Episode Transcript
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Intro (00:07):
Woo.
Kenny (00:16):
Hey y'all.
It's Kenny Groom from BeyondNormal Media where every founder
story is a journey worthexploring.
I've sat down over the lastcouple years, I can't believe
it, with a hundred plusfounders, on this very camera,
on stages in person.
Virtually some of theconversations have happened
(00:37):
behind the scenes, and.
One thing has become clear,right?
There's like the success, leavesa story, right?
Today I wanna share a few thingsI've learned the hard way or, or
just along the, the process ofme figuring out, through these
(00:59):
conversations like, what a storyis composed of.
Think about it that way.
So I wanna start out.
When I first started recordingfounder stories, I thought the
ones that would resonate themost would be those perfect
(01:22):
stories, right?
Somebody raised a milliondollars, they had a a million
plus dollar exit.
All the founders and that.
The, the stories that we hearwhere the founders got, the
optimal amount of, customers,they've got the optimal amount
of marketing, everything worksout, right?
(01:43):
Right.
Like, but that's not reality.
And what I found was that theones that actually stuck out to
me, and a lot of our listenersare the ones where.
They are, they're real authenticstories.
What I mean by that, right?
The, these are the stories wheresomebody wasn't, they admit they
(02:06):
were a little frightened to takethat leap of faith on
themselves.
Maybe, they, I had someobstacles that forced them to
look in the mirror.
We've had founders on ourplatform, that have really
expressed, the whole spectr of,real authentic stories.
(02:30):
Right.
and for me, what I've learnedfrom that is like real stories
that real.
Authentic feeling that you getis gonna be greater than that
perfect story when it comes tostorytelling.
And I think that's relevant nowbecause we we're in an age where
the AI can give you quoteunquote what the, the, the
(02:51):
perfect story is, right?
We can go to any, classic orgreat director, no matter the
medi producer, and we can seewhat.
What their style was composedof, and we have a way with the
machines to replicate it, butthat is not what makes a a real.
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Authentic story that resonatesand connects with people.
It's that honesty that a founderis really willing to have,
right?
And tell, be be completelyhonest, be naked in a sense,
right in front of the world thatis going to, that kind of
honesty about maybebootstrapping, the burnout that
(03:38):
comes with the creatingsomething, losing customers,
pivoting.
After failure, after failure,after failure.
Those are the stories thatresonate with people, and people
connect with that more becausethey can actually apply it to
their real life.
They understand.
Your listeners, your audienceunderstands that their lives are
(04:00):
not perfect.
So why would they, why wouldthey connect with a perfect
story, right when it has norelation to.
Their life.
There's no real connectionthere.
Right.
And this leads me to my next, mynext point, which is, why, what
within these real stories isdriving, I.
(04:22):
Your customers, your audience toconnect with you.
It's about that emotion thothose emotional connections are
where the wind happen.
I've learned that emotion is,emotion is a, a powerful engine
behind great storytelling.
It's not about what you build,it's why it matters.
(04:45):
What do people feel when theysee your solution?
I can think back to, we've juston this season, alone, right?
We had Pabel Martinez, who's thefounder of Plurawl, right?
And he took a gamble on himselfwhere he cashed out his 401k,
his retirement accounts, right?
(05:07):
And so he was, by most people'smeasurement, he was on top of
the world.
He worked in tech.
He cashed that 401k out, right?
And that's something that.
That elicits anxiety for folksthat elicits excitement for
others, right?
Who maybe early on in theirjourney, right, they're the ones
(05:31):
that they want to understandwhat it feels like.
What is the thought processaround taking a gamble on
yourself fully?
Cashing out everything.
Like we don't hear, we oftenhear, when we look at articles
and things like that, we hearabout the folks where it worked
out for them, right?
They cashed everything out andthen, there's, the pot of gold
(05:55):
at the end of the rainbow,right?
That's not, that's not anemotion that the average person
can connect with because theaverage person is dealing with
real shit, right?
Excuse my French, but not reallylike we gotta.
These emotions, right.
That the founders, exhibit whowe all connect with, like that's
(06:16):
how they're gonna, they, theywin hearts before they, they win
your dollars.
Right?
