012: Chris Goldman – StoryBrand Guide – 5 Things About StoryBrand

Title: Chris Goldman – StoryBrand Guide – 5 Things About Storybrand

Guest: Chris Goldman

Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them. Today, my guest is Chris Goldman.

Chris is, real special to me and, our organization, Biz Marketing. He is our certified StoryBrand guide. And I know you’ve heard about StoryBrand. We’ve talked about it a little bit in the past. Today, Chris and I are gonna have a conversation about five things every business needs to know about StoryBrand.

So, Chris, let’s just start off with you. Like, why were you attracted to StoryBrand?

Chris: So I’m a storyteller public speaker my whole life. Work on messaging all the time. And you’re part of the reason I’m in StoryBrand. Here you are. You’re in digital marketing your whole life.

You’ve been doing this for decades. And all of a sudden, you started reading this book and said, hey. You gotta read it. So kinda read the book, dove in on it. Mhmm.

But what was interesting is to have somebody with your acumen, your ability to help market that you began to talk about your own journey of what what was simplifying message, what how do you maximize story to your advantage.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: You began to talking about your own marketing.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: Your own need to have that solid, concise, clear message. And after you’d done some training, you said, hey. You really ought to think about doing this. This is kind of you’re wired for this. Yeah.

So I did. And wow. It really resonated with me.

Peter: So you are an officially certified story brand guide just coming up on your first full year Mhmm.

Chris: Of certification? Yeah. And it’s a lot of work. You basically do about eighty hours online training with the StoryBrand team and what they have on their digital presence. Mhmm.

And then you go and you spend five days with them, in my case, in Nashville Mhmm. With Donald Miller and team. They always take about 25 to 40 guides at any given time. There’s about active right now, about 350 guides globally. And you spend two days in training with business people like yourself Mhmm.

Working through the story brand framework. But on either side of that, you have a day and two days with just the guides being trained Mhmm. And learning the nuances. Right. And what’s interesting is how many business owners we had in the room with the two days, a 140 business owners there

Peter: Yeah.

Chris: Who said, even taking all this in, we need a guide to help us get over that hump drive it through. You kind of found it that way yourself. Right?

Peter: Yeah. So I had taken the, two day class when they were in Seattle in the ’18. And, even having gone through that myself and I feel like I’m a, you know, relatively intelligent marketer, still felt like, needed to have a guide, somebody who was actually a certified guide take us through StoryBrand framework. So thinking about businesses in general, business owners, now that you’ve been a certified guide for almost a year, you’ve met with a lot of business owners. About 24 clients this first year so far.

That’s amazing. That’s great. What are five things that the business owners need to know about StoryBrand?

Chris: So we begin with a conviction that companies and businesses are spending way too much money on marketing that’s not effective. Mhmm. And everybody needs to know that before we jump into this, that we are not, cheap. Mhmm. We’re a premium brand, but at the same time, we don’t wanna waste anyone’s money.

Peter: Right.

Chris: So people buy products, first of all, only after they read words that make them want to buy those products or engage those services.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: Words are still what we use. So words matter. Ideas matter, and the way you communicate those words and ideas is vital. Mhmm. And every business owner needs to know that.

Right? Right. Doesn’t matter if you’re selling marketing. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling the service of a lawyer Mhmm. Or a dentist.

Several of our of our customers are dentists, medical people, lawyers, service organize home businesses. Mhmm. And they understand as they get into this is people need to know what you do. Mhmm. And words are what we use to convey that.

Peter: Mhmm. Mhmm. And the, the thing that I think really, turned me on to StoryBrand was the fact that it was leveraging just the element of story. The the the concept of story, which has been with us for thousands of years. It’s something that we’re harnessing in a new way.

You know, story is what we remember. I think for me personally, that was when I heard that and it really dawned on me. Yeah. I really don’t remember words per se. I remember stories.

I think that really helped me get a sense of how powerful this could be. So, go on.

Chris: I don’t mean to interrupt you. Well, stories, the second thing I’d tell you is exactly what you’re talking about. Story is a sense making device. Right. And we know this.

Like, at the end of the day, somebody in your family says, tell me about your day. What do you do? You tell them the stories from your day. You don’t give them a daytime or log sheet. Right.

