Shagen Ganason Reveals the Five-C Framework That Reveals the Narrative Behind the Numbers

Most auditors walk into the room like prosecutors.

Here’s what you did wrong. Here’s the policy you violated. Here’s what you need to fix.

And they wonder why nobody listens.

I’ve spent 40 years in marketing and storytelling, and I’ll tell you this: the moment you lead with judgment instead of understanding, you’ve lost the room.

Shagen Ganason spent 30 years figuring that out the hard way—across seven countries, countless boardrooms, and organizations spanning every industry you can imagine. He built a global reputation as a meticulous auditor who could spot problems others missed.

But his findings kept hitting the same wall: resistance.

Then a life-changing spinal cord injury forced him into a completely different perspective. Suddenly he couldn’t talk. He had to listen—really listen—to what people don’t say.

That’s when everything shifted.

The emotional narratives behind the numbers. The pressures people were under. The organizational dynamics that created the problems he was finding. The human story underneath the spreadsheets.

He took everything he learned and wrote The Storyteller’s Ledger: Where Hindsight Informs, Insight Connects and Foresight Shapes the Story, giving auditors and analysts a systematic framework for transforming their findings from adversarial confrontations into collaborative partnerships.

Shagen communicates what I preach: “Numbers are numb without story.”

Think about that first syllable. Numb. That’s exactly how people feel when you hit them with spreadsheets and statistics. Defensive. Resistant. Ready to explain why your findings don’t apply to their unique situation.

But wrap those same findings in a story and everything changes.

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How the Three Client Mindsets Reveal the Biggest Revenue Opportunity You’re Missing

You know that AI is transforming your agency world, and clients hire you for what goes on between your ears—not just pretty pictures and clever taglines.

But you’re feeling that AI fatigue. Ten new tools launch every single day, and you’re not sure how to wrap your arms around something so slippery.

Therefore, what if I told you the agencies mastering AI transparency today become the indispensable partners clients can’t imagine moving forward without tomorrow?

Welcome to the Business of Story. I’m Park Howell.

Today’s guest is Drew McLellan, CEO of Agency Management Institute, who just dropped groundbreaking research revealing what agency clients really think about AI. And honestly? The findings flipped conventional wisdom on its head.

The Three Mindsets Your Clients Are Living In

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Drew’s research revealed three distinct groups among agency clients:

AI Embracers see AI as a way to get deeper, better, faster results from their agencies. Not cheaper. Better. These clients are inviting agencies into R&D teams, sales teams, and customer service—opening massive new revenue streams.

AI Skeptics aren’t dismissing AI. They’re nervous about legal implications and data privacy. They need transparency about how you’re using AI safely. Education and guardrails make them comfortable.

AI Opportunists think they can save money and pull work in-house using ChatGPT. They often need to fail first before understanding the “garbage in, garbage out” reality.

Here’s what shocked me: very few clients think about AI in terms of paying you less.

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Why “AI First” Is Wrong: The Narrative-First Case

Most CMOs Are Amplifying the Wrong Thing With AI in Their Brand Storytelling

Eighteen months.

That’s how long the average CMO lasts before getting fired, replaced, or burning out.

Not because they lack talent.

Because they can’t prove to the CEO and CFO that marketing actually works.

Now add the AI pressure: “We need to be AI-first. Create more content faster. Get it to market faster.”

And I honestly think that’s wrong.

The Universal Challenge Every Modern CMO Faces

You want to leverage AI for marketing efficiency and scale AND prove measurable ROI to secure your boardroom credibility.

But you feel overwhelmed because most “AI-first” approaches amplify noise without a narrative foundation, creating scattered experiments that fail to demonstrate real business value.

Therefore, you can achieve smart visibility and sustained results by implementing a narrative-first approach: establish a clear brand story, then use AI to amplify authentic messaging and measure meaningful KPIs that executives understand.

Meet Joeri: 260 Episodes, One Book, and the CMO Wisdom You Need

Joeri hosts the Web3 CMO Stories podcast with 260 episodes, interviewing marketing leaders about emerging technology and brand strategy.

He was one of my first podcast guests years ago when we met at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego.

Now he’s living in Lisbon, Portugal, where people say “bom dia” on the streets, and the sunshine gives him energy.

He just published “The Future CMO: How Modern CMOs Can Win with Trust, Tech, and Smart Visibility.”

And in April 2025, he’s hosting an AI Marketing Retreat in Sintra, Portugal with Mark Schaefer.

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Why Seeing Your Money as a Story Instead of Spreadsheets Transforms Anxiety Into Confidence

You’ve probably heard me ask this question before: what’s the first syllable in the word “numbers”?

That’s right. “Numb.”

And that’s exactly how most of us feel about our personal finances. Numb. Anxious. Overwhelmed.

You want financial clarity and confidence to make smart decisions about your future.

When you can actually see where your money will be in 30 days or 30 years, you gain the power to own your financial destiny and achieve the life goals that matter most.

