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Richard Ellis: [00:00:00] According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B buyers say that success stories and case studies are among the most influential resources in their purchasing decisions. Yet only 34% of companies feel that they use them effectively. Case studies now rank in the top three trust building content formats with 78% of decision makers relying on them to validate vendor claims.
Richard Ellis: Companies that consistently share compelling customer stories generate up to 45% more qualified leads and see engagement rates climb by over 30% compared to traditional marketing content. Today we explore what makes a great B2B success story. Unpacking the research trends and real world impact of customer stories that build trust, drive conversations and set leading brands apart.
Richard Ellis: Welcome to some goodness where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future [00:01:00] C-level leaders maximize their impact. My guest today is Dr. Jim Karrh. Jim, welcome.
Jim Karrh: Richard, thank you. It's a, it's a pleasure to be here. Um, this is a, a great setting and I look forward to the conversation.
Richard Ellis: You've had, um, a lot of opportunities to work with clients and, uh, you know, of course we've, we've done some of that work together. Um, but one of the things that, um. That, that you and I have enjoyed, uh, together and separately over the years is creating good customer success stories. And, um, I was just recently reminded with some, uh, customer project work that not all companies do a great job at it, as simple as it sounds, right.
Richard Ellis: Uh, I think there there is some, uh, some good. Principles behind, uh, doing it well, and that's what I'd love to dig in with you today. And so, um, let's just talk about, you know, uh, kicking off [00:02:00] with your view on kind of what are the essential components that make up a good success story. Let's talk about the ingredients first.
Jim Karrh: Sure. And, and there's certainly no lack over the past, I'd say decade at least, of people talking about the importance of storytelling, um, and, and how that can drive conversation and connection.
Richard Ellis: Um, yeah, I kind of skipped the why. You know, we we're, we're trained to always start with the why. I think it's obvious why customer, why you want some customer success stories, right?
Richard Ellis: Lots of, uh, lots of goodness in that. But yeah. Let's, let's get into the,
Jim Karrh: so what, let's, let's look at why is story important. You know what we think about customer success stories, but what makes stories in general compelling? Well, they tend to have components and there's a path, uh, and people talk about hero's journey.
Jim Karrh: They talk about other, other structures, but if you think about movies or programs that you like, they, they tend to have a very common, uh, sequence that they follow First. We, we set the scene, we're introduced to [00:03:00] characters. We get something about their environment. So maybe it's, you know, it's a, it's a couple with young kids in a suburban setting, and we hopefully, if it's written well, we like the characters or we, we are engaged with them in some point.
Jim Karrh: And then once we kind of have an understanding of what this world is like, something happens, it's an alien invasion, it's a new, somebody coming into the uh, uh, into the neighborhood. It's, uh, the person loses their job, uh, or they, they see someone that they're really interested in. You know, will the guy get the girl or will the girl get the guy?
Jim Karrh: Or whatever. So something disrupts that. And then our, our, our person, our main characters have a decision to make. They have an uncertain path. What are they gonna do? What's gonna be the result? Do they have other people who are affected by this, a family or, or a community? Do they have a guide? Do they have a Yoda that that's bringing, uh, helping bring them along?
Jim Karrh: And then what's the result? And hopefully it's, uh, [00:04:00] happily ever after. Uh, and so those are the, the parts of the story. And, and there are in what we typically see in, in case studies and the structure of customer success stories. Get most of that. So they'll, they'll have, here's the setting right here was the, here was the environment, here was the problem.
Jim Karrh: Someone who was running a division, or we had this unit, or we had a new solution, or we had a new customer. Right? And, and so we had to decide what to do. So there was some sort of intervention. We, we bought something, we did something different, and here was the result. And, and to a degree Richard, that that's pretty good, but it's not complete.
Jim Karrh: Because what's missing in their way? There's, there's not emotion in most of them. And so they're, they're technically correct and we have most of the components. But I would say the challenge for a lot of customer success stories, however we convey that, is to bring that human element in. 'cause there was [00:05:00] something that happened.
