Video Transcript: "Storytelling"

In this video, we're going to dive into the topic of storytelling and marketing, and  why storytelling and marketing is a biblical standard for businesses. I love this  quote by Louis Giglio. He said, The world doesn't need a lecture. The world  needs a picture. And here's an example of how this plays out of one of my  authors wrote her powerful story about how she got delivered from a 20 year  prescription drug addiction. She had been busted by the DEA, and just really her whole life had kind of fallen apart, and yet God restored it back, and now she  has this amazing deliverance ministry, and people are getting free and set free  from drug addictions and all kinds of addictions through her ministry. But she  kind of started out after she published her book, her mindset was that she was  going to be sharing all kinds of kind of clinical psychological studies on addiction and why people are more statistically likely to get free of addiction by doing  certain things and and it was just very cerebral, and it was very scientific, almost kind of like a lecture, but what she ended up doing was she realized that she  needed to start sharing her story and focusing on her story as she was trying to  sell her book. Because, as Louie Giglio said, the world doesn't need a lecture,  the world needs a picture. So flash forward to author book signing in Nashville,  Barnes and Noble, and there were probably eight or 10 other authors there at  this event. And she was telling me how there were virtually no customers that  were coming up to any of them interested in buying their books. And then she  went to the manager and said, Would you mind if I walked around the store and  just kind of talked to the customers and just share with them my story. And the  manager said, Sure, go ahead. And so she started walking around and was just  sharing her story with the customers, and without exception, their jaws just  dropped as this woman began to share with her about her prior life in addiction  and how Jesus, the power of Jesus, had set her free, and now she's able to then help other people discover ultimate freedom from addiction in Jesus, Christ. And so it's just an example of shifting from just sort of lecturing people to sharing  your own story, to sharing a picture, even if it's not your own personal story, just  bringing it into a narrative that people can understand, that people can relate to,  because people need to, they need To see it in order to feel it, and they need to  feel it in order to truly buy into it. And I think that's why about a third of Jesus's  teaching was in parables. So Jesus didn't just teach in lectures. Jesus taught in  stories and then people, it's amazing how quickly they would find conviction,  how quickly they would find under understanding. And yes, sometimes people  didn't get it at first, and Jesus would have to explain to his disciples. You know,  after he would share the the parable in public, he would kind of unpack it for  them in private, and and, but Jesus, he would share parables. And parables is  comes from a Greek word or a couple of Greek words that just means to draw  near. So what does a parable do? A story, just a short story to illustrate a point, it would draw people near. It would draw people in to what Jesus was wanting to  teach them, and so that they could immerse themselves and begin to not only 

understand it intellectually, logically, cerebrally, but that they would be able to  resonate with it on an emotional level to where it would truly make a deeper  impact on their lives. And one of the strategies that we can that we can use to  apply this, is to define the story behind your company. And as I shared in a  previous video about how with my publishing company, which the name of the  company is high bridge books, and I shared how the High Bridge was the oldest  bridge in New York City is actually in the neighborhood that I where I started this company, where I got the inspiration for the idea. It's the bridge that connects  Manhattan to the Bronx in Fact, it connects really more the Bronx to Manhattan,  because it's an aqueduct that was bringing water into the burgeoning city of New York, city of Manhattan, back in the 1800s and so I got this vision to bring life  giving books into the hurting people who need to hear these messages of our  authors, like the one that I just shared with you a moment ago, and we've got 60 other books that we published as of the time this recording. And so what we're  doing is we're bringing as the aqueduct of the High Bridge brought life giving  water to the masses of people in Manhattan, in New York City, hybrid books is  bringing life giving books into the masses of humanity as well. And we have  seen incredible transformations as a result in so many and so many critical  battlegrounds of thought. And we are, we are actively seeking thought leaders in various conversations in order to help disciple the culture in various spheres of  influence. And so that is just a pattern. It's amazing. When I share that story,  people resonate in a way that just it just far surpasses any, any statistics I could  share with them, any it just any, anything that would appeal to their logic when I  share a story, it just begin or or Just a word picture like a high bridge in this  aqueduct bringing water into the the city to provide this life, giving water to  masses. It resonates in a way that I just can't do when I share the features of the services that we offer as a company. And so define the story behind your  company. I mean, another part of the story that I share with with clients and  potential clients is that, you know, I had some bad experience, a bad experience with a publisher that led me to realize that there's got to be a better way to help  authors succeed in the marketplace, in this incredibly crowded marketplace of  ideas that is the book publishing world. And then another point here is to explain how your company fits and your stakeholders personal story. So when your  customer or your prospect, your your client comes to you, and you're trying to  help them understand why they need your service, and you're sharing with them the story of your company. The more important part is to help that person  understand how you fit into their personal story and and so this is something  that really I have to credit to Donald Miller, his program is just incredible for  helping people to understand how to how to remember that their stakeholders  Want to be the hero in their own stories, and that's his program called Story  brand. And really why storytelling and branding go hand in hand? We talked  about branding in the previous video, but Donald Miller, I mean, he points out 

