Talk: Storytelling Strategies for Business Success

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Spencer Levy
I don't want to date myself with this reference, but for you Joe Friday fans out there, this show is about more than just the facts, ma'am. Facts, to hear my guest tell it, are often forgotten. Stories are what's memorable. On this episode, the power of storytelling. 

Esther Choy 
When you need people's business, when you need their money, when they need their time…. And the most precious resource, rare resource nowadays, is attention. 

Spencer Levy
That's Esther Choy, Founder and CEO of the Leadership Story Lab, a Chicago-based training and coaching company and author of the book, “Let the Story Do the Work.” We'll discuss the primary theme of Esther's work, that in life and in business, it takes more than data and information to engage a listener, a colleague, a client, any audience at all. Esther will share her perspective on that dynamic and other keys to winning friends and influencing people, to borrow from another old adage. Coming up, author and advisor Esther Choi on the persuasive work of telling stories, in ways that you can use this important, yet often undervalued skill. I'm Spencer Levy, and that's right now on The Weekly Take. 

Spencer Levy 
Welcome to The Weekly take, and I am delighted to have a master storyteller on the show here today. Not just a master storyteller, the one who wrote the book called “Let the Story Do the Work.” Esther Choy, CEO of the Leadership Story Lab. Esther, thanks so much for coming out today. 

Esther Choy
Thank you so much for having me. 

Spencer Levy 
So Esther, since we're talking about storytelling, let's start off with a simple question. What is storytelling? 

Esther Choy
Well, I define storytelling in a business and leadership context as the intention assertion of your point of view. And I think in business, especially in a dynamic and sometimes volatile industry such as real estate, everybody has an opinion, everybody has a point of view. And so why should anybody listen to any particular point of view? Well, it requires an intention, and it requires a strategic, and it requires proactively asserting your point of view, because after all, why do we need leaders? We need to be able to understand and trust and follow their point of view. And I define storytelling as a way to get to that, but also being able to speak to a broad set of audience, because not everyone may be able to understand the same set of jargon. 

Spencer Levy
So some people might say, oh, it's just the facts matter. The data and the facts will persuade me. How do you respond? 

Esther Choy
Well, most people are not persuaded by facts alone. In fact, if you wanna think about what is the difference between proving versus persuading? Any thought? 

Spencer Levy 
Oh, would you like me to answer that? Or…

Esther Choy
Yeah!

Spencer Levy 
Proving is the end result, because you can have an exact answer and everybody's going to get that answer. That's proving. Persuading is when proving is impossible, but persuading is to go with an outcome that is the most likely and the best one for that audience. That's how I would define it. 

Esther Choy
That's very close to how I would define it. Proving is amassing data, analytics, and showing of process to arrive at what? I am right, or I have the best answers. But proving, just because you've proved something doesn't mean that you've caused anybody to change their mind or see things differently. Versus persuading is a process of connecting with your audience, using facts where it is appropriate, to cause them to see things differently, and then most importantly, to do something. 

Spencer Levy
To act on it. 

Esther Choy
They overlap to act on it. They overlap, but they are not the same. Because we've all seen two people who think, well, I just need the facts, ma'am. Don't tell me anything else. But we have seen throughout history that people have been persuaded to do all sorts of things without needing any facts. And just because you proved that you're right, doesn't mean that you caused anybody to do anything. And I would add one more thing to people who lean into proving. They might be thinking they're persuading when in fact they're proving, is the willingness to let go of the fact of being right. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, interestingly, that last point is the emotional part of it, and the emotional part of it is, you're not trying to manipulate the audience, you're trying to persuade the audience. But at the same time, you are trying to persuade yourself. And doubt is as important as certainty, maybe even more important. 



Esther Choy
Yes. And so what I highly recommend clients do is not work against human nature, but work with it. 

Spencer Levy 
So Esther, storytelling for our listeners who are primarily real estate professionals: Why should they do it? What does it mean to them? 

Esther Choy
There are a lot of facts I imagine and a lot of data in the industry. And with storytelling comes understanding. And so I imagine just like most people, time is of the essence. We don't have all the time that we wish we had in order to show all the facts and let the facts speak for itself. And storytelling is a way to elevate the understanding and connect with your audience. Not only on a matter of fact level, you need to connect with them on an emotional level. And I can't think of…. Well, real estate is one of those industries where there are so many people involved up and down the chain of decisions that it is just as important to have all the facts on your side, to be aligned with them, to have emotion resonating with them. 

Spencer Levy 
Well I love that. I think the fact that you are changing storytelling to persuasion speaks to me. So, is persuasion and storytelling the same thing? 

Esther Choy 
They are first cousins, and they share a lot of the same goals and they share a lot of the same roots. And you can tell a story but haven't persuaded anybody, or you could persuade someone without telling a story. But oftentimes the entryway that’s the easiest and most natural for people is through storytelling. 

