April 30, 2025 • 43 mins
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In this second appearance on MarketPulse: Pros and Pioneers, Adrian Fulle, CEO of Good Salt Life, dives deeper into the transformative power of storytelling in business. Discover how some of the world's most successful brands use storytelling to capture attention, create emotional connections, and drive profits.
From his Hollywood roots to his marketing expertise, Adrian shares how storytelling can give businesses a competitive edge, and why even the best AI tools can’t replace authentic, human-crafted narratives.
This episode will teach you:
• How to find and refine your brand's story.
• Why storytelling is the key differentiator in saturated markets.
• Real-world examples of how storytelling impacts customer loyalty and revenue.
Don’t miss this masterclass on storytelling strategies that can revolutionise your marketing!
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Show Links:
• Adrian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianfulle
• Good Salt Life: https://www.goodsaltlife.com
• MarketPulse Podcast Directory: https://marketpulse.javelincontent.com/share
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul (00:00):
Good afternoon, welcome back to MarketPulse podcast.
(00:02):
This week's guest needs nointroduction.
If you follow the show, youbetter be following the show.
And if you're not following theshow, you need to rewind back, I
don't know, about five to 10episodes and come find Adrian
Fuller's first episode, becauseAdrian has a fantastic
background in the Hollywoodscene.
You learn to be a producer ofall things.
You learn from the best, notonly to be a producer, but learn
(00:25):
from the best.
And we shared a fantasticepisode together.
I've I love the conversationthat flowed out of that.
Welcome back to the show,Adrian, for a round two,
ironically recording in the sameweek that your first episode has
gone live to the public, right?
Adrian (00:39):
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
By the way, Paul, I do followthe show and I know exactly who
this guest is.
He's a wonderful man.
Paul (00:47):
so.
Good.
Yes.
I had lots of positive
Adrian (00:50):
was great.
Paul (00:51):
say about
Adrian (00:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
I have to say, man, this is theonly time, this is the only time
I've ever done two episodes ofthe same podcast.
and I'm only doing it because ofhow much fun we had the first
time.
And that, that really is atestament to your skills as an
interviewer and a podcaster.
So thanks for having me.
This is amazing.
And it's been a lot of fun.
(01:13):
I think, if there's anyone outthere, who's looking to start
their own podccast,
Paul (01:17):
I think more than anything the beauty of having a podcast
is that you get to meet afantastic diverse range of
people who have an amazing storyto tell and if you open yourself
to just letting friendshiphappen and have fun and connect
with your guests, podcasting canbe really rewarding.
(01:39):
I love it.
I love it.
I don't ever want to stop.
As people are watching along athome, your episode alone made me
sit and think a little bit moreabout where MarketPulse is going
to go, because I've been we'vebeen doing really well, we
launched last year we've hadover where are we at now, 50
guests I think we're at, sowe're really marching through
(02:01):
the episodes now however, we'vehad over however, I felt like we
were missing a trick.
I don't feel like we were hornedenough on particular areas.
So I'm going to launch a seasontwo in April of next year,
because that's how far ahead weare.
It's a good thing,
Adrian (02:16):
That's amazing.
Paul (02:16):
the ass to manage, right?
Adrian (02:18):
Yeah, I can imagine.
Right
Paul (02:31):
less around the marketing side, but we're still going to,
I'm going to.
I'm going to move towards themarketing areas, but I want to
help share because almost everyguest we've had on the show has
said to me I didn't set out todo what I'm doing now.
I got there because X happened,Y happened, and I followed Z.
And that for me is fascinating.
(02:51):
I love understanding how theworld connects with each other
and how everything just findsits place and you find your
place in the world if you letit.
Which is nice to lead into thisepisode of MarketPulse.
Because you learned yourstorytelling skills back in
Hollywood, right?
So just, for those that haven'tyet seen the episode, and I'm
really annoyed with them alreadyfor not having seen the episode,
(03:12):
get it watched.
Pause this right now, go watchit.
But for those that
Adrian (03:15):
on.
Paul (03:17):
just give us the, 30,000 foot view of, your background so
that they're, they understandwhy you are qualified to talk
about storytelling of allthings.
Adrian (03:26):
Yeah, first let me say the, model that you employed in
your podcast series of I'm goingto start and then I'm going to
learn from some, learn from 50episodes and then adjust for
season two is perfect.
It's how I live my life.
So I think maybe that's why weget on so well.
But, so yeah, for those whohaven't seen the first season
(03:46):
episode or the first episode ofus talking together I'm my first
career was in Hollywood as aHollywood producer.
I produced movies, TV,commercials, music videos.
After about 20 years of doingthat.
I, just was tired of the feastor famine lifestyle.
I was tired of the 24 7 Neverbeing able to see my kid grow up
(04:07):
and the whole thing.
And you really have to be outthere and be competitive.
And it ends up being a youngerman's game.
As I got into my late thirties,early forties, I started to
become the oldest person in theroom, and that was a weird thing
too.
So the writing was on the wall,changed careers.
That's what I did.
And we, my wife and I, and ourdaughter moved to Denver,
Colorado left Los Angeles wherewe had been for 20 years.