But you feel anxious, even overwhelmed, because financial systems are stacked against you.

Education systems never taught you money management basics, and you’re left cobbling together solutions without the visibility you desperately need to make confident choices.

This is exactly where Jason Leong’s journey transforms everything.

Meet Jason Leong: The Artist-Technologist Who Built a Time Machine for Money

Jason Leong is co-founder and CEO of Pocketsmith, personal finance software serving customers in 190 countries from the company’s headquarters in Dunedin, New Zealand—the deep, deep South, as Jason calls it.

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What makes Jason’s approach extraordinary?

He’s not a typical fintech founder obsessed with numbers and algorithms. Jason and his co-founder James, are artists with serious technical chops who spent 17 years building software that transforms financial anxiety into empowered decision-making through something most finance platforms completely miss: storytelling.

He calls PocketSmith “a time machine for your money”—software that lets you pick any day in the future and see exactly how much you’ll have, transforming fiction into achievable fact through 30-year financial forecasting.

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Presentation and Panel Moderating Secrets From an International Journalist and Speaker

She politely stopped a president mid-speech at the United Nations.

His delegation hissed at her from the front row.

He looked thunderous.

But the UN organizers thanked her profusely for saving their climate change panel from complete derailment.

That moment reveals everything about professional communication excellence.

The Universal Challenge Every Presenter Faces

You want your presentations and panels to captivate audiences and create transformative experiences that advance your professional mission, and when you master authentic engagement through preparation and audience-centered delivery, you create events people refuse to leave.

But you feel uncertain and sometimes nervous because you’re making it about yourself instead of serving your audience, creating boring experiences that waste everyone’s time and money while audiences scroll through their phones desperately wishing for something compelling.

Therefore, you can achieve remarkable audience engagement through the professional techniques Femi Oke reveals in today’s episode: preparation that enables authenticity, courage to redirect conversations, strategic story deployment, and relentless focus on audience value over personal performance.

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How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Chapter

As a marketing professional, you understand that staying ahead of technological shifts determines your competitive advantage, and mastering how AI is fundamentally reshaping customer behavior matters because your entire marketing strategy depends on understanding decision-making processes.

But you feel uncertain because AI’s evolution is happening faster than anyone can predict or prepare for, leaving you wondering whether your current approach will even be relevant in twelve months.

Therefore you can gain strategic clarity about marketing’s AI-transformed future through Mark Schaefer’s latest research with 300 global futurists who reached a remarkable consensus on how AI will change humanity by 2035, revealing the specific strategies that will separate thriving brands from those left behind.

Meet Mark Schaefer

Mark Schaefer is a globally recognized keynote speaker, futurist, business consultant, and author of twelve books, including Marketing Rebellion, KNOWN, and Belonging to the Brand.

His newest release, How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity’s Next Chapter, synthesizes groundbreaking research from 300 global futurists to reveal how artificial intelligence is fundamentally rewiring human psychology and customer behavior.

Mark’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired magazine.

He teaches graduate marketing courses at Rutgers University and helps organizations worldwide navigate the intersection of technology, marketing, and human connection.

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Discover the 27-genre Framework That Transforms Brand Indifference Into Blockbuster Appeal

As a marketing leader responsible for brand differentiation in a crowded market, you want your brand story to drive measurable business results and if you’re using the right genre of story that your audience can relate to, then you will create tremendous appeal for your offering.

But you feel frustrated because most brands tell the story they want to tell instead of the story their audience wants to hear, leaving tons of revenue on the table while competitors who understand genre thinking capture market share.

Now you can achieve breakthrough brand transformation through the Hollywood 27 Genres framework and enemy-superpower thinking that Greg Logan reveals in today’s episode.

That disconnect between your story and their genre?

It’s costing you customers.

Big time.

I’ve watched brilliant brands struggle for decades because they focus on what they do instead of the emotional genre their customers are actually living in. They craft beautiful mission statements while their audience craves a completely different narrative pattern.

And the competitors who figure this out? They capture market share with what looks like magic but is actually systematic genre alignment.

Meet Greg Logan: The Brand Storytelling Expert Who Cracked Hollywood’s Code

Greg Logan is the author of Creating a Blockbuster Brand and founder of Narrativity, where he helps companies like Google and Adobe tell stories that actually work.

What makes Greg extraordinary?

He’s combined two careers – branding and advertising with entertainment – to decode the exact formulas Hollywood uses to hook us emotionally. Then he translates those formulas into brand storytelling that drives real business results.

His approach demonstrates what I call the marriage of classical storytelling wisdom with modern technological precision. The genres that have captivated audiences for millennia now serve your brand strategy.

And his new book, Creating a Blockbuster Brand? It’s the systematic guide to implementing these blockbuster formulas in your business.

Greg’s worked with some of the world’s most recognized brands. The results speak for themselves.

