The Power of Storytelling for Business | Ep. 9

If you’re living life, chances are you’ve got stories to tell. Stories are what make you relatable, and that relatability is what can help speed dial the like, know, and trust factor between you and a potential customer. In this episode of Coffee Social, Jonathan Howard and Mimi Langley dive into the world of storytelling for business. Jonathan takes the lead on this one sharing the importance of storytelling, what to do so you don’t run out of stories to share, and insights to help with monetizing them.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
: Where am I supposed to be telling stories? EVERYWHERE!
: Figure out how to connect your everyday stories to your business.
: You need to repeat your stories.
: Have a long version, a medium version, a short version of your story.
: Your stories are evergreen content.

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KEYWORDS:
business inspiration, marketing strategies, personal branding, entrepreneurial lessons, success strategies, coffee social podcast, business mindset, confidence in business, storytelling basics for sales

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Listen. I mean, so much has been dropped about storytelling. Anything else you want to add in, mr Storyteller?

Speaker 2: 0:07

I'll just say make it relatable, make it something that is going to get people to say that's so me. Because you understand your ideal customer that well that they see that story, they hear that story and they're like oh my God, I've done that before. That's so me. Because when you understand your audience that well and you can tell them those stories that get them to say that's so me, you just jumped like three steps towards that trust.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Listen, that's what it's about. I love you, got me, you know, I, I anyways. I mean so good. We want them to say oh my gosh, like, is she reading my mind? Is he reading my mind?

Speaker 2: 0:43

Like, so good, it's Corp v Social the podcast all about social media and business. And now here are your hosts, jonathan Howard and Mimi Langley.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Hey everyone, Hi Jonathan Howard, Hi Mimi.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Langley.

Speaker 1: 1:05

I kind of sang the everyone part to hey everyone, everyone. Oh gosh, I probably hurt people's ears. Mm-hmm, you hurt mine. Thanks, you're supposed to be my biggest supporter.

Speaker 2: 1:16

I have you turned all the way down. I can barely hear you guys, welcome to coffee social.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Oh my gosh, listen, I am excited I did. I'm really excited because I know that this episode in particular means a lot to Jonathan, because he is always bantering babbling on and on about storytelling and the power of storytelling. So are you excited.

Speaker 2: 1:41

I have a PowerPoint presentation and 900 points that we need to get through.

Speaker 1: 1:45

You guys better get on YouTube. If you want to see that PowerPoint presentation, you better get in the YouTube channel.

Speaker 2: 1:49

I don't have a PowerPoint presentation? Why? Why, when stories are so much more powerful?

Speaker 1: 1:55

Yes, yes, Um real quick though, two things. One did you notice my necklace? It's so gorgeous. You have a stunning necklace on yes, thank you so much. The listeners.

Speaker 2: 2:04

the listeners can't see your necklace, so that's kind of well, they can.

Speaker 1: 2:08

if they're watching on YouTube, though, okay. But yes, you're right. Do you want to describe it to them real quick?

Speaker 2: 2:13

It's pretty and sparkly and squirrel.

Speaker 1: 2:17

What coffee are you drinking today, Jonathan?

Speaker 2: 2:22

Coffee and I always drinking.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Cole blue. Oh, khalifa, here we go, cheers, we, cheers me I did Cheers you Okay. We almost smashed your camera. Yeah that's great. I have my uh. I don't know the name of it. All I know it's organic Cheers to organic coffee.

Speaker 2: 2:40

Cheers to organic coffee. Do you think I would smash my camera as many transitions as I've done All?

Speaker 1: 2:47

I'm saying is leg croissant.

Speaker 2: 2:50

Now there's coffee dripping down my camera.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Ooh, okay, clean up on aisle four. Okay, jonathan, we have to jump into this because I know you have a lot that you want to Talk about in a little bit of time. That we have because, again, we want these to be digestible. You guys, this is the digestible podcast about social media and business. Yeah, Um but let's talk about it. So we're talking about storytelling that will convert, that will eventually lead to sales. So why storytelling? What's the point?

Speaker 2: 3:23

So humans are wired to tell stories. Humans are wired to understand stories. If I'm telling you a story and it really gets you, if it's relatable, you understand it and you're along for the ride, your brain will start to sync with my brain, which means that if your brain and my brain are syncing as this story is being told, you have the ability to connect in a way that's going to motivate them to take action, and you want that's what sales is about motivating people to take action and the best way to do it is through storytelling. That's just where we start. Humans are naturally, you know, storytellers, from cave writings to everything, but we love to tell a story. When do you not love to come home and tell your husband oh my God, you'd never guess what happened.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Wow, it's almost like you're making it intimate. You know what I mean. It's almost like oh Jonathan's telling me that story, even though I know you're broadcasting it, but it almost feels like you're talking to me.

