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Every day marketers sift through dozens of headlines, posts, and slacks telling us about the latest and greatest trend we should be following.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and like you have to figure it out by yourself. But you don’t have to do it alone. Content Matters with Nicole MacLean (Compose.ly’s CRO) is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most — creating connection that drive results.
For more, head to our site: https://compose.ly/content-matters
Produced in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
Sheri Otto (00:00):
When our brainwaves are synced, I can now give you the CTA to create demand and get people in their pipeline because they're with me. I got them, I got them. And that's how we persuade our audience. It's so fun and it's goes back to that sort of like self, uh, self goal of just wanting people to do what I want them to do.
Nicole MacLean (00:33):
I'm Nicole MacLean and this is Content Matters created in partnership with Share Your Genius. This show is your digital partner for filtering the trends and focusing on the content that matters most, creating connection that drives results. Let's cut through the marketing chaos together.
Sheri Otto (00:52):
Hi everyone. I'm Sheri Otto. I am the founder and CEO of a consultancy called Growth Lane Strategies, where I work with B2B teams that are building out their full funnel processes. So here's a fun fact about me. I'm doing this on the side. I'm growing a budding business while I work full-time in growth marketing, my day job, my night job, whatever the case may be. I don't know if you guys can relate. I'm very multi-passionate, so I do that and I also just, yeah, it's a fun life right now. I'm a mom. I work from home, so it's really flexible and I do a lot of these podcasts, but I have to say hanging out and talking to Nicole, we do have another one coming out soon and she and I are so, we have so much fun connecting on marketing all things, so this is going to be really great.
Sheri Otto (01:40):
Yeah,
Nicole MacLean (01:41):
It is. And you're just, gosh, I could gush about you so much in just managing a full-time job and your consultancy and motherhood,
Sheri Otto (01:49):
But
Nicole MacLean (01:50):
I mean true hat tip to you because I just feel like I get too invested in a brand and don't know how you keep things siloed, but it has to be so fun to have your own job where you're getting to experiment and learn and then bring that to your clients, but then also everything your clients are doing, getting to learn that and then apply that to your role. It just must be such a fun, excuse the buzzword, but symbiotic relationship.
Sheri Otto (02:18):
I love that.
Nicole MacLean (02:18):
Two things.
Sheri Otto (02:20):
I am always fascinated by folks who are just head of departments, and so I love what you do as well. I'm like, what's that? Tell me more. And we're just super into one thing. You get a little obsessive for sure. We can totally compare notes, but I literally was just thinking this because I had to crank out really hardcore. So not only am I working full-time with my clients, I'm a content creator and I just went live on LinkedIn for a webinar for myself. And so when you're talking about context switching,
Nicole MacLean (02:52):
The context switching is so real. We don't talk enough about how much that we talk about opportunity costs a lot. We don't talk enough about context switching and the price. Yeah, I mean you can pay for it.
Sheri Otto (03:03):
What are the tips around there? It's great. I think the more we can have, and I was just thinking about this, doing sort of an assessment in my brain, you really want to do good and be really high performing in all the aspects of your life and people who depend on you for things. And so I'm trying really hard and this is what's working. I need to continue, but trying really hard to have processes set up literally like an SOP for everything and templates. Of course, AI is super helpful in this, so you got to be, I think, let me ask you, what do you think about being really high performing in your role? I think that's sort of synonymous with being really good at prompt engineering. Yes.
Sheri Otto (03:45):
Yes.
Nicole MacLean (03:46):
Okay. I feel like the creativity and how you approach it, because so many people are use it to automate the things you don't like to do, but I feel like it's so true that if you're skilled at a role, I feel like you're better at knowing where to plug it in than if you're trying to use it for something that you really don't know how to do to begin with. Yeah,
Sheri Otto (04:05):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know what I like to do, and maybe this could be a good tip finding that this is helpful when you're in a high role. In my company where I work full time, I'm presenting every single week. I've got to have decks, I've got to have the numbers, the accounts. I work in a BMA lot. And so what accounts do we need? And so what's helpful for me is having templates to follow. So ever there is an example of what good looks like, I freeze on that and then I create a template out of that
Nicole MacLean (04:42):
That is a template, a great, just pause, recognize this was great. How do I now replicate this?
