Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Unlocking the Power of Storytelling | Rajiv Nathan - Founder of The Startup Hypeman

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Lessons - Unlocking the Power of Storytelling | Rajiv Nathan - Founder of The Startup Hypeman · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this episode, you'll learn how storytelling and clear messaging are key to business success.
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  Discover how entrepreneurs can simplify their communication to stand out, close more deals,
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  and raise their company's value. With a process-driven approach, you'll hear insights
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  on why storytelling is often overlooked in-house and how to effectively capture and share your
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  brand's narrative to connect with customers on a deeper level.
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  So now you're you are you know startup hype man. What are you what are you doing for
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  company? You're doing you're basically building out models for helping them in situations like
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  you dealt with as you know a younger sales rep. So walk me through you know the business model
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  and what you do with startup hype. Yeah so it's it's you know what you said in the beginning I think
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  was a good encapsulation of it but it is really like I'm helping some companies not suck at how they
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  communicate there themselves so that they can close more deals really like breakthrough in their
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  category and that I think some of the long-term ramifications your valuation increases maybe raise
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  money along the way as well right so in the sales and marketing setting by approach there is
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  this story stack process so I'm sure you've heard of the stories tech stack before every company
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  has their tech stack well very few companies have a story stack and the story stack is the
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  different layers of messaging that weave in and out of your sales process and that your marketing
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  team uses as well and in the story stack what we focus on is your elevator pitch we craft your
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  companies manifesto we look at your demo and we audit the demo to see how does this need to be
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  reframed or re-delivered to have more impact we create your pitch deck and we look at where do we
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  where do we leverage that in the sales process and we and we really let the pitch deck be like the
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  defining representation of your story and then there's some other there's some other elements as
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  well that are added in there like talking about customer success things of that nature but but the
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  idea is that the story stack then is the thing that your team gets trained up on but then they
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  go back and reference whenever they need to say okay what do I do in this situation or how do I
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  think in this situation it's what the marketing team is able to go and leverage to say okay what's
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  our content strategy going to be well let's let's start with the story stack and see what's the
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  base message we're trying to get across in the first place hey if we're going to put an ad out on
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  social media let's go back to the story stack and just look at what is that like lead message that
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  we know we're going for here can I can I ask you something we why would can I ask you something
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  literature yeah I lost my dream I thought why would why would a CEO or CMO VP marketing VP sales
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  not be doing this in house why would they bring your question yeah it's a really good question
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  and sometimes the hesitation I'll face is oh we have a product marketer who's working on this stuff
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  here's the challenge with doing it in house it's not impossible but it's a really
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  to really high uphill climb for most companies because they don't have a process
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  for creating this stuff they may hack it together over time incidentally but they don't have a
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  concrete step-by-step process to work through it oftentimes the internal resources are tied up
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  with other things so like if you think about a sales leader are they going to commit the time to
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  like figuring out the company's story when they have to get on and help close deals and manage
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  reps pipes pipeline thing like that the product marketer which I would often say is like my probably
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  like my biggest like competitor loan unquote is the internal product marketer or them thinking the
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  internal product market and I got a lot of love for the product marketers and I love to work in
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  collaboration I think the challenge with them doing it on their own is their work is also
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  pulled away from like figuring out like demand gen with webinars right and just like creating collateral
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  and overall I would say most times people at the company the CEO if it's the product market
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  if they had a sales if it's the rep they're so close to their own thing that they have forgotten
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  what it's like to be the person who's coming to this fresh and their customers are the people
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  who are coming to it fresh maybe they're a little bit educated because they've done some research
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  online but they are like you know it's really tough when you're so in the weeds yeah and I call it
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  the messaging treadmill actually I probably should have led with that but the idea is like like
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  all these companies know it's important but when anytime they make an effort for it they take two
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  steps back like they're on a treadmill or I just running in place and yeah in my conversations with
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  probably say at this point over the years like four or five hundred entrepreneurs the three
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  most prevailing reasons for why it's difficult is their either as I said two in the weeds to really
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  get a clear look at this thing perhaps they're too technical minded especially like you know
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  if the CEO created the company and created the product they know product within necessarily no
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  communication or they're just too distracted by the the other day-to-day responsibilities
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  it's interesting because storytelling messaging is probably one of the most important
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  my background is in sales and marketing but heavily in sales so one of the most important
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  tools that you can use sell a product the demo product if you're like you know this is your
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  this is your bread and butter but if you're not telling the story it's very hard to properly demo
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  and pitch and eventually it negotiate and close but it seems that it's useful for sales but sales
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  thinks it should be coming from marketing and nobody's really picking up that mantle and like
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  running with it but it's probably one of the most important things you could do as a business and
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  then like I like your point too it's like it's in the CEO's head but the CEO doesn't you know step
