Dear Reader,

Do You Have Sour Grapes?

A fox once saw a bunch of grapes hanging from a vine.

He leapt for them. Missed.

Leapt again. Missed again.

After several failed attempts, he turned away and muttered,

“They were probably sour anyway.”

That’s how the mind handles disappointment—especially when pride is on the line.

It rewrites the story to make walking away feel smart.

Now let’s put that in your world.

A homeowner sees your price. It’s higher than they expected.

They feel anxious—but they don’t want to admit it.

So they say, “I need to think about it.”

They tell themselves they’re being responsible, not hesitant.

They convince themselves that cheaper is smarter.

That waiting is wise.

That you were probably overpriced to begin with.

But here’s the secret: they didn’t start with that story.

They built it—on the spot—to justify backing out.

So if their brain is going to write a story anyway…

What if you gave them a better one first?

That’s what today’s episode is about.

Roy and I unpack how storytelling works in the brain—biologically, neurologically, emotionally. You’ll learn how to dissolve objections before they ever form, not by arguing, but by showing a better future. By letting them borrow your belief. By letting your story become their story.

This is how objections die without a fight.

 

 

Watch / listen above or read below.

Todd Liles: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Another fantastic episode of Todd Liles and the Wizard of Ads. We’re going to talk about how to leap through objections, and we’re going to do it through storytelling. Which, if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, I hope that the listener, Roy, is beginning to understand the intense power of storytelling.

All the examples that we’ve given, all the things we’ve talked about, they take place in the narrative of a story. So every business owner faces objections, whether it’s about price, whether it’s about timing, whether it’s about trust, the competition. We all have them. But, listener, what if I told you that the best way to overcome an objection isn’t through arguing? It isn’t through pleading your case. It’s actually storytelling.

And today Roy is going to explore with us and explain how powerful narratives can actually dissolve resistance before it even arises. Roy, would you jump in and tell us, in your words, just at the very top, why is story so powerful?

Roy Williams: A man named Jonathan Gottschall wrote a book, and I forget the title of it, but you’ll find it. Gottschalk, G-O-T-T-S-C-H-A-L-L. I think Jonathan Gottschall, and it’s brilliant. It’s a fascinating book, but I think it’s called Man the Storytelling Animal or something like that. And I’ve been saying for, golly, 25 years, Todd, your body has about 100 million sensory receptors that allow you to see, feel, taste, touch and smell physical reality.

But your brain contains about 10,000 billion synapses. Which means that you and I are approximately 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist than a world that does. And so our ability to see on the visual-spatial sketchpad of working memory, in the dorsolateral prefrontal association area, which is… Put your hand on your right, behind your left temple, between your ear and your temple on the left ear, right under there, is the left hemisphere dorsolateral prefrontal association area. And right behind your forehead, right here, is the prefrontal cortex, which is the center of all decisions, all plans, and all judgments about things.

Decisions, plans, judgments. When you have made a decision, concluded something you’re going to say yes, you’re going to buy this product, okay? Or you’re going to take this action. Okay? Prefrontal cortex.

Now, Broca’s area, just forward of your left ear. It’s the visual part of your brain that’s behind your ear, but the Broca’s area is just forward of your left ear, attached to the auditory cortex. And that’s the part of the brain that, besides attaching action words, verbs to actions you’re trying to describe. Wiggle, slither, dance, kick, leap. These are verbs, and you’re imagining each of those actions.

Whenever I say those verbs, that’s happening because Broca’s area is reaching down into the temporal lobe and attaching that sound “wiggle” to the motion that you think of as wiggling. And you’re seeing it in the visuospatial sketchpad, sometimes called the visuospatial notepad, which you and I call the mind’s eye.

The mind’s eye. We see it there. Why? Because words… It was actually Dr. Roger Sperry who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in chemistry, no, not chemistry. It was Kary Mullis that won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in anatomy. Medicine. And it was for brain lateralization. The fact that a human being doesn’t have one brain divided into two halves as much as we have two separate competing brains.