Sheri Otto (04:49):
Has to, that's the only way this works. That's brilliant. There's no way I can do this and I am going to have to work on, some of my clients are very demanding. I'm like,
Nicole MacLean (04:58):
Ooh, hold on guys. But that kind of goes back to the you set what good looks like. I feel like too often people go to these AI tools and expect them to say, here's what good should look like and here's what that is. And now you can go in and no, you give that to them and then use that template to save you time ongoing.
Sheri Otto (05:18):
A hundred percent. You said that. Yeah, that's a soundbite right there.
Nicole MacLean (05:21):
I know. Okay, thank you. Going back though, to the head of a department nursing really in versus the other, we were talking a lot about how probably the through line of this episode is going to be embracing your story, but that is, I think it's also a personality type. I don't know if you're into Enneagram or Myers-Briggs or disc or pick your poison there, but there are people who need that kind of constant change or need to be able to bounce around and actually fuels them. Whereas for if other people are in that same thing, it's not that you don't both have the skill or competency to do either well, but it would be so energy draining that the context switching or the variety would actually drain them versus maybe for you that is empowering.
Sheri Otto (06:07):
That's good. That's so good. And so
Nicole MacLean (06:10):
That's kind of what, when you were saying that and we were talking about stories, I just think that's part of your story.
Sheri Otto (06:15):
Oh, I feel like this is our psychology session. I'm going to take notes. Hold
Nicole MacLean (06:19):
On. Perfect. Well, that is something we'll probably get to because I know being on webinars or podcasts with you before, the psychology that you bring to this is so fascinating and some of the things that we get to that I'm sure you'll share. But yeah, it is all it's people and it's just understanding. I literally did
Sheri Otto (06:40):
Not think about that until just now when you said it. And so recruit's so validating. So to sum up all this goodness that you're saying right now, I do think it is playing to your strengths and understanding where you thrive. Oh my gosh, that's so good Nicole. And thank you for sharing. You're welcome. Mind on
Nicole MacLean (07:00):
That. Welcome. It's always, when it's a good podcast is when you take away a realization. You're like, okay, well, this is a six minute episode guys. I hope you enjoyed it.
Sheri Otto (07:08):
Thanks. We're good. Thanks. I can go now.
Nicole MacLean (07:10):
Yeah, no, I'm sure we're going to have many, many more to get to. One of the things, so if you guys missed it, we did a webinar with VIB on email and email's not dead, no marketing channel's really dead if you use it creatively and it resonates with your target market. But that is another discussion for another day. But it was interesting, you didn't bring it up in your intro probably because you did your intro versus someone reading a bio, which I have love hate relationships with bios,
Sheri Otto (07:40):
But
Nicole MacLean (07:40):
You are a former HubSpot rockstar and it's something that I am just always curious about because I feel like people, especially in some, there are certain companies that have this halo effect, a Google, a Salesforce, a HubSpot, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, oftentimes for good. And I feel like there's a lot of assumptions people put on these individuals who come out of these big tech things. And oftentimes it's good. Sometimes it's putting these people on a pedestal, sometimes it opens doors. I'm just curious, in your journey, in your story, how has the success and having that as part of what got you to today, either one, shifted what you find interesting, shifted where you want to be, but also just the assumptions people make or the expectations that are put on you with that?
Sheri Otto (08:32):
Oh, such a great question. A lot of folks don't ask questions like this, so I'm glad we get to talk a little bit about it today. I think there was an evolution of how I came to grips with my HubSpot story. My interview at HubSpot, Nicole was 72 hours long. It was a fast. I interviewed with my manager who hired me on a Friday and I did a test, we an assignment that weekend, and then I interviewed with the VP of marketing that Monday. And then that Monday afternoon I was offered the position and I got the position through LinkedIn. They recruited me because I was posting content. And so I got in there super fast and then so there was a little bit of this, holy cow, what just happened? It was like a whiplash.
(09:18):
And then got in there, did some really cool things, and this was during the time where it was the bubble bursted with tech, and there was a lot of changes across all of tech everywhere. And we were just sort of hanging on to what made sense for the company with people pulling back after, after people kind of tightening up their pocketbooks and just really wanting to make sure that they were sustaining their own selves. And so we had to figure that out just like everyone else did. People around us were getting let go, and then we had meetings that were like, what's going to happen to HubSpot? And we would have these emails come in, we're going to be fine, we think we can't promise anything. That was sort of the tone. And then it happened, and it's a public knowledge that we had to go through a workforce reduction.