(04:29):
And I changed careers and gotinto marketing.
So that's my backstory inhopefully 30 seconds or less.
Paul (04:36):
it's a really powerful backstory.
And, just to further qualifythat,'cause there's, a lot of
people that I talk to that are,yeah.
I come outta Hollywood, right?
Like you learned your trade fromJohn Hughes, who, I have to say
gone too soon.
But one of the most amazinginfluential, directors and
producers of my youth.
If anybody out there is oh yeah,there's loads of people that
have come out of Hollywood,right?
(04:58):
Adrian learned from the best.
So I have a lot of respect foryour background.
Definitely.
Adrian (05:03):
John.
John was, before he was adirector or before, when I say
before, I mean the mostimportant thing to him in his
life, when it came to his work,was his writing.
That's what he did.
He was a prolific writer.
He had hundreds and hundreds ofscreenplays written that no
one's ever heard of.
They were on a shelf in the inthe warehouse where he kept all
the props from the movies, whichI got to, one of my first jobs
(05:25):
was to organize the warehouse,and I just went through those
scripts with his permission, andon my lunch breaks, got to read
these amazing scripts that, allof his movies have been great,
but these are even, some of themwere even better, so that to me
was a huge lesson, and that'swhat launched my career.
I, I decided to go into writingmore than anything else first,
and that's where he became mymentor.
I was able to sit with JohnHughes, I can't believe I'm
(05:46):
still saying this.
And have lunch and ask questionsabout writing movies.
Nobody gets the opportunity,like in their careers.
So it was pretty exciting.
Paul (05:54):
no, that, and that is a phenomenal grounding in, in
storytelling above anythingelse, right?
Forget the movies, forgeteverything else.
It's, storytelling and I'm a bigbeliever that.
In this day and age, we've lostthe ability to tell stories,
whether it's for your businesscase, for your project that
you're trying to get the seniormanagement to buy into and give
(06:17):
you budget for and fund youridea, or whether it's, As a
salesperson trying to encourageanother entity, another business
to buy your products andservices and to help them
understand why they should careabout what you do or whether
it's just sitting around thedinner table talking to each
other we've just lost theability to tell stories.
(06:40):
And for those of us who canstill tell stories, I love
stories.
I, I sit and read every nightwith my son.
I, he's got such an imaginationalready and I just, I think that
is something that is a skillthat, going forward when you've
got things like AI and largelanguage models about it's that
ability that I don't think thatwill ever be replaced by AI.
(07:03):
You might come close sometimes,but I think that is what keeps
us human.
And it's how we pass knowledgefrom one generation to the next,
and from one community to thenext, it's so important to us.
It, like,
Adrian (07:16):
It's funny you say that, Paul.
I'm sorry to cut you off, but itis the most important thing to
humankind.
It's the way we do everything.
It's the way we communicate.
It's the way we learn.
It's the way we plan.
It just, it's amazinglyimportant for business.
And for all the departments inbusiness and we can get into
that later if you want, but it'sextremely important.
(07:37):
In fact, it's innate.
Human beings just naturally gettogether and tell stories.
And they do them in differentways, but they're still telling
stories.
I think about the oldest cavepainting known to man is 80, 000
years old or some crazy, I thinkit's 85, 000 years old, that
they discovered in theMediterranean somewhere.
And it's just, it's called theRed Hand Cave.
And it's just.
Prince of Red Hands.
(07:58):
And they didn't, they justthought it was artwork or
something at the time.
And then some archaeologistsdiscovered, maybe about five
years ago that it's actually astory being told about a hunt
and some other things thathappened in that area.
And so the human beings, thinkabout this, back 85, 000 years
ago, felt the need tocommunicate In some permanent
(08:20):
form on a wall to whoever'sgoing to come along.
Maybe they weren't thinkingabout the future, but that's
what ended up happening tocommunicate a story.
It's pretty amazing.
Paul (08:30):
And more, than that, I think, as business owners, we
forget the power of our ownstory.
I talk a lot about marketing,and you can dress marketing up
however you want, butultimately, it's the ability to
tell the story of you.
Your business and your peoplewithin your business, if you
have them.
I don't, intentionally, but butI've learned to articulate my
(08:55):
story and I enjoy telling mystory because I know it
entertains people in the waythat I tell it.
It's not because I feel selfimportant, or, I, and that's
what a lot of people worry aboutin this day and age, is they
worry that they sound as thoughthey're bragging, or they're not
humble, or they're trying toshow off and I think that comes
from, correct me if I'm wrongI'd love to hear your thoughts
(09:17):
on this, Adrian, but I thinkthat comes from having the wrong
mindset when you're telling thestory in the first place.
Adrian (09:23):
Yeah, I think it could also come, I've been thinking a
lot about this.
For those who watched the firstepisode, you probably get that.
I'm the guy who goes as deep asI go down these rabbit holes.
And I've been thinking a lotabout the power of story, but
more importantly, the value ofstory when it comes to business
and marketing.
And I noticed that somecompanies I worked at.
Where if you go all the way backto the genesis of the company,
(09:47):
they started the company becausethey had a passion for
something, or they had a need togo out and do this thing was a
purpose in life.
