Stories That Sell: How to Create the Stories People Actually Buy Into with Greg Logan

0:28Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! emotionally connect with their audience. And today at Fire Nation, we'll talk about why stories work in business. We'll also talk the biggest mistakes people make around this and how Hollywood cracked the formula and what that is and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Greg and our sponsors. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump.

1:00at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Greg, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hi, Fire Nation. It's nice to be here. I would say not telling people what they want to hear. In my business, I consult to clients about their messaging and storytelling. And what I've realized is all my competitors come in and just continually tell my clients what they want to hear. And the result of that is they nod, they get the paycheck, but the client sits back and looks at it and goes, is this any good?

1:55This kind of sounds like everyone else. and I found that, you know, one thing I do with my clients is when we start a session, I go, these are all the words that I've banned and they're all the cliches that every business uses in the world and their jaws drop. And they go, what do you mean? They're all the words we say. And I go, yeah. And so does everyone else. So we're not saying those and a bit of tough love really, really helps. And when I push back on a client and they kind of get their back up, they always come around and go, wow, you've made me think of that differently. And actually, you're just not trying to blow smoke up my ass.

2:40You're trying to help me. And so I would say, my answer to that is don't always tell your clients or your customers what they want to hear. Fire Nation, you can tell that we're not going to get any smoke blown up our little booties today from Greg. Because we're talking about stories that sell, how to create the stories that people actually buy into. And I want to start with the why, Greg. Why do stories work in business? Well, stories work at any time. It's in our human DNA to love stories. um ever since caveman sat around the campfire uh we've been hooked and just because it's business uh doesn't mean we're not human you know that's the big thing people think is they go well this is business so we have to be serious and we certainly have to be rational but you forget that customers are actually people and people are motivated by emotion.

3:46And your audience, the Fire Nation, everyone's got a business and that business is probably great and you know it's great, but somehow people don't know how great it is. And the reason is you're not telling the right story. The thing is the number one most cost effective thing you can do to improve your business is change your story. It's not changing your product. It's not changing your people. It's not changing your pricing. Just change your story because you need to show people why you matter to them. And that's why stories work and emotionally hook them in. And we get too caught up in how amazing our product is.

4:33And we just have to tell them all those great proof points and they're going to be sold where they won't be. But stories hook us in and engage us and tell us why you matter to us. Now, I love discussing mistakes because we can just learn so much from them. So I want to know what the biggest mistakes that you see founders make when they're trying to tell their brand story. Well, there's three, three biggies. I'll list them and then I'll talk a little bit more about them. Stop talking about yourself. Stop being so rational and stop sounding like everybody else. Stop talking about yourself. Businesses go on a shopping list of features, but that's not a story.

5:19A brand story tells people why you matter to them. So stop telling the story you want to tell and start telling the story your audience wants to here. Think about that for a minute. And all of a sudden the penny will drop and you'll go, oh yeah, I'm just talking about myself the whole time. Stop being so rational. People make decisions based on emotion. So stop flogging that overly rational horse. have a bit of fun be vulnerable talk about tension like get into people's heart not just their head and the last thing is stop sounding like everybody else every client I work with all over the world it doesn't matter what industry they're in all of them conform to the conventions of the category.

6:15So how do you expect to stand out if your messaging is blending in? You just won't do it. And so I think those three big things are the biggest mistakes. Stop talking about yourself being so rational and sounding like everybody else. Yeah. There's one thing that I try to harp on for Fire Nation, which is nobody wants a pale, weak imitation of somebody else. They want the unique, true, authentic, genuine version of you. So find that within yourself. And then back to what Greg was saying about stories. Like that's why I love breaking up the word history into two words. His story. Story. Her story.

6:57We come from stories. That's where we come from. And we love it. People sit up and notice once upon a time. Now, Greg, Hollywood cracked the formula. Can you tell us more? If you think about Hollywood or when they commission a movie and they get the big stars and the big director, you're looking at often hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. The studios want to see that money returned. So how do they ensure that they're going to get that money returned? And they've broken it down. And for 100 years, they've created formulas to hook us in. And Hollywood over time has been the most financially successful storyteller of all time.

7:40LA is built on movies and every movie is built on a formula.

7:48So I just took those formulas and broke them down to how our brand uses them. They get an incredible return on investment. Hollywood does the return on investment. They hook you in at the start. They keep you all hooked all the way to the end. They get you to the sequel and you buy the merch as well. So some very clever people created formulas to make sure they got a return on investment. You would have heard of the hero's journey, the greatest formula of all from the start of the movie, the heroes in their ordinary world, they're called to adventure on a quest that's too big and scary. They don't want to go on it.

