Matthew Dicks: belief

Transcript context

…I'm going to come back to where story can help you in your work. So obviously giving a public talk is the classic way to use this, maybe giving a PowerPoint deck in a meeting. Is there any other maybe non-obvious places that you think this skill can help you in that's not just like, "Hey everyone welcome to my..." Well, I've worked with a lot of scientists in biotech and places like that. I worked with a biotech company. Five of their scientists were going to a conference. And essentially it's a company that sells tubes. All of their competitors sell a tube for experiments and you have to retrofit the tube to fit your needs. The company I was working with, they sell 12 different versions of the tube. Better sized so you don't have to retrofit it, much more expensive, but the reliability of your experiments are improved by using their properly sized tubes. So I prepare all the scientists and they all do a good job. They all tell stories of some sort and they go off to their conference. One guy though doesn't present any data whatsoever. He just tells a story. He tells a story about going to the grocery store and when he goes to the grocery store, his family is really annoying when it comes to apples. Because everyone likes a different apple. So he's got to go and he is got to buy three Honeycrisp for his wife and two Gala for his daughter. And they're baking a pie this week so they got to get some McIntosh and he likes Red Delicious. He said, "It's a nightmare buying these apples." So he tells that story about the nightmare of buying apples, and then he says, "That's what my company does." There are companies that say, "We offer McIntosh, make do with it. You're going to make your pies, you're, you're going to eat it. All of the things that you want to do with an apple, all you get is McIntosh. Good luck. We believe you should have access to all the apples. We believe that you have particular needs and specific requirements, and we're going to make sure you have it. Just like my family gets all the apples they want. It's all he said. A longer version of it, but that's it. No data. He got more leads at the conference than the other four scientists combined. Now the vice president of marketing was not happy about this at all when I met I met with her. Because she's a scientist. She's 50 years old. For her entire life, she's been sending scientists to conferences and presenting data. And she said to me, "So what am I going to do? Send scientists to conferences now and not present data?" And I said, "Well, I mean maybe because it worked" And she said, "Well, what about the data?" I said, "Now that he has the leads, you don't think they're going to want the data?" He's going to get on the phone and they're going to say, tell us about the data. But now they've established a connection. And the best thing about that story, the thing she didn't even understand was, every single time someone at that conference goes into a grocery store now and they're looking at apples, they're going to think about that company. And it's a positive feeling that they're going to have about that company. If they have forgotten to call, but they meant to call, when they're picking out a Honeycrisp at the grocery store, they're going to make a note. feeling that they're going to have about that company. If they have forgotten to call, but they meant to call, when they're picking out a Honeycrisp at the grocery store, they're going to make a note. Oh, right, I got to call that company and look into the tubes that they sell. We create positive connections with items in the world related to our company by telling stories, and that means we've built advertising into people's lives without them even being aware that we've done it. So there's a billion ways to add storytelling into business. It's just another one.…

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