665: From Storytelling to Sales: How to Craft a Compelling Narrative That Converts

0:01Today's episode is sponsored in part by Revolve and Spectrum. Revolve is my all-time favorite place to shop for my dream wardrobe. Head to revolve.com forward slash gold digger to shop my favorites and get 15 % off your first order with the code gold digger. Spectrum business keeps your business connected with reliable service you can count on. Visit spectrum.com forward slash free for life to learn how you can get business internet free forever. As always, you can find all of our amazing deals in the show notes. Now let's get into it. okay I have been on this ruthless pursuit to purge any clothes that I'm not actually wearing like if I haven't reached for it in months it's gotta go I am trying to be really intentional about what I bring into my closet right now which means I am only buying pieces that I know I will actually wear and use revolve just gets it though I'm literally wearing my brown autri sneakers from there right now and my new suede purse it fits my laptop in it so it's basically a fancy shoulder bag that works for everything.

1:02I love finding pieces like that. Things that look good, but also work hard for my actual life. Their holiday shop is live right now with all the good stuff. Sparkly party dresses, cozy sets, cute gifts, everything you need for whatever is on your calendar. And it's all in one place, which makes shopping feel way less overwhelming. Whether it's a weekend away, a big night out, or a holiday party, your dream wardrobe is just one click away. Head to revolve.com forward slash gold digger shop my edit and take 15 % off your first order with the code gold digger fast two-day shipping easy returns it's literally the only place you need to shop from that's revolve.com forward slash gold digger to shop my favorites and get 15 % off your first order with the code gold digger offer available for a limited time so happy shopping when people ask me about my story what's that call message and when you tell it the audience like really feels that experience and that emotion.

2:00And that allows them to want to buy into the bigger idea of what the story or the brand is about. Hey, my name is Jenna Kutcher and I am obsessed with all things business, marketing numbers, and helping you to navigate both the messy and the magical seasons of this thing called life. I'm a small town mama who took a$300 camera, grew a successful photo biz, and now I work from home and run a seven-figure online business. I teach you the tried and true secrets to building a career you adore. Shy away from the real talk? No way. Money, hardship, growth, loss, and marketing are all topics we discuss here.

2:35Think of this as your one-stop shop for happy hour with a gal pal mixed with business school. Pull up a seat, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to be challenged and encouraged while you learn. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. It is no secret that in today's highly competitive business world, it's more important than ever for small businesses to stand out from the crowd and connect with their audiences on a deeper level. But how? Well, my guest today would argue, and I personally have to agree, that the answer is storytelling. Stories have the power to captivate, inspire, and influence people's emotions and actions, making them an invaluable tool for small business owners looking to build brand loyalty and drive sales.

3:17And my guest today, well, he is your go-to guy when you want your virtual or live presentations and copy to get clients and not just claps. As a certified speaking professional, he's been on the professional speaking circuit for over a decade, and he's advised the biggest names in the industry to speak and sell from both virtual and live stages. Most recently, he helped me and my team revamp our keynote presentation for our recent launch. And under his guidance, we more than doubled our revenue goals. I honestly couldn't think of a better person to help us craft compelling stories that resonate with our target market.

3:56So let's discover are the secrets to successful storytelling with Colin Boyd. Before we dive into the episode, I know you are going to want to learn more from Colin. So if you are eager to learn his technique and system for conversion storytelling, head to jennacutcher.com slash story. That's jennacutcher.com slash story. But without further ado, let's dive on in Colin. Welcome to the Gold Digger podcast. If you love Gold Digger, then you'll love the Side Hustle Pro podcast hosted by Nikayla Matthews Okome brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

4:36Side Hustle Pro showcases diverse entrepreneurs who have scaled from a humble side hustle to a full-blown profitable business. Every week, you'll learn actionable strategies to start small and get going wherever and whoever you are. In Nakela's recent episode titled How to Make Content for Your Business in Less Than One Hour a Week, I learned so much about how to optimize recording sessions to get content done quicker, as well as new content creation tech and tools. You have to tune in. Listen to Side Hustle Pro wherever you get your podcasts. okay so i have to tell everyone first how i came to know you colin and the whirlwind story of ours and then we can dive in but what was really interesting is sometimes i feel like especially on your entrepreneurial journey you discover something or someone at the perfect time and i feel like you entered my world at the perfect time because recently I was preparing for a launch and I was about to do my first live webinar in a very long time.

