The Business of Story Podcast with Host Park Howell
Feedspot.com just named the Business of Story the #1 business storytelling podcast for 2022.
Hosted by Park Howell, known as the world’s most industrious storyteller, the Business of Story is ranked among the top 10% of downloaded podcasts internationally.
The goal of the show is to help sales and marketing leaders excel through the stories they tell. Each episode brings you the brightest storytelling content creators, advertising creatives, authors, screenwriters, makers, marketers, and brand raconteurs that show you how to craft and tell compelling stories that sell. #StoryOn!
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#444: How To Unlock Your Brand of Leadership In 8 Minutes
#444: How To Unlock Your Brand of Leadership In 8 Minutes
Happy New Year!
2024 is upon us and you know what that means. Time to make resolutions that will seem near impossible to keep.
It’s a habit thing. Some *experts* suggest that it takes 66 days to ingrain a new behavior through deliberate practice.
So what if you could transform as a leader with easy-to-understand and do micro-moments of learning?
Fifty-two of them to be exact.
You’re in the right place. Because our guest, Skot Waldron, a highly accomplished creative director and communications strategist, shares his new book, Unlocked: A 52-Week Guide for the Intentional Leader.
For the past 20 years, Skot has worked for clients such as J.P. Morgan Chase, CDC, Mount Sinai Hospital, Sesame Workshop, The Home Depot, and The Coca-Cola Company has included national and international communication programs.
#443: Using Storytelling to Hire Epic Managers For Your Business
#443: Using Storytelling to Hire Epic Managers For Your Business
The beautiful thing about crafting your brand narrative using the Story Cycle System™ is that you grow your storytelling chops in the process.
Just ask Ross Weisman. We helped Ross and his family create the brand narrative strategy for their start-up franchise called Current Meditation, the “modern” mindfulness experience.
What he learned about how to craft and tell compelling stories that sell he has applied to his new venture called Epic Managers.
They help recruit, train and retain top managers for franchisees using business storytelling as their strategic communications model.
Even the name Epic Managers came from Ross’ immersion in the Business of Story process.
On today’s show, Ross shares his experiences in the franchise world. He discusses the importance of creating a brand that is accessible and modern, and how the concept of mental fitness became a central theme.
You will also learn the process of developing your brand personality and the nine one-word descriptors that guided your storytelling flywheel.
Finally, he introduces Epic Managers, a company that recruits top talent managers for franchise businesses and applies storytelling principles to help franchisees find and retain quality managers.
#442: Why the Best Storytellers are Slow and Curious
#442: Why the Best Storytellers are Slow and Curious
The one thing I hear all of the time when I’m teaching and coaching our Business of Story mastery course is this:
“Park, I’m not a good storyteller, I don’t have any good stories to tell, and besides, no one wants to hear my story.”
Is this you?
A
re you using this popular triumvirate of excuses as to why you’re not sharing your stories?
Today’s guest demonstrates that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has important and interesting stories that people want to hear.
Dan Heath is a four-time New York Times bestselling author. His books — which include Switch, Made to Stick, and The Power of Moments — have sold over four million copies worldwide and been translated into 33 languages.
Dan launched a new podcast in October 2023 called “What It’s Like to Be…”. In every episode, Dan profiles someone from a different profession (such as MYSTERY NOVELIST, HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL, and STADIUM BEER VENDOR).
The show hits Apple’s Top 25 Society & Culture podcast lists in its first week. Dan is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports entrepreneurs who are fighting for social good. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
#441: Are We Being Seduced by Stories in Business and Politics?
#441: Are We Being Seduced by Stories in Business and Politics?
“The wandering bands of storytelling Sapiens were the most important and most destructive force the animal kingdom had ever produced,” according to Yuval Noah Harari in his remarkable book, Sapiens.
Harari, an Israeli author, public intellectual, historian and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says that we Homo sapiens are essentially storytelling monkeys.
We are the only organism we know of that thinks, plans, organizes and acts in story.
Think about it. If you have ever bought a car, did the salesperson try to get you to picture what it would be like to own that car, to have it parked prominently in your driveway?
They, essentially, are getting you to form a mental picture, a fiction at the moment, of what a brighter tomorrow will look like in your spiffy new car.
Politics is no different. President John F. Kennedy painted a remarkable picture of placing a man on the moon and returning him safely home within the decade. His science fiction story led to the $24 billion funding of NASA and winning the space race against the Russians.
But are we too reliant on narratives that brands and politicians feed us daily?
Today’s guest, Peter Brooks, thinks so. He is the author of the new book, Seduced By Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative.
#440: How to Heat Up Your Cold Calls With the Superpower of Storytelling
#440: How to Heat Up Your Cold Calls With the Superpower of Storytelling
Who adores cold calling?
Not me!
But what if we had a proven way to connect with that cold prospect to heat up their emotional center?
It’d probably make sales a lot easier AND even more comfortable for you cold sales callers.
We talk all of the time about how emotion can move people when they can picture the positive outcome.
We’ve proven this works in storytelling, especially when you build your stories on the chassis of the ABT (And, But. Therefore) agile narrative framework.
It works because the ABT uses the three forces of storytelling including agreement, contradiction & consequence. Our primal pattern-seeking, problem-solving, decision-making buying Limbic brain appears to love this three-act structure to story because it easily orchestrates meaning, evening with the most complex sales messages.
I have spent well over a dedicate researching how our brain is a story processor, not a logic process, as American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt so aptly describes us storytelling apes.
You can see my research for yourself in my curated library of storytelling resources.
Today’s guest, Justin Michael, has found similar findings of how “Our brain yields helplessly to the pull of story,” according to another brilliant storyteller, Jonathan Gottschall.
