David 0:00

Do you sometimes feel as though you're in the sales zone, but your prospect is in the twilight zone? How do you fix that? We'll find out on this episode of Shift Shapers.

Announcer 0:12

Change either paralyzes or energizes. The choice is yours. You're listening to the Shift Shapers podcast. You're about to learn firsthand from businesses and entrepreneurs who have successfully shaped the shifts in their industries. Get ready to become the change you want to see. This episode is brought to you by Shift Shaper Strategies. In sales, if you confuse, you lose. Clarify your message so you win more clients, crush your sales goals, and build your practice. Learn more at ShiftShaper Strategies.com. And now here's your host, Story Brand Certified Guide and Chief Transformation Strategist at Shift Shaper Strategies, David Saltzman.

David 1:04

Do you sometimes feel as though you're just right in the sales zone? But you're looking at your prospect and you know they're not there with you, even though they're right across the desk? Our guest today can help you with that and a variety of other things. She is keynoter and speech and story artist, Deirdre Van Ness. Deirdre, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Well, thanks for having me, David.

David 1:27

It's a pleasure. So let's get right to the heart of the matter. What is the difference? Everybody talks. Lots of people don't communicate. What's the difference between talking and communicating, and why is that so important, especially in a sales setting?

SPEAKER_02 1:41

I love what you're saying because one of the things that I used to say to audiences, particularly when I was working with a, you know, an advisor audience, is just because you can talk doesn't mean you can speak, right? So I think the thing about speaking is that we take it for granted. You know, we were born, and most of us, since we were, you know, 12 months, 18 months, like we started talking and we think just because we're saying words, we're actually communicating our message. But a lot of times we're not. And so I think the thing to realize is particularly in business, words should not just be word strung together, right? Words are actually something to be massaged, something to be crafted, something to be strategically aligned and woven together so that you can grab the attention and tap into the emotions of your ideal clients. And so I think the difference between, you know, talking and speaking or communicating is having that intentionality behind what you say and not thinking, what do I want to say? You know, most people, the mistake they make when they're talking either one-on-one with a client, whether it's in front of a group, whether they're writing something, David, that they want to communicate. The first question most people think is, what do I want to say? And I can promise you, if you ask yourself that question, and that's the first question you answer, you will bore your audience, you will lose your audience, they're not going to be engaged. So instead, the question that you want to ask yourself before preparing any type of messaging, and I don't care if this is 30 seconds or three hours, if this is in-person, virtual, spoken or written, is this how do I want my listener or my reader to feel, think, or act differently after they hear or read my message? And if you answer that question and you design your messaging around the answer to that question, you will start to see yourself hit some home runs when you communicate.

David 3:44

Well, it's it's true. Daniel Kahneman did a career's worth of research on this. He wrote a book called Thinking Fast and Slow. And his thesis was that we all think that we communicate using our prefrontal cortex. That is the rational part of our brain up here. But in point of fact, communication happens in what some of us know as our lizard brain. It happens in the amygdala, which is the center of all the emotion. And so, to your point, if you can't touch somebody emotionally, and it doesn't mean you have to make them cry, although I've seen salespeople make prospects cry. We all have. It just means that you have to think about what the prospect wants to hear. What is their story, not so much what is your story that you want to tell. So I think that's great advice. So let's talk a little bit about the importance of connecting at that emotional level. How do you do that? What are the techniques that you need to use in order to connect like that?

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yeah, and I do want to circle back to one thing you said that was really, really important. I think a lot of people get very confused about this. When we say touch someone emotionally, most people do think, David, they have to have a sob story, right? That's the only way to touch people emotionally. It's like, no, you could talk about the smell of the chocolate chip cookies as you walked into your grandma's house. That touches people emotionally because most people have had that experience, right? So we're not just talking about a sob story. We're talking about anything that's just gonna tap into their humanity, is touching people emotionally. So, how do you do that? So there's a variety of ways to do that. What I'd love to do is give an overview of a formula that I personally use when I am designing messaging presentations and one that I teach my clients to grab and keep the attention of their audience. Would that be okay if I went over this force net formula?

