The More You Talk About the Pain, the Better Your Product Sells | W/ Donald Miller Ep. 29

19:22Chris Cruz:Their success. They're like, I'm trying to get you to be somewhere incredible. Oh, obsessed. Yeah, and that's hard to do because intuition and our own survival instincts want to make the story about us. Yeah. But it's actually counterintuitive. The more you make the story, if you're a brand, the more you make the story about the customer, the better you survive. And that makes sense too, because like we've had others on the podcast that we were talking about storytelling and the ways that people almost, almost once storytelling became even a little bit of like a, a part of the marketing framework, ways that you look at brand, looking at story, they'll go, well, let me tell my origin story.

19:56Chris Cruz:I'm like, that story is not, don't tell that story. That story is not worth anything. It actually is kind of boring and like not worth it. It's going to hurt you. Yeah. And, but they feel like, no, but I've got to tell my story. That's how I'm going to show up as me. You know, all brands and all marketing is really fundamentally about building relationships. And you're getting to know people. And so whenever I'm in a classroom or there's a bunch of people in the room, if there's a bunch of ladies in the room, I'll say, hey, have you ever been on a date with a man who talked about himself the entire time?

20:27And, of course, every woman is shaking her head and she's got stories to tell. And then I'll ask a second question. Are you married to him? And the answer is, no, you're not. That's so good. Yes, yes, yes. And so when people say, I want to tell my story, I say, let me remind you of some primitive thinking here. You really want to listen. And you know, here's what's interesting.

20:49Chris Cruz:Yes, hit me. Ask the same woman. If you went out a few times with a man who did not tell, every time you asked him about himself, he spun it to ask about you again. or he answered so shortly to get out of it and answer. By the fourth date, what did you want to know more than anything in the world? You wanted to know his story. Wow. And here's why. People who talk about themselves incessantly, we see these people as weak, and we actually subconsciously see them as survival liabilities. and a woman is actually looking for a survival asset in a man. She's looking for strength. She's looking for character.

21:35She's looking for humility because humility will serve her. And she's going to be in a very vulnerable state at some point in her life, especially if she has children. So that's what she's looking for. He is also, by the way, looking for a survival asset. He's looking for somebody who believes in him, somebody who will say, you are respected and you're worthy of my attention. We're both really looking for survival assets. So what happens when I make it all about me and tell my story, she senses you are a survival liability and I am not safe with you. And so her instinct, it's not a narcissistic instinct.

22:13It's actually quite a sophisticated survival instinct. And I would tell any woman that. Like if he talks about himself, if he gets you talking about you, you might have found somebody here. Yeah.

22:25Chris Cruz:Wow. Because he has the, it takes a strength of character to be able to think about somebody else while I also need to survive. Yeah. And so I think brands need to kind of emulate that. So good. That attitude. So good. And there are brands who do it. Ritz Carlton does it. Yes. Chick-fil-A does it. Yes. You know, there are brands, and those brands, we think of those brands as strong. I would say Chick-fil-A is a$22.3 billion a year organization. I would say if they weren't as other-focused, which they've actually defined as second-mile service, they have a definition and a playbook for how they do it.

23:00Chris Cruz:Wow. And I would say without that playbook, they're an$11 billion organization. That literally 50 % of their sales come from positioning themselves as the guide. Wow. Because people see anybody who affirms their identity and anybody who listens to their story, they see that brand, that literal brand as a survival partner. And to help them affirm their identity. This is fascinating. There's three different neurological or psychological studies on this. And they would all come to the conclusion that all human beings have a character in their mind that they believe they can be. And they are always pursuing that character.

23:48And any brand who affirms that they are anything like that character, they see that as a survival asset.

23:56Chris Cruz:That feels so in line. And they want to partner with that brand. It feels so in line with even like – Your friends. Think about who your friends are. They're people who help you out. Yeah. Well, because it's funny because like when I read, I think I'm getting the title right from Seth Godin's book, All Marketers Are Liars and It's Crossed Out Storytellers. And it's like this idea of what's the story you're telling yourself that this brand has now gone and said, we're going to affirm that. You're right. You're right about you. Yeah. You're right about you. You're like, now I have affinity. even if their product is not superior to other people's products.

24:32Chris Cruz:Because you'll have people say, I have the best product. I should win. You're like, I'm so sorry. It doesn't work that way. Yeah, not anymore. So when you're going through this process, you built StoryBrand. The framework is very accessible. There's lots of what you've communicated it so effectively. You have even your StoryBrand 2.0 book that came out. You have this framework. If people are hungry to deep dive into that framework, it's available for them. What I wanted to do, and selfishly with getting time with you, was I know that you've had evolutions of your own company. As you've built, you had Business Made Simple.

