Storytelling and Likeability in Professional Services Marketing, with Michael Katz, Blue Penguin Development
Michael Katz: [00:00:00] If you’re a small company, but even if you’re larger, the benefit of stories is that it — well, two things. One is they catch people’s attention. You’ll remember this story about the guy at the gym; whereas, a lot of other stuff I’ve said, yeah, just kind of floats by. Humans are hard wired to listen to stories and to remember that.
Michael Katz: [00:00:21] So, when you talk about something like, I never give a public presentation ever. I always begin with a story that seemingly has nothing to do with the presentation. But it’s like you can see back in the day when you’d go to live things, you can see the audience perk up when I go, “Let me tell you a quick start.” It’s just like you have to hear what happened. So, they’re attention-getting. So, they’re very good in podcasts, newsletters, blog posts, that kind of thing, as opposed to just information.
Michael Katz: [00:00:49] But the other thing is if you’re in a business – again, where the credentials don’t differentiate you – again, if you think about you have no idea where your doctor went to medical school, but you know, do you like him or her or not? And what I found when you sell a professional service, sort of likability and trust thing, which is very sort of squishy, that’s the differentiator. If you think about all these people you hire whose capabilities you can’t measure, including like your auto mechanic, you like him. I hate your guy. You like your guy. I hate your doctor. I mean, it’s so funny because it doesn’t sound sort of businessy, but it’s how we make these decisions. I don’t know if you’re a good accountant, but I know if I like you.
Michael Katz: [00:01:33] So, when you tell stories, you get people’s attention, but you’re also revealing a little bit about you. It’s funny, I have this discussion with clients a lot because people are concerned about, “Should I share my personal information?” I mean, if you and I sat down, John, together for coffee, and we just started talking business, it would seem kind of rude. Like it’s normal to say — I mean, we did it before we started this. “Oh, the weather. Where are you located?” That’s what people do.
John Ray: [00:02:02] Sure.
Michael Katz: [00:02:03] But in a business context, a lot of times, people are concerned that they’re not going to look professional, whatever that means, so they don’t do it. The storytelling stuff, where you reveal stuff about yourself, I mean not crazy, but enough that people can connect is very memorable and very compelling to other human beings who that’s mostly who hires you. So, it’s helpful.
Listen to Michael’s full Business Leader’s Radio interview here.
The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.
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