(10:15):
And in that there were so many changes of those who were remained. And so there was a lot of hard things that happened because of the economy, because of how we were trying to still remain profitable in a really difficult economic situation. And I think for me, I had to evolve into embracing my HubSpot story. So after everything shook out, there was a lot of internal displacement, Nicole. So folks were like, well, a huge chunk of our workforce is reduced now what does it look like? And the people who you were connected to who anchored you in your position, they were a guy and you're like, oh, it almost felt like you kind of started over and you almost felt like it was almost like a little bit of an identity crisis. And I'm so glad I get to talk about it. I don't think I've done that. Yeah,
(11:09):
So I would say this. I would say I've gone through phases of how I now internally interpret my HubSpot journey from an internal perspective, from an external perspective. When people see that HubSpot is a part of my work history and experience for them, it is a signal. And so as I was moving on from HubSpot and wanting to spread my wings more and lead more and do more, I had so much to give. I was interviewing for jobs for a few months and I've gotten a lot of late round interviews. I was interviewing with some big companies and I said, well, how did you pick me and why are we connected? I mean, I'm sure there's hundreds of marketers who are, we're all qualified. So they said, we saw that you had HubSpot on your resume. I was like, yeah, okay, great. I'm like, listen, as a marketer, you want to use every advantage you can hand out.
(12:12):
So I'll wave the HubSpot flag if it helps me in my goals. And I would give that advice to other folks. Use what you have. I call it use what's in your bag to help you stand out and to really position yourself as you are wanting to achieve something new or the next phase in your journey. So that was helpful for me. And now today, as I am working in a really good place and really supporting my clients, being able to say that I was the number, I was the very first speaker for their inbound conference for the webinar. They had never done a webinar before. I helped produce it. I titled it, I created the slides, I hosted it live on LinkedIn, and that was the inaugural webinar to promote their 11,000 in-person event in Boston. And so that was, I'm really proud of that.
(13:05):
Along with being an experimentation council member, me and four other council members were over a hundred marketers globally and nationally. We supported them in the business experimentation practices. We increased our internal MVS score from seven to nine, putting us in the promoter field year over year, and we created some amazing campaigns. So I would say this, I'm getting goosebumps, I would say to embrace the hard times. It was hard if I'm being honest and real and authentic, and it's good to be honest and real and authentic. It was hard. And I thought I was going to be at HubSpot in Nicole. That was it. It was your riding guide. I made it. I'm putting my stake in the ground. I'm going to be here more than almost the two years I was there. I'm going to be here. I'm going to really grow here. That wasn't the case.
(14:02):
It didn't end up being that way, but I would say it's for a reason. And I wouldn't have started my company. I would've been just continuing where I was. So I would say that it's helped me from an external perspective, from an internal perspective. I had to evolve to really interpret that and embrace that as a part of my story. And when you tell stories, people really can connect with you. And in this era of ai, it's so important to tell more stories and share your past, even if all of it isn't easy to talk about, or even if parts of it is difficult and it was hard at the time, find a way to share because I bet that other people can relate. So that's what I would say about that.
Nicole MacLean (14:45):
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that because I think there's a good side and maybe even less good, and it is maybe not less, it's good or bad, it is our story. But I've noticed there are a lot of people who either one will discount if you don't have that pedigree you used earlier. If you're not a former Googler, IBM or Salesforce or HubSpot,
Sheri Otto (15:08):
It's
Nicole MacLean (15:08):
Like, okay, well you've worked at this 20 person, 30, 40, 50 person startup. You're not as good or you don't have that. You haven't cut your teeth there. One, I feel like we should not have that perspective. Just you don't have that also doesn't mean that you can't rise or that you didn't get a ton of opportunity to learn and experiment and move quickly and learn how to be frugal and
(15:32):
Grind. And then the other side too, I feel like if you come from that, I've seen so many people are like, oh, well, you were there, so you're going to save our company, or you're going to bring this knowledge and just instantly it's going to work. And it's an entirely different target market. It's a different level. Again, talking about stories, just it worked here doesn't mean it will work somewhere else. And I think it's just embracing, focusing maybe less on the company and more on what was done regardless of point. Some of those things you just mentioned are so an experimentation. Council is such an interesting idea. Probably very few startups maybe get to have that. So great. You would maybe be a great fit for a startup because you were doing experimentation at a really big company, but you had that mindset. Some people at big companies don't have that mindset, and that's okay. It's not their story, but how do they apply it? And so I feel like it's really looking at the person and what you need and not, it can sometimes go either way.
