The stories reps tell themselves

Yeah, thanks for that. I'm a Kiwi, so born and bred in New Zealand.

Wouldn't know it from the accent.

I know, I know, it was a long time ago. Traveled across to Australia and I've lived in Australia for a number of years and only this year moved across to the United States of America where I'm now a resident of Colorado. So yeah, love travel and love the sales space and spent a number of years, gosh, a couple of decades at Xerox in Melbourne and in South Australia.

I worked at Kodak and Computer Associates. So I've got a background in enterprise sales and yeah, I moved toward the field of entrepreneurship and coaching and speaking a few years ago now and loving it.

It's awesome. And we met when I was actually in Colorado, funnily enough, not when you were in Australia. And, you know, you were telling me a little bit about this concept of story selling and I really wanted to pick your brain on it. So let's go. Tell me, let's start right at the top.

When you talk about story selling, what do you mean?

Yeah, so there's, you know, I've done a fair bit of work with a company out of Melbourne called Anecdote. They're one of the largest storytelling companies in the world, really focusing in on business storytelling. And I am a natural storyteller, so I just really gravitate toward bringing story and the structure of story into sales conversations.

So I kind of looked at what's needed probably in a bigger scale over and above storytelling. And I looked at a number of my clients and I kind of, I've gone up, I've progressed my own learning through the thought leadership space with Thought Leaders Global out of, with Matt Church out of Sydney.

I've been Anthony Robbins' coach for Asia Pacific, his master coach for businesses across 12 countries. And I looked at things from like a thought leadership perspective, a personal leadership perspective, and also my own experience in enterprise sales, looking at things from a sales leadership perspective. And I thought, what can I bring to my clients over and above just storytelling.

And so I looked at things and I thought, well, you know, we look at story and story is our oldest form of communication. We look at selling and selling is our oldest form of commerce. So how can we bring the two of those together and just put a little bit more juice over and above the hero's journey or the story structure.

And so this whole concept around story selling is really based on bringing insights to the table, but over and above your normal white paper or what can I give the client that— how can we actually help our buyers to tell their own story and capture their own story in a way that is quite strategic.

So I created what I call the Story Selling Circles. And if we were to look at a Venn diagram, for example, and each of the circles represented the 3 key components that a business wants. A business wants their salespeople to be able to get out there and connect with their buyers in a way that's really genuine, in a way that's heartfelt, And it really shows the buyer that they care.

So connection is one of the tenets. The second part of it is once you've kind of created that connection, how do we bring even more value to our conversations? And it's in this component here that we need to really look at what are those conversations that we're having. And then the third component, which is a given, is, okay, we've got our salespeople making these connections with the right people and they're having the right conversations.

Now, what are we doing about improving the conversions? So if we consider those are the 3 circles of the Venn diagram, it's what happens in the intersections where story selling really kind of shows itself because it's in those intersections. The 3 key stories of the Story Selling Circles are the internal stories that the salesperson is telling themselves about the deal, about the buyer, about the price.

So what are those internal stories that the salesperson is telling themselves that is actually sabotaging their ability to have the conversations.

And then— Can you give an example? Sorry to cut you off.

Yeah.

But that's really interesting. Like, can you give us an example of what like a salesperson sabotaging themselves with an internal story looks like?

Yeah. Well, there are 3, I guess, categories within that, 3 internal stories that I've really drilled down into. The first one is their identity. So it's human nature for us sometimes to think we're not enough because sometimes we have the wrong person sitting in the sales chair. Sometimes we have our inner child sitting there and we've got to kind of swap places with the adult in us.

So we look at our identity from that perspective. Secondly, we look at authority. And so, you know, what is your conditioning? You know, what's your beliefs around people in authority? Because if you have, I guess, unresourceful beliefs about people in authority, they are our decision makers. They are the CEO. You know, I don't know about you, Alec, but we've— I don't know if you've ever been in the car and you've seen a cop car behind you and you've immediately pumped the brakes or you've immediately, you know, checked seatbelt.