That's, that's something Iremember when I.
It was season six.
We had Pauleanna Reid on, she'sa ghost writer extraordinaire,
and she talked about, she was incorporate America at the time
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and she worked up what I callthe gption to have conversations
with an executive.
And the first thing was.
She was able to tell theexecutive her opinion.
A lot of people in corporateAmerica and in some of these
roles, like they don'tnecessarily feel encouraged to
do that.
But then the second thing shedid was she elaborated on the
(07:01):
value that she can bring, in thegiven situation where somebody
needed somebody to ghost.
Right?
A piece of work for them, right?
So there's two things there.
She stood up, against the oddsand actually had an opinion in a
situation where a lot of peoplemay say, Hey, I don't have the
status.
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I don't have the, I don't havethe power in that situation.
I shouldn't be speaking up.
Like, that's not necessarily.
The mindset is somebody who's,who's along the path of being a
creator, a owner, a founder ofsomething.
What Pollyanna exhibited in thatsituation is something that if
(07:44):
we could bottle it up and put atag on it, that would be core to
somebody who's willing andwanting to take a gamble on
themselves.
Right.
We've had other founders like,come on our platform and
actually break down in tears.
Like that's the type of emotion.
It could be a good emotion, interms of good, right, in terms
(08:07):
of happy feelings, in terms of,that lasting, that lasting
feeling that we all.
Are looking for, but then on theflip side of that, there's the,
there's the terror, there's thehorror in a lot of these
situations that the, thefounder's story.
(08:30):
You can still use these emotionslike that are oftentimes,
considered bad emotions.
Founders can use that as fuel totell their story and make sure
that their story connects withtheir audience.
Super, super powerful.
Right?
(08:51):
These are gonna be the, thestories that have that emotional
component going back to real,being greater than that perfect.
Right?
Those real stories that conveythese emotions, that that's
gonna be what moves people toyour product, moves people to
your solution, moves people tojust connect with you, right?
That's the, it takes a.
(09:12):
It takes more than just tellinga story to get somebody to
connect, right?
Connect with you consistently.
Right?
They may listen to your storyone time.
They may see it on their socialmedia feed, but what is there to
keep them coming back, right?
And so when that storytelling,when it's real authentic and it,
(09:35):
and it captures those emotionsthat drive your audience, oh.
The sky is the limit, the sky'sthe limit.
I want to talk a little bitabout, in this segment as well,
why the, the, the, the emotionitself, right?
(09:55):
What, when you're, whetheryou're creating, a.
A piece of content, like apodcast, a testimonial video
like this, or some, some shortform content, right?
When you, when you have a videothat, has those emotional
connections, you're giving youraudience, your listener
permission.
(10:16):
Right.
You're giving them permission tobe their authentic self.
That real, that real, that's whythat real resonates specifically
right now.
Like it is so easy.
I'll, I'll say it again.
It's so easy for somebody tocopycat and, take your story and
make it their own Now.
(10:38):
Like people are doing it everysingle day, right?
But when you, and you have a wayto connect consistently with
somebody and you consistentlygive them that feeling, which I
don't think the AI can do rightnow, at least.
That's my, my take on it.
I don't think the AI is thereyet.
It's probably getting there.
And so we'll have to come upwith something later.
(10:59):
But for now, right, thatemotion, that emotional
connection that we can havethrough real authentic stories
is a game changer, right?
And that is, that can level theplaying field for a small
business owner for a smaller, acreator starting out.
Who is trying to maybe go upagainst some of the bigger
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companies that we all use eachand every day, right?
Those big tech companies, thosebig media companies, they have a
lot of assets, but those assetsdon't necessarily give them an
advantage when it comes toemotional connection.
Lastly, I want to, I want to.
Touch on this real fast is asI've had these conversations,
again, a hundred plus conconversations highlighting
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amazing founders, right?
I, I, I've got some advice orsome takeaways for some
founders, right?
I.
Whether when, when a foundersits in front of, whether it's
this mic or it's a, virtuallywhere we have them on, and, they
have their own setup, right?
I always tell them this, right?
(12:04):
This is about you.
This is about the story you wantto tell.
Right.