Speaker 2: 4:24

And it should. It should feel intimate, it should feel special, it should have moments of vulnerability and moments of drama, because drama is essential in a good story. So where's the drama? What's the cycle? You're bringing them on and there's formats that you can use. One of the ones that I always tell to use is the hero journey. But remember, you're not the hero. Your client is. You're the guide. So you're bringing them through all of this as a guide because you've been through it before, which is why your avatar is important, and knowing who they are.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Mmm, oh my gosh. Okay, real quick, before we dive more into the storytelling category. I was like trying to find the right word. Where should I be storytelling? Like? Are you talking storytelling, you know, through video, through short form video, through YouTube videos? Or are you talking about can I, can I tell a story in my email, my blog post? Like where am I telling stories? Everywhere.

Speaker 2: 5:25

I'm a big believer in you. Tell stories everywhere, because stories are what make you relatable, it's what makes people want to connect with you. It what it's what builds that like no one trust. Yes, you have to have the data, because data tells. But you're looking to sell stories, or what sells, and if you're not telling stories in everything that you're doing, people kind of wonder what's going on. Like you've got a story about this and people tell me they don't have stories all the time. And I can tell here don't have stories all the time.

Speaker 2: 5:55

The other day, my, my nephew, gave me a birthday card and he was smiling from ear to ear. When he gave it to me he was so excited because nobody could make anything better than that. And when he handed it to me he said isn't this great? Happy birthday, uncle John. And smiling from ear to ear. And I want people that are taking my course and my videos like doing the videos. I want them to feel like that. I want them to feel like they're creating the best thing ever and not worried about putting it out. That's a story you can tell. It's about my nephew giving me a birthday card, but it ties back to my business.

Speaker 1: 6:31

How can you tie it back? I love that, jonathan. That's so good. Um, okay, I want you to. So I have something that I would share. Um, as far as storytelling, but I know, this is like this is where you, uh, this is like your superpower is storytelling, but real quick.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So, you know, I teach all about social audio. We literally have to use our words to paint a picture. So, whether it's on clubhouse, linkedin, audio X spaces, I'm trying to paint a picture, right? So, for example, I can tell you all day and night, you know, you need to know your moderator tools. So, like for clubhouse I always talk about know your buttons, know where they are located, what they do. So there's a difference between me just telling you that, right, you're like, okay, whatever.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Versus me painting the picture of why it's important for you to know, like, even though I'm telling you let's paint this picture, this realistic picture that you yourself can imagine may happen. So, for example, in my clubhouse room, I might say you know, let's just pretend someone comes on your, you bring someone on your stage and all of a sudden, they start disrupting your stage. What are you going to do? It's your room, right? You start seeing people leave. How can you handle the situation right? And that's when I throw in oh, I know the moderator button and where it's located. So that would be kind of an example. Very quick story, but it reels them in like they can actually picture themselves there in that moment.

Speaker 2: 8:03

Yeah, maybe. Well, one of your most consumed rooms on Clubhouse was the interrupting room, and the reason it was is because we were telling many stories with each situation and they could see what, how they could apply it. They could see what would happen. You want to show them, not tell them, because when you're telling them, you're lecturing them, you're giving them and it's just OK, whatever. Show them that you understand it, show them that you do it. Show them that you've got experience and this is how you handle it and that will get them to one learn quicker and to build that trust.

Speaker 1: 8:44

Jonathan, I want you to like, even give us more like, because you were talking earlier about running out of ideas for stories. So what do you do in that situation? Like I can see that being a real yeah headache, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:58

Well, first of all, I find it hard to believe that if you're living life, you're going to run out of ideas for stories. I don't think you will, first of all. Second of all, you need to repeat your stories because people aren't retaining the story the first time they hear it from you. It may not hit the same way. It may be that they need it in a certain moment and when they hear it in that moment, that's what activates them, that's what gets them moving, that's what gets them to buy, that's what gets them inspired. Whatever it may be.

