Under the Influence with Storyteller Terry O’Reilly ep.173

How to become an epic storyteller with “Under the Influence” podcast host Terry O’Reilly. Terry and Andrea talk storytelling, elevator pitches, and peeling the onion to identify what business you’re really in.

TERRY O’REILLY

• Podcast ”Under the Influence” – https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/under-the-influence-with-terry-oreilly/id493536367
• Book – My Best Mistake (2023) – https://amzn.to/3zroPQe
• Book – This I Know: Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence (2018) – https://amzn.to/3TzNbOm
• Book – The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture (2011) – https://amzn.to/4ewW9Et
• Website – https://terryoreilly.ca/
• Terry’s recommendations:
  • “The Plot Thickens” podcast
  • The Score: Bank Robber Diaries podcast

CONNECT WITH ANDREA & TALK ABOUT TALK

• Website: TalkAboutTalk.com
• Communication Coaching Newsletter:  https://talkabouttalk.com/newsletter
• LinkedIn Andrea: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/
• LinkedIn TalkAboutTalk: https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkabouttalk/
• YouTube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube
  

TRANSCRIPT

That fabulous voice belongs to Terry O’Reilly host of the popular “Under The Influence” podcast. I’ve been listening to “Under The Influence” for years, and I’ve always enjoyed Terry‘s sense of humor, and his skill as an exceptional storyteller. I knew we were both Canadian and we’re both podcasters.  I had no idea he’s also a huge fan of the power of three.  Did you hear what he said?  Bingo, Bango Bongo. Let’s do this!

Welcome to Talk about Talk podcast episode #173 “Under the Influence with storyteller Terry O’Reilly”. In this episode, you’re gonna learn the ingredients necessary to create compelling stories, how and why to “peel back the onion” and think hard about what business you’re really in, and so much more.

In case we haven’t met, my name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki and I’m your executive communication coach. Please just call me Andrea. I coach executives like you to improve your communication skills so you can communicate with confidence and clarity, establish credibility, and ultimately achieve your career goals. Sound good? To learn more about me and what I do, head over to talkabouttalk.com and you can read about the coaching and workshops that I run.  Plus there are a bunch of free resources for you at the bottom of the takaboutalk.com homepage. You can also sign up for the Talk About Talk email newsletter, where you’ll get free coaching from me in your inbox. Head over to talkabouttalk,com to sign up now. 

Alright, Let’s shift gears. I can’t wait for you to hear my conversation with Terry O’Reilly. If you’ve ever heard his Under the Influence podcast, you know he is like an encyclopedia of stories and insights.  As you’re about to hear, he’s the same in real-time, without a script.  He’s also very gracious.

Let me introduce Terry, then we’ll get right into the interview. At the end, as always, I’m going to summarize with three learnings that I want to reinforce for you. Sound good?

Ok.

Long before he had a radio show, Terry was an award-winning writer at Canada’s top advertising agencies. Creating campaigns for top brands such as Labatt, Bell, Nissan, and the Hudson’s Bay Company.

In 1990, Terry co-founded Pirate Radio & Television with eight recording studios in Toronto and New York.

In 2005, he became the host of the CBC Radio One and WBEZ Chicago radio show, Under The Influence, with over one million listeners a week. His podcast has been downloaded over 75 million times.

Terry was awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Advertising & Design Club of Canada, and has been granted Honorary Degrees from three Canadian universities.

Ah – the power of three again.

Terry has also written three books, the latest being “My Best Mistake” about people who made catastrophic career decisions – but it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to them.

He has a wonderful wife and yes, three lovely daughters, Terry he says like some of this work.

Here we go!

 

INTERVIEW

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Thank you so much, Terry, for being here today to talk to me and the talk about talk listeners.

O’Reilly: Well, it’s great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: There are so many directions that we could go in this conversation advertising, branding, personal branding. But I thought something that really stands out about you that I appreciate very, very much is your fantastic ability to tell stories. So I thought we would start there. And I’m curious as a master’s storyteller. What do you think makes for a great story? Is there an ingredient list that’s necessary.

O’Reilly: That’s a very good question. when I think about that, I I think 2 things, I think structure. I think that’s always been one of my strengths. For whatever reason, who knows? Is story structure that may have come from almost 40 years in the advertising business, where you have to? You know, structure Mini stories inside 30 and 60 seconds, which is, you know, in a a Herculane feat at best. So I think. And even you see, a lot of movie directors start out in the advertising business, and they learn storytelling because you have to. You have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end inside 30 or 60 seconds. And I think that’s a real discipline that you have to develop. So structure is the key for me cause as a director, so I directed commercials for 3 quarters of my career. I think I directed my staff, told me at one time something like 14,000 commercials in my career.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Wow!

