Crafting Your “Why Story” For Maximum Impact: How To Attract And Retain Great Talent, with Deirdre Van Nest
Are you looking for a new strategy to help attract and retain really great talent? Unlock the secret to captivating your audience and igniting your entrepreneurial journey with Deirdre Van Nest, renowned storytelling expert and coach. In this episode of the Team Success Podcast, Shannon and Deirdre reveal the transformative power of the “Why Story”—a potent tool that distinguishes entrepreneurs from their competition and resonates deeply with clients, customers, and team members. Through practical frameworks and real-life examples, you’ll learn how to craft a compelling Why Story that showcases your mission, values, and leadership qualities. You’ll also discover how vulnerability and authenticity can strengthen personal connections and build trust. Join us in uncovering the art of storytelling and its profound impact on entrepreneurial success in this dynamic and inspiring episode!
Show Notes:
- Your personal brand Why Story is a three-minute story that explains why you care about the people you serve, and its purpose is to increase trust, connection, and likeability.
- It should showcase your personal mission, values, and leadership qualities.
- Sharing personal stories that engage people on an emotional level is a fast and effective way to connect with potential team members (and clients) on a deeper level.
- Your Why Story is a powerful tool that will allow you to differentiate yourself from your competition.
- It’s also a powerful tool for establishing credibility in the marketplace.
- By sharing your authentic self and genuine passion, you can attract and retain incredible talent, even in the most competitive industries. Your Why Story is like a magnet for right-fit team members.
- It’s also an effective filter for team members whose values don’t align with your own.
- It’s essential that you tailor your Why Story to your specific niche or target audience. This may mean you have multiple Why Stories—for example, one that’s client-facing and one that’s candidate-facing.
- By honing your storytelling skills and embracing vulnerability and authenticity, you can create memorable experiences and make a lasting impact on your audience.
- People aren’t interested in credentials. They’re interested in purpose.
Resources:
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Deirdre Van Nest’s Information Sheet
Episode Transcript:
Shannon Waller: Are you looking for a new strategy to help attract and retain really great talent? Stay tuned for a breakthrough strategy from my good friend, client, and coach, Deirdre Van Nest, as she reveals a really profound way to attract and retain great Whos.
Hi, Shannon Waller here and welcome to Team Success. I am again, beyond thrilled to have my good friend and client and coach, she's my speaking coach, Deirdre Van Nest from Crazy Good Talks. And today we're going to talk about something that really relates to your business, Deirdre, which is coming up with something called a Why Story. We'll get into what that is, but how you can use it to both attract and retain really great talent, in other words, finding great Whos. People will tell you about the talent wars and people will be competing and there are enough good people out there, and all the good ones want to work only remotely and they don't want to come and see you and you have to have foosball tables and all of this stuff that people are. But you have actually hit on something, a strategy that is, I love it 'cause it's so transparent, for attracting and retaining talent based on this.
Before we jump into that though, you are someone who is a really gifted communicator, so you really know why the Why Story is so critical, and we did a long introduction in our last podcast together, so please feel free to go back and listen to that if you're curious. But what is it that is so powerful or important or meaningful to you about speaking? You're a gifted communicator, your keynote was unbelievable, but why do you love it? Most people hate it and they don't lean in, but you do. So what is it about speaking that's so powerful?
Deirdre Van Nest: There's a couple of things. One is people have a lot of choices in how they spend their time today, and people are juggling a lot. There's a lot pulling at people. And so my mentality when I stand in front of a room, whether it's for an hour or 90 minutes, a half day, a full day, is this better be so good that they are glad they spent their precious moments with me. I'm very well aware someone might be a new dad or a new mom, that could have been spent with their baby and they're with me. So I have a responsibility to, a friend of mine calls it, edutain them. To educate them, change their world, but entertain them and keep them riveted and engaged and emotionally connected at the same time. So there's that responsibility. So I love providing that experience for people. It's not just a speech, it's an experience.
Shannon Waller: Are you looking for a new strategy to help attract and retain really great talent? Stay tuned for a breakthrough strategy from my good friend, client, and coach, Deirdre Van Nest, as she reveals a really profound way to attract and retain great Whos.
Hi, Shannon Waller here and welcome to Team Success. I am again, beyond thrilled to have my good friend and client and coach, she's my speaking coach, Deirdre Van Nest from Crazy Good Talks. And today we're going to talk about something that really relates to your business, Deirdre, which is coming up with something called a Why Story. We'll get into what that is, but how you can use it to both attract and retain really great talent, in other words, finding great Whos. People will tell you about the talent wars and people will be competing and there are enough good people out there, and all the good ones want to work only remotely and they don't want to come and see you and you have to have foosball tables and all of this stuff that people are. But you have actually hit on something, a strategy that is, I love it 'cause it's so transparent, for attracting and retaining talent based on this.
Before we jump into that though, you are someone who is a really gifted communicator, so you really know why the Why Story is so critical, and we did a long introduction in our last podcast together, so please feel free to go back and listen to that if you're curious. But what is it that is so powerful or important or meaningful to you about speaking? You're a gifted communicator, your keynote was unbelievable, but why do you love it? Most people hate it and they don't lean in, but you do. So what is it about speaking that's so powerful?
Deirdre Van Nest: There's a couple of things. One is people have a lot of choices in how they spend their time today, and people are juggling a lot. There's a lot pulling at people. And so my mentality when I stand in front of a room, whether it's for an hour or 90 minutes, a half day, a full day, is this better be so good that they are glad they spent their precious moments with me. I'm very well aware someone might be a new dad or a new mom, that could have been spent with their baby and they're with me. So I have a responsibility to, a friend of mine calls it, edutain them. To educate them, change their world, but entertain them and keep them riveted and engaged and emotionally connected at the same time. So there's that responsibility. So I love providing that experience for people. It's not just a speech, it's an experience.
But I love being able to impact people with a message. I love when people come up to me after a speech and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I never thought about it this way. I'm going to do this now. Thank you so much." And then I love even more when I get an email a few days later or a month later, a few years later, I see them at another event and they'll say, "Remember when you told me about this? Well, I did it and it changed my life. Thank you." Being able to make that impact on people is why I do what I do and why I love it.
Shannon Waller: I love every second of that. Part of how you speak and part of how you coach people to speak is coming up with something called their Why Story. And I love, oh my God, your language around this is so cool. You and your team are actually story strategists, story artists, and story creators.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: How cool is that, first of all?
