What Clark Gable and Doris Day Can Teach Financial Professionals About Storytelling

One of my favourite business metaphors comes from the classic film Teacher’s Pet starring Clark Gable and Doris Day.

At first glance, it is a romantic comedy.

Look a little deeper and it becomes a masterclass in communication.

Clark Gable plays Jim Gannon, a legendary newspaper editor. He never attended journalism school. Everything he knows comes from years of interviewing people, observing life and telling stories.

Doris Day plays Erica Stone, a respected journalism professor. She believes journalism can be taught through theories, rules, techniques and textbooks.

The conflict between them is fascinating.

She represents science.

He represents art.

She teaches journalism.

He lives journalism.

As the story unfolds, both discover something important.

Neither art nor science is enough on its own.

The best journalists combine both.

That is exactly the challenge facing financial professionals today.

Most advisors have mastered the science.

They understand investments.

They understand taxation.

They understand insurance.

They understand pensions.

They understand risk.

But clients do not buy financial products because the science is perfect.

Clients buy because they understand the story.

Think about your own presentations.

How much time do you spend explaining percentages, returns, legislation and performance?

How much time do you spend helping clients imagine the future those numbers can create?

Modern brain science tells us that every client has more than one way of processing information.

Ned Herrmann, in The Whole Brain Business Book, describes four different selves.

Our Rational Self loves logic and analysis.

Our Safekeeping Self seeks certainty and security.

Our Experimental Self imagines possibilities.

Our Feeling Self connects through emotion, relationships and personal meaning.

Most financial presentations only speak to the Rational Self and the Safekeeping Self.

We explain.

We analyse.

We calculate.

We compare.

Half the client’s brain is fully engaged.

The other half quietly switches off.

Yet investing itself is an act of imagination.

No one invests in the past.

Every investment is based on believing in a future that does not yet exist.

Retirement planning is imagining a future lifestyle.

Life insurance is imagining the people we love after we are gone.

Education planning is imagining our children’s future.

Succession planning is imagining the next generation.

Those are right-brain activities.

To reach that part of the brain we need a different language.

Not more statistics.

More stories.

Not more jargon.

More metaphors.

The greatest financial storytellers constantly use one simple phrase:

“It’s kind of like…”

“It’s kind of like planting an oak tree.”

“It’s kind of like building a bridge.”

“It’s kind of like filling a reservoir before the dry season.”

Suddenly clients stop analysing.

They start imagining.

That is exactly what Clark Gable’s character understands in Teacher’s Pet.

Facts inform people.

Stories transform people.

The best financial professionals are not simply experts in products.

They become translators.

They take complicated financial concepts and turn them into stories clients will remember long after the meeting has ended.

That is why storytelling is not a soft skill.

It is a business skill.

Because people don’t act on what they hear.

They act on what they understand.

And they understand what they can picture.

That is the real lesson of Teacher’s Pet.

The science gives us credibility.

The story gives clients confidence.

The future belongs to financial professionals who master both.

Storytelling focuses on influencing the right side of the client’s brain. Why? Because that is where decisions get made, where people picture and buy into what we are telling. This technique will help you to exponentially improve your ability to articulate, clarify and persuade about financial concepts and products. This technique will literally double the impact your presentations are having on your clients because the technique is based on brain science that demonstrates how to engage the whole brain in our presentations.

How do you mesmerize your client’s interest? How is trust developed? the answers to these questions are evident once you see the discoveries of modern brain science and how these discoveries relate to storytelling.

Ned herrmann in his book The Whole Brain Business Book offers the concept of ‘Our Four Different Selves’ that shows the different shades of personality we display from the two sides of our brain:

• Our rational self
• Our safekeeping self
• Our experimental self
• Our feeling self

As is customary in our culture, we pay an inordinate amount of attention to the left brain issues of rationale and safekeeping and often neglect the experimental and feeling side of ourselves. We direct clients to volumes of numbers, statistics and small print. Many of these clients give the materials a cursory glance or ignore it. They want you to illuminate them and relate to them on a personal basis. They want you to discover the individuals that they are. They want you to tailor a program that is specific for their unique circumstances. Their circumstances may not seem unique to you, but clients feel that they are in specifically unique circumstances.

Note that speculation and risk taking are actions that come from the right brain experimental self What is investing if it is not about speculating and taking risks? To properly communicate to those right brain functions, we need to speak a language the right side of the brain can relate to. Statistics, numbers and prospectuses are not that language! Yes, they play a role – a supporting role, not a leading one.

What is my point? The materials and presentation style many financial professionals use is a half brained approach to selling because it only engages 50 percent of the potential attention the client has to give. Half the client’s brain remains asleep.