5:43Like I hadn't done a live webinar in a whole year. And all of a sudden I pull up my girl, my best friend, Amy Porterfield's podcast. And here she is talking to some guy about webinars. And I found myself on an airplane flying to a speaking engagement, listening to your podcast episode multiple times and taking notes to the point where I asked Amy, do you think Colin would talk to me? And you came into my life at the perfect time. We're going to talk more about that soon. But because we cut to the chase and got right down to business and our friendship, I want to know more about who you are, what makes you you and what your story has been.

6:21So first, welcome to the show. And let's dive on in? Yeah, thanks Jenna. So, for me, it started about 14 years ago. I started out as a life coach and so, I'm kind of newly married. I'm living in this two-bedroom apartment right next to the railway tracks. I've got this old brown desk that I found on the side of the road. It has two and a half legs and it's being held up by phone books, right? Like I'm at that level of prosperity in my life. And I had this big desire to help people because I was learning life coaching. I was loving the philosophy, the methodology. Problem was, is there was no one around to help.

7:01Like I had no clients. I kind of had what I call half a client, which was when they turn up every now and again, pay you every now and again. But I remember in my mind, I'm like, this is not sustainable. Like I can't, I can't do this long-term. And what happened was I'm sitting at my desk and I got this call on my landline at the time, which I'd wired all the way in from the kitchen into another room, right? And was my buddy. And he said, hey, I've got a speaking engagement coming up that I can't do. Would you like to do it? Now, I'd never spoken before other than at college or at school, you know, or youth group.

7:39And I was like, sure, I'll give it a go. And I remember coming into that evening, I was so nervous, like absolutely petrified. I I remember my wife used to give me like pep talks every single morning. We would walk around the neighborhood and she'd like pep talk me of like, everything's going to be all right, Colin. You're going to make it through, like all this sort of stuff. And that evening, it was literally a dark and stormy night. We're walking up the stairs and the event organizer, he runs to me. He's like, Colin, you wouldn't believe this. Biggest night we've ever had in the history of our events.

8:08We've got 137 people here live. In my mind, this is bad news because in my mind, I'm just thinking, great, there's just more people that I'm going to look stupid in front of, right? So, I do my presentation and at the end, I made an offer and I didn't realize it, but the offer was an irresistible offer. And out of the 137 people, 127 of them gave me their personal details to follow up about the offer. and I followed as many people as I could up. I ended up signing like 12 to 15 full-time coaching clients. And then four days later, HP, there was a director from Hewlett-Packard, they called me. They were sitting in the room and they asked me to come and speak at their next global training day, which ended up having 5 ,500 people.

8:56And I ended up working with HP for 10 years. I flew all around the world with them, spoke at their major conferences, spoke with all the big corporations around the world, especially Asia Pacific area. Now I'm based in the US, but was obviously in Australia. And what was crazy was that for me, all of this exploded from one speaking engagement. All of this exploded from speaking on stage. And when I think about it, I wasn't even that good, like right at the start. And then that obviously, you know, catapulted into online stages and webinars, which you talked about as well. But for me, that's where my obsession around speaking and storytelling really started.