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, yes, I know it's fun language.
Shannon Waller: What the heck is a Why Story and why does it matter?
Deirdre Van Nest: Just to give a little bit of context. As an entrepreneur, there are three types of stories you should be sharing in your business. The first is what we at Crazy Good Talks call your personal brand Why Story, your personal brand Why Story is why you care about the people you serve. It's why you care about the people you serve. And in fact, I'm explaining it differently than I usually do, Shannon, because I realized for years I've been saying it's why you do what you do and why you care about the people you serve. And I think people get confused and think that why they do what they do, like their origin story is what matters, and people could care less about their origin story if it has nothing to do with why you care about the people you serve.
Shannon Waller: Great distinction. It does not have to be your origin story.
Deirdre Van Nest: No, not at all. Sometimes it is, but many times it's not. And people get really hung up and then you get bad stories. And then people who actually have a great story think they don't have a story because they didn't grow up doing this thing. So at its heart, it's really about why you care about the people you serve. Dang, I might have to go change all that language and I have so much. Anyway, I'll deal with that later. Okay, so that's what it is. And then the other type of story is what I call your desire stories. Desire stories are stories, and your listeners will know this as client testimonials basically, but in a story format, like a before and after and how the change happened. And the point of the story is to evoke desire in the hearts of the listener. So you're great at Coach at telling desire stories.
And then the third are stories to make a point. And those are the stories that most entrepreneurs are familiar with, like, "Oh yes, I know I should tell stories to make something complex, simple, or to make something more memorable." Those are the everyday stories you would tell, life lessons, to make a point about your topic. So those are the three stories. Stories all have a very specific job to do. So just like Whos all have a specific job to do, stories have specific jobs to do, and I don't think entrepreneurs realize this because they feel like, "Oh, so-and-so said, 'Tell me a story.' Well, I'll just use a story to make a point there," when really you should be telling the Why Story there. And so you have to know what story you're telling and for what purpose. So the point of the Why Story, and this is its only job, it has one job, is to increase trust, connection, and likability.
Shannon Waller: Trust, connection, and likability.
Deirdre Van Nest: In three minutes or less.
Shannon Waller: In how many minutes?
Deirdre Van Nest: Three minutes.
Shannon Waller: Oh. Okay.
Deirdre Van Nest: I say three minutes because the story ideally is not longer than three minutes.
Shannon Waller: Okay.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. All right.
Shannon Waller: No pressure is what I want to say.
Deirdre Van Nest: No, no pressure at all. No pressure. But we see it every day. And I'll tell you a really cool example. So that's the point. When you want to increase trust, connection, and likability, you don't want to share a desire story about all the clients you've helped. You don't want to share a story to make a point. You want to share a story about why you care about the person sitting across from you or the people in your audience or the person who's going to watch your video.
Shannon Waller: I love that. So that's what a Why Story is?
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: Okay. Now most people would look at using the Why Story to attract the people you serve, your clientele.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, exactly.
Shannon Waller: But our conversation, that was incredibly interesting, like, oh my God, we have to talk about this on the podcast, is actually using it to attract people to support your backstage.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: Backstage Whos. How did you make this connection, 'cause I think it's genius."
Deirdre Van Nest: I made this connection in a couple of ways. The main way was... This was about a year and a half ago, I was looking for a business manager for my business for Crazy Good Talks. And I was able to attract someone who was being paid a higher salary, better benefits and everything because she gelled and was attracted to my Why Story. And I was like, "Oh, wow, cool. That's amazing." And so we started talking about this. She's like, "Yeah, I heard your story. That was enough for me to give up money, benefits."
Shannon Waller: That is fascinating. It's interesting 'cause as you were talking, I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Someone else did exactly the same thing because of the Why Story." Why he did what he did, but also what the future vision was. I won't even begin to tell you the pay cut. It was less than half.
Deirdre Van Nest: Wow.
Shannon Waller: Which is extreme. Now, if you hitch your train to this person, you'll be very well looked after. So in terms of [inaudible] and bets, it's an excellent one.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: And just the opportunity to learn is phenomenal. My thought about this is, the Why Story is actually, I think really essential, because in our current day and age of people, time, technology, trustworthiness is huge. Transparency is huge.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: There's a lot of crappy conversations around millennials, which I am very tired of, and I don't believe most of them, but this is almost like the bare minimum.
Deirdre Van Nest: 100%.
Shannon Waller: They want to do something with a purpose that has meaning and if you don't communicate that, or if you don't have one, if you're just doing it for the money, you probably won't attract the best talent.
Deirdre Van Nest: You won't. Millennials and Gen Z, they are driven by purpose and being part of something bigger than themselves. They're driven by causes, they're driven by heart. I'm a Gen Xer. So whenever I talk on this story on the stage, and I say, "If you're an Xer like me or a baby boomer, I know this is blowing your mind because when we were raised, there was a firewall between your business life and your personal life, and never the two shall meet. We were raised where we were supposed to hide that we were a human being. And so that has totally been destroyed, which is great. The wall is busted through, and now showing your humanity, in an appropriate way for business, sharing your humanity, what is in your heart and why you do this and why you care about the people you serve is absolutely foundational. So when we're working with entrepreneurs, we let them know, "This should be the cornerstone of all your marketing, your recruiting, all of your conversations, all your presentations. This personal brand Why Story needs to be the cornerstone."
Shannon Waller: Can I tell you why this is important?
Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah.
Shannon Waller: Strategic Coach, very successful coaching program, been around for 30 plus years. I should probably get the number of years down. It's almost 32 years that I've been with Coach, so a long time. I guess 34 years is how long Coach has been around. But here's why we didn't have that. I didn't communicate it. So I hired not one, not two, but three people whose goal in life was to work for a nonprofit organization. As I said, Strategic Coach is by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs.
Deirdre Van Nest: It's for profit.
Shannon Waller: Profit and teamwork. My two favorite words in business.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, yes. I love it.
Shannon Waller: As you're talking, I'm just like, "Oh, Lordy, Shannon." This would've prevented that from happening and lovely, talented, interesting people, very short-term.
Deirdre Van Nest: I love that you're saying that because it's, again, it's a filter. I've had entrepreneurs say to me, "Well, what if my Why Story turns someone off?" Excellent!
Shannon Waller: Great!
