Jason Harris

#389: The Art of Soulful Persuasion Through Brand Storytelling

#389: The Art of Soulful Persuasion Through Brand Storytelling

You and I live in a land of abundance. We have myriad choices of what brand to buy from. Scarcity is not the market dynamic it once was.

So as a sales and marketing leader, you must find a way for your product or service to stand out from the crowd by sharing the story of what you stand for.

But what DO you stand for? Without answering this question in an authentic way, you will remain viewed as a commodity, which impacts pricing, margins and growth.

Today, you’ll learn from Jason Harris, the Co-Founder and CEO of Mekanism, an award-winning New York-based creative advertising agency and author of The Soulful Art of Persuasion: The 11 Habits That Will Make Anyone a Master Influencer.

Jason works closely with iconic brands including Peloton, Ben & Jerry’s, Jose Cuervo, Alaska Airlines, Charles Schwab and OkCupid through a blend of creativity and performance, an approach they call Soul + Science.

Under his leadership, Mekanism was most recently named Independent Agency of the Year by The Drum, and ranked by the Effie Index as a top 10 Most Effective Independent Agency in the United States. Mekanism has also been named to Ad Age’s Agency A-list and twice to their Best Places to Work.

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Dr. Marlis Douglas & Dr. Keisha Bahr

#388: How to Turn Nerd Speak into Business Solutions With the ABT

#388: How to Turn Nerd Speak into Business Solutions With the ABT

We all nerd out.

We get overzealous with our inventions. Gleefully share our innovation. Blather on and on about the uniqueness of our product or service or initiative.

We presume that our audience knows everything we know about what we’re trying to communicate. It’s obvious, right? At least to us.

But the “Curse of Expert” is a pandemic that impacts us all. Are you and your communications suffering from it?

Your job is to translate your brilliance into bite-sized stories so the people we’re connecting with *get it* immediately.

An anecdote is the antidote for obfuscation.

Today, you’ll learn how to turn nerd speak into business solutions using the ABT agile narrative framework from the co-authors of the new book:

The Narrative Gym for Science Graduates Students and Postdocs: Using the ABT Framework for Proposals, Papers, Presentations, and Life in General. 

Dr. Marlis Douglas and Dr. Keisha Bahr have dedicated their science careers to making their complex messages simple so that everyone in the room understands and appreciates the important projects they’re working on.

They both believe:

Scientists are curious and quite creative AND IF they are good at storytelling, THEN they can persuade that science can help.

BUT, scientists are bad at storytelling, because they are too detail-oriented and don’t think about how to relate to non-scientists.

THEREFORE, training scientists in storytelling helps them focus their messaging and the ABT provides an agile framework so scientists can be part of the solution, and not the problem.

Dr. Marlis Douglas is an endowed professor in Biological Sciences at the University of Arkansas (since 2012). Her conservation genetics/genomics research on fish and wildlife informs management and guides conservation planning across the globe.

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Douglas Utberg

#387: How to Use Stories to Drive Your Affiliate Marketing Success

#387: How to Use Stories to Drive Your Affiliate Marketing Success

You work hard to tell your brand, sales and marketing stories. You know that if they resonate with your prospects, buyers, customers and colleagues, then you will move them to action.

But you’re not resonating like you could because you’re NOT telling the most important story to them at precisely the right time from their point of view.

Today, you’ll learn how to truly understand where your prospect is on their buyer journey and how to trigger their desire to buy what you have to offer.

Doug Utberg is a business growth authority and host of the Terminal Value podcast. He shares how to engage at the current level of awareness your prospect has about you and your offering to connect on a primal level with their buying brain. We explore the trends in agile organizations and communications and you’ll learn about the Collier Principle on how to enter the conversation already going on in your customer’s mind.

Knowing where you’re audience is relative to their awareness and understanding of your offering is crucial in all sales and marketing, especially if you’re developing an affiliate marketing program.

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Luis Miguel & Roxanne Addison

#386: How Storytelling Helps Immigrants Realize Their American Dream

#386: How Storytelling Helps Immigrants Realize Their American Dream

In 2016, I helped Luis Miguel, the founder of the international translation firm Avantpage, clarify their brand story using the Story Cycle System™. Since then, his company has grown to 50 people and has offices around the world.

Luis and his marketing manager Roxanne Addison discuss how their brand story unites their people, attracts precisely the right customer, and provides the aspirational North Star for everyone to shoot for.

The following is an excerpt from my book Brand Bewitchery: How to Wield the Story Cycle System™ to Craft Spellbinding Stories for Your Brand, which will provide the backstory for this episode’s conversation.

HOW SOCIAL RESISTANCE PROVIDES BRAND LIFT

Luis Miguel contacted me about helping refine Avantpage’s brand story. For the previous 22 years, Luis and his team had provided language translation services for government, elections officials, and healthcare and educational programs to help immigrants assimilate in this country. Avantpage is headquartered in Davis, California, and has offices in Mexico City and Warsaw, Poland.