Speaker 2: 9:25

But it may not be the first time you tell the story. It may be the twenty first time you tell the story, especially on social media, because it's not seven touches that people need, it's more like 21, and only 10 percent of your audience sees it. So you know 21 touches 10 percent of your audience. So you got to multiply 21 times nine. Bring out the calculator. Yeah, I can't do it in my head. So I'm stories, not numbers, which, but that, like I said earlier, stories sell, numbers tell. They're both important in your if you want to sell something to people.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Love when you mention like repeat your stories, because you know we're always talking about repeat yourself, repeat yourself, repeat yourself. And then includes the story. Even though you feel like people have heard the story a million times, repeat it. So I love that.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah, repeat it and it's part of your story, it's part of why you're doing things, it's part of you know different stories and I always tell people to have a like a file of the stories you tell and when you tell them, and then have a long version, a medium version and a short version.

Speaker 1: 10:32

Hmm, that's good, that's really good, and actually that wouldn't be a bad idea, just so that you don't get like stuck in a creative rut, like have a Google Doc and just put down random stories that you could relate to your business, like you could have like a hundred in there for a rainy day.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Yep, absolutely, and you're looking for something that you can tell Evergreen. Your stories are evergreen content. They're evergreen content no matter what you're doing, so you can tell your story in some way or another, and it can be five seconds of it that can be impactful. I mean, the card story was like 12 seconds on video. So, all of that.

Speaker 1: 11:14

That's really good, jonathan. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Okay, I'm trying to get as much out as quickly as possible, I know.

Speaker 1: 11:21

I know you guys, like we're drinking coffee, we're walking really fast in the city. That's what we're doing on this podcast. Okay, now you wrote this in the notes. I have to read it word for word. You put show them the darkness and bring them to the light. What do you mean?

Speaker 2: 11:39

So a lot of times people say don't use pain points, but they already know they're in pain. The reason that they're looking for a solution is because they're in pain. How are they gonna trust that you can solve that problem if you don't show them that you understand the darkness which is their pain point? So I always believe that every good business sells happy. They sell happy because they're selling a story that brings them from sad where they are now with that pain point to a place where they're happy. They no longer have that pain point. Now they're gonna have other pain points because it's life, it happens. But you get them on this one thing from sad to happy and how do you sell happy? It's what you're doing to get them to their desired outcome. So you need to tell a story that paints the picture of this and if you don't talk about the pain point, they don't trust you because they don't know that you know how to get rid of the pain point. Let me give you an example.

Speaker 2: 12:41

I help successful female coaches show up on video. Now, when they come to me, a lot of times they're struggling with visibility fears. They're worried that somebody is going to realize they're a fraud because they're showing up on video, they're worried that somebody's gonna leave them behind in some way or another. Now the only way to get rid of that fear is to do it. So I have to show them the point where I was, when I was afraid to do video, and tell that story because I was afraid to do video.

Speaker 2: 13:14

I didn't do video until three years ago and in that point my business was failing and I understand I wasn't growing. I wasn't doing the things I needed to do. So I started and I did a live video challenge and in that live video challenge I went live a hundred days in a row. Practice builds the confidence. Practice builds the confidence that you need in order to show up, and that's what they need in that moment. They need to know that it can be done and it doesn't have to take a hundred days, and I walk you through what you need to do to start doing it. But it's that first eight seconds of confidence is what you need.

Speaker 1: 13:52

Okay, jonathan, I don't want to cut you off, but I do because I want you to. How are we bringing this to life? So the story that you just told us how are you putting that in cause? I know you do a lot of video. How are you putting that into video? Can you just kind of give us a quick overview of what the video looks like?

Speaker 2: 14:12

Well, that video could look in a lot of different ways. You could literally just tell the story to the camera. When I first started my business, I wouldn't show up on video, and here's why I didn't like the way I sounded. I didn't like all these things, but my business was failing and I needed to figure out a way to make it work. In order to do that, I did this live video challenge and that's where it changed. My Facebook group went from 30 people to 400. My number of people that were contacting me to help them went like through the roof. All those things that happened because of that shows them the desired outcome that they want. So darkness, happiness, sad, happy. I don't know if you can see my hands on YouTube Sad, happy.

Speaker 1: 14:54

And your red pen. Yeah, and my red pen.

Speaker 2: 14:56

You're bringing them along for that ride, you're showing them what they can do. Now, you could also do it with graphics, if you're not, which I think you should be showing up, but show them the darkness. What does it look like? What are they feeling like? What is their emotion in that moment? And this is while I simplify it and say sad to happy. Is it frustrated, is it overwhelmed, is it panicked? Is it like what is it and what's causing that? And then how do they get to that happiness and what's their desired outcome? That is happy? Is it having more time with kids? Is it all that stuff? Individual basis, but when you're overarching sad to happy, so show them what darkness looks like and then show them what their desired outcome looks like.