Deirdre Van Nest: Now in a way, you're not going to tell something offensive or inappropriate, but if they don't gel with it, then that's not your client or your candidate. It's okay.
Shannon Waller: And Joe Polish says, "Really good marketing sifts, sorts, and screens."
Deirdre Van Nest: Love that.
Shannon Waller: "Right people in and the wrong people out."
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: So why shouldn't it do that? And the other reason why I was so excited to talk to you about this today, is because one of the other, I did a podcast on this earlier, we'll link it in the notes, is that people actually need to take all of their skills, marketing front stage. We all have capabilities. We're good at talking about what we do, hopefully who we serve and why we do what we do. But we are aiming all of our marketing efforts that way. These days, to track the right people, you need to take that same marketing capability, turn around and use it to attract your Whos, what I'm calling backstage. Otherwise, no one's going to know you're alive.
Deirdre Van Nest: And to keep them. John LaDuca, who, I know, the LaDucas, they're amazing. He's also into crafting stories, and he has the saying that the leader is the campfire. If you think of the leader of an organization as the campfire, and the bigger the organization grows, the farther out people get from the leader, from the campfire. So you've got to keep people warm around the campfire. And so the leader's Why Story is one of the ways to transfer their heart and their spirit and keep that warmth through the entire organization. And I just love that visual of the campfire. And here's what I'll say, Shannon. You might have two very different Why Stories. One that is a client-facing Why Story, and one that is a team and candidate-facing Why Story. Now, they might be the same, but they might also be different.
Shannon Waller: And they might have a different emphasis too.
Deirdre Van Nest: They might have a different emphasis. Exactly. So an example might be, let's say, Shannon, you might have a great Why Story about why Coach, which would be outward client-facing. It could also be candidate-facing. But let's say you were going to be a mentor to certain people who come into Strategic Coach. Then you would have a Why Story about why it matters to you to mentor people. Does that make sense? What the meaning is there for you. So a leader might have something about, "Hey, here's why I created the company, but hey, here's why I wanted to scale and grow and provide jobs for other people." Two different stories, two different angles.
Shannon Waller: I love that. And tie them together a little bit to make sure that the audience you serve is one that your people actually care about.
Deirdre Van Nest: Well, that's the thing, yes. So you have a lot of financial advisors who come to Coach. Imagine hiring the non-profit person who actually thinks of Wolf of Wall Street and hates all financial people. That would be bad.
Shannon Waller: One of those people thought money was evil.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. See, that's a problem.
Shannon Waller: Whereas the quote is actually the love of money is the root of all evil.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: And they thought money should be eliminated.
Deirdre Van Nest: Okay. Yeah. That's not going to-
Shannon Waller: I'm sorry. You work for an entrepreneurial organization who serves entrepreneurs and financial success is one of the things. I'm like, "Oh, I'm just looking at all the things I did."
Deirdre Van Nest: Right. You want them to love the cause.
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh, this is-
Deirdre Van Nest: Can I tell you the most fun story though lately, that just happened in support of the Why Story for attracting talent.
Shannon Waller: Yeah.
Deirdre Van Nest: I call myself a story strategist. What that means is a couple of things, is I will strategize with business owners on which stories they should be using, when and where, and then pull stories from their life and their experience and then help craft that into a compelling narrative. So that's my role on the team in our story creation process. Then I have a story artist. So once I meet with an entrepreneur, I interview them, I pull the story, I set the structure for the story, then I will send that recording to my story artist. It's her job to put it on paper. And then together we bring it to life for the entrepreneur. So this was, I want to say, two weeks ago, I'm doing what's called a discovery session with an entrepreneur who happens to be an amazing Coach client.
I'm not going to say who it is, I didn't ask permission, but great client. And her story is so compelling. And so she says to me at the end of the conversation, she goes, "I know that your story artist, you said she's part-time with you. I have the need for a copywriter, a writer. Do you think if it's appropriate, do you think she might be interested in doing any work for me?" And I said, "You know what? I will ask her." I said, "Probably not," 'cause I know she's a mom, she's got young kids. She doesn't want to work that many hours, "but I'll totally ask her." So I get off, send this team worker a message on Teams, and I was like, "Hey, just got off with so-and-sos Discovery Call. She wants to know if you're interested in working for her. Let me know your thoughts."
And she's like, "No, I'm good. I'm maxed." So then three days later, I get a message from her on Team. She's like, "Deirdre, I was too quick in my response to you. I just watched so-and-sos Discovery Call with you. Her story is so impactful. I totally resonate. I've gone through the same thing. Would it be inappropriate if you went back and asked her if she'd still be interested in having me work for her? I talked to my husband, I've reconsidered." Yeah. Do you have goosebumps everywhere? I was like, "This is the best commercial for a Why Story that I've ever heard in my entire life." This woman was like, "I don't even want a job." And then she hears the story and she's like, "Well, go back and talk to her for me." That's the power of a Why Story.
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh. I love every second of that. At this point, job market, I'm looking at the unemployment numbers and they might be going up a little bit, but still a lot of good people are very fully employed. Not that I'm advocating poaching or stealing because I'm a hundred percent not. But you will lose people. If you don't have a compelling Why Story, you're not going to attract someone, or if you haven't communicated yours to your team, you will lose them to someone who does.
Deirdre Van Nest: 100%.
Shannon Waller: Not to scare anyone, but if you've been keeping your campfire under the cone and [inaudible]. The way Dan talks about, I love, that's a great image because that warmth, you can just feel the fire, big fan of wood fires, is that he talks about just being in charge and being in control. Charge is, you are what other people can plug into. You give energy, you give enthusiasm, you give excitement, morale, momentum, motivation. You charge up the company with the vision. That's how Dan talks about it. And then how you live it is your core values.
Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely.
Shannon Waller: And that should hopefully come out of your Why Story.
Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely. And so when we're building them, we are making sure those things are in alignment. So if you have a carefully crafted Why Story, you don't have to say, "Oh, my core values are love, integrity and ownership." You can build it into the story so it demonstrates and comes through and then you can point to and name them, but it's showing these attributes through the story. That's what people remember because this is what they feel.
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh, that is so sexy. But just think how your core values can come to life when you tell a story about every single one of them. Or you tell your Why Story and that's why we have these core values. Oh my gosh, people are going to remember them, first of all. If it's just a poster on a wall with no compelling story behind it, boring and very forgettable. So that's not real. Oh my gosh, this is getting more exciting by the second.
