Four Human Skills Every Sales Engineer Needs | Ron Whitson

Speaker A: Hi there, I'm Ben Pearce and welcome to the Tech World Human Skills podcast. Every episode we talk through how to thrive in the tech world, not just survive. Now, if you want me to work with your team, just give me a shout. I love to help teams be more influential, memorable and successful with their stakeholders. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to book a ch. Hey, folks, and welcome along to the Tech World Human Skills podcast. Now, today we have another great episode. A few episodes ago we had Ron Whitson on the show and Ron was talking about his timeless human behaviors from his book A Friendly Human in Pre Sales. So there are seven timeless behaviors and last time we only managed to cover three before we ran out of time. So this time we've got Ron back and we're gonna cover the other four. Now if you haven't listened to the other episode yet, Ron is a seasoned tech pro. He's a senior director of solutions consulting at Thomson Reuters and of course author of the book A Friendly Human in Pre Sales. So please welcome back to the show, Ron Whitson. Ron, it is lovely to have you

Speaker B: back with us, Ben. It's fantastic to be back with you. I had a great time last time and really honored to, uh, to have a return shot with you.

Speaker A: Well, you know, it was, it was such a wonderful conversation. Um, the book is so interesting. It was great to go through it and, um, it felt like, you know, we'd left things undone because you, you chosen three that you went through. Um, but there was still another four. So it was a bit of a no brainer to get you back. But, but before we go into it in more detail, anybody missed the first episode, do you just want to introduce yourself briefly to everybody?

Speaker B: Sure. No, happy to do so. I've been doing pre sales work for 28 years. Uh, three years of that was actually as a salesperson. I did that on purpose. I wanted to go add that experience to the resume. Um, I was a programmer, I was a database administrator. So very geeky, very techy heavy. As I got into this, I was truly how most of us get into the role, right. We're the least objectionable technical person that you can put in front of a customer.

Speaker A: That was me the least objectional.

Speaker B: Love.

Speaker A: Um, I, uh, love it.

Speaker B: Love it. Yeah. So when I started doing this, you know, get in front of a group of people and, and doing the demo, that was easy. Making all the tech work, make the smooth slide transitions, this piece of cake. But, but they didn't always buy and it's like, what's the matter with you people? I'm giving you the perfect logical argument, perfect solution to your problem. Why are you not buying? And I would get feedback like, hey, uh, Ron, you know, it's a great demo, but you got to work on your people skills. And that really didn't mean much to me. I didn't understand what they were saying. And so as I kind of dug into it, there wasn't a recipe book, there wasn't an owner's manual that I could find to help me learn these things I need to get better at. So I started trying to find individuals who did these behaviors well and really studied them and tried to learn how to add that to what I was able to do. And that eventually made its way into the book that came out. And the idea is that maybe there are other people with this engineering brain that suffer some of the same maladies that. That I was struggling with and suffering from. Maybe this book could help them avoid some of the many, many mistakes I've made over time.

Speaker A: Now, now, when we were going through it last time, um, we chose three, But. But they weren't the first three. We. We've gone slightly out of order, uh, on what.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So do you want to tell everyone what. Why you chose the ones you chose last time, and, um, what were the skills that we're just gonna quickly recap before we get onto the new stuff?

Speaker B: Yo. No, absolutely. So. So under a great deal of pressure from you, like, AE putting pressure on the se, you told me I can only do three, and I had to pick my favorite. And it's kind of like picking your favorite children. And I won't say anything more about that because we talked about that last episode. So anyway, the three that I landed on, uh, as my favorite one were authenticity, be authentic. To me, that's really, really important. That's where everything starts, and that's why it is timeless behavior number one. And then we kind of jumped to the next one, which is listen actively. Um, and all the timeless behaviors, as you'll learn from reading the book, they all build on each other. Because if I'm listening to you actively, but you think I'm being inauthentic, then it's to no avail. Right? So be authentic, listen actively, and then we jump kind of to the last one, which I think is really important as well, and that's leave an impression. Our audiences are seeing lots of impressions. I worry that they start to sound the same over time. So I think a lot about what is the experience I'm delivering, and I'd like it to be something they remember. I'd like it to be a positive experience for them.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Excellent. So that was authenticity, or I can't even say it. Authenticity, Listening and leave an impression. So we're gonna go for another four. Let's do it. Let's not leave them in suspense. Let's hit them with what the four are, and then we'll. We'll, um, unpack each one. So what are the four we're gonna go through today?