Those stories Then continue onthrough the company's through
line of their, the linear lifeof the company.
And they become easier andeasier to tell because they're
authentic and they're real.
And the companies that getstarted because I want to make
(10:08):
money.
That's the only reason I'mstarting this company.
I don't care what I'm selling.
I'm just going to sellsomething.
Those stories tend to fall flat.
In fact, the customer tends toget immediately.
Oh, you're just sellingsomething.
You don't really, there's nopassion.
There's no reason.
There's just money and that'sall it is.
And they get turned off by that.
I think I really do believethat's true.
I sense it as a customer myself.
(10:30):
You can just see it in theadvertising.
And it's because the marketingteam that goes to create those
messages doesn't really have anybase to come from.
And so they have no, so theyhave to create something out of
thin air.
And sometimes there's an amazingcampaign, but in general,
they'll fall flat.
Paul (10:46):
And it links with the company vision as well, right?
So you can tell that they havean engaging story to tell
because they understand thatthey want to make an impact
that's bigger than makingrevenue in the business.
And I think that's so powerfulto help with your marketing
because it's I've said for along time, I love to talk to
purpose driven businessesbecause a purpose driven
(11:08):
business, a purpose centricbusiness can shout from the
rooftops about what they do allday long.
Adrian (11:14):
Mm hmm.
Paul (11:14):
want, because nobody's going to accuse them of spamming
people, or pit slapping people,or being boring or monotonous.
Because there's an ultimategreater good behind what they
do.
But there are businesses, otherthan purpose driven businesses,
that find the ability to do thatbecause they've tied their
origin story, traced it all theway through to the company
vision, and they live by thatand breathe it.
(11:35):
Is that fair?
Adrian (11:37):
Yeah, that's totally fair.
And I think it all stems fromhaving or having for the purpose
driven business, there is abackstory.
There's a reason they're purposedriven, right?
There's that thing.
There's the purpose.
If you don't have thatbackstory, Then it all falls
flat.
And to your point about AI, Ithink where we are right now is
that AI doesn't create abackstory.
It just creates the story in themoment.
(11:57):
And that's why a lot of timesthey fall flat.
I've done this many times where,you have someone say, Hey, put
together a purpose statement forour website.
But the company has no realpurpose.
And so you can read in thatstatement that it doesn't feel
real.
And then you use AI to make itbetter.
And maybe it's crafted better asa written piece, a paragraph,
but it, there's still nobackstory.
And that comes through, it fallsflat.
(12:20):
Paul, I wanted to, thisbackstory thing has been on my
mind so much lately because I'mrealizing how important it is
for all of the things we justtalked about.
And I went back to my, prior tothis recording, I wanted to go
back and look at some of thethings I'd done in the past.
And, we talked about John Hughesand I started my career as a
writer.
One of the things that John didand taught me, and I think what
(12:43):
makes the difference between agood film or a good piece of
entertainment or content versus,versus a great piece, the
difference there is that backstory.
John didn't just sit down andwrite, 16 Candles or whatever
the movie was.
And tell that story of just thatmoment.
He took months and months andmapped out the backstories of
(13:05):
those characters.
So that when he finally told thestory that we went to see in the
movie theater, It felt likethese characters were fuller,
they were more developed, butyou didn't know why.
You might not even have knownthe backstories.
It's only for John on his wall,on his, written on his papers.
You go to the theater and youexperience this and it feels
(13:26):
deeper, it feels more real,authentic, you can identify with
the characters, it feelsrelevant.
And that's what he taught me wasthat's due to taking that time
to create real backstories forthese fictional characters.
And so I started diving intothat and started realizing, oh,
wait a second.
That's also the difference inbusiness and marketing, right?
(13:47):
You sit down and you, write outa, character that's an, you have
all these archetypes forcharacters and, good writers can
just figure out, okay, I'll, Ineed an anti-hero, I need a, a
wise old blah, blah, blah.
And then you put'em together andyou make a movie.
But if you take that extra timeand write all those backstories
of those characters, that whenyou sit, when you actually go to
write that movie, it's going toeven be a greater experience for
(14:09):
you as the writer.
So there is more value in themovie.
The movies do better.
They perform better at the boxoffice.
They get more awards.
They potentially could create, ahistoric filmmaker status for
someone like John or Tarantinoor some of these guys who really
know how to do it.
And if you take that and pushthat into the world of business,
(14:31):
it's the same thing.
And so I started diving down atthe value of story recently.
And I started looking at, okay,these brands have great
backstories.
It's Coca Cola or whatever.
Nike, whatever that backstoryis.
We all know those backstories.
We know The, sort of linear arcof Nike and, how, where
different celebrities came inalong the way, like Michael
Jordan and how that changed thecompany.
(14:52):
And we know all those greatbackstories.
So I found online, and thisisn't, this was really amazing.
It was like a light bulb momentfor me.
There is this study that wasdone in 2009 called the
significant objects study wherethese researchers and it,
forgive me, I don't remembertheir names, but if you look up,
if you Google significantobjects study, they've got their
own website.
And they went, these researcherswanted to prove there was actual
(15:17):
monetary value in story forbrands.
