WORD OF MOUTH

FIRST PRINCIPLES

Let's go back to the beginning, I mean, the actual reason any of this works at all.

Why does the story matter in sales?

In France, where I come from, that question is almost offensive. The product is the rock star. Emotion is for artists. So much fun growing up, yay. And yet the person we work with who struggles the most is almost always the ones who believe that the quality of what they've built should be enough to carry the conversation.

Spoiler: It never was. And everywhere outside of that particular cultural bubble, nobody is pretending otherwise.

Here is what I learned in the discovery calls that I run. Whether someone has just started or has twenty years behind them, the first thing they want to gain is clients. And they come looking for a story as if it's a magic trick that closes deals.

It isn't that either.

What the story actually does is remove the entry barriers before you ever open your mouth. It doesn't close the sale, but that's a big BUT, it makes the sale possible. There is a significant difference, and understanding it changes how you show up.

ACT ONE: INFLUENCE

Robert Cialdini spent his career studying why people say yes.

In his book “Influence,” he maps our psychological responses to persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, social proof, and the one that I keep coming back to: authority, the one that is established before you go anywhere.

His research shows a sad truth for everyone who believes the pitch is the moment that matters.

The people in front of you have already heard about you. When they heard about you, they've already formed an opinion. They've decided, at least partially, whether they're open to what you're about to say. And that silent pre-judgment does more work than anything you will say in the next forty-five minutes.

So the question is, how do they hear about you before you pitch at all?

If you have the answer to a real problem, write about it. If you know the problem better than anyone in your industry, claim it. Words that travel create authority before you've said a single word in person.

That's the narrative doing its job before you show up.

ACT TWO: THE HORROR FILM

The largest market in film, after the adult industry, which is rarely mentioned in these conversations, is horror.

I don't watch horror movies. I get scared too easily, but I have enormous respect for what that industry has mastered.

Horror makes more movies, finances full slates, more consistently, than almost any other genre. From a narrative standpoint, it’s extraordinary because it creates tension, desire, and urgency without showing you very much at all. The monster is always more terrifying before it appears. The door you shouldn't open is more frightening closed. The thing you don't see does more work than the thing you do.

That's a profound understanding of how human emotion actually works.

The horror genre has built an entire industry on subtext. On what lives underneath the surface of what is shown. It can be described as the gap between what the audience knows and what the character knows.

It’s the tension that doesn't need to be explained because it is felt.

Your business narrative works the same way.

They mastered the craft of playing with our emotions. And let’s not mistake it for manipulation because it’s simply a very good understanding of how humans work.

ACT THREE: THE SUBTEXT

When I write stories, which is every day, I use a short brief, it’s a kind of thermometer to check where I actually am.

It's the subtext, what lives underneath what you say.

Writing a great scene requires three things: tension, a change of emotion, and movement forward. That last part translated into the business world is subtext. The thing that exists in the real world, not just in your head. The thing your audience feels before they understand it.

Now and then, I look at our copy and ask myself what the subtext is here.

It can be: Too LinkedInish. Too vague. Too on the nose. Too good to be true. Too much jargon. Too bs. Too safe. Too wtf.

Whatever you find, and you will find something needs the twist. The moment the story moves forward, instead of sitting still in its own certainty.

How do you find the twist?

You take a pen, and you work on it.

— Théo

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