Episode 20: How to Tell a Story That Sells

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What if I told you that just telling your story is not enough? 

The way you tell it matters. Delivery is everything if you want to make the kind of impact that leads to sales. 

That’s why today, Stacy is breaking down the basics of finding your voice and sharing a backstory that doesn’t sound like you’re rattling off your resume (and putting prospects to sleep in the process). 

Listen in as she covers: 

• Why pitching to the heart works, even in an industry full of analytical minds 

• How to craft an opening that leaves people wanting more

• The art of pacing to keep interest alive 

• The anatomy of a memorable ending that converts 

TRANSCRIPT

Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.

 Stacy Havener: [00:00:00] The goal of every story you tell is to resonate, and make your listeners feel something because the heart buys first. Kind of lose yourself in the story a little bit, especially if it's your backstory. I mean, this is you. This is your life. Relive it for the people who are listening. Drop your guard. That's going to help you have the mic drop moment.

Stacy Havener: Smile, cringe, laugh. I mean, I can tell you in some of our story selling sessions, like it can move you to tears when you really get in touch with it. Now I'm not saying you have to cry in your meetings with investors. Maybe don't do that. It's important to be able to feel it. And if you feel it, and then you walk it back, it's still going to be powerful.

Stacy Havener: The audience will hang on your every word. Hey, my name is Stacey Havener. I'm obsessed with startups, stories, and sales. Storytelling has fueled my success as a female founder in the toughest boys [00:01:00] club, wall street. I've raised over 8 billion that has led to 30 billion in follow on assets for investment boutiques.

Stacy Havener: You could say against the odds. Yeah. Understatement. I share stories of the people behind the portfolios while teaching you how to use story to shape outcomes. It's real talk here. Money, authenticity, growth, setbacks, sales, and marketing are all topics we discuss. Think of this as the capital raising class you wish you had in college, mixed with happy hour.

Pull up a seat, grab your notebook, and get ready to be inspired and challenged while you learn. This is the Billion Dollar Backstory Podcast.

Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for being here today. It's a solo episode with yours truly. So grab a notebook and a coffee. And let's talk about [00:02:00] stories and specifically about how you tell them. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. It's not just the story you share. It's how you tell it. And that's what we're going to dive into today.

But let me back up because I know you and I know you're thinking, come on. on Stacey. First, you got us out of our comfort zone sharing our stories, and that's hard enough. And now you want us to work on how we tell the stories? God, if you're banging your head on your desk, I get it. But yes, that is what I'm saying.

Yes, my friends, this This is what I want you to do because a story is only as good as the impact it makes. It has to resonate. And for that, we need words, but we also need our voices. Let me give you some backstory. [00:03:00] So when I was in high school, some of you know who know my story, I had to pay for college and my English teacher knew this and she cut out a clip from the local newspaper about a scholarship competition through the VFW.

I realized that anyone under the age of 30. Who might be listening to this is like WTF on a lot of things I just said there, but it's true. It was a clip in the newspaper about a scholarship competition through the VFW. And I could win a thousand dollars, which to a blue collar kid was a lot of money. I mean, it was like 25 percent of my first semester of school.

So I was in, I mean, the mission was twofold. Write an essay about your commitment to America. That was the theme. I think I pretty much stopped reading after the word write because writing was my jam. So as I said, I was in, but there was a second part of this competition, which was you had to [00:04:00] go down to a local radio station and record yourself delivering that story.

So it was the story And it was the delivery. I totally underestimated the second part. Okay, I was relying on my words, not my voice. So, the good news is, I won the scholarship for the state of Connecticut. I also got to go to D. C. for a week and the University of Wisconsin for a week of learning with other winners and then to the Banquet of the Golden Plate, which was hosted by Michael Milken and Steve Wynn.

I mean, basically this one newspaper clip changed my life, but that's another story. So, anyway, I win the state of Connecticut, but when it came to the national judging, I was right in the middle of the pack. And [00:05:00] when I heard the winner's speech, I knew why. Damn. His delivery was on point. His words were good, too, but his voice and his cadence, I mean, it was really special.

