Podcast

EPISODE SUMMARY

Sometimes being an expert in your field can hinder the way you see your own work. Learn how to uncover this everyday genius using Seinfeld storytelling in episode 490, as Dave Mastovich explains how to conduct surveys to find out how other people see the everyday genius of you and your company.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

It’s the No Bullshit Marketing Show. I’m Dave Mastovich, CEO and founder of MASSolutions, the world’s only No Bullshit Marketing consultants. When we talk about storytelling, some great storytelling comes from Seinfeld. It doesn’t matter what generation you are, because it’s been syndicated and played in so many places. Most people relate to Seinfeld as a show and the characters on that show so much so that me, as a master storyteller, even has incorporated Seinfeld into some of our intellectual property, so to speak, some of the things we do here to make the point because when you bring up Seinfeld, everybody’s ears kind of perk up. And you can start using examples to help teach, to help communicate, educate, motivate. So our version of the Seinfeld storytelling approach has two parts. 

And the first part ties to the supposed meaning behind the show. It’s a show about, you popped in your mind, ‘nothing.’ It’s supposedly a show about nothing. But isn’t it really a show about way more than nothing? Isn’t it really a show about just about everything? It’s a show about us. It’s a show about the people we know. It’s a show about friends, a show about the encounters we have, it’s a show about the minutiae of everyday life. Well, the first part of the Seinfeld storytelling approach can help you discover everyday genius in your teams. Discover everyday genius in your team. 

The first part of the Seinfeld storytelling approach is what you think is nothing is actually something to others. Let’s unpack this. What comes naturally to each of us, comes naturally to us. So when we do that thing that comes natural to us, and somebody thanks us, what do we do? I’m going to give you an example. I have a friend who won an award. I get a call from him one day, and he says, ‘I forgot to do this speech for this nonprofit that I’m on the board of and I am being recognized. Can you help? I always can count on you to help me with messaging, communication, storytelling.’ 

I said, ‘Sure. When is it?’ He goes, ‘I’m driving there now.’ 

I said, ‘Okay, pull over.’ I said, ‘I’m driving, I’m going to pull over. You pull over.’ 

He says, ‘All right.’ 

I say, ‘Tell me what this recognition is about, what the cause is, what the board that you’re on is.’ 

He tells me. I walk through ideas. I come up with a quick theme for him. And I say, ‘Look, I’m only doing this while we’re pulled over on the side of the road. Obviously, if we were doing this as a project for a client, we would go through our process, but I’m going to wing it here for you.’

I get it done. He goes, ‘I love it. It’s fantastic.’ He says, ‘This is great, Dave. This is amazing. You’re fantastic, man. You saved me. I’m 10 minutes away.’ 

What do you think I said? ‘Ah, it was nothing. Go have fun at your award. Congratulations.’

Why? Because what comes naturally to you, you often think is nothing. So the first thing we do is we fumble the thank you. When something comes naturally to us, and somebody says, ‘I really appreciate you doing that.’ ‘It was nothing, don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it. Happy to help,’ when we should have said, ‘You’re welcome. I know you’d do the same for me.’ That’s an old Robert Cialdini tip. But I digress. The point isn’t about me and my friend and what comes naturally to me. That’s not the point. The point is what comes naturally to you and what comes naturally to your company. What you think is nothing or what you think is part of the process is actually something to others. It’s something to a segment of your target audiences. It could be something to your employees, could be something to segment one of your clients or customers or segment four of your clients or customers. But what you think is nothing is actually something to someone else. And you have to tell that story. There are parts of your process that you don’t even talk about, you just consider it part of your process. But those might be attributes that certain customers love about you. 

So you have to be able to go through all that you’re doing, and try to figure out what you’ve not talked about because you thought it was nothing and uncover those everyday things that are actually genius in your teams. There might be something along the way that you’re doing that differentiates you. 

Now, how do you do this? Well, ask open-ended questions regularly to your customers. And then you’ve got to do this next part, this part is the hard part. Got to listen. And the next part is even harder. After you’ve listened, you got to track it. Type it in your notes on your phone or handwrite it because you’re going to now see what patterns come out. So if you talk to 10-15 people, and this thing is said once and this thing is said once, okay, that might not be it. But once something is said three, four or five times, that’s a thing. That’s the everyday genius in your team. So it’s asking open-ended question of clients, customers, asking open-ended questions of employees, asking open-ended questions of referral sources. Then listening, difficult, tracking what they said by just simply writing it down or typing it, really super difficult. Neither of those are super difficult, but you make them super difficult. So do I from time to time. So you’ve got to listen. Listen actively, not with listening to figure out what you’re going to say next, listen actively. ‘What’s the one reason why you started working with us?’ Boom. Now, maybe it was because their cousin worked there. So you then say, ‘What’s the main reason you still work with us today?’ Boom. You’d be surprised what those answers will be. Because sometimes those answers will be what you thought was nothing. And now you’re discovering the everyday genius of your team because you’re living the first part of the Seinfeld storytelling approach. What you think is nothing is actually something to others. 

Gave you a tip, ask those open-ended questions, listen, track it, see what comes up. Continually survey, in a more formal way, clients, customers, employees, referral sources, people who refer to you, people who are in centers of influence that can connect you with someone. When you do these kinds of surveys, and they don’t have to be super formal, you have to listen, track, and then come back and tell them what you did. ‘You know what? We heard from so many people that this was so important, we weren’t even talking about that in our story. Now, it’s part of our story.’ Boy, that person that told you that has got a bounce in their step. They’re excited. They know you listened. Second thing is you got value from what they told you. Third thing is you’re now telling the story better, because you’ve discovered that everyday genius of your team. And you’ve incorporated into your story through the Seinfeld storytelling approach, part one, taking what you thought was nothing and then incorporating that into your story again and again and again. 

I hope you found this helpful. But I really hope that you take the time to implement this. Begin to look at every thing that you do along the way to deliver your customer experience, everything you do along the way to help your clients if you’re a professional services firm and start looking at the parts of that that you thought were not worthy of being in your story. And figuring that there’s someone out there that’s important to, there’s someone out there that’s not nothing. There’s someone out there that’s something. Ask open-ended questions, track, listen and track what you have. All of these are ways to discover the everyday genius of your team. 

Thanks for listening to another episode of the No Bullshit Marketing Show recorded here in MASSolutions studio in bold, beautiful, downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Remember, ask yourself, what’s the big idea? And build your story around the answer. It’s all about bold solutions. No BS.

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