Why is that? It's because it's somebody in authority. And so, you know, we've got to look at what our meaning of authority is, you know, what beliefs we have around that and look at ways that we can demonstrate our expertise to these people in authority, our decision makers. So we look at that and then the third component, the third internal story is around money.

And what we make money mean. You know, we put so much emotional weight on money when, you know, it's really simply a commodity. So they're the 3 components, if you like, the 3 internal stories.

And are you saying there that if someone has, you know, for lack, I can't think of a better word right this second, say an unhealthy relationship to money or authority as an individual, that that's gonna flow through when they're selling to someone. So if I've got a natural fear of authority, for argument's sake, when I'm selling to someone, a CEO of a big company, maybe I'm not gonna feel comfortable to say certain things or challenge them or like, is that what you're saying here?

Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, there's studies that have been done around this, and it's, um, it's kind of like the obedience thing where we've grown up with, you know, whether it's the priests or, you know, whether, you know, nuns at school for me, you know, police, teachers, parents, um, you know, anybody that wears a badge or a uniform, you know, in our mind these people are people in authority.

And of course the CEO fits into that category as well, even if that CEO is younger than you. And so it's this feeling of obedience and, you know, not being able to say no to somebody. You know, if a buyer comes in with more energy than you or kind of like has that superiority posture, and you feel really uncomfortable with that, you're not going to feel, you're not gonna be strong enough internally to be able to push back, to be able to, you know, hold the line because there's this internal feeling of getting into trouble or, you know, doing the wrong thing or whatever it might be.

And it's driven also by this need To feel enough.

Gotcha. So, okay, what can someone do about that? You know, I'm coming up to 30, 29, um, and I've got probably a bunch of internal stories that are sabotaging me in some way. How, how does someone— I guess I'm not trying to lead you here, but how does someone identify and then change that, or, or or act in a way that will not have this as a negative when they're having sales conversations?

Yeah. And, you know, first and foremost, it is an awareness. And I guess if we realize from a sales perspective that there's probably, you know, if I was to use, you know, my conversion matrix is one of my mental models and I look at, okay, what does a business want mostly from their salespeople?

What does a salesperson mostly want? You know, they want conversions, they want sales, they want conversions. And if you were to, you know, kind of like do hand on heart thing and say, okay, what are the 2 parameters that I'm really gonna need to focus on to get those conversions? It is having higher quality conversations with key people.

And it's also forming connections with the right level of people. And for you to be able to go internal and be able to say, okay, where am I feeling the uncomfortableness? Where am I feeling awkward? And starting there and being really, really honest with yourself. And that comes back to you know, the first story, which is around identity.

And that's where, you know, for us to be able to catch the stories that we tell and also to kind of, I know it's a real counterintuitive way of thinking because in business, in the sales space, it is all about numbers. It is all about tactics and strategies and there is no place yet for salespeople to be given insights around their inner child.

And I know that this sounds really fluffy, but the biggest questions people ask is, Bernadette, what have I got to do to change? Or what's getting in the way of me moving forward? What's stopping me prospecting? What's stopping me? What's making me feel uncomfortable talking to a C-level? And they want the quick hack.

They want the quick how-to.

Well, that was my question, right? How do I change it? How do I fix it?

Absolutely. And it's not about that. You know, it's about getting, it's about realizing that to start with, you had as a little kid, all of us, this little 5-year-old Alex, you know, the 5-year-old Bernadette, we were pretty special kids. Not that we were better than anyone else, but we were pretty special because we had these gifts that we, you know, we had these resources we were given and, and creativity and vulnerability and imagination and all of those kind of things.