That's when I realized words aren't enough. And that's my lesson for you. Words aren't enough. Yes, you need great stories to tell, but you need to tell them in a great way. So that's what we're going to work on today. Like I said, grab a coffee, grab a notebook. This is a working podcast session, if that's such a thing.

And before we start talking about delivery, let's just do a quick refresher on the ARC. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Of a story, because seven times to hear it once and we're all practicing. So the arc of a story, I like to just break it down into three simple parts. Okay. The first [00:06:00] there's a likable relatable hero who starts out somewhere ordinary.

That hero encounters an obstacle or challenge. They solve it and emerge transformed. So every powerful story has those three stages, right? Relatable, likable hero, encounters some kind of challenge, emerges transformed. Lots of other things you can add into this story, by the way, but that's a great basic story arc to use.

So. I'm gonna use Backstory as our story of choice today because it's my favorite , and it's the name of this podcast. So we're very aligned here. So backstory as your point of reference. Remember, this is the one story that you are the hero of. You're the only person that can be the hero of your backstory.

[00:07:00] So we're gonna use backstory, and now we're gonna talk about delivery. And I wanna break delivery. into three stages too. So we just did the kind of three stages of a powerful story. Now let's talk about the three stages of a powerful delivery. All right. The most important parts of your story or your presentation or your speech, because essentially that's what you're doing when you're telling a story.

Most important parts are the beginning, And the end. So let that sink in. The beginning, the first few things you say, and the end, the last few things you say. The beginning gets the listener to lean in. The end gets the listener to walk away with something that's left a mark. It's takeoff and landing. So let's start with the first thing, the start.

Okay. This is [00:08:00] essentially the first impression of your whole story. And it needs to be memorable, but it also needs to engage them right at the get. They've got to be bought in to pay attention and listen to the rest of the story. So let's talk about what typically happens because of course for us on this podcast, Billion Dollar Backstory, we're really talking about business storytelling here and what I like to call story selling.

So. Let's talk about what most people do when they're telling their story in our industry in the investment world and probably in other industries to most people start their story at the beginning. It's like I was born, you know, I went to school. I got a job. It's basically like a bullet point list of your resume as opposed to a story.

That's what most people do. Let's talk about some things you can do instead. And I want to give you some [00:09:00] examples. So there's lots of different ways to start your story. You don't have to start at the beginning. Like I am giving you permission to start your story in a different way. So one thing you could do, you could start with the conflict itself.

So remember. Relatable, likable hero encounters some sort of obstacle or challenge or problem emerges transformed. What if you just started with the conflict? So let me give you an example. What if you know your report will give a little context? Your portfolio manager, your breakaway. You've just started your own boutique after spending years working at a big, very successful institution running a very successful fund.

Let's say that's kind of Your jam. Okay. So what if you started with this? I had made it. I was sitting in this beautiful corner office. I'm managing billions of dollars as a portfolio manager. [00:10:00] I'm flying all over the world, meeting with investors and closing, you know, nine figure deals. And I realize this isn't what I thought it would be.

What an opening. We're going to talk about what we did there in that opening, actually, because we left it a little bit of a cliffhanger, right? We withheld some information and now everyone who's listening is like, well, what'd you do? So that's a great way to start. Just dive right into the conflict and kick it off with that.

We'll be back in a moment after a word from our premier brand partner, Ultimis Fund Solutions.

Since our founding in 1989, we believe that alternative investments are integral part of client portfolios. Unfortunately, delivering high quality hedge funds and private market exposures has always been a challenge for the wealth management industry. These type of alternative investments introduce unique challenges [00:11:00] related to taxes, qualifications, paperwork, and reporting.

As a result, high net worth investors tend to be significantly under allocated to both hedge funds and private markets relative to institutional investors. That's Stephanie Lang, Chief Investment Officer from Homeric Berg, an 11 billion RIA headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, that serves over 2, 700 clients in 46 states.

You can tell they believe in helping high net worth clients access hedge funds and other alternative investments. They are equally as passionate about broadening that access for all their clients, not just qualified purchasers or a select group of accredited investors. Meet Nick Darsh from Ultimis with some backstory.

Hall McBurgh created a 3C1 fund in January, 1999 to provide their high net worth and institutional investors with ready access to a diversified [00:12:00] portfolio of hedge funds. As interest in the fund grew. And the constraint of the hundred investor rule loomed, HB began exploring ways to continue expanding the investor pool without negatively affecting existing shareholders.

We'll hear more about the creative fund conversion work that made it possible later in the show. Now, back to the program.

Okay, another way you could start your backstory is you could talk about the constructs or rules that you had to break in order to follow your dreams, if you will. Okay, so you could do this. Let's do an example of that. Maybe it's something like, you know, my parents always wanted me to put in the 40 year career at the big company with the great health insurance.

They wanted me to climb the ladder and retire with the gold watch. [00:13:00] I decided eating ramen noodles and building something was worth more. And my mom cried. Okay. Wow. I want to hear more of that story. Also, my mom cried when I told her I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So, so that has some touches of my own story in it.

Another cool way to start, right? It kind of depends on what the message is that you want to, the thread, if you will, that you want somebody to take away when they're listening to your story. Each one of these kind of tees up a different sort of main point or theme. All right. I want to give you one more.

What if this is similar to the first one a little bit, but what if you drop right into the middle of the mess or the heart of the stakes, like the messy middle, the high stakes of the story. So that could look like, again, we'll, we'll pretend we're a breakaway portfolio manager here, and it could look something like this.

You know, I [00:14:00] remember sitting around a table kind of arguing with my colleagues and there were a lot of us at that table because we were all talking about how could we gather more assets, get more money from investors. I swear everyone had dollar signs in their eyes. And I realized, I miss talking about the portfolios, the stocks, the opportunities.

I miss talking to clients about what we're seeing in the markets. And I knew then, I had to leave. How about that? That's something jazzy. I mean, definitely want to hear more. So those are a bunch of different ways that you could start your story. And I realized I made them very dramatic, partly for effect.

I mean, I would love it if we were in a meeting and you just balled out like that, but you know, you can temper it the way you need to. But I think all of those are really powerful ways to start your story. Okay. So we [00:15:00] said there's the two most important parts of your story are the beginning and the end, the start and the end.

That's your takeoff and landing. So the beginning, You've got somebody like kind of leaned in, they're on the edge of their seat, they want to hear the rest of the story. The end, think about this, this is part two of our three part delivery framework. The end, since the heart buys first, okay, you need to tap into emotion or shared experience in your story.

And at the end. Remember, the heart buys first. You got to grab a hold of those heartstrings a little bit. Leave them a little speechless or leave them like wanting to jump out of their seat and give you a jumping high five. I realized that everyone, like a lot of portfolio managers are saying, again, Stacy, like you're nuts.

This is the investment industry. [00:16:00] I know, but stay with me because I'm telling you that this works. Okay. All right. Let's play this out. What happens in our industry? Well, most of the people in our industry, when they're telling their backstory or really any story, they fizzle out at the end. It kind of just like trails off and it sort of just like ends with like, definitely not a bang.

I want you to end with a bang. I want you to spark a flame. I want this to light a fire inside of the people who are listening to this, your prospects, that they want to go do something after they hear this story. So most people end with, you know, they're telling their story. They're like, so this happened and then that happened and now here I am.

Okay. It's a little bit like a resume. The ending just falls flat, so that's what most people do what we're going to do because we're having this time together and we're practicing the ending needs to answer the [00:17:00] question or resolve the conflict you've teed up in your story, right? Relatable, likable hero encounters problem or challenge emerges transformed.

The ending needs to resolve that conflict. The audience needs to feel like Transcribed It's, we're all good now. They want that. They want to understand where you've taken them. You transformed a new extraordinary you has been revealed. And since this is business storytelling here, what I really want you to take away, you have to tie it to why your prospects should care.

So it's not enough to say. You know, here I am at the end of your story. You tell all this great stuff. Here I am founder of my own boutique sitting here talking with you. Okay. We got to do better than that. You have to remind them of their mission, where they want to go and why you are uniquely positioned to serve as their guide and why that's like that lights you up.

That's your unique [00:18:00] ability. Okay. So. Again, this is business storytelling, so we want to end making it about them and why they should choose you. So, for instance, with my backstory, for a long time actually, by the way, let me just be honest here, I kind of ended with the like, and now here I am. Okay, it was just sort of like, there were parts of the story that were really powerful that I loved that really resonated with people, but the ending wasn't that strong.

So I've been working on this. So in my backstory, you know, I, after I tell you about my passion for writing my blue collar roots and going up against the odds, I tie that to my work and investments and helping boutiques grow. Some of you may have heard me do this before, but I want to. Share with you my back story.

Cause as I said, I've been working on it and I have a new ending if you will. All right. So I'll be the example for this one. My name is Stacey Havener. I'm the [00:19:00] founder of a sales and marketing agency called Havener Capital. In my career, I've raised over 8 billion that's led to 30 billion and follow on AUM for investment boutiques against some incredible odds and in one of the toughest boys clubs.

Wall Street. Now, on paper, none of that makes sense. I'm a blue collar kid from a working class town who got the wrong degree from the wrong school. And I'm a woman. I never saw myself in the investment world. I actually wanted to be a college professor in literature of all things. I was a writer, a poet, a storyteller, but I paid my way through university and I was going to have to pay my way through grad school.

My high school soccer coach had stayed in touch and he ran a billion dollar small cap equity boutique. And he was launching a new fund. He offered me a [00:20:00] job. He knew my situation. He offered me a job. He said, come work here, help me launch the fund, save some money, then go back to grad school. Well, I never left the industry.

I helped him launch the fund. We raised 500 million in two years. Then I raised 3 billion in three years for a 17 million fund and so on and so forth. It turns out, in a world full of men who love numbers. There was a place for a girl who loves words. You know, it was fun and I didn't know I was doing anything special.

It took me a few years to realize I was actually doing something that was really difficult, raising money for startups and new funds. And it took me another 10 years to fully unpack what it was I was actually doing. And at the heart of it. With storytelling, I was helping people connect with each other at a human level, because at the end of the day, [00:21:00] people do business with people today.

I'm lucky to lead the team at Havener, where we help investment boutiques grow using our story first sales and marketing system. I truly believe everyone has a story and we're on a mission to help boutiques use that story to shape their success. against the odds. Sure. But I know we can win. So the ending there, probably from today where I said today, I'm lucky to lead the team at Havener.

That's the part that I had to really work on because I wanted to tie it all back, right? The listener wants to be resolved. They want to like, why should an investment boutique pick me as their guide? Well, because I'm an underdog to my core. I'm gritty. I'm self made. I built. My own business plus the business of other boutiques, it works, story's at the heart of it.

So you [00:22:00] see all of those threads kind of tie up at the end. All right, we're in it together. I'm continually working on my story, too. And like I said, that ending now, I feel much better about it, but I'm going to keep working on it. It's a, an ongoing process for all of us. Okay. So that's the start and the end.

I want to pause for a second because I think there's a belief that you need to memorize Your back story or like whatever presentation you're giving and I would say not to do that. Don't do that. You can memorize certain milestones though. Okay. And that leads me to the next. The last part of delivery I wanted to touch on today, which I'm going to call vibe.

So we've done the start and the end. Those are the two most important parts of your story. And the third thing we're talking about [00:23:00] is vibe. So I mentioned this in the beginning where we were sort of going through examples of how you could start your story. Powerful storytelling isn't just what you share.

It's what you withhold. Like a hook, right? So in my story, I say something like on paper, none of my success makes any sense. That's the withhold part because it leaves you saying, well, what does she mean by that? Why doesn't it make sense? And then I explain it. Okay, so figuring out what pieces to hold back when you're telling a story requires some thought.

Like, you gotta sit down and think about it. However, as I said, you don't want to memorize the whole thing. You want to memorize the milestones. Okay, so pick a couple key points, like maybe remember, memorize the start, memorize the very last sentence, memorize the very first sentence, memorize the very last sentence, memorize something in the middle if you want [00:24:00] so that you have a touch point and then just fill in around that.

We'll be back in a moment after a word from our premier brand partner, Ultimis Fund Solutions.

