The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett XX
[0] Did you know that the DariVosio now has its own channel exclusively on Samsung TV Plus?
[1] And I'm excited to say that we've partnered with Samsung TV to bring this to life, and the channel is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
[2] Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service available to all owners of Samsung Smart TVs and Galaxy mobiles and tablets.
[3] And along with the Dyeravisio channel, you'll find hundreds of more channels with entertainment for everyone all for free on Samsung TV plus.
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[5] right now in the diary of a CEO we have hundreds of questions that have been left by our guests and we've put them on these cards and on these cards you have the question that's been left in the diary of a CEO the name of the person who wrote the question and if you turn it over there's a QR code if you scan that code you can see which guests answered the question and watch the video of them answering it every time I've done this podcast and every time we've asked the kind of questions we ask here.
[6] I feel a tremendous sense of affinity to the guest.
[7] And our aim with these cards is that you can create that sense of connection through vulnerability at home with the people you love the most.
[8] And I have some good news for you.
[9] As of today, you can add your name to the waiting list to be the first in line to get your own set of conversation cards at theconversationcards .com.
[10] That is theconversationcards .com.
[11] On that point of storytelling, You mentioned storytelling there in our narrative.
[12] Your book in 2019 was about storytelling.
[13] I, having worked in marketing, was very compelled to read this book.
[14] Probably, you know, we talked before we started recording, that a lot of people will see a book about, with the word storytelling on the front of it, and think that they can use it from a marketing capacity or in a business sense.
[15] What have you learnt about how people can tell great stories in the context of business and marketing?
[16] Yeah, well, so quite, quite, a lot.
[17] I teach a, I teach business storytelling section four, which is an American ed tech organization.
[18] So, so I, so I, so I do a course there in the science of storytelling for business.
[19] And, you know, we are storytelling animals.
[20] We, we, we, we, we know, narrative is basically, you know, how we experience ourselves and life.
[21] And so, as I say, in that course, if you're not communicating with story as a marketeer, you know, you're not communicating, you know, logic and facts and data and statistics.
[22] That's not the language of the brain.
[23] The language of the brain is beginning, middle, and end, a character, overcoming obstacles.
[24] I think a lot of the stuff we've been talking about is important, especially the idea that people think with their feelings.
[25] You know, it's feelings first, story second.
[26] The story justifies the feelings.
[27] And so if you want to tell persuasive stories, you need to first understand exactly who you're communicating with and you need to understand how they feel about the world how they feel about themselves how they feel about justice and what their values are and so that means understanding them kind of tribally what groups do they belong to who are their heroes who are their villains what motivates them what demotivates them so before you can sort of write the story you need to figure out how they feel about the world so a bad story then would be one that was because you know I thought about this a lot and my previous business was very successful in storytelling so my first company social chain it's going to be a very big business maybe a thousand employees worldwide we were we started out as a as a marketing agency never had a sales team because we we focused on telling stories those stories were told on social media and on stage by me so when I would go up on stage and talk about our agency to try and win business from Apple or Coca -Cola whoever it was I would actually start by talking about me my relationship with my mother.
[28] And that would be the first sentences out of my mouth when I walked on stage.
[29] If there was 1 ,000 people or 15 ,000 people there, it would be about my mother.
[30] And through that story about my mother and my upbringing and my battles and all those things, eventually you'd learn about our business and what we do and about the great work we do.
[31] But that was the preface of it.
[32] And that meant we never needed a sales team.
[33] I've always believed that if I'd walked on stage and started with a case study, Yes.
[34] I would have had to have a sales team at social team, knocking on doors.
[35] I think this is one of the biggest mistakes businesses make.
[36] When they pitch, when they speak on stage, when they post on social media, I think they have a, they believe that the listener wants big numbers and to hear how many views they got for their clients.
[37] And it just doesn't seem to be consistent with reality.
[38] No, it's not.
[39] I mean, so what you're doing when you're going into about your mother is you're connecting emotionally.
[40] so people are you know wanting they're on your side immediately and you're making them feel good you're making them feel things emotionally the kind of framework that I use for business storytelling is that is that is that you know essentially people's brains process reality in the same way and that's the you know so they're the hero of their story you're not the hero standing on the stage the company that's selling to you isn't the hero they're the hero of their own story they are you know that they've got goals they're trying to pursue we will have you know that which are the plots of our lives the audience yeah the audience the person you're setting to and then there's a brilliant story analyst called christopher booker who wrote this amazing book called the seven basic plots and he writes about archetypal characters and storytelling that he calls light figures and so the light figure is the example he uses are the three ghosts in a christmas carroll the charles dickens scrooge story so scrooge is the hero of that story and scrooge is the hero of that story and But the three ghosts come in to show him Christmas past, Christmas present, Christmas future.
[41] They help him get what he needs, which is to become a better, more selfless, more generous, more loving, giving person.
[42] So they are going to, they arrive in his story to kind of show him the way to help him get what he needs.
[43] And so that's what I argue.
[44] That's the appropriate position for most companies and organizations and needs is not to be the hero because your audience feels like they're the hero.
[45] You're the light figure.
[46] you're there to help them get what they want.
[47] So when you go straight in with here's all my awards, here's what this person said about me, here's some statistics and stuff, you're not a light figure, you're presenting as the hero.
[48] What people really want to know is how can you help me get what I want?
[49] And that's the story that you have to tell.
[50] What kind of example can you give me to really make that, make me understand that in a real practical sense?
[51] Is there a brand you've seen do this really well?