9:34And And then six years ago, we moved to the US and had the privilege of working with some pretty incredible people, including yourself. So that's kind of been the journey. Have you always been a good storyteller? Like, where is this rooted? Because I have to imagine that some of this is a natural gift and a lot of it is also probably learned. Yeah, for me, when I actually realized as an adult that I probably had some slight dyslexia growing up. And I remember many times struggling to read, struggling to comprehend. And I think I probably learned that maybe I need to get good at speaking rather than just reading all the time.

10:12And so, I probably lent more towards trying to be a good communicator with my language and the verbal word than the written word. So, that was maybe something that lent me towards it. I would say that I definitely do have a skill set around communicating, but this is what I know is that everyone that I've worked with, because I've worked with thousands of people around the world. And so, I've obviously worked with people who would consider themselves terrible storytellers and people who are naturally good storytellers. But what I know is that there's definitely some tactics and principles which we can go through today that can elevate your ability to become a great storyteller.

10:53And if you don't follow those principles, even if you are naturally a good communicator, there's going to be so much missing in your stories anyway. So, I think anyone can learn and grow that skill. Sure, there is some natural innate abilities in some people, but I think anyone can grow that. And when I think about it as an entrepreneur, learning how to tell your story and your audience's story is so crucial to your marketing and all those sort of things. So, yeah, we'll unpack that. Yeah, let's talk about that because the one thing that I learned from you and I feel like I'm going going to continue to learn from you is that fact that stories sell.

11:29And I think that for a lot of people, and I'm going to group myself into this bucket, we think, you know, I've told this story a million times or everyone knows this story. They're going to roll their eyes and move on or whatever. And I think a lot of times our stories lose their weight in our own lives. And so we neglect them or forget about them or pass through them very quickly. But what I love about you is, is it's not just about being a good storyteller. You help connect that story to the sale. And I will bet that so many people listening to this podcast hate selling. If we ask anyone, don't you just love selling your thing?

12:08They would say, absolutely not. So walk me through what you believe about storytelling and how it relates to selling. And then we can dive into some of the specific tips and keys that people need to include. Well, there's kind of two buckets that we could focus on here. There's the idea of selling and the idea of storytelling, and they definitely come together. So, let's just start with selling in general. Because if you're an entrepreneur, even if you're selling bracelets or you're selling on Etsy or you're selling coaching services or an online course, as an entrepreneur, if you don't learn how to sell, you won't be an entrepreneur for very long.

12:49like you kind of have a very expensive hobby and so learning how to sell is actually it's inevitable now the good thing about it is that even if you feel really uncomfortable selling if you make some mindset shifts then you can actually feel really comfortable selling and I think one of the biggest mindset shifts that people need to make is realizing that when you sell the word sell I didn't even like the word selling the reason why is because it feels like you're doing something to someone else. Like you're kind of pushing someone to do something. But for me, the idea of selling is actually about attracting the right person towards the offer.

13:30Like I think about, you know, like a MacBook computer. I just went into Mac and, you know, I just bought two computers, spent almost 10 grand on like two computers and no one sold me on anything. Like I walked in, I'm like, I want these computers. I want the top level of this. It's like I'm the one demanding them to give me the product, right? Yeah. And when you think about it, that for me is like the most beautiful experience of selling from a company's perspective. Yeah. And so, when I think about storytelling, when storytelling is done right, your story actually attracts the right type of audience towards your offer.

14:09And so, what happens is the audience ends up starting to ask to join your offer before it's even open. And some of the people might call this like they might have a wait list or they might have something on there, right? And then you've got all these people who are waiting at the door, almost like a VIP line going, I want to get in. And if you view selling as more, this is how I define selling. Selling is creating a space of transformation for your audience. And so, if I think about like your program around Pinterest, my program around speaking and selling, that offer, that offer for me is a space that I actually protect.

14:50I'm not trying to push anyone to get into it. I'm trying to get the right people into that program because if I know the right people come in, they're going to change their life. Like they're going to be like a completely different person from that experience. I think about your program, like if they learn the Pinterest strategies and they get the traffic to their websites, they're going to have a completely different experience of not only their business, but their personal life, their marriage. They won't be arguing over money as much anymore or at all, right? Like all these experiences happen because someone made an offer or someone sold something.