They went to yard sales and fleamarkets and they bought about
200 little trinkets.
These little, whatever it was, akeychain from Florida, a little
plastic horse that some girlplayed with, whatever.
They bought 200 of thesetrinkets.
And the trinkets were all valuebetween a dollar and two
(15:39):
dollars.
There was nothing more than twodollars.
They spent three, four hundreddollars on these trinkets.
They then hired writers to writea backstory for those trinkets.
Each one of them.
And they put them on eBay forsale along with the backstory.
And you know what happened?
That 1.
25 little plastic horse sold for65 because it had that
(16:04):
backstory.
And that study has beencorroborated 10 or 11 times
since, so it's not just a oneoff kind of thing.
And here's the craziest part ofit all, Paul.
They told the buyer that thestory wasn't real.
Here's a fake story that awriter wrote for this little
tchotchke.
And the tchotchke cost us 1.
25.
We're selling it to you for 65.
(16:24):
And they, were all purchased.
They made a 3, 000 percentincrease in, ROI or revenue.
And so it really dawned on me.
Oh my gosh, if that's strong, ifyou have a strong backstory.
And it's weird to say, even ifit's fake, but if you have
something that can anchor your,product, your brand, your
service, you are actually goingto increase the value of those
(16:47):
things.
You will generate more revenueif that's what you care about.
But you have to have that reallystrong creative backstory.
Paul (16:56):
I think that's a beautiful way of describing the real value
that, that, that story can haveon things.
I know if I think, if I think ofany brand that I align with, I
know their backstory, the onesthat I don't align with, the
ones that I don't just don'tcare about.
I don't know their backstory.
You might have them, but don'tcare about them enough to,
(17:17):
understand it.
So there's definitely somethingin that, when somebody asks me,
Paul, what services do youprovide in Javelin Content?
I don't dive into the services.
I intentionally don't dive intothe services.
I dive into why I offer theservices, how I got there, and
why I'm different.
And I explain all that firstbefore I even talk to them about
(17:38):
the services.
And if they look bored when I'mtelling them that, it's a really
good indicator to me that weshouldn't work together.
Adrian (17:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Paul (17:45):
cause I'm going to do this all the time.
I'm going to tell you storieswhether you like it or not.
Adrian (17:49):
Yeah,
Paul (17:49):
handle the stories, we shouldn't work together.
Okay,
Adrian (17:52):
Yeah,
Paul (17:53):
and then the really crazy people make it to Whatsapp.
And then the real stories
Adrian (17:57):
Oh, man.
Paul (17:57):
through.
But
Adrian (17:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
exactly.
When you're anonymous.
yeah,
Paul (18:02):
yeah,
Adrian (18:03):
about this, man, if someone bought that tchotchke, I
just realized now, sorry to cutyou off, but they bought that
little horse tchotchke Imentioned, and they put it on,
they bought it because they wantto put it on the mantle at their
house so that when their friendsand family come over, they have
something to talk about and theycan tell that story.
And I think that's what we want.
I think that's what, it's weirdto say this because the customer
(18:23):
wants the product or they wantthe service, right?
They need that thing.
So that's important.
But I think they also want thestory.
It's weird.
I don't know that they go aroundtelling their friends I bought
these new shoes, but let me tellyou the story behind the shoes.
I don't think that happens, butI think inherently we want that
story?
I don't know.
It feels natural to me to wantit.
Paul (18:45):
I think, imagine a situation where it's you versus
somebody, like a competitor.
Versus you in the marketplace,and there's a customer kind of
sat there, they've shortlistedboth of you, you both provide
the services that customerneeds, you your messaging all
kind of aligns, the price pointsroughly about right, and you're
probably maybe slightly bit moreexpensive than your competition,
(19:08):
but then you lead with a story,and you tell them why you do
what you do, and that transformsthe customer's opinion of you,
And they start to see you as waymore of an authority.
They differentiate you fromeverybody else.
They can see that you've been intheir shoes perhaps, or you,
understand them on an emotionallevel.
(19:30):
People will pay more for thatall day long.
They'll pay more for thatservice because they know that
you get them.
Therefore, you're not going tolet them down.
Whereas competitor A over here.
They might provide all the sameservices, they might do a really
good job, they might do a betterjob than you do, but because
they're a gamble, you always gofor safe.
we always choose what's safe andwhat's credible.
(19:52):
And, much the same as if youlook on Amazon and you try and
buy something on Amazon I don'tlook for the positive reviews
first.
Nobody does.
If I come across a productthat's 5 star reviews I ain't
buying it because it's notgenuine.
If it's 4.
5, 4.
5 stars, brilliant.
What's wrong with it?
And can I live with that?
Cause if I can live with that,otherwise it's got a pretty
(20:13):
perfect rating.
I like it.
I'll buy that.
Adrian (20:16):
Yeah.
Yeah,
Paul (20:23):
like, Oh, I'm, you know what's coming, right?
I'm like, oh, here's a, pramthat, that's my seven year old's
grown out of it now three yearsago, but it's, been left in the
garage.
We've looked after it, but it'sbeen left in the garage.
It's really lonely.