The left brain is rational, logical, deductive, sequential reasoning. And all words are in the left brain. All language functions are in the left brain. Wernicke’s area, nouns. Broca’s area, verbs. And the arcuate fasciculus that connects the two of them. A high-bandwidth bundle of nerves. Think of it like Google Fiber. Now, by the way, the reason I brought up Dr. Roger Sperry, and then of course, he started MIT, and then he went to Harvard. It is why I can always say his name. It just escaped me for a second.

Todd Liles: I wish I could help you out. I promise you, I don’t know.

Roy Williams: This is a professor. And he was named a few years ago as one of the 100 most influential people in America by Time magazine. I can normally say his name. It’ll come to me in a minute. The point is, he wrote a book. Stephen something. He’ll come back to me. He wrote a book about writing and storytelling. And he basically was saying that it’s not five fingers and opposable thumbs that gives us control of the planet.

There are other animals that are much faster than us, much more powerful than us, much more dangerous than we are. Animals that can eat us and just dispose of us effortlessly. So why are we in charge? Why do we run things? Because we have a unique gift. And the thing that makes us powerful is our ability to attach specific actions and highly specific meanings to sounds. Did you know the written word has no meaning until it has been translated into the spoken word in the mind? It takes the average reader 38% longer to understand the written word than it takes tanks to understand the same words when spoken.

And so you cannot understand the written word until you hear it in your mind. Even when you’re reading silently. You have to hear the words in your mind for the words to make sense.

Todd Liles: Correct.

Roy Williams: The point is this. We were built for story. Our entire biological structure, our brain, our left and right hemisphere, everything about us. And this is one of those really remarkable moments. Whether you believe in creation, we were created by God as we are in the image of God, or whether you believe we evolved, this is that one moment when it doesn’t matter either way.

Your brain has these two separate competing brains. One is rational, logical, sequential deductive reasoning. And the other one is a shadowland of symbol and possibilities and impressions, gut feelings, hunches, intuition, premonition, and all of this pattern recognition of the right hemisphere of the brain.

When you come together now, you can tell stories. You can attach words to things for which there are no words. And you can communicate abstract things with extreme specificity. And no other animal can do that. Our ability to attach meaning, specific, detailed meanings to sounds, that’s what makes us special.

And so stories, we were built for stories. We were born for stories. Telling stories and understanding stories is what we do better than anything else we do. And when you understand a world of possible futures, possible outcomes, possible happiness ahead or possible catastrophe ahead. Whether you’re having joy or whether you’re having fear depends on the stories you’re listening to.

Todd Liles: Yeah, I just wrote down here as you were talking, I wrote down the word “anxiety.” And anxiety is seeing a future that is bad.

Roy Williams: Professor Steven Pinker. 

Todd Liles: Steven Pinker. 

Roy Williams: MIT and Harvard. He’s the guy that I was trying to think of. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead.

Todd Liles: No, that’s okay. So anxiety is this, this perceived future that’s not good. And then at the same side of that coin, or the other side of the coin is hope, a perceived future that is good. And that sort of got me thinking. And what I’m about to say is a little off topic, but I want to explore your thoughts on this, because this show isn’t just for the listener. It’s for me. So this part is for me.

I love to read, Roy. And I love to read in both the traditional way where I open up the book, not just read and I adore listening to audiobooks. Now, I know that there are some people that can read amazingly fast. And there is a part of me that can sort of look at the page and go, I don’t actually have to read every word, but that part feels a lot like work. It’s not very enjoyable. So when I read for enjoyment, I typically will read at a pace that’s not much faster than how I put the words in my head, which means I’m a slow reader.

Roy Williams: Me, too.

Todd Liles: But I really enjoy the experience. When I read a book, I can find that world much more powerfully than when I listen. But now, here’s the difference. I listen to far more books, and the reason why is that I can crank a book up to about one and a half, and it only sounds fast for about 30 seconds. And then my brain adjusts and it sounds totally normal. And I can listen to a book at a much quicker pace, and it doesn’t feel like work.