Speaker 1: 15:42

You know, I love this because in my mind and maybe you who's listening in or watching in I was thinking, okay, if I'm telling a story now, if I'm doing on video, because, again, if you're doing social audio, it's like all you have to do, all you have to work with is your voice and the words you're using. But with video I was thinking, oh my gosh, this has to be a big production. You know like we've got to have this. We have to transition and show this footage of me doing this. So in my mind I was thinking that's what you were doing. But I love the idea too, because again, we're telling the same story multiple times, like Jonathan mentioned, and so I like the idea of literally just keep it simple. You could even just talk to your camera and tell them the story, like that.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Yeah, absolutely so. Right now I can tell the story to my camera and I can put it into the Captions app and it will add photos, transitions, zoom in and other things to it, if I want to, automatically, and then I can choose the ones I want to keep and delete the ones I don't want to keep.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Okay, wait, hold on. Okay, well, that's AI. Oh my gosh, we need to do episode about AI. I'm so stinking excited because you might. I don't know if you saw my mouth dropped, my jaw dropped.

Speaker 2: 16:59

I'll send you a video that. I'll send you a video you can post it on this, on the link here as well. I'll send you a video that I'm gonna post I mean it, probably by this time this airs. It may be like Old AI by then, but I'll send you a video that I recently did that. I just I told the story and it came up with all the different things for it.

Speaker 1: 17:19

You know what. You know what my question is gonna be right.

Speaker 2: 17:22

It is free.

Speaker 1: 17:23

You knew what I was going to ask. I always ask how much is this? It's free, Okay.

Speaker 2: 17:29

I mean there's always an upgrade, but it's free.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Listen. I mean so much has been dropped about storytelling. Anything else you want to add in, mr Storyteller, like any last minute Maybe piece of advice, last minute example of a story that someone can tell Before we wrap it up today?

Speaker 2: 17:47

I'll just say make it relatable, make it something that is going to get people to say that, so me, because you understand your ideal customer that well that they see that story, they hear that story and they're like, oh my god, I've done that before. That's so me, because when you get that good, when you understand your audience that well and you can tell them those stories that get them to say that so me, you just jumped like Three steps towards that trust where, the, where you need to be in order to get them to buy. When you get them, they're more willing to buy and remember you're somebody's favorite celebrity.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I Know your favorite celebrity.

Speaker 2: 18:27

No, you're somebody's favorite celebrity, though. Thanks, because Because they're watching you, they're watching you. They may not even be commenting, saying anything. They're watching you, though, and they want to see what's going on. I. Love that I want to connect with you.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Listen, that's what it's about. I love you got me, you know I anyways. I mean so good. We want them to say, oh my gosh, like is she reading my mind? So, jonathan, a lot. It was really good, though, honestly, let us know what you guys are thinking in the comments. If you have any questions, especially for Jonathan, let us know what you're thinking. Just drop all your thoughts in the comment section. Jonathan, what is like your favorite thing you like to tell people at the very end of the episode?

Speaker 2: 19:08

You know, I love to tell people that they need to make sure that you know, because Mimi is very sad in life and it really is very, very difficult for her to go day to day without getting her five stars reviews. So if you could please, because we don't want Mimi to be sad anymore Cue Sarah McLaughlin.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Oh my gosh, do not. That always makes me cry it. We in the arms of the angel, of the angel, yes.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Yes, we don't want Mimi to be sad anymore. We need to make sure that she gets her five stars. So make sure that you rate the podcast, if you enjoyed it, five stars. Write a review anywhere that you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Can we please get Sarah McLaughlin on this podcast Please? We'll work our magic, you guys. We're gonna do this for you. Also, we're on instagram, so definitely check instagram for updates. We'll put all of our social links in the description for you guys. Um, and obviously, subscribe to youtube because we're fun to look at, right, jonathan? I think we're fun, but especially this necklace it's just the necklace, yeah, in your scarf.

Speaker 2: 20:12

the last episode, who knows what's coming up next episode, I know.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Thank you everyone. Oh, the most important question to ask before we go is are you team, mimi, or?

Speaker 2: 20:26

Team Jonathan. And if you don't vote team Jonathan this week, come on.

Speaker 1: 20:31

Team Mimi. All right, thank you guys for listening and watching.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Bye, jonathan Howard. I'm Mimi Langley. Bye guys.