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Why Most Branded Podcasts Fail: The JAR Framework That Fixes Everything

Most Branded Podcasts Are What Jen Moss Calls “Ramblecasts”

You know the type.

Hosts talking about interesting things without any clear value proposition.

No focus. No strategy. No measurable results.

Just expensive audio that nobody listens to past episode three.

Over my 10-year career in podcasting, I’ve seen this pattern repeat endlessly. Brands throw money at podcasting because everyone says they should. Then they wonder why it doesn’t work.

The problem isn’t the medium.

Podcasting creates unprecedented access to your audience’s attention. Literally positioning your brand between their ears during commutes, workouts, and daily routines.

The problem is that most brands fundamentally misunderstand what makes podcasting work.

They treat it like another broadcast channel for corporate messaging instead of recognizing it as an intimate conversation requiring genuine value exchange.

Meet Jen Moss: The Anti-Ramblecast Crusader

Jen Moss is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of JAR Podcast Solutions.

She’s worked with Amazon, lululemon, Cirque du Soleil, Wharton, and Deloitte.

Before that, she spent decades mastering audio storytelling at CBC, learning from broadcasting legends like Dick Miller, Yvonne Gall, Anne Penman, and Sheila Rogers.

These are people who know how to hold audience attention over time.

Now Jen teaches creative writing for podcasting at the University of British Columbia. She thinks deeply about the relationship between story and form.

And she’s developed a framework that transforms branded podcasts from expensive experiments into strategic business assets.

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Why Agency Owners Are Burning Out (And How AI Automation Fixes It)

Agency burnout is killing the creative industry. Here’s what stinks: brilliant agency leaders are working 80-hour weeks, losing employees every 18 months, and sacrificing their personal lives for client service.

Over my 40-year career in business storytelling, I’ve watched talented agency owners grind themselves into the ground. They’re drowning in manual processes, hemorrhaging institutional knowledge, and convinced that working harder is the only path to excellence.

BUT there’s a breakthrough that changes everything: AI automation that actually works.

Meet Alane Boyd: The Agency Automation Expert Who Solved Employee Retention

Alane Boyd is a serial entrepreneur and workflow automation expert with almost two decades of tech experience. As Co-CEO of Biggest Goal, she focuses on AI and automation to streamline company processes and increase bottom-line results.

Her credentials speak volumes:

• Three-time published author
• Recognized as Top Leader under 40
• Finalist for Top Companies to Watch in 2021
• Tools voted Best for Remote Work in 2022
• Featured on SXSW, HuffPost, and Entrepreneur

But here’s what makes her approach revolutionary: when Alane built her 125-employee agency, her average employee tenure was seven years. Industry average? Eighteen months.

The AI Agent Revolution: Beyond Manual Automation

Most agencies are doing AI wrong. They’re using ChatGPT manually, creating AI fatigue, and getting inconsistent results.

Alane’s solution? AI agents that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.

Here’s how it works: Move a deal to “proposal stage” in your CRM, and the AI agent automatically creates a customized proposal using your templates, call notes, and company voice. No manual prompting. No AI fatigue. No inconsistent results.

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The Story Engine Founder Reveals His 3-Story Framework for Magnetizing Ideal Clients

How Experts Who Are “Too Smart for Their Own Good” Transform Scattered Content Into Systematic Business Growth

You’ve probably spent countless hours creating valuable content, sharing your expertise, and teaching everything you know.

Maybe you’re even getting some engagement and positive feedback.

But if you’re honest, you’re also dealing with low conversion rates, audiences who don’t take action, and the frustrating feeling that your brilliant insights aren’t translating into the business results you deserve.

Here’s what Kyle Gray discovered that changes everything: Most expert content fails because it’s knowledge without connection. Expertise without emotional resonance. Brilliant insights without the story structure to make them stick.

Kyle calls this the expert’s blind spot: “We as entrepreneurs relate to ourselves wrong. What we think is our curse is actually something that sets us apart in the marketplace.”

Today’s episode demonstrates how the stories hiding in plain sight – especially the ones you might not want to tell – become your most powerful tools for magnetizing ideal clients and driving systematic business growth.

Your expertise combined with strategic storytelling is what generates the most important transformation of all: turning your knowledge into magnetic authority that attracts premium clients who are excited to work with you.

The Story Engine Expert Who Gets Results

Kyle Gray is a world-class presentation coach, story strategist and author who helps coaches, startups and executives use storytelling to better communicate their unique value and improve sales with their audience. He combines timeless storytelling with cutting-edge marketing to ensure you have the right story to tell while presenting, on a sales call or in conversation, both online and offline.

As host of “The Story Engine Podcast” and founder of Story Engine, Kyle works directly with experts who struggle to convert their knowledge into compelling presentations that drive business results.

What makes Kyle different?

He’s not teaching you generic storytelling techniques.

He’s showing you how to uncover the specific stories that are already hiding in your experience – the ones that will magnetize your exact ideal clients and transform your presentations from information dumps into conversion engines.

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