Participants:
Steve Wershing
Julie Littlechild
Kristina Paider
Steve Wershing:
Steve sat in his studio puzzling over how to put together the next podcast episode he needed to produce. Over dozens of prior episodes guests had referred to this secret of story as being so integral to the success of the advisors they worked with, but who could help unlock the secrets and principles of this whole idea of story? He searches through trade journals, goes through practice management blogs, even asks other podcasters, unable to find the right person who could unlock all these secrets he turns of the light and goes home.
Fast forward several months and he finds himself at a conference in Philadelphia surveying the hors d’oeuvres at the first day reception. He meets Kristina Paider, “What do you do?” “I’m a Hollywood script writer.” “Well what are you doing here.” KP captivates Steve with stories of her work on comedies, crime thrillers and spy stories, “And now. What are you doing now?” “Well I take all those same disciplines and principles.” Says KP, “And teach corporate communicators how to tell more effective stories. My company, The Hollywood Approach, leverages the art and neuroscience of story to accelerate results.” This was it. This was the guest Steve was looking for. Together with cohost Julie KP leads them through a fascinating episode filled with scenes from advisors careers, uncovering clients real goals, meeting unique characters who can take the language of math and create colorful life pallets. Even showing them the secret shame and embarrassment some clients have that prevent advisor from really getting to the root of the problem and giving them the advice that’ll change their lives. In the end KP has shown our hosts all the secrets of story, and the influence that story has had over their lives and careers, often in ways they’d never realized before.
But this is just where our story begins. Kristina Paider, KP welcome to the Becoming Referable podcast.
Kristina Paider:
Thank you so much, delighted to be here.
Steve Wershing:
So you are not in the financial advice business, but you are an expert at something that has come up on the podcast a lot of times and that we want to talk with you about, but before we get to that, can you tell us a little bit about your story? Can you tell us where you are now and how you got there?
Kristina Paider:
Sure I will first just say this is not a chronological answer, this is not a chronology, but I will start with my fifth grade teacher, Mr.Nadal
Julie Littlechild:
I’m glad this isn’t chronological, thank you for letting us know that
Kristina Paider:
Right? No this is a short demonstrative story. So Mr. Nadal had a mustache somewhere between Pancho Villa and Burt Reynolds. Keep in mind this was the 70s, so he wore bow ties and plaid short sleeved shirts and he said things like, “Technically speaking.” And, “As a matter of fact.” And other upper crusty sounding things, in my humble suburb of Green Bay, Wisconsin school. So one day Mr. Nadal gave us an English assignment. Again this is fifth grade. So he says, “Write a story. And if you write three pages you’ll get a C, if you write four pages I’ll give you a B, and if you write five pages I’ll give you an A.” So a few days go by we all, the whole class hands in their assignments and then a while goes by and he’s handing them back to us. And all of a sudden I get a little nervous, because I had rolled up with a 17 page play that was a Saturday Night Live-esque parody starring him, with a not so disguised alternate name or wardrobe or things like that. So all of a sudden I realize, “Oh you know what?” As everyone has their assignments back except from me, I’m thinking, “Oh shoot, maybe that was not such a great idea.”But so, I will ask you, so we’re going into the interview a little bit cold and I will just say can you guess what grade he gave me?
Julie Littlechild:
Well
Steve Wershing:
What kind of sense of humor did he have?
Julie Littlechild:
Gosh, yeah this could go either way couldn’t it?
Kristina Paider:
It sure could. I didn’t really think, based on the over usage of the phrase technically speaking, it didn’t seem like there was much of a sense of humor there, but he slapped the play on my desk and I got an A++. So that is the start of my story and I never really looked back from I was in journalism for a while, I worked at the local TV station there, the NBC station, moved into print in Arizona, then I moved over to what is known as the dark side of journalism, PR, marketing, and then I was recruited by someone who knew more than I did to write movies when I was 27. So many, many years ago. More than I’d like to count. That’s kind of it in a nutshell. You can say that storytelling was always a passion.
Steve Wershing:
And so tell us what application all of that could have to a financial advisor.