And so even if I have a set listof questions that I've put
together,'cause I've done myresearch, when I see a founder
and I ask them a question,right?
And they, they light up around acertain topic, I go off script.
(12:24):
I ask them more about thatquestion, right?
I wanna see what, why.
Why, why there was an emotionthat came across their face in
their eyes.
We can see emotion like onpeople's face, right?
I come from, a background whereI.
The, the, the motto, in salesis, smile and dial, right?
(12:47):
And there's this idea thatpeople can feel, even through
the phone, they can feel yourenergy, your emotion, right?
And so it, it's true, right?
There's these different, I guessfrequencies that are, that, that
our, our vocals are at when we,when we have certain emotions, a
lot of times it's unconsciousfor us as a person speaking and
(13:10):
being an orator, but then forthose around us, they pick up on
that energy that we give out.
Right?
And so that's just somethingwhere, I always say, no matter
the platform, right, it isreally about.
The story that you want to tell,the emotions you wanna elicit,
elicit to you, your audience andmy audience, right?
Because my, my, my audience,this platform here through
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Beyond Normal Media is, isreally used as a vehicle to
highlight, the stories ofincredible founders to the
world.
Right.
The truth is, though, with this,right, the reason why I tell
founders this is about the storyyou want to tell, most of us are
not going to get a Netflix doc,right?
Highlighting our journey, right.
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But what that means is that wecan leverage all these
platforms, no matter, no matterthe social media platform, no
matter the medi, whether it's anewsletter, short form clips,
long form content, 4K video, 10a DP, 7, 24 a, DP, whatever,
whatever the, the technicaldefinition or specification of
(14:17):
it is.
That's your ability, like that'syour receipt to, to your growth
and your journey that you canreally show to the world.
Like people will, willdefinitely cash in on that.
Right.
And that's why I think right nowwe are focusing so much on the
one hour content idea, like thesolution, right?
It is really here to helpfounders, right.
(14:39):
Take back that, that control oftheir store.
You and in our, you can get.
So much of your story out thatconnects with your audience is
crazy.
I've been having these sessionswith, with founders, business
owners, creatives at differentlevels, different scales.
They're at different points intheir journey, and it's powerful
(14:59):
just to see, asking a couplequestions and hitting record
what comes out.
You will be surprised.
It does not take a lot, but itis up to you to decide, the medi
and really what you want to tellwith your story.
The medi doesn't matter as muchin my hble opinion.
Lastly, I have one call toaction, right?
(15:21):
For those who, maybe you've beenholding back on trying to tell
your story.
You think it's too early, youdon't think it's the right time.
You think the moment may havepassed.
It has not.
This is your sign to go for it.
All you need or you all you mayneed, right, is a partner in the
process.
That's what we do here at BeyondNormal Media specifically,
(15:41):
right?
Check out our one hour, contentsolution.
Right at our site, at ourwebsite, I'll put the link in
below.
I, I just wanna connect and asI'm sharing our story right, of
how we're thinking aboutstorytelling, we can come up
with ways and kind of partnerand collaborate to turn your
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story into something.
People feel those certainemotions for it and they know
it's a real authentic story, andthat's what's gonna drive people
to have community with you, buyyour products.
Leverage your solutions.
There's so much opportunity.
Just thinking about the waysthat you can tell your story
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and, connect with your audience.
I appreciate you all who, whohave stuck with me, through
this.
Again, this is a part of ourtestimonial series where we are
like, kind of telling our storyin public, building in public
our one hour content solutionwhile also, Leveraging, eating
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what we're serving.
Right?
In terms of, as we seeopportunities for other founders
to tell their stories, why arewe not going to use those same
platforms to, as a use case, asa, as a case study, but
ultimately.
Just to showcase the, the, the,our thought process and the food
(17:09):
for thought that we're bringingto you all and how we're
benefiting from it ourselves.
Alright?
People are gonna resonate withthat real authentic versus
again, telling somebody andselling somebody a perfect
story.
So appreciate you all forconnecting with me, tuning into
this.
This is the second in ourseries, where we're going to be.
We're gonna be spending a couplemore episodes really diving
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into, our content strategy andstorytelling in particular, and
how we're thinking about it in,in this, time we're in.
Thank you.