8:34They meet a mentor who convinces them to do it, to cross the threshold into a special world where all kinds of drama happens to them until they finally return triumphant back into their ordinary world. That's the formula. And I've broken them down so brands can use them too. Fire Nation, there is a history in Hollywood of understanding the power of stories. And we're going to talk more about this and other things that you need to be implementing in your business when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Have you ever dreamed of hopping around with kangaroos in Australia or bungee jumping over 400 feet into a canyon in New Zealand?

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11:09Greg, we're back. And you believe that brands can steal from Hollywood. I mean, we were just talking about the power that Hollywood's created over hundreds of years, you know, making stories the most profitable thing ever that has, you know, since the dawn of time, literally. So, you know, we want to learn from success that comes before us. We want to stand on the shoulders of giants. How can brands steal from Hollywood? I did. And I started my business by stealing the secrets from Hollywood. John, And how it came about was it was about seven, eight years ago, eight years ago. And brand storytelling became this huge thing.

11:48And I was reading about it. I would go to incredible conferences. I went to South by Southwest. It was every second thing was about brand storytelling. And neuroscientists would talk about how our brains are hardwired to love them and brands don't use it enough. And I left there going, everyone told me why. brands should become better storytellers, but no one told me how. So I went back to LA where I was living and I went, this is the how. Hollywood does it really, really well. And so I broke them down. I stole their formulas. And there's a few key things that Fire Nation can take from this. One is every movie has a hero and we follow that hero all the way to the end and we love the hero but i hate to tell you all you are not the hero you are not the hero of your story your customer is every customer every person in their life has a quest or many quests they want to see achieved They may want to go on a holiday.

13:00They may want their business to be successful. They want to watch the new Netflix show. They want, you know, they want a better tasting peanut butter. Everyone has a quest they want to see achieved. So you have to make your audience the hero. And what role do you play? You're the wise guide. You're the mentor that comes along a third of the way through the film that helps the hero achieve their quest. So if you can tell that story, that you are helping your audience achieve what they want, you are instantly going to become invaluable to them. That's the first one. The other thing movies do so well, and we never do it in business, is use tension.

13:53I with my clients I get them to start their story with their audience's greatest tension their greatest hates and and most people in marketing go oh you can't do that you can't start with negativity but it works could you imagine a movie if there was no tension it'd be the most boring movie of all time and tension gets us in it hooks us but if you're looking at what your audience's greatest tension is, they're really going to be in. So if I'm looking at entrepreneurs tensions, if I start a story with, you're not making enough money, it's a lonely world out there. You're just treading water. The competition keeps increasing.

14:35You're bleeding money. It's hard to find the right people. How do you attract new customers? You're listening to me because I'm triggering your greatest tensions. Then you talk about how you solve that. All of a sudden you're relevant and you understand me and you're going to answer my biggest problems. Also end with your audience's greatest love. They want a competitive edge. They want to be proud. They want some balance. All those things, if you can end on a happy ending, that is the ending that your audience wants, it's going to be really, really powerful. And the other thing I do is I use all these secrets from Hollywood.

15:23First of all, I work out with my clients what genre they are. Are they a comedy, a buddy film, a drama? And I have a meaning for each of those. And that's to decide what kind of story we want to tell. Because if you think about Netflix, they use genre very well, because when we sit down at night, we go, what kind of story, what kind of movie do we feel like? And so what genre does, they go, oh, I want a comedy tonight. And what genre does is it brings the audience closer to what they desire. And in business, we never do this. We just skip to telling the features rather than bringing them closer to the story they want to hear.

16:09I work out their enemy, which is not their enemy. It's not your enemy. It's not the business's enemy. It's the enemy your customer is facing. And then once you work that out, you go, what superpower do I have? Does the business have that defeats that enemy. And that's what you want people to feel again and again and again. It's your brand essence. So I do all these things like genre, enemy and superpower, log line, love story, backstory. I've used the movie formulas to engage you, but put it in a way that businesses can really use. And the greatest one of all is the quest. Because as I said, a hero has a quest at the start of the film.

16:53And that's why movies work. So the quest out of all the things I do, my clients find everything valuable, but the quest is the thing I enjoy the most because it's the biggest. And it also happens to be the simplest. So there's a lot of takeaways from that Fire Nation. Two that I just want to point back out that I loved was you're not the hero. Your clients are the hero. And then that part about creating tension, man, that is so powerful. And it's so tough for people. People don't like to create tension. They try to avoid it, but it's so important to do. Now, Greg, we're wrapping up here. So I want to do a speed quest workshop for entrepreneurs on fire.