Speaker B: Yeah, so if. If the first is be authentic and the second is listen actively, the four we're going to talk about today are. They're actually the ones kind of in the middle. So number three is show empathy. Number four is have a conversation. Five is another one I had to struggle with. Practice, humility. And number six is tell a story. And then the last one, leave an impression. So those are the seven timeless behaviors.

Speaker A: Okay, so let's crack straight on. Show empathy. Tell me about that.

Speaker B: So when I first got into, um, being a sales engineer, that, uh, was my first title. But now I've been an application engineer, solution consultant. Many, many different titles for our role, obviously. But when I first got into, um, was all about, uh, my performance. Right. Again, this was doing overtime work. And I want to make sure all my slides are right and all my tech is working properly and just wow my audience. But it was about me showing up and putting on a performance, putting on a show, doing the demo. And it was selfish in a way, in that I was kind of the focus of my attention. It wasn't my audience. And I just really got to, uh, thinking about, uh, what that audience experience is. We talked a little bit about that with the leave an impression one. But when we show up and do something, we should be in. We should be in service to our audience. I mean, they've got some kind of business problem that they're looking to solve. They got something they'd like to be better. Our job isn't to show them our wonderful tech. Our job is to give them a path to make that better. And it's a subtle shift in your thinking, but if you really make the focus your audience, it kind of changes the way you approach everything. And I've couched that as this idea of, you know, show empathy. I think in our role, there's another really important group that we should show empathy to, and that's our sales partners. And again, this is part of the reason why I took the job as a seller for Three years. I wanted to understand that role better. I want to understand their pressures and some of the things that were driving them. And again, I did it for three years. I made some money, I got to negotiate some deals, I did all this stuff. And I tell anybody in presos, you could go and be a seller, you'd be successful at it, but there's probably gonna be aspects of it that you don't enjoy. And for me, I found out that I'm not coin operated. I'm not most energized by what am I selling today? Right. I'm more energized by solving different problems. So again, it's. It's just this whole idea of empathy. It's like really putting yourself in the shoes of someone in your audience and understand is what you're sharing relevant to them? Is it landing with them? Um, are you giving them a reason to care? Are you considering what their daily struggles are? Just all that kind of stuff. So anytime I'm getting ready for some type of meeting or presentation, I do spend time thinking about my audience and how can I best serve them. And again, that really kind of influences a lot of the things that I do when I'm in those meetings.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I said in the last episode when we were talking, the challenge I have when we're doing this podcast is I am in violent agreement with you in nearly every point that you make, which is just a bit boring, probably for everybody else just for Rod to speak about goes. I completely agree. But again, this is what. I completely agree. And so, uh, uh, when I'm talking to people about it, I often use the term. It's like audience centricity. Like the audience is at the center or the customer is the center if it's not partners. And it's always customers. You're working with customer centricity. Audience centricity. And actually, it's not about me eccentricity. It's not. I'm here to present to the customer. It's all about me. My stories, my demos, my anecdotes, my quota to retire. Yes, it's about them. Um, but. But the challenge I often get from people, so I'll put this to you, is what if I am not a naturally empathetic person, you know, if that's not my nature. And inverted. Inverted commas. A. Do I need to build this muscle if it's not something that comes naturally to me? And if I do, how can I

Speaker B: build that really good? Um, I mean, the answer to the first question is, yeah, I Think I think you need to kind of work at building that muscle. I think it's super important. I think, um, it's one of the ways, it's one of the tools you have for building that relationship with your audience and to move towards that trusted advisor status. Um, you want them to believe that you care for them, that you are truly interested in solving their problems. So that's where the empathetic part comes from. If someone is not good at that, um, there's a few resources and exercises I talk about in the book that could help with that, but the one really is doing that thought exercise of putting yourself in their shoes. And in the book I reference, there's a phrase we use in the U.S. walk another, walk a mile in another person's moccasins. Right? Yeah. Now I always thought that came to us from Native American culture, but that's not the case. It was actually from a point, uh, a poem written back in like the 1800s. So, um, and I've got the poem listed out in the book properly accredited of course. But um, I think that's a really good mental image to have, is to put yourself in the other person's shoes, put yourself in their situation. And again, it doesn't have to be like this hour long exercise. It could be a 5 to 10 minute thought exercise where you're like, okay, what if I'm a user of this solution at my audience's company? What is, what is that life like? And if you don't know, well, uh, you've got ChatGPT, you've got Claude, you've got these great tools that can help educate you a little bit. But you could also ask questions of uh, the different people. Right. Hey, tell me a little bit Ben, about how you're using this tool today and how long does it take you to do this particular task? And again, I think we definitely have to develop the muscle if it's not a natural thing for us.