Sheri Otto (16:34):
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a soundbite in itself. And I hold more. I think more people, more leaders in the industry do need to look at the individual and their potential to help the company achieve their goal from that perspective. So I do think we come in with preconceived notions about everything.
Nicole MacLean (16:54):
That's a good word for it, preconceived
Sheri Otto (16:56):
Notion. And there's judgments around everything. And unfortunately, and I'll play both sides of the coin, unfortunately, this is the society we live in. I wish it wasn't like that. I wish people would be like, Hey, listen, tell me what you did and how did this relate and how did you handle the problem? How did you tackle this? How did you work with people? I wish that was fortunately, and here's the deal, in corporate America, in corporations, there's politics. It's the truth, there's the good all boys club, there's all these things. I'm a minority woman. I'm a woman who's a minority in tech. And there's a lot of things that some folks just I have to come across and sort of elevate to and lean into and navigate. And so there's all these factors at play. I do wish we would kind of give everyone a level set, but what I will say, even if you're not coming from a big company with a big name, even if you are, I would say to find your unique differentiating factor that will help you stand out.
(18:06):
While I could use the HubSpot pedigree if I wanted, I would say that everyone has something really tailored and unique. And most of the times the case is not having it. Most of the times the case is not really leaning and positioning with it. And so those are the things that we can position ourselves with and go out there and say, Hey, I saw that your company is doing these things. Here's a gap that I actually can fill for you. Give me a chance. And so those are the things that we've got to understand our environment, but we also can do things that help us be that light, be that desert, bloom, and get in there and be distinguished and differentiated from others that we're competing with. For sure.
Nicole MacLean (18:52):
Well, one of the things that really stood out when we worked together previously and the last webinar is I feel like some people can say, I have this name. Cool. And they just rest on the laurel of that.
(19:04):
And to your point, yeah, I'm sure HubSpot has been an opportunity or something that can open doors, but then you're following it up with really great tangible examples that do answer that question. What I did with that, that was actually more impressive to me, was more of the lasting thing I remembered than, oh, you used to work at HubSpot and we're focusing a lot on HubSpot, and I don't know why this was so interesting to me. I just have seen it in times, especially I think when startups are trying to go from startup to scale up. I feel like CEOs and founders maybe have some, now I'm going real niche, but maybe some imposter syndrome or maybe just some fear. And so they lean into someone who's like, oh, well, I exited this company in 1999 for 20 x, or I worked for this large company, I've done it before. Let me come do it for you.
Sheri Otto (19:54):
And
Nicole MacLean (19:54):
I've just never found that that's the person that actually knows how to do it again.
Sheri Otto (19:58):
Oh, really?
Nicole MacLean (20:01):
I mean, maybe just some bad things, but I've maybe seen it more on the flip side where someone uses that to come in and it's a different time, it's a different place, it's a different team with different skillset, and they don't know how to replicate the problem because you didn't actually ask what the questions that you just said of how is your unique experience actually going to be applied to our problem here? And how is your unique, do you actually have the right experience for where we are versus just you've done it before?
Sheri Otto (20:30):
Yeah, that's great.
Nicole MacLean (20:31):
And I think that's what, again, has resonated with some of the examples you've shared, which hopefully this is a good transition to dive into some of those great examples. But there's actual real work behind that that is meaningful for people.
Sheri Otto (20:48):
Yeah, that's great. That's beautiful. What can I do to support the goal here with my talent, with my effort, with my initiative, with the way I strategize? So that's the crux of what we're after here. And I think it has to do with how companies understand and have clarity around what the needs are specifically and what the qualities of the person who's going to fill that need has to be. And that direct correlation has to happen. And maybe I know that there's programs, apps, tool, I mean, chat WT is always great. There's things too, but you've got to have clarity on what's the best, what does this person, how do they think? How do they maneuver? How do they really understanding? So as I'm growing my business and bringing people on and my team, I'm like, okay, this is a gap that I know I don't have, but I know I'm so driven and I'm fast moving, and so I might need someone who's a little bit more thinking intuitively, seeing the big picture because I need to match me. So I think if companies can do that better, I think we grow and we can elevate people who could do really well. And then folks who are really driven, they can really stand out too. So yeah, I think it's definitely an opportunity. And it's interesting. I'm hoping we evolve that way. So thanks for bringing that up.