It's had a good innings.
We've, got lots of memoriesattached to this.
We've had our first footballgame in there.
We've, done this, that, theother.
(20:43):
Please put it to a good home.
I'm looking for respectableparents to come along and buy
this and put it to some good usecause we really care about this
pram.
And you get people messaging youlike, that message is brilliant,
I'm gonna tell all my friendsabout it.
not hard we all have stories,and yet I still come across
people who claim that they don'thave a story.
My story's boring, you don'twanna know.
(21:06):
Do you think that's true ofanyone?
Cause, I have to, I doubt it.
I just think
Adrian (21:11):
no, we talked
Paul (21:12):
out your story.
Adrian (21:14):
you and I talked about before the show, some, first
off, I want to say, there's alot of things I want to say, but
first off, you said you don'thave any employees, but the
people in your business are us,the people you interview, and I
think that's brilliant, becauseI would love to do that, by the
way, as a living, it'd be greatto just keep meeting new people,
but yeah, no, I think they're,Look, when you're in a business
that has no differentiatorcompared to your competitors,
(21:36):
that really sets you apart.
I was in that business.
It was a property restoration.
We were all the same, right?
It was a, it wasn't a commoditynecessarily, but it was, every
company basically did the exactsame thing.
The only differentiator you havein that business That is your
story.
That's it.
And so you have to have a betterstory.
And like you just said, if youcan just, I think everyone has a
(21:57):
story.
Some people don't want to tellit.
Some people are afraid to tellit, like we, you and I talked
about before the podcast, someof your guests, you have to
really pull out the story fromthem.
And why is that?
what's, and obviously that goesinto a whole, psychological
trauma, a childhood kind ofthing that I'm not qualified to
talk about, but I do havefriends that are like that.
He just, and it gets hardbecause you want I tell a story,
(22:20):
you respond, you tell a story, Irespond.
That's the natural course ofthings.
In the market, it's the samenatural course of things.
You tell a story, a customerresponds, so it's, it's
definitely It can be definitelytough if they don't want to tell
their story.
Paul (22:36):
show a couple of weeks back, Andrew Wood.
And Andrew has a fantasticbackstory.
So he grew up with dyslexia,potentially ADHD.
We're not sure, dyslexia was theonly thing that was diagnosed
for him.
So he, hangs his hat on that andit wasn't diagnosed until he was
in his mid teens, by which pointhe was already in trouble.
He ended up in the prisonsystem.
He had a conscious choice to getout of that.
(22:57):
And now runs a 10 million pounda year business and growing
rapidly, right?
A complete transformation, abrilliant story.
And we recorded this storytwice, cause we had a tech
failure the first time, we lostthe first episode.
But I, I remember recording itwith him a few weeks before and
he was really anxious andhalfway through he's telling me
like, I don't do marketing, I'mnot a marketing person.
I just came on to help share mystory and X, Y and Z and and
(23:20):
then we re recorded and he'd hadtime to think about some of the
things that I'd said to himabout, you know what, I think
that's a really powerful storyand you should share it and,
work on it.
And it, and he came back on theshow as a completely different
person.
And the episode that you'll seereleased into the public was so
much more.
It flowed so much nicer.
It was, you could see there waspassion behind what he was
saying.
(23:40):
He wasn't deflecting and makinghimself sound as though he
didn't know what he was doing.
Cause he absolutely does knowwhat he's doing.
It's just not a consciouschoice.
But the story's in there.
The story was there and he knewthat the story had real power
for his business.
But he's also conscious.
He doesn't want to come acrossas, using that story for
revenue, right?
Like it's not, and that's notwhat he's about.
(24:02):
He's about, I want to impactyoung people who might end up in
that same situation.
That is a powerful story.
It's not why you should buy fromme, but it does help you
remember me if that makes sense.
Adrian (24:12):
yeah, I can't even ima I don't No, I don't know Andrew,
but I would say that I wouldhazard to guess that the past
still, pun pump punches him inthe face every day.
In other words I would imaginethat even with his success now
and growing success, that hestill feels that, like the guy
(24:32):
who went to prison, do you knowwhat I mean?
He feels, feel, still feels likethat young thug or whatever, or
whatever the term is.
We all have that.
And then that in that initialround with you.
That came up and that blockedhim and that made him insecure
and nervous.
And then maybe because of theinitial round, he felt
comfortable, had some storieswith you and felt, okay, I can
talk to this person.
(24:53):
He's, like minded and I canconnect.
And that opened up on the secondround.
I don't know, but I wouldimagine it's gotta be tough.
It's gotta be tough for peoplewho are highly successful that
came from nothing because theymust always have the nothing
creeping up in their ear,telling them that they don't
know what they're doing.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think we all go through thatto some degree.
ahem, we talked about brandsearlier and my god, think about
(25:17):
Apple.
What a great, I think that's theone legacy of Steve Jobs people
don't talk enough about.
is The You The stories that hecreated.
he and or the people at Appleunder him.
And the company is, I think,faltering a little bit lately.
I've been hearing some badthings about the new phone, and
there's not a lot of good designbehind the new update, etc, Who
knows?
I'm not a tech person.