[52] Is there an example of a, I mean, my brain went to Nike, some reason yeah yeah well that's oh Nike's really interesting example so so obviously one of the things that Nike has done recently is it's um done that ad campaign around Colin Kaepernick which is controversial but did them i think i think they're something up's like six percent like after that that that ad campaign and that's a really good example of um an organization who is behaving as a light figure so that Colin Kaepernack campaign that has nothing to do do with shoes.
[53] You know, what they're not doing is going, our shoes will make you run 8 % faster.
[54] We've got these sprung soles.
[55] We've got these amazing laces that won't trip you up or whatever.
[56] You know, their stats list is not in there.
[57] It's purely, they're telling a story.
[58] They've figured out that their client base are mostly believing, you know, this set of beliefs around the world.
[59] And those are goals, you know, people who, you know, the target audience that they're, um, their, uh, appear.
[60] to want to achieve this kind of racial social justice and that's important to them.
[61] So what Nike are basically saying is, you know, we are light figures in this story.
[62] You know, we are we are on the side of the Colin Kaepernick's of the people who are kneeling.
[63] You know, we believe that black lives matter.
[64] And so they're presenting as a light figure.
[65] And if you think about it rationally, it's kind of crazy.
[66] Like, why would a shoe company have this political thing?
[67] But it's because of the storytelling, because they're presenting as a light figure who is engaged in the kind of, you know, this particular mission in the world.
[68] And, you know, in order to kind of join the mission, you buy the Nike shoes and it worked, you know, it works really well.
[69] I mean, one of the archetypal examples that I talk about that I love is that there was an ad that was broadcast, I think it was in the 60s by Volkswagen.
[70] And it was the first kind of modern advert, it was the first advert that you would look at and recognize as the kind of advertising that we do today.
[71] So before this Volkswagen ad, you know, all ads were just stats lists.
[72] Here's this amazing, you know, tire and this will get you naught to 60 and whatever.
[73] And then this Volkswagen did this amazing ad where it just, it was black and white, because it was still in the days of black and white.
[74] And they had, it just showed this guy, it was all snowing, a big blizzard outside and this guy gets in his car, he turns, it's like, it's like, you know, just before dawn, turns in his ignition, drives his car through the blizzard, the blizzard, the blizzard, opens his huge shed doors.
[75] And then he hears this big engine start up and outdrives his snowplow.
[76] And it's how does the guy who drives the snowplow get to the snowplow?
[77] And it's just Volkswagen.
[78] And that's that really simple, really effective story.
[79] And it's showing Volkswagen is this light figure.
[80] We are helping the hero achieve what he wants.
[81] And, you know, I don't believe that the Volkis was particularly good at driving through blizzards.
[82] I don't believe that.
[83] And they certainly weren't making any factual claim in the sense that we are better than Land Rover and whatever, whatever, whatever, doing this because of this stat.
[84] It was as simple as that.
[85] And it revolutionized marketing.
[86] It changed everything because they'd figured out that kind of light figure form of storytelling.
[87] And are they saying that the Volkswagen enables you to be the hero that means the snow?
[88] And Nike are saying that the Nike shoe associating it with Colin Kaepernick enables you to be the social activist hero.
[89] Hero, exactly.
[90] Like Colin Kaepernick was.
[91] Yeah, exactly.
[92] Yeah, yeah.
[93] Fascinating.
[94] I was going to change a few things about my, a few of my companies, I think, the basis of that.
[95] Yeah, I think we, I think in the course of business, we all forget that emotion is the most important thing.
[96] I'm thinking about all the newsletters that my companies have been writing.
[97] I've got various companies and the newsletters they write and the videos we make and how and how sometimes we think that facts and figures and information is what the viewer is looking for in their lives but the most compelling way to draw them in to whatever we're doing whether it's a newsletter or a tweet or whatever is by putting emotion first and really thinking about what the emotion of the content is yeah yeah exactly and with the Nike example i mean we live in since the global financial crisis we live in heightened political times And so, you know, and people are always tribal.
[98] And so, you know, one of the big things that the successful kind of persuaders do is to make those tribal appeals.
[99] And, you know, sometimes it works with Colin Kaepernak, like with the Gillette Razor campaign.
[100] It didn't work because you're kind of essentially attacking your target audience.
[101] So that was, you know, less successful.
[102] I think there was a terrible Pepsi out with Kendall Jenner.
[103] Oh, gosh, I was thinking about that.
[104] Where they were kind of basically, yeah, where we was just making this, you know, Will it put a super rich, beautiful model, white woman as the hero against social injustice?
[105] And drinking this sugary drink is going to help.
[106] Yeah, you know.
[107] It's just all off.
[108] Yeah.
[109] So I think organisations are sensing that partly how we can be a light figure these days is by presenting as people who are assisting in these political goals that have become very important to people, especially young people.
[110] and some people are getting it right, some people are getting it wrong.
[111] There's a real science to it, though, isn't there?
[112] Yeah.
[113] The more we've spoken, I've realised how there is a science to it when you understand the roles and also the audience, the roles of the characters in your content or your piece, and also where the, it's really about where the audience sees themselves, as you say.
[114] Yeah.
[115] And how they feel represented.
[116] Did you know that the Dario of a CEO now has its own channel exclusively on Samsung TV Plus?
[117] And I'm excited to say that we've partnered with Samsung TV to bring this to life, and the channel is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.
[118] Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service available to all owners of Samsung Smart TVs and Galaxy mobiles and tablets.
[119] And along with the DiRivusio channel, you'll find hundreds of more channels with entertainment for everyone all for free on Samsung TV Plus.
[120] So if you own a Samsung TV, tune in now and watch the DiRiver's CEO channel right now.