You go over the stories of the day. That’s how we communicate. Right. Because story is a it’s a portable idea sense making device.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: So story can be harnessed for digital marketing, for all kinds of marketing pieces to allow us to really grow and and know what we’re trying to say. The problem is we tend to get cute and clever before we get clear. Okay. And that’s the second thing I would tell every business owner you need to know about StoryBrand. Yeah.

StoryBrand is not designed to get cute and clever. Yeah. It is designed for clarity around all things, clearly knowing who’s your customer. Mhmm. Clearly understanding what’s your message.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: What are you actually trying to do for people? And I think part of the big part that I enjoy of working with, the core team when we do our strategy session Yeah. Is this moment when an entire team that’s they do business together. You can see it. They light up.

I really do believe in what we’re doing. Mhmm. I really do believe in what we’re selling or what we’re offering to people.

Peter: Right.

Chris: And one thing I I I just reiterate with people, every company that exists exists because it does valuable things for people. Right. You make a difference in people’s lives. And if for another reason, I think it’s great to have the strategy session so your team can know that, feel it Mhmm. And re believe it.

Right.

Peter: That’s the key. Right. Right. Okay. So what else do you have?

What are what are a few more things we need to know?

Chris: K. So third thing is that the story brand framework is a very simple framework that helps you arrive at this clarity. Mhmm. As most people know, simple is better. People run away from confusion.

Peter: Yeah.

Chris: They run towards clarity. And almost all of us have a propensity, myself included, especially maybe Mhmm. Will confuse people with too many words.

Peter: So you’ll make a long story longer or

Chris: Exactly. Right. So the clarity is very helpful that you come out of with the story brand framework. Fourth thing is the speed of how people are looking at the web today. Mhmm.

Twenty years ago, people would camp out on your website a couple of minutes just to check it out.

Peter: So they’d be well yeah. Well, a few years ago, they would be on a desktop computer. They might have a fast connection, maybe not.

Chris: Yeah. Now with everything mobile, they’re swiping and moving. They’re giving you an average of eight to twenty two seconds to understand who you are and why your product or service would make their life better Mhmm. If they engaged you. Mhmm.

And in that eight to twenty two seconds, you’ve gotta make it crystal clear to them. And the story brand framework and the strategy sessions that we do help you arrive at that clarity. Mhmm. So that’s the fourth thing. Got it.

Now the fifth thing I’d say is this. I am always amazed how many times I meet with clients, and we dive in and we ask simple questions like, tell me about who your customer is.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: Many businesses have never sat down recently Mhmm. And actually thought through that lens. Who’s our actual customer? What is our clear message? What is our simple strategy so that people can engage us?

And how do we arrive at a great design for our digital marketing? Because you you need to have the clear and simple, but you’ve gotta back that up with a great design for your web page, for your digital marketing Mhmm. So that people are connected. Because story, you know, that we say a picture paints a thousand words.

Peter: Right.

Chris: A story builds pictures in people’s minds.

Peter: Sure. Absolutely.

Chris: And that’s the power of StoryBrand Right. Is it’s creating those pictures that are painting those thousands and thousands of words. Why

Peter: don’t you take me through the process a little bit? Just I’m thinking about StoryBrand for my business. I think one of the big questions people have when I speak with them is like, what do I actually get?

Chris: Okay. So

Peter: the What’s deliverable here?

Chris: Okay. So the first thing that I offer is a thirty minute just free session to make sure you understand what we’re doing.

Peter: Okay.

Chris: And that kind of lays it all out. It’s a well planned keynote, presentation that people can see, your team can watch it, and help you make a good determination. Another thing you could do, I’ll just tell you this to start, you could read the book, Build Your Own Story Brand. Right?

Peter: Building a Story Brand.

Chris: Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller.

Peter: You can

Chris: actually read the book. But our process is this. It begins with a strategy session, which is usually about three and a half hours with your core team. Mhmm. I’ve had anything from three people up to 26.

I don’t think I’d do the 26 again. But three usually about three to twelve is perfect. Okay. And we take that lead team or that, c suite, whatever your situation is, through the story brand strategy session. K.

And when we walk out of that session, we have, the the beginnings of a clear one liner, a strategy we understand who our customer is, what our deliverables as a company are, and why people should engage us rather than our competition or over our competition.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: That leads to about fifteen to twenty hours of additional work that I do Mhmm. Processing that messages. Because from there, from the strategy session, we want to arrive at a clear message for your company, for your business, for your products. That work goes back and forth. We massage it.