O’Reilly: So I got to see a lot of really great storytelling and a lot of really bad storytelling and where most stories fell down, Andrea was in the end. There was great beginnings, wonderful middles, and terrible ends. It just never wrapped up. They never had a they never had a destination in mind. It didn’t come to this wonderful satisfying. It’s like seeing a great move, and you think I loved everything but the way it ended. You know that because the ending is the toughest thing for a writer to write so structure to me is critical that you have a beautiful teasing opening, and then you have this really sumptuous middle. And then you have this inevitable end. That’s just so satisfying. I think the other little thing beyond story structure is the element of surprise. Where you don’t really know where a story is going, or you think you know where it’s going. And then the writer just yanks you to the left or to or to the right, and I think those unexpected moments add impact.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: My brain is immediately going to personal branding when you say that. But I’m going to stick with advertising for.

O’Reilly: There you go!

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Couple minutes here. So beginning, middle, and end. consistent with my love of the power of 3, I’m thinking about my my self-introduction framework where I encourage people to Start with who you are, what you do, what your passion is, what your expertise is. Ground yourself in the present, then go past to establish credibility. And most people end there. Right? They’re like, and that’s me. Right going around the table or around the screen step 3 is the icing on the cake. And you you said similarly that many people or many stories, are missing. Kind of that last? Yeah, that part 3 or the ending of the story.

O’Reilly: Act. 3. Yeah.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, act 3. So that’s that’s interesting. That that analysis.

O’Reilly: You know, even in sound, Andy, it’s interesting. You say that the power of threes I was known to be a I was a humor director. So if you had humorous scripts you would bring them to me. I I could do drama, but there were directors that were better at that than me, but humor was always my thing and I used to call them Bingo bango bongo moments that when things happen in threes like, you know, 2 knocks at a door is one thing, but 3 knocks is funny. and it’s hard to articulate. Why, that is, or if something falls off, let’s say a glass falls off a table. If it falls in a sequence of 3 sounds, it’s funny, and if it’s falls in 2, it isn’t so that even the power of 3 is a is a powerful rule within our audio.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I had no idea. But I’m not surprised. Yeah.

O’Reilly: Fact. Yeah. that’s the power of 3 a 3. Is this this amazing number in our lives? Although they say the world’s favorite number is 7, and the world’s favorite color is blue. But I’d say 3 is really it is that key secret ingredient.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, I I think 7 is like the maximum. There’s something like, that’s why phone numbers are 4. Right? Yeah, I I’m a fan of threes. You have 3 daughters right.

O’Reilly: I have 3 daughters. That’s right.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I did my, I did my reading. Terry.

O’Reilly: You did, you did.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So back to the storytelling. I’m I would love to hear what your take is on what brands are the best storytellers, maybe past and present.

O’Reilly: My favorite brand for storytelling of all time is Volkswagen in the in the sixties. So Doral Dane burn back, which I think was the greatest advertising agency of all time, led by Bill Burnback, probably the greatest creative director of all time. What they did with that brand to me is amazing, because if you put it in context, the early sixties automobile advertising was all the same. It was, you know, see, the USA in your Chevrolet and the Vw. Brought humor to advertising for the 1st time, and then they brought incredible honesty. They would talk about how ugly the car was. and they talk about how underpowered the car was, and they’d make they would make all its faults strong points. And you know that even though it’s under powered it, doesn’t it. It doesn’t take much gas, and just because it’s ugly doesn’t mean you can’t love it. And it became the most beloved car North America, I think. And it was all due to the storytelling. You know, they, the one of the 1st ads. The headline was Lemon. and I don’t think I could sell that ad today. There’s no way a car manufacturer is going to allow me to say lemon as a headline. But if you read the story underneath that headline. It was basically saying that the car you were looking at in that ad had a blemish on the chrome of the glove compartment, so it can’t go out yet. So it really was a story about incredible quality.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right.