Deirdre Van Nest: Okay, let's talk about retaining though, because there's a big piece about retaining.
Shannon Waller: Oh, of course. And then I want to get into, not that you're going to coach everyone on how to get their Why Story, but a few tidbits for how people can take action.
Deirdre Van Nest: For sure. So for retention, when people understand each other's why they are much more forgiving. There's a lot more grace, there's a lot more room to be human. One of the things that I recommend with teams is we've gone in and we've helped either trained them or crafted their Why Stories for them. And then we recommend they have, what I call, story hour where they actually go around and maybe one person is highlighted. You could do this once a week, however you want to do it, but they share why they're there. And all of a sudden there's this rich understanding. And I've had people who didn't like each other and found each other annoying, go, "That person no longer annoys me."
Shannon Waller: Oh, really?
Deirdre Van Nest: Because they understand where they're coming from. There's context.
Shannon Waller: Okay, now I just want to go do that with my team.
Deirdre Van Nest: Don't you? And so that is a way, and I've seen this in my own life, in my own business too, where I've had someone in particular where we have very different work styles and would rub each other the wrong way. But we stayed together 'cause we understood each other's whys and we kept working through it. It's a very powerful way to retain. And so it's not just about them knowing the leader's Why Story. That's super important. But get to know each other's Why Stories and share it, everywhere down from... If you have someone who's a cleaning person on your team up to the CEO, everybody should be included, everybody. And think of the comradery.
Shannon Waller: That thought had never entered my brain.
Deirdre Van Nest: It's beautiful. And now everybody's human.
Shannon Waller: Very true. It's actually interesting 'cause I had a conversation with a brand new Membership Advisor and team who is phenomenal. First of all, our Kolbes are very similar, our PRINTs are the same. It's like, "Oh, I just found a buddy." I said, "Okay, what attracted you to Coach? What are you up to? Where'd you come from? Why are you here?" It's interesting because, not that we have our whole Why Story or anything, but I realized I was actually really interested to know why she was here, to your point. And it just bonded us.
Deirdre Van Nest: Totally.
Shannon Waller: Now I have to think of my own. So how can people start to get a handle on it and what their Why Story is? And are there a couple of questions that people could take away from this conversation and go, "Okay, here's the start of my Why Story. Here's what to include. Here's what not to include"? And your distinction on the three different types of stories is so useful. And so the purpose of this one again is trust, connection, and likability.
Deirdre Van Nest: And likability.
Shannon Waller: That's the purpose.
Deirdre Van Nest: That's it. So what I have people doing, they mix it up and they start putting their credentials and they start trying to sell themselves in the story. No. This is just a heart story. This is trust, connection, likability, human being to human being. Don't try to sell yourself. If there's a reason to put it in, then you put it in, but you don't just shoehorn it in. It's not about that.
Shannon Waller: Before we get into that, I have a friend who's incredibly well-connected. How he does it, I have no idea. He introduced me, thought it'd be a cool connection, and honest to God, I think I spent an hour on the phone with this gentleman, and all he did was share his credentials.
Deirdre Van Nest: There's no words.
Shannon Waller: And I'm searching and searching and searching for something that's even remotely interesting.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: And it was like, "Where is the heart?" And finally, finally, I just validated his experience. I was very gracious. And finally I found something that was emotionally interesting. It took 45 minutes. It was painful.
Deirdre Van Nest: That is painful.
Shannon Waller: And no questions about me. It was the weirdest thing ever. I hope to not repeat that ever again. But it was interesting. I would've so much preferred a three-minute Why Story. It would've made my day.
Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely. And let me show you how I use it. So here's the thing. I want to give an example of how I use this just so entrepreneurs can see, but can I tell you where they can get some examples, visuals, 'cause I know we're talking about almost like a theoretical topic, and it's helpful when they see it. I'm also more than happy to give the document I use with my private clients, the Why Story template, that will actually walk them through how to find the Why Story and then how to put it together in a compelling narrative. So if you want to just save that for the template, we don't have to dive in a ton here.
Shannon Waller: We'll put that in the notes. Thank you. That's very generous.
Deirdre Van Nest: So the way that you would use something like this, and I'm just thinking this is a client-facing, but I just want people to be thinking about the application of this, is I had an interview. So this was me talking to a client, but it's the same thing as an interview. When you're biz dev, that's still in an interview. So just be thinking about this. This was with a very large insurance company, and these two leaders probably talked to a hundred of me a week. For some reason, they were referred by someone who said they should talk to me. They took the meeting. I was very lucky to get this meeting. And when I got on the phone, this was on the phone, so I had even less emotional connection 'cause there was no Zoom, it was a person who was on the phone.
And I knew I had to win them over quickly and develop that trust and connection. So we did the nicey nice chitchat, and then the question was, "Okay, Deirdre, tell us how you can help our wholesalers." And most people at that place would jump into how they could help. Don't do that. Instead, I said, I would love to tell you how I can help your wholesalers, but do you mind if I just take two minutes and tell you why I want to help your wholesalers? Because I think that matters more than what I do.
Shannon Waller: I love the redirect.
Deirdre Van Nest: Oh, yeah. And then they're like, "Of course." I tell my story and you could feel the energy change. I could feel them leaning in. I could feel the warmth in the voice. I could feel the ignition of someone's heart. And needless to say, I got the one speaking gig I was going for, but I've been with that company, I want to say five or six years now, and we do a lot of work together. So that's the power. That's the power of the Why Story. So in the template, I'll give you my web address. You go there. You're going to get a storytelling toolkit. It's going to be the Why Story. It's also going to be the implementation playbook that teaches you how to leverage the story across all communication platforms. So one-on-one, group, video. No matter where you're showing up, it'll teach you how to use it. The template's designed for the client-facing story but you can absolutely transfer the application to a recruiting, a candidate, a hiring and retention Why Story.
Shannon Waller: Well, a client’s a Who, a team member’s a Who, a leader’s a Who.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: We're looking for right fit people who will help us create our future. So if it's backstage, front stage, it doesn't actually matter. The role that they're going to be playing is different, however, the Why Story... And you may shape your Why Story. But the point is, we want to attract and retain great Whos into our worlds. And this is something I haven't spent a ton of time on yet. So I'm excited today.