But I would just say that ifthey get back to any company
(25:41):
that falters after many years ofsuccess, you've got to get back
to that story.
What was that original storythat was being told?
It's highly valuable, and Ican't.
I can't express that enough forany business leader.
It just got to know your storyand it's got to be, an impactful
story.
Paul (25:58):
I think there's an interesting thing in that as
well around storytellers whoCreate stories within their
business community as well.
And that's what Steve Jobs wasreally good at.
Like you said, it wasn't justabout Steve Jobs story or a
Wozniak story, the story ofApple, that's fine.
But there was a proliferation ofstories that came afterwards
(26:19):
that people will quote until theend of time about how to do
business or how not to dobusiness.
And you've got to think thatwhilst they might not have been
intentional at the time, theywere captured.
Somebody captured them.
and retold them and they built abusiness and a culture within
that business where storytellingwas part of the culture.
(26:42):
And, I've got friends who workin Nike and they get trained on
storytelling, right?
They have to go away.
You get to a certain level ofleadership, they have to go away
and learn to tell stories,right?
And I think that's brilliant.
that
Adrian (26:53):
fantastic.
Paul (26:54):
wow.
Because can you imagine thedifference between, your team
leader meetings and it doesn'tmatter what part of the business
you're from, whether you'recustomer services, loss
prevention, retail, they all goaway and learn to tell stories
so that they can relayinformation properly to their
business.
Adrian (27:09):
That's super important because the company has to be
aligned across all verticals onthe story.
that was something that I wantedto bring up as well.
So you're a hundred percentright.
I think they're brilliant.
Send everybody off to learn howto tell stories, then tell them
the story we're telling.
And everyone, whether it'scustomer service, receiving a
call or it's product design oryeah, they all are aligned with
the, same story.
Paul (27:29):
Or whatever.
You just tell the story and letpeople tell
Adrian (27:32):
Yeah.
Paul (27:33):
Amazing.
Guys, let's just go sit aroundthe campfire.
I've got a story to tell you.
Adrian (27:37):
Yeah,
Paul (27:37):
it?
Oh, it's a business update, butyou're going to like this one.
Adrian (27:39):
Yeah.
Paul (27:39):
this one.
So many years ago.
Adrian (27:42):
Yeah.
Paul (27:44):
Wow.
Y'all, I want to, get thenewsletter.
I want to get the update thisweek.
What is it?
What's the update?
There was this guy in marketingand he thought it would be
amazing.
Adrian (27:55):
That would be amazing.
Those team meetings where youjust tell them the stories.
Yeah.
Oh, it'd be fantastic.
Paul (28:01):
I just.
For those businesses out therethen, that are think, sat there
thinking, we don't really have aback story.
What sort of processes would youencourage them to go through to
help them find their back story?
Cause I know what my advicewould be, I'm keen to see what
yours is.
Adrian (28:17):
Yeah it's not gonna be a business thing.
It's gonna be a improvisationalcomedy thing, if you can believe
it.
In my early life before I becamea producer, I was on the
creative side.
I was writing, as and before Iwas writing, I was in film
school.
And then after Film school.
I went to the second cityimprovisational comedy in
Chicago where I grew up, and Itook classes there and I took
(28:38):
close those classes to become abetter writer.
And I learned two or three sortof tricks of the trade when it
comes to storytelling.
And the first most importantthing in my opinion is
discovery.
So we talked about the backstoryof the characters of a John
Hughes movie, or the backstoryof your, brand.
What discovery is the, reasonthere's that there's the reason
(29:02):
for that backstory.
Imagine you're, just, you'rewalking down the street in your
neighborhood, or let's just saya fictional character, walking
down the street in aneighborhood, and he sees a,
Some trash on the ground.
However, he reacts to that inthat moment, tells you, the
audience, something about him.
So his discovery of the trash isour discovery of him.
(29:23):
He might be angry that there'speople throwing trash on the
ground and he may be Kicks thetrash, ah, he gets all upset,
or, maybe he's the nice guy whopicks it up and puts it into the
bin.
Whoever he is, we learn in thatone moment.
And then the movie is basically,or the story you're telling, is
basically a series ofdiscoveries.
I, he's gonna do this now, okay,now we've got five discoveries,
(29:44):
I get it.
He's the angry guy who hates,litter bugs.
And I know how he's gonna reactin this next moment coming up,
because I know who he is now.
So that discovery is a processthat has to happen, I believe,
within the team.
And I've done this a milliontimes with marketing teams,
where we discover that the storywe're telling really isn't the
(30:04):
character that is that brand.
It's a story that made sensemaybe two years ago when someone
who else was leading marketingwanted to create something that
would get customers attention,but it's not authentic to the
brand.
So you have to go back.
Who, is the brand?
What is it?
Is it male?
Is it female?
Is it both?
What is, What do they do whenthey see trash?
What does the brand character dowhen it sees trash on the
(30:25):
ground?
that's where I would start.
And then, the practicality ofwriting the story.
Oh, I can see you're trying tojump in.
Paul (30:34):
No, I'm just my, I'm, yeah.
Brain's farting at a millionmiles an hour.
I love what you're saying.