15:26And so, that's like the first shift I think we need to make. We need to see selling is actually a doorway to serving. And until you make that shift, being an entrepreneur is going to be extremely uncomfortable. But the good thing is that all of us can make that shift. I'm curious for you, Jenna, like how's that journey been for you with selling and so forth? Totally. So we're going to break down some of the tips that Colin gave me because I think it really transformed the way that I showed up, especially during my webinar, which is like being on stage, but online, right? A virtual stage. But I remember, you know, selling, it was like, you could feel the energy change when it came time to pitch, right?

16:12You're teaching, you're sharing, you're engaging, you're excited. Oh crap. Here comes the offer, right? Like your palms get sweaty, you get shaky. I would have these papers of scripts and I'd be trying to like flip them over, but like not have the sound be in the microphone. It was just this very visceral reaction. And it's fascinating because even when you reviewed my webinar for me, you were like, the pitch was amazing. Like it was great. And I said, that's because I'm so confident in what I am selling that like, I, I will shout it from the rooftops with pride because I want everyone to experience this freedom.

16:49Right. And so it's interesting because I think that obviously your confidence grows with your experience. But when you have such a deep conviction, it is not just heard, it's felt. That's so true. Because when people buy from you, they're not just buying a system, they're buying a feeling. Yeah. And when you, as the speaker, as the entrepreneur, carry that feeling into an offer, the audience genuinely senses it. Yeah. And I think that there's like a spectrum in learning how to feel confident in your offer. the first piece is actually going through the transformation yourself. And so it's like you've experienced something on a deep level from the content or from the ideas that you're selling and you just feel excited about it, right?

17:36The second level is where you've got clarity on how that process actually occurred. Real clarity on these are the steps you need to follow to actually create that result. And the third level of certainty I see as where you've got enough social proof from other people to show that what you teach can be scaled or can be extrapolated into other people's lives. And so for me, those three levels is the journey of entrepreneurship and creating certainty in your offer. Yeah. So let me explain how Colin like stepped in and helped me in this crucial period. One thing I will say is for anyone listening to this that ever does a launch or you're selling or you have a new promotion or a new product or a new offer, there is always that doubt period right before you're about to go to market, right?

18:29Is this crazy? Is anyone going to buy it? Is it going to work? I don't care how many years you're in business. There is still that moment where you second guess everything. And I always remind myself, like, do not guess what you created with a sound mind, because when you get to launch, you no longer have a sound mind. It's gone. And Colin came in and after listening to his interview with Amy, I was like, Oh man, like he had so many different tips and strategies around storytelling. And I said, you know, I love to teach. Like a lot of times I'll just pack my trainings or pack my presentations with so much content because I just want people to get results.

19:05Right. And I realized in learning from him, like I'm doing a disservice by leaving the stories out. and a tendency that I often have is to skip through the story because in the past, we've all heard fluffy stories where it's like, cut the fluff, get to the point. But you helped teach that stories create that relatability and that understanding and help people put themselves in the position that maybe you were in. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Yeah. So one of the mistakes that people make with their stories is that they think their story is about them. And so, even your own personal story, and there's this angle that I call your story, which is a conversion story.

19:46You have a few types of stories. You have like signature stories that are stories that you'll tell to refer to different points, which is probably one of the stories that you told Jenna about being a mom and losing your time, which was such a powerful story. And then you've got a conversion story. And a conversion story is the story that links your offer to the story or links the audience and the offer to the story. So, they all kind of come together. And so, one of the mistakes that people make is that they forget or you forget how much the audience doesn't know your story. And it's so fascinating because even that story I told at the start, Jenna, I reckon I've told that about 3 ,000 times.