Deirdre Van Nest: I'm excited too. And I was at a Coach quarterly workshop and I had a member come up to me and he goes, "I do a lot of recruiting and insurance." And he's like, "I am at these college fairs and I'm next to Google and Amazon. How do I look sexy? I'm in insurance." And I said, "It's your Why Story. You can't compete with Google and Amazon on their name and the benefits they're known for, but you can compete on who you are as a leader, what you're going to bring to the table and the mission of the firm. It's your Why Story. That's how you compete."
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh. On that note, how can people reach you, how can they find you, how can they get the template?
Deirdre Van Nest: The first place to go is the storytelling and coaching website, which is crazygoodtalks.com. There's a couple of places I want to recommend they go. The first thing that's going to happen is the pop-up box is going to come up. It's going to ask if you want the storytelling toolkit, fill it out. We'll send it to you. I promise I'm not an email stalker, so you're not going to get 5 million emails from me if you request that. So you'll get that. Then once you've done that, I want you to go two places. Go to the tab that says, I think it says Hire Us. And if you click on that, it'll take you to the story creation webpage. If you scroll down, you will see two examples of personal brand Why Stories.
One is Alec Broadfoot, who's an amazing Coach client. He is the CEO and visionary of Vision Spark, who does hiring. Has a hiring business. And then the other is my beautiful client Nancy Hanson. She's a CEO of a financial services firm. So two totally different stories. And I think there's videos. That'll start to give you a visual. Then go to the About tab, and it's going to say Deirdre Stories. Click on there. You'll see that I serve the financial services industry. I also serve entrepreneurs. So I have two separate Why Stories, Shannon. You don't usually have the same Why Story if you have two very separate niches. Sometimes you can, but oftentimes it's going to be a miss. So you'll get to see my two Why Stories, why I'm passionate about entrepreneurs, why I'm passionate about financial advisors. And so that's four videos for you to see different stories and start to understand what this is. And then the template itself will have links to different client videos and videos of mine. So it's just chock full of strategy, if you will.
Shannon Waller: I love it. And I learn best by watching. And it's not imitating, but it actually gets me the whole context.
Deirdre Van Nest: Me too. Exactly.
Shannon Waller: So thank you. Oh my gosh.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. Yes, it's super fun. Super fun too.
Shannon Waller: Too. Okay, so crazygoodtalks.com. go to all the things, get the tech, watch the videos. Deirdre, you and I could talk forever.
Deirdre Van Nest: I know.
Shannon Waller: All right. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you, darling, for sharing welcome wisdom, for being my friend.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, back at you.
Shannon Waller: I love having, I call it my professional friend network. You have to be someone I want to spend time with and not talk about work. But then when people add their brilliance and their expertise and have something to contribute, to have people move forward, it just lights me up like nothing else. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being all of those things. I'm excited because I think there's a lot to learn and we are in the war for talent. Not that I love that analogy, but I think having the secret sauce and sharing who you are is one of the most genuine, transparent, and appropriate ways to do it. So thank you for this very important strategy.
Deirdre Van Nest: You're welcome. Thank you for having me on.
Shannon Waller: Okay, thank you.
Shannon Waller: I love every second of that. Part of how you speak and part of how you coach people to speak is coming up with something called their Why Story. And I love, oh my God, your language around this is so cool. You and your team are actually story strategists, story artists, and story creators.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: How cool is that, first of all?
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, yes, I know it's fun language.
Shannon Waller: What the heck is a Why Story and why does it matter?
Deirdre Van Nest: Just to give a little bit of context. As an entrepreneur, there are three types of stories you should be sharing in your business. The first is what we at Crazy Good Talks call your personal brand Why Story, your personal brand Why Story is why you care about the people you serve. It's why you care about the people you serve. And in fact, I'm explaining it differently than I usually do, Shannon, because I realized for years I've been saying it's why you do what you do and why you care about the people you serve. And I think people get confused and think that why they do what they do, like their origin story is what matters, and people could care less about their origin story if it has nothing to do with why you care about the people you serve.
Shannon Waller: Great distinction. It does not have to be your origin story.
Deirdre Van Nest: No, not at all. Sometimes it is, but many times it's not. And people get really hung up and then you get bad stories. And then people who actually have a great story think they don't have a story because they didn't grow up doing this thing. So at its heart, it's really about why you care about the people you serve. Dang, I might have to go change all that language and I have so much. Anyway, I'll deal with that later. Okay, so that's what it is. And then the other type of story is what I call your desire stories. Desire stories are stories, and your listeners will know this as client testimonials basically, but in a story format, like a before and after and how the change happened. And the point of the story is to evoke desire in the hearts of the listener. So you're great at Coach at telling desire stories.
And then the third are stories to make a point. And those are the stories that most entrepreneurs are familiar with, like, "Oh yes, I know I should tell stories to make something complex, simple, or to make something more memorable." Those are the everyday stories you would tell, life lessons, to make a point about your topic. So those are the three stories. Stories all have a very specific job to do. So just like Whos all have a specific job to do, stories have specific jobs to do, and I don't think entrepreneurs realize this because they feel like, "Oh, so-and-so said, 'Tell me a story.' Well, I'll just use a story to make a point there," when really you should be telling the Why Story there. And so you have to know what story you're telling and for what purpose. So the point of the Why Story, and this is its only job, it has one job, is to increase trust, connection, and likability.
Shannon Waller: Trust, connection, and likability.
Deirdre Van Nest: In three minutes or less.
Shannon Waller: In how many minutes?
Deirdre Van Nest: Three minutes.
Shannon Waller: Oh. Okay.
Deirdre Van Nest: I say three minutes because the story ideally is not longer than three minutes.
Shannon Waller: Okay.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. All right.
Shannon Waller: No pressure is what I want to say.
Deirdre Van Nest: No, no pressure at all. No pressure. But we see it every day. And I'll tell you a really cool example. So that's the point. When you want to increase trust, connection, and likability, you don't want to share a desire story about all the clients you've helped. You don't want to share a story to make a point. You want to share a story about why you care about the person sitting across from you or the people in your audience or the person who's going to watch your video.
Shannon Waller: I love that. So that's what a Why Story is?
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: Okay. Now most people would look at using the Why Story to attract the people you serve, your clientele.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, exactly.
Shannon Waller: But our conversation, that was incredibly interesting, like, oh my God, we have to talk about this on the podcast, is actually using it to attract people to support your backstage.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: Backstage Whos. How did you make this connection, 'cause I think it's genius."