Reading fast feels like work. Feels like I’m trying to cram it in. Listening, no work at all. I can listen to an insane speed, sometimes up to two times, depending upon how slow the reader speaks. It’s an observation, but I think the reason why I’m bringing it out, and I think it’s interesting, is that I think a lot of people have felt this observation, and I think it makes a point. And the point that I am making here is that it’s all about the powerful story. But there is something in the effort of listening which is so passive, it requires no work. As long as the mind is cognitively aware, you’re awake or close to awake, you’re not in a state of hypnosis.

Maybe even if you’re in a state of hypnosis, that information is coming into you and you can’t stop it. I know that I have been scanning through books and have read pages, go, I don’t remember anything I’ve read. That doesn’t happen when I’m actually tuned in and I’m listening. It is still in there when I go back and relisten.

Roy Williams: There’s two things that you said that I want to emphasize and articulate. First, the rate of human hearing greatly exceeds the pace of human speaking. You can hear and understand much faster than people can speak. And so our ability to speak is limited. Our ability to hear and comprehend, we can do that way faster than people can speak. And so you can accelerate something double and your brain gets used to it and now your mind doesn’t wander. 

And the second thing was, you were talking about reading slow. Yeah, I read silently at about the same pace I could read it out loud. And it’s because I actually want to digest and feel and experience the words as though someone is speaking. And I’m not reading for information, I’m reading for impact. I’m reading as though I’m listening to somebody read to me. And that’s the pace at which I read. And so it’s not that I am a slow reader, or because I don’t have capacity to read fast. No, I’m a slow reader by choice. And if it doesn’t interest me enough to spend real time with it, I don’t read it at all.

And so I’m very self-accommodating that way. The other thing I wanted to talk about, we’re talking about stories. I remember one of the most delightful stories I’ve heard in the past 30 days, is Tom Casey was in town and I had never met him. And Corrine had scheduled for he and I to have lunch. And so I met him at a restaurant and he was talking about sometimes speaking to groups of home service companies.

And he says, you know, one of the things I very often do, he said, I’ll say, you know, we have all gotten these calls and just tell me, is this a call that you love getting? This call, do you just love that call? Or it’s like any other call, you can take it or leave it? Or do you just really, really, really hate this call? So just decide which one it is. And we’ll just kind of vote on it when we’re done and see who feels what.

He said, but the guy calls up, he’s an engineer, he’s a researcher, he’s a technician. He calls up and says, “Hey, I just want you to know, I know what unit I need. This is the size I need. This is the brand I need. And by the way, I know your cost. I know what that unit cost you. I’ve got a brother-in-law three or four states over and he owns this company just like yours. And so I know exactly how many hours it’ll take. I know about what you pay your guys. So I want you to make me a good price on this because I’ve done my homework.” And he said, “Now do you like getting that call? “

And everybody goes, no. I said, “Is this like any other call? ” No. And he says, “Do you really, really, really, really hate this guy? ” And they go yes, we hate that guy. We hate that guy.

Todd Liles: May he die.

Roy Williams: And says, may he die forever. May he die repeatedly forever. Like a person being punished by the Greek gods, you know. 

Todd Liles: Prometheus. 

Roy Williams: Prometheus, there you go. And he said, “Okay, so is it okay that we would call this guy a do-it-yourselfer? He’s got it all figured out. He’s a do-it-yourselfer.” And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll call him a do-it-yourselfer. He knows everything. He goes, “Yeah, we hate that guy, right? ” And then he said, “Yeah, and this is… So I got a question for you. Why do you do that to your advertising people? ”

And nobody sees it coming. I didn’t see it coming, but I’m going. Yes, my brother. It’s like Tom, yes. Because every competent advertising person just wants to shoot the client who says, “Well I’ll tell you what I believe.” Well then write your own ads, asshole. You know, it’s like, I’ll tell you what, me and my buddy were talking, my cousin, here’s what my cousin told me. Get your cousin to write your ads, then. And so again I want to share with the audience, everybody that’s ever walked the earth is certain they know what would work in ads.

And I’m going, if you believe that, I promise you will have bad advertising. I promise you will. Do you know why? Because you’re going to find somebody that is so bad at it, they’re willing to do what you tell them that you think would work. And then you’re going to blame them when it doesn’t work. And so what you have to do if you want good ads is make sure you’re talking to somebody that you know knows way more about this than you do, and you trust them. And then for the love of God, just do what they say.