Jim Karrh: It was, and usually a, a fear and anxiety, um, a gnawing, uh, that. That goes with the decision to buy something or to intervene in the first place,
Richard Ellis: right? And so you may have the right flow of here's the context or the situation. Here's the problem, here's the solution, here's the answer or the resolution. But that can be dry unless you weave in this emotional component.
Richard Ellis: So what does that look like, right? How do you do that in a business context without being goofy?
Jim Karrh: Yeah, and you don't wanna be goofy. We're not trying to write a novel here, right? We're trying to provide nuggets that can be used in conversation or in social media, or on a website or at a presentation in lots of different ways.
Jim Karrh: But we know that potential power if we get this right. So again, we're not trying to be. Overly creative, but there are, there are issues. Whether you, you've got somebody helping you [00:06:00] in this or you're trying to, to do it yourself. How do we take something that's relatively bland and dry and, and get that human component in while still serving a business conversation purpose?
Jim Karrh: I say you have to dig a little bit. It can be, this can be, uh, difficult for a lot of companies because. Things get separated over time. So think about a typical, you, you land a nice deal, you, uh, sell a solution into a, a great customer or someone who, um, fits your ICP and they're getting some good results.
Jim Karrh: You wanna go back and say, Hey, we wanna, we wanna share that story because we think it'll appeal to somebody else. It might be a year after the deal was sold, right? Right. And so, you know who sold it and who's on the account team now, and who were the decision makers way back then. Can we even identify them?
Jim Karrh: Can we find them? They may have moved on, uh, or they're onto other things like that. Like, I don't even remember why I said yes in the first place. So, um, you're oftentimes trying to go back in, in history, but it's, it's [00:07:00] still a, a possible thing to do. I, I, I think back, if I may share a, a brief example of this.
Jim Karrh: Sure. Um, it was a, a client that at the time they, they provided. Uh, data and reporting that helped companies with a lot of logistics. And transportation work. So at the time there was not quite as much automation as exists today. This was a few years back. Uh, but they had sold a really nice deal into a company that did daily scheduling of loads on rail systems.
Jim Karrh: So essentially stuff that goes on trains and, uh, and their world every single day. Uh, it was starting in new. So it is almost kinda like a FedEx model or UPS model. But, um, but applied to trains. So they had to figure how do you optimize loads and, uh, in this sense you've got very delineated routes and, and, uh, how do you make that efficient?
Jim Karrh: Well, the decision maker, uh, who actually bought the [00:08:00] solution was the general manager, uh, had a big responsibility at this particular, I went back to the, the salesperson and I, I was trying to, to find out what was the gnawing problem at the time, and I said, so what did this person say? When you were presenting, um, presenting your solution, and he goes, Jim, he didn't say much.
Jim Karrh: He yelled a lot. What was he yelling about? I said, well, this particular person, you, their day started early and he was typically one of the very first people into the office. And he has this view about all his colleagues and all his associates that are, that are trying to schedule these loads and, and get things moving.
Jim Karrh: And people would come in. They wouldn't be at work right away. I mean, they would be at the physical location, but they were standing around and they're sipping coffee and they're literally at the water cooler talking to one another. And he would get so frustrated. He's stomping around red faced and he said, I'd, I'd fire them all if I could replace them.[00:09:00]
Jim Karrh: And, uh, and so that's, that's pretty, pretty big emotion at the time. As it turns out, um, the, the provider of the data and the reporting stuff wasn't even available. To his employees when they were showing up for work.
Richard Ellis: Oh, wow. So they were
Jim Karrh: literally standing around because they couldn't schedule the loads.
Jim Karrh: And then there was a big scramble, like, you know, nine o'clock every morning and they're always operating behind us. It turned out the problem wasn't peak, the problem was the system in a way that could be fixed. And so. If you can't relate to being the general manager of a, of a company that's scheduling railroads, you can probably relate to, I manage a team and they're standing around and I'm frustrated with them and I don't know why they're not as motivated as I am.