O’Reilly: Under a headline that was is the most toxic word in automobile advertising. So the storytelling made that car a an icon, and I think they were the best storytellers in advertising for all time. A little more recently, I would say. Nike is a great storyteller, you know. Just do it, and every Nike ad, you see, is a story about a team or a person achieving something in amazing yet no, Nike ad looks like the other Nike ad like they. They almost feel like they have nothing in common. But it’s a storytelling that makes campaignable.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right.

O’Reilly: Apple’s the same thing. I think Apple does incredible advertising. It’s always they harken back to Steve Jobs, which is so interesting to me. They’ve really been so consistent that virtually every apple ad is is about one person achieving something. It’s not a business, it’s not a company. It’s always one person achieving something with the power of a computer which was Steve Jobs vision of taking the computing power out of Ibm and giving it to the individual. So they’ve run to that strategy for all these years, and I love their storytelling.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: You asked me who the best storyteller is today. Right now. At this moment I would say, Heinz.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay, Heinz.

O’Reilly: Hines is doing this. This catch up is doing the best work I’ve seen in years. They and most of it’s done out of Canada. It’s got done out of rethink in Vancouver. They are winning every award. They are being written up in ad age and add news every week. They are doing things like I wrote them things down. They do. They did a big puzzle with 5,700 pieces or something is all red, you know, one of those crazy puzzles they did they asked kids to draw just ketchup. They just said, draw ketchup and kids. All the kids drew Heinz labels.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Wow!

O’Reilly: They asked AI to do to. They said they asked AI draw ketchup, bottle, and AI drew Heinz great ways. They did a tweet, which was the slowest tweet in the world. 57 letters. The message was 57 letters, Andrew, but it took 57 h to complete. So, just sitting there watching this tweet slowly appear. All of that is storytelling right? Because the richer a ketchup is, the slower it pours, which has always been Heinz raison d’etra right? And all these fun ways of getting across. How unique and how love the brand is in that category is just incredible storytelling.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: It’s almost like they’ve gone, Meta. They’re reinforcing their equity and creating new equity with it. Right? Like, yeah, wow, especially.

O’Reilly: In an in that old sleepy brand like it’s not a.com like it’s it’s been around forever.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So where are you seeing these ads? I mean, I know you’re you’re I shouldn’t ask you personally. But where cause.

O’Reilly: And we’ll see them.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Where can people see them?

So we used to, you know, tune in when we got home from work, and we’d watch the Evening News and everything so. And and now the media landscape has become so fragmented. And I’m I’m I see, as many ads as the average person.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: But I have not seen that. So I’m wondering if they’re on certain meat that you know. Maybe they are on television or streaming platforms that I’m not.

O’Reilly: I would say, most of it’s probably online in the form of videos, Youtube videos, or whatever just. They’re great at creating press. All those Heinz ideas create press, and I always say the best advertising creates press, because suddenly your budget feels like it’s quadrupled. If the press gets hold of it right, and rethink, or masters at that.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So my next question I was gonna ask you is is related to the point that you just made there. So over time other than becoming more fragmented and going into new media. Obviously with the Internet especially, and video. What else has changed in terms of advertising and storytelling.

O’Reilly: I think this, I think you sort of touched on it. I think storytelling is spilled out of traditional media for sure. But even online. It’s spilled out. So, for example, sticking with Heinz, they put out on at New York’s fashion week, which just happened. They put out a line of clothes. Heinz, a ketchup, put out a line of clothes that had just a little ketchup drip. and it became the talk of fashion. Week.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I did. I did read about that. So.

O’Reilly: Here’s the catch up finding a way to worm their way into New York’s fashion week. With this, with just the ongoingness of their strategy and and their storytelling ability.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, you know what I would say. There, the medium is the message right? that’s absolutely brilliant. I love that.

O’Reilly: And everything they do is is tailored to that but specific medium which is so great, which I think is the sign of a great marketer. It’s not the same thing in every medium. It’s the same tone. It’s the same overall strategy. But but Instagram looks different than Facebook and Facebook looks different than Youtube. Video, like everything’s tailored to that medium.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right brilliant. So I’d love to switch over into personal branding. And you you were talking about the Volkswagen lemon ad, and how they turned that into a pot. So it: drew the reader in. You know. What? What do you mean? You’re calling yourself a lemon. I better read what they’re talking about here, right? And they basically turned. I’ve heard this term a lot recently. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature. Yeah, right? Right? And that also relates to humans. So when I’m coaching executives on their personal brand or their professional identity

They’ll admit to me that there’s some part of their identity that they try to hide right it could be, for example, their sense of humor like. I don’t want people to think I’m unprofessional, so I hide my sense of humor, or I hide my you know my upbringing where I was brought up, or my accent, or they tried to somehow hide their identity. And then and then I talk to them about how we can create a narrative where what they’re perceiving as a bug may actually be a feature. So that’s my segue into asking you, Terry, whether you consciously and or strategically develop your personal brand.