But his work is in cold calling emails and even phone calls.
Justin is the author of the new book, Sales Superpowers: A New Outbound Operating System to Drive Explosive Pipeline Growth.
#439: How to Leverage Business Storytelling to Eliminate Employee Churn
#439: How to Leverage Business Storytelling to Eliminate Employee Churn
You know how invaluable committed employees are to the success of your brand and the growth of your revenue.
But do you know the cost of losing a colleague? Studies show that it will cost you 150+ percent of a middle manager’s annual salary to replace them.
If they’re making $80,000 per year (which is extremely conservative), it will cost you in the neighborhood of $120,000 to replace them.
Click on the image to go to the attrition calculator.
It doesn’t sound right, does it?
You can quickly run the numbers of those people running out your door with the new Business of Story Attrition Calculator.
See for yourself what it costs you every time you lose an employee.
It ain’t pretty. And it’s extremely expensive.
So how do you retain your top talent?
Start by crafting and telling compelling stories that they will buy into and prosper from.
Joey Coleman, Chief Composer of Design Symphony, helps companies keep their customers and employees.
#438: How to Craft Your Origin Story Using the Hero’s Journey
#438: How to Craft Your Origin Story Using the Hero’s Journey
Looking at Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey alongside my Story Cycle System™, it’s like comparing classical mythology to a modern business strategy.
Campbell’s approach, the Hero’s Journey, takes storytellers on a grand adventure through archetypal stages—trials, mentors, battles, and self-discovery. It’s the stuff of timeless myths, ingrained in our collective consciousness.
Now, contrast that with my Story Cycle System—a pragmatic guide for crafting narratives that not only resonate but also drive results in the boardroom.
I mapped the Hero’s Journey to business communications guided by my 10-step Story Cycle System that has grown brand by as much as 600 percent.
It’s less about the hero’s mythical quest and more about strategically weaving a story that captivates and delivers real-world impact.
Campbell’s central character may be wielding a mythical sword, but in my world, the protagonist brandishes a narrative crafted to cut through the noise of a crowded marketplace.
It’s a different tune, one that blends emotion with a keen business edge.
In essence, Campbell and I bring different flavors to the storytelling table. He taps into the timeless human experience, while I strike a more contemporary chord, emphasizing the practical power of narrative in the business realm.
Together, we invite storytellers to embark on a dual quest—honoring ancient rhythms while strategically leveraging storytelling in the modern landscape.
In this episode, I show you how my origin story can be naturally outlined following every step of the Hero’s Journey and how you can use this ancient storytelling artform to guide the crafting of your origin story.
Or, better yet, you can use the Story Cycle System™ for the same purpose but with an eye to creating compelling business narratives to connect with and convert your customers.
#437: How to Create Super Sticky Brand Names to Soup Up Your Story
#437: How to Create Super Sticky Brand Names to Soup Up Your Story
“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare asked in his Play Romeo & Juliet.
“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet,” he proclaims suggesting that the name of things is irrelevant.
But Shakespeare didn’t live in the noisy times that we do now.
You and your customers have abundant choices on who to work for, what to buy, and where to eat. Powerful, illustrative names send a laser signal that catches attention.
If you don’t have a name that provides immediate meaning, piques interest or conveys who you are, what you stand for, and what you offer, then you will remain lost in the overgrown thicket of competition in the cacophony of communication we all compete in.
If you’re in need of a name, you’re in luck. Because today, the international queen of naming herself, Alexandra Watkins, will share with you how to come up with a super sticky, and even greasy, name.
Alexandra Watkins is a leading and outspoken authority on brand names with buzz. For nearly 20 years, she and her naming firm, Eat My Words, have created love-at-first-sight brand names for countless companies including Amazon, Coca-Cola, Disney, Twitter, and Google.
Her breakthrough creativity book, Hello, My Name is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick, was named a Top 10 Marketing Book by Inc. Magazine. Her personal “Name Hall of Fame” include the Wendy’s Baconator, Neato robotic vacuum, Burger King’s Mac n’ Cheetos, Spanish language school Gringo Lingo, and frozen yogurt franchise called Spoon Me.
#436: Brand Bewitchery: Using the Story Cycle System™ for Presentation Creation
#436: Brand Bewitchery: Using the Story Cycle System™ for Presentation Creation
As you know by now, the Story Cycle System™ isn’t just for crafting a mesmerizing brand story strategy that bewitches your audiences.
You can use the exact same process to create winning sales presentations, blog posts, videos, whitepapers, etc.
In this episode, I show you how I used the Story Cycle to develop my TEDx Talk and provide you examples throughout the show on how you can use it to make all of your long-form content to captivate your customers, colleagues and the communities you serve to convert them into believers.
#435: Brand Bewitchery Ch. 11 & CH. 12: How to Debut and Scale Your New Brand Story
#435: Brand Bewitchery Ch. 11 & Ch. 12: How to Debut and Scale Your New Brand Story
When you look at the Story Cycle System you’ll notice that it is not a closed loop circle, like the Hero’s Journey.
I view the Story Cycle as a virtuous spiral that expands customer engagement with every revolution from brand awareness, to brand adoption to brand appreciation, when they become repeat customers and happily share your story with their world for the most persuasive form of advertising there is: FREE word-of-mouth marketing as they scale your brand story.
I realized after rereading Brand Bewitchery to you that the Story Cycle System is really like a flywheel, a popular metaphor in the start-up world. The flywheel effect occurs when small wins accumulate over time, creating momentum that keeps your business growing.
You’ve heard the popular truism that people buy from people they know, like and trust.
You and your brand need to become known, even famous, through your focused brand narrative. You must be known and popular to grow your business. That’s the beginning of the brand storytelling flywheel.
