the way that you talk about your business your brand your products if the way you talk about those things is confusing or even worse uninteresting it's costing you a ton of money it's costing your business money it's costing you a connection with your customers it's costing you the ability to solve people's problems the heart of business is just solving people's problems and having them give you a fair compensation for solving their problems [Music] listen the way most people talk about their businesses it isn't working in fact most sales professionals most companies their marketing dollars their sales pitches what they do is they fail to invite their customers into a story and that is what most of us here are doing if I go to your website I cannot tell what problem you solve I cannot tell how that product is going to solve that problem you've positioned yourself as the hero you're talking about a bunch of stuff I don't care about you've you've got you've gotten yourself out of my story rather than entering into my story you're making a lot of mistakes and so listen by the end of the next hour I want to give you a framework in which you are going to come up with seven extremely effective sound bites and when you use those seven sound bites you're going to invite customers into a story in which they use your product to win the day in their life you are going to enter their story as a guide and you are going to help the hero win this to me is the key to phenomenal growth in your business if you have a great product and you have really good people and you've got really great procedures to sell those products but you're capped you're stalled you need the fourth P the fourth p is positioning how have you positioned your product in the marketplace so that people understand why they need it are the words you are using giving value to the products that you sell here's the reality people buy products after they hear or read words that make them want to buy those products it's all about the words now think about the last thing that you bought on say amazon.com probably almost everybody watching this has bought something in the last week I bought something today on Amazon I had to buy a little an RCA connector to go into a headphone jack and what I did was I went they had 25 different versions of it I read a review of the one I checked the price Amazon said overall pick and so I bought it now notice I read the review I read the price I read the words overall pick and I bought it it was the words that I read that made me want to buy it when we think about branding we often think about about our color scheme our logo our tagline things like that I promise you it's the words that you use in fact amazon.com everybody here has bought something on Amazon probably today if not this week that is an ugly website with ugly colors so we've just proven that it doesn't have to be beautiful in order for you to to make money in order for you to do well in business it's the words that you use so I want to introduce you to a framework that is going to help you use short simple repeatable sound bites in order to take market share in whatever it is that you do it doesn't matter if your business to business it doesn't matter if you're business to Consumer it doesn't matter if you're a nonprofit the words that you will you the words that you will use will will help your business grow all right before we get into the framework let me explain why the story brand framework works so well building a story brand sold over a million copies the new version building a story brand 2.0 came out into the world it's doing very well but that many people have bought that book because that book helped them come up with seven short sound bites that grew their business we've heard 10x we've heard 100x uh in increase in sales when people started using the right words so we want to use the right words now why does the framework work why are people so attracted to the right words well here's why there's two things that the human brain is always trying to do the first thing that the the human brain is always trying to do is survive and thrive that is the job of the human brain it is to survive and thrive your job your brain's job is to keep you alive and keep you on the planet when you go across the street your brain says look left and right because a bus could be coming right well all the time your brain is scanning the environment for threats and it's trying to mitigate those threats and navigate the world in such a way that you stay alive first now in a first world country we have food and shelter we have all that kind of stuff so your brain moves to more sophisticated Realms in terms of survival it'll look for people to associate with it'll look for products that give me more Comfort peace of mind I'm looking for better sleep I'm looking for Better Health I'm looking for better connection with my children I'm looking for a better marriage I'm looking for really good friends I'm looking for things that deal with my emotional Health my psychological Health my physical health much higher levels of survival but your brain is always looking for the next level of survival always that is the job of the human brain now why do you need to know that to stay in business this is why the only reason people buy things is to survive to somehow increase their chance of survival again in a first world country it's not all about living and staying alive it's about thriving and having more uh H having more resources in order to stay alive in order to mitigate threats or defend myself against threats and so what you have to do in order to sell your products this is very very very important associate your product with the survival of your customer associate your product with the survival of your customer we're going to talk about how to Nuance that and get into it no matter what you sell later in this hour now the second thing that the human brain is always trying to do after you help people survive and thrive the second thing that the human brain is always trying to do is conserve calories your brain does not want to spend a lot of calories thinking in fact your brain really doesn't want to think at all and here's why you burn between 6 and 800 calories a day just processing the information out in the world just taking it information saying should I turn left and right where am I going and I got to enter this in the GPS and I don't like this radio station I want to listen to and oh I got a call for my daughter I got to remember to go to buy the bakery on the way home 6 to 800 calories just processing the day so you don't have a whole lot of time to think about anything and your brain says you know what so much information is being thrown at us so many people want our attention over 5,000 commercial messages a day are being thrown at the average American that's incredible so tons and tons of calories and will you think about this will you think about this will you think about this so brain that needs to survive is going