20:29Like no word of a lie. I've probably told that about 3000 times. But when I tell it, I have to realize that the person listening to it, they've never heard it before. Many of them haven't heard it before. And even if they have heard it before, I want to relive it and re-experience it like as if it's happening for the first time. So, that means bringing up those emotions, bringing up those feelings, like reliving that experience. And that is this whole idea of that when you present, when you tell a story, even if the story is about you, the story is for the audience. And when you tell it right, what happens is the audience actually puts themselves in your story.

21:08And so, there are three questions which you're probably kind of referring to. There are three questions that I always try to answer on every story. The first question is, are you like me? And so, in your story, you have to explain this idea that you get them, you are like them. Because the problem is that they're seeing you as an elevated version on the stage. So, maybe you're running a webinar or you're speaking at an event or you're doing a Facebook Live. Like you're the one teaching, right? And so, because you're teaching, you actually have an innate authority, an innate elevation because you're on a stage or you're presenting or you're the entrepreneur.

21:51And so, what you need to do is you need to show, no, no, you're exactly like them. And you know the feelings they're experiencing. You know how difficult it is. You know how hard it can be. And you didn't get this like golden ticket. You actually know what it's like to struggle. And that's where we need to start with our stories. And so, the first piece is really about connection. It's about vulnerability. It's about answering that question of, are you like me. The second piece is, can you lead me? Because I don't know about you, but I know for me, I've heard some people tell stories and they didn't kind of finish with any sort of like breakthrough or like revelation.

22:30And I'm like, oh, you're still stuck. I'm like, okay, that's a lot of drama. Is there any resolution? Like you even think about a good movie, right? If the movie doesn't have resolution, there isn't that bow at the end of it. You don't, you wouldn't tell people about it. You just kind of feel a bit icky when you finish. And so, your story as well has to have that resolution. It has to have that credibility, that breakthrough, that experience of where you show the audience, you're not just like them, but you can lead them. And that's a cool angle as well in a story is like, you got to make sure you can show that, oh, okay, you can lead them.

23:08And the third secret source, which makes it a conversion story is you actually show that what you went through followed a specific path. And that specific path is your core premise or your core idea. And so, if you can infuse your core premise or your core idea in your story and find those transformational moments, all of a sudden, when you tell your story, it shows the audience that you are like them, that you can lead them. And even more than that, you've got this beautiful path that they can follow. Yeah, this was so eye-opening to me. And I think it's really encouraging. And every single person listening has a story like this within them, right?

23:50They have probably multiple stories within them. And I think it's also beautiful. You know, I went through the process of writing a book and it's a really beautiful process as a human being to really reflect on the path and what you've overcome and what got you there and how that can impact other people. I believe that deep down innately human beings want to leave their mark and they want to give purpose to maybe some of the pain they've been through. And I think that story is a way that we can really do that, honor that and share that with the world. And I think one cool thing to do about this is sometimes asking the question of what is what you do about?

24:31Yeah. And so let's say you sell jewelry. Yeah. All right. Let's say you sell jewelry. Like jewelry is about like elevating the experience of who you are. Jewelry is about connecting with yourself and connecting with others. It's presenting your best self, right? Like, so you might say, okay, jewelry, what story could I tell? Tell a story about a moment where you connected with yourself and how jewelry, like, and that the jewelry you create is an expression of who you are. Like I haven't think about like that brand Pandora. Yeah. That has all the different jewels and gems and stuff. and how they link those jewels and gems to moments in people's lives.

25:10Like they've done a brilliant job of using like jewelry, right, which is a very tactile kind of experience. And they've built it into like into a story or you create your own story on the experience of the bracelet. Yeah. So, it's so cool to think about like with your story. Your story is not just about telling the timeline of what you went through. It's about thinking about what's that core message that I want to present. When people ask me about my story, what's that core message? And when you tell it, the audience really feels that experience and that emotion. And that allows them to want to buy into the bigger idea of what the story or the brand is about.

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