And then one day at this kind of subconscious level, we kind of realized that people around us didn't kind of appear to value those. So we started to suppress those resources. And, and, you know, every kid wants to be seen and heard. And, and then all of a sudden our friends and our family and our siblings, they kind of started feeling threatened by perhaps our imagination or, you know, some people might have been triggered by our courage or annoyed by our enthusiasm or something like that.

So we suppressed these resources that we had. And so now as business people, because we've locked all these kind of gifts away to keep ourselves safe as business people, We don't have full access to those resources yet. They're the very things that we need to tap into to get to where we want to get to.

So it's kind of different. It's not your normal conversation that you have with salespeople. Now, I'm not saying that we kind of sit on the couch and go back to when we're 5, but it's kind of this feeling of not being enough. And it starts way back then. So awareness is a big thing.

And so we put this armor on and so it's kind of really going down that path, which is why that first internal story component is really all about stepping into the persona of being the story catcher so that we can catch those stories and and then start working with them.

It's really interesting that you think of it this way because, you know, now looking at a lot of the coaching work I've done with reps and it explains, I think, why so many are uncomfortable talking about money, for example, and budget in a sales call. Like that's one, that's often I found one of the harder things for people to get good at is to feel comfortable talking about money and be relaxed around talking about large sums of it sometimes in an enterprise sales context.

So what you're saying is here is that that is because of someone's childhood experiences and lived experience up until that point and the stories they tell themselves personally about money is now impacting them how they're talking about it in a sales and business context.

Yeah, like, and to start also, I mean, you know, if we take money for example, you know, what's a lot of money?

That's different for everyone, right?

Exactly. It's gonna be totally different from everybody. You know, so if you think $100 is a lot of money hypothetically and you're selling something for $10,000, then there's gonna be an incongruence in your thinking. You know, it's gonna be, it's this incongruence is gonna stop you from owning your own value. It's gonna stop you from owning the value of your actual offer.

But it's also gonna stop you, it's gonna stop your buyer from experiencing an opportunity as well. So, you know, having this misaligned belief around what a lot of money is, then there's this also with money also ties into authority as well. And that is those salespeople that let the tail wag the dog.

You know, when you think to yourself, well, you know, gosh, that's over my limit, that, you know, the buyer might say, ah, it's too expensive, haven't got the budget or whatever, you're gonna discount. Well, you may not even ask for the business because your belief system is gonna be screaming, oh my God, that's over That amount is over my limit.

So therefore it must be, it must be too expensive for the buyer. But if you let your buyer say yes or no, because it's not up to you to decide, it's up to them.

So let's assume that, that we've done that self-reflection, we've identified these stories, it's like internal Limiting stories. What then? You know, what, what, what's, what's next?

So what's next in the model?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, so that's the internal stories, which is at that first intersection. So then we move to the second intersection between the conversations you have and the conversions, and they're about the external stories. Now, this is where it's a little bit different. It's not just how to tell a story. We actually dive a little bit deeper and we look at, okay, what are the stories about, you know, why does your customer need to shift?

So what's their story about their own journey, their progression? What, what is, what has got to happen for the buyer for them to achieve their outcome? And that is, um, that is where we kind of look at creating tension, stories that create tension. And then how does your buyer change? And they are stories that then move from— that's kind of like bringing in and integrating how they can do that.

So what I do here that's a little different, you know, we talk about the fact that we're so visual as human beings, you know, 83% of our processing is done visually, which is why video has taken off so crazily. But what we don't do and what is amazing and an amazing way to bring insights to the table literally is to sit in front of your buyer, grab a pen, grab a serviette, a napkin or whatever, or sit in a boardroom.

Stand up, grab a whiteboard marker, go to the whiteboard and capture the stories graphically. So I bring mental models into the training. And so, you know, if you consider taking your buyer on their own journey, we all aspire to be bigger than what we are, to really see ourselves more than what we are.

So if you can draw a ladder or you can draw a pyramid or you can capture the aspirations of your buyer and where they wanna go in an aspirational progression-based model, you can sit there and collaborate with your buyer. And it's their story in order to create the right kind of healthy tension in a conversation.

How do you do that with your buyer so that they are able, you're able to put together a quadrant, a tension quadrant, and your buyer is buying into their own story? That's helping them and giving them insights? And then how do you put together and integrate all the elements that your buyer is sharing with you and integrate them into a Venn diagram, for example, to show them how you're gonna work together?

And so they're the external stories that I bring in. They become the buyer's stories. So they're not just, you know, us telling, you know, on the 5th of August last year we did this and it was kind of like a hero's journey. Yes, they're really important stories, but I wanted to add something practical.

And I wanted to bring something that you can sit across from the table from your buyer and you can paint a picture. Because a picture paints a thousand words and mental models are a shortcut for our brain to gain agreement.

Yeah, that's interesting. So you're talking about actually collaborating in a sales meeting for argument's sake and actually drawing, like actually putting something on a whiteboard in a way. And you've got a new teacher framework and we probably don't have enough time to go deep into that, but you teach a framework to help someone visually Absolutely.

Put this story out there and have this conversation. Yeah, that's interesting. I think there's 2 words that struck me when you're talking about this. You know, you talk about, well, 2 things, not 2 words. One is collaborate. Okay. I think that's a really interesting word because a lot of people think of selling as a, I'm telling you some information about a product or a service, right?

It's that show up and throw up approach, which is so prevalent in sales, unfortunately. And actually, you know, what you're describing there is a collaborative— it's a two-way conversation. It's not a one-way conversation. So I think that's the first thing that stood out to me. And then the second one is, you know, it's their story, it's not yours.

Yeah.

Do you want to just expand a little bit on that? Because I think this is a really important point. Especially for kind of new reps who are coming in sometimes, is they think that the most important thing is like learning all the product and the features and being able to rattle off features.

And it's like that— I'm not saying that's not important, but it's actually not the most effective way to connect with a buyer and get them, get them to visualize and engage with what you're talking about in their context. So yeah, can we just expand on that a little bit?

Yeah. And so this is the big thing. Product knowledge is important. Of course, it's important and you need to understand what your product does, but not just what it does, what it does for the buyer. And so the distinction here is outcomes and the distinction is identifying the outcome that your buyer wants and needs.

So sometimes your buyer might just want something, but there's not enough there for them to buy it. And so it comes down to also, um, understanding that there is a difference between a buyer having a little bit of pain and a buyer having a huge problem that's gonna cost their business or them.

And so when you can sit down and collaborate with a buyer and be really okay with not having the answers, it's a little bit like you coming in with us today. You said to me, Bernadette, I'm just gonna come in with a mindset of curiosity. And we have, honestly, I had no idea.

I no idea where today was gonna go and neither did you.

Neither. No, exactly.

And exactly. And this is, you know, we have an intention. We've come into this podcast with an intention, an overarching theme, but we don't know where it's gonna go. And so this is, it's important for us to have a plan going into a sales meeting, but it's also important for us to be okay with not knowing where it's gonna go.

And I think when you can sit there and you can story sell with a drawing, that will actually draw the buyer in. So our drawing actually draws the buyer in because it's a kinesthetic, the way the brain works, and we kind of lean in when somebody's drawing something. And so that contributes to it being collaborative and because it's based on the buyer and we're getting their insights and we're also sharing insights, it becomes about the buyer.

Yeah, I think, you know, the analogy of us and having this conversation today is a really good one. And one thing I talk about whenever I'm coaching reps is you gotta maintain that kind of childlike curiosity when you're in sales. And also, I think the second part of it is like you need to be able to be comfortable in the uncertainty of not knowing everything and that's okay.

Yeah.

Because often it's there is where you can start to piece it together with your buyer, you know, rather than coming in with this very fixed objective of I am going to sell you thing, this thing, and that's what I'm definitely gonna sell you. Because actually, maybe what you've missed there is if you're coming in with that kind of mindset, maybe you've missed the fact that you could have sold thing A, but you also could have sold thing B, C, D, and E.