17:31So let's, let's dive in, but let's, let's do a quick. How do you create a quest for your brand? The movies have a very simple formula. What do you do? Who do you do it for? And what value do you add to their lives? So if we look at the movies for Star Wars, what do you do saving who for the galaxy, the benefit saving the galaxy by destroying the evil empire? For Barbie, what do you do restoring who for girls, restoring girls boundary between perfection and reality. and there's a really simple one. What do you do? Finding who for Nemo, the value you add to their lives. Finding Nemo is the value.

18:12So sometimes it can just be just two words. For my clients, for a small business owner, relieving business owners from the pressures they're under. For a very different business from a palliative care, ensuring people have their best death possible. And my quest for my business is turning businesses into loved brands. Now, all those things followed the same formula, but you can see instantly, if you're the audience, you see why you matter to me and I want to see that quest achieved. And that's what you want. You want to create a quest of what you do, who for, and the value you add to their lives.

18:55The audience wants to see that achieved. You can see everything was said in a very everyday, non-corporate, very easy to understand. So, John, talk to me. I mean, we know who our audience is. Even though the first word is what do you do? That's the last thing you do. Let's start with your audience. Your audience, most important yours is entrepreneurs. What value, just talk to me, what value do you add to the lives of entrepreneurs? The genius from my guests. One quest for that. is playing forward the genius of entrepreneurs. So playing forward is what you do. The genius is the benefit. And who do you do it for?

19:45Entrepreneurs. That's a quest that could be. I think you just created the new tagline for my podcast, Greg. Well done. It's cool, isn't it? Yes, I love how this works. And it is so true because to me, it's all about extracting the genius from my guests for entrepreneurs. Like I want to bring on people who are at the top of their game, like you and stories, person X, when it comes to AI, you know, person Z, when it comes to brand or whatever it might be, like extract their genius from my audience, entrepreneurs on fire. I really like it. Passing on or playing forward the genius of entrepreneurs is such a cool idea that that power of entrepreneurship grows and grows and grows from that combined genius.

20:31It's very powerful. There's another one I thought of, and I'll throw it out there before, because I know aha moments are really key for you. But one I just thought of, it's the quest formula perfectly, providing entrepreneurs with aha moments daily. I mean, that literally does sum up my goal. Like I want the listeners to be like pulling off the side of the road and saying, I got it. Like that sentence that Greg just shared, not the one that you just shared, but like one that you shared in this episode that clicked and it opened up something for the listener that now it's out of the bag and they don't want to even put it back in, of course.

21:14and now they're off to the races. And with an aha moment, some people have one aha moment in their life. But if you're providing entrepreneurs with aha moments daily, wow. Like that's, that's a cool quest that I go, I want to see that achieved. I'm listening to entrepreneurs on fire. So, um, you can see how simple the quest formula is and how it flips the script from you talking about yourself, but you talking about the benefit, the greatest end benefit of what you're doing for your customer. You can use it internally. You can use it externally. And it's a really great thing to judge business decisions against.

22:00For instance, I mentioned one for the small business owner, relieving business owners from the pressures they're under. Their previous one was to be the number one independent funder for small to medium businesses in the UK. And I told them that was terrible because their audience needs funding. They're in a world of financial pain. And you say you want to be number one. But the bigger issue was if they had to make a decision, should we do this? And they go, will it make us number one? Who knows? It's subjective. But if you said, is this going to relieve business owners from the pressures they're under?

22:35Yes, then we're doing it. If not, we're not doing it. Because if you can continually make decisions in your business that bring the quest to life, you are going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. Greg, if Fire Nation's getting chills from what you're sharing and they want to learn more, they want to connect with you, what is your call to action for our listeners today? You know, I was thinking everything I do is think about the audience, what they're feeling, what's their tension. And I just know everyone is part of the financial is thinking, gee, what's my story sound like? Does it stack up?

23:16I've probably never really thought about it. Well, I've created something so you can find out. It's called storytellingquiz.com and it's a free messaging health check. It's really simple. There's multiple choice. You can sit down and do a sliding scales on some questions. It just takes a few minutes, but what I've done is broken down all the things that make an effective brand story. Clarity, distinctiveness, emotional engagement, tone of voice, all these things. And at the end, you get a score and you find out where you're succeeding and more importantly, where you're falling flat. And I give you ideas on what you can do to fix it as well.

23:55So if you want to know how good your story is, check it out at storytellingquiz.com. dot com fire nation you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with you've been hanging out with gl and jld today so keep up the heat and for links to everything we talked about visit eofire.com type greg in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up and greg thank you for sharing your truth your knowledge your value with fire nation today for that we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side thanks john hey fire nation a huge Thank you to our sponsors and Greg for sponsoring today's episode.

24:32And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share your amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for entrepreneurs on fire. To learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop. taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire.