Story Ideas | Stories With Traction Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE MENTIONED IN INTRO: The Storytelling System

PODCAST SUMMARY: In this episode, Claire Davis and Matt Zaun talk about “content buckets” and ideas for story prompts.

CLAIRE DAVIS BIO: Claire is a branding consultant that helps people write their stories.  If it wasn’t for her, the Stories With Traction podcast wouldn’t exist.  Claire has been one of the most influential individuals when it comes to marketing, crafting messages, and getting stories to connect with an audience.

For more info, check out Claire here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairemdavis/
https://www.tractionresume.com/

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun HERE. 

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors.

 

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

We need to start every episode out with us just giggling from behind the scenes.

Oh, hey, Matt.

 

Matt Zaun

How are you doing today? Oh, well, welcome back, Claire.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

How are you? Oh, my gosh. Long time coming. I'm so glad we get to record somewhere videos together. I'm hoping we're going to get to also use this video footage.

So whoever's listening to this. There should be video footage somewhere if I can convince Matt to release it.

 

Matt Zaun 

Thanks, Claire. That is definitely an inspiring way to get me to release more video content.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

sure. If you want Matt to release more videos. You can see subscribe to this platform right now wherever you're listening to this if it's hit the bell if it's linked in make sure if you're over on apple pie get your subscribe to stories of traction.

And if you if you really want to get excited about medical sales and hear about some behind the scenes stuff there.

Go check out today's medical sales leader folks we got some really cool people on this season.

 

Matt Zaun 

And shameless promotion. Incredible promoter I should have you promote all my stuff.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

Thank you Claire.

 

Matt Zaun 

So the intention behind this conversation is we did an episode episode 85 recommend everyone go check that out. It is really our journey of getting from point A to point B where we are within our storytelling journey we've created a system around our storytelling.

And that episode went really good and not only was it a good episode I feel like we we uncovered lot of different elements of storytelling, but I got a lot of good feedback a lot of messages.

But there was also wanting more, and the more is where to start, how do you position this, a lot of things that we had gone into.

So the whole idea behind this and the reason why I wanted to have Claire come back is because we want to dive even deeper into these strategies and do a series of podcasts where we can really unpack elements of what we went over.

And the first thing that we really want to dive into and something that we get get asked quite often is regarding the starting point and the timing of creating a system regarding storytelling from a time management perspective.

How much time should I put in? What does it entail? What does it look like? So people really want to conceptualize what that looks like.

So I want to dive into that. But I want, I want to hear from you, Claire, regarding this because you deal with a lot of sales professionals, a lot of business leaders and they have a million other things going on.

So to tell them. You have to add one more thing to your plate. It could freak them out, right?

So can you speak to what you've seen time-wise and maybe some of the challenges as well as some of the results, some of the benefits people will get by investing time into storytelling.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

Yeah, it really stems from a miscommunication that's like the plague of the existence between sales and marketing. So anybody here who's in sales and marketing or if an ad and organized company is going to be able to relate to this, often sales and marketing don't have the most symbiotic relationship.

And it really does hurt both departments. fact, the company overall and certainly revenue because when it comes to messaging, those two really need to be in alignment.

So what I hear a lot of times is, yes, I want to go out and I want to promote this product in the biotech sector.

Or, you know, I've got this new medical device and I want to introduce. There's a lot of me too products out there.

There's a lot of products that are very similar from other big companies. What really is going to get my product in the door?

And so they look to their marketing materials and lo and behold, the marketing materials. They may have some stock photo images on them, but really, they're talking a lot still about the features and some about the benefits.

But where they could really enhance the But this strategy is with great storytelling. And Freddie Salih's professionals who are listening to this right now and are thinking, oh my God, if she's going to tell me to add storytelling to my plate.

Hear me out. Because one thing that most medical sales representatives, if not all have to do, and even managers too.

is you've got to log your calls, which is also another main of existence of sales reps, right? You've got to go in a sales force or hub spot or wherever you are, and you've got to log calls based on the activity.