Speaker A: And I think also, uh, a lot of people think about empathy as a purely emotional thing. Like, oh, I saw some, I saw somebody stub their toe and I burst into tears in empathy for them of the pain they must be going through. But, but I don't see it as there's definitely an emotional part of it, but there's also a very logical part to perspective taking, you know, of going, right, what is the problem they've got? Can I put myselves in that situation where they had that problem? That is not just an emotional thing, but that's also a logical Thing, you know, oh, if I was in that situation, logically this would be the things that I'd want to do about. So there's both an emotional and a logical part to empathy. It feels to me.

Speaker B: No, 100%. Let me give you this example too, because I think everybody who's done pre sales can relate to this. But again, if we think about it, okay, we got the call or the email or whatever from the AE that we're getting ready for this demo, right? And so we're prepping and we're doing everything, and then we show up and we just start performing, we start doing the clicks, we start telling the story. Right. Did we ever just take a second and think about how are they perceiving this? I think one of the most difficult things for us is to see what we're doing, see our demo, see our presentations with fresh eyes, um, you know, to think about the words. We're familiar with our, um, domains, we're familiar with the lines of business that we're speaking with. Are there idioms that we're using? Are there, you know, acronyms that we're throwing out and assuming the audience knows everything? So I really think it's a lot about that. Now, the other thing too, that I think is important that we don't do, and you'll see this a lot as well, is someone shares something, some experience or whatever, and a lot of us want to build that connection by jumping in saying, oh, yeah, same thing happened to me. That's a dangerous thing to go down because that. And it's not really one upping, but it's done in a pure way if we're trying to build that connection. But what happens is you've immediately discounted what the person says. So, you know, if Ben were to tell me, yeah, you know, I got this morning and I got my five miles in and I went and climbed this hill in the neighborhood. Yeah, me too. I did three miles with the dog. And then I just discounted your achievement. Yeah, I'm, um, trying to connect with you and show you that we've got some commonality, but, uh, it didn't get perceived that way in some, in some situations. So that's the thing. People want to do that sometimes as, um, a goal of being empathetic, but it ends up yielding a little bit different result.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I like that. Yeah, you're trying to connect commonality to build rapport, but actually it just feels like then you were going back to your, your one last time, you're active listening. It Feels like it was you waiting to speak as opposed to hearing internalizing, taking on board and then coming up with a response. You've just fired back something which isn't, isn't quite active listening.

Speaker B: Exactly right.

Speaker A: Love it. So show empathy. So that's the fourth, uh, one of the seven. Um, what's next? What are we gonna do next? Sorry, the third. What's the fourth one?

Speaker B: The fourth one is have a conversation.

Speaker A: Okay. Can you unpack that for us?

Speaker B: Absolutely. I think in my experience what I've seen is way too often these presentations are not a conversation. Uh, they're a monologue. They're the expert, the SME, the pre salesperson, whoever delivering their script, delivering their lines, delivering all the wonderful things that marketing has suggested they share that's going to make their stock go up. And it, that I, I don't believe that's what it should be. I believe it should be a conversation. And we've got some wonderful tools now with some of these competitive, uh, intelligence tools, gong some of these others that will actually give you, you know, the percentages of who's talking when. And we go back and we all of those calls, we want to understand that. And there are some times where I see we totally got into monologue mode. You see those long blocks of things being delivered and very little interaction from the customer. Um, so, so that's, that's what have a conversation means. To me it should be two way communication. But I also use have a conversation a lot. Um, as I'm mentoring people and coaching people, you know, there's a lot of people who are in the job hunting mode. Right. Something's happened at the work and now they're back on the market. And I tell them those interviews, treat those interviews as a conversation. And that's an easy thing for me to say. Right. But what I think about is when we're in that mode of trying to find the next opportunity where we can care for our family and do the things we need to do, I think we start stacking pressures on top of ourselves. The interview takes on this increased feeling, um, of importance. And I feel like because of those pressures and everything else, it forces us a little bit out of our comfort. And so when we're in that interview, um, we're trying to be something else. We're looking for the perfect ChatGPT answers. We're not showing our charm and our true authentic self. And so I try to coach people, really just approach it as a conversation. They're going to ask you questions and you need to be able to answer those truthfully and authentically. Because if you're not, if you're trying to come up with the, the chat GPT answer and you're trying to be something else, you're going to be unhappy with the job because if they hired something other than you truly are, it's not going to work out. So it's really important in those interviews you just have a natural conversation because you want them to hire who you are and that's really important. So discovery to me again, uh, have a conversation. There's a lot of things that you can do but just have a conversation. But that's, that's kind of what I