to say one thing I need to know what to think about and what not to think about and so automatically you have a filter it's a subconscious filter in your brain that says I want you to think about this I don't want you to think about that now hear me out if you did not have this filter your life would be entirely and completely unmanageable what do I mean by that you would have walked into a Starbucks this morning you would have picked up a pound of coffee and you would have said this is kind of interesting it feels like metal but it moves around with the texture of paper and look I think it may be glued on the top that's a glue seal no maybe that's a stitch seal I don't know oh it's got these metal things oh if you put them up they kind of look like a cat I wonder if this was shipped on a boat from somewhere I wonder you would be thinking about things that you don't need to think about but instead that is not how you walked into Starbucks you walked into Starbucks you avoided the coffee cuz you don't need that and you walked up the county you placed an order you waited till they called your name and you went up to your the cup with your misspelled name on it you walked out the door you got some caffeine which you need to give you a boost of mental focus so you could go to work and make money that day in other words of all the things that you could pay attention to in Starbucks you paid attention to only the things that help you survive so you see what I'm getting at if I go to your website if I go to your landing page if you send me a text message if you email me if you're giving a keynote presentation at a workshop if you're doing a live stream or a webinar if you're talking to somebody on the phone as a sales rep trying to sell your product the people that you're talking to are wondering one thing and one thing alone how will you help me survive and that's it and you need to answer that question fast when you do you will find that people lean in tell me more about that wait wait wait wait hold on you said that this could actually uh you know remove the wrinkles from around my eyes making me look younger and more vibrant so that people are more drawn to me which is it's a way that I can survive better oh that's amazing wait you said that I could get better sleep and be able to focus better and be a better parent and be less Moody and better sleep sounds good that could help me survive but that's not how most of us talk when we talk about our businesses that's not what we do when people say what do you do we say well you know it's complicated wait think about what you just said well it's complicated you know what you might as well have told me well you're going to have to burn a ton of calories to understand what I'm about to say and by the way you don't even know if it's connected to your survival or not so why don't you give me 200 of those calories that you were that you don't want to use today so that I can say a bunch of gibberish about how my grandmother started this company 75 years ago no not interested so whenever somebody says tell me about your your company and your business here's what I want you to do now if you have to go to sleep remember this this is the one thing I want you to remember if somebody asks about your business I want you to say you know I got tired of seeing people struggle with X I got tired of seeing people struggle with X I knew it was hurting them I knew it was crushing them so I created why and I sell them why in order to solve that problem and what have you just said you've just said I am somebody who helps people survive and if people are struggling with this and it's it's sapping their survival I come in and I stop that people who help us survive are very important to us people who tell us about their lives we can give or take that we can pass it we don't it doesn't matter we we value people who help us solve problems so that we can survive therefore because the brain is always trying to survive and thrive and always trying to conserve calories what you need to do is create a framework of messages which you talk about your products short simple sound bites that help people understand how you help them survive and you need to do so in such a way they don't have to burn any calories to understand we have a mantra around my office and it's this if you confuse you will lose if you confuse people you will lose never ever confuse them now listen I've met some people who I would consider amateur business marketers and Messengers and they say Don you know I like being mysterious I like making people curious about what I do and I like it when they ask me and they want to know and you know what I say to them you must also like being poor you must also like bankruptcy because if you confuse you will lose it happens every time people cannot be confused about what you do you must explain it very clearly all right now you understand how the mind works so let's introduce a framework that helps you come up with the sound bites that will help you understand how you can help them win the day and in order to do that we're going to use an ageold formula that comes from story story structure now before we get into it story is very formula screenwriters novelists they've been using stories for ages for ages in order to invite people into an entertaining uh day uh you know what's the last movie you saw in the theater what's the last movie that you saw last night I watched that old Walt Disney movie Miracle about the 1980 I think it was 1980 Olympic team the hockey team that won the gold medal and beat the Soviets great movie and I thought no you I'm not going to go to sleep I mean I am going to go to sleep I'm just going to watch 10 minutes of it but the story sucked me in right and I ended up staying up a little later than I wanted to finishing this movie you know here's the here's what's interesting about the power of narrative structures and the power of story the average brain Burns 800 calories right but it also spends 30% of its time daydreaming the average brain spends 30% of its time daydreaming unless you sit down and watch a movie or you open a book called Harry Potter when you do that your brain does not Daydream it just pays attention and it'll pay attention for hours in fact it will keep you up later than you want to be up because you want to know how this story ends story is the only tool known to man that can get a person to not Daydream for a long period of time that's why those of you who've ever been to church and you're daydreaming and you have no idea what that guy up there is saying as soon as he says let me tell you a story about how this affected me and my wife you start paying attention the second that somebody starts telling a story everybody clues in and so what we want to do is we want to say okay what are these formulas that these screenwriters have been using for centuries in order to compel people screenwriters haven't been using them for centuries but novelists have storytellers have playwrights like Shakespeare centuries and centuries have been captivating people with these stories so let's ask ourselves what are these formulas how do they work and how can we use them to get people to pay attention to us all right now one caveat that's going to happen I'm going to explain to you how stories work and this is what's going to happen to you for the rest of your life you're going to see it you're you're going to be watching a movie and you're going to say oh my word that's what the hero wants and that guy's the guide and that guy's the villain and he's he's leading people to believe they have an external problem which causes an internal problem which causes a philosophical problem and in act two part three this is the climactic scene which leads to the result either a a tragedy you're going to see it all now that I explain to you how story works let me show you an ancient story structure that has never ever ever stopped working and we're talking about thousands of years since Plato wrote Poetics right this this structure has been working all right here we go the first thing that you got to have if you want to tell a story is a character a hero has to to show up on screen and that Hero has to want something they have to want something and it has to be Crystal Clear Def and defined what it is that they want if we're riding a romcom that hero walked into a coffee shop met a young woman maybe he spilled his coffee there was all sorts of Chemistry Between them everybody in the movie going audience says this is the cutest couple ever they've got to get together and now we know what this movie is about this movie is about that guy and that girl getting together and somehow getting married or something because we know that's what they want now listen there are two mistakes that amateur screenwriters make and they're big giant mistakes that will sink a movie and cause the audience to stop paying attention these same two mistakes are the same two mistakes that business owners and Business Leaders make when they talk about their companies when they talk about their products mistake number one you're too vague if what the movie is about is vague and what the hero wants is vague you are causing me to burn too many calories to follow this plot for instance if I said hey let's not watch the Le rest of my lecture it's kind of boring I want to show you a new movie that I saw about a guy looking for fulfillment are you interested in that movie no you're not interested why because a guy looking for fulfillment is too Elusive and vague for me to get my head around what the entertainment offer actually is but if I said to you hey I want to show you a new movie another one of Liam Nissan's daughters has been kidnapped all of a sudden you're going okay yeah yeah yeah I've seen this before I this is going to be entertaining maybe you're in when your customer can't quite understand how you can change their lives they're going to do business with somebody else you cannot be vague if I go and analyze your website if I look at your website and on the top header of the website is something like trust is the commodity we exchange right trust is the commodity we exchange I'm not going to do business with you that sound sounds really professional it sounds kind of poetic it sounds like something nice about your brand but it doesn't help me understand what problem you solve for me people do not want to know about your brand they want to know what problem you solve for me that's what they want to know you want to talk about yourself I want you to talk about the customer's problem because that's the hook so we can't make mistakes like that and I see it all over the place all over the place there's literally a billboard across the street from my studio and the billboard says sitting on the fence call a cowboy and the cowboy the word Cowboy is spelled with a K and then there's a picture of a guy with a cowboy hat on that's it sitting on the fence call a cowboy with the word Cowboy misspelled and a guy with a cowboy hat now what in God's name is that billboard trying to sell well it turns out it's a company that can put up a fence around your backyard but what they did with that billboard is they tried to get cute sitting the fence oh that's cute you know not sure who to hire to build your fence and then there's a picture of a cowboy and then call a cowboy and then there's a phone number do you realize how much money they're losing with that stupid billboard that says nothing they literally think people are going to pull their car over get out sit on the hood and study that billboard like it's a puzzle and then they're going to call them to buy the fence I guarantee you that that billboard has sold zero fences now let's change that let's make it really clear right let's get that cowboy out there with a cowboy hat let's be cute we'll do the Cowboy theme I'm with you there and have him out there working really hard on a fence and then it just said hire a cowboy to build your fence with the phone number that's it hire a cowboy to build your fence with the phone number does not make people think listen to me I love you I I want your business to grow you got to listen to me on this it's really important stop making people think please stop making people think but we got a problem and here's the problem you are so close to your products and services there's so much about them that you understand that you are projecting your knowledge onto people who know nothing and so you are speaking in what feels very like very clear language to you because you've done this all your life you've done this a million times you know the product inside and out you're speaking you think you're speaking clearly but nobody understands what you're talking about you got to go all the way back and come up with sound bites the first mistake that people make in creating their brand message is they are too vague and Elusive at explaining at offering people something that they want they haven't defined something really really clear that people want that people could understand need a new fence hire a cowboy how many calories did you have to burn to figure out what I was trying to say none none so don't be vague don't be elusive don't be cute Don't Be Clever be clear be clear you can I believe you can do it in fact often when I'm talking to somebody about their business they'll tell me about their business and then I'll I'll say this little magical question I'll say what did you mean by that and then the next words out of their mouth will be crystal clear and I'm like say the Clear part not the clever part and you'll do more business all right first mistake people make when they're talking about their brands they're too vague they're too elusive second mistake people make they talk about too many things they make the story about too many things now this is a a little complicated but I want to explain it to you because I think it's worth it your brand can be known for one thing and that's it your brand will not be known for two things your brand will not be known for three things now the further you get from your brand the more true what I just said is right if you know your brand is about five or seven things your spouse knows it's about three or four things your good friends know it's about two things and everybody outside of them only knows you for one thing and so what you want to do is you want to figure out the one thing that your brand is known for and make that the whole thing right if I said to you what is Chick-fil-A known for you might say eat more chicken they're known for chicken they own chicken they dominate chicken they don't do anything else it's just chicken that is really really smart really really smart if you can get your brand to be known for one thing I think it's great now you say Don we don't just sell one thing okay Apple's probably known for really cool user uh friendly devices phones you know computers iPads they're known for really cool easyto use technology all right so they own that on and on and on I am known for creating clear messages and I'm known that way because for seven or eight years now I've talked about it endlessly endlessly it's almost all I'll talk about if you put a camera on me right if I'm walking down the street and the News comes up and says man what do you think of this snowstorm coming are you prepared I'll say yeah I'm prepared for the snowstorm because I clarified my message and it's really important that you clarify your message so call me my name is Don Miller I can help you clarify your message good luck with the snowstorm I mean I'm just like I got my sound bites down and I repeat them over and over and I don't care who I'm talking to and that's how you do it every good marketing e effort is an exercise and memorization and what I mean by that is once you have your sound bites down you need to say them so clearly so effectively and repeat them so often that everybody you talk to can memorize them and repeat them back to you you don't need to use different kind of language you know I remember going and visiting a presidential candidate presidential candidate was the front runner in the presidential election this is probably oh gosh more eight years ago more than eight years ago front runner in the presidential election in the primaries and that he was losing ground he was losing ground to the other primary candidates they were all starting to pass him up he had $112 million in his super pack he had $14 million in the general campaign fund and they called me and they said why are we literally diving in the polls when we have all this money we have all this brand awareness and I said you got to come up with sound bites and repeat them and his team literally said to me our candidate won't do that he's a scholar he wants to be in town hall answering questions honestly he will not repeat sound bites he's not a fake inauthentic guy and I said well you have to understand if that's true your candidate will never be president never it will never ever happen because not a single voter is sitting there pouring a glass of scotch trying to study the Nuance of your candidate in fact it's an incredibly arrogant thing for him to not serve the voter by simplifying his message it's very narcissistic I'm not going to simplify my message I am so important that you need to sit down and spend hours trying to understand what I can do for you how cocky and arrogant is that you can't do that as a business owner don't expect people just to sit down and try let's come up with some beautiful short sound bites that you can repeat and serve them by not making them think it's the alistic thing to do it's the kind thing to do and it's what you're going to do and it's also going to be incredibly incredibly effective for you okay don't be vague and don't be about too many things if your brand is about too many things that's great now listen if if your brand is about too many things you need to come up with one umbrella thing that you're all about my friend Dave Ramsey Works down the street uh he's known for fin final peace he's going to help you Achieve Financial Peace let me let me just tell you what you already know about Dave Ramsey he wants you to have financial piece he's against debt so now we know what he's for and what he's against and he's we know that because he's on a radio show every day repeating it and he's been repeating it for 25 years and he never changes his message and he makes about $300 million a year with that message and you can do the same thing what is the one thing that that your brand offers it doesn't mean you can only sell one product but all the products that you need that you sell need to help deliver on that one promise whether it's better sleep more peace uh Better Community Better Health better plunger to unclog your toilet quicker better cat litter you know I my wife and daughter who I love more than any two people I've ever known in my entire life Lobby me for close to a year to get a cat and I thought guys we have a dog we can't add a cat but they like some women are capable of doing melted me down until I gave in and now we have two cats and a dog that's how that's how that's how much of a backbone I have against these ladies I've I've actually just fallen in love with these cats but what I noticed the other day is I was changing the cat litter listen to me I never wanted a cat now I'm changing cat litter that cat litter is really heavy I mean it's I'm like you got to be kidding me it comes from Amazon sits on my front porch I lift it up I'm like this is like 40 pounds of cat litter I take it into the laundry room I change cat litter I see an ad and the ad says tired of heavy cat litter our cat litter doesn't weigh very much and I thought brilliant that is a brilliant ad and it is aimed directly at me and directly at somebody who had experienced that problem does that make sense they didn't lead with our cat litter name is this and our brand colors are this what they LED with was if you have experienced this problem we have solved it so buy our cat litter and you know what we did we bought their cat litter I don't even know the name of the brand but I know the problem that they solve and because I had that problem I bought their product you have been hiding in your marketing and messaging strategy you've been hiding the gold you've been hiding the hook that catches the fish the hook that catches the fish is the problem so now that we've identified what our customer wants and we're not being vague and we're not lisening too many things we've got to define a problem that they are struggling with that's the next part of the framework you've got what the character wants and then you've got the problem and that's our second sound bite and I want I want to challenge you the most important thing I'm going to say tonight is this you need to own a problem you need to own it if you own a problem you own the market if you own a problem you own the market now you say Don I've got 10 competitors who sell the same thing I sell let me just ask you this are they talking about the problem if they aren't talking about the problem you have an opportunity to dominate all 10 competitors to dominate them and put them out of business and I'm just saying that I don't want you to put them out of business I don't want anybody go out of business but if you start talking about the problem and they don't you're going to dominate because that's the only reason people separate with their money they only separate with their money they only place orders to solve a problem so you need a sound bite and by the way if you read building a storybrand 2.0 there are three sections of problems external internal philosophical you need three sound bites that speak to the problems the physical the emotional and the philosophical problem that your customers are dealing with and then you need to talk about those problems endlessly endlessly I want you to talk about those problems in fact if I go to your website and I print out a physical copy of your website on a piece of paper and I took a Sharpie and I circled everywhere that you talk about your customer's problems and how painful those problems are and how struggle what a struggle that is and then you position your product as the solution to those problems I want to I want at least 10 circles on that page now just ask yourself that if I printed off your website could I Circle 10 different places where you're talking about your customer's problems if not I would say you've got an amazing opportunity all you've got to do is add some language about their problem and you are going to see sales go up listen you know I have a a small group of Mastermind guys I have a friend who has a supplement company he's in my Mastermind I went through all I did was went through and rewrote the product descriptions for each of his supplements just gave him some hey let's start with the problem let's talk more about the problem you're talking about how you dehydrate broccoli and put it into a pill that's wonderful but I want to talk about gut rot and how it makes you tired and how it does this and so I rewrote that he went from 9 million to $18 million just rewriting product descriptions in in two years he did that you know people only part with their money to solve a problem so we've got to get the language right when we're talking about our customers problem all right the next thing that we've got to do now that we've talked about the problem we got to position ourselves as the guide in their story they are the hero who has a problem we are the guide helping them win the day what what do I mean by guide well in stories you have heroic characters trying to win the day and then you have guide characters trying to help them you also have victim characters that need rescuing and you have villain characters who are opposing the hero and trying to hurt the victim those are the four major characters in almost every story that you have ever seen those are the four major characters now those characters exist I believe because out there in the world we all play Heroes we all play victims we all play villains we all play guys you catch me stuck in traffic and I'm probably going to have a lot of villain personality boiling through my brain my my whatever right you catch me with my daughter trying to help her figure out how to kick a soccer ball I'm about to be an assistant soccer coach I'm nervous as I could possibly be with a three and a halfy old I know I can't I actually can't wait but who am I trying to help my daughter in the backyard learn to kick a soccer ball I am the guide trying to help the hero win so these four characters exist in stories because these four characters exist in us and they exist in everybody that we know however when it comes to doing business people are not looking for another hero they're looking for a guide they're looking for somebody to enter into their story and help them win they are not looking for another hero do not position yourself as the hero in your customer story position yourself as the guide in your customer story uh Luke Skywalker is a hero Obi-Wan Kenobi is a god Luke Skywalker is a hero Yoda is a god Katniss in Hunger Games is a hero Woody from cheers is a guide you see what I'm saying you have a you have a guide and you have a hero in in almost every story that you can think of and your customers they identify as a hero in a story and they're looking for a guide to help them win the day now there are two reasons you never want to play the hero the first is the hero is weak the hero until the last n minutes of the story The Heroes actually very very weak they are ill equipped they are afraid they're filled with self-doubt they don't know what to do and they're in desperate need of help why would you ever want to position yourself as a hero in the story when a hero is a weak character that's the first reason you don't want to position yourself as a hero because if you do you're positioning yourself as a weak person the second reason you don't want to position yourself as the hero in the story or make the story about you is because when you do so you remove yourself from your customer story if I woke up in the morning and I identify as a single protagonist in a narrative structure and you come to me and say you know I'm trying to build my company and we're trying to make a great placees to work metric and we're trying to whatever I see you as a hero in the story so if I'm a hero in a story and you are a hero in a story we are in separate stories all right how do you position yourself as a guide two more sound bites the first is an empathetic sound bite I want you to demonstrate with words that you care about your customer if you are struggling with this we feel your pain we understand we care about you empathy matters so I want to be able to circle on your website or your emails or in your YouTube videos or whatever I want to be able to circle the places where you have demonstrated empathy for me if you do not know how to talk about your company in order to get the attention that you need I understand I feel your pain I know it can be hard so empathy is very important the next thing that you need to do to position yourself as a guide is come up with sound bites that demonstrate competency competency that I feel your pain and I understand your pain and I know what I'm doing when it comes to get you out my product will solve your problem full stop period I'm not apologizing for it it will do it I am tired of seeing you suffer I don't want you to suffer anymore so I'm gonna help you out and I've done this for a lot of people and I'm going to do it for you we borrow your confidence that your solution actually works so you've got to have empathy a giant loving heart toward your customer and big old muscles to solve their problem that's what we need from you and your product empathy and Authority so I need an empathetic sound bite and I need a sound bite that demonstrates competency I'm going to give you some really good examples of what I'm talking about in a minute the next thing that we need I need a plan I need because I really want to buy your product now however it's complicated it's confusing I'm a little bit scared I might lose my money so what I want you to do is I want you to give me a three-step plan give me a three-step plan that builds a bridge from your my from your problem to my solution so it could be as easy as you know let's say you're a a financial adviser you might say something like um you know step one as we do an intake session where we understand your your risk tolerance we understand your vision your your hope for the future what you would actually need to retire we do an intake session step two is I give you a custom report on everything that I think you should be doing with your money and then step three if you want I'll hold your hand and help you execute that for a retainer fee for the next 20 or 30 years step one step two step three you will find especially if what you sell is a little bit confusing and a little bit nuanced and it takes time for people to understand what you'll find is that three-step plan those three baby steps that you give them dramatically increase the amount of Engagement that you get because they don't have to predict the future they know the future is step one step two step three if it it it lifts the fog and the cognitive dissonance that is keeping them from doing business with you three steps is very important the next thing that you need as a sound bite is a call to action you need to tell the customer it is time to do business together it's time for us to do business and you need to be bold in your call to action sometimes I go to some of your websites and it says things like learn more well learn more is a a pretty passive way to ask for somebody to move right if I met you at a cocktail party and I said learn more are you remotely interested in continuing to talk to me or you think that's weird if it's weird at a cocktail party it's weird on your website don't say learn more say byy now say schedule a call ask them directly for the money you got to challenge them and say it is time to buy right now I learned how to do this I'm not a natural ask for the money guy I don't like asking for the money but I had to learn to do it in order to stay in business and I discovered the way to do it is actually not really to ask for the money but basically to say if you are struggling with this problem my product will solve it I think you should buy it now I want you to write that down for me some of you are taking notes write this down if you are struggling with X you should buy y would you like to buy it if you're struggling with with uh the inability to sleep you should buy my uh meditation app would you like to buy it so all you got to do is if you're struggling with this problem you should buy this product why do I say that because most people are wondering whether buying your product is The Right Move I'm wondering is this the right move or not and as soon as you say that magical sentence if you are struggling with X buying Y is the right move they go oh okay that's what I was wondering and then they hand you their credit card so instead of saying would you like to buy it or would you like to learn more or God forbid you would ever say listen if you're interested give me a call I mean you just gave them all the power you made them do a bunch of work if you're ever interested to give you know they don't want to do that they want to buy it right now but only after they know it will solve their problem so the only way they're going to know that you're going to solve their problem is if you tell them I'm going to solve your problem and they'll pull out their credit card so next time I want you to just do that do that for the next 60 days just instead of saying whenever it's time to ask for the sale say if you're struggling with X I think you should buy y would you like to buy it now just write that down for the next 60 days use that magic phrase over and over and watch what happens to your sales they will go up I guarantee it they will go up all right that's how you call people to action but we need two more sound bites and the two more sound bites that we need need are going to complete the story the first sound bite that we need of the last two is a success sound bite we need a sound bite that lets everybody know exactly what's going to happen if they buy your product this is the happy ever ending happy ever ending life that they're going to have no more leaky roof no more sleepless nights uh no more inability to do a pull-up no more you know whatever it is no more dog bar marking at the door no more lifting heavy kitty litter off the porch and taking it back to the laundry room it's over that part of your life is over we're going to solve that problem you need to give me a vision of a better future now these are called stakes in a story what can be won or Lost based on whether or not I buy your product the next sound bite that you need is the the opposite of the success you need a failure sound bite you need a sound bite that tells me what horrible no good thing is going to happen if I don't buy your product by the way if you don't buy our kitty litter you're going to break your back someday trying to get that kitty litter back to the laundry room you're going to keep lifting that stuff and having to tote K you ever noticed how much commercials exaggerate how awful life is if you don't use their product I mean you watch a dish soap commercial and somebody's doing the dishes and it's like they they're just cry out to God why do I have to struggle with this terrible dish so they're being really melodramatic about the problem because they know the problem is what causes people to buy and so we would actually say your life could look really wonderful but it does not your life could look really great but it doesn't it looks like this remind people of what how terrible their life looks without solving the the problem that you solve and how great life looks if it does so these are seven sound bites or seven categories of sound bites and I'm going to give you some examples from two really good sources here in just a minute but let me summarize exactly what these sound bites are the first sound bite I need a sound bite that defines what your customers want give me very short simple language two what problem is your customer experiencing I actually need internal external and philosophical so three sound bites on that I'll demonstrate that in a second I need you to position yourself as the guide that the hero trusts to help them solve their problem which is an empathy sound bite and an authority or competency soundbite next I need you to create a clear three-step plan that will help me win the day then call me to action if you are struggling with X buying Y is The Right Move would you like to buy it and then give me two more sound bites explain expl what life will look like if I solve the problem and explain what life will look like if I don't okay let's