Deirdre Van Nest: I made this connection in a couple of ways. The main way was... This was about a year and a half ago, I was looking for a business manager for my business for Crazy Good Talks. And I was able to attract someone who was being paid a higher salary, better benefits and everything because she gelled and was attracted to my Why Story. And I was like, "Oh, wow, cool. That's amazing." And so we started talking about this. She's like, "Yeah, I heard your story. That was enough for me to give up money, benefits."
Shannon Waller: That is fascinating. It's interesting 'cause as you were talking, I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Someone else did exactly the same thing because of the Why Story." Why he did what he did, but also what the future vision was. I won't even begin to tell you the pay cut. It was less than half.
Deirdre Van Nest: Wow.
Shannon Waller: Which is extreme. Now, if you hitch your train to this person, you'll be very well looked after. So in terms of [inaudible] and bets, it's an excellent one.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: And just the opportunity to learn is phenomenal. My thought about this is, the Why Story is actually, I think really essential, because in our current day and age of people, time, technology, trustworthiness is huge. Transparency is huge.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: There's a lot of crappy conversations around millennials, which I am very tired of, and I don't believe most of them, but this is almost like the bare minimum.
Deirdre Van Nest: 100%.
Shannon Waller: They want to do something with a purpose that has meaning and if you don't communicate that, or if you don't have one, if you're just doing it for the money, you probably won't attract the best talent.
Deirdre Van Nest: You won't. Millennials and Gen Z, they are driven by purpose and being part of something bigger than themselves. They're driven by causes, they're driven by heart. I'm a Gen Xer. So whenever I talk on this story on the stage, and I say, "If you're an Xer like me or a baby boomer, I know this is blowing your mind because when we were raised, there was a firewall between your business life and your personal life, and never the two shall meet. We were raised where we were supposed to hide that we were a human being. And so that has totally been destroyed, which is great. The wall is busted through, and now showing your humanity, in an appropriate way for business, sharing your humanity, what is in your heart and why you do this and why you care about the people you serve is absolutely foundational. So when we're working with entrepreneurs, we let them know, "This should be the cornerstone of all your marketing, your recruiting, all of your conversations, all your presentations. This personal brand Why Story needs to be the cornerstone."
Shannon Waller: Can I tell you why this is important?
Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah.
Shannon Waller: Strategic Coach, very successful coaching program, been around for 30 plus years. I should probably get the number of years down. It's almost 32 years that I've been with Coach, so a long time. I guess 34 years is how long Coach has been around. But here's why we didn't have that. I didn't communicate it. So I hired not one, not two, but three people whose goal in life was to work for a nonprofit organization. As I said, Strategic Coach is by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs.
Deirdre Van Nest: It's for profit.
Shannon Waller: Profit and teamwork. My two favorite words in business.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, yes. I love it.
Shannon Waller: As you're talking, I'm just like, "Oh, Lordy, Shannon." This would've prevented that from happening and lovely, talented, interesting people, very short-term.
Deirdre Van Nest: I love that you're saying that because it's, again, it's a filter. I've had entrepreneurs say to me, "Well, what if my Why Story turns someone off?" Excellent!
Shannon Waller: Great!
Deirdre Van Nest: Now in a way, you're not going to tell something offensive or inappropriate, but if they don't gel with it, then that's not your client or your candidate. It's okay.
Shannon Waller: And Joe Polish says, "Really good marketing sifts, sorts, and screens."
Deirdre Van Nest: Love that.
Shannon Waller: "Right people in and the wrong people out."
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes.
Shannon Waller: So why shouldn't it do that? And the other reason why I was so excited to talk to you about this today, is because one of the other, I did a podcast on this earlier, we'll link it in the notes, is that people actually need to take all of their skills, marketing front stage. We all have capabilities. We're good at talking about what we do, hopefully who we serve and why we do what we do. But we are aiming all of our marketing efforts that way. These days, to track the right people, you need to take that same marketing capability, turn around and use it to attract your Whos, what I'm calling backstage. Otherwise, no one's going to know you're alive.
Deirdre Van Nest: And to keep them. John LaDuca, who, I know, the LaDucas, they're amazing. He's also into crafting stories, and he has the saying that the leader is the campfire. If you think of the leader of an organization as the campfire, and the bigger the organization grows, the farther out people get from the leader, from the campfire. So you've got to keep people warm around the campfire. And so the leader's Why Story is one of the ways to transfer their heart and their spirit and keep that warmth through the entire organization. And I just love that visual of the campfire. And here's what I'll say, Shannon. You might have two very different Why Stories. One that is a client-facing Why Story, and one that is a team and candidate-facing Why Story. Now, they might be the same, but they might also be different.
Shannon Waller: And they might have a different emphasis too.
Deirdre Van Nest: They might have a different emphasis. Exactly. So an example might be, let's say, Shannon, you might have a great Why Story about why Coach, which would be outward client-facing. It could also be candidate-facing. But let's say you were going to be a mentor to certain people who come into Strategic Coach. Then you would have a Why Story about why it matters to you to mentor people. Does that make sense? What the meaning is there for you. So a leader might have something about, "Hey, here's why I created the company, but hey, here's why I wanted to scale and grow and provide jobs for other people." Two different stories, two different angles.
Shannon Waller: I love that. And tie them together a little bit to make sure that the audience you serve is one that your people actually care about.
Deirdre Van Nest: Well, that's the thing, yes. So you have a lot of financial advisors who come to Coach. Imagine hiring the non-profit person who actually thinks of Wolf of Wall Street and hates all financial people. That would be bad.
Shannon Waller: One of those people thought money was evil.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. See, that's a problem.
Shannon Waller: Whereas the quote is actually the love of money is the root of all evil.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: And they thought money should be eliminated.
Deirdre Van Nest: Okay. Yeah. That's not going to-
Shannon Waller: I'm sorry. You work for an entrepreneurial organization who serves entrepreneurs and financial success is one of the things. I'm like, "Oh, I'm just looking at all the things I did."
Deirdre Van Nest: Right. You want them to love the cause.
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh, this is-
Deirdre Van Nest: Can I tell you the most fun story though lately, that just happened in support of the Why Story for attracting talent.
Shannon Waller: Yeah.