Nicole MacLean (22:17):
As a sales and marketing leader, I'm always interested to hear about a team's tech stack At Compose.ly, we use Apollo.io with HubSpot to fuel our outbound outreach. My team loves it. It consistently provides accurate contact information and is incredibly user-friendly. If you're thinking about changing your data provider or just want to hear more about our experience, connect with me on LinkedIn or check out the link in the show notes of this episode, improve your inbound, increase conversion and keep your marketing database squeaky clean with Apollo. What's the actual term? And now is totally escaping me, but of the psychology that we talked about in the VIB webinar? Yeah, so we talked about behavioral science. Behavioral science. Okay. That was it. Thank you.
Sheri Otto (22:58):
Yes.
Nicole MacLean (22:59):
So switching gears a little bit, I mentioned it earlier, this idea of psychology and understanding your people. And I know you've been doing a lot of research and talking about behavioral science and applying that to marketing. I mean, for someone who maybe probably understands behavioral science, but can you just define that a little bit for us?
Sheri Otto (23:18):
Yeah, absolutely. So behavioral science is a study of how humans make decisions. And if you are a marketer who are trying to help marketers or anyone in your audience make decisions as in your favor,
Nicole MacLean (23:35):
Yeah, wouldn't that be helpful to understand
Sheri Otto (23:37):
How those decisions get made? I want you to do, I don't know, I think this stems from a very self-serving place. I dunno, I get a reward or a dopamine hit when people do what I say. Okay, I appreciate the honesty. You said, honest, transparent, authentic. Yes. When you do what I say and you click this button or you go here, I feel really good about myself. So I think, and coming from a demand team in marketing, we were measured, literally measured with the metrics of how we help people make those decisions. And I was using behavioral science at HubSpot even before I had terms for it. Now I know what the names are, but I was studying it. I was reading, literally talking to folks in meetings at HubSpot about this book I was reading and studying it. So we're trying to figure out how to, it's the art of persuasion. So Robert Cialdini, he started this science, the art of how we persuade our audience. And so I'm a demand marketer. I help clients bring me in specifically to help them drive demand, which means drive meetings and bookings and trials and hand raisers people who elect to want to learn more about the business. That's what people bring me in. And in order to do create that conversion and create the desire for demand, I like to incorporate behavioral science. I have my cards. I need to show you.
Nicole MacLean (25:06):
I would love to see them. Yes, please. If you're listening, I'll try to describe them in detail.
Sheri Otto (25:12):
I'm going to show you my secret weapons for how I create demand. I did use one of these ad HubSpot to help me generate 50 qualified leads every single month on repeat. Okay, so these are my behavioral science cards. You can see, I'm going to show you a couple. I'm going to read you some. Okay, my favorites. I'm going to show you some of my favorites. Some of the stuff internally you kind of know and you're like, oh, yep. But these are ways to help people do what we want to make them understand that we, it's a way to align with how our brain think decisions so that we're able to persuade them. So this one, for instance is called reciprocity. Reciprocity. Thank you making a, Nicole. Let me read it. Reciprocity. It's a thing that we as humans, we want to give back. So humans are hardwired to return the favor we are.
(26:04):
Someone does something for you, you want to do it. So for reciprocity, people don't like to owe other people. When you do something for someone, they'll want to find a way to pay you back. You can use that in your marketing for an example. If you're giving some value away, if you're giving them something of value that they need, you can kind of have something that makes them feel like they want to give something back to you. Hey, did you like this thing that we shared with you? If so, mind giving us some data, mind giving us do this quick survey. It's just a minute long. Thanks so much, and I hope you like what we did for you. Reciprocity. You can use that in your marketing. So there's many ways, one of the biggest ones that I love, and it's an interesting name, I know how to pronounce it now, it took me a long time. It's called Ovsiankina. So we do this, but we just didn't know that there's name for it. So Ovsiankina effect. This is kind of like when people start something and they don't finish it, they feel kind. There's tension internally like, oh, that one when you're in bed at night and you have a list of five things to do, you only did two of them. And you're thinking about those other three things, there's some tension. It is nodding at you.