25:04Chris Cruz:You started to develop that, and you developed other coach builder and different things. I wanted to ask you as a CEO, as you're building things, what are the things you're doing with your own brand that you're recognizing? My first question is around this idea of what has been one of the hardest decisions you've had to make for the brands and the companies you lead recently? You're like, this is one of the hardest ones I've had to do. Well, I would say I've made a lot of mistakes, a lot more mistakes than anything I've gotten right. And I've gotten some things right. So it's been a very humbling journey.

25:37Thankfully, every year seems to be better than the last. And so somehow we keep plotting forward. But I think one of the mistakes that I made was I started a company called StoryBrand, and that blew up. And so now I was managing a lot of people. and I created a framework to manage those people. And so I started a division called Business Made Simple to teach those frameworks.

25:59Chris Cruz:And just in doing that, I broke one of the rules that I'm literally talking to you about today. I'm trying to become known for two things. And that's a very difficult thing to do. So what I do now is when I start something new, I literally start a new LLC. We start new books. I find a partner who has equity in that division. And I stay focused on StoryBrand. and they helped me build something else because my mind wants to create new things and I have more solutions than just one. But I would warn everybody out there that I am more in favor of being a house of brands than a branded house normally, usually.

26:42That's not always the case. And certainly if you go into a Publix or a grocery store, you know, it's got to be half of those products really belong to about eight different companies.

26:55Chris Cruz:Yeah, you're right. But they're all run like different businesses and different products and they're separated. You don't say, well, if you love head and shoulders, you'll also love Rice Krispies. That's not how you think of it. Your dandruff is really going to work well. Exactly. Last thing you want is dandruff in your cereal. So, you know, they separate those things. And that goes back to the rule of like, you can have, a customer can want one thing and they can have one problem and they can have one guide. You know, that's just how the mind works. So how did you reflect on that? Like, how did you, like, was the companies not going the way that you wanted them to go?

27:28The companies were actually doing well. They were doing well, but the, you know, my StoryBrand certified guides didn't like that I was spending time with coaches and teaching coaches these other frameworks. And at one point, I actually changed the name of StoryBrand Certified Guides to StoryBrand Certified Coaches because I wanted them to all get along. And that was a critical mistake.

27:52Chris Cruz:Critical, critical mistake. How did you find that out? Were people just like messing about? I found it out because there was some tension. There were some people sort of saying, hey, you know, he didn't ask us. Well, there's problem number one. Who was the hero there? I was the hero, and I wasn't listening to the customer. Wow. So that was very, very humbling. Wow. And I had to do an apology tour and go around and say, hey, I'm so sorry for changing that name. But I'm not really sorry for changing the name. I'm sorry for not listening to you because if I had just had a conversation with you, I would have never done that.

28:21And thankfully, my story of insert of our guides are incredibly forgiving and generous. And there's something powerful about it.

28:28Chris Cruz:But how can you not be, though, when you're trained in culture to see CEOs not do that? You know, like when you witness it, when you're trained to go, executives just, they don't apologize. They don't do that kind of work. They're not that human-centered approach. And then you finally get one that your heart's actually been craving to have that kind of interaction. You're like, oh, my gosh. It's counterintuitive. It is. It is. Because we think we need to be strong. I've just always found that no matter what the data says, no matter what studies show, if you just do what God wants you to do, somehow you're going to be all right.

29:02And so I try to remember that. But I would say that was a critical, that was a big mistake. And now we literally separate the teams, separate the books, separate the websites, separate all of that. And that tends to go better.

29:19Chris Cruz:Okay. So now inside of that, I'm going for that inside baseball, trying to understand it because I've been such an outside observer for so long and learning and watching because I'll learn from your content, from took the courses, business made simple, all that stuff. And then I'll listen to you do those live interviews at times or these live sessions. And I'm watching your podcast go. Story brand, business made simple. Then there was a switch to why this works. I think it was. Why it works. Why it works. Which did not work. Think of the irony there. Okay. That's what I wanted to add. I wanted to find out a little bit of like what's, as someone who's like, is very much like, and Patrick Lencioni is like working genius.

29:58Chris Cruz:It's like, I am a inventor and galvanizer, like ideas and rallying people to them. So it's hard for me to restrain my ideas. Yeah. You and I are similar. Okay. So then I'm seeing you do these things. I'm like, I probably would make those same choices, but would he call those mistakes or would he call them? They worked like I wanted to know because I'm like, I think I'd make those same mistakes. I got four podcast changes I want to make, but I, maybe I shouldn't do it. Cause I'm looking at you on the outside going, he's changed them. What is his thoughts now on this? Yeah. Now we're back to the story brand podcast and it will be that way forevermore.