Deirdre Van Nest: I call myself a story strategist. What that means is a couple of things, is I will strategize with business owners on which stories they should be using, when and where, and then pull stories from their life and their experience and then help craft that into a compelling narrative. So that's my role on the team in our story creation process. Then I have a story artist. So once I meet with an entrepreneur, I interview them, I pull the story, I set the structure for the story, then I will send that recording to my story artist. It's her job to put it on paper. And then together we bring it to life for the entrepreneur. So this was, I want to say, two weeks ago, I'm doing what's called a discovery session with an entrepreneur who happens to be an amazing Coach client.
I'm not going to say who it is, I didn't ask permission, but great client. And her story is so compelling. And so she says to me at the end of the conversation, she goes, "I know that your story artist, you said she's part-time with you. I have the need for a copywriter, a writer. Do you think if it's appropriate, do you think she might be interested in doing any work for me?" And I said, "You know what? I will ask her." I said, "Probably not," 'cause I know she's a mom, she's got young kids. She doesn't want to work that many hours, "but I'll totally ask her." So I get off, send this team worker a message on Teams, and I was like, "Hey, just got off with so-and-sos Discovery Call. She wants to know if you're interested in working for her. Let me know your thoughts."
And she's like, "No, I'm good. I'm maxed." So then three days later, I get a message from her on Team. She's like, "Deirdre, I was too quick in my response to you. I just watched so-and-sos Discovery Call with you. Her story is so impactful. I totally resonate. I've gone through the same thing. Would it be inappropriate if you went back and asked her if she'd still be interested in having me work for her? I talked to my husband, I've reconsidered." Yeah. Do you have goosebumps everywhere? I was like, "This is the best commercial for a Why Story that I've ever heard in my entire life." This woman was like, "I don't even want a job." And then she hears the story and she's like, "Well, go back and talk to her for me." That's the power of a Why Story.
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh. I love every second of that. At this point, job market, I'm looking at the unemployment numbers and they might be going up a little bit, but still a lot of good people are very fully employed. Not that I'm advocating poaching or stealing because I'm a hundred percent not. But you will lose people. If you don't have a compelling Why Story, you're not going to attract someone, or if you haven't communicated yours to your team, you will lose them to someone who does.
Deirdre Van Nest: 100%.
Shannon Waller: Not to scare anyone, but if you've been keeping your campfire under the cone and [inaudible]. The way Dan talks about, I love, that's a great image because that warmth, you can just feel the fire, big fan of wood fires, is that he talks about just being in charge and being in control. Charge is, you are what other people can plug into. You give energy, you give enthusiasm, you give excitement, morale, momentum, motivation. You charge up the company with the vision. That's how Dan talks about it. And then how you live it is your core values.
Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely.
Shannon Waller: And that should hopefully come out of your Why Story.
Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely. And so when we're building them, we are making sure those things are in alignment. So if you have a carefully crafted Why Story, you don't have to say, "Oh, my core values are love, integrity and ownership." You can build it into the story so it demonstrates and comes through and then you can point to and name them, but it's showing these attributes through the story. That's what people remember because this is what they feel.
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh, that is so sexy. But just think how your core values can come to life when you tell a story about every single one of them. Or you tell your Why Story and that's why we have these core values. Oh my gosh, people are going to remember them, first of all. If it's just a poster on a wall with no compelling story behind it, boring and very forgettable. So that's not real. Oh my gosh, this is getting more exciting by the second.
Deirdre Van Nest: Okay, let's talk about retaining though, because there's a big piece about retaining.
Shannon Waller: Oh, of course. And then I want to get into, not that you're going to coach everyone on how to get their Why Story, but a few tidbits for how people can take action.
Deirdre Van Nest: For sure. So for retention, when people understand each other's why they are much more forgiving. There's a lot more grace, there's a lot more room to be human. One of the things that I recommend with teams is we've gone in and we've helped either trained them or crafted their Why Stories for them. And then we recommend they have, what I call, story hour where they actually go around and maybe one person is highlighted. You could do this once a week, however you want to do it, but they share why they're there. And all of a sudden there's this rich understanding. And I've had people who didn't like each other and found each other annoying, go, "That person no longer annoys me."
Shannon Waller: Oh, really?
Deirdre Van Nest: Because they understand where they're coming from. There's context.
Shannon Waller: Okay, now I just want to go do that with my team.
Deirdre Van Nest: Don't you? And so that is a way, and I've seen this in my own life, in my own business too, where I've had someone in particular where we have very different work styles and would rub each other the wrong way. But we stayed together 'cause we understood each other's whys and we kept working through it. It's a very powerful way to retain. And so it's not just about them knowing the leader's Why Story. That's super important. But get to know each other's Why Stories and share it, everywhere down from... If you have someone who's a cleaning person on your team up to the CEO, everybody should be included, everybody. And think of the comradery.
Shannon Waller: That thought had never entered my brain.
Deirdre Van Nest: It's beautiful. And now everybody's human.
Shannon Waller: Very true. It's actually interesting 'cause I had a conversation with a brand new Membership Advisor and team who is phenomenal. First of all, our Kolbes are very similar, our PRINTs are the same. It's like, "Oh, I just found a buddy." I said, "Okay, what attracted you to Coach? What are you up to? Where'd you come from? Why are you here?" It's interesting because, not that we have our whole Why Story or anything, but I realized I was actually really interested to know why she was here, to your point. And it just bonded us.
Deirdre Van Nest: Totally.
Shannon Waller: Now I have to think of my own. So how can people start to get a handle on it and what their Why Story is? And are there a couple of questions that people could take away from this conversation and go, "Okay, here's the start of my Why Story. Here's what to include. Here's what not to include"? And your distinction on the three different types of stories is so useful. And so the purpose of this one again is trust, connection, and likability.
Deirdre Van Nest: And likability.
Shannon Waller: That's the purpose.
Deirdre Van Nest: That's it. So what I have people doing, they mix it up and they start putting their credentials and they start trying to sell themselves in the story. No. This is just a heart story. This is trust, connection, likability, human being to human being. Don't try to sell yourself. If there's a reason to put it in, then you put it in, but you don't just shoehorn it in. It's not about that.
Shannon Waller: Before we get into that, I have a friend who's incredibly well-connected. How he does it, I have no idea. He introduced me, thought it'd be a cool connection, and honest to God, I think I spent an hour on the phone with this gentleman, and all he did was share his credentials.
Deirdre Van Nest: There's no words.
Shannon Waller: And I'm searching and searching and searching for something that's even remotely interesting.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: And it was like, "Where is the heart?" And finally, finally, I just validated his experience. I was very gracious. And finally I found something that was emotionally interesting. It took 45 minutes. It was painful.
Deirdre Van Nest: That is painful.
Shannon Waller: And no questions about me. It was the weirdest thing ever. I hope to not repeat that ever again. But it was interesting. I would've so much preferred a three-minute Why Story. It would've made my day.
Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely. And let me show you how I use it. So here's the thing. I want to give an example of how I use this just so entrepreneurs can see, but can I tell you where they can get some examples, visuals, 'cause I know we're talking about almost like a theoretical topic, and it's helpful when they see it. I'm also more than happy to give the document I use with my private clients, the Why Story template, that will actually walk them through how to find the Why Story and then how to put it together in a compelling narrative. So if you want to just save that for the template, we don't have to dive in a ton here.
Shannon Waller: We'll put that in the notes. Thank you. That's very generous.
Deirdre Van Nest: So the way that you would use something like this, and I'm just thinking this is a client-facing, but I just want people to be thinking about the application of this, is I had an interview. So this was me talking to a client, but it's the same thing as an interview. When you're biz dev, that's still in an interview. So just be thinking about this. This was with a very large insurance company, and these two leaders probably talked to a hundred of me a week. For some reason, they were referred by someone who said they should talk to me. They took the meeting. I was very lucky to get this meeting. And when I got on the phone, this was on the phone, so I had even less emotional connection 'cause there was no Zoom, it was a person who was on the phone.
And I knew I had to win them over quickly and develop that trust and connection. So we did the nicey nice chitchat, and then the question was, "Okay, Deirdre, tell us how you can help our wholesalers." And most people at that place would jump into how they could help. Don't do that. Instead, I said, I would love to tell you how I can help your wholesalers, but do you mind if I just take two minutes and tell you why I want to help your wholesalers? Because I think that matters more than what I do.
Shannon Waller: I love the redirect.
Deirdre Van Nest: Oh, yeah. And then they're like, "Of course." I tell my story and you could feel the energy change. I could feel them leaning in. I could feel the warmth in the voice. I could feel the ignition of someone's heart. And needless to say, I got the one speaking gig I was going for, but I've been with that company, I want to say five or six years now, and we do a lot of work together. So that's the power. That's the power of the Why Story. So in the template, I'll give you my web address. You go there. You're going to get a storytelling toolkit. It's going to be the Why Story. It's also going to be the implementation playbook that teaches you how to leverage the story across all communication platforms. So one-on-one, group, video. No matter where you're showing up, it'll teach you how to use it. The template's designed for the client-facing story but you can absolutely transfer the application to a recruiting, a candidate, a hiring and retention Why Story.
Shannon Waller: Well, a client’s a Who, a team member’s a Who, a leader’s a Who.
Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly.
Shannon Waller: We're looking for right fit people who will help us create our future. So if it's backstage, front stage, it doesn't actually matter. The role that they're going to be playing is different, however, the Why Story... And you may shape your Why Story. But the point is, we want to attract and retain great Whos into our worlds. And this is something I haven't spent a ton of time on yet. So I'm excited today.
Deirdre Van Nest: I'm excited too. And I was at a Coach quarterly workshop and I had a member come up to me and he goes, "I do a lot of recruiting and insurance." And he's like, "I am at these college fairs and I'm next to Google and Amazon. How do I look sexy? I'm in insurance." And I said, "It's your Why Story. You can't compete with Google and Amazon on their name and the benefits they're known for, but you can compete on who you are as a leader, what you're going to bring to the table and the mission of the firm. It's your Why Story. That's how you compete."
Shannon Waller: Oh my gosh. On that note, how can people reach you, how can they find you, how can they get the template?
Deirdre Van Nest: The first place to go is the storytelling and coaching website, which is crazygoodtalks.com. There's a couple of places I want to recommend they go. The first thing that's going to happen is the pop-up box is going to come up. It's going to ask if you want the storytelling toolkit, fill it out. We'll send it to you. I promise I'm not an email stalker, so you're not going to get 5 million emails from me if you request that. So you'll get that. Then once you've done that, I want you to go two places. Go to the tab that says, I think it says Hire Us. And if you click on that, it'll take you to the story creation webpage. If you scroll down, you will see two examples of personal brand Why Stories.
One is Alec Broadfoot, who's an amazing Coach client. He is the CEO and visionary of Vision Spark, who does hiring. Has a hiring business. And then the other is my beautiful client Nancy Hanson. She's a CEO of a financial services firm. So two totally different stories. And I think there's videos. That'll start to give you a visual. Then go to the About tab, and it's going to say Deirdre Stories. Click on there. You'll see that I serve the financial services industry. I also serve entrepreneurs. So I have two separate Why Stories, Shannon. You don't usually have the same Why Story if you have two very separate niches. Sometimes you can, but oftentimes it's going to be a miss. So you'll get to see my two Why Stories, why I'm passionate about entrepreneurs, why I'm passionate about financial advisors. And so that's four videos for you to see different stories and start to understand what this is. And then the template itself will have links to different client videos and videos of mine. So it's just chock full of strategy, if you will.
Shannon Waller: I love it. And I learn best by watching. And it's not imitating, but it actually gets me the whole context.
Deirdre Van Nest: Me too. Exactly.
Shannon Waller: So thank you. Oh my gosh.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. Yes, it's super fun. Super fun too.
Shannon Waller: Too. Okay, so crazygoodtalks.com. go to all the things, get the tech, watch the videos. Deirdre, you and I could talk forever.
Deirdre Van Nest: I know.
Shannon Waller: All right. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you, darling, for sharing welcome wisdom, for being my friend.
Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, back at you.
Shannon Waller: I love having, I call it my professional friend network. You have to be someone I want to spend time with and not talk about work. But then when people add their brilliance and their expertise and have something to contribute, to have people move forward, it just lights me up like nothing else. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being all of those things. I'm excited because I think there's a lot to learn and we are in the war for talent. Not that I love that analogy, but I think having the secret sauce and sharing who you are is one of the most genuine, transparent, and appropriate ways to do it. So thank you for this very important strategy.
Deirdre Van Nest: You're welcome. Thank you for having me on.
Shannon Waller: Okay, thank you.