When we first launched our internal fund to funds as a limited partnership, it was a great option for us to be able to provide 100 of our accredited and qualified purchaser clients with access to a diversified portfolio of hedge fund strategies. However, Fast forward to 2016, our firm had grown to manage over four billion and serve over a thousand clients of various sizes, accreditations, and tax situations.

We still firmly believe that high quality hedge fund exposure is important to client portfolios. It provides stability. To client portfolios and generates a return stream that was not available in public and equity and fixed income markets. Unfortunately, the 3C1 structure with its slot limitations, high minimums and [00:25:00] K1 reporting was no longer ideal solution for our growing.

and complex client base. We looked at various alternative options with third party hedge fund managers, liquid hedge mutual funds, but also discovered that we had an opportunity to register our fund with the SEC, preserve its extensive track record, and solve all of the issues that the 3C1 structure was creating for our business and clients.

That's when we teamed up with Ultimis to begin the process of registering our legacy fund with the SEC and converting it to a tender offer fund. We'll hear more later in the show. Now back to the program. All right. Another part of Vibe. So that's like You know, yes, it's what you share, but it's also what you hold back and that it can be called time dilation.

And that's what is essentially dragging out the story. Now, [00:26:00] you can use hooks depending on how long, by the way, your presentation or backstory or whatever is, you can use hooks throughout continually raise a question or a topic that's got some mystery to it and then hold back the answer. It's powerful.

Okay. Okay. Another thing you can do. Is magnify the most important details, like lean in on the most important details. And one of the ways you can shine a spotlight on those elements is through vocal rhythm. Okay, we are like geeking out here. If I knew how to rap, I would because this is like a very rap kind of thing here.

Vocal rhythm. So that's things like the speed of your. Delivery, the volume, the enthusiasm, the rhyme staccato, which is sharp articulation [00:27:00] followed by silence, right? You see, those pauses are really powerful. That's something that's difficult to do. It requires a lot of confidence to work pauses in as you talk, right?

People don't like uncomfortable silence. People want to fill that void. But silence is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to play up a moment, right? That idea of separating a moment. When I said, and I'm a woman, I paused before that and I paused after it. I separated it. During that moment of silence, your listeners can really only do You know, two things reflect on what you just said, or anticipate what's going to come next, depending on which silence it is, the one that precedes the point you're making or what comes after it.

And look, a lot of this is super nuanced and geeking out, but [00:28:00] here's the big thing on vibe. Fascinate yourself. Okay. Like. Love your own story. Blow your own mind and heart wide open. Why? Because when you do that, when you blow your own mind and blow your own heart wide open, something really mesmerizing happens.

You start reliving the story and its impact in real time. And then the people who are listening see that reflected on your face and they hear it In the way you're talking, and they can feel that authentic emotion. So that's like charisma. I mean, it's Irresistibly infectious for people to kind of catch that vibe from you.

And maybe when I do my next episode with Daniel Crosby, Dr. Daniel Crosby, I'll have to have him break down the phenomenon of mirror [00:29:00] neurons or the neuroscience around this. Because when you watch or see somebody go through something, You go through it, too, right? Like, I mean, think about when you're watching, like, a football game and somebody, you know, like, really hurts themselves.

It's a compound fracture, something insane. You wince, you feel it. Right? You feel it. When someone starts laughing at something, it, you know, they're like cracking up, crying, laughing. It's very hard to not laugh and smile and join in that or yawn, right? You see somebody yawn, you yawn. So those are all mirror, it's mirroring and you can use that to your advantage when you tell a story.

Oh, by the way, it's way more fun to enjoy the story you're telling. Okay, all right. So that's a vibe, and I don't want you to get super hung up on this, but the real idea about [00:30:00] vibe is grab the hands of your audience and pull them into these shared experiences of your story. You want them to sit there thinking that could have been me.

I feel it in the audience. I feel it. I don't just hear it. Okay. And yes, I am aware that I'm talking about the investment business right now. I know I'm saying feeling and I'm talking about all this stuff about story and I'm sitting here at my desk in the investment world. This works. I want you to practice and I know I'm pushing you really, really far out of your comfort zone and that's okay.