30:29Chris Cruz:Okay. So walk me through that. Walk me through that. How you're, I didn't find that mistaken. Like it didn't work, but why? You know, I, we call them mistakes. They're really just at bats, right? They're really just like, let's try this. And, you know, uh, uh, I do believe that your instincts can, can guide you to some degree. And, you know, you and I both probably have something in common that we test ideas in the marketplace rather than in the lab. Yes. And I don't really have a problem with that. So it's hard to see that as a mistake as much as it was a learning curve. Totally. And, you know, I think you go – everybody I've known who has supposedly won the lottery with an idea or a product, You start digging, you start talking to them, and it was the 37th iteration of something.

31:23Chris Cruz:And then, boy, you came out of nowhere, and the guy's like, I've been doing this for 10 years. Yeah. They're like, oh, wait, this is a rebuilt company that was once nothing, and it got recently. That's exactly it. So true. Yeah, and you even think about the, well, you don't even have to look long at, even Amazon. I mean, Jeff Bezos would say he's had two hits. He said two hits, and that's it, Amazon Prime and Amazon Web Services. Most people don't even understand Amazon Web Services to even call it a hit. Right, but we're all paying the money every month, though. I guarantee you that. It's like the cash cow.

31:59Chris Cruz:They're like, oh, it's the Amazon Marketplace. I'm like. Yeah, but remember Amazon Fire? Totally. Remember the Amazon Phone? Yes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yes. So we wouldn't say he's dumb, the richest man in the world, arguably. You know, so I think that's just one of the things you have to get comfortable with. The R &D nature of like how you are versus. So at one point you had to be able to say in this, you're like, okay, this learning has pointed to a different outcome and we've got to change it. What was that learning moment that you're like, I saw that and it's not the outcome I'm wanting or it's not that I'm going to go, I'm going to pivot the podcast to this or to that.

32:34Chris Cruz:Was it because your new products you were offering or is it? If it's not working, you need to abandon it fairly quickly. I would not, there's, you know, there's a term and term called sunk cost where people tend to chase bad decisions and they tend to chase bad investments because their ego wants to fix it. And I would just say, you know, check your ego at the door. It's not working. Let's change. So the hardest thing for me just as a leader is walking into the room when I've rallied my entire team around something and they've gotten used to it and say, hey, we're not going to do that anymore.

33:06and run the risk of looking flaky or like I change my mind all the time. Which I relate to. Not everybody is wired that way. Not everybody is wired to be able to pivot and move quickly. And so you're asking people to do something that's sort of counter to their nature. That's the hardest part. It's not actually pivoting. That part I do all day long.

33:28Chris Cruz:I feel like I'm like, oh, let's just change it, not realizing the ramifications for all the others that don't change like that. Well, also, if you're like me, you don't even remember your mistakes. you don't even remember your failures my wife reminds me all the time but i'm like i have no recollection of that ever happening like that was last week you're like yeah what was last week and there's a lot of studies that show that success is more correlated with the number of at bats you take than anything else so okay there's how many times you try all right so for a person built like you that has this ability to pivot think no ideas but yet story brand has endured inside of your ethos for a long time.

34:06Chris Cruz:Do you have to overcome any kind of boredom? No. Like, no. No, which to me is, to me is, that's a sign. I mean, uh, you know, gosh, just last week I was in Atlanta, uh, in front of a bunch of real estate agents delivering the story brand keynote for probably, I would think it's gotta be 500, between 500 and a thousand times. You're out of rep that's unheard of. Yeah. It was as though it was the first time. No way. No, I'm not. I'm not making that up. I absolutely love it. You feel like you at the same time, you're like this. Is it because I can give that keynote for the rest of my life? And I've never gotten tired of it.

34:46I'll never get tired of it. I also never get tired of somebody saying, well, here's my tagline. Do you think it's good? And I'll say, no, I think you should actually say this. And I'll say it differently. It's just it's kind of like saying, do you ever get tired of like jigsaw puzzles? Like if you like jigsaw puzzles, you're just going to like them forever. You're just going to love it. Yeah, you're just going to love it.

35:02Chris Cruz:There's a flow state that you get into that like there's a book, Flow, The Optimizing of Human Experience. Yeah, I read that. Yeah, it's a fascinating book. He's an Asian author. What's his name? I don't know how to pronounce his name. It's one of those. He might be Russian. Might be. But it's a name that I could not pronounce. It's really difficult. But he talks about that state of when you are achieving a task that is hard enough for you to be mentally stimulated to where you're not bored, but not too hard to where you get anxiety. and then you're able to go, all right, I feel this bettering of me in that process and I come out the other side, a more complex, better person achieving a goal.

35:38Chris Cruz:You're in this, everything kind of disappears still for me doing this. You're like, I love doing it, which is, for me, I'm like, oh, that is fascinating because you've been doing this for a long time. Yeah, it's going on 10 years now. Well, StoryBrand, I think, StoryBrand was long before the book came out. Yeah, because if you go to Storyline, you were teaching that. A few years, yeah. I think I was teaching StoryBank a few years before that. Okay, so now my other question then in this process, you're building out, you're doing these things. If you were to look back on, how would you describe what you're most proud of as you're building these things?