Spencer Levy
Before we get into the specifics of the book, tell us about the Leadership Lab story. What is it? How did you start it? 

Esther Choy
Well, I was once upon a time a Mission Officer. And as such, I also traveled and told the world about the University of Chicago, how great it is. And I also tell the virtue of getting an MBA. And I was in the full-time MBA program. So part of my job is to convince people to quit their job for two years and pay a lot of money to get this degree. And the great thing about being part of a prestigious university is that it’s quite competitive. And so once we're done recruiting, then we change our role to become evaluators. And Spencer, I've read so many essays. So many essays. They are, might as well be called squandered opportunities, because you have this 2,000 words, give and take, of space… this is a long time ago, so social media didn't play into this. But you have 2,000 words worth of space to persuade people, to tell people who you are, to make a bet on you, to choose you over thousands of other people. But most people squander that opportunities and they regurgitate facts and they repeat what we already know about them. And so through that experience, I realized that, well, in a competitive environment, some people still get to where they want to be. Some people still get in. Many more don't, and it isn't about credentials. This isn't about qualifications. Sure, you have to have it as a start, but to get to a very narrow, tight doorway, you have to have the stories. So that's the original founding insight of the company, and I realized that it doesn't just apply to admissions. It applies to when you need people's business, when you need their money, when you need time. And the most precious resource, rare resource nowadays, is attention. 

Spencer Levy 
And you get that attention by giving a great story. And a story that is often your story, your unique story, and telling it in your own words. Because I think what you've suggested as an admissions officer at the University of Chicago, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, is that there's table stakes. Most of the kids, and pretty much all of them, have exceptionally high scores. They have exceptionally high extracurricular activities. They have leadership in their backgrounds, but they can't tell that story. And they can tell the story or they won't tell that story because they don't think they should tell that story. They think that there's a formula. And people going off that script to get people to persuasion are the winners. What's your point of view? 

Esther Choy 
I think all good stories have a structure. It's not a formula. So we can get into that later. And you get into people's heart by touching their emotion in some way. In the early years of founding of my company, I've had former partners of large professional service firms, after they listened to a presentation or two, they'd come and talk to me and then there would be an “aha” moment and they would say, you know, I've seen so many presentations, pitches, my whole life, I don't remember a single thing or information or data, but I remember some stories, even if I don't' remember what presentation I heard the stories from. I have never, ever in my 15 years had a client who came up to me afterwards and say, you know, that pivot table on slide number 27 really hit me right in the heart. It's always the stories that's memorable. It is always the stories that make you feel something because logic makes you think. Emotion makes you act. So we should differentiate, what  do we mean by telling stories? Because that's one of those words that could mean anything. So Spencer, what's your story? Hey, what is the story with contractor? Or what's the story of the day? So a story can mean a lot of things. And when I encounter people who have hesitation about should I be telling a story? Would storytelling help? They have maybe encountered times when they were told stories where they're basically synonyms for being misled or lied to or they're not being told with the best intention. And so I want to acknowledge that that could be misused, or could be abused. Assuming that we have the best intention, what I'm talking about in storytelling isn't going to compete at The Moth and winning a grand slam title. I'm not talking about going to your neighborhood bar open mic night. I'm talking about telling your stories in ways that help your audience understand, in ways that resonate with them, and in ways to help them make decisions. In fact, studies have shown that merely seven days after being exposed to facts, the average rate of retaining the fact is about 10%. Now, you're an economic advisor, you're in real estate, so you're no strangers to facts. How does that make you feel? Seven days after you give a presentation, if there's any facts involved, they'll retain 10% of it. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, fortunately, I tell mostly stories in my presentations, and I've had people come up to me years, years, after my presentations and recount the stories I had told, and then I hope I use them to persuade. 

Esther Choy
Yes, yes. And so, fact is 20 times more likely to be remembered if it's weaved into a narrative. We should be fact-based, but not fact-driven. We should be audience-based instead. What makes sense to them? What would they want to know first and second? I like to say that telling a story in a leadership context is about strategic sequencing of facts and emotion. Not to manipulate, but to influence, and the way that you influence them is by strategically sequencing facts and emotion. 

Spencer Levy 
So let's go there, because one of the things you have talked a great length about is the structure of a story. And you talk quite a bit about screenwriting, short story writing, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. Tell us about that. 