that when you're marketing something, you need to make sure that you're  understanding that that person that you're marketing to, they don't necessarily  care about how great your company is. They want to know how you can make  their lives great. They want if you're in the B to B, the business to business  model, you need to help them understand how you can make their company  great, and that's when they're really going to buy in to to what it is that you have  to offer, or at least become more curious. And the only way that you can get to  this point is, as we have there on the slide to ask questions and listen. And this  is what Jesus did, and this is really more of a Hebrew approach to discourse, is  to ask questions. It's not to just lecture people, or, you know, give them three  points and take then an offering, or just, you know, kind of just throw it, throw  intellect at them, but to ask questions, to get their perspective, and then listen,  and then you can begin to understand how you might be able to fit within what  they're trying to accomplish in their lives. And then the next point is to leverage  the power of storytelling. Through encouraging your tribe to share testimonials  so the people that have already bought in to what it is that you're offering. There  are few things more powerful when it comes to marketing than that word of  mouth, than somebody going to their friend, going to their family member, going  to an acquaintance or a complete stranger where the topic of your industry, your  service, comes up, and somebody recognizes they remember that they had a  good experience with your company, and now they're going to refer somebody  to your to your company based on that referral. And many small businesses,  including mine, that have very small budgets for marketing, I should say  marketing, you know, a little sideboard conversation really kind of transcends  almost everything that we do in business, because ultimately, what we are doing in every aspect of business is marketing. We are marketing something and, and, and so encouraging our tribe to share testimonials is so critical because we  don't have the money to be able to run expensive advertising campaigns on an  ongoing basis. What we need are people that have been satisfied, that have  been impacted by what we offer to then go and take that to the people that they  have rapport with, that we don't even know that we much less have rapport with. And so this is what Jesus did when Jesus he delivered this demon possessed  man there in Mark 5:19-20. It's recorded where Jesus said to him after he  wanted to get in the boat with Jesus and be his disciple. He wanted to go on  with Jesus to you know, you deliver me from this you I'm gonna follow you for  life. But Jesus said, no, no, no, go home to your people and report to them what  great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you. He went  away and began to proclaim into capitalists what great things Jesus had done  for him. And everyone was amazed. And they were amazed because they knew  what this guy was like before, and now they see that a miracle has happened.  This guy's life has been changed. And so while it might not be exorcism that  you're selling in your business. The principle here is that the people who are 

most impacted by your service, by your products, those are going to be the ones that are going to be the most critical for helping to get the word out about what it  is that you're offering, and that's what word of mouth marketing is all about. But  

