Third-Party Story

The move

You're in a conversation. The customer is considering something risky — picking the cheap supplier, skipping a step, going with the brother-in-law. You don't want to argue. You want them to arrive at the right call on their own.

So you tell a story. About somebody else. A customer from last week, a chief estimator you ran into, a contractor whose brother didn't listen.

"This literally happened to me last Friday. I had a customer, worked with him for years, and his brother decided to join the business..."

The story does the work. You don't have to tell the customer "don't be cheap." The brother in the story already was, and it didn't go well. The customer hears it and puts themselves in the brother's shoes — and makes the decision you wanted without you ever making the argument.

Industry terms this page covers

The permission slip: don't let the truth get in the way of a good story

This is the part that trips people up. Stevenson is explicit:

"If I was to share your story with one of my customers and maybe embellish it a little bit — don't let the truth get in the way of a good story — it's called a third-party story."

And from another moment:

"I would say: we create one. And then you say, well, I don't really want to stock out of inventory. Okay — then let's pretend that it just happened to one of the other customers. But you can make up a good story. 'You know, it's funny we bring this up, actually, because I just dealt with this with Mike.' No — I'm making that up, right? So you're like, oh, he did it with Mike, too?"

You are allowed to invent. You're allowed to composite. You're allowed to take a real thing that happened and embellish. The third-party story isn't a journalistic report. It's a teaching tool where the point is the lesson, not the forensic accuracy.

What you can't do: lie about your own track record, make up credentials you don't have, or invent quantitative claims ("we saved them $200K") that will be checked. The license is for the illustrative story about somebody else — where the point is the dynamic, not the dollar figure.

The structure

A good third-party story has four beats:

1. Anchor in recent time. "Just the other day," "last Friday," "two weeks ago." Recent = true-feeling.
2. Set up the character. A customer. A chief estimator. A brother. Give them just enough to be a person, not a category.
3. Run the scenario. What happened. The mistake, the decision, the turning point.
4. Land the lesson — by implication, not by sermon. The listener draws the conclusion. You don't have to.

Example in full (the stubborn-brother moment, live):

"Lloyd, I don't know if you've ever — do you have one second? This literally happened to me last Friday. I had a customer, worked with him for years, and his brother decided to join the business. And they split up projects, and his brother went off and said, okay, I need to order concrete. He asked his brother, who should I use? And he said, 'Steve over there — the best. You gotta use him. Don't even think about it.' But his brother says, 'but they cost a lot.' And he's like, 'I know, it's worth it. Don't even try and learn the lesson the hard way, brother. Don't do that. Don't put our company at risk.' It was his stubborn brother that didn't listen — and what happened was..."

All four beats. Anchored in last Friday. Two brothers, one stubborn. The scenario runs. The lesson is "learn it from him, not the hard way" — and Stevenson never had to say those words, because the brother in the story already did.

The chief-estimator variant

Different shape, same machine:

"I was just talking to a chief estimator the other day, and we got into it. One of the things that he mentioned is that he had been burned so many times by low-number, just horrible suppliers, that now he's got a whole new set of criteria. He didn't set them all up to me, and he didn't tell me what they all were — but there were six or seven things that he said that he now validates, makes sure, or he'll start disqualifying suppliers. Do you guys have anything like that set up?"

Then, stage-whisper to the coaching room:

"I mean, I just made that whole thing up, right? But it sounds like I just had that conversation just last week."

That's the permission in action. The story is a construct. It's assembled to trigger a specific question — "do you have criteria for disqualifying bad suppliers?" — that makes the customer start thinking like a discerning buyer instead of a price-comparer.

Why it works

Three reasons:

1. It bypasses defense. Pitched at the customer directly, the same lesson triggers resistance. Told as a story about someone else, the defense doesn't activate. They hear it clean.
2. The customer is the hero of their own version. They insert themselves into the story and choose the smart path. You didn't choose it for them — they did.
3. It's a soft ask. The story naturally ends with an open question — "do you guys ever do that?" — that invites them to share their own version. Now it's a conversation, not a pitch.

The setup grammar

Stevenson's opener is low-key and permission-seeking:

"I don't know if this has any value to you, but I got — just a couple weeks ago — I was in an office..."

Or:

"It's funny we bring this up, actually, because I just dealt with this with Mike."

Notice the throwaway tone. "I don't know if this has any value to you." You're not announcing a Parable. You're casually sharing something you thought of. The low-key opener lets the story land without the listener bracing for a pitch.

The close: "do you guys ever do that?"

Every good third-party story ends with a gentle invitation for the customer to respond:

"I don't know if you guys ever do that currently with your current supplier. Do you guys have that kind of relationship?"

"Do you guys have anything like that set up?"

This is the conversion beat. The story opened a door. The question walks them through it. Now they're talking about their own situation — in the frame your story set up.

Without this beat, the story is just a story. With it, the story is a tool.

Building a bank

Stevenson recommends jotting them down when they happen:

"The third-party story is a wonderful tool — and you just had one. Jot it down. There it is. Perfect."

Keep a running list. Every week something happens — a customer saved from a bad decision, a contractor who learned the hard way, a chief estimator with criteria, a brother who didn't listen. Write the bones down. Three lines is enough: character, scenario, lesson.

When you're in a live conversation and the right shape of story is needed, the bank is ready. You're not scrambling for something that fits — you've got twenty of them, one for every situation.

Homework — start the bank

This week:

1. Write down three stories from the last 60 days that could become third-party stories. Customer saved from a mistake. Customer who made the mistake. Customer who surprised you.
2. For each one, write the four beats — anchor, character, scenario, lesson.
3. Draft the closing question for each. "Do you guys ever run into that?" "Have you thought about criteria like that?"
4. Use one this week in a live conversation. Watch what it does.
5. Build the bank over the next month — target twenty stories. You'll stop noticing the growth and suddenly realize you have a story for every situation.

Where to go next

• First Introduction — another move that borrows credibility from somebody else
• 30-Second Commercial — your own origin story is one specific third-party-style build
• Question-Asking Reflex — the closing "do you guys ever..." is the reflex at work
• Differentiation Beyond Product — stories are how differentiation gets felt, not told
• Listening for Leaks — most of your best third-party stories start as leaks you caught

Source: drawn from 5 canonical moments across the live-coaching corpus — including the "embellish it a little bit / don't let the truth get in the way of a good story" permission slip, the "create one / pretend it happened to another customer / Mike example" invention license, the stubborn-brother "learn-it-the-hard-way" worked example, and the chief-estimator-with-criteria construct with the "I just made that whole thing up" reveal. Voice preserved.