Strategic Storytelling

"You're the expert." How do you feel when you hear those words?  

You'd better get used to hearing that sentenence if you're a service-based solopreneur! Because when you sell a service, you’re selling expertise. 

You’re offering knowledge and skills beyond what “everybody” has.

You hire a licensed electrician because a handyman might do the job...but you want to be sure they won't set the place on fire by mistake.

You hire a profe...

You’ve got a nice draft of the copy, all set to go…but will your audience ever read that copy?

The answer is: Not unless you’re reeling them in with a strong headline!

The truth is, most people don’t get past the headline when they’re reading a sales letter. And yet headlines can be incredibly hard to write…unless, of course, you start with a good story.

In this episode you’ll...

Telling the right story, the right way, can lead to more clients and more sales.  

You don’t have to come up with a story that keeps you in suspense--a story that could be made into a movie or a slick Superbowl commercial.

The selling story for a solopreneur calls for two key ingredients. You don't have to dig into your life story to come up with edge-of-the-seat excitement. In this episode...

You've heard it over and over. Success come from hard work, not talent. 

You're not a good writer? Not a natural business person? Just work, work and work some more.

So hard work is admirable, right? People are most impressed by hard workers?

Wrong.

Research studies asked this question directly, "What impresses employers and investors most?"  

Employers and investors listened to stories of people achieving success by hard work...a...

Angela Wills created her Life  Style Freedom business by making connections. She believed business doesn’t dictate your lifestyle: your lifestyle creates your business. 

“I’m really passionate about helping business owners find a business model that supports their lifestyle.”  - Angela Willis

Angela is a very down-to-earth business owner who’s built her business by understanding her clients. S...

Solopreneurs often get advised to show their real selves--to come out from behind the website and reveal who they really are. And one way to do this is to tell stories.

What's wrong with this advice?

First of all, "Just tell a story" means, "Curate a good story portfolio." A story may represent your self...but you have many selves.

The first part of this podcast talks about this point. Which self is the Real You? At about 5.0, you'...

When you tell stories, do you ever think, "That's all well and good for life coaches with personal stories. But I'm a technical person who wants to help people discover new ways of thinking about their actions.

Talking about finance seems to call for discussions of numbers, trends and charts with percentages in three colors.

Jacquette Timmons brings a different perspective. She's a financial b...

Oh no...the New Year begins with two tasks a lot of us dread: planning and taxes. I can't do much about taxes, but this episode is all about making planning more realistic and more fun.

Most people make plans and schedules with their left brains. So you get cold, analytical plans...or even worse, daydreams about the future.

That's fine if you're a big business...if you sell cola, beer, or sportswear. But if you're a solopreneur, es...

What kind of stories can you tell to explain complex or unusual concepts? What metaphors? 

This podcast gives just one example: How do you explain web development, especially the role of designers and copywriters? One way is to use a football metaphor. Each player on a team has a role to play. The copywriter is the quarterback and the designer is the offensive line.

How do these roles work together? Why is one the quarterback and a...

What does it mean to know your client? This episode was created after I saw an email encouraging. entrepreneurs to know their customers. Demographics, psychographic, big problem...anything, they said.

There's a better way. Find their story. What brought them here? What have they tried? Those are the questions that will help you write the copy.

If they say, "The other way took too long," you how them that your way is shorter. If the...

“There’s a gap between what I know they need and what they think they need.”

As a service-based business, you probably recognize this problem. 

For instance, you know your clients mostly need to build their confidence. They need to jump in and take action. 

But when they come to you, they say...

Almost every business coach on the planet will advise you to start telling stories. They’ll encourage you to use storytelling for your blog posts, email messages, and just about any content you create.

Deciding to tell a story is the easy part. Choosing a story that will help grow your business is much more difficult. That’s mostly because you get conflicting advi...

When you're a small, service-based business, you are selling yourself and your ideas. I call this marketing when the brand is YOU. 

Most service businesses brand with what we call the story archetypes. You can read more about story archetypes here at this link.

I've interviewed several Role Model archetypes. On this episode we get a rare look at an Educator archetype.  Role Models have the message, "This is what I did. If I can do ...

When you run a service business, you need clients...the right kind of clients. Clients you can work with. Clients who will be successful when they follow your instructions.

Your instructions might take the form of coaching. Or you might need to get clients to cooperate by filling out forms or simply delivering papers to you. If nothing else, you don't want them to make things worse by interfering with your job.

So even if you're a ...

Your story has a hero and a guide. Sometimes your story has cheerleaders and a villain.

But your story doesn’t have a wizard or fairy godmother or magician. And you probably know the reason: Your story doesn’t promise magic.

But sometimes clients expect magic and you have to correct them, This episode looks at 3 reasons clients falsely expect magic. 

But can you make magic happen...

What's the most difficult page to write on your website? Your About Page.

People don't like to write this page because they don't like to write about themselves. It feels like boasting.  It violates the rule: "The nail that stands out gets pounded down."

Your About Pag has to answer three questions:

1 - Why are you in this field? 

2 -Why are you passionate about ...

Your most important story isn't about you. It's about how you work with clients to help them reach their goals. 

This is your success story. 

Your success story has 4 parts:  hero, crisis, solution, and outcome. We'll walk through examples of how these parts come together for a lead-generating success story.

You don't just share a hero's journey story. You can introduce a plot twist. 

You'll see examples of success stories that mi...

https://www.marketingwords.com/blog/write-copy-future-pacing/?ref=cathy_goodwin

I recently came across a workshop on writing creative nonfiction.

And that made me ask the question: What is the difference between creative writing and business writing?  What about a course in film script writing?  ?

Of course the more writing you do, the better you get. And you'll get better a storytelling.  But sometimes we're tempted to share a st...

Can you become an extremely successful online marketer by telling stories?

Connie Ragen Green has several best-selling books and courses, as well as an international practice in business coaching. She's accomplished this goal with strong, consistent marketing and an abundance of content creation.

Connie has used stories extensively, especially personal stories. She has entire books where the subject is business, but the stories are...