Nicole MacLean (27:17):
It just like there in the back of your head
Sheri Otto (27:19):
Like, oh, I didn't do this. And I'll tell you the example that I use at HubSpot in the email for this. But imagine watching a movie and it's just like, it's not a good movie, but why you sit there and watch the whole thing? Because yeah, otherwise you don't want to not
Nicole MacLean (27:32):
Finish it. And then it sits in your queue. And I'm like, wait, I hate when I actually do finish it, but I leave the credits and then Netflix leaves it in the queue, continue watching. It's like I finished it. Please get it off my queue. Thank you.
Sheri Otto (27:45):
Right?
Nicole MacLean (27:46):
Absolutely. And now I know the principle behind it. Yes,
Sheri Otto (27:49):
Thank you. I love this. And so we can create the tension and say, and I'll give you the tangible example that I used at HubSpot because I had to create demand and get people on a sales call. I had to get people on a sales call. And so I focused on what they were doing. And that's another one called commitment and consistency theory. So you start out with what they are doing, and then you set up a process and you make it incomplete. You make it incomplete. So what you can do is say, oh, great job. You started this process. You signed up for the free tool. Great, but it's not done. Oops. Now you're on a path that's incomplete. Oh, Ozzy and Kena, you probably want to finish that, don't you? Because I know humans, human beings, I'm speaking to a human, you want to finish this task, but you're not done. So in order to complete what you started, you're going to have to click here and talk to a sales rep. And it worked perfectly.
Nicole MacLean (28:50):
And you could actually get someone who would get on a call, give up that time just because they feel like they didn't finish.
Sheri Otto (28:56):
Correct. Yeah. I literally said the word milestone. I made it up. I was like, oh, you did stage one, step one in your milestone. In order to continue the momentum for step two and finish the process, you should talk to a sales rep. They're going to get on a call and complete the process that they started. And at the time, I didn't know it was called this, but I knew about psychology and how humans make decisions. So they're doing something but they're not done. I'm going to make them feel like it's not done, and then they're going to do it and we're going to meet our goals for the big tech company. So yeah, it's just so much fun. I use a lot of them and some of them just come naturally and you can mix and match. I will say we were telling stories is a huge behavioral science principle. It really, really is. So I encourage folks to tell their story. It's right here. Storytelling, and I'll say this one more thing because I keep bringing up storytelling and why it's so, so important. There's this thing called coupling. I should probably read from here. So neuroscientist Yuri Hansen has shown that the brain synchronize when one person listens to another, tell a story. If I'm telling my story, I'm going to have your brain wave syn with mine. It's called neuro coupling. It's fascinating.
(30:13):
And the reason why you want to do that, you want to get people's brain ways sinking with your brainwave as you're telling a story. Now, real quick, Sherry, how do you tell a story? It has a beginning, middle, and end. There's sort of a situation, there's a conflict, something's wrong, and then there's a resolution. It's the quickest way I can define it for you, but if you tell a story, your brain ways begin to sink. And when that happens, what are we all trying to do? What am I trying to do in my business? I'm trying to help my clients create demand. When our brainwaves are synced, I can now give you the CTA to create demand and get people in their pipeline because they're with me. I got them, I got them. And that's how we persuade our audience. It's so great. It's so fun and it's fascinating. And it goes back to that sort of self goal of just wanting people to do what I want them to do, go and do this thing. So
Nicole MacLean (31:00):
Maybe layering kind of our two conversations together. I saw this play out. So one of my first roles, we had an incredible CEO with an incredible story. He immigrated from Columbia when he was a kid, and he was vulnerable enough to share that as the starting point for a lot of his presentations. And of course we found a way to tie it back to what we did, which at the time was employee engagement measurement. When I think he was like eight or nine, they were building a tree house and they wanted to finish so they didn't go to church. So his parents let him and his brother stay home and build this tree house. And that day, gorillas in Columbia, it's quite dangerous, came to the church and kidnapped everyone and took them into the jungle. And it was the next week that they ended up going to Fort Lauderdale. After that. It was such a incredible story. And then he shared about his assimilating into the American culture and losing his accent and learning English. And it was really fascinating. But that's how he started that. And so to the point of the brainwave connection, I didn't know that's what was happening, but he had that audience after that just one because not only was it telling a story, but it was vulnerable, it was authentic, it was personal.