36:15Chris Cruz:Like what are the things you're like, man, I'm really proud of this? Well, I mean, you know, it's not just a pat answer, but I'm proud that I got married late and became a dad late. So I'm proud that I have a daughter who knows my name and I don't leave more than, usually more than one night a month. This month it's three, so I'm feeling guilty about even saying that. But that's the thing that I'm, that's what life is really about, right? Everything else is just fundraising. But I think if I had a contribution in the long run, there's a business framework out there that will probably be recognized after I'm gone.

36:53And not everybody gets lucky that way. And I feel like I got lucky.

36:59Chris Cruz:Yeah. So I guess I'm proud of that. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Even though it's a 2 ,500-year-old framework and all I did was turn it into a marketing framework. I tried to read Joseph Campbell, and I'm a reader. I tried to read Joseph Campbell. You know, he's not my inspiration. It was really hard. It's really Blake Snyder and Robert McKee. Okay. Because that one was a hard one to pull through. Yeah, it is. And look, he's dead on. He's on to something there. Joseph Campbell's on to something. And I don't tend to agree with his outcome as a man of deep faith, but he certainly recognizes that there's something primitive in the human spirit that story is pointing toward, you know?

37:37Chris Cruz:Wow. So do you, in this journey, you, in Business Made Simple, I remember you talking about it. I've heard you talk about it many times. I wanted to kind of engage with you on it. Do you read, you still read your, is it your obituary? What is it you're like? My obituary. Yeah, read it this morning. Okay, that is a fascinating tactic to motivate you to pull – like unpack that a little bit. Well, it's an old strategy. Stephen Covey recommends it in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Oh, I didn't know that. Michael Hyatt recommends doing it. Stephen Covey got it from somewhere else. Okay. The idea is that you sit down and you write your obituary as though you were hearing it at your own funeral.

38:24And you write it, so you have control over what that obituary is. And it's a way of reminding yourself about what David Brooks calls the eulogy virtues. David Brooks divides the eulogy virtues and the resume virtues. The resume virtues are what we think about all the time, and the eulogy virtues are what actually matter. and we, for whatever reason, it's very hard for us day to day to think about what really matters, taking a little more time with somebody, being altruistic, having characters, staying humble in the face of success. These are the things that actually matter. Our drive, our survival instinct says get money, beat the competition, those kinds of things, which often contend with eulogy virtues.

39:08So it's a tactic to write your obituary and try to read it every morning to sort of recalibrate yourself. So when I read my eulogy virtues, it reminds me that Donald Miller was a great dad. That one of my goals, I have a four-and-a-half-year-old daughter. One of my goals, and it's in my obituary, is that my daughter would never see me holding a phone. Wow. Now, she has roughly a thousand times, but that's my goal. Yeah, you're good. I've got a lot more left here. But to be reminded of that, and I would say probably my daughter has seen me hold a phone less than most folks because it hits the keyboard when I walk through the door and I don't pick it up until she goes to bed.

39:51But it just reminds you of the – to me, reading your eulogy that you wrote every morning or every morning that you can reminds me of the things that I will regret. and that's very hard to hold in your brain is like you're going to regret not responding to this letter that somebody wrote you you're going to regret talking to your wife this way you're going to regret playing the victim or thinking of yourself as a victim in this situation you're going to regret that and it just takes a really gentle reminder to to uh you know recalibrate your moral compass. And so, but what's amazing is you say, well, Don, why do you have to read it every day?

40:37Chris Cruz:Because literally I forget 24 hours later, I literally read it and I go, oh yeah, I want to be a good dad. And 24 hours later, oh yeah. That's right. That's right. I want to be a good husband. Oh yeah. Here we go. Remember this. That's more about my ignorance than the human brain. It's the human experience, I think, as well. Oh, my gosh. But I think what I find fascinating about that is it points to, I would say it points to an internal awareness and building of your internal world that helps you with all that you're doing in your companies. I don't look at that, and some people might go, oh, that's really interesting that Don does that for his life, and that's really fun that it makes him a good dad and a good husband.

41:22Chris Cruz:But I'm going, those things are so connected to his success in business as well. And I think that virtue, that awareness, that development, I think, especially when I interact with people who are, I see these like rising influencers that create brands but are lacking a depth. They have an incredible product that they figured out even, and they've gotten notoriety really quickly, but they've never sat down and done that. And I'm going, oh, there's something here for people who are building brands to start to think about how your internal world impacts what you're building. And I would, am I right to say that there's a part of you that says that this makes you a better entrepreneur knowing that?