Speaker A: meant by that now and again let's let me challenge you a little bit because the people that I know that are listening to this are uh, proper seasoned pros. So sure. Sometimes it's very clear that this is a conversation, right. I am with one or two people either on a teams or a zoom meeting or in a room together. It's clear this is a conversation. You can go to the other extreme. So let's say a conference. A conference which is clearly a broadcast, right? So you're on stage at some kind of conference, you deliver a 30 minute thing which is, and maybe there's some Q A at the end. So if you've got maybe those two extremes there of one to one and obvious conversation and broadcast, which is an obvious, obvious because quite often I remember being in, in my career and having my team asked, uh, can you come into our team and give us a pitch or not a pitch, it would never be cool. But can you come into our and tell us about how we could use this solution? And it's like come in and give us a presentation. Uh, how do you, how do you get the interactive conversationness when it moves away from a, ah, a very obvious one to one conversation.

Speaker B: No, that, that's good. I, I, I still think it's important because how do you know if what you're sharing is of interest to them or not without that interaction? Now a, um, lot of times that interaction can be ahead of time through a discovery call or just through interviewing some different stakeholders that you could be speaking with. Yeah, but I still think there's other ways even in those one to many presentations where you can get a little bit of a conversational piece going on. And I'll give you a couple of examples. Um, you know like during a big presentation at a conference using some of the tools like Mentimeter or interactive polling, right. To have the audience be involved a little bit. You get a little bit of their voice, know if you're generally aligned or not. Um, was it last week or week before? I was speaking to a group of 3,000 people, which was amazing. And again, it was a situation because of the virtual format. Cameras were off, microphones were off, but chat was active. And so we were able to utilize chat and do some polling, ask some questions. And it was cool to go back later and review the chat because it was blown up. People were very engaged there. So I don't know that it's so much of a methodology. Have a conversation as a mental model. And I think if we find ourselves in those monologue moments, monologuing moments. If we find ourselves in those moments where we're monologuing, um, maybe it should be a good reminder to take a pause, check in with the audience if that's the situation, and just make sure we're on track.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. It's. It's that sort of reminding yourself, right? Oh, I've said a lot here, and hopefully it was interesting and informative and. Exactly, you know, and. And now they're engaged and, you know, they're getting excited, or maybe I'm off. And if I'm chunking that up and making sure that I'm putting some pauses and checking back in, then that. That avoids that, uh, irrelevant monologuing, which could be such a disaster.

Speaker B: Uh, I would say, too, Ben, I mean, we've all seen these different TED talks, right? Those TED talks feel like a conversation to me, and I don't know. I don't know. Do you feel the same way?

Speaker A: A good one. You know? A good one. A good one, yes. Uh, I think, you know, TED talks and conferences are a bit unfair, I think, really, because they are sort of, you know, certainly if I've speak to or you hear behind the scenes of people that have spoken at TED talks and those. The amount of prep, the amount of polish, the amount of coaching, the amount of, you know, and. And so those ones that sound like a conversation have been coached within an inch of their life to sound like a conversation, as opposed to being a re. A real conversation. Did you know? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker B: 100%.

Speaker A: Um, and I think that's a skill to make a broadcast feel like a conversation. I think that's something that they've worked hard on. The easy bit about that is it is a silent audience that is listening to your conversation. And that in some ways makes it harder because it's a big audience, but. But also, I think, makes it easier because nobody's actually going to throw a hand grenade at you. Whereas in the scenarios we're talking about, you know, every time you open that up for a conversation, you don't know what might come back at you. And then you've got to adapt in the moment.

Speaker B: That's such a good point. But again, I think it just shows sometimes, uh, especially with a lot of your audience who are these very skilled people like you and I, who've been around the block a few times. I think it's so cool, though, that we can see examples like that. We can learn that we can get even better. Even if it's just 1%, we can continue to improve our craft and get better at what we do.

Speaker A: Yeah, Love it. Um, right, so we've done show empathy, we've done have a conversation, move away from the irrelevant monologuing into this kind of nice conversation. What's the next one, Ron?

Speaker B: Five is practice humility.

Speaker A: Okay, okay, tell me about that.

Speaker B: Well, humility is another idea that I, sadly, I struggled with early.

Speaker A: I'm the best at humility.