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  out you know can't see the force of the trees and and understand that it's not what's in his or
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  her head is not apparent to the people that are hitting that landing page jumping on a call with a
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  rep like it doesn't translate because you'll never tell the story as well the CEO unless you
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  codify it and put it into a playbook and and and sort of write it down right so that's the very
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  good point um uh now well and with that you know I could you jump in versus yeah like yeah
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  I'm most frequently prospected the CEO like him or her that's who I'm prospecting is the CEO
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  as opposed to like you know head of marketing or head of sales and the message I give to that
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  person the CEO is like look you've got to you have a vision in your head for what this brand is
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  supposed to represent but what's happening is that vision is not being articulated in your team's
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  day-to-day boots on the ground interactions with messaging and the demos and the marketing
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  and so where I can come in is developing a scalable narrative that maps your vision to what's
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  being said in that boots on the ground effort let's so there's a couple things that I want to touch
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  on so the premise makes sense why companies aren't doing it makes sense I want to touch on
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  like best practices for building out this story so what you know what's your process at a high
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  level um and then I also want to touch on like how to get people to adopt it and really buy
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  into it but you gave me some good points to run with that I want to bring up so one of your points
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  was don't think like an entrepreneur or executive think like an entertainer explain what that
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  means for people that that don't understand the value of storytelling or or even just just break
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  that them yeah of course that's and that's really like the startup hype man like guiding monthra
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  is think like an entertainer the idea behind that is the entertainer is solely concerned with their
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  audience right they they have one goal in mind enlist it in emotional reaction from the crowd
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  get them to feel something get them to leave the arena buzzing about something and it's that
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  that's actually why when you know it was so Scott who who's like your favorite music artist
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  favorite music artists who that's a good one which which genre oh I'll go with I'll go with I'll
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  go with somebody um who who can't be controversial anymore I like a beachy the beachy is a great
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  artist sure rest in peace right rest in peace exactly yeah I'm not gonna name any power that are
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  still around because I might I might uh I might search the feelings whatever but a beachy everybody
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  like the beachy okay so levels of eachy right so um when a beachy hits the stage or when he
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  he did hit the stage here's what would happen right he come out be like how's everyone doing
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  tonight everyone's like yeah we're doing great and it's like all right let's do this okay
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  what did not happen with a beachy or any artist for that they do not hit the stage and go
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  how's everyone doing tonight yeah we're great okay great so check it out here's what's gonna happen um
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  I'm gonna play every song in my catalog that I've ever come out with it's like you know
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  nine albums deep but I'm not just gonna play those songs you've heard I'm also gonna go through
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  the b-sides and the draft versions and some things that I've just been working on in the garage
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  recently uh because and I don't really care that you you don't care about all those but I they
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  really mean a lot to me and it's important to me uh it's gonna take about like 12 hours to get
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  through it all who's with me you know even like the biggest of itchy fan is gonna be like all right
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  we gotta get hold of it some right um they think about like what's their set list and they say
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  we're gonna compose this set list based on a take home feeling that we want them to have
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  and we want them buzzing with something and that set list is constructed very carefully now
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  it doesn't mean you don't get the guitar solo or the rapper doesn't go into like that you know
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  that off script freestyle but the the idea is that they're working within a construct within a
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  set list which allows them the ability to go off script momentarily but then come back to something
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  they they you know they didn't just like go and blind and be like well it's you know it's a three
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  hour long freestyle I don't know what I'm doing today yeah right so they have that set list and
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  and again you know the actor will go off script if the scene demands it but it's because of the scene
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  demands it not because the actor demands it that's a that's a really great analogy that's a really
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  really good analogy it really it really frames up what's wrong with demos but when you put it like
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  that it's almost ridiculous why would you just like vomit verbally vomit like somebody everything
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  you know if they don't need it or they don't care about it right how how like first of all
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  there's different you know of course the ideal is to walk away from a demo with positive impression
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  of the person is pitching but you know maybe maybe you you're looking at other vendors you have a
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  neutral impression because they you know hit all the nails on the head and you just want to shop
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  around but if you're going to start pitching things then I've seen this before they open up like
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  the feature brochure now virtually feature brochure and it's like like like just like go like
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  through everything and the person's like man I need like like a tenth of what you just showed me
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  like chill out like let's let's let's like mean shelve that for later but if you do that like
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  and you're taking up somebody's hour hour and a half that's a negative they walk away with a negative
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  impression not only could you not sell but you could like jeopardize like your reputation as a
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  sales rep as a company and and really really hurt chances of even you know selling in the future
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  to that person or that organization so that's that's very important so entertain tailor the pitch
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  tailor the stuff that you're giving over and and like hyper personalized so that it's like specific
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  for them and that's it thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that
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  subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one