42:05I think, I don't know if it makes me a better entrepreneur. It depends on how you measure that. I mean, I would say there are people who I watch, contemporaries who I've gotten to know, who are all younger than me. and I know for a fact they will deeply regret the way they are living. And there's nothing I can do to help them understand that, but you get these kids for a season and you are wasting it. You're on the road and you're proving. What you are doing is you're trying to heal a father wound through success and you're creating another father wound in your child. and I know it and they can listen to me right now and they will know it and they can't.

42:50And then I think, well, if I hadn't become a dad at 49, I would be them. There's zero question in my mind because I'm such a driven person that if I had to become a dad in my 20s, I think my daughter would spend a lot more time with a therapist. She's probably gonna have to do that anyway. I mean, my kids are definitely spending it. I was like, I'm starting the fun now.

43:11Chris Cruz:I'm like, the therapy fund is going there. College won't exist. And by the way, let me also say just to anybody who hears that and is convicted by that, repair can heal those wounds in your kids. So to be able to go back and just sit down and say, hey, your dad really screwed up. I'm so sorry. And I think some of the feeling of abandonment is actually coming from me. And will you forgive me? That can heal a ton of, you know, so, you know, it's not a lost cause, but I am saying. No, I 100 % agree with you. Yeah, but I don't know that, you know, listen, I think reading my eulogy every morning has cost me tens of millions of dollars.

43:49Whoa, unpack that. Like, what do you mean? I mean, the laws of business are the laws of business. And, you know, if you are on it and you are focused and you are ruthless about the people who work with you are A players and you get rid of B players. and you are ruthless about beating the competition and you have some ethical gray area about suing some folks and getting them out of the market, you're going to make more money.

44:16Chris Cruz:Wow. And that's just a fact, and you see it sort of everywhere. The question is, again, your business also has eulogy virtues and resume virtues. Let's go. And I think the businesses that participate in the transformation of their customers and affirm their identity, I think they make great money. I think they make plenty of money. And I think the CEOs of those companies sleep well at night. And they've seen – capitalism, I'm a huge, huge fan of capitalism. There's never, ever, ever in the history of the world been a more successful exercise in reducing poverty than capitalism. There's no ministry on this planet that can come anywhere close to it.

45:02So I'm a huge, huge fan of that. But I think rampant, unguarded, unbridled greed is a destroyer of worlds and certainly a destroyer of families and those sorts of things. So I want to sort of walk that line.

45:23Chris Cruz:There's something inside of you that says you're willing to lose money for something. I think we all are, though. I think you're the same. I think most everybody's the same. I think if somebody backed up a dump truck full of cash and said, hey, I want you to help me sell this thing. Listen, it does cause cancer, but we've got some scientists who will kind of skew those numbers. You're not taking that money. No, no, you're not taking that money. So I think the question is like, can we take those lines of I won't cross this and maybe bring them a little bit back to the left even more? Yeah, absolutely.

45:58Chris Cruz:Absolutely. Well, I think there's some kind of development of the internal person. Like you're saying, like even you're saying like the repair with your child and you're like, I know exactly what you're talking about. That exercise, if I was simply to reduce it to an exercise, but it's much more than that. Being able to own a mistake, come back, clean that mistake up, repair that relationship. There's no way you're not able to do that in a company with a team where you make mistakes. Like that training ground of being able to go, oh, I know how to own my mistake. I know how to see my mistake. I know how to know when I'm being defensive about my mistake.

46:34Chris Cruz:I know when my wife's going, you're not really looking at the true matter. Those things shape me as a person. Therefore, it makes me a better X, Y, or Z in a company. There's no way they don't. But it's when you compartmentalize your life and go, these don't touch. I think you're missing out on the way that life shapes you into a better person. But in your journey with all of this, as you've scaled companies, as you've started to, over a decade of doing this, trends change, markets change, things change. How have you had to pivot even the story brand framework? Is there a way that you're looking at companies now going, I know that we kind of sold the product this way before, but we got to sell the product this way now.

47:17Chris Cruz:Is there anything that you're seeing that you're like, we need to pay attention? That's every day. Every day. Every day, especially now. I mean, the world is changing faster than ever. It will not stop changing. It's relentless. It's brutal. I've been able to make the acquaintance and become friends of Charles and Chase Koch and Georgia Pacific and a thousand other companies. And in fact, they are printing their book, The Principle Driven Leader, under StoryBrand Press. I didn't even StoryBrand Press existed. Because we have three books. and theirs will be the fourth. But one of the things that they highlight in their book is that in a world of relentless change, there are principles that just never change.

48:01They're the same. And they outline 41 of them in their book, The Principle Driven Leader, which isn't out yet. But I think it's instead of sort of looking at the world that won't change, I would actually look at the things that stay the same and focus on those. And narrative structures never change. The ability of stories to get attention never change. Some of the methodologies change, and you have to walk in the door of your building every morning and say, hey, what are we doing? How are we changing with the world? And you have to be able to pivot and change with it. I mean, even in marketing, so much SEO is now going to AI instead of websites.