O’Reilly: You know I did an episode on personal branding a couple of years back.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay. And it was the most popular episode of that season which surprised me because I thought I just never would have guessed that. Yeah.

O’Reilly: And that’s why, in the book that’s sitting behind you there, there is a chapter on personal branding.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I read it that even.

O’Reilly: That book is for marketers. I I really thought, you know, there’s everybody, even within marketing, has a brand. So I think, like any great brand a a personal brand has to share so many things in common with. If you look to Nike, or Apple, or Heinz, or whatever is that? 1st of all. they figure out what their uniqueness is in the category. and then everything they do kind of centers around that uniqueness. And there’s a consistency. Then there’s a tone there’s a kind of language that a great brand uses. There are guardrails, too, I think, but I don’t think they can be super super narrow. Because, as you were saying, you know, if someone’s really funny, or you know, if someone had a really tough upbringing, but achieved a lot of success. That’s a great story like that can really be. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature like it can be a really great part of your of your personal brand about how you overcame obstacles or overcame speed bumps to achieve success. So for me, a great brand is what makes you different.

And then how can I express that in creative ways? And that means you have to look around the category. See what your competitors are doing because you don’t want to strike a similar tone to somebody else. You want to find your own piece of real estate that you can own. Even my radio show on CBC is different in one big way, because I looked when when I pitched the show to Cbc. Never thinking for a moment that they would ever buy it, Andrea? You know the advertising free Cbc, taking on a show about advertising.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

O’Reilly: Shockley.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Irony. Love it.

O’Reilly: No, it is yeah. I looked at all the shows on on Cbc. And I thought, Okay, I’m going to Zig. Everybody’s saying I’m going to Zig, and what that was is I didn’t do interviews like I may be the only narrative show on Cbc. Maybe there’s 1 more out there, but I chose to go narrative storytelling instead of interviewed.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, I wouldn’t say that’s the only thing that distinguish. I mean, it is.

O’Reilly: So it’s 1 of them. Yeah.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So you also have a beautiful voice. You also have incredible knowledge. You’re also a beautiful storyteller, right? I could go on

O’Reilly: So that was the starting point, though Andrea was that beyond all of that lovely stuff the starting point was, how can I stand out on the air just sonically.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Right.

O’Reilly: I thought, Okay, I’m not going to do interviews. That was a big decision. Because there’s a lot of great advertising people. I could interview.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I’m sure, and it’s fun.

O’Reilly: And it’s fun. Yeah, it’s fun, right?

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So I was. Maybe you’ve answered this next question with what you just said. But so what’s your product? Category, or your cat or personal category. I guess I mean, you’re saying other radio shows.

O’Reilly: Well, you know, the 1st chapter of that book is, what business are you really in.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: And that’s that’s you think that’s so easy to answer. And it’s and I give some examples in there that Molson’s not in the beer business or in the party business, and Michelin’s not in the tire business. They’re in the safety business. I mean, you really have to know what people are buying from you in order to be relevant. Yeah.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: You see, I’m just showing I’m opening the book to show you. As I was reading that chapter in particular, I took my marker out. I started writing. Talk. Talk about talk is in the business of right. Yes.

O’Reilly: Right, but that I mean that that gets to the heart of your question. You know you have to know what it is people want from you. because, as I say in the book, if you’re if someone’s shopping for tires because they wanna have make sure their family’s safe if you’re selling speed as a tire feature, and the and the place across the street selling safety. They’re gonna cross the street, even though you’re both selling tires right.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: I think you have to, really. And it’s so hard to. you know. Peel, the onion, to figure out what it is that you offer even my show it. It started out as a show about creativity. and then it very quickly morphed into a show about strategy. And that has been my ongoingness, and I’m a creative guy. I was really always dealt with strategy. But I wasn’t a strategic account director. I was a writer. But here I am evolving into strategy. So so my show is really a look. I take people on a a look behind the closed doors of advertise, like everybody’s got should have an elevator pitch. That’s how you get to the nub of who you are and what you offer is, try coming up with a 1 sentence elevator pitch.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Of what you do, whether you’re a brand or a person. Yeah.

