Brainshark Stories that Sell City Tour Keynote - Tim Riesterer

Breaking the Status Quo Barrier

Convincing your prospects to do something different

Relevant to Your

Prospect

Unique to You

14% Only 14% of “benefits” promoted create commercial impact

Failure to create impact

86%

Status Quo

Barrier You Yes 60%

No decision

? Ignored Invaluable

Malcolm Gladwell

Scientist for Tipping Point Morton M. Grodzins

What was the difference?

What the best are doing different

•  Challenge assumptions •  Define new set of needs •  Align w/your Strengths

SELL A DISTINCT POINT OF VIEW

Status Quo Threatened

Identify New Needs

Define Solution

Identify Viable Vendors

Review Approaches

Make Decision

65

“Why Change?” “Why Us”

•  Our promise of what you get •  How we do it •  Why we are the best option

SELL YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

35 % % Buying Vision Bake-Off

-3 -1 +1 +2 +3 -2

New Brain Designed for Analysis

Old Brain Designed for Survival

A decision to change

Decision-Making Engine

Make the Status Quo Unsafe

Don’t Call the Baby Ugly

Make me Smarter

Status Quo

Barrier

Attention Scarcity

“While our access to raw information has grown exponentially, our time to process this information has declined rapidly, which has

placed an unprecedented premium on the act of meaning-making.”

George Dyson (Futurist)

•  Don’t play 20 questions

•  You got 30 seconds to tell me something I don’t already know

•  You see more people who look like me than I do

•  So act like it!

Risk/Loss Aversion

Atten

tion Scarcity

Status Quo

Barrier

Change Burden

Incum

bent A

dvantage

Context Creates Urgency

Which would you choose?

A guaranteed gain of $75,000 An 80% chance of gaining $100,000 with a 20% chance of getting nothing

Which would you choose?

A certain loss of $75,000 An 80% chance of losing $100,000 with a 20% chance of not losing anything

Status Quo

Barrier

Change Burden

The pains I’m living with…

Are bigger than the pain of change…

Status Quo

Barrier

Incumbent Advantage

Find your Contrast

Con

tras

t =

Val

ue

Y Status Quo

Barrier

YOUR POINT OF VIEW Y

Distinct Point of View

The Hero Model The Hero Model: based on The Hero with A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

• The world is normal

• Something changes

• Hero struggles

• Enter: the mentor

• Hero accepts the quest

Distinct Point of View

•  Number Plays

•  Metaphors

Grabbers

Distinct Point of View

CONTEXT: Give them enough reason to do

something different

•  Documentation

•  Visualization

Pain and Impact

Distinct Point of View

•  Make the complex, simple

•  Make the abstract, concrete

Contrast

Validate your Contrast

Proof Points •  3rd party testimony

validates story

•  External studies

Distinct Point of View

BRAINSHARK EXAMPLE

“People are information-rich and theory-poor. If you can give them a way of organizing their experience, then their minds are wide open.”

— Gladwell

Who are you going to be?