Esther Choy
Yeah. So all of us who teach storytelling really owe a lot of intellectual legacy to a man named Joseph Campbell. I think a lot of your listeners might be familiar with Star Wars. And if you're familiar with Star Wars and the like, that would also be coming from Joseph Campbell, someone who studied mythology around the world very extensively and he, a lot of people follow his hero's journey archetype. Meaning that it doesn't matter the setting, language, culture; it’s the same person, the central character, who've been through this story arc, that got through the transformations and leading to a rising tension and all of that. It's long. It's complicated. It’s classic. But modern leaders don't have the time to look at 7, 12, 19 steps of the hero's journey. So I come up with something that has been quite useful to people, and it's called the IRS model. Now, if you hear those three letters, I and R and S, you might think of tax, at least if you're U.S. based, but it has nothing to do with paying taxes to Uncle Sam, because IRS stands for intriguing beginning, that's the I. R stands for riveting middle, and then S stands for satisfying end. So intriguing beginning, riveting middle, and satisfying end. I think most people can remember three things. And so whether they're writing an email, whether they are giving a formal talk, whether they’re informally pitching, or just reconnecting with a colleague, you can think of the message or the story that you tell in those three components, and that delivers for you every single time. 

Spencer Levy 
And so who's the hero in the story? Are you the hero? 

Esther Choy 
Not necessarily. You could be, and that's what people default to while I'm telling the story. I'm telling the story about my company, so of course I or we are the hero, when in fact the hero could be somebody else. The hero could very well be your audience. And how much you show them you understand them and their journey and placing them as the central character, and you being part of it, but maybe not the lead men and women of the story, but a vital role nonetheless of their story, that actually can work equally well, if not better. 

Spencer Levy 
So one of the things you talk about in your book, which is super important to our professionals, is networking. And networking might be storytelling 101. If you have a story to tell, you could network. People are afraid of networking. Tell us about that. 

Esther Choy
This is something I realized at the University of Chicago when I was about to give the biggest presentation that I've never done of this kind. It was in Tokyo. And then, the new deputy dean deemed the Tokyo market to be the most important MBA market for us. And she's coming along. And so, uh-oh, not only is this my first time doing this, the first time working for a business school, and my boss's boss's boss is also there to help. And so I stressed out about this for a long time because up until that point, I was very self-obsessed. I was worrying about me, my appearance, how would I look, how would my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss evaluate me when I have an opportunity to really help these hardworking, young professionals. And so you're asking about networking, it's really no different. Yes, some people are very good at it. A lot of people dread it. So don't think about yourself. Think about how you can make other people's time there way more enjoyable, number one. And number two, maybe you can help them learn something. 

Spencer Levy 
What do you do, for people who aren't natural storytellers? And by the way, I don't know that anybody's a natural storyteller, per se. I think it's a myth. In fact, many of the people I've taught, I've often said, and I'll say it right here. My introverted students are better overall than my extroverted students because the extroverts tend to wing it. The introverts will put in the work. They will use the techniques to build a great story. First of all, do you agree with that? 

Esther Choy 
I think introverts have certain advantages that extroverts don't, and vice versa. So in this case, introverts tend to want to weigh their words, think about things, mull over things before they actually say it. And so what you're observing in extroverts, that they're very good at winging it, is between a thought and idea and when that thought and idea left the lips is a really short amount of time. And so they may or may not have thought it through nor run it through a structure. But what I wanted to point out about being natural that runs across extrovert, introverts, is are you curious about other people? Do you have a natural empathy to try to experience the world through their lens? If you have the curiosity and the empathy to try to find other people's stories, that makes you all that much more of a powerful storyteller. 

Spencer Levy
What are some of the key elements for somebody who doubts? There are the investor or the occupier side of real estate and many of them have their noses on their Excel spreadsheets six to eight hours a day. How do we persuade that person that they need to pull their nose out and tell a story about those numbers? What are some of the techniques you would recommend they use? 

Esther Choy 
Besides IRS, I want to encourage your listeners to start any communication, presentations, any exchanges with a hook. That's the intriguing beginning. That's the part that I spend the most time on. A hook can simply be thought of as a conflict, a contrast, or a contradiction.

Spencer Levy
Well, I'll give everybody my personal hooks I use, both on stage and in my emails, which is, I call it the three F’s: family, food, fun. I sent emails yesterday with restaurant recommendations to senior leaders of the industry. I sent emails yesterday with rock and roll–I always have rock and roll references, including on this show, and I'm disappointed, Esther, that you haven't thrown one in yet, and we're gonna get to one as well. But you want people to have that little mental breather, a break, of something that humanizes you and them during what is a serious business conversation. And every time I'm on stage, it's a serious business conversation. Every email I send, I read it over and over again, because it makes a difference. But is there something in there that's gonna make them remember it? That's the hook. And it can be as simple as the family, food, and fun. 

Esther Choy 
Well, and that's what we all have in common. We all have to eat. We all love to have some fun once in a while. And we all have families. And that's a brilliant tactic because it gets you on the same level with your audience no matter what. 

Spencer Levy 
What's some of the most positive feedback you've gotten about the book from business leaders? What's some of the negative feedback you've got? 