48:37Chris Cruz:That's the natural question, right? Because even watching StoryBrand evolve and great, StoryBrand.ai and things like that, you're looking at a market that you're going, how does messaging get still charged? In a world that people feel like everything is at their fingertips, because it is so to speak, you're in this renaissance era, but there's you're talking about messaging changing the trajectory of companies. There's a tool that can be utilized. How are you addressing? I know you developed Yeah, at first we actually went with it and created storybrand.ai That was an an amazingly successful economic move for me.

49:17Yeah, okay. It's still an amazingly successful lead generation move, but what we've discovered with AI is that it actually, I don't believe it's going to write as well as most human beings. And now I'm seeing, I can tell you when AI created a website, and I can tell you when one of my story brand certified guides created a website. And there's a humanness to when a human does it that now I'm seeing I'm coming back to the advantage of human beings doing it.

49:48Chris Cruz:Wow. And even human beings who are using AI and using it as a co-writer and an editor and things like that or market research, the stuff that it's really good at. So I think you just always want to kind of keep a pulse on what works and what doesn't work. And ultimately, the market will tell you. And don't you think, OK, so here's the conversations I get. and I have these moments where they'll say, yeah, Chris, you can recognize when people use AI, but a company doesn't care because for them it's cost effective. And for them, it doesn't really matter. Is there anywhere, any state of you're going like, no, I think the human's actually going to sell better for you?

50:29Well, certainly in person.

50:34Chris Cruz:I'm going to turn a screen towards you and sell through this AI box. Yeah, I mean, human beings are going to want to be together, and I think that's going to be more true in the future. So anything you can do to add a communal effect or a communal effect to your business that way you can bring people together, I think you should probably start launching those programs. Dive into that deeper. Unpack what you're meaning there. I mean, for example, if you sold something to dentists and you added a community of dentists, regional community of dentists, where they could get together, you probably should add that because the longing to be with other human beings, I think, is not going to go away.

51:14I'm amazed not at how much is changing with AI. I'm amazed at how much is staying the same because it is such an incredibly powerful tool. And yet you look around and things are kind of just staying the same and people aren't using it as much as they're using it, but it's not changing that. It's changing a lot. Don't get me wrong. But the truth is, AI could probably replace, I don't know, 40 million jobs right now that people are just choosing not to replace them. And I would suggest that's because we tend to cozy up to human beings a little more than our laptops. Right. Yeah. And so I think I don't know.

51:55I don't think it's it's going to change a lot. There's no question. And we can adapt with it. Yeah. But I think human beings are human beings and human beings like other human beings.

52:03Chris Cruz:So you said something that I wanted to double tap into. You said storybrand.ai was a good economic model. Now it's become a good lead engine. It's still both. I mean, it's still a moneymaker and a lead generator. Okay, so people can still charge for it. Yeah. You still charge for it. It's cheap. It's like 50 bucks a month. Did you get any kind of moment where you're like, okay, I'm creating this, and your coach is? Anybody be like, what's the - What do you think, Chris? That was my wonder. Well, let's move on to mistake number two, an apology tour number two. I wasn't in a bad way. I was more going like, I wonder, did that actually come up in that process?

52:45Chris Cruz:It did. And my argument was it's actually going to help you. Because if you are a story brand guy and you create websites and you create this marketing collateral, previously people just had a book. Now they have a book that's leading them to AI, and the AI is printing out the text of their website and the text of their lead generator and the text of their emails. And that text, first of all, now they're not just reading a book. They're looking at a marketing campaign that has not been executed. And so the number of people who understand what a story brand marketing and messaging campaign is and have actually taken the first step in creating it exponentially increased, and were still in need of a human being to put it.

53:30Exactly. That argument to my guides, it was still such a threat at the time that I think some of them, it was very difficult for them to, they wanted me to pretend that it didn't exist and go put the genie back in the bottle. Yeah, which you can't do because it was going to happen regardless. I can't do it. So I think some of the guides who were most threatened by that left and the ones who embraced it, a lot of them went into the multiple seven figures because they engaged the strategy. At the same time, I certainly, you know, I don't like the world changing. And I think I could have done as a leader, a much, much better job, much, much better job practicing diplomacy and creating focus groups and creating the product with my story brand certified guides.

54:20I could have done a much, much, much better job with that. And so an apology tour, I think, was warranted there. But morale right now is very, very high. Trust in our StoryBrand certified guides is high. I would actually say there's more of a demand for our guides after AI now than before AI. And also, I tell people they use AI. They're using artificial intelligence. But listen, you're the same as me. I run a company. I don't care if you use AI. I don't have time to use AI to figure this stuff out. I'm running a business here. I'm not a marketing director. And so I hope that, in fact, I don't even know if I would hire, if you were anti-AI, I don't know that I would hire you.