David 5:32

That'd be great. We love formulas. We're we're by and large insurance people and brokers. We love formulas. Oh, yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Okay, that's right. So it's called the CETA formula, C E T A. So the first thing is you want to make sure your message and the way you're delivering your message is conversational. You want to use a conversational style. You don't want to act like all formal and buttoned up and like five people removed from your listener or from your reader, right? Like you really want your listener or your reader to feel like, wow, David's like a friend of mine. I could be sitting across from him having a cup of coffee. So whenever I'm designing any type of messaging or speaking, I'm always have that in my mind. Like, would this person feel like I'm their friend and I'm their cheerleader and we're just sitting down for a cup of coffee? So, some strategies on how to sound that way is first, absolutely avoid any type of industry jargon. And the financial services industry, unfortunately, is known for using a lot of jargon. And you can't do that when you're talking to the consumer. And it's gonna take some intentionality. I have clients that I critique on their speaking skills and their writing skills, and they'll say words that don't seem like jargon, David. What was the other one we were talking about the other day? Oh, the other one the other day was comprehensive financial planning. I'm sorry, your listener does not know what that means. That means nothing. Those words evoke zero emotion and will cause people to tune out, right? So you've got to think of a way to say that so that it's clear. I always say if a 10-year-old can understand it, that's the type of language you want to be using. So avoid jargon. Here's another quick example. About four years ago, I think it was, my husband lost his job. And I remember coming home from work, and these were my exact words. I said, Peter, if we need access to cash, where are we going to get it? I did not say, Peter, do we have enough liquidity in our portfolio if we run out of money? Right? No, I would never say it that way. But most advisors, if they were speaking to consumers, that's how they would phrase it. So this kind of brings us into point two. You want to use what my one of my mentors, Lisa, told me years ago. You want to use pillow talk. Pillow talk is using the words your clients actually use with each other as they're falling asleep at night or waking up in the morning. So start keeping a library of phrases and words that your ideal clients actually use, and use those words when you communicate that with them. And then finally, the last, and this is a big, big strategy. It's actually an advanced speaking strategy. Many presenters, even some of my keynoting colleagues, don't do this, and it's really important. You want to make it sound like, especially if you're talking to a group or you're on video, you're writing an article, you want to make yourself sound like you're talking directly to one person. And so the way to do that is to use the word you, the singular you as much as possible. So instead of saying to, let's say, a group of, you know, a group of people, how many of you have a financial plan? You would say, raise your hand if you have a financial plan. Instead of saying, has everybody done this before? Have you ever done this before? You want to use the word you as much as possible. So that's the C in Sita. Any comments? Does that bring up any questions, David?

David 9:10

No, but it does validate some things that, you know, I've also been talking about for a while with some of the folks that I work with. And that is, I think that people resort to industry jargon because I think it makes them feel as though they're going to be perceived as more technical, more professional. And in point of fact, it's not that it's received better, it's just not received. Correct. People just turn off. You know, I years and years and years ago, I was a I loved selling individual disability insurance. And it's complicated. And the best compliment any client could ever pay me is you know what? I've had four people explain that to me. This is the first time I've understood it.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Exactly. That's great. That's great. Yes.

David 9:48

So that's terrific advice.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Yeah. And I do want to speak to the financial professionals on this because one of the drums that I've been beating in this industry for the last 12 years is stop trying to prove yourself and start being yourself. Right. And this is part of why I have these messages behind me. You're loved, be yourself. Because this industry needs to understand that people are going to connect more with your humanity than they are with your credentials and your technical expertise. And so start communicating in that way because people are absolutely hungry for it. They wouldn't be sitting in front of you if they didn't think you had the credentials to help them. You don't have to use language that proves that you know how to help them.

David 10:27

Right. You're in the room. So they've already agreed that they think you can help them. But you know, it's the hardest thing to do. Oftentimes I coach clients on stage presentations, as you do. And the hardest thing to convince them to do is to not be the character they think people want to see when they're on stage, but to be authentic because you've been in front of probably more audiences than I have. People can smell inauthentic behavior a mile away. You won't get four minutes into your talk and you can't reel them back. It doesn't matter what you do, they're gone.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Yep, absolutely.

David 11:07

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. How do you focus on that? If if you because we've all seen people give talks, especially for newbies or people who are even new to selling, they assume a character when they walk into somebody's waiting room. They stop being themselves. How do you stop yourself from doing that and to learn that skill of just being authentic and using what you call pillow talk?