Jim Karrh: I'd fire 'em all and replace them all if I could. You can relate to that. Uh, but knowing that the, the answer actually was not. So we went and built that back into the [00:10:00] store. So we had all this stuff about faster processing and more efficient use of time and all that. Of course, we had that piece too, but there was a subhead when we told the story of, uh, basically I wanted to fire them all.
Jim Karrh: Right. And that was a hook that, um, was, was kind of a fun story to tell in many ways. And we found that, that the sales team got it and it, and it spoke to their potential buyers in, in a way that, uh, again, a more bland story about processing speed really didn't.
Richard Ellis: I love that. Right? So rather than slow processing speed or untimely data or batch loading of this, that, and the other, you know, you're turning that around to a, a team, you know, twiddling their thumbs, standing by the water cooler for a couple of hours in the morning because they can't do their work.
Richard Ellis: Right. That's that's right. I love it. I love it. Well, uh, let's move on to, okay, so we, you gotta have the flow. Right. You gotta tell the story and there are certain ingredients for good storytelling, and you gotta [00:11:00] inject that emotional aspect, uh, throughout. Uh, let's pivot now to say, okay, let's assume we've got a number of stories built that way.
Richard Ellis: How do we use them and present them for, you know, maximum impact? What, what,
Jim Karrh: what's some of your advice there? Here's, here's my advice in whatever your starting point is for your team or, or for your company. I'm a big fan of what we might call story banks. It's a collection, almost like a box of chocolates, right?
Jim Karrh: You're gonna have, you know, a dozen or however many, and some have almonds and some have caramel, and some are, you know, dark or whatever. Um, because as we know objectively from the marketplace that buying teams are larger and larger. For, especially for anything that's high value that you're selling. So what we want, ultimately, the Stephen Covey, let's begin with the end in mind.
Jim Karrh: We want a a set of stories. Ideally it's maybe [00:12:00] eight to 12, but your mileage may differ, but we want to set of stories where I would say we have at least one. Actually, I would say at least two. Let's have at least two stories that relate to, um, a particularly important buyer role or solution or use case.
Jim Karrh: Of where having a compelling story would help accelerate our sales process. Mm-hmm. Think through what would we want to have available that, that everyone's trained to, they understand, they actually would enjoy sharing that story. Yeah. And then build back from there. So you might have, uh, some existing case studies today.
Jim Karrh: And they may be fairly current, they may be a little dated, maybe some that, you know, you, you want to update. Maybe you need to start recreating a little bit from the experiences of your sales team and your marketing team and the client. But I'd say start there. Lemme ask you a question.
Richard Ellis: Yeah. If you don't mind.
Richard Ellis: And that is, I noticed [00:13:00] you mentioned that you want, you know, a couple of stories per persona you're selling to or use case, uh, but you didn't mention industry. How important is it to have them buy industry? Or can you use cross industry references? I'm selling to manufacturing, but I'm gonna use a logistics story.
Richard Ellis: Um, opinions on that. Does it need to be like, for like, or.
Jim Karrh: Uh, there, this is an area and, and Richard, when you and I, uh, together separately and we work on messaging playbooks and we, you know, we get teams together and talk about it, those are some of the areas we, we wanna flush out a little bit. There are some areas where people say, you know, look, everyone say, you, you gotta know my, I wanna speak specific to my industry.
Jim Karrh: Although I would say, um, I'd be open to it, I think through what are the decisions, what are the business problems that your buyers really need to solve? And sometimes they think of it differently than we might. Uh, brief [00:14:00] example of that, uh, it was, I was working, uh, with a client using high value manufacturing and they served.
Jim Karrh: Lots of different industries, including, uh, manufacturing, oil and gas, mining, uh, a lot of, a lot of different areas. As part of the discovery process, I was put in touch with what, what the company considered to be one of their very best customers. And, uh, uh, been buying from them for a while, really integrated, you know, did, did a lot of user work with them.
