Jim James: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to this episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur. And today, I'm delighted to have Mark Carpenter, who's a master storyteller, joining us from Utah. And we're going to talk about stories. Mark, welcome.

Mark Carpenter: 0:12

Thank you, Jim. So glad to be here with you.

Jim James: 0:15

So Mark, tell us how can storytelling help the average entrepreneur who's going unnoticed right now, until they've heard your insights about storytelling.

Mark Carpenter: 0:25

Well, I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs, and I consider myself in that category as well, we think I need to show how my product is better, how my features are stronger than other people's, or I need to get the data out there in front of people. And that's really what everybody's doing. But storytelling has a very powerful impact to help you stand out to other people and connect you to other people in very powerful ways. And a lot of that has to do with the brain science behind storytelling. There's a lot of research that has been done recently that shows how stories impact us as human beings. If you think about it, this is what we've been doing evolutionarily since the beginning of time that we connect with each other by telling stories to each other. And recent brain science has shown why - that it actually changes the brain chemistry within us. It increases things like oxytocin, which creates trust, that's the trust hormone. If you tell a good story that has some conflict in it, it will increase cortisol, which is increases your attention. And if you make a good point, that ends the story on you will get an increase in dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that gives you a sense of satisfaction and completeness. And so all of those things will connect us more as people by telling stories. We don't get those benefits when we just share data, information, features, benefits.

Jim James: 1:50

Mark, that's really interesting. So, at a hormonal level, stories are literally turning us on, gearing us up, or turning us off, right? So what comprises a good story then? How do people make a good story, Mark?

Mark Carpenter: 2:04

I think sometimes we overcomplicate a good story. And I think that's what turns people off from trying to tell their story is they think, "Well, but I have to go through these 18 steps of the narrative arc that Joseph Campbell has introduced." And then that's not the kind of stories that I'm talking about. I'm talking about taking your real life experiences and turning them into lessons really that will teach, lead, sell, and inspire. And to do that, the first thing you have to have is relatable characters. You have to relate to the audience you're talking to. So think about the people you're talking to. If I'm talking to investors, I want to relate to them in a way that shows that I'm a solid financial bet. And so I want to give some of the background that shows, "I'm like you. I'm concerned about the same things you're concerned about." I also need to include in that story some worthwhile goal that I'm trying to accomplish. And then put that goal at risk in some way and show how I've overcome that risk. That overcoming the risk is going to lead to the dopamine at the end, the risk itself is going to increase the cortisol. And so that's how those chemical reactions that go on in our brains tie in with a well-told story. But I think the key point that I want to make about a well-told story is that it's not so much about you as it is about your audience. It's about them and about the point that you're trying to make or the lesson learned that they can connect to. Sometimes people get caught up in thinking I need to be the hero of every story that I tell. Sometimes, if we make a mistake and show how we overcame that mistake, that's a more powerful, memorable story for people than the one where I'm always showing that I'm the hero. So think about what's connecting to your audience more than how could I make myself look good in this.

Jim James: 3:51

I think that's really a great point because there's some confusion, isn't there, around storytelling and the founder's story versus the, if like, the employee or the shareholder's story. So Mark, can you give us an example of storytelling that's maybe happening now that you can help us to understand the concepts even more?

Mark Carpenter: 4:13

Well, I always tell people there are things happening in your everyday life that are great opportunities for you to turn into stories, to teach, lead, sell, and inspire. But I think we can also look at the news and at history that helps us to tell these stories as well. Jim and I were talking a little bit earlier about the war in Ukraine and about how there's storytelling going on both sides there. Russia is trying to frame the story in a specific way, and they're trying to cut off stories that might not fit their frame. And so think about this in a leadership standpoint, we need to be careful about what our motive is in telling our story. Because if your motive is manipulative in telling your story, that's going to come back to haunt you. There's an effort right now that's going on one of my colleagues has been working on this, that they're talking to the people in Ukraine and getting their stories and trying through more personal media, getting those to the people in Russia so they can see, "These are my neighbors that are just like me, and this is a different narrative that I'm actually getting from our government." So there's a different side of the story that can have a positive impact on society and on how people feel about certain situations. And I think those stories are the stories that are very important for us to tell.

Jim James: 5:32

You raised an interesting point there, Mark, about authority. You know which person is the most authoritative storyteller. I was talking to my daughter this morning, she says she gets her news from TikTok, not from the BBC. Young people today, apparently, are not trusting politicians, but they're trusting influencers. So what's your view on who has the best, if you like, vantage point as a storyteller?

Mark Carpenter: 6:03

I think the most authoritative storytellers are the most authentic storytellers. And I think that's what your daughter's seeing. TikTok knows its audience. And so they connect; they're more authentic with each other than the BBC may be for that audience. And so that's where the authenticity, that's where the realness comes in. And that's why I encourage people to look for the experiences they have in their own lives to turn into those stories, because those are very authentic. And even the ones where may be, "I struggled a little bit," that's going to come off as very authentic to the other person because we've all struggled, we've all had challenges. If you get someone who always tells stories about how they're perfect and they're heroic, you start to question that because nobody's that perfect. If you hear those stories about my failings and where I've tripped and fallen at times and how I overcame those problems, you can relate to that more because you've had those same situations. Again, going back to the brain science, that's what increases that feeling of oxytocin, where we are connected to each other. We relate to each other more. And then I'm a more authentic person that you want to work with.