In 1973, Luis Miguel traveled from his home in Mexico City to the Ozark Mountains in Missouri for summer camp. It was his first visit to the United States. He was 15 years old. He was excited to experience America, but his excitement quickly dimmed when a boy at camp referred to Luis using a term he had never heard before.

Being bookish, Luis returned home and looked up the meaning of wetback.

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Tommy Mello

#385: What You Can Learn From Your Mother About Business Storytelling

#385: What You Can Learn From Your Mother About Business Storytelling

On Friday, I had the honor of producing a half-day Business of Story training for Tommy Mello’s amazing team at A1 Garage Doors.

In fact, I mentioned to a few of my friends about the training, and I was blown away by how many of them have used A1 and the rave reviews that followed.

But then again I shouldn’t have been surprised. Because Tommy and his team are crazy about leadership and customer service training. That’s probably why they’ve grown from a single service in Phoenix to more than 600 employees operating in 18 states.

I had fun working in-person at A1’s excellent Phoenix training facility (I mean, just look at it) #team while also hosting a number of their colleagues around the country on ZOOM.

Tommy tells stories to connect with everyone from his colleagues to his customers. He demonstrates the ROI of storytelling by growing from a single shop in Phoenix Arizona to a $100 million-plus home service business with more than 600 people operating in 17 states and growing.

He follows a philosophy of working smart, building the right connections, and being 100 percent committed to supporting his team in every aspect of their lives. He provides employees with business development and life coaching opportunities and he spends a significant time on local philanthropic efforts.

Tommy is also the Author of the book Home Service Millionaire and his new book Elevate coming early next year.

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Jeff Dudan

#384: Aligning Your Organizational/Life Purpose With Storytelling

#384: Aligning Your Organizational/Life Purpose With Storytelling

How well is your life purpose aligned with what you and your people value in your business?

How well does your brand reflect what you stand for in the world? Marketing pundits say that more and more customers are evaluating a business’s positive impact on the planet – its brand purpose – before they buy.

You’ll learn the power of aligning your purpose and values and how to tell that story.

Jeff Dudan is the Chairman and CEO of Homefront Brands, a platform of property service franchisors. He believes that the success of their franchisees strengthens the foundation of our economy, provides stability in the lives of our franchise operators, and expands the reach and relevance of the franchise industry sector, which reflects their purpose statement: Homefront Brands exist to inspire entrepreneurs to take action and positively impact communities, franchisees, employees, and families.

Jeff authored his latest book Discernment: The Business Athletes Regimen for a Great Life through Better Decisions. He is a Forbes contributor, speaker, and consultant to emerging brands as well as serving YPO as Chapter Chair of the Southeast Regional US Chapter.

Jeff’s journey as an entrepreneur began as a college athlete who founded a business to paint student housing. After graduation, he assisted South Florida in recovering from Hurricane Andrew, which led to the launch of AdvantaClean in 1994. As a leading national restoration franchise, AdvantaClean became a strategic partner with St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital to support families in need. In January 2019, AdvantaClean was acquired by Home Franchise Concepts (HFC).

Jeff’s family values include:

Live fun. Be humble. Respect others. Trust yourself to take chances and fail fast. Always do more than is expected. Never panic.

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Paul Zak

#383: How to Measure the Emotional Impact of Your Business Storytelling

#383: How to Measure the Emotional Impact of Your Business Storytelling

You’ve been listening to The Business of Story – maybe even some of you for seven years – and you’ve grown as a confident and compelling communicator.

But how do you know your storytelling is actually working? Hitting the mark? Moving prospects, customers and your people emotionally. Exciting them to action?

You’re getting a lot of thumbs-ups and likes and smiling emojis, but are they translating into sales? And by sales, I mean anything that you are trying to get your audience to *buy into*, including your product or service, your vision, your mission, and your way of doing things.

Today’s guest believes he has the answer using a Fitbit, iPhone or any digital device that monitors your nervous system and therefore the emotional impact of your stories.

Dr. Paul Zak, author of the new book, Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness, is a Professor at Claremont Graduate University. Paul is in the top 0.3% of most cited scientists. A four-time tech entrepreneur, his most recent company Immersion Neuroscience is a software platform that allows anyone to measure what the brain loves in real-time to improve outcomes in entertainment, education and training, advertising and live events.

He is a regular TED speaker and has appeared on Good Morning America, Dr. Phil, Fox & Friends, ABC Evening News, with his work covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, The Economist, Scientific American, Fast Company, Forbes, and many others.

Paul is the author of The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity and his new book, Immersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of Happiness.

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Brandon Bornancin

#382: How to Use Failure as Fuel to Ignite Your Business Storytelling

#382: How to Use Failure as Fuel to Ignite Your Business Storytelling

Growing up in a difficult family financial situation was the impetus for Brandon Bornancin’s success. His mom worked at a grocery store and bank with no college degree. His dad worked at Macy’s. No college degree.