Just we say this to clients, baby step your way, go as far as you can down this path. you know, a little bit uncomfortable. You don't have to make yourself totally uncomfortable. So let's wrap this up. Summary. The goal of every story you tell is to [00:31:00] resonate, make your listeners feel something because the heart buys first.

So don't aim your stories at your prospect's head. Which all the intellectuals in our biz tend to do and don't aim your story or your pitch at their wallet Do not please don't do that aim your story or your pitch at their heart. Okay, that's one what you say matters remember what you say matters that story arc, but also don't reveal everything up front a powerful story construction Leave something back, hold something back.

A half told story has a lot of fascinating to it. And then you can drag out the reveal to create some intensity. So resonate what you say matters. And the third thing, the way you say it matters too. So this is both the structure of the story. [00:32:00] What you choose to say when and how you tell it. So just use variety, use variety and feeling, volume, pace, space, silence, leave people wanting more, and then go back and resolve those open issues.

Your most powerful parts of your story are your start. And your end and, you know, kind of lose yourself in the story a little bit, especially if it's your backstory. I mean, this is you, this is your life where you live it for the people who are listening. Drop your guard. That's going to help you have the mic drop moments, smile, cringe, laugh.

I mean, I can tell you in some of our story selling sessions, like it can move you to tears when you really get in touch with it. Now I'm not saying you have to cry in your meetings with investors. Maybe don't do that. It's important to be able to feel it, and if you feel it and then you walk it back, it's still going to be powerful.

The audience will hang on your every word, and I think [00:33:00] it's really because when you tell your backstory in these ways that we're talking about and practicing right now, it's a really rare moment of authenticity. And authenticity and asset management. I mean, we don't see that very often. I mean, quite frankly, we don't even really see it in the world.

True authenticity. And, you know, we're starving for that. Okay. Bonus tip. How can you tap into your own stories worth telling? Okay. Backstory. We've that was our main point today, but also just in general, moments of change Moments of pain, moments of triumph, moments of failure, things that make you look vulnerable or uncomfortable.

That's a good thing. You know, it's intriguing because all of us have been through something like that. So when you're willing to be vulnerable, you'll be rewarded for [00:34:00] that. And it reminds your listeners that you're just like them. Okay. It reminds people that you're human. You know, portfolio managers are intimidating.

You might not feel that way, but you are. And this is a way to take that down a little bit. Okay. So that was bonus tip. I want to give you some extra credit. This is, I'm holding up a book right now, one of my all time favorite books. about storytelling. It's called How to Tell a Story. It's written by the team at the Moth, M O T H.

So if you want to really geek out, grab this, and I can't wait to hear how your story work goes. This is, like I said, this is not easy stuff. This is not what you've been taught. This is not what the industry tells you works, you know, but I can tell you it does. And I'm [00:35:00] cheering for you If you know a fund manager or a founder in the investment world with a great story, drop a note to Stacey at Stacey Havener dot com and tell me about it.

Till next time, I'm Stacey Havener. Thanks for listening. And now a final word from our premier brand partner, Ultimis Fund Solutions. The conversion of Omeric Berg's LP into an integral fund empowered them to grow the fund from 90 million to over 200 million. And expand the reach from 100 investors to nearly 700 new investors and continues to grow today by pursuing the conversion.

It was 25, 000 welcome accredited investors. In addition to qualified purchasers, the entire conversion process was highly efficient. Because Homer Berg chose to partner with Ultimis and other partners with a proven track record in this type of structure to structure product transition. The [00:36:00] headlines are often too focused on new interval funds from pedigreed providers, this new fund from this cool big firm, etc.

Maximizing a fund's potential through a conversion can be powerful too. As we see in the story of Homer Berg traditional investment management and alternative investment management are converging more retail investors are demanding access to non correlated strategies in a liquid asset classes to compliment or supplement public markets exposure interval and tender offer funds offer managers a flexible wrapper.

That combines many of the benefits of both 1940 Act and private fund structures. Interest in these products has increased significantly in the past decade, and we anticipate the volume of both new launches and structure conversions to continue well into the future.[00:37:00]

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.

All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.

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