And the intel that you're gathering from the field. And while I'd love to say that a lot of that flows up the chain to marketing to influence marketing materials, there's still often such silo departments that it doesn't actually get there.

But what I see is that if people could really start to look at their call log and instead of just adding a, you know, note here about what, you know, one doctor said this or, you know, Today I went in, Dr.

Smith wasn't in, or today I went in and dropped up samples, period. What if instead you use that time to tell a story, okay, instead of just listing a fact effect effect effect.

And I would guess that this is actually have a lot of positive ramifications because then, I mean, not only are you able to share a story with marketing a story with your manager.

Bless you, by the way. All those who are listening, Matt just sneezed and it's on camera and hopefully that'll actually make the footage.

But, you know, if we start to speak in stories, I mean, not only are we going to help to really convey what's happening with that account, but I think that it might be the best actual way to reconcile marketing and sales.

Finally, after however long, because the best way to get our point across and to make other people understand it and believe it is through storytelling.

So, I mean, I know you see this in a million other ways, Matt, because you coach companies on storytelling all the time.

But for me, as much as I would love to say that we speak to our doctors, we speak to our departments with stories to really drive home point, I'm not seeing it as much as I would like, but I do see there's an incredible opportunity for companies who actually do focus on telling patient stories and physician stories and stories about products and how they've made people lives better.

So that's where I see it in healthcare anyway.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, and there is a big difference between the timing with sales and marketing as it pertains to our stories.

So I want people to recognize this because it's really important. The processes are different. So the story bank that you're going to build out is different.

And there's a different element of timing that's going to go into this. So I want to tackle the sales piece that you mentioned.

So the example that you gave us, I want people to recognize timing from prospect to client or in your case, you know, from them going into an office and then getting the doctor to say, okay.

So that more than likely is not the same day, right? So if everyone listening can really track out how long is that process, some people would say six months, some people might say a year, right?

Unless they're selling widgets at a convenience store, right? So more than likely. Why that matters is because there's different strategic and intentional stories that need to take place throughout that process.

So for anyone listening that is focused on sales, they should not be too concerned on how large does the story bank need to be from the documentation perspective.

There could be winnable stories, a few of them that every time you share the story, the likelihood you're going to close the sale skyrockets so you'd be a fool not to share Now, I'm not advocating for sharing the same story to the same person at nauseam again and again, right, but oftentimes we're speaking to different clients or different prospects.

So what are the stories that actually move the needle when it pertains to sales? So I always recommend, what are the few stories?

You don't need to even start with a lot. You would start with three or five, whatever that is. you have a handful of stories that you can figuratively pull out of your back pocket and utilize your back

And that sales process. So that is the sales piece. The marketing piece, that story bank is going to look vastly different.

There is a ton of stories that could be in a content machine, so to speak, when it comes to a marketing story back.

I don't want to scare people, but as they have established themselves and they've been around for, you know, year after year after year.

That means that the story bank continues to And bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And you understand different elements of seasons in your business.

So there's going to be different messages that go out at different times. It's very strategic, very intentional. I just want people to know those two things are different when it comes to the sheer volume of stories that will be in them.

So thank you for mentioning that Claire.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

I like that you shared, know, that it's so it will grow. Right. And I think that it's so valid that you don't.

It's not really a bad thing. I'm gathering as many as possible and we have to share as many fresh stories as possible.

I think for me, it's like you shared. You've got a specific few that you know speak to the market that you're trying to address.

you know, we, I'll say at least for my own business. When I initially started working with people and sharing with them that we were going to, you know, work on the resume and like this actually would help them get a better job and all of those things.

You know, it went okay. I mean, that is the direct result that we get people. We get them in the door with great amazing, emerging, exciting healthcare companies based on connecting the dots from what they're great at and why it's relevant to a company.