leave this up on the screen if you want to take a screen grab of this I see some of you picking up your phones those are the sound bites that you need these sound bites have worked for 2,500 years to compel a human brain and they are going to work to make people interested in your business or your products okay we created something that's free for you it's called story brand. a and it will actually generate sound bites for you let me show you the sound bites that I use for my business story brand all right the controlling idea soundbite that we didn't talk about is the the sound bite that gives me the filter that I I filter all my messaging through so the controlling idea for my company is transform your business story into clear messages that resonate and D success let's look at the character sound bite what does my character want my hero customer small business owners seeking Clarity in their message so I'm going to use that think about that somebody says Don what sort of people do you work with I'm going to say small business owners seeking Clarity in their message now have I defined exactly what my customer wants or or at least artificial intelligence did and I think it did a pretty good job with a problem external they struggle to articulate their Brand's message clearly the internal problem is they feel frustrated and overwhelmed by unclear messaging the philosophical problem it's unfair that great businesses falter due to communication issues all right let's position ourselves as the guide empathy we understand the pressure of communicating clearly in a competitive market competency and Authority our framework has helped over a million businesses clarify their message with 700 certified coaches ready to assist you who gives them a plan three-step plan read our book to understand the story brand framework create your brand script with our easy to follow guide and enjoy the confidence of a clear message that resonates with your audience calls them to action now the affirmation call to action is the one that I was telling you about if you are struggling to communicate your message embracing story brand is the right step for you did you see that if you're if you're dealing with this problem this is the solution this is the right solution direct start your journey today marketing subscribe now I talk about the three different uh calls to action in my book success experience Clarity engaging storytelling uh and and growing customer connections failure continue to confuse your audience and Miss growth opportunities and then there's another category in the brand script called identity transformation before they felt lost in their messaging now they confidently attract the right customers these are the seven categories of sound bites that you need and then you actually take these sound bites and you put them all over your websites your keynote presentations your emails put some of them on the back of your business card you don't have to use all seven of them every time but the more you use the better certainly every one of those sound bites should be on your website if you don't communicate clearly all your emails your website social media posts everything you're communicating will be ignored storybrand thatai is like the world's best communication expert writing it for you imagine having the world's best Communicator writing your tagline just type in the name of your company answer a few prompts and voila hey that's a good one use it to write your social media posts website wireframe emails lead generating PDF product or service descriptions anything you need for your business what would happen to your Revenue if every word that left your business was crystal clear and worth paying attention to story brand. a is your competitive Advantage so you'll know you'll say it clearly try it right now and let us write your custom tagline for free at storybrand doai let me look let's look at another one this is one that I just did uh story brand. did this for us uh the chief of staff for Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority was at my house for a couple days and we were talking about messaging for Mar giant organization 4,500 employees hundreds of millions of dollars passing through Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit let's look at their brand script Metro or Marta helps you travel around Atlanta easily giving you the freedom to explore your city what do they want people wanting to move around Atlanta easily what's their problem they need reliable transportation options internal they feel frustrated and struck and stuck philosophical you should shouldn't have to struggle to get around your city empathy we understand how frustrating it can be to navigate Atlanta without a car competency and Authority Marta has been awarded transit authority of the year and employs 4,500 dedicated professionals who gives them a plan buy a breeze card or download the app two board a bus train or Street card three enjoy smooth travel around the city call to action if you are looking for Reliable Transit options Marta is your answer that's the affirmation direct get your Breeze card today marketing join Marta success traveling becomes stress-free allowing you to explore Atlanta while saving time and money failure you risk missing out on opportunities feeling trapped and losing value valuable time stuck in traffic and then the identity transformation that you are helping your customers experience is from frustrated commuter to empowered City explorer so that is called a story brand brand script and when you come up with those seven messages and story brand. a will give you those for free that you can use as a rough draft and you can edit those or revise those because they're they're hard to come up with but they will be incredibly effective to populate all of your marketing collateral listen the reality is this if you confuse you will lose if you confuse you will lose I want you to clarify your message clarify your talking points clarify your message and you are going to win all right I want to take you through an exercise I'm going to take you to an exercise and help you write not seven sound bites but one sentence I want to help you write one sentence that you can repeat over and over to make more money and grow your business I call that this sentence the oneliner a oneliner is one sentence that you can use but it's a very formulaic sentence this by the way you're going to use this sentence anytime somebody asks what do you do the first part of the sentence is the problem you're going to identify what problem that you solve next you're going to position your product as the solution to that problem and after that you're going to talk about the result that your customer will experience if they use your your solution to solve their problem it's one sentence let me give you an example let's say that you're at a cocktail party and you run into two people who do the exact same thing they have the same business Char charge the same price offer the same