But you didn't have that conversation. You didn't collaborate with your buyer. You didn't get to know them. And now you've missed out on potentially a much wider opportunity.

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's so jump ahead. And I know that you've got, you have a lot of younger sales guys that you work with. And so I would love to share with them and anybody else, you know, who's watching, listening, who We've heard that, you know, it's kind of like another mental model that I use.

It's like we've heard the cliché that, you know, a guy with a hammer, everything he sees is a nail. And what that means is that if you are going in just with your product and you have an agenda that is based just on everything you see is gonna be based around that product, which is limiting.

If you go in with a Swiss Army knife and you sit there and you know that you've got, you know, a Swiss Army knife that's got a hammer or it's got a screwdriver, it's got whatever it's got on it, you're more open to listening and being curious. And that's what I've wanted to do with the storytelling concept, it's not a methodology, it's a philosophy, is that I want it to be multidisciplinary.

I want to bring in psychology, I want to bring in story, I want to bring in mental models, I want to bring in coaching, I want to bring in NLP because it's this multidisciplinary approach. It's kind of like my Swiss Army knife. So if you're, you know, if going into a buyer, you have this whole philosophy, around the Swiss Army knife approach.

And the second, I guess, insight that really made a difference for me personally was doing my diploma in all things coaching. And it's a mental model that's called the map is not the territory. Now, what that means is that there is no right or wrong. And I think when I learned this, it freed up my creativity and it freed up my curiosity because I didn't have to feel that I was looking for a nail, that I, that I had to kind of put the square peg in the round hole.

And so what that means, the map is not the territory. Is that let's just say that, you know, we're back in New Zealand and, um, you know, I'm driving from Auckland to Wellington and I'm, I'm on the road, you know, driving my car down south. You are flying from Auckland to Wellington and somebody else might be in a boat traveling down the West Coast from Auckland to Wellington.

Each one of us is going to have a different experience about that journey, but we all started in Auckland and we all end up in Wellington. So each of us, even though we have different experiences, neither— you know, nobody's wrong. Um, and, and going into a sales call, you know, a lot of times, and if you go back to the internal stories where you think about authority and not being enough and all of those kind of internal stories, if you realize that there's no right or wrong, that it's okay to free up that creativity and ask those questions, even if you, you know, you're gonna get them wrong.

Or take feedback because it just means that whatever you did didn't work, you know. So if you kind of go in with that mindset, you're going to be more growth-focused and more open-minded.

This conversation has been really interesting and it's gone down different pathways than I thought it was, which has been fascinating. And I'm just conscious of time, but I wanna ask you one final question. Before I let you go, which is knowing everything you know today, go back to your first day on the job in sales, first ever sales gig.

What's the one thing, just one, that you wish you'd known then that would really have moved the needle for you?

Probably the point that I've just made, and that is to trust myself more. And to be aware of the conditioning every single one of us has grown up with and how our values, our family's values have imprinted us in those earlier years. And also being aware that you can shift that story in a heartbeat.

That's brilliant, Bernadette. This has been a fantastic conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Where can people find you if they wanna connect with you, if they wanna engage with more of your content? Where's the best place to go?

So LinkedIn, definitely LinkedIn, Bernadette McClelland. And I'm just gonna put something out to your listeners and that is a personal assessment on money beliefs. So funny that we kind of went down that track and the URL is number 13, 13moneybeliefs.com. And there's 13 money beliefs where you can rate yourself against 13 categories and then see where you fit as far as an abundance money mindset, scarcity money mindset, whatever it may be.

Cool. Awesome. We'll drop that link in the comments when we do the podcast as well. Um, Bernadette, this has been brilliant. Thank you so much. Always good to chat, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Yep, definitely. Have a great day.