Simple, right? If you guys want to know more about my system, by the way, about to create a course about it so that people can, everyone can download it and everyone can use it on their own.

Because sometimes you don't have time to hire. I don't know. Sometimes you don't have time to hire everything out.

You just want to take a crack at it yourself. So I'll let You know, if you guys want to send me a DM about that, just DM me triple S system.

But what I would say is when I changed, when I started working with enough people who had encountered the same situations at certain levels of employment.

So for example, if I was working with a VP of sales over at Johnson & Johnson, once I had worked with enough VPs of sales, who had either lost a job due to a layoff or who had been skipped over for promotions multiple times, or who were getting bored with what they were selling and they wanted to try something different, I noticed that when I talked to the next VP of sales, instead of sharing, well, yes, we can help you achieve those specific goals and here's how we do it, Matt, I actually changed my strategy completely.

And instead I started saying, you know, sharing with them stories, It's about someone who was in their similar situation and how what we had done for them or how the decisions that that person made achieved a goal or solved a problem.

So then it was, oh yeah, you know what your story reminds me actually a lot about Larry and Larry was the VP of sales over at Smith and nephew.

And you know he was also feeling taken advantage of because his, you know, company had passed him over for $50.

He's now reporting to somebody who he had helped rise up through the ranks, but for some reason, and he suspects ageism, for some reason, he can't continue to be promoted or get that increase in pay that he so desires.

And it spoke incredibly loudly to the person who I was speaking to. I'm not using the story with that potential client purely because I want to say

Tell them, but it really did help to connect the dots between what this person was struggling with and helping them feel less alone in it so that they realized, okay, there's light at the end of the tunnel.

And in fact, I do have options. I could hire this woman to do my resume. I could network with people just like Larry did that Claire is telling me about.

But it really was when I started to see even more traction with the way that we were able to help more people by sharing stories of clients who've gone before them.

And I think that that can be a really powerful way to move the needle on anything. Here's the kicker.

And this is why we're doing this podcast specifically today, this show today, is that it took me over a year and a half to start creating those stories and getting them down on paper before I really realized that this was what I

We needed to be sharing with people above and beyond the triple S system we use and we get it back to you in a week and a half or we get, you know, we've landed people at these amazing companies.

What people really needed to hear were stories that directly related to their situation and their pain. So they realized that there was opportunity and options for them ahead and it took me way too long to start writing them down.

So finally I started listening to Matt Zaun and his story banking because it did take that time. So that's really what the question is here today is how can we make this a practice and build into our daily routine opportunities to write down these stories and to gather these little, you know, vignettes, these little stories so that we can share them with others and then every time we do

Do tell it better, make it stronger, make it connect faster and better. So that's really what I'd love to hear what your cadence is, Matt, because you've been talking about the story bank you've been building forever.

is a year and a half in the making, but I will tell you that things have gone so much smoother with business.

We've been able to connect and help a lot more people truly by sharing actual examples with them of the real results they they can achieve.

And how others have done it before them.

 

Matt Zaun

That's awesome to hear. I'm very happy to hear all the success you've had by doing story banking and continuing to build it out.

I think that's great. I do want to caution people listening because I don't want people to get flustered about this.

They could start small and really start simplistic. Okay, so let's not overcomplicate it. I think we should focus on the simplicity of this, not the complex.

The of this. Right out of the gate, someone listens to this episode, what are the action items that they can do?

My mind immediately goes to content buckets. Okay? let's talk about content buckets. So we can kind of go back and forth and kind of build this out.

So Claire, and I'll answer your question regarding it, but what would you identify? What would you identify as certain content buckets that people you work with go through?

What I mean by that is that some of them would be customer service or leadership or whatever it is for you.

What would be three content buckets that you can point to?

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

My audience that folks in medical sales are regularly dealing with. Yes. I would say it would be grit is one.