Kristina Paider:
Sure, well everyone is a storyteller. Right? Every person is conveying information with what they say and do and how they say and do it. Whether they’re consciously making those choices or not. So given that the average TV consumption around the world is 35 hours a week, and that’s not just in the US, but also the UK, Ireland, Italy, Australia, really around the world, given that most people, meaning most of all of our customers, whoever your customers are have a masters in story. Whether you think about it that way or not, and that masters in story has been largely shaped by Hollywood. So if your customers have an affinity for mastery level storytelling and you’re trying to win their business with high school English or even college English marketing or journalism it’s not going to cut it. We have to get more artful and I would argue even more scientific with the storytelling.
So it affects business by the attention you capture and how memorable you are with your storytelling.
Julie Littlechild:
So I think this is, I mean it’s such a great topic and I think everyone will understand why we wanted to talk to you today, because a number of our guests have touched on the importance of storytelling, but it feels like we should get a lot more granular, so you’ve talked about there being a science, you’ve talked about being more artful, maybe we could start to dig into this in whatever way makes sense. But maybe just start and tell us what are some of the things that make a story truly effective.
Kristina Paider:
Sure. Well there’s so many things, it depends how we want to look at that measurement of effectiveness. Is it length? Is it entertainment value? Is it education value? Is it memorability? Is it how memorable it is? In Hollywood, Hollywood screenwriters frame stories in a very specific way, then everyone can do it. So if you think about what I said about you could say many people have a masters degree in story consumption, so if we want to be masters at story delivery we could, as one example, look at the framework that Hollywood uses. So Hollywood would say that a story is about a character who wants a goal, and the obstacles he or she has to overcome in order to achieve that goal. So I’ll give you an couple of examples.
An amnesiac wants to find his identity before he is killed by assassins, Bourne Identity. A naive young woman wants to meet a Wizard and outrun the Wicked Witch Of The West, so she can get home to Kansas, Wizard of Oz. A broke, jobless mother of three wants to achieve justice by exposing a corrupt water company in order to also up level her life, Erin Brokovich. So in those examples we can see that an entire 90 minute plus movies can be conveyed in a single sentence. Not easy to do necessarily, that’s probably one of the hardest things screenwriters struggle with is to take their baby and turn it into one line, but that is a very simple framework about how any compelling story can work. Character, goal, obstacles.
Steve Wershing:
And I really want to bring out, I’d love to hear your thoughts about the obstacles and the challenges, because that tension, the tension that the obstacle brings is what makes it interesting, right? You could tell a story about a hero wanting to do something and accomplishing it, and without the obstacle it’s dull. There’s no real story there.
Kristina Paider:
Right. And so in the business application it really depends, you really have to think about the context of are you telling a horror story or a cautionary tale to your clients, or do you want them to see themselves on the path with fewer obstacles because you’ve come in as their ally to take those obstacles out of their way or make the path smoother or more direct or something like that. So the context of the story is also very important. Storytelling very recently in the last several has gotten such acclaim, and deservedly so, it’s been a timeless component of our lives, but recently in business it’s become really popular and I feel like using it as a term has become almost overused like somebody uses antibiotics.
Like what we just need, I don’t feel so well, great, take antibiotics. Great tell a story. We have to think about the dosage of that story and the patient or the client and what they’re needing. Right because not everybody needs the full dramatic movie version of the story at every juncture.
Julie Littlechild:
And this may be a nuanced question, but you referred to a character which is an individual, maybe a small group depending on the movie I suppose, but I often think there’s a tendency for people to tell stories about, “My clients.” Or a large group, how important is it to personalize down to an individual to make it relatable?
Kristina Paider:
Well yeah, I think one of the big opportunities with a story is to allow the audience to see themselves in that character. So therefore, yes, there is absolutely a benefit to bringing that down on a singular character level and understanding that specific character’s goal and obstacles they had to face in order to achieve, or get closer, or surpass that goal.
Steve Wershing:
And have you heard about this Kristina, I’ve heard that there was research fairly recently that doing brain scans of people while they were listening to a story and finding that as the story was progressing that areas of their brain were firing off that would have been the same if the person was actually doing the things in the story that the hero was doing.