O’Reilly: And what you do, and what makes you unusual? You know I have a chapter in that in that book which I find such a great exercise. It’s really hard to do well that exercise. But you know, I always say, you know, Dirty Harry, that great Clint Eastwood film series of phones that made him famous. Really, you know, what was it about about Dirty Harry that made him so compelling? And it was that it wasn’t that he was a rogue cop. It wasn’t that he was tough. it it wasn’t that he broke the rules, which is what everybody answers. The the true answer to that is, he was more violent than the criminals he chased.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: That’s right. I just read that. I just read that.

O’Reilly: When you, when it’s articulated, you go. Yes, that’s exactly why he was so mesmerizing and and and why he created so much that character created so much controversy, and and ticket buying was never really seen before. and even I wired magazine, which is my favorite elevator pitch of all time. They, you know, it’s about entertainment technology at at trends and their elevator pitch when they were looking for funding from investors was. we want to feel like we’ve been mailed back from the future.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I, yeah, I love that too.

O’Reilly: Maybe the best elevator pitch of all time.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: My favorite elevator pitch of all time is, you know, the Sigourney Weaver aliens movie. Do you know what the elevator pitch was for? It.

O’Reilly: Jaws in space.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yes, I probably learned that from you, Terry.

O’Reilly: Yeah, you may have. Yeah, I’ve mean that once you can articulate  a really great elevator pitch. And that means, I mean, look at the language in the 3 we’ve talked about there. It isn’t like, I am a marketing communications expert like that’s not an elevator pitch. That’s a that’s just a statement that’s not an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch should make people lean right in. So when when wired magazine said to their investors, We want our magazine to feel like it’s been mailed back from the future. All the investors around the table instantly were interested in that magazine. You know what.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: That that unexpected element that you said.

O’Reilly: Who is it so?

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Important, and it.

O’Reilly: Business.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Is one sentence right? If it has something unexpected in it, then.

O’Reilly: Yeah, a little surprise or or an incredibly interesting collection of words that sums up. What is the essence of you that makes you so different.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: okay, so I want to have time for the rapid fire questions at the end. But I, before we do that, I want to shift to your most recent book my best mistake.

O’Reilly: Yep.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Can you share with the listeners what the basic premise of the book is, and then also share with us maybe one or 2 of your best mistakes.

O’Reilly: The premise of that book was people who more, that I have a couple of other of additional little stories in there. But the overall arc of that book is people who made catastrophic career decisions where they lost their jobs, the credibility, their livelihood. They lost everything. and it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to them. So I thought that as an exploration was interesting, because when that happens to most people they usually disappear, they disappear into the ether, or they just completely change careers or vocations, and just like wipe the slate clean. But I thought, it’s yeah. And I thought people who actually muscle through that are more interesting. So the 1st chapter of that book is about Jaws Steven Spielberg. It’s such a well told story, except for one detail, right? So everybody knows he was out on location in Martha’s Vineyard. He’s got 3 mechanical sharks that he’s had built to scale. which ate up most of his budget. By the way, he’s a 1st time film director really done some television. This is his 1st time with the Big Leagues. You think he’s only 28 or something? He gets out to Martha’s Vineyard. They put the sharks in the water. He’s got his cast, his crew, everything out there and the sharks immediately. Malfunction. And he’s paralyzed because the main beast of this film doesn’t work. And he goes into his hotel room one night thinking he’s gonna lose at all. He’s gonna lose his his chances. Being a director. He’s gonna he’s gonna be pulled back to Hollywood. He’s gonna be fired. He’s sitting in the dark panicking. and then he asks himself the most interesting question. He says. what would Hitchcock do.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh, wow!

O’Reilly: In that moment he knew the answer, and the answer was, What you can’t see is is the most terrifying thing of all. So then he, you know, he figures out a way to imply the shark, the fin through the water, or the pulling the big yellow. What it barrels through the water to show it’s or the music the great score. Right? Don’t, don’t. But the mistake he made, which is really why I decided to retell that well-told story, because everybody knows those details, is he? When he tried these sharks out in Hollywood he tried them in freshwater tanks. Mistake was he didn’t try them in salt water. The saltwater corroded all the mechanics. I thought there, I never knew that detail, and that’s why I love the story, and that’s why I loved how he let me. That that huge mistake he made in the filmmaking led to the best part of that film and lost him on his career like be ended up being the best thing that ever happened to him.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah. And the so it’s really interesting that that story is your lead in this book, Terry, because as an audio storyteller, you’re leaving just in the same way that he left the the moviegoers image of the of the shark up up to the moviegoers. Right? When you’re telling your stories on your podcast and your radio show. You’re leaving it up to us to kind of fill in the blanks in our minds about what everything looked like.