It's a theme that I go back to all the time because whether they're talking about patients going through a hard spot, whether it's themselves really carrying on through a toxic work.

I would say grit is one that I talk about a lot. So that's one theme that we think about consistently because I want people to recognize that that is incredibly valuable and they're stronger than they do.

So that's number one. Two is great leadership. And for anybody here in the med tech industry, one incredible book on leadership written by a former seal, Jocko Wilick is called extreme ownership.

And it's a, it's a great book that he wrote. didn't give up all the secrets about exactly what he was doing in his role.

However, the leadership and the team mentality and the owning of what we're doing in a leadership capacity was something really big for Jocko Wilick and it's something that's really been infused with.

He's into a lot of major med tech companies today. leadership and especially the style of extreme ownership is another one as well.

And then finally focusing on patience. Yesterday I was talking to a hiring manager and he said, you know, one of the questions that I ask in my interview, that is a, mean, of any question that I ask in the interview, this is the one that I have a hard answer that I'm looking for.

Okay. So if you're listening and trying to get a job of medical sales right now, this is the one you need to really pay attention to.

When you're in the OR, who is the most important person in that room? And he said, Claire, you'd be surprised how many people will say, you know, the staff or the doctor, right?

trying to sell the doctor. And he says, but the answer that I'm really looking for is the patient. Patient is the most important person in the room.

That's who were all really supposed to So for me, patient focus and keeping your eye on the right target is something that I really focus on quite a bit because at the end of the day, if you're not in the healthcare in the medical sales business to help people at the core, generally, I find that those people, they may be incredible in sales and what they do.

But, you know, if they're not jazzed about patient care and patient striving, it's usually not an industry that will hold them for long and they choose other industries to enter into, which is fine as well.

How about you? are your content buckets?

 

Matt Zaun

Perfect. So for me, it's different. For me, it's the story strategy piece, unique perspectives, and then also I dive deeper into the emotional elements, which we'll touch on.

But I want to talk about the three that you mentioned. So you mentioned grit leadership and patience. So, What people can do after they're done listening to this episode, I actually challenge everyone listening to do this is Claire just laid out for us three different content buckets.

So what people would do, I would recommend people focus on three in each category. So just to show you how to build out nine stories based on three times three in each category.

Those are nine stories rather gate is three would go under grit, three would go under leadership and three would go under patients.

Okay, so those patient stories. So as people are more cognizant of those content buckets, when they're in the middle of an experience that requires grit, then they can document that experience that story under that grit category.

When they learn something about leadership or they experience something or they read something or whatever the case may be that that story might go under the leadership story and then the patient story that could be like their struggle victory stories were clearly doctors and this case in the Senate.

There are doctors want to look good to their patients, right? They want to be viewed as the authority. So there is a story that really highlights that.

That would be a really good story to show the doctor. They will be edified based on what what they buy, so to speak, what they're what they're utilizing, you know, in this case.

So that gives you nine stories within these categories. Okay, so right out of the gate within a sales process.

People can be mindful of doing that. Whatever people are going to use regarding the way they're going to capture this could be different.

So it's going to be different for different people. Part of my process is utilizing Apple Notes because I'm, you know, an Apple person.

So I really like as soon as I think of something, I have different content buckets on my phone. And I will go put that in Apple Notes for some people.

It might be Google Docs for some people. Otter is a really good application where you can speak into it.

It's a transcription app. It transcribes what you're saying. And then it tags very well. So there's all kinds of different tools people could use.

That's Not really the important part. The important part is, are you a pen to paper person? Meaning, do you need to carry a small notebook around with you?

Or you don't do that. You always have your phone on you though. So now what application can you use to document that?

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

I think that is the starting point when it comes to content buckets.

 

Matt Zaun 

So people need to figure out where, where are they as far as what their content buckets are. Meaning, if you are a leader, you're a C suite leader and you are doing it.

Meaning weekly staff meetings, what are the content buckets you need to have in your story bank? So from week to week, as stories come into your world, you can share those stories at your staff meeting to connect with your staff on a much deeper and powerful level.

So it really depends on what the person is doing in their day to day, but it starts with those topics.

Then if you want to go even deeper, you can start focusing on different emotions. So there's certain emotions that happen on a day to day basis.

When it comes to the business. So if we're going to speak in odd numbers, I'll give you three, just like the three content.

The three things that come up very frequently when it comes to business is excitement, fear, and surprise. So people get excited, right?

They're excited to achieve their goals. They're excited to overcome something. There's an element of fear. under fear could be subcategories.

It could be anxiety, worry, it's all rooted in fear. And then also surprise. There could be things that people, they don't understand because it's the other person's world.

if you're selling to someone, your world should be the product or service that you're selling. You should know it inside and out.

it's not your prospect world. It's not your client's world if you're trying to upsell them. So you might be sharing with them things that would surprise them.

But those are the three emotions that come up all the time, very frequently. So you can build out a very robust story bank within those categories because that's more general.

There's a lot of... How do stories we can put under fear? lot of stories we can put under surprise.

That's how you continue to build out this story. But I really want to go back to start small, start simple.

What are the three topic content buckets build out three stories in each of those categories. then from there when you're ready to start building out even more.

How are you going to focus on certain emotions and put a ton of stories under those different emotions.

 

Claire D 

You know, I'm a huge fan of a couple people who are really big in the digital course world within the last decade.

Two are Russell Brunson, who's like the funnel master. And then also Jenna Kutcher, who was actually a photographer who was just really passionate about photography.

And then she started building courses based on how to do that, but then also selling different filters so that people could take their own pictures.

They're their own camera and on their phone and make them look like they have been done by a professional.

Really cool. And her business has just grown leaps and bounds and so has Russell Brunson. If anybody else has read dot com secrets, traffic secrets, expert secrets, those are his books.

But the reason I bring them up is that they are died in the wolf storytellers. Every piece of every content that they launch, every book that he's written is deeply entrenched in stories.

But he wasn't always a great storyteller. And so in fact, he mentions this in one of his books. think it was dot com secrets and Russell Brunson said that he was listening to Jenna and she was talking about how she had built her content strategy.

And she mentioned that she would just go into her phone when she felt like devoid of ideas. And she'd pull up the photos app on her phone and she would just kind of scroll through.

And if you do that, you start to see stories that will trigger different emotions that you're talking about, Matt.

So like something that got you really excited. Maybe it's a picture of your kids finally getting to go to that water park at the very tail end of summer, right before school starts.

Or maybe it's a picture of you and your husband finally getting out. Are you and your wife finally going on that date for your five-year anniversary that you've had to put off for all the reasons under the sun for far too long?

And that was just so excited. Or maybe it was something that you tried. Like you took a picture from vacation and you finally tried that scuba diving course at that resort.

Right? That's fear. how did that feel? And that really can help guide your stories. really, if you just pick up your phone, you know, she said, you're sitting on a goldmine right here.

So do you ever try that method? Going back and just sort of like, I feel like honestly, In the beginning, when I was doing storytelling as practice, like as in every day, I'm going to write as a practice.

Matt, I really thought that my stories needed to be profound. And I think that's really why Jenna and Russell's stories.

guess I think that's why their methods really spoke to me because it didn't have to be this big profound thing that I was sharing.

But instead, it could be something simple. Like, I would experience in my everyday life. And really, I would argue that people can relate to everyday experiences more.

Would you agree?

 

Matt Zaun

Not only completely agree, but also I want people to recognize the intentionality behind the stories we're talking about. So, here's what I mean by that.

Before Claire and I hopped on to do this episode, we were talking about a certain experience that I'm going through right now.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

It's a local experience. That's just why. I hope, right?

 

Matt Zaun 

There's all kinds of different elements to it. It's unrelated to Claire in this moment because we're on opposite sides of the country.

So even though I'm sure there are many great stories regarding this once in a lifetime experience that's happening. It's not relatable to her.

That is what a lot of times people's minds go to because of our entertainment. When you think of movies and you think You of Broadway plays and you think of all these different things that are really engaging stories.

That's not the kind of stories we're talking about in the business world. The stories we're talking about are stories that are relatable.

Stories that actually connect with people. So I really want people to reframe their view of storytelling. I really like what Claire said regarding, you know, how certain triggers, whether it's a picture or whatever it is, can prompt and trigger stories.

I think that's awesome. It's incredible exercise. Especially. It kind of gets the creative juices flowing to just start somewhere.

And I think people need to be willing to. I was going to say, look, silly, but if you're doing it by yourself, you don't even need to worry about looking silly.

But you can literally scroll through your phone and just point to a picture on your phone and say, Hey, this is when we went here.

Here's what I was experiencing. Here are the different emotions and then start building out subcategories regarding what you were experiencing and that event.

And those subcategories are different layers that could lead to even more stories. So here's here's an exercise I like to do with people is picking a topic and coming up with as many subcategories regarding that topic.

Okay. So as an example, let's just pick tree. Okay. So tree, not very exciting, but something that everyone understands.

So if you pick a tree, what else is no pun intended rooted in the example of tree?

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

So if we were to go. Yeah, and forth.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah. we'd probably say leaves and bark and soil. And what if we get super extreme with it, right? So then we'd be talking about maybe stream because it could be by the stream and then water because the tree needs to be watered so it can grow.

So now we have growth. could talk about shade with now we could talk about picnics because if you have shade, maybe you could have a picnic.

And then from picnics maybe there's an experience where you're having a conversation with someone So we literally take one idea and we're peeling layer after layer.

All these are sub categories. So taking the idea that Claire had regarding the picture on the phone. If you see a picture, so you know people say like a picture is worth, you know, a thousand words.

It could also worth a thousand stories too if you do this exercise. So I think it's really, really important to as you go through the topic, the topics, there's content buckets.

What are the sides? Up categories of those that can dive even deeper.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

Mm hmm. It's funny when you say treat reminded me of the sweet little kids down the street who come and play with at our house sometimes with our boys.

And, you know, we buy so many toys as parents of young ones. And I'm sure if anybody's listening or watching right now, you know what I'm talking about.

Like you can buy the coolest, biggest, baddest Hot Wheels roller coaster with the dinosaur that comes down and eats the car sometimes.

But what do the kids want to play with? They come to our house to the front yard. they up, you know, they lift up the rock circle that's around one of the trees in our front yard and they dig for worms.

And then they fight over who can find the longest worm. Like it's the most ridiculous game, but they love it.

And you're right. I mean, I think everything that we're around, it's not hard to look around and find sort of an even mundane thing.

And ask yourself, okay, why am I attached to that situation? What am I feeling and thinking about that? What does it remind me of?

You know, it's, and I think that's probably more relatable than, you know, coming out of a, you know, saying, well, once I was in the ocean and I got my arm bitten off by a shark, like, that's terrible and surprising and makes you scared and all those things all at once.

But it's probably not as relatable as something even simpler, right? So I mean, maybe, maybe keeping it simple is really the, the name of the game here.

You know, healthcare, everyone is affected by healthcare. Every single living, breathing person is affected by healthcare. You know, there's, there's, there's some time that you had to go in and either fix your tooth or your arm or your heart or your mind or whatever it is.

And so, I think that if we can keep it simple, then those stories often speak the loudest and it allows the person that we're with to then chime in in a relatable way.

And I think That's where connection really comes to play in those stories. But I like that. I like the exercise.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's a good one. You know, it's amazing. Well, hear a story, whether it's a TED talk or whatever. We hear a keynote speaker and there's a crazy experience this person went through.

know, you mentioned, you know, someone swimming and they get a shark bite and we'll be like, Oh, man, I wish I had a story like that.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

No, you don't.