The same way your customer needs to trust that you know what to do. And if they’re paying you enough to do it the right way, can I trust you to do it the right way and to do it really right? And so that’s what they’re looking for? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m looking for somebody that I think knows how to do it, and I can trust them to do it correctly. Even if it takes longer and costs more money, I want it done correctly. What is the price for it to be done really, really right?

Do you know how to do it right? Number two, are you willing to do it right? And three, at what price do I need to pay you to come in and really, really do it right? Because I don’t know what to do. Do you know what to do? And everybody goes, yes, I am the guy you need to hire. I do know what to do, and I really will do it right. And here’s how much it costs to have it really done right.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: Here’s the question. Everybody says they can, but do you actually do it and what people are looking for when they’re choosing a service provider, when they’re choosing a home services company? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m sure everybody knows how to do it right, but it’s harder, it takes longer, and it costs more to really do it right.

Todd Liles: That’s right.

Roy Williams: So if I pay you that much money, are you going to shortcut it and just put the profit in your pocket and bounce out of here and go do another job, or are you actually going to do it right? And so it’s only when they feel like they know you as a person that they can make a decision about whether or not you can be trusted. And that’s relational marketing.

Todd Liles: Let me share with you a real life story. A couple years back, I tore this bicep off my arm. If you look here, you can see a scar. You can barely see it, though.

Roy Williams: Whatever you were doing that day, don’t do that anymore.

Todd Liles: Well, I’ll tell you what happened real quickly. My mother was going through the act of passing away from this earth, and I was pouring all of my grief and suffering into doing ridiculous amounts of weightlifting. So over the course of about six months, I had slowly agitated this bicep and after she passed away, we got home, it was really late.

This isn’t the story, but it connects to the story. And I think we got home at like one o’clock in the morning and Shannon had said something like, I really wish that TV was upstairs. And it’s a 55-inch plasma, real glass, real metal. Back when that was a heavy TV. So this is, you know, about eight years ago now. And I said, I’ll take it upstairs. And straight out of a car. After an 11-hour trip, I picked it up without warming up and I tore my bicep off after many months of just wearing myself out. Anyway, I’m going to get it reinserted and I’d picked the surgeon and Dr. Padalecki, Jeremy, his brother. For those of you that know, Jared Padalecki is a very famous actor. He was in that long running series, Supernatural.

They’re all from San Antonio. I didn’t know it until I walked in there and I’m like, you look like someone. He goes, my brother’s Jeremy. I’m like, Jared Padalecki, of course I know who your brother is. Anyway, he’s going to do the surgery. We set the date. And then I started looking at YouTube videos and I realized just how risky this surgery is because this is the pathway for the nerves that run the hand. And there’s apparently lots and lots and lots of people that get nerve damage and have limited mobility.

And I’m starting to get freaked out. So I call in to the nurse and you know, I’ve got questions because he didn’t tell me much about, you know, his success or his results. And he’s at an ARC clinic down south. He wasn’t at one of the big hospitals, he was just in a clinic, you know, seeing patients. So he calls me after hours. I’m sitting at a restaurant with my in-laws and I step outside, it’s like 7:30 at night. Don’t know what the doctor’s been doing. And he was just so kind. And he said, Todd, I understand you’re a little nervous about this surgery.

I say, yes, yes sir, I am. Tell me why. And I started telling him. He goes, makes sense to me. I can appreciate that. Surgery is a very scary thing. And then he goes, did I, when you were in the office, did I tell you about some of the recognitions and awards that I’ve received? I was like, no sir. He goes, do you mind if I tell you about it now? I said, please. So he went on to tell me that he was the at the time, the current doctor for the U.S. Water Skiing and Snow Skiing Olympic team.

Roy Williams: Wow.

Todd Liles: So he does all their knees, does all their insertions. He says he’s done many, many of these surgeries. The year prior, he won the Albright Award, which is only given to one doctor in their field every two years. So he won this for his field of orthopedic surgery. And again, you only get it once and you can only receive it. It only is given out every two years. So this is like being recognized as the number one surgeon the year prior.

And then he went on to tell me after that about his technique and the procedure that he used as a distal button instead of a screw. And how six weeks out, I’ll probably have 95% recovery, probably have 97% recovery if I just follow what he recommends. And by the time we were done, I felt so at peace. And he asked me if I was still comfortable with moving forward with the surgery. And I’m like, why don’t you just tell me that to begin with? If I just knew the story. 

But you know, doctors in today’s case don’t have to really advertise, not in the traditional sense, but I’m sure there’s plenty of doctors that lose patients just like I did to fear or lack of trust or credibility.

And I bring this up because he gave me third-party proof. By the way, did I go verify that while I was on the phone with him? No. Could I have? Yes. Did I verify it afterwards? You’re damn right I did. Everything he said was true. He’s world class. In fact, I felt after the event, I felt lucky. By the way, out of the gate, Roy, 97% full mobility.

Roy Williams: Wow.

Todd Liles: 100% mobility within six weeks. I never had to have physical therapy, which is amazing.

Roy Williams: No kidding.

Todd Liles: Dr. Padalecki, if you ever need orthopedic surgery, come to Austin. He is amazing. The point of what I’m making here is that when we use storytelling, one of the things we can do is use third-party proof. And it’s sort of interesting how that’s used because it kind of goes back to previous conversations where it’s like, you got to use that the right way because if it’s used the wrong way, it comes off cheesy. This is always that art part about what you’re talking about.

So have you, in any of your writings, or have you ever seen an example where someone uses third-party proof in a magical fashion? Or is that one of those internal marketing type approaches? Sort of like when we help people like in the Kent story from earlier episodes, how would you connect that?

Roy Williams: Okay, so when you’re talking about third-party proof, give me your definition of third party.

Todd Liles: In this particular instance, it would have been the awards and the recognitions and the certifications that this doctor received that came from people in his field that said, yeah, he’s the best.

Roy Williams: Okay. So here’s what’s interesting. Something that I feel and believe very strongly. I could have shared with you, but by letting it come from a third party, Tom Casey, he’s not me. He’s not you. It’s someone who is not here. And so I let him tell the story, and I’m just telling you the story that he told me. And so the reason I wanted to tell his story is it’s not my story, it’s Tom’s story.

And the reason I used his name, because a lot of these people will know Tom Casey and they can ask him about it. Okay? And so that was very carefully thought out. So my third-party proof is Tom knows this is true and he related it to a story that everybody in the room could identify with. He talked to them in their own language about things they already care about and already understand, this impossible relationship between them, the technician and the know-it-all client. And so when I want to talk about the gap between the ad writer, the technician, and the know-it-all business owner, I don’t want to tell that story straight on.

It makes me look like a whiner and a complainer. But I’m going, no, no, no. I’m going to use it. I’m going to bounce it off the backboard instead of straight through. Nothing but net. No, no, no, no. I’m going to bounce it off the backboard called the Tom Casey backboard. And so I bounce the ball to Tom Casey, who’s not even here, third party. Not me, not you. And then bam, it bounces from Tom Casey through the net. And so anytime that you can. That’s why we do the two dudes ads. So it’s a third party. It’s not the advertiser, it’s not the customer. It’s just two random guys walking down the street and you’re eavesdropping on what they say, trying to figure out what they’re talking about.

Todd Liles: I love that.

Roy Williams: And so third-party credibility is anytime you say something indirectly by quoting someone else.

Todd Liles: Perfect. Perfect. I’m going to tie that in with the before and after… I’m calling it the before and after formula. It’s going to tie in perfectly. A client that I had, also named Patricia Rogers, wonderful English lady. She’s since passed on. I did such a great job of detailing how well our install was going to be, how beautiful it was going to be that she was convinced it was going to probably take a week. So she told me she was going to wait until she returned from Jerusalem.

Roy Williams: Wow.

Todd Liles: To which I said, you know, Ms. Patricia, how long do you think this is going to take? In her English accent, she said, well, with everything that you’ve described, it must take weeks. And I said, would you be surprised if I told you that I could do it tomorrow and it would be finished before you left on vacation? She goes, well, that’s a horse of a different color. And she balked.