Jim Karrh: And I was asking, you know, what is it that we can bring to you in terms of stuff maybe you didn't know or a different perspective. That, um, that would be helpful to you. And he said, you know, Jim, I've been doing business with this company for more than a decade and no one's ever asked me in quite that way.
Jim Karrh: And here's something that I think, and he was in the manufacturing world, uh, well actually in the, uh, oil and gas world. And he said, I bet there are people who have my kind [00:15:00] of role in a related industry that might be able to tell me something different. Gimme a different perspective. And we talked about the mining industry as opposed to oil and gas.
Jim Karrh: And, and just to synthesize there, both of those industries, they have assets that are commodities that are in the ground, and they have to look at market conditions, which can change rapidly cost of extraction and uh, and how do we process those materials and get them to processors in a way we can make some money.
Jim Karrh: Yeah. Uh, and, and so that's related. He said, I, I talk to other oil and gas people all the time. I said, so I, it would be really valuable to me if I could hear some examples or, or talk to people who are in mining and maybe they have some approach that, that we hadn't thought of. Right. Either a company, so the, the, our client company could be actually more of a facilitator that way.
Jim Karrh: So to your question is, does it have to be very narrowly, uh, industry specific? Maybe, but part [00:16:00] of the value that you can bring in as an expert, because you're not just an an expert in your product or your solution. You might not even be just an expert in your industry. You're an expert in the kinds of problems and challenges and opportunities that the people you're selling to have to face and how they can best fix them.
Jim Karrh: And sometimes bringing in something like that can really position you very well as an expert seller.
Richard Ellis: I like that. Uh, and I think that's encouraging, especially for companies that are trying to penetrate new industries and expand into new industries. And they don't have any. Stories yet, right? They're trying to land their first handful of deals in a new industry.
Richard Ellis: You can look for parallels and you can look for common problems. Um, you do want to kind of be able to connect the dots and, and speak their language and relate it, you know, in a way that, uh, that, that they're gonna, you know, understand. But, uh, but yeah, I think that's great. Well, um, the, the idea of a story bank, [00:17:00] right?
Richard Ellis: A collection of stories. Gives us, you know, kind of the, the ammo, right? Uh, the, that, that we could pull from, uh, and apply it to the right use case or the right persona, um, the right company or the situation. How do you, um. How do you really do that well, right? If, if we're, you know, gonna say, Hey, team, you know, we've just updated, you know, a handful of, uh, of success stories that go to it, go use them, right?
Richard Ellis: Mm-hmm. Not everybody's gonna use them well, right? So, what, what's, how do you use them effectively? How do you deploy them? Um, what, what, what are your thoughts there?
Jim Karrh: Um, I have, um, a, a shorthand that I follow when it comes to storytelling and other messaging, and how do you lead good customer conversations in those tasks.
Jim Karrh: Actually, it's evolved over time a little bit, Richard, I used to say the three keys are knowledge, skill, and [00:18:00] confidence, but I've come to, I've come to see that confidence is an X factor. That's really a, a byproduct. It's not an input. And so what I think now, the, the key inputs that managers, leaders should think about, if you want your people to be good at this, yes, they need knowledge.
Jim Karrh: So they need the story bank and they need the, the industry knowledge, the business acumen of, of what to, what to say and how to convey it. The second thing is skill that's gonna come with practice. And there are some things about storytelling that are a little bit particular, that are, that are different.
Jim Karrh: Um, and, and then the third thing is, I would say it's it's team or organizational support. So do we, do we build this into our meetings? Um, do we, do we see our managers as coaches modeling what we want to do, going into it with us? Do we see our colleagues doing it? Are we getting feedback? Is it essentially, hey, this is a thing that we are doing together?
Jim Karrh: Um, so knowledge and skill development is a little bit individual, but [00:19:00] it's, this is also a team sport. When, when it's done really well and we weave it into how we meet, how we train, uh, how we support one another, and how we coach, uh, our teams as well. Uh, I will say one little thing, this is tactically, um, and this is a little bit of an, uh, a knit, uh, or a little bit of a pet peeve that I have.