Kristina Paider:
Yes, I’ve heard many things about this. Actually a few years ago when I was facing an illness a screenwriter friend told me that Russian Olympian trainers I guess in the 60s used something like this to help the athletes with training. So they would give them something what I would translate, whether this is true or not, similar to a medication or a guided visualization and them have them be like, “All right, now you’re approaching the hurdle and now you’re jumping it and you take four steps and you jump the other one.” And stuff like that and they also found the same thing that parts of your brain fire as if you are living that story. But not only the brain also your muscles and other … You know it kicks off and incites other hormones into production as well as muscular development is what they found with this particular study.
Steve Wershing:
And do you think that’s what makes stories more memorable. Because if you just tell somebody something they remember only this tiny little percentage of it a day later or even an hour later, do you think that this has something to do with why stories live with people for a long time, is because there’s other stuff going on inside them as they’re experiencing it?
Kristina Paider:
I do. And the latest neuro scientific studies prove that to be true as well. So when a story is told, let’s say, I’m holding up my finger quotes guys, right.
Julie Littlechild:
It’s a podcast Kristina, thank you.
Kristina Paider:
Add some side notes here, when a story is told the right way it will light up all seven areas of your brain. And if you can stand some ums I could probably name them all off for you, but I’m not going to challenge myself.
Steve Wershing:
Why don’t you give us one or two that are often forgotten by amateur story tellers.
Kristina Paider:
I don’t even think it has to do with amateur it just might be somebody working without the checklist.
Steve Wershing:
Oh I see okay, okay.
Kristina Paider:
There’s the visual cortex, the olfactory cortex.
Steve Wershing:
Oh sure.
Kristina Paider:
Sensory cortex, there’s Broca’s area. Wernicke’s area which deal more with word and data processing and then there’s other ones
Julie Littlechild:
In the brain.
Kristina Paider:
Maybe that’s my tattoo. But anyway.
Steve Wershing:
I think our message to advisors is get out of your Wernicke, right? Because that’s just where they spend their whole time.
Kristina Paider:
Well that’s the interesting part of it, when you tell a story, finger quotes, right, unfinger quotes, you’re lighting up all seven areas of a persons brain like pinball machine. However when you are only using data and facts you’re lighting up only two areas of the brain and those two areas are Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, but and so that’s the difference. So you’re lighting up five extra areas of the brain and not only with right storytelling, correct storytelling if you will, but also when that happens, when your brain is in this lit up pinball machine mode your body is producing the two most powerful hormones that the human body makes which are oxytocin and dopamine. And so that is the reason for the memory, both of those hormones help with memory.
Julie Littlechild:
So I’d love to talk to you about some specific examples of how advisors might use stories to really explain what they do and who they help, but before I go there I was fascinated when I was reading more about your work to start thinking about storytelling in a much broader context and the context of the narrative of your business or your life. Can you talk a little bit about storytelling in that broader context and then maybe we can dive in a little?
Kristina Paider:
Sure. I think that … First of all I’ll say I’ve been doing this work for 22 years and probably my first year in, by this work I mean studying screenwriting, my first professor was a two time black in two different ninja. You can imagine how he approached the page, this teacher did not wear plaid, but I learned a lot and we had a lot of fun and he did not have a Burt Reynolds mustache either. But we had a ton of fun and he was very, super super disciplined with that and so a year into it I just started experimenting.
I’m like this is just changing my whole life, the way that I was writing stories and the way not only that I was seeing myself and the parts of myself that I brought to my characters in a scripts, but I was like what if I do this in this arena of marketing? What if I ask these same questions that I’m asking of these protagonists or protagonistas on the page to my … what if I ask those questions to myself when I’m making big decisions? So I just started experimenting and I had friends who were like, “What are you doing?” in your 20s you’ve got people asking advice and just like, “What’s going on?” I’m like, “Well this is your movie, what would you want Julia Roberts as you to do?” Or whatever the question is, so I just started asking different questions and that led to of course different answers.
But in the business realm specifically at that time I was working, I was heading up a marketing department for a technology company in the hotel space. Keep in mind this was late 90s and we were developing the software that allows hotels to track your guest experience. So if you can imagine prior to that it was all in handwritten notebooks and maybe just getting on to computers, and so as we’re trying to explain this huge concept, it’s almost like trying to explain the internet before the internet was there.