So I bring that up because the before and after formula it is different than what you think. Objection. Approach. One of my favorites is actually when you created, Roy, for the ad I’m going to show you today. It’s one of my favorites. And I think it’s probably going to be one of yours too, because it’s actually the 1-800-GOT-JUNK, all you have to do is point ad. So let’s check it out and at the end we’re going to talk about why it works so well. Okay?

Roy Williams: Yeah.

TV Ad Transcript

Homeowner: You’re the people who make junk disappear.

Brian Scudamore: We brought a whole truckload of magic. 

Homeowner: So how does this work exactly? 

Brian Scudamore: All you have to do is point.

Homeowner: 1-800-GOT-JUNK, I love you.

Brian Scudamore: We make junk disappear. All you have to do is point.

Todd Liles: All you have to do is point.

Roy Williams: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Todd Liles: A beautiful before and after, where the objection is, this is going to be difficult. I got to call these people. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to… And you created this wonderful ad for 1-800-GOT-JUNK, which handles the objection of this is going to be a pain in the butt and it’s going to be hard. And in a few seconds, you tell them, no, all you have to do is point.

Roy Williams: Here’s what’s interesting now. See, I’ve been writing their ads for about, I think 12 or 13 years, and the company has grown from 97 million to now we’re tickling a billion. Took 23 years to get to 97 million. And then in two and a half years, we took it from 97 to 240 million. And then from 240 to the billion we’re tickling right now. And every year I think we’re going to break the billion, and this will be the year we do.

The point is, all of the franchise partners always think the important thing is to show people how carefully we carry the things down the stairs, so we don’t bump the walls and how hard it is to get in the truck and, you know, blah, blah, blah. I said, Yeah, they weren’t worried about you bumping the walls and scratching things, carrying stuff out, until you brought it up. It says, no. And to show them how hard it is and the fact that you’re going to show them strangers in their house, you know, carrying things down the stairs like, no, this is not… People don’t want you to have to work hard.

They don’t really even want to have to answer the door and let you in. They really wish that you could just slowly drive past the house and all the junk would just magically disappear from the house and secure in the back of the truck without you even having to come to the door. Just drive slowly by the house and it just pops into your truck. They would pay extra for that. And I said, so it’s called magical thinking.

And I just said, look, Brian Scudamore, deep in his heart, he believes in a magical world. And I know him well enough, and I got to know him well enough. It’s like when you know the client really well, now you can write ads for them, because it’s never about you and what you believe and what your opinions are. It’s always about them and what they believe and what their opinions are. And so remember, you’re writing in the voice of the client. You’re never writing in your own voice. And once I got to know Brian well enough to write ads for him, I said, we make junk disappear. All you have to do is point.

And people think… As a matter of fact, political cartoonists all over the country, they use that line. They’ll show a 1-800-GOT-JUNK truck out in front of a building, you know, sometimes the White House. And then it shows, you know, somebody’s leaving office and somebody else is coming in. And the 1-800-GOT-JUNK says on the side of the truck, says, we make junk disappear. All you have to do is point.

That’s not what it says on the truck. And everybody thinks that’s what it says on this. No, it only says that in the radio ads. On the side of the truck, it says, the world’s largest junk removal service. That’s what it says on the side of the truck. But it has become so much more well known simply because it calls upon the imagination. We’re describing something that factually is impossible. But it’s the better way to say full-service junk removal. No fuss, no hassle, no anxiety, no frustration. It is effortless, seamless, unbelievably pleasant.

And so how do you say that in just a few words, we make junk disappear. All you have to do is point. And so whenever you can say the most in the fewest words, it has the highest impact. And when you can say something really big in very few words, the words will always be unusual words in that application. In that application, we know what the word “disappear” means, but you can’t imagine pointing at something and it disappearing unless you’re magical. 

Todd Liles: Yes. 

Roy Williams: We don’t say we’re magical, you say we’re magical. We always say is we make junk disappear. All you have to do is point. Magical thinking. Magical thinking is whenever you say something that is obviously impossible, but you say it in a context of reality and you say it as though it is absolutely possible and it messes with people’s heads and it causes them to imagine the impossible thing happening.

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