I'm just excited.
I love listening to you talkingabout storytelling.
It's fine.
Carry on.
Adrian (30:46):
so it's perfect.
On the practicality side, thisis something we do, that I did
in screenwriting, and in anykind of writing where there's a
story with characters, and thosecharacters have to interact.
But this could be transferred tothe business realm and I'll talk
in a second about how thatworks.
but simply, the old adage it'scalled get in early, sorry, get
(31:10):
in late and get out early.
If you have a scene, twocharacters meet in a room and
they talk and they come to someconclusion and then they leave,
oftentimes in filmmaking orregular storytelling in books or
theater you don't have thecharacters enter the room.
And start to talk unless thatentrance and is super important
(31:32):
to the plot of the movie forsome reason you they're already
in the room so and oftentimesThe best storytelling is when
you as the audience come intothe room and they're already in
conversation.
They don't start theconversation.
They've already started a minuteago.
They've gone through all thesurface stuff that we go through
when we have conversations andnow they're at the meat of the
(31:52):
conversation and that's what wecare about.
So why not just jump to that?
The other thing is when yourlead character, when it's
obvious to the audience or toyour character that she or he is
going to obtain their goal forthat scene.
I've come to this room to getthe money that person owes me.
And once they realize that oncethat person either hands over
(32:14):
the money or they realize thatperson's never going to hand
over the money, in other words,there's a resolution in the
character's mind, the scene'sover.
Anything after that is a wasteof time and so you get out.
In other words, you get in late,you get out early, you're
focused on the meat of it.
You see where I'm going withthis?
So from a practical standpoint,when you're working on a story
(32:36):
for your brand, you don't needto tell every last detail of the
history of your brand to get tothe point that the customer
really cares about.
You can give a little Short,brief intro, but then get to the
point.
And so that, and then get outearly so that they're wanting
more.
They want to read the next storyand they want to click to the
next page.
And, a, they're just tricks ofthe trade, so to speak, but
(32:57):
they, work across business aswell.
And that's why there's a robustbusiness around improvisational
comedy training for businessexecutives, because all of these
things are brought up in thattraining.
Paul (33:10):
I think that's some really powerful advice Adrian I'd loved
it if so if you're watchingalong and, you're taking notes
and you want to if you're doingthis, you put this into
practice, send me a message andlet me know.
I want to know, cause I want topass it on to Adrian.
We're not fishing for businesshere.
I want to know who's puttingthis into practice and
discovering things aboutthemselves and about the
business from what we're talkingabout here.
(33:32):
And my two cents on the end ofthat, I'm going all American
here, my two cents on the end ofthat.
Adrian (33:37):
Yeah.
Paul (33:38):
Is tell your story every chance you get.
don't, tell it for the sake oftelling it, but do it for the
sake of teaching yourself yourstory.
And, watch for the reactions asyou tell your story.
And if you come to say somethingand it gets a reaction from the
other person, put that in thenext time.
(33:58):
If it doesn't get a reaction,change what you said.
Change how you see it.
Go down a different pathslightly.
And wait for the reaction.
And if you're getting reactions,then you're telling an engaging
story.
And, you might need to do alittle bit of lead up to get the
reaction, right?
You might need to give a bit ofboring information in order to
be able to talk about this bitover here, that is actually
(34:20):
really interesting and excitingfor people to hear about.
But I've found that, I don'tknow, I've reinvented myself for
four industries now.
And I love networking, I lovebuilding new, it's tough to
build a whole new network in awhole new industry.
But the one thing that kept megoing through it was, I'd start
with a really short story aboutwhy I'm in that industry.
(34:42):
And then I'd build on it, stepby step, and have lots of
conversations, repeat thatstory, and gradually make it
longer, until it's long enough.
Doesn't need to be a long story,but it needs to be long enough.
That when you then dive intoyour services or products or
whatever it is that you're thengoing to talk to them about,
they're open to it becauseyou've shared something about
(35:02):
yourself.
You've shared your journey andthey get why you're doing what
you're doing now.
They align or don't align withyou.
And it becomes very easy alsowhen you do that.
If you build that step by step.
To find the people who youshouldn't work with.
We talked about this before,before the show, right?
A couple of times I've told mystory, and I can see people are
(35:24):
like, I'm going to type it on myemails, all that.
If you're not going to listen tomy story, we shouldn't work
together.
Because I'm going to have totell your story.
You're not going to give me therespect of me, you listening to
my story, then we shouldn't worktogether.
Because you clearly don't careabout the story enough.
And that's a big red flag for meand my business.
I hope that's useful for folksout there who feel like they
(35:46):
don't have a story.
Now you've got Adrian's inputthere on how you can start to
shape that story behind thescenes.
How you can start to figureyourself out and discover what
your story is.
Don't try and tell that wholestory at once all on day one.
Build on it so that you get afeel for what resonates and what
doesn't.
(36:06):
And, you can create the storythat you want to create, as long
as it's true.
Adrian (36:12):
Yeah, let me double click on that for you really
quick, which, I 100 percentagree.
You have to go out and tell yourstory a thousand times.
Whatever that, remember that,what's that thing?
you learn something after 10,000 times.