Jim James: 7:16

Mark, in your book that's just come out, "Master Storytelling," can you tell us what are some of the elements of the book that you haven't shared so far that you think that, you know, our community of The UnNoticed Entrepreneurs would love to hear about?

Mark Carpenter: 7:31

Well, a couple of things, we have talked about - the brain science and it goes into a lot more depth on that. And then structure of story in a very simple way. I'm a simple person. And so I don't like the complexity of there are so many different steps in a story. We break it down really into three parts and say, "Here are three different chunks that if you can tell a story that includes these things, it will connect you to people in a way that's more powerful and more memorable than just sharing information, facts, figures, features, benefits." So that's one of the powers of the book, I think is the power of simplicity in structuring your story.

Jim James: 8:09

So you've mentioned the three parts, Mark. You take it away. Tell us what are the three elements that we entrepreneurs that struggle daily, you know, can use to build our narrative and be it once authentic. And yet we also have to seem trustworthy, don't we? Because if we're always true about how we fall over, customers and employees don't really want to deal with that, right? So we have to look as though we're someone that people can put their faith in and give us their money. How do we do that with the three elements? What are those?

Mark Carpenter: 8:39

Yeah, and so the three elements and it starts with the idea of being intentional about why you're telling the story. Well, what's your purpose in telling this? If it's a story to encourage employees to live the culture, well, that's going to be framed a little bit differently than if I'm talking to investors and trying to get them to invest in me. But the three main elements that are there, we call it the introduction, you could also look at it as the current state. Okay, what's happening right now? Who are the characters in this story? How can I relate to them as a listener? That's our current state or introduction. The next stage is the conflict. This is where we take the goal of those characters at the beginning of the story and create some conflict to it. Something gets in the way of attaining that goal. And that, again, is where, cortisol is going to be drawn in. I want to know what happened. I want to know what's going on here so that they either get to a good solution or they don't. And we want to see that happen. The third stage is what we call the change. This is where we either overcome the conflict by doing the right things. Or maybe we learned from not being able to overcome that conflict, but how did we recover from that? And so you talked about, you don't want to work with people who fail all the time, but we do want to work with people who recover all the time. And so how did I bounce back from that challenge or that problem? And what principle does that show that makes me relatable to you and makes me somebody that you can trust and you want to work with?

Jim James: 10:11

That's absolutely fantastic as well, to your point about the getting up and starting again. I think in America, you celebrate that more than almost any other culture as well, don't you? And what do you think is the impact of language and words, and of pictures and moving images? Because you talk about the release of chemicals. And of course, in, you know, olden times, the Bible itself is a series of stories, isn't it? Well, just tell us the impact of words and of pictures. I'm imagining you've done some research on that as well.

Mark Carpenter: 10:43

That's a great question, Jim. thanks for raising that one. And I'll go to your word choice, particularly. This goes again, to know who your audience is. You need to use words that they understand and that shows that we're connected. I'll give you a quick example, this is actually in the book as well. I remember sitting, listening to a speech, and the lady who was giving the speech was a nurse, and she kept using terminology from the medical field. It wasn't a medical speech. She was trying to make a point about how we solve problems or how we overcome adversity. And she kept using terminology. Well, my wife is an x-ray technician. And so I kept turning to my wife and saying, "What does that mean?" And she'd explain to me what the term meant, and then I'd go, "Oh, okay, now I can figure it out." But I kept getting lost in the story because I didn't have the same terminology. So know who your audience is, so you can use the language that they can relate to and that they can connect to. So to me, that's how we choose what words we use is knowing who your audience is.

Jim James: 11:46

And what about the impact of images, Mark? Are you suggesting that the picture superiority effect comes into play? Or are we really just queued into words and our own imagination stimulates enough of the chemicals that we don't really need anything else?

Mark Carpenter: 12:04

Well, I think pictures certainly can have a powerful impact as well. The big thing on visuals is to make sure that they're well connected to the words you're using. Because if there's an image on the screen as I'm explaining something and it doesn't connect, or you're having a hard time making the connection, you will lose people in them trying to make that connection. Their thought process is going to go to: What does this image have to do with what Mark's saying, rather than focusing on what Mark's saying? The other thing about the power of words is you can paint really clear word pictures. Where you can describe a situation and people have that image in their heads. Stories will do that for us. Stories will lead people to develop pictures. Facts, figures, and data, they don't lead us to develop pictures, but a story will lead us to develop pictures in our heads. And that's almost more powerful than me putting the image out in front of you.

Jim James: 12:56

Changing tech, just slightly talk about the person in front of the audience. Do you think then that a company should have different spokespeople so that maybe there is one, you know, CEO, founder, has his set of stories? And do you think you need different people who may be related to different audiences? Or can one person be credible across all these different audience groups, Mark.