Speaker B: You would not believe how humble I am. No one is humble like me. Then. Now it was just, again, smart guy knew it was smart. I knew all the tech stuff. I mean, again, if we go back, if we go back in the day a little bit, um, I knew DOS forwards and backwards. Now, for you youngers out there, disk operating before there was Apple iOS for those windows, you had DOS, you had the prompt, right? What you see the hackers on TV do, That's what we were doing, right? But you had that. I had my network certification. I had my Novell Netware certification. Uh, I knew WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus, uh, 1, 2, 3. I knew Paradox, right? And I was learning, um, Ms. Project. There was no other software on the market. That was it.

Speaker A: I could do all the things.

Speaker B: I could do everything. I could build hardware. I was a God. So, no. So that was where I was at as I got into this role. So this idea of, I'm, uh, going to talk to audiences about tech, I'm going to show them software.

Speaker A: What's.

Speaker B: What's the downside? And you're going to pay me pretty well for this. What's the downside? And then they introduced RFPs, and then I understood what the downside was. But the job itself was really easy and really interesting to me. But my approach was wrong because as I talked about a little bit with the empathy piece of it, it was all about me. It was all about my performance. It wasn't about my selling partner, it wasn't about my audience. It was about how good could I be in my mind delivering on what I thought the job was, doing the perfect demo. So sometimes people confuse, you know, the show empathy piece with the practice humility piece. To me they're very, very different. To me the show empathy is really understanding the needs of my audience. Right. Practice humility is not coming in and being the smartest person in the room, um, not looking at everything as my performance, um, really understanding that I'm there to serve others. Um, and sometimes that means I've got to be quiet more often than I should. There are still times today when I'm in meetings and I have ideas that I want to share. But again, because I'm there in a role to help serve, I don't feel the need to pop out everything that pops in my brain. So I try to be a bit more strategic about looking for the opportunities to share something I think is important at the right time. And, and that's been, that's still something I struggle with. Um, I have to, I have to think about that and it's interesting.

Speaker A: Just as you're talking there, I'm just sort of thinking of some of the cult, the cultural, um, impact of that and how different cultures and persuading people in different cultures maybe take different approaches. If I think of it as an English person, um, that have often quite a self deprecating sort of approach, um, which I think is a bit different to humility. I think self deprecating is maybe a bit more of a humor thing than a humility thing sometimes. But, but they're sometimes somewhat similar. Um, so if I think about that culture, if I think about when I've worked with many of my US colleagues over the years, there is more of a culture of we're the best, let's go, you know, uh, let's, let's go kind of thing. Um, and so when you see those, those cultures coming together and often you think, well, the UK and US is very close, but sometimes you think they're quite different. And I wonder if this humility is one of those areas where there is a bit more cultural difference.

Speaker B: That's pretty interesting. Um, you know, it's funny you talk about us in general. Texans are even worse about that, uh, native Texan. So we were our own country before we were a state and sometimes that still seems like a good idea. Right. So that's really interesting point. Um, I've worked with a lot of teams across the pond and it's always been very easy. It's an easy relationship and we work together well. Um, I'm have to think about that a little bit. That's an interesting take you have on that, my friend.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's just thinking about sometimes, definitely that there's coaching that I see that needs to happen to Brits where we are too self deprecating. Okay. Sometimes to be, uh, hey, hey, stop putting yourself down. It's almost like you're giving yourself a negative critique and you need to elevate that self deprecatingness, which I think is a bit different to humility. But you know, sometimes we need to elevate that and be a bit more positive about. About it. And then. Yeah, that huge. So, you know, it was just something that occurred to me as, as you were talking there that there's sort of some nuance and some, um, yeah, some, some deeper thoughts to think about. This kind of stuff, which is what I love about this sort of stuff.

Speaker B: It's. It's almost like there's a scale. Right. If you slide too far down the scale and you are self deprecating, you could almost lose your credibility with your audience right now you're a comedian. You're not the technical expert in the room to help guide them. But if you get too far into, maybe we'll call it American arrogance. Okay.

Speaker A: Or what's not too far.

Speaker B: Yeah. I just say Texas arrogance because that's, that's just pride. It's Texas pride. But if we get too far into the arrogance piece of it, then we also start to lose our audience because they're like this, this guy's not nice. He's a jerk. So yeah, so I think we've got to find that, that happy balance. Right. And again, I've just. In my career, again, more US pre sales and solution consulting people than overseas. But in my career I've seen so many people who are on the path that I was on where they were very intelligent, they knew they were very intelligent, and they were more than happy to share with their audience how intelligent they were. So that's just not a good path. I don't think as we're looking to build these authentic connections and build those relationships that are going to help us convince someone to buy our solutions.

Speaker A: Yeah. I remember when I was at Microsoft and uh, Steve Ballmer left and Satya Nadella came in as the new CEO, uh, and one of the first things he did was to really emphasize on the growth Mindset, culture. Um, and. And one of the observations that he made, um, which I, I think was true, and I think this was a great thing he did, was there was a culture before of, I am the smartest person in the room. I am a. Know it. You know, I. I know it all. I know. You know, I know it all. And he very much moved to, no, I don't want the smartest people in the room because you don't know it. Or you might think you do, but you don't. What I want is people that want to learn it all. And so I would. And to learn it all, you need to accept that you don't know everything. And therefore, there's a journey, a path to. Of improvement as opposed to coming in as a number. And, and that was a fundamental shift. And I really loved it when he sort of, sort of did that. And that very much aligns, I think, to what you're talking about there.

Speaker B: I think so. But I think that is such a dichotomy of what most pre salespeople believe and where we. We want to be. Right? We want to know it all, to go into that meeting and have the confidence to handle any hand grenades or any questions that come at us. But. And I think early on, a lot of us fall into that trap, and we spend the extra time studying, we spend the extra time going through all the product stuff because we. We don't want to be called out because we're worried about losing our credibility. What I have found over time is being authentic, being able to be comfortable telling my audience. That's a really good question. I don't know the answer to that, but I'll go check it out and I'll get back with you. Is that okay? They. I think it actually has helped my credibility over time. M. So I. I think it's something that we've got to learn to be comfortable with now. You have to do it at the right time, and you have to have the base knowledge. If they ask you a very standard question for the industry or your solution, and that's really good. I haven't heard that question before. It's like, what are you talking about? You can lose credibility. But I think we've got to be comfortable saying, you know what? I don't know. Let me go find out for you.

Speaker A: Yeah, Brent, I could talk to you all day on, On. On that topic, but sadly, time is escaping us. So I'm gonna push us on to the. To the next, um, the next one. Yes, tell it. Tell a story. I believe. Is that right?

Speaker B: That's 100. Correct. So, Thomas, behavior number six, tell a story.

Speaker A: Okay. Right. Enlighten us on this.

Speaker B: So again, I think a lot of us over time has gotten feedback. You got to tell a story, you know, work on your storytelling. And I understand that in some countries overseas, storytelling almost translates into fairy tales, and that can be like a bad thing. And there's lots of books and there's lots of experts on storytelling. And from what I've consumed of all that, um, a few people make it more complicated than I think it needs to be. So mine is not storytelling. Mine is very specifically tell a story. And to me, it's all about how we communicate. It's using anecdotes, it's using plain language. And I give the example in the book, like, you know, Ben, you guys don't, uh, know this, but Ben called me up last week and asked about my rackets. And I explained that, you know, the tension generated by the prince tore 300 gram racket through its Prince technology. And it's extra soft this and the tensions. No, no, we wouldn't talk to our friends that way. Right. Ben called me up and said, hey, what rack are you hands? Hey, I got a prince rack. I really like it. So why do we not take that very plain, very simple language that, uh, we would use with our friends and our family into our audience meetings? It's because we're trying to project a different Persona, right? We're trying to project ourselves as smarter for whatever reason. And again, lots of internal, external pressures drive that. To me, storytelling, Tell a story is about simple language. If you use an acronym, that's fine, but after you use the acronym, just take a second and throw out what the definition is. People in your audience are not going to know what the acronym is, but they're not going to have the courage to stop the meeting and ask. It's not because of you, it's because of their coworkers sitting there. They don't want to look like a silly person for their co worker. Um, and to me also, tell a story is about have an overall narrative. Now, where I say this stuff gets too complicated is you'll find guides out there that are, okay, your customer is the hero and the problem is the villain, and the turn is here and then. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I would agree. I would agree.

Speaker B: Find out what your audience's normal day is like and the tools they're using today and tell a story around that and tell the story of how it's going to be better with this new solution that you're offering them to me. That's what tell a story is all about. Communicate it in a simple way so that when you leave, they can tell their friend, hey, this guy showed up today. He showed us we could solve this problem with billing hours, with three steps. Let me show you. Let me tell you what, when you can do that, you've won. Because now they start spreading your message internally without you having to be there.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I love this topic, you know, and I spend all my time, you know, the course I deliver all my time is called technical storytelling. That's what I spend all my time m. So this is, this is right in my wheel. I love this topic and I can again, talk about it for hours and hours and hours. Uh, maybe. Can I ask you some questions that, that, that I get challenged with when I talk about this sort of stuff? Because I'd love to hear your response. What I was having just the other day, um, the challenge, the challenge I got was. Look, look, Ben, I, I, uh, hear what you're saying, but I'm talking to technical people, and they don't care about a story. They just want to know the facts. So that's. So if somebody says that to you, what are your, what are your sort of, what thoughts does that sort of bring to you?

Speaker B: They care about facts, but there is a way that you could communicate the facts in a way that would land with them better. I was talking to a storage company of the day, and marketing had given them, um, the phrase of 300 gigabytes an hour. Great phrase. People are going to understand what it means, right? Um, one of the people on the team said they expressed it a different way. They said 40 hours of content. I. To me, those are the examples. Because is someone going to remember 5,000 gigabytes an hour or three, whatever the number was, I even forgot the number. But they're going to remember how many hours of content. So I think it's little subtle things like that that can make your story easier to remember and easier to share.

Speaker A: Yeah, because I think what it does when we start to use stories is it starts to make stuff a bit. It connects with people a bit more emotionally. Uh, and. And then that lights up the whole brain. Like you've got the front of your brain which is doing all its, like, rational, um, processing logic data, but you've got other bits of your brain around the back that are more, you know, about emotion. And, and if you can get all of that lit up at the Same time. It really helps people recall things and it helps think better because their brains like lit up, um, with all of it. So it's like an addition, it doesn't subtract. It seems to me.

Speaker B: No, you're still communicating the facts, you're still communicating the information you need to share. You're just doing so in a way that makes it more memorable. That locks it in. Right. Um, I was going to ask you, you do a lot of the storytelling and training. What's your number one tip around storytelling for people who do what we do?

Speaker A: The first thing is getting people to believe that some emotional connection is a good thing. Right? Because genuinely people are thinking, well, no, you know, like we're talking logic, we're talking facts. And so doing things like, like Aristotle talks about the three means of persuasion, like how you persuade somebody and he's like, right, you need to be credible. Which we in tech are really good. Like, I've got my certifications, I've got my, this, you know, I'm a senior, whatever, I'm a principal, whatever it is. Then we need a good rationale, a good rational argument. We're really good at that. And then the third thing he says is, is we need. You need an emotional connection. You need people to convince. You need to convince people emotionally because people buy what they want and then justify it. They don't buy what they need, um, they buy what they want. And so you've got to make want it. And, and so that comes from em. And so you need that sort of three pronged attack. You can't have all feeling with no substance, but you can't have all substance with no feeling. And, and you've got to get that in a balance. And um, it seems to me the two most powerful ways of doing that you've of creating that emotional connection you've covered. The first one is active listening. That creates a massive emotional connection with people. If people feel heard and understood and listened to, that creates it. And the second thing is those sorts of stories like you're talk talking about that creates a massive emotional connection. So those. It feels like the two primary levers that we sort of use in our world to really connect with people emotionally. I don't know. What do you think?

Speaker B: No, I think that's right. I think, I think that's really the essence of our job. Right. People have referred to pre sales people in the past as translators. Right, but what are we translating? Some people say, well, we're translating our solution into value. I'd go one step Further, and I'd say you're translating that value into an emotional connection with your audience. That's the job. And when you do that, people are going to buy from you, Right? They're going to justify it other ways, just like you said. But they're going to buy from you because they trust you, they like you. You've got a connection with them and you're going to have success in our world.

Speaker A: It's funny. And I'm just recalling this conversation that I was just having just last week. And so I thought, right, the analogy I would use for storytelling, and this is going on, on your bit about the. The hero's journey, like, you can find people out there that are saying, you know, they've got this very complicated construct, very similar to Star wars or the Matrix or whatever, the hero's journey, and they're trying to fit their product life cycle into this very. And. And the analogy I. I gave to them was it. It's like mustard. Storytelling is. Is like mustard. Right. Now, I've seen some videos on this English mustard versus American mustard. Um, and American people. I've seen some videos on Instagram or Tick Tock. English mustard is very strong. Um, it's. And so if you take a spoonful. So I've seen these videos of Americans now, actually a spoonful of mustard. Their face is exploding. You know, there's literally sweat pouring off them. And for me, that's what storytelling is like. It's like English mustard where a little bit on a ham sandwich. Oh, you know, that is awesome. But if you now put an inch thick, you know, with muscle on the top, it's gonna knock your block off and your head is going to explode. I think a lot of people think that when you. They hear storytelling, they think of a sandwich with an inch of mustard, you know, and this horrible narrative, it's all crafted, it's contrived, it's not natural. Whereas I think what we're talking about is how we bring it alive with little anecdotes and little stories and things that make people connect to it.