Steve Wershing:
Right, yeah right.
Kristina Paider:
And so anyway, the team was finding that they were taking six sales trips with two people each in order to even get to the first level of what a hotel client needed to understand to even understand what we were trying to do. And so I developed a story sequence with them and a series of videos which rapidly really transformed the understanding of that process. So the sales cycle was cut from six on site visits, which was a ton of travel then for two people, I mean it’s a ton of travel at any time, but with that video and that story sequence we cut the sales cycle from six down to two because of having better story telling, better on point, just purposeful, sequenced. So that’s and example of where I applied that in the early years.
So imagine that was a first win, 20 something years ago, and then it’s like, “Oh this is cool we can do this everywhere.” So it’s just a matter of getting into the specific situation, seeing what’s there, seeing what’s needed. What does a client really need to know and when? And sequencing it appropriately.
Steve Wershing:
So let’s talk about that, what kinds of stories might an advisor want to have in their folder ready to go for different kinds of … What situations can it be applied to and what kinds of stories might those be?
Kristina Paider:
Sure, so it can apply I think at absolutely every phase of their communication with a customer. And it can apply to being a cocktail party and having a compelling answer for, “Hey Steve what do you do?” It can be that. And so if you need something in that scenario a financial advisor might want a more relaxed social answer, more fun answer perhaps.
Or if it’s a business networking thing then they want to have a more serious, but still … You know it depends who they are and that’s where the character comes in, because both the potential client is a character and they have their goal and obstacles and so does the financial advisor. So it’s like what’s relatable, what’s interesting? What’s going to lead to a next question? So in addition to a one line answer to that simple question I might argue that a financial advisor could use a long line, so a one sentence overview of what they do. Which could be something like, you know it’s like, when you’ve met me I’m not like, “Hey Julie, hey Steve, I can make you Oscar winners in two years if you talk to me.” It’s probably very similar that a financial advisor doesn’t say, “Hey KP I can turn your ten dollars into ten million.” Whatever. So you want, there’s such a big latitude there between what can you do with ten dollars or no I need ten thousand or I need a thousand or it doesn’t even matter what the number is. Whatever.
Just thinking about those different kinds of things. So I think a log line, a one sentence overview of what they do, a solid character intro. Who are you? What kind of financial advisor are you? Kind of like saying what kind of screenwriter are you? I’m not a cartoon writer, I do not do horror. So there’s nuances. I do mostly comedy and crime thriller. But I also do a lot of business stuff as well, because I can’t live in crime thriller all day long. And most times when people understand that, but it’s good to know, it’s actually a good diametric for financial advisors to think about that that way. Some people are working with a certain wealth level or net worth level, or maybe it’s geography or who knows. Whatever those components are. The next thing I would say would be a short pitch. Something that they can expand that one line into a one to five minute piece that expands what they do, and again if that person is in the market will be a compelling short pitch.
This again is a Hollywood term, so this is what we do in Hollywood, but it applies to everywhere in business. And so that short pitch, I would say, I’m going to now try to speak the love language of numbers, so pitch would be between 150 and 750 words. We speak at a rate of about 150 words a minute, so now to five minute short pitch would be 150 to 750 words. And then you might want to have additional stories, like a series of short stories of the kinds of clients that financial advisor has helped. Where have their clients started out with them in the process? Meaning I just got out of school and had my first job, so do they work with freshly minted 20 somethings with very little to contribute to their fund, or are they looking for people close to retirement or somewhere in between? And stories that illustrate their clients and what kinds of help and guidance they provide them.
So one way to think about those things … Sorry I hear there might be another question coming so I’ll last one short.
So one way to think about what those stories would be to think of what question and concern the client would have. Whether they would be willing to say that question or concern or not. So another key component that we haven’t drilled into totally yet is the audience. So it’s for financial advisors who are you talking to and why? And many storytellers of every business overlook that a little bit. It’s thinking about the difference between a warm lead who just wants to know pricing and how your financial advisory services work versus a cold lead where you might have to start more with square one and the inviting them and welcoming them into the conversation versus scaring them off with too technical of information as an example.