Jim Karrh: Uh, so if you take nothing else away, just tactically, I would not say, uh, in a customer conversation is I know of a situation that's exactly like what you're facing. Right. Uh, and, and Richard, you're nodding your head, for those of you just getting the audio here and smiling and nodding your head now, you might have your own reaction to that.
Jim Karrh: Uh, I can tell you knowing consumer psychology a little bit and just kinda common relationships, if you tell someone that they're exactly. Like somebody else that you know, or your, their situation is exactly, you might think you're demonstrating your understanding and expertise, but most people pull back from that.
Jim Karrh: They recoil from being [00:20:00] told that they're exactly like somebody else. So what you wanna do is tell 'em, this reminds me a lot of. Or you know, I see some similarities. It seems to fit a pattern. Yours there might be a little bit different. So tell me what's a little different about this and, but parts that might be similar to you.
Jim Karrh: So when you're conveying this, it's like, oh, you know, we're talking here. It reminds me of that person that I talked to is in a similar role as similar kind of thing. Um, so I would just not, I would avoid the word exactly
Richard Ellis: that. That's good. No, uh, you know, and we talk about how, you know, many companies like to think they're so unique, right.
Richard Ellis: Even though we kind of take a step back when we've seen, you know, dozens like them that have very similar processes and problems and all of that stuff. To, to your point, don't, don't say exactly. I like it. Right. That's great guidance. Well, um, one thing I wanted to ask you is, you know, kind of when you think about good customer success stories, you naturally think, okay, this is, you know, something for the sales team to use, [00:21:00] right.
Richard Ellis: Uh, as a proof point and, you know, to, to bring to life. Uh. The things that we can do for that, that particular prospect. And you think of marketing, putting it, you know, putting them on the website, right? So people can go browse and see where you've done this and the impact that you've had for others. Are, are there other functions in the business that we should think about that should be, you know, using customer success stories that, that maybe
Jim Karrh: companies are not right now.
Jim Karrh: I, uh, again, as a team effort, I think, uh, certainly with your sales team and your marketing teams, they're gonna be closest to it. Um, but product teams, customer success teams, um, others who are, um, who are there as, as users of it. Um, and sometimes we, we share stories internally. Mm-hmm. So, so that our internal folks who might not have as much contact with customers get it as well.
Jim Karrh: Um, so oftentimes it's a way of building a little bit more customer understanding and alignment internally, as well as how we put it on the outside. Um, [00:22:00] we also, we'll, we'll chunk it up. Um, these success stories. We may or may not be able to, to have people, you know, go onto video or, and name a name, or name a company name.
Jim Karrh: That's fine. Uh, we can always, um. Speak in, in a generality of a, of a role or a type of company or an industry and things like that as well. And, and still use a, a poll quote if we're not attributing it to an, to an individual. Yeah. But there are lots of ways, given the story, that we can share it and reinforce it.
Jim Karrh: Both, both internally and, and externally.
Richard Ellis: I, I like, uh, so product so they could have a better representation of, you know, the value we're creating, the problem we're solving, and kind of get, they want that feedback too, right? Because they're interested. Uh, from that perspective as they continue to build new features, et cetera.
Richard Ellis: Um, and, and wanna make sure that the product they're, they're supporting is getting used and, and providing value to the market. Uh, customer success. You know, we, we talk a lot about how the, the trend now is they are starting to have more quotas for not only retention, [00:23:00] but also expansion. And so, uh, thinking about, you know, every interaction that they have with a current customer can be an opportunity to.
Richard Ellis: Solidify value or, you know, uh, position value. And, and you could use the success stories for that. What the dimension I did not think about was internally. But, uh, that's a great reminder that, you know, just the broader team having a better kind of working knowledge of how we're impacting our customers, the problems we're solving and all of that goodness.
Richard Ellis: I think that internal dimension can, can often be missed. Uh, as we wrap up here, 'cause we are out of time, is there anything we didn't cover around success stories or storytelling that you wanted to get in before we, before we call it to a close?