55:05Because, you know, that's like saying, look, I'm a mathematician and we're going to put this rocket into space. But I got to tell you something, I don't use calculators. I'm like, okay, we're getting the guy who uses a calculator. Let's get these precise numbers. We're not doing long division on this piece of paper right now.

55:19Chris Cruz:Yeah, it sounds like more your ego than your desire to be accurate. Fascinating. Okay, so I had this in my back pocket. I was like, okay, if I feel like we could go there, I want him to put him on the spot and ask his input on it. So I have an idea for a product that we offer, and I wanted to be like, all right, I've got Don in front of me. I'm going to ask him what he thinks about this and have real-time feedback and go like, this was a crap idea, or there's some legs to this or now go back to refinement, which I'm open to all of the answers. There's no needing to make me feel good. So I'm running up against this hurdle as we lead a branding agency.

55:56Chris Cruz:So we will execute on strategy. I'll back up like this. The story pitch I tell myself that I've worked on after doing all the different things is when people ask me what I do, which I used to hate that question, like, what do you do? And be like, well, you know, and you just kind of go through the, fumble over yourself. I said, well, I help people trust companies. You help people trust companies. And so that's where I just happened to call it branding. But my job is to go, how do I get you to trust them in a way that you end up putting yourself potentially at a risk by choosing them, even if you don't know the outcome.

56:33Chris Cruz:So I'm like, I think about branding as like this trust experience. Like, how do I close that gap of you trusting them for an outcome? Can you? Yeah. Can I give you a tip On the pitch? Yes, please. So you always want to start with a problem. Okay. So I would go one of two directions. I would actually have a statistic that's accurate. Okay. Something like, you know, up to 70 % of the consumers in America do not trust businesses to tell them the truth. You know, something that's very specific. and then I would say I make sure that you're one of the brands that people trust so you always want to start with the problem because if you start with the problem the solution has way more value but if you actually start with the solution the solution is not framed against the contrast of a problem and so it's perceived as less valuable I would actually go a different even a different direction than that and then I might say - I'm looking to double my revenue, so let's go.

57:44Yeah, I might say something like consumers tend to spend a lot more money with brands that have built trust with them, but most brands don't know how. Let's go. I teach them how to build trust so that consumers actually engage them more than the competition. Let's go.

58:02Chris Cruz:So there's a number of ways to frame the problem, but it's, again, the most important, The most important element of any messaging campaign is actually the negative. The negative. It's not the positive. Creating that contrast moment. It's creating the contrast. And, you know, sometimes every few years or so, I'll teach a writing workshop at my house. And we have this kind of event space that we built behind the house so that I can be a better dad and not go on the road. Named after your dog, is that right? Goose Hill, yeah. Yeah, Lucy Goose. Good research there. And there's about 1 ,000 books on the bookshelf in the carriage house.

58:38and I'll say to somebody, hey, just go pick up a book off the shelf. It doesn't matter. And they go, they grab a book. I say, okay, open it to any page. Put your finger down on any paragraph. And then they do that, and I say, let me tell you what that paragraph is about. That paragraph is about a character who is experiencing conflict. And then I say, read it. And they'll say, Harry Potter was blown away. That's awesome. That is awesome. And I've never missed. Never missed. Now, the truth is, it's about 80-20. Yeah. So at some point I'm going to mess and go, okay, put your fingers out somewhere else.

59:11But so far I haven't had to do that. The principle that I'm teaching is that interesting writing is almost all conflict. And even something like Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt or Tiz, anything by Steinbeck, anything by J.K. Rowling, open it up. It's very, very active language. Lots of action verbs. lots of negativity. The reason is it engages the human brain because the human brain is a threat detecting machine. So it's much, much more attractive to negative, attracted to negativity than positivity. So, but here's the great thing. People go, well, I don't want to be a negative brand. It's counterintuitive.

59:56The more negative you are, the more your solution is, is perceived as hopeful. So if we were to say, if I were to say, you know, I remember a story when I was a kid, this young girl, I still remember her name, Jessica, she fell into a well in her grandparents' backyard in the state of Texas. And for three days, people were tried to get her out of that well. This is a real story?

1:00:19Chris Cruz:Real story. Okay. It was, this was back when there was like four channels on television and everybody in the country was glued to their TV and trying to get Jessica out of that well. It was captivating. And at the end, these firefighters were able to dig through pieces and move, remove a rock and get down there. And I remember the footage of her coming out of that well. Now let me ask you, Chris, did I just tell a hopeful story or a negative story? Wow. Yeah, totally. Let me tell you how much of that story was positive. Yeah. One second. The end right there. And that's how you want to think of your branding.