Esther Choy 
Let's talk about the negative one first, because those tend to occupy our minds a little more, for more share of time than they ought to. But I eventually understand where they're coming from. The negative feedbacks had to do with, well, this doesn't make me a better writer. And I thought, well, it doesn't, and it shouldn’t, because I didn't set out to write a book to teach people how to be a better writer. So anyway, now I really understand why people don't like a certain thing because they have different expectations than what you set out to deliver. I think one of the most memorable, unsolicited feedback of the book was somebody who wrote he's a car designer with one of the major car manufacturing in the world. He said, that book showed him how to pitch senior executives. Because when they pitch, this is eight years ago, when they pitch a moving vehicle of tomorrow, it isn't about just betting on something. Although the CapEx, the investment, to back a new design can be crippling, but it also impacts the brand quality, the brand equity of the company. And so, when he read the book, not only did he walk away with more tactics and how to structure his pitch, but he also had a lot more understanding of why it's so hard to convince senior leaders to back their newest, brightest, best idea. And they understood why they get turned down all the time. 

Spencer Levy
I think that doing nothing is the most powerful force in the universe: inertia. Getting something to actually move is power. That is persuasion. That is where emotion comes in. 

Esther Choy
And it's easy to not do anything even to things that you agree with that you should do maybe someday yourself. I should eat healthier, exercise more. I should go out and market myself more, you know, whatever that may be. Inertia is a great stalling tactic. And so I encourage people start with something that most appeals to them. I once talked to a friend about things that had not been going well in the business. And then I would tell her, Kelly, I should go talk to more people. I should write more emails. I should post more on LinkedIn. I should now go write the book proposal. And then she stopped me and she said, Esther, listen to yourself. You know you're not gonna do any of it. So start with something that you want to do. And so in this case, whether it’s asking someone a great question and get them to tell you their story so you don't have to tell it, great. In fact, that's the focus of my second book. If it's, oh, I love bringing the contrarian view, so that contradiction way of establishing a hook, I will try that. There are so many tactics that will enhance the way that you can reach people, how far you can reach people, how persuadable they become. Start with what appeals to you most. Start with, I want to do this, not, I should do this.

Spencer Levy
So let's end this conversation with your LinkedIn profile, which reads, “I begin my Mondays with a hundred meter swim and a raw jalapeno.” That is the opening line in your LinkedIn profile. Every picture tells a story, don't it? But so does 8 words. Tell us about that and what lessons people should learn from your LinkedIn profile opening phrase. 

Esther Choy 
So it's actually, I begin every Monday with a thousand meter swim and a raw jalapeno. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, a thousand's better than a hundred. 

Esther Choy
A thousand is… a hundred is a warm-up, it's a good warm- up. A thousand is a workout. So, I'm a swimmer. I think it is the best exercise there is. During COVID, my gym still kept the pool opened, and so that's the only form of exercise I got. But afterwards, I was hungry, I needed to eat something, but not a whole lot of things were open in downtown. And the only place that's open had this Mexicana skillet. And it has a lot of raw jalapenos. And I'm raised by people who think food waste is their cardinal sin, so I ate everything, including the raw jalapenos. And the first time I did it, my stomach hurt a little, but I felt great, and I thought this is such a great way to start Monday, and so ever since then, that's how I start Monday. A swim and a raw jalapeno. And, why is that on my LinkedIn profile? What does that have to do with what I do? Well, something that is textured, and going back to this very wise and great orator by the name of Spencer Levy. He said family, food, and fun is always something that he can start with. Well, food and how I decide to start my week indirectly says something about who I am and what you can expect if you work with me. 

Spencer Levy 
Family, food, and fun, and a fantastic conversation. Esther Choy, CEO of the Leadership Story Lab, author of the book that we just talked about the whole time about storytelling. And you have a new book coming out. Are you able to share the title of the new book? 

Esther Choy
We don't have a title yet. It’s by HarperCollins Leadership. It will be due out in 2026, next year. And it's a storytelling book for people who don't want to tell stories. 

Spencer Levy 
Alright. Well the first book is entitled “Let the Story Do the Work,” and the second book will be something along the lines of, “Get Working on That Story.” Thank you very much, Esther Choy.

Esther Choy 
Thank you, Spencer. 

Spencer Levy 
We hope you enjoyed that informative, conversational page-turner. And that's not the end of our story. There's more on our website, CBRE.com/TheWeeklyTake. And of course, many new chapters of The Weekly Take to come. We hope you'll spread the word and help persuade your business friends and wider network to join us. You can do that through our homepage or by subscribing and reviewing the show on the platform of your choice. Please also drop us a line. Let us know your story and tell us what other real estate stories you might like us to cover. We'd be happy to hear from you soon. For now, thanks for tuning in. I'm Spencer Levy. Be smart. Be safe. Be well.