Julie Littlechild:
When we’re talking about referrals as we do a lot on this podcast, one of the ways that we talk to advisors about generating referrals is to simply share stories that represent the problems that they solve for their clients, but sometimes what happens is they talk, as you say, in too general terms, or they’re too clinical and where we’ve really seen a lot of success is if they can tell a specific story of a specific person and follow that path that you described, the character, the goal, the obstacles. Does that make sense to you as a place where storytelling could really effective, with the idea that people can share stories more effectively than other types of information?
Kristina Paider:
Absolutely, I think that’s absolutely a place to start because you’re starting then to fill in the blanks for the client in front of you. So I’ll give an example, on my side, on the writing side I … Because it’s the difference between saying, “Oh I work with all kinds of people, it doesn’t matter how much money you have.” I could say the same thing as a developmental editor and writing coach, but when I say … I had this client who just finished her first draft and when she came to me she told me she didn’t think she was smart enough to write a book. And by the way I think there’s a potential parallel here too and it’s yes, writing a book is about more than knowing your alphabet and stuff like that, there’s a structure at play, but I think that there’s oftentimes a little bit of shame in people. They think they should have magically know how to kick out an 80,000 word jam when you’re not taught that at English, we’re taught 1000 words. And so the parallel … So that’s 1000 words is maybe a blog or an English paper you had to do. And the average size of a book is between 60 and 80,000 words. And so that’s 60 to 80 times more complex because you have a whole structure that a book has to support.
And I think where the potential parallel for financial advisors is that I think many people may have the mis-conviction that they’re like, “Oh I had math in fourth and fifth grade and I could balance a check book when I had my first lemonade stand or whatever and I don’t know really what I’m asking.” And so sometimes there’s a need to understand that there could be underlying feelings of shame or just embarrassment of like, “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do and I feel like I’m late to the game.” I hear that from writing clients a lot of the time too, they’re like, “I feel like I should have written my book already.” That’s not going to help.
And I just have a feeling that people when they finally make the move to call a financial advisor or to start exploring that area probably often feel too like, “I know I should have started this ten years ago, but I didn’t know anything then or I had a job and could only contribute 20 dollars or whatever.” And so another opportunity that if that’s the case or for financial advisors whom that’s the case can help the character who’s coming to them feel at ease. I often say that to people, a lot of times people think they learn the alphabet or went to their tenth grade English and just should be able to magically write a book. That’s not how it works, and so people laugh, it always makes people laugh, but I would imagine the same would put … And it puts people at ease.
Steve Wershing:
And I think you bring up two really important points there, one is that embarrassment that people may feel because a lot of them, even sophisticated clients may not really understand what advisors do or how it can benefit them. And the challenge is that’s perfectly appropriate because that’s why you go to an advisor is because you don’t know that stuff, but people can still be embarrassed and the ability to tell them a story about, “You know let me tell you about Joe. And Joe was so embarrassed that he didn’t know that he just didn’t ask the question and then because he didn’t ask the question this is this horrible thing that happened to him.” Or telling a story that basically communicates, “You know look, there are a lot of other people like you, a lot of other people that feel exactly like you do and this is how we’ve coached them through it and this is all the good stuff that happened with them as they overcame all these challenges because we did it.” So tell me a little bit about how an advisor might be able to utilize a story that way.
Kristina Paider:
Sure I think that, yeah, and I think a lot of times when we’re in an advisory or coaching role if I may give myself that parallel, but in words not numbers, it’s about thinking through your clients and what have you done for them and what examples can you give? Where can your clients expect to move from and to? Where can they enter your advisory partnership? At what point are they qualified to enter that? Because people may not know. Also with writers, they’re like, “I don’t know, I don’t have an idea, can you help me?” And I’m like, “No I cannot. I am not an idea generator.” But if you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum if you have an idea and you just have stuff just coursing through your veins I’m your person because I can help you organize that. And so similarly financial advisor it’s important to understand where people enter your … who’s best suited to enter your program and where in their timeline? And then taking stories of other successful clients you’ve had there or clients who are in that process and what happens.