SPEAKER_02 11:28

I gotta say it's hard. And I have to tell you, it probably took me about eight years to learn how to be myself on stage. Right? I mean, that sounds ridiculous. It sounds like, well, duh, who else are you being? But it's hard. So I really want to validate that. Like if you're, you know, you're listening right now and you struggle with that. I want to validate that it is a struggle, particularly in front of groups. And so if you feel like it's a struggle, you're in the right place. But it just really goes back to this idea of being yourself and stop proving yourself. That's what the world wants. You know, for me, and I'll just speak for myself, my faith is a big part of that. You know, I do a lot of identity work and in who I am in Christ and who God created me to be. And the more I can stay in this place of like God created Deirdre to be Deirdre, and I just need to be Deirdre, and Deirdre's good enough. That allows me to be that way professionally and on stage.

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David 13:17

Yeah, I think if you have a silly streak, then go be silly. Absolutely. And that's, you know, that's great because everybody relates to that. Nobody relates to somebody who's a button-down version of some character that you're playing on stage without even realizing you're playing on stage. So, but let's transition. So we know what we're supposed to do. If we've got somebody's attention and we're speaking well, how do you hold their attention? Because for some folks, that's a challenge.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah, so let's move on. We still have three more stages in the formula. Okay, go. So that was just the C. So that was the C. So that's be conversational. The E is, and this goes to your holding their attention. You don't want to just get up and deliver a message, deliver a monologue, right? A lecture. You want to actually, when you're communicating, you want to create an experience for people. Whether you're communicating in a group, one-on-one, whether it's a video, whether you're writing a book or an article, you want to create an experience. So, how do you create an experience? Well, what you do is you take your facts and figures, right? You take the facts that you need to get across to make your point and teach your lesson, and you use anchors to make those facts and figures come to life. So let me give you an example, David. Let's say you were going house shopping. Okay. Let's say I'm your realtor and I show you two homes. And one home and both of these homes, let me take a step back. Both of these homes are on sale. You know, they're on the market at the same time. They're in the same neighborhood. They're the same price. And inside the home, they are exactly the same. The footprint is exactly the same. Okay. But one of the homes has not been touched in 20 years on the outside. The other home just got a fresh cone of paint. They have great landscaping, great shutters, great front door, lighting, the whole thing. Which house do you think is going to sell first and for a higher price?

David 15:12

I watch HTV. I know the answer to that. It's the one with the great curb appeal.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

And you said the word. And it's because of the curb appeal. Of course, unless it's someone who's a fixer-upper person, right? A house flipper, the other one is always going to sell first because the curb appeal made the emotional connection. The curb appeal took that dull, boring house, that footprint, and brought it to life. That is what you need, you mean you're, you know, if you're listening to this, that's what you need to do when you're speaking and when you're writing. You have to take your facts and your figures. You have to add the curb appeal and bring it to life. And the way you do that is by adding anchors throughout your messaging. So I just did that now. I could have just told you what I wanted you to know about curb appeal, but I used an analogy as an anchor. So you want to add analogies to your messaging. You want to add stories to your messaging, right? You want to add activities to your messaging. You want to add great visuals. You want to have props. So those are some of the main ways and acronyms, actually. So look like what I'm doing today with the SEDA. Those are some of the main ways you can anchor your content and your message, bring it to life to hold attention and make that emotional impact.

David 16:29

Okay, so what's next? Let's move on. What's next?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Okay, so then you've got the T. The T is asking people what I call thinking questions. Thinking questions. There's two types of thinking questions. The first type is the type that does not create what I call lazy listeners. When you are delivering a message, the last thing you want is a lazy listener. So, David, what do you think I mean? Just take a guess at what I mean when I say no lazy listeners.

David 17:01

People who aren't really paying attention.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah, and it goes even further than that. So a lazy listener is someone who's like this. They're just sitting back and they're letting you feed them the information.

David 17:13

So they're not engaged.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Just imagine yourself with a bunch of long forks and spoons, you know, just feeding your audience. That's a lazy listener. Okay. You want an actively engaged listener. And one of the main ways you get that is by asking them questions that get them to think about your content and to kind of co-create the content with you. So I just demonstrated that skill or that strategy when I said to you, David, what do you think a lazy listener is? I got you engaged in creating that answer, right? So one of the things you want to do, let's say you're giving a 30-minute presentation, you want to go through your script. And yes, I am a massive believer in scripting out presentations. We can talk about that if we have time. You want to go through your script and say, okay, I've got a fact here, a statistic there, another fact, another fact. Let's say you have, you know, you have five sort of different sections. What could I ask them instead of tell them? So instead of saying it takes five to 30 seconds before someone decides if they're going to tune you in or tune you out, I could say, how long do you think it takes your audience to decide they're going to listen to you or tune you out? Just throw some answers out. Or if we're on a virtual webinar, type it in the chat, right? And that gets people engaged. I can't tell you, David, how many keynotes and webinars I do where people don't get to ask me questions and at the end they'll go, oh my gosh, that was so interactive. And it's not because they were asking me questions the whole time, it's because I was asking them questions the entire time and leading them to where I wanted them to go. So that's one type of thinking question. Here's the second type of thinking question. Have you ever been to a presentation where it sounded like the presenter was just, it was just all about them? Have you ever been to a presentation like that?

David 18:59

All too often. All too often.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

All too often. Okay. So the way that you can avoid that happening, because obviously your experience and your stories are about you. So how do you make them about you, but not sound all about you? Well, you do what I just did a moment ago. When I asked you the question, have you ever been to a presentation where you've heard a presenter that was talking all about themselves? And you said, Yeah, all too often. What I did there was I did what I call I stepped out of my content or stepped out of my story, and I asked you a question that got you stepping into your own life experience as it relates to what I'm saying. Does that make sense?

David 19:40

Oh, it does because it's the mistake that a lot of folks make is that they come in telling their story. And the story the prospect or the client wants to hear is a story that invites them into their story.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Exactly. Exactly. So one of the things I'll do when I coach my clients to do is, especially with storytelling, is let's say you're you're at a part of a story and it's something difficult, you might say something like, you know, I'll never forget. I just I felt like I was like just punched in the gut, right? This what that person said to me was so shocking. I didn't even know how to react. Has that ever happened to you? Has that ever happened where you were just blindsided by something someone said to you? Sure. Yeah, then you know exactly how I felt. Right. And then you can go on and move to the rest of the story. Yeah.

David 20:24

So we've got a couple of minutes left. Let's finish the acronym.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah. So the last is the A. And the A, I'm a big, big believer that your messaging, your presentations, for the most part, this isn't all the time, but let's say 99% of the time, should not be about theory. You should actually give someone a practical application. So A is for application, a practical application that they can use to make their life better. So particularly when you're delivering a presentation, whether again it's one-on-one or a group, give them something tangible that if they never saw you again, like my goal when I'm keynoting, I think if these people never see me again, they never lay eyes on me again, I want them to say, that was an amazing hour I spent with Deirdre, and she gave me this one strategy that I've used to change my life. And if you do that, if you're conversational, you make it an experience, you ask thinking questions, you give them an application, you will not only grab their attention, you will hold their attention and they will remember you likely for the rest of your life.

David 21:24

So in the minute we've got left, let's circle back because all of this goes back to something we talked about earlier, which is delivering messages on an emotional level.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Yes. Yes.

David 21:34

Even if you get all the skills right, if you can't pull those emotional strings, and I don't mean in a manipulative way, but in a way that allows your prospect or your audience to open up to you, you're toast. It doesn't matter what great information you're giving.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

True. Yes.

David 21:48

Is there one thing for people to keep in mind that you want to leave them with that is just the absolute key? As you said, if you don't remember anything else, if we never see you again or hear from you again, and I hope we do, what is it you want to leave them with?

SPEAKER_02 22:01

Here's what I want to leave you with. The biggest when I'm coaching my advisor clients on delivering their stories, the biggest mistake and the and the thing that we spend the most time in is what I call the power of the pause, P A U S E. Most people, when they communicate, they do not pause appropriately. They don't pause enough, they don't pause long enough so that the listener can actually catch up with you and process what you're saying. And so all your words and all your ideas just run together. And your words are just words. They do not make an emotional punch. So even though pausing is scary and one second feels like five minutes when you're speaking, I want to encourage you to look for those places where you are saying something that you want to emphasize and make sure you appropriately pause before and after that idea so that you do make that emotional connection. If you don't do that, it all just sounds like noise.

David 22:56

Right. And I'll add to that before we go. And if you're on stage doing a presentation, when you pause, don't move, don't fidget, stay right where you are and look at the audience. Yes. Because it makes them a little disquieted, but it goes, oh, I'm supposed to be thinking about this. That's your cue. I'm not, I'm the presenter, I'm not doing anything else. Or if I'm in on a one-on-one, I'm not saying anything for the moment. Holy cow, that means I'm supposed to be thinking about something. Right. Great place to end our conversation. Deirdre Van Nest, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. And we do hope you'll come back again because there's so much to talk about on this subject.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Thank you, David. It's great to be here.

Announcer 23:35

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