O’Reilly: That’s the joy of audio. Your your listener becomes your art director. and I always thought that was so incredibly powerful. I mean a lot of writers and advertising don’t like audio don’t like raid. Let’s call it radio don’t like radio. They’re afraid of it. They much rather do television or print or film because at 1st glance. It looks like audio doesn’t have all the the same toolbox. You don’t have casts like you don’t have faces. You don’t have wardrobe. You don’t have locations.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: I always thought that was way more freeing because I could be on the moon in a radio commercial. If I have done it correctly. You’re with me as a listener. I could be at the bottom of the ocean, and all of that would. I couldn’t do on television because it was too expensive.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah, that’s really interesting. Right? And and this, yeah, it’s the power of audio. I wonder if these art directors or creatives are also thinking that it’s just less tangible, right? Like it’s a it’s an audio file. I can’t actually open something,

O’Reilly: That’s why it’s also the hardest to present, Andrea, because you can show a print layout. You can show a TV storyboard. But with radio. You have to actually get up in a boardroom and perform it for your client, which gets to your great question, are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Bye.

O’Reilly: Yeah. I love this question. I was so glad that it’s on your list.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay, let’s do it. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Terry?

O’Reilly: Complete Introvert.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Of really.

O’Reilly: Oh, complete introvert, so they say the definition of an of a introvert versus an extrovert is, do you get recharged by being alone or recharged by being around a lot of people. So I recharge not by being alone. I’m not a hermit, I mean, but away from the crowd is where I recharge. Right? So that was, that was a big hindrance to me when I started my career. because I learned quite quickly that you had to learn how to present in a board room you had to get up. You had to be able to perform. You had to be able to feel questions. You had to be able to to really own the room. And there’s a lot of money riding on those meetings right? You could spend, you know, a million dollars on it. You’re trying to convince someone to spend a million dollars on your idea. It’s there’s a lot of pressure going on. And I hated it. It was my white knuckle fear. I would beg people to present my work for me, because I just it was just the it was the the thing I feared most. And then I realized that by letting other people present my work, most of it wasn’t getting sold. So I thought, Okay.I have to learn how to do this. so I was very fortunate because I had a great mentor. a creative director. I had early in my career was a magnificent presenter he was just. Oh, my goodness! He could just thrill you with the work. He just it was something about him, and I just watched him constantly at work. and I, slowly, by osmosis, learned how to do it. and then I actually got over the hump of fearing it. So by I would volunteer a lot. So you know, Craig, director, say, okay, who’s gonna present the work tomorrow, when I go put up my hand and go. Okay, O’reilly’s gonna present the work. Who’s gonna present the strategy? Jill’s gonna and I would go home and just rock in the dark, because I’ve now put myself in a situation where I have to do it, but I did it so many times that I actually got over the hump of fearing it to actually looking forward to it.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Amazing.

O’Reilly: Introvert like me.That is a big journey. Situationally, specific extrovert.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah. Oh, wow, wow! You just came in with the Zinger. So the most common answer that I get is like, I’m a recovered introvert. That’s some version of that, right like I was an introvert. But I overcame it, and I’m like introverts are the best listeners.

O’Reilly: Yeah, right. World needs, introverts. World needs. Yes. But your story, I’m sure, will inspire a lot of people, whether they’re an introvert or an extrovert or not

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Ok, so that wasn’t so rapid fire. But it was a very valuable story for everyone to hear. The second rapid fire question is. what are your communication, pet peeves?

O’Reilly: 1st of all, I think you touched on it, too. I think people don’t listen. I think listening is a big part of communicating like 2 monologues don’t make a dialog. Right? Yeah.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Very well put. You are going to be quoted on that, Terry.