They lived off coupon clippings and bought their clothes at thrift stores before that was cool.

He and his sister were taken to endless garage sales to furnish their home.

His first job as a teenager was as a high school janitor working from 4 am to whenever the jog of scraping gum off the bottom of desks took.

Then he was introduced to sales in his second job at a call center for $7.50 per hour plus commission to get people to donate to the fire and police departments. That’s when he first recognized the power of storytelling to persuade and move people to action.

“Viewing everything as a positive opportunity. Life happens for you not to you,” is one of Brandon’s focuses.

The power of positivity will change your whole mindset.

Brandon grew his multi-million-dollar sales career but at the expense of time with his family. So he automated his sales prospecting with his new platform called Seamless.AI

Author of Whatever it Takes: Master the Habits to Transform Your Business, Your Relationships, And Life, Brandon is the #1 best-selling author of 3 books, a serial salesperson (sold over $100M in sales), eight-figure entrepreneur (2x), and motivational speaker who is obsessed with helping you maximize your success.

He wrote Whatever it Takes for his 500 employees at Seamless.AI. It was so successful with his people that they suggested he release it to the world.

On today’s show, Brandon shares the top three habits you can change to make your life and career easier and more profitable, because as he says, “Life if f’ing short!”

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Kyle Porter

#381: How to Scale Your Storytelling With Measurable Success Metrics

#381: How to Scale Your Storytelling With Measurable Success Metrics

I met today’s guest, Kyle Porter, while being in a panel discussion with him, Tamsen Webster and Miri Rodriquez on the Christine Gritmon Social Media Pulse podcast.

I was impressed with Kyle’s background and how he learned to use storytelling in his brand work, especially the use of The Hero’s Journey. We all follow this monomythic structure that shapes our epic and mundane life events popularized by America’s foremost mythologist Joseph Campbell.

How to Use the Story Cycle System™ to craft spellbinding stories for your brand.

But if you’re not paying attention to where you are while on your Hero’s Journey, then you may find yourself lost.

Today we talk about how you can use this mythic story structure to scale your storytelling and measure your achievements along the way.

Kyle Porter is Conklin Media’s Director of Strategy out of Atlanta, Georgia. He’s responsible for organizing the overall direction of client campaigns, making sure that clients are able to meet their business goals and coordinating the work that each of our departments do on client projects.

Kyle uses storytelling frameworks to not only ensure the organizations he represents are on the right path to success, but to build the trusted bonds and relationships we all need to succeed.

“You have to take the time to show people that they’re important to you,” he says. “It’s the little things you do day after day that really build that strong foundation.”

For Kyle, the North Star is always making sure that clients get a clear return on their investment. He believes that we have an obligation to be clear about the business results we’re getting and the value that we’re providing.

Outside of work, Kyle loves to hang out with his kids, take his wife on dates, play with his dogs, and hit the gym. He’s also a big Georgia Bulldogs football fan and an avid reader (mostly marketing books with some epic fantasy mixed in too).

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Melissa Kwan

#380: How to Make Your Sales Story Land Right the First Time

#380: How to Make Your Sales Story Land Right the First Time

If you’re using proven storytelling structures like the ABT (And, But, Therefore) agile narrative framework, then your messages are clearer and have a much greater speed to impact.

But do you feel like you’re wasting time sharing the same sales story, onboarding session or training over and over again? Even though you have your story straight, you are getting bored telling it.

Today’s guest had the same problem as she found herself burning valuable time hosting the same webinar countless times. It was eating at her freedom to do the things she really loved. So she did something about it.

Melissa is the co-founder and CEO of eWebinar, an automated webinar solution that combines pre-recorded video with real-time interactions and live chat to deliver an engaging experience for attendees.

eWebinar is the byproduct of Melissa living in “webinar hell” for five years in her previous startup. By automating her storytelling, over 2,000 people have joined the eWebinar demo on their own time in the last 10 months, 25% converted (signed up for free trial) on their own without talking to a soul.

She believes that the power of storytelling can be scaled once you nail that pitch 🙂

“As a startup founder, all I do is tell stories every day. Stories to inspire my cofounder, my team, and my customers. One of the things I do best is to sell something that doesn’t exist yet and to get a business going from 0 to 1, and that’s all storytelling,” Melissa said.

• A lot of times, what you are saying is not what’s being heard. The best salespeople know how to align the two
• By using a framework to tell your story, you can guide people to your desired outcome
• Nobody is born a great salesperson, sales is a science which means anyone can get really good at it

Melissa spent 10 years with two startups (eWebinar is her third) and for eight of those 10 years, she struggled to get things going.

“There were many times that I could have and should have failed, but I kept pushing through and luckily, my previous startup was acquired in 2019. Going through those 10 years was almost like going through 10 years of school, which has given me the knowledge and experience to do what I do today.,” she said.

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