We get it right. And then that gives birth to a website design Mhmm. That takes that story, takes that marketing material and puts it all together on one page. Right. So that when a person comes for eight to twenty two seconds Yeah.

They see it, they feel it

Peter: Right.

Chris: And they understand it.

Peter: With respect to the types of companies worked with, are there any specific stories you wanna share or can you just give us a range of what types of companies you’ve seen this work for?

Chris: Okay. So one company was a startup that was just a young guy who had a coaching business. Mhmm. And he he just want he’s doing it part time, and he wanted to go full time.

Peter: Like coaching. What type of coaching?

Chris: He’s doing life coaching and physical coaching together, but he didn’t understand who he was and what he did. Mhmm. So through the process, we were able to help him discover that. He was a coder, so he wanted to code his own site, so we kinda let that go. Yep.

That’s on the very small end.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: On the upper end, company of about $250,000,000 a year Yeah. That we worked with, they’re really interesting group Mhmm. Because they help companies that are stuck. Mhmm. Big companies that are stuck.

The Disney’s, the Amex’s, cruise lines that are stuck to get unstuck. Mhmm. And they found themselves in this position that they needed their team to move forward on something. Right. So they brought me in to work with them and do what a story brain guide does to move them forward, and they were able to really release forward in a

Peter: big way that they hadn’t been. That’s kind

Chris: of fun. On average, though Yeah. On average, most of our clients are small businesses. Story brand is really catered to small businesses. There are 27,000,000 small businesses in our country

Peter: Right.

Chris: All vying to let their message be known. So how do we do that? It’s clear and simple. So, for example, medical professionals Mhmm. Dental offices, lawyers, home service business contractors, work with a lot, services related to our furry little friends.

Yep. Pets. Our pets. Yep. Very important.

Counselors, therapists, all of that. Some of them did the most fun to work with. One was a nonprofit organization.

Peter: Right.

Chris: Had been running successfully in the Puget Sound area for over fifteen years.

Peter: Right. So Greater Seattle area. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Rebranded and their website was just so archaic. They didn’t know what to do. And it began with the story brand process. So we walked them through that.

Now they have a beautiful, functional, drawing in leads website that’s helping them do what they wanna do to help people. So I love that. Another one, was a HVAC company. Mhmm. Really at the crest of that place of moving from one category of business to a larger category.

Yeah. And they wanted to understand how can we be the best and stay ahead.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: They were already rocking it. Yeah. How do we stay at the forefront?

Peter: Right.

Chris: And that was fun because we not only worked with their internal lead team, but later they brought me down, during a breakfast time Right. To to actually walk their installers through the core principles of what we’re doing.

Peter: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Chris: That’s fun.

Peter: That’s cool.

Chris: Another one is a a driving school. Mhmm. Very large privately owned driving school that had a pretty complex website actually when you started looking into it. Right. But was really slow, wasn’t really effective for what they were doing.

And the question was, could we be doing more? And the answer is absolutely yes. So working with them and once we got to go live on-site, just a beautiful web presence now that people can understand, navigate quickly and building under all of that is what they’re doing, What they’re really about and how your life benefits.

Peter: Right, so in some respect I was thinking about that client. They had a lot of things on their website, on their homepage because they offer a lot of services. And they were kind of waiting all of them equally. And I thought it was really brilliant the way you were able to take that and simplify it. Still have everything there.

Chris: All the

Peter: features But still the hierarchy changed and the layout was much more pleasing to the eye and much less busy and just sort of, it had a certain zen to it. So I think that’s what, one of the things that you’re really bringing to the table is a real critical design eye when it comes to that actual website development, right? But the one thing, the other point that you made is that some of the clients don’t need the website piece or they’re just needing a little piece of it. So you can do different stages of the process as well, right?

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Some companies literally just need and want the strategy session.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: They don’t need the whole web piece. Mhmm. However, I will say this, more often than not when I go through the strategy session, it becomes apparent to people that their web presence has to at least be tweaked.

Peter: Mhmm.

Chris: It’s at least gotta be brought up to a basic standard.

Peter: Right.

Chris: And so in part of what I do is I give people a really great, not just a wireframe or a structure for your homepage, but a great looking design of what would it look like if you incorporated all these ideas on your homepage to get them. So people can get pieces of that.