you have to encourage them to share those testimonials, and because  sometimes they're just not gonna they just don't realize what it they don't  understand what it is that they can do with this experience that they've had with  you? So you need to make it very clear, what would be most beneficial is it  leaving a review for your product on Amazon? Is it going on to Better Business  Bureau and writing a good review? Is it to, you know, send me three names of  people that you think might be most interested or that would benefit most from  what it is that you've benefited from. And so these are all aspects of leveraging  the power of storytelling by mobilizing your tribe, your target group, the people  that have already bought in to what you're offering and mobilizing them to go out and share the story of your company through their personal story of how they  have been impacted by that outcome. And though the last principles here draw  people in to that story. So if you're even going to get an audience with people,  there's some things that you're going to have to do in order to share that story  with them, to draw them into experiencing what you have to offer. And one is to  let people taste before you ask big. So yes, as we talked about previously in the  pricing video, about asking big and not and being confident and what you have  to offer, let people taste it before you ask big, before you make that big ask.  Think so Jesus healed the lepers regardless of how they responded in Luke  17:11-19 and and so yes, only one came back and thanked Jesus. Nonetheless, they all got healed. And so regardless, Jesus didn't say you need to make this  commitment. You need to opt in before I'm going to give you this healing. He  gave them the service. He gave them the what you might think of in the  business world as a freemium or a loss leader or content marketing, but he gave it to them free of charge, without regard to them opting in or becoming his  disciple, making some sort of radical commitment that he was ultimately  expecting and demanding of people. And so yes, it's going to correspond with  the value that you're bringing to the marketplace, and so your product is  probably not on the level that you're going to be asking people like Jesus is, as  we read in Scripture, to offer your body as a living sacrifice. You not be. You  might not be asking your customer when they say, What? What is this going to  cost me? You might not say to them, offer your body as a living sacrifice. Jesus  was doing that. Jesus could do that because the value of what he was offering  corresponded with what he was expecting, but make sure that the the what  you're asking is corresponding with what with what you're offering, but then  allow people to taste it. Maybe allow a free trial, maybe, maybe provide some  content marketing. And this is something that is just low hanging fruit. The  content marketing is really proof that you're trying to educate people about what  it is that you're offering, about not just what you're offering, but the outcome that 

they're desiring, where you can give them a taste of that, where you can help  move them in that direction without having to charge them for something, or  even charging them a low something that is very low cost, where you not, might  not be making any money off of it. That's what a loss leader is. You know, we  might be losing money on this product, but we know that X amount of people  who purchase our loss leader that we lose money on will convert into paying  customers at the next pricing threshold, and that is what is going to make back  the money that we lost on our loss leader, and probably quite a bit more. And  the next point here is to build anticipation. So if you want to draw people in to  your story, to begin to experience what you have to offer, it is incumbent upon  you as the marketer to build anticipation and expectation for what is to come.  And Jesus certainly did this. You can read about this in Luke 10:1, where it says  that now after this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them in pairs ahead of him to every city and place where he himself was going to come, and so  everywhere Jesus was going to go, he sent a team ahead of him To prepare the  people to build anticipation, to build expectation that something great is going to  happen in a very short order. So prepare yourself. Get excited, anticipate what's  going to happen, and that's how people begin to be drawn in and related to that  is to leverage the power of scheduled events. And this, this is, this really is a  matter of human nature where there's something about a scheduled event,  knowing that if, if we feel like, Oh, it's on demand, I can just kind of watch it  anytime, or I can get involved with this at any time, or I can purchase this at any  time. There's really not a sense of urgency and there's not a sense of scarcity.  And those two components, urgency and scarcity are critical for marketers to  understand and to leverage, not in a manipulative way, but in a way to mobilize  people to do what is really best for them, and scheduled events are one of the  great ways that you can do that. I mean, I've had success with live webinars  where you advertise that I'm going to be doing a live information session on this  particular product or service at a set time, you promote that on Facebook or  Google, wherever, through your email list, through partner email lists, and get as many sign ups for that scheduled live webinar as you can to where you can get  people to come into that that event and ask questions. And it's, it's live, so it's it,  you know, there's this they take it more seriously that they have a slot that's  reserved for them to be able to participate in that, in that live webinar. And it's, it  can be a very powerful tactic, a powerful tool for you to be able to educate  people about the things that your company is offering, so you can leverage the  power of scheduled events. An example of that would be through a live webinar.  But either way, we are called to tell stories and and to use storytelling as a way  to communicate our brand and to draw people in to our message in a way that  we can appeal not only to them on an intellectual level, but also on an emotional level. See in the next video