book is based on these universal truths. So maybe kind of cover the range of those and maybe you can pick. I always like to ask authors to pick their favorite.

10:46Don Yaeger:Well, the universal truths, there are four of them and there are 10 elements, but for the four universal truths, the first one's extraordinary. I mean, it's just first one we would have to agree on between each other because I know it. I know you know it to be true. That's the best stories are always human. I could tell you a story about our productivity. I could tell you a story about how many more widgets we are producing today than we've ever produced before. But if I tell you how those widgets are changing lives for one family or for a user of our product or how producing more widgets is making more of our employees wealthy enough to be able to pull themselves out of poverty.

11:28Don Yaeger:If I can use, if I can build the story around people, it always remains more memorable.

11:36John Jantsch:Well, just go look at a dozen Google reviews of, say, like a, I don't know, a furnace company or something. And I will tell you that none of the five-star reviews will say this is the best company. They will say Rusty fixed our boiler. And he was, you know, he closed the door. He was so kind to my children. I mean, that proves your point, doesn't it? I mean, that's what people connected with.