It’s that old thing of if you invest 50 dollars or you save 50 dollars a year from the time you’re 18 and you invest it this certain way you can make a million dollars, by what is it? In 30 years or something like that. You can tell I did not do that.
Steve Wershing:
It’s the power of 72, I used to present that graph.
Kristina Paider:
Yeah, but and so it’s like what can I expect? Okay I get it’s not turning my ten dollar pocket change into ten million, but what actually is it? What have other people, where have they started with you? What have they done and what is their trajectory in that time period? I think that can be very not only illustrative to potential clients, but also reassuring and as you’re relating that story as a financial advisor it tells a bit about you and your attitude. Because there’s a lot too of the unscripted things like your passion that comes through, your love for your clients, the details that you know about this person’s journey and how he or she worked hard or has two boys, or like to go sledding in the winter or loves Tim Horton’s tea. I don’t know, but just these things are like, “Oh I get it, I like sledding.” People just see themselves in different parts and feel reassured, like okay I’m not the only one coming at my age or my income or my contribution level or whatever the case is.
Julie Littlechild:
I think that’s a really important part and we don’t often talk about with storytelling, that it just makes you feel like you’re not alone in a way.
Steve Wershing:
So an advisor starts thinking about what kinds of situations their clients gets into and how they can put together some stories to illustrate for people they don’t know yet how they can help. I know in writing you have editors and you’ve got rewrites and you’ve got all that kind of stuff. When an advisor puts this together how can they then begin working on refining it so that it becomes really effective for them?
Kristina Paider:
Well they can do a couple of things. They can work with a marketing expert or a storytelling expert to help them. They can create a group of people that they can rehearse and practice with and try out … I hate to say try out material, because I don’t want that to sound over actor-ish or over Hollywoodish very serious subject for people, this is people’s financial health that we’re talking about. But I do think that’s important. And I think it’s important to get feedback and understand like hey … Sometimes when they’re speaking are telling a story, they might be nervous for some reason and they may not know it until it’s point out to them by other people.
So rehearsal groups or practice groups are a good thing to do, working with a coach of course, working with an expert who can just say, “Let’s watch this, it could sound intimidating to this audience.” Or acknowledge that. Sometimes we’re telling stories on a lot of things, we say in Hollywood too, a lot of ideas we have don’t make it to the page, and so I say that because sometimes it’s good to acknowledge things that people might be thinking like, “Oh my god, that sounds intimidating I don’t think I could make ten million dollars out of ten.” But so it’s good to acknowledge it and explore that if that seems an area of concern or if people are like, “Oh no, heck no, let’s do it.” I get it, so you can learn to receive cues from the potential client and adapt the story or the detail that you share as needed.
Julie Littlechild:
Well this is great, just listening to you it’s not only the structural pieces that you’re talking about which I think are so important, but you’ve really changed my thinking on the role of storytelling and how that plays an ongoing role in communications with clients and prospects so I think that’s really cool stuff. Before we wrap up though, can you tell us where people can find you if they’re interested in learning more?
Kristina Paider:
Sure, absolutely my website is kristinapaider.com.
Julie Littlechild:
Perfect.
Steve Wershing:
And that’s Kristina with a K and P-A-I-D-E-R.
Kristina Paider:
Yes.
Julie Littlechild:
Well that’s wonderful.
Steve Wershing:
Yeah, well KP thank you so much for joining us, it’s been great and I hope that a lot … I think a lot of our listeners now can think a little more deeply about how they can put stories together to communicate the benefits that they can deliver to clients. So I really appreciate your joining us here today.
Kristina Paider:
Delighted to be here, thanks so much for having me guys.
Steve Wershing:
Okay thanks, take care.
Kristina Paider:
You too.
Julie Littlechild:
Hi. It’s Julie again, it was great to have you with us on Becoming Referable, if you like what you’ve been hearing please do us a favor and rate us on iTunes, it really does help. You can get all the links, show notes and other tidbits from these episodes at becomingreferable.com. You can also get our free report, Three Referral Myths That Limit Your Growth and connect with our blogs and other resources. Thanks so much for joining us.