Jim Karrh: Um, you know, I would, I would just say, uh, again, one of the, one of the trends overall in, in high value selling that we see is that there are larger and larger buying groups.
Jim Karrh: They're more and more. Personas and roles that are involved in deals tend to take longer. Um, we got a lot of data in that [00:24:00] regard. So when you're thinking through your success stories, talk about what's, what is really a positive outcome that we want to demonstrate we, we built in the emotion, we built in, how we helped, and then what was the outcome?
Jim Karrh: I would think through all of the different, um, roles and personas that, um, there would be some good effect or good outcomes. So, um, did people save time? Uh, did they save frustration? Did they, were they more compliant? Did they, um, get, uh. Richard, you and I were talking off mic, uh, at, at some point about where there was an example where you had a, a customer, they went through a sales transformation, they had a smoother process, better messaging, things were connected, they increased their pipeline, but they also, um, were, they had more close or lost deals, right?
Jim Karrh: Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We, we lost [00:25:00] rate actually went up. Our loss rate was actually going, but it was really a way of cleaning the pipeline. Yes. And so, um, and where does that, where does that benefit? Well, um, I was thinking through like, okay, well people on the, on the financial side of the company probably have forecasts that they trust more going forward.
Jim Karrh: Yeah. Um, there's better, uh, you have better pipeline reviews for your managers and your sales teams as a result of doing that. Uh, saving time, saving frustration, you know, better. ICPA lot of things are happening. So when you are, are framing the outcomes that you had in your success. Stories, think broadly as well.
Jim Karrh: So some of those, um, are quantifiable and some of them are, you know, we, they drove our revenue or they save cost, but also think about. Worry about compliance, frustration levels, stress levels go down and, and it, it, it makes, um, it just makes the way that the teams work together better [00:26:00] going forward. So don't be afraid to, to think broadly about the types of success that you're generating.
Richard Ellis: I like that. That's really good. Great reminder. And, um. And we're out of time, unfortunately. Uh, really always love chatting with you. Let's close with with my typical question of goodness. Um, so, um, what has brought you some goodness, uh, outside of, uh, writing and, uh, good success stories and delivering great value to your clients?
Richard Ellis: Uh, anything you wanna share with us? Book Hobby Pastime. Vacation.
Jim Karrh: Uh, I wish it were a vacation. Uh, maybe, maybe another time I'll be able to report on something like that. Uh, this was actually a, a reminder I went back in, in just, uh, to a book that I've read a zillion times. Uh, but it's one that I recommend to other people as well.
Jim Karrh: Uh, there's playback. Robert Cini is one of my professional heroes, wrote a book called Influence and he's written many [00:27:00] and Influence is now in its zillion edition. Uh, but it's. It's powerful. It's written for a, a, a lay person. And, um, he talks about, uh, in influence and it's very research based, but very an easy read.
Jim Karrh: It's not a stuffy academic thing at all. Uh, and in fact, uh, Richard, you and I actually, uh, uh, worked together with a company, uh, that was founded on Cialdini's, uh, intellectual property. That's right. That's a great success. And so, um, I would just recommend that. And, and he talks about some psychological principles that we as both as consumers and as sellers, uh, are natural shortcuts in how we make decisions and, and what we do in a complicated world.
Jim Karrh: And so if you can have a. An ethical and effective mastery of some of those things like social proof, then, um, you'll be very, very effective. So I can always, I recommend that, whether you're directly in sales or not, um, if you're ever want to be influential to others in and out of business, [00:28:00] it's a, it's a really good read.
Richard Ellis: Yeah. Great, great reminder. Good. Uh, good book. Classic. Uh, I've got it on my, uh, bookshelf up here. So, uh, again, thank you so much for your time today and I look forward to, uh, catching up with you another time, Richard. My pleasure. Thanks to everyone,
Jim Karrh: some goodness is a creation of revenue innovations. Visit [email protected] and subscribe to our newsletter.