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. When we spend too much time and money working on the limbic opening and the cute tie into some prop or something, and we lose the narrative, that's a problem. So I think you put it really, really well. I may have to borrow that English mustard. That's really good. The right amount on the ham sandwich. You're good. Slather it on. Maybe we've. We've gone overboard.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think we could culture. We could take it with wasabi or horseradish or some of these other ones that you, uh, know. Not, not your block off. Uh, yes. Uh, brilliant. Do you know what? I've just looked at the clock and we are, uh, Time has just disappeared from us.

Speaker B: It always goes too fast when we get together.

Speaker A: It does. Um, so, so should we, should we just wrap up? So key takeaways for anybody that's zoned out whilst they're walking their dog or pushing, pumping iron in the gym, whatever it is they're doing. What would be the key takeaways from this?

Speaker B: I think the key takeaways are just the remaining timeless behaviors and why they are important, why we should consider them, why we should take some time and consider. Are we incorporating these in our day to day work in pre sales and solutions? And again, there would be the four that we covered today. We talked about. Um, show empathy, have a conversation, practice humility and tell a story. We incorporate. Those were the ones we covered last time. Number one was be authentic. Number two, listen actively. The four we just talked about and then finish up with the last one that we talked about last time. Um, leave an impression.

Speaker A: Yeah. And they, they are just brilliant. And I think, you know, for me, you know, as I think about that, you know, we've set this in the context of pre sales today when I talk to Eng, you know, internal IT teams that have to go and tell their business, you know, about why it is important, why a bank, you know, how uh, an IT infrastructure team justifies its budget and existence to the CEO of a bank. It's, it's all exactly the same. It's all exactly the same thing. So although we talked about this in the context of pre sales, this is so relevant to engineering teams, consultancy teams, customer success teams, uh, product teams. It's, it's just awesome, I think, for, for everybody. So, um, yeah, thank you so much for, for taking the time to enlighten us on all this. Now if people have really enjoyed this, how can they find out more? How can people get hold of you or the book or find out more about the book?

Speaker B: Yeah, so, so the book's on Amazon. Um, A Friendly Human in Pre Sales by Ron Woodson. Um, there's a Kindle version, we've got an audiobook version that Jack Cochran narrated and he does an excellent job on it. Oh, thank you very much.

Speaker A: That's the Kindle version.

Speaker B: That's Kindle version right there. Um, there is a website, I put a landing page for the book for people who'd like to learn More first, it's just timelessbehaviors.com. um, if you want a signed copy, you can actually order signed copy from there for your audience. I have a little bit of a special band. Um, the audiobook company gave me some codes for free audiobooks. So if anyone is interested, they can message me on, uh, LinkedIn or maybe, you know, if they want to message you and you get a hold of me, whatever way they want to do it, don't bother Ben. Ben's a busy guy. Message me on LinkedIn and, um, I can give you a code. You can get a free audiobook to listen to. It's a four hour listen and like I said, Jack did such a good job. I tried narrating it myself and that was. I gave up pretty quickly. It was really, really difficult. Jack, uh, is actually trained to do this kind of stuff and he really did a wonderful job of bringing my word slide. When I listened to it, I was so impressed because he got it. He got the story that we were trying to tell there. But yeah, and also just connect on LinkedIn. I really enjoy continuing this conversation with people. If you think differently too, I'd love to hear different thoughts on this. I mean, these are simply things that I had to work on for myself and it seems like other people have found some value in it. So really happy about. The book's going to be two years old here in a couple of months. So, um, Amazed has been out that long already and still, still really? I'm still really happy because people always ask you, would you do anything different? No, I'm still really happy with. My wife still says there's errors in there that I need to fix. She's a highly accomplished copy editor. Why she didn't copy edit it is a story for the other day, but I'm still really proud of the book.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, I've thoroughly enjoyed, uh, reading it and I've thoroughly enjoyed talking you to this episode. In this episode and the last one. Um, final thing for me to say is thank you so much, Ron. It's been an absolute pleasure. So thank you for sharing all your insight, wisdom and experience with us.

Speaker B: My great honor, Ben. I appreciate it. And, uh, you know, let's talk again soon.

Speaker A: Let's. Let's don't go yet. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and rate the show. It really helps us grow and book new great guests. And remember, if the podcast isn't enough for you and you want weekly microlearning delivered straight to your inbox, sign up to the Tech World Human Skills Weekly. Head over to www.techworldhumanskills.com to sign.