1:00:55Your product is that moment where people don't have to struggle with this anymore. They don't have to not have trust. So for you to say, look, consumers trust corporations, which by the way is true. A study just came out about three weeks ago. The trust for corporations and corporate leaders is at an all-time low. It has never been lower. And consumers are hopeless. They're cynical. And most consumers, I'm going to make up statistics, but we want these to be true. most consumers can name no more than two brands that they actually trust fascinating trust is at an all-time low and it's trust will actually cost you your business you will go out of business if you don't know how to build trust wow i help brands build trust yeah so did you hear the end of it yeah the end of it was jessica came out of the well yeah 100 i was checking you and that's that's how you want everybody listening that's how you want to talk about your products oh my gosh okay

1:01:53Chris Cruz:Oh, my brain is spinning. I've got like 10 minutes left or five minutes left or so. So here's the last thing I want to get your input on, which you already got my world spinning, is this idea of taking all of the services that we offer, right? So we do all of those things we offer. And what I'm running up against, right, not the problem solving, the problem I'm having in closing clients and that, is they're dealing with the price points of things. Can they afford to do this X, Y, or Z around if I do this design thing now and I need content later on and it's just a cost and who's going to implement this in my company?

1:02:32Chris Cruz:All of these elements of execution, implementation, and strategy. All of this. Right. I'm going, can I take all of that as what we do as an agency and go, I will be your entire in-house team for a certain price that's reasonable, whatever, and establish that as a subscription. and go, we'll do anything that you need one at a time, but we're your in-house team. You would otherwise need$300 ,000 to do this. You're going to do this for$80 ,000 a year,$90 ,000 a year, and you get all of this in one subscription with us, like implementation, strategy, execution, all of that in a creative services way.

1:03:11Chris Cruz:Yeah. You've done something really smart there. You've contrasted it or compared it to an in-house team that would cost them a lot more than$300 ,000. And I think my marketing team costs well over$300 ,000 a year. And if you were going to do all that, another thing that you'd want to do is I would actually put it all in a playbook with tabs. I'd put it in a leather-bound binder. And I would say, this is the playbook that we're going to take you through over the next 12 months. And by the way, when we're done, we're going to start back at the beginning. We're going to do it again. The cost of this is X.

1:03:47Let me tell you, this is my team. This person does this for you. This person does this. This person does this. There's something about removing the feel of a black box investment that makes people much more likely to make the purchase. And if you said, look, it's$300 ,000 and we do everything for you, what's everything? What's everything, yeah. Yeah, I don't know what everything is. And then the other thing that's very, very important there is as you keep doing this, you need case studies. So you need to say, let me send you three case studies on what happened when somebody bought this product, and we think you would parallel these.

1:04:24And then another thing that builds trust. So you've got, let's talk about what you've got here. You've contrasted it against their cost if they did it a different way. So now it's not a three. You know, midlife crisis, right? I've been test driving these Porsche Boxsters. These Porsche Boxsters are sort of like the poor man's 911. They're basically go-karts.

1:04:46Chris Cruz:Okay. But they're not cheap. And I've test-driven about three of them. I've not bought one. This is kind of how I do things. I've got the money. I just, you know, I grew up poor. You like the process. Yeah, I don't know if I like the process. I wish I had the lack of guilt to just go buy it. All it would take, all it would take is, and unfortunately probably a Porsche dealer is listening to this. Yeah, here we go. All it would take is somebody saying, hey, Don, this is a$100 ,000 car. You are probably going to put about 4 ,000 miles a year on this car. So three years from now, this car has 12 ,000 more miles.

1:05:21Because these things hold their value, you'll be able to sell it three years from now for$3 ,000 less than you bought it. So you're talking about letting somebody have your 100 grand, getting 97 back three years from now. You know, you account for inflation. That's probably about a$5 ,000 expense. For three years, of you just being able to blow off steam on the Natchez Trace. Yeah. And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy that for you. Yeah, you're going to buy that for you.

1:05:47Chris Cruz:And then I'm going to go home and say, hon, I've made a terrible mistake. But I love how you're bringing up that. And what I'm saying is don't make your customer think. Don't make them think. Do the math for them. So one is do the math. Second, remove the black box investment by giving the playbook. Third of those case studies where you're actually framing it as an investment. And then there's a fourth thing. I want you to tell the truth about somebody it didn't work for. And I want you to say, here's why it didn't work. Love that. And these characteristics are not true about your company. And not only that, we fixed this and this.

1:06:25I'm a firm believer that, one, create a really, really great product, especially in business to business. You've got to make people money. We make our guides money. and then put everything on the table and tell the absolute truth.

1:06:37Chris Cruz:I love that so much. But tell the truth very clearly and in such a way that they can see the wisdom of why they should say yes. And I think that's really all there is to it. Gosh, man, there it is. Thank you for being on the show today. My pleasure. What a pleasure to meet you.