Peter: One of the benefits that you didn’t talk about, but I just thought of it is the opportunity to bring your leadership team together. The folks who are influences in your organization, they may or may not have a title that’s leadership but they’re clearly leaders in the organization. And I think for me, the coolest thing is seeing them sit in a room together and kind of hash some stuff out. Like you ask some tough questions and they kind of look at each other and they argue a little bit and you know

Chris: It’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun because a lot of times you’re talking to business owners and you’ll ask them a question and they’re answering it as a business owner and their frontline phone people are at the table shaking their head. Go ahead. No. That’s not what’s happening.

Peter: Right.

Chris: And and it’s a it’s think of it this way. You’re you’re a small business owner. You’re going a thousand miles an hour. You’re tugged so many different directions. Right.

You know you need clarity. A story brain guide pulls you into a room with your main team Yeah. For two and a half, three hours. Probably the only time you’ve been with your main team to talk big picture stuff.

Peter: Work on the business, not

Chris: in the business. Yeah. And and the dynamic of that, the smiles Yeah. The the laughter, the back and forth, and what we learn from each other. A lot of times the frontline phone people, they they’re discovering that they’ve been answering the phones wrong.

Right. They’ve been giving out the wrong information. Sometimes the business owners are are realizing that they’ve become disconnected from what’s actually happening with the customer. And so once everybody gets on the same page, same message Mhmm. Now we’ve got some synergy.

Peter: Right.

Chris: I love what one one team came together. They could only meet on Friday night.

Peter: Yeah.

Chris: And so we scheduled on Friday night, had to build in dinner, and, you know, I’m I’m sitting there excited about what we’re doing for building their business. And the feedback came back is that was one of the most fun activities we’ve had for our team in years Mhmm. Because they got so much out of it.

Peter: Right.

Chris: I don’t know that all of them are that fun, but I will say this, so far every team that’s met with us has left giving great reports about just the event of the strategy session Yeah. Was great.

Peter: Yeah. And it it seems to form a cohesiveness even though they don’t agree on everything. There’s an opportunity to disagree. And I like the way that you coordinate that in those sessions. I think it’s really important because one of the things that can happen is you can bring a lot of people in and then the boss can just sit there and talk and the other people really don’t add, they just agree.

And I think you’ve got to Right. Pretty good at taking it out of you know, getting everybody to contribute.

Chris: One of the great things about having a story brand guide to a strategy session is in facilitation. We only have one thing in mind is we want the organization to benefit really well. Right. And because we don’t necessarily know your organization, we can ask questions purely from an innocent standpoint Right. That need to be answered.

Peter: Right.

Chris: I think that’s what is beautiful about the whole aspect of it. Mhmm. As a matter of fact, with our team at Biz Marketing

Peter: Yeah.

Chris: When I was just on the team for a couple months

Peter: Yeah.

Chris: We flew people in from coast to coast to meet around the table and go through a strategy session. And I was the newest person on staff and the team was just like they had fun doing it.

Peter: Right.

Chris: And we learned things about each other that really we hadn’t known.

Peter: Right.

Chris: And it’s helped our business just propel us forward. Right. Staying on that front edge.

Peter: Yeah. Let’s say that I want to get started. I mean, think you’ve really done a good job of explaining why it’s important, what we need to know as a business owner about StoryBrand. So what if somebody wants to get started? We talked about getting the book.

You talked about you have a free thirty minute strategy session as well. So where do we go to find all that information out?

Chris: Well, bizmarketing.com k. Is where you’d go, and we have a special page just for StoryBrand services Right. That you can go to. You can also go to clarifyyourmessage.com Mhmm. Which is the StoryBrand side.

Yep. And you can find my profile there along with other guides there, and you can, see some work that’s that’s there, and you can contact me through there. But really for us, biz marketing is where I live. It’s what I do.

Peter: Sure.

Chris: It’s the company I work with and love, And it is an opportunity for you. Let me put it this way. Recently had a business owner call that had gone looked at all the national guides and called me and said, we’re interested in you because we can actually meet with you face to face.

Peter: Right.

Chris: And this is something I believe in a digital world, more and more owners would like to meet face to face with the people that are gonna consult with them and help them build their business.

Peter: That’s really helpful, Chris. Thanks for being on today. Is there anything else you wanna add before we

Chris: wrap up today? Yeah, as we say, if you confuse, you’ll lose. Right. Clarity makes a difference.

Peter: Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.