O’Reilly: Yeah, I’ve seen, you know I I’ve been in so many meetings where somebody will ask a client a question and then answer it. Before the clients had a chance to add like again, it’s just a monologue, then. I think listening is a very underrated huge part of a great communicator is listening and know thy audience. The the Golden rule, you know. putting yourself in the shoes of who you’re talking to or imagining. It’s a funny thing, you know. If I’ll write an episode of our show. and I’ll send, you know. I’ll record my part, and the engineer puts it together, and we’ll talk about it. I’ll make a a list of revisions, sometimes 20 or 30 revisions long. because I’m I mean the weeds on it. and then I’ll listen to it, you know, over the course of that process like 6 times. and then I’ll then it’ll air on Cbc. And it feels completely different to me because I know a million people are listening to it. I’ll pick out little mistakes in it. Where I thought, how could I have missed that when I listened to it 6 times in a row.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Wow! So I just wanted to share with you that over the past several years people ask me all the time, what do you think communication superpowers are, what are the things we need to work on? And I would come up with a list of 3 depending on the person. The 3 most important things probably are confidence, listening and storytelling. Yeah, right? If you if you don’t have confidence, actually, you have nothing because you’re paralyzed to your point. And then, being a good listener, is a great next step, and then kind of the icing on the cake is becoming an eloquent or effective storytelling.

O’Reilly: It has to be. You know Theodore Levitt has that great line that I’ve stolen for decades, which is, people don’t buy 3 quarter inch drill bits. They buy 3 quarter inch holes, and you have to understand even not just brand advertising, but as a personal brand, or in a meeting or an exchange. You have to understand what it is. People are buying right. You have to listen to them and know what they want, and not just make it myopic in one way.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah. So this is what I handwrote in the front of the book. When when you you did that, you shared what the story in in the 1st chapter that you just shared here. And so I you know, I put the book down and I thought, what is talk about talk selling. is it communication skills, coaching? No. it’s actually selling confidence.

O’Reilly: That’s what it is. Exactly right. Takes a long time to get to that, though, doesn’t it? To peel that onion to get to that that word.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I love the metaphor peeling the onion. I’ve been dancing around that idea of confidence for years. So okay, the final rapid fire question, rapid fire question is there a podcast or a book that you’ve been recommending lately? Not not your books, not your podcast not my podcast something. Else out. There.

O’Reilly: I read so much. Oh, my goodness.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Do you? Oh, yeah, you have a book club. Yeah.

O’Reilly: Oh, yeah, and you can see. I don’t know if you can see behind me. I can’t see myself on the thing, but I mean, that’s just marketing books back there right.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: Yeah. let me think about that for one second one podcast. It’s got nothing to do with marketing per se, that I love is the plot thickens from classic movies. So Ben make. That’s who I love. I just love his intro. If you ever watch that channel, he always does these really wonderful interviews? And or he’ll do great introductions to movies, old movies telling you what happened behind the scenes, etc. He has this great podcast called the Plot Thickens, where every season is about a different filmmaker or actor or actress, and it is absolutely rivetingly fascinating.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh. excellent! I will check it out, and I’ll put a link to it in the show notes.

O’Reilly: It’s really good. There’s 1 more, I’ll say, I’ll talk to you about just very quickly. here’s a a podcast. Series called, I think it’s called the bank robber diaries. I may have that name wrong, but they enter this whole series. They interview a, a a real-life, modern-day bank robber.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Oh!

O’Reilly: Robbed. I wanna say I may have my numbers wrong because I listened to the series a year or 2 ago. He may have robbed like 20 banks in California now, not some like now, and he tell he talks about how he does it. about how we. It was just a fascinating look into a, into a criminal mind that you would never normally get like. Here’s how I case a bank. Here’s how I make my getaway. Here’s where I parked my car because I had to run out with all the money, and I had to like. It was like just mind blowing to get inside the mind of someone like that, and then he’s he’s now, you know, re Beyond that he’s eventually an FBI guy caught him. He went to jail. Now he’s on the other side of that and he’s just. It’s a fascinating story.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: I was curious whether they were interviewing him in jail.

O’Reilly: Already done his time.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Done this time So. Is there anything else you want to leave with me? And the talk about talk listeners in terms of storytelling or personal branding or advertising.