(32:15):
And then when he tied it back into leadership and engagement, and I can't remember now the exact tie we made into it, but it worked. It worked. And it was like the best demand we had because after the end of that session, everyone would come up to us after and it was like, I want to talk to you guys. I want to bring you into the company. And I haven't been able to replicate that in speaking sessions, but it's probably because, I mean, one, he's a very compelling speaker. He is very good at what he did or probably still does, but it kind of does follow that piece to it. I love it. And so I think if there's any encouragement coming off of this for people, it's not just manufacturing a story, but again, tying it back. It's not just what people do that is unique, but how is your company uniquely qualified to tell this story and to help find that resolution. And then if you can bring in people want to buy from people. I mean, I say this a lot, I'm sure I've said this on the show before, but it's not B2C or B two G or B2B. It's business to human. And if you can kind of combine that, if you said that we should do
Sheri Otto (33:18):
A more
Nicole MacLean (33:18):
Behavioral science deep dive workshop, okay, I would
Sheri Otto (33:21):
Do it. I'd do it for sure. Be so great. Yeah, you can go on and on. Even you telling his story still has the same
Nicole MacLean (33:29):
Effect. I also heard him tell it probably 80 times in my tenure, so I could probably still go word for word if I wanted to. But yeah, it is a compelling connection tool, right?
Sheri Otto (33:42):
100%. And this is one of the biggest levers I teach for my Highend clients. I am teaching them how to do the storytelling piece because just like you said, it's one of the highest demand drivers that particular session because of how compelling this story is, and every single person can do this. There is formulas and frameworks for this, and it is a skillset that we can strengthen. It's worth strengthening because how stories can tie demand. And that's why I pulled out storytelling amongst my other ones because it's really powerful because inside of storytelling lies emotion. And we both know that people make decisions based on emotion. They justify with logic. So, so much is happening inside the story beyond the brainwave sinking, but the motion, and by the way, the fact that you can so quickly recount his story shares that how memorable and how sticky these stories can be so people can, it's harder for people. Speaking of behavioral science, our brains process emotion faster than the logic. So you can give a list of tactics and details and stats, but if you tell a story, that person will remember that longer and more and they would feel deeply more deeply connected to that story versus sometimes the slide deck with all the stats.
Nicole MacLean (35:10):
That's a great reminder. Yeah, for sure. Okay, this is so good. We like ending on a good note. And so is there just a little good note to end on for the listeners?
Sheri Otto (35:22):
Absolutely. Well first of all, if you're here, then you're in such a really enriching place. Nicole has so much goodness to continue giving. So continue following her and listening to the podcast. I would say to summarize what we here today, we talked about my HubSpot story and how some of it was difficult, but also really beautiful and how my story and your story is listening. You can use it to relate to people because just like Nicole said, it's business to humans. So as you're thinking about the value you want to give to the world, the things that you want to project in the world, the messages that you want to share, I would continue to encourage you to use your own story, but also the story of your companies. How do they get started? Why are they in existence? Find ways to just go back and tell a story.
(36:15):
And if you want some quick tips on that, think about using specifics. So there's a guy that I follow, his name is Colin Boyd. He's great for storytelling. Okay, he's a good one. So he calls this thing the charisma pattern. He's like, you want to think about what you saw, what you heard, and what you felt in that order, what you saw, what you heard, and what you felt in that order. And so you want to make sure people are engaged in your story and they feel like they're a part of your story and they almost can feel and sense what you're saying. If you give those details and specifics and then it will automatically, you can tie it to your value, your job, your business. You can easily tie it to that. It doesn't have to be a huge jump. It could just be like, that's why I do what I do. I love what I'm doing. Lemme give you some frameworks and tips and we can talk about that. So yeah, that's how I would do it.
Nicole MacLean (37:15):
Yes, that's so good. Thanks for listening to this episode of Content Matters created in partnership with Share Your Genius. If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a friend. Otherwise, you can find all the resources you need to stay connected with us in the.