 

Matt Zaun 

You want all four of your limbs, right? You. You don't want to freeze and get frostbite on Mount Everest, right?

Does it make for a good story? Is it going to really help boost your sales? No. Is it going to really?

Is there intentionality regarding business wise with it? No. So I think people really need to reframe the way they're viewing stories to really connect with their audience.

I appreciate you bringing that up for sure. So, Claire, thank you for this conversation. We touched on a lot of different things.

So I very much appreciate it. I got a lot out of it. There's a few specific things I got out of it that are my key takeaways that I just wanted to mention to everyone.

So you mentioned the sales and marketing. You talked about the unity of sales and marketing. To get to a great place in business, it's the marriage of sales and marketing.

It's not when your sales and marketing team are at odds with each other. does not, does not bring good business practice.

so sales and marketing unity. What's that?

 

Claire D 

As it does not, I was thinking it does not good business make. Makes it awfully hard.

 

Matt Zaun

True. You also mentioned being in the present moment regarding stories and the umbrella for that is having those content buckets over you, meaning if you're mindful of the content buckets that you have, you're going to be more present so that you can start to see, hey, I'm going through this experience.

It ties into my customer service. So, present and having those content buckets. And then the third piece is I appreciate you mentioning there are different prompts that we can utilize.

You mentioned triggers for stories and you mentioned looking at pictures on your phone right to kind of trigger certain story.

So these are the different prompts that we could utilize to start the process of getting these stories out just starting.

And then as people start to do that, they're going to train themselves same It's like you're exercising a muscle.

becomes habitual. And then from there, you can build an even larger story bank. You can even put more strategy and more intentionality behind it.

And that's when people start to see really, really good results. those are the key takeaways that I took. But thank you so much for the conversation.

I know a lot of people got a lot out of it. If people want to learn more about what you do or want to get more information regarding your services, where is the best place they can go to get that?

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

Oh yeah, of course. I mean, if you are in medical sales or if you want to be, you can find me on LinkedIn.

It's where I live. And also at TractionResume.com. That's T-R-A-C-T-I-O-N .Resume, R-E-S-U-M-E.com. And, you know, maybe you're feeling stuck. That's what a lot of people call me they say, Claire, you know what, had a great career in medtech or biotech or what have you.

But I'm feeling stuck on my next step. That's a great opportunity to reach out and to find out more and to grab some free resources even just to get yourself to the next stage in your career.

So feel free to reach out to me. I'd be delighted to hear your story. And Matt, thank you so much.

It's so nice to be able to kind of have these, you know, easy conversations with you about storytelling because I think that we're in really interesting time right now as business owners, as marketers and as parents, with the emergence of things like AI.

I have lots of software tools which have this shiny promise of having all the answers for us when it comes to storytelling.

But I think that having conversations like these and the methods that you specifically teach with your storytelling principles, so the bank and coming up with the buckets and your themes and then building out from there, I think that's still going to be the most palpable and most direct way that we can continue to relate with people.

that's been been shown through history and all it really takes is to start. So I'm excited to do more of these chats with you.

I think that it's really important that we focus on getting more stories told and learning how to do it really well to achieve whatever goal we're trying to achieve.

So thanks so much for your time. It's always great to chat with you.

 

Matt Zaun 

Perfect. I will include your links in the show notes. People can just click, go right to you. And I appreciate you mentioning AI, been getting a lot of questions regarding artificial intelligence.

I will tell you for everyone listening thinking, oh, I could just utilize AI to be a great storyteller. You will actually need a better skill set storytelling wise personally because of AI.

So stay tuned. That might be really good to unpack elements of that in our next episode on why people need to be better storytellers because of AI.

So thanks again, Claire.

 

Claire D (Traction Resume)

much appreciate it. Thanks, Matt. See you next time. Bye, everybody.