O’Reilly: I think I think, above all, it’s it’s to be a wonderful storyteller. In my humble opinion. I just I think it’s you have to have an enormous sense of curiosity. I think you have to be curious about people and things, and why people do the things they do and and influences in the culture. And you know again, that’s about listening or asking the right questions. And I think really wonderful writers have this ability, Andrea, to be in a situation, then hover above it at the same time. So you know you’re having an exchange with your car mechanic, but you’re also watching it from above in the ceiling, because you’re watching the dynamics.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: That I remember I I was getting my car fixed. am I? And I looked at the bill, and I had a heart attack. and my mechanic said to me, You know what it was really difficult, but you know I I didn’t even bill you for all our hours. It’s you lose, I lose. and I thought what a great way to sell a high, a high bill was to use the term you lose. I lose, and and then I as a writer, I hovered above that moment, you know, and I grabbed that moment to use elsewhere him and and I am always making notes by the way of things people tell me, or I make copious notes on every book I read. And I collect them all, and the great thing about being digitized is you can search anything, but I may not. I may find a wonderful story that someone’s told me, Andrea and I. I may not use that story for 5 years. but when I use that story it is the perfect story. For that moment.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Gosh!

O’Reilly: So, writer. I collect stories.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: So where do you put them?

O’Reilly: So on my computer, it’s on a hard drive in case my computer. you know, dies. But yeah, but even just book notes. I have probably 1,600 pages of book notes. So far.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Wow, incredible.

O’Reilly: Just pulling out little moments, little stories, little turns of phrase that I can attribute back to somebody. But, like, you know, you don’t buy through quarter and drill bits you buy through quarter inch holes, like all those little nuggets that just clarify.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Okay, I’m going to sneak one last question in, because, like, you’re basically serving this one to me. have you created a language model for AI based on all of your books and all of your podcast episodes. Because I feel like people would pay money to ask Terry. I have.

O’Reilly: Haven’t done anything like that.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Well, there’s an opportunity for you.

O’Reilly: AI is is kind of I’ve I’ve been stepping back from that just to see it unfold, because it’s so new to all of us.

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: Yeah.

O’Reilly: Yeah. Well. who knows?

Andrea Wojnicki – TalkAboutTalk: all right. Well, I want to thank you so much, Terry, for sharing your stories and your advice very much. I learned a lot, and I have learned so much over the years. And now I’m thrilled to share that with the talk about talk listeners. So thank you.

O’Reilly: Well, this has been a terrific conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

 

Isn’t Terry great?  If you want to hear more of his voice, check out his “Under the Influence“ podcast. 

Thank you, Terry, for so graciously sharing your insights with us.  As you can probably tell, I had a lot of fun.  

Did you catch where I realized I was telling Terry a story that I learned from him?

Pretty funny. Probably the best implicit compliment ever, right?  Repeating a story back to someone that first shared the story with you. Hmm.

Anyway, now, as promised, I’d like to summarize three main points from our conversation:

1. The necessary ingredients for a great story
2. The power of overcoming obstacles or speedbumps to achieve success – 
3. The idea of peeling back the onion –

1-Storytelling

Terry says that two things make for a great story:

1.  structure. You have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end … As he says: a  easing opening, a sumptuous middle. And then you have this inevitable end. That’s just so satisfying. And second
2. the element of surprise. As Terry says, unexpected moments add impact.

And to be a wonderful storyteller Terry says you have to have an enormous sense of curiosity.

Curious about people and things. Listening and asking questions.

 

2-The power of overcoming obstacles or speedbumps to achieve success 

This is the main point of his latest book: “My best mistake”?

Terry talked about the example of how Steven Spielberg’s Jaws mishap (i.e. the mechanical shark rusting in the salt water) turned the movie into a long-lasting cultural icon.

Terry also specifically mentioned how that weakness, or obstacle ,or BUG of yours can become andintegral and compelling part of your of your personal brand. It’s what makes you unique.

 

3- peeling back the onion 

This idea of peeling back the onion – it could be for a product brand or for your personal brand. It’s about thinking deeply, peeling back the onion, regarding what business you’re really in. 

For example, Molson’s not in the beer business, rather it’s in the party business, 

and Michelin’s not in the tire business, rather they’re in the safety business. 

And Talk about Talk is not in the communication coaching business, rather it’s in the business of elevating your confidence.

Now ask yourself, what business are you REALLY in? 

OK – There were so many more rich points, but if I limit myself to three, its:

1. The necessary ingredients for a great Story
2. The power of overcoming obstacles or speedbumps to achieve success – 
3. Idea of peeling back the onion –
   

And  that’s it.  I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did,.

I put links to Terry’s podcast and his books in the shownotes. Please check them out.

Thank you again, Terry, it was wonderful to meet you and I loved our conversation.

Thank YOU so much for listening. Please let me know what you thought of this episode. Connect with me on LinkedIn and DM me there.  And talk soon!

 

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