Mark Carpenter: 13:21

Well, and as someone who's an entrepreneur of one, and I have a team of one, I have to make that relatability across different audiences. But I think in larger organizations, you want to develop a team of good storytellers. Storytelling creates vicarious experiences. So if I'll go to look at, say, a larger organization or maybe I'm on a team of seven people, we have a manager. If my manager's telling me an experience and relating it to the culture of the company. That's going to be very connecting to me because I see my manager every day. I may not be able to relate to that as much as the person that's three levels away from me in the organization. So larger organizations, I think need to build a team of powerful storytellers because that's what's going to inspire action and lead change and get people to fully understand the culture of the organization.

Jim James: 14:15

Okay, so really, storytelling is not just sort of the vision of the company, but a practical sort of management skill, Mark, from what you're saying there. Can you give us another example about how storytelling can be used from a practical perspective? Because the theory is one thing, but you know, for myself and my fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs, it's great to get some practical examples of how this could be used if you're dealing with maybe a management issue? How could you use storytelling to solve that problem rather than an email and a dictatorial sort of sense of authority?

Mark Carpenter: 14:50

Yeah, absolutely. I'll share an example that I read in a book a while back. There was an employee that came into this company in a sales role. And they were told, as part of their orientation, "We're very team-focused. And so, anytime somebody needs something, everybody jumps in and helps. This is part of our philosophy, it's part of who we are." So those are great words on the wall, right? That we help each other and support each other. And this sales rep he had been around the block a few times. He listened to that and thought,"Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice. That's nice. But I've got my work to do." He'd been there about two weeks and his manager came in, and he said, "Hey, all hands on deck. We've got an emergency. Some shipments of materials didn't get to a location where we're doing an event. And so everybody's downstairs. We're going to load up this truck." And his first thought was,"Mmm that's for other people. I gotta get some sales closed here. That's my job." But as manager, she said,"No, you need to come now." So he went down there, reluctantly, started helping loading this truck. Who's in the back of the truck stacking boxes? It's the CEO of the company. It's the founder of the company, that company was named after. And he's in there stacking boxes. And that was the moment when this employee said, "Ah, that's real. That's not just words on the hall, that's behaviors in the hall. This is what we do as an organization, because I can see that from my leader."

Jim James: 16:17

Right. So a story can narrate the culture of the company and become folklore. What about using customer stories, Mark? How can a company and entrepreneur use customer stories to help embed the brand in the marketplace?

Mark Carpenter: 16:31

Yeah, and I think that's a fantastic example of where you can use stories effectively. If I'm talking to you as a potential client, I want to tell you the story of a client who's like you, who worked with me successfully to overcome a problem. And maybe a problem that's similar to a problem that you have. And if I can relate that story so that they can see themselves in that story particularly, when the conflict comes, when the problem arises, and they go, "Oh, I've been there. I can relate to that. I feel the emotion of that coming." And then we give them the solution. They can say, "Hmm." I may look at this more effectively." Like, let me give you a quick example. I actually taught Master Storytelling to a group of sales people. And the biggest objection they had was, "I can't just not give features and benefits and products and prices and all this information to people. My response was, "You don't have to stop doing that. I'm saying include storytelling with that." About two weeks after that event, one of the sales people sent me an email and said, "I wanted to thank you for that idea. I have a client that I've been trying to work with for months and they keep saying, "Ah, maybe later, maybe later, maybe later," I called them, and instead of telling them more features and why they should join on with us. I told them a story about a similar client and the impact that our product had on their organization, and they paused for a second after the story and said, "Tell you what, write me up a proposal, let's see what we can do." That's the first time I've been able to break through a proposal, and it was the story that I told that I think broke down that barrier. So that's an example of how telling effectively a customer story that they can relate to, can open the doors. Because now, again, we're more connected as people when you tell me a story too.

Jim James: 18:19

Yeah, that's wonderful, Mark. Final question? You know, I like to ask how an entrepreneur, like you, gets yourself noticed. You've got the book "Master Storytelling" but how are you getting yourself noticed?

Mark Carpenter: 18:29

Yes, and the Master Storytelling book is available in all the different formats on Amazon around the world. I also do at least a weekly post on LinkedIn where I share a story. I try to live up to what I tell people that your everyday life has stories that can teach principles. And so I put one on LinkedIn every week that everybody can see there. You can look for me, Mark Carpenter with this face, those of you that can see me on the camera. And also Master Storytelling. We have a Master Storytelling page on LinkedIn as well. We also do a Master Storytelling workshop that we do virtually via Zoom. And we will also do it within companies to help them more directly solidify their organization's stories that they want to tell, to teach, leads, sell, and inspire.

Jim James: 19:13

Mark Carpenter joining me from Utah, which is a beautiful state. Thank you so much for sharing all about stories and I feel very connected having heard your story. So thank you so much.

Mark Carpenter: 19:25

Thanks, Jim.

Jim James: 19:26

You've been listening to Mark Carpenter and myself, Jim James, here in England on The UnNoticed Entrepreneur show. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you like it, do please share it, rate it, and also look out for the upcoming book, that's going to be on Amazon, which is "The UnNoticed Entrepreneur Volume Two." Thanks for listening to this episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.