value same quality all of it is exactly the same you're talking to the first one and you say hey what do you do and they say well I'm an at home Chef I come to your house and cook you're going to say that's very interesting where did you go to culinary school what's your favorite thing to cook what are your favorite restaurants in town how do you make a good hollay sauce you're going to make casual conversation now an hour later you're across the room you're talking to somebody else and you say what do you do now they are also an atome chef but that's not how they answer the question when you say what do you do they say well you know how most families don't eat together anymore and when they do they don't eat healthy I'm an atome Chef I come to your house and cook and when I come to your house and cook you sit down you eat a great meal and you connect with your family finally because you're not worried about cooking or cleaning up wow who's going to do more business Chef one or Chef two who's going to do more business okay I've given this talk 750 million times and nobody has ever answered Chef number one everybody has always answered Chef number two we feel it in our bones Chef number two is going to do all the business why the reason is they used a oneliner instead of saying well I'm an atome Chef which is just the product all you did was talk about the product open with the problem you you know how most families don't eat together anymore when they do they don't eat healthy I'm an at home Chef when somebody asks what you do and you start talking about the problem first the product suddenly is infinitely more valuable right if somebody says by the way if I'm on an airplane and somebody ask me what I do I don't use a oneliner because if I use a oneliner they are so interested in clarifying their message that I basically have to do hours of free Consulting so I just try to avoid the question no I mean it it is that powerful to get people to say wait wait wait a second and by the way if they don't have the problem you solve their aunt does their Uncle does their nephew does their sister does and they're trying to get your business card to give it to the person who has the problem but if you just tell them what they do you didn't you didn't increase the value of your product or your service by starting with the problem so the problem is very important let's break this down now we just made up a Company the company is an ebike an electric bike company this company doesn't exist but let me give you a fictional oneliner first state the problem with 110 people moving to Nashville every day people are wasting more and more time sitting in traffic so that's the the problem part of the oneliner okay what we're going to do is I'm going to have you write a oneliner right here in this session I want you to take is important exercise I want you to take three minutes three minutes and write the first part of your oneliner don't write the second or third part just write the problem we've seen a lot of people who are struggling with a lot of people experience this and can't stand it a lot of people have sleepless nights because I want you to get to the problem really really quickly next thing that you've got to do is part two position the product as the solution to the problem so for our our ebike company that I made up with a circuit ebike fitted just for you and that's it you don't have to talk about your product tell me what the product is now now there is one part to this that I really want want you to understand if you've opened up a story Loop about a problem it needs to be very obvious that your solution will solve that problem for instance if you say um restlessness and anxiety can ruin your life we've created a sleep mask that will help you sleep well wait a second you opened up a story Loop about restlessness and anxiety and you closed a story Loop about sleep those are two different stories one story is about restlessness and anxiety the other story Loop is about sleep so you got to change one of them either change the product to make it about something that solves restlessness and anxiety but I would actually prefer you change the story Loop so it's about sleep if you have had problems sleeping it might be because you need a sleep mask that we have created right so open a story Loop the product closed closes the story Loop all right I'm going to give you 3 minutes 3 minutes now to write the solution part of your oneliner you have three minutes to write the solution part of your oneliner so you've got the problem which is the honestly that's the most important part you've positioned your product as the solution to the problem we're going to do one more sound bite and that is the result so the result the problem product and result all go together so let's give me let me give you an example from our ebik company you'll get to work faster and you'll add hours back to your day all right so give me the result that your product will cause to happen in my life and add that to the end of this oneliner now I said one sentence earlier I don't actually care if you use two or three sentences as long as it is a short succinct uh phrase or statement that includes the problem the product and the result that the customer will experience this by the way is the happy ending right it's the happily ever after if I buy your product I'll have a clear message and my business will grow so you know you need to get that sound bite in there three minutes okay let let me just show you an example of when we put all three parts of the oneliner together so we put it all together with 110 people moving to Nashville every day people are wasting more and more time sitting in traffic with the circuit ebite fitted just for you you'll get to work faster and add hours back to your day that's a one liner our Chef by the way you know how most families don't eat together anymore when they do they don't eat health I'm an at home Chef I come to your house and cook so your family can connect with each other around the dinner table rather than having to cook and clean up after dinner that's a oneliner it's super easy to write it to memorize it and to say it and just the oneliner will grow your business all those seven sound bites in your brand script they'll grow your business but your oneliner will also grow your business we we need to think a lot we've thought a lot about our product we've thought a lot about our customers we haven't thought about the words we are using to describe the product listen to me the words that you use got you married the words that you use got you a job the words that you use will get you elected president the words that you use will grow your business so think about the words you use make them short simple easy to understand and repeat them often I have enormous hope hope for you I have enormous hope for your business I have enormous hope that you will connect with more customers and transform more lives and it has been a great honor to serve you tonight God bless [Music]