It's like the same thing.
You, tell the story.
And by the way, during thatprocess, the story is going to
evolve.
(36:33):
Now, this is a big question foryou, Paul.
I wonder what your thoughts areon this, because it seems like
in some parts of our societies,we hate when stories evolve.
You, Mr.
Politician, said two years ago,you believed in this, but now
you believe in that?
I don't trust you.
But is it okay for those storiesto evolve?
They tend to evolve naturallyfor all of us and what you're
talking about as you go out andtell that same story, it's going
(36:55):
to evolve.
It's going to become sharper.
That'll be for sure.
Maybe the core story doesn'tchange, but the sharpness of it
changes.
But is it okay for a brand toevolve its story over time?
I tend to think it's okay.
I can't think of any realexamples in the moment right now
of a brand that did that, but.
I know brands rebrand, theychange their stories, people
change their stories, but from aplace of making them better?
(37:19):
I don't know.
What are your thoughts aboutthat?
Is the evolution of a storyokay?
Paul (37:23):
I think to evolve a story is fine.
It's when you try and wholesalechange the story and tell a
different story, or you changethe end point of the story.
You can't change your vision,right?
If you're a brand, you can'tchange your vision, unless
you've outgrown your vision,which is fine.
I set out to help a thousandpeople, I've helped a thousand
people, now I want to help tenthousand people.
(37:44):
Alright, fine.
But, Dr.
Martens, as a prime example Dr.
Martens will always be Dr.
Martens.
There is no getting away fromtheir backstory, there is no
getting away from what theystand for, and who they serve,
and who they work with.
And if they tried to do that, itwould kill their brand and their
identity.
I think, evolution is the keyword I think it has to evolve to
(38:06):
an extent.
There is always more to it.
You've got to make it relevantto now.
You can't tell the same story 30years later and hope that it
still resonates with the currentaudience because they're going
to be looking for differentthings and you have to tell the
story in a different way toresonate with them.
much about that.
It's just about you've got it.
As long as you're staying trueto your vision and your goals
(38:26):
and your story, the story has toevolve.
That's human nature, right?
Adrian (38:31):
yeah.
think about this too.
The bottom of the marketingfunnel or just the sales funnel,
the business funnel the bottomafter conversion, after sale is
the golden thing that everyone'sgoing after, which is loyalty or
it's advocate.
We wanted to not just make acustomer, we want to make an
advocate.
What does that mean?
We want them to go tell ourstory.
(38:53):
And that customer is going totell the story that they've
learned during their practice.
They're learnings of your brandand purchase, et cetera, and
using the products or service.
And so they may, the customersmay become part of the
storytelling.
They become part of theauthorship of your brand.
And you could wake up 10 yearsfrom now and realize your brand
is not the story you've beentelling.
(39:13):
It's the story that thecustomers have been telling to
the world, and it's becomesomething else.
So there's a natural evolution,I think, to successful business
when the customers get involvedin telling the story.
Paul (39:23):
and that's when you know you've nailed that, real power
behind the
Adrian (39:27):
Right.
Paul (39:28):
believe in you so much, you've become a cause.
Adrian (39:30):
That's right.
That's right.
And you also probably feel likeI've never been a part of that.
So I don't know what that feelslike from a, like a founder's
standpoint or a leadershipstandpoint.
It must feel weird because it'sout of your control at that
point.
The story is in the hands of thepublic and, hopefully it'll be a
positive one.
That continues rather than onethat shifts the other way.
(39:51):
But yeah, it's just, it's awhole thing.
It's, I just love it.
I love telling stories.
I love experiencing stories.
And I love thinking about howall of that applies to
everything that we do every dayin our lives, not just business,
but in our lives.
Paul (40:06):
Adrian, I could quite happily sit here for the next 4
hours and discuss storytelling,like it doesn't ever seem to get
boring, right?
like, you'd think a 40, minuteconversation on storytelling
would start to dry up.
I've probably got more questionsbouncing around in my head now
than when we first started.
But I can't possibly ask peopleto listen to more than what
(40:26):
we've recorded in one go.
I don't know, maybe we have todo a round three, I don't know.
Maybe it becomes
Adrian (40:30):
I think so.
Yeah,
Paul (40:31):
podcast, I don't know.
Let's just start a new podcast,I don't know.
The storytelling podcast.
Adrian (40:36):
Yeah.
I'd be down for that if you wantto do
Paul (40:42):
As ever, it was a genuine pleasure chatting with you today
and I'd like to think that thepeople at home who've watched
along take some great stepstowards being able to tell their
own story in a convincing wayafter listening to what I think
of as a masterclass, right?
I think that is brilliant.
Adrian (40:59):
Oh, thank you.
Paul (41:01):
thank you very much for being a fantastic guest once
again.
Adrian (41:04):
this has been a great pleasure of mine.
I can't thank you enough forasking me to come on twice.
This has been, it feels so goodto hear that it's something is
successful that you're involvedwith.
So tha and, that's because ofyou, Paul.
So thanks to you and Mark Paulsand, the whole group.
I, I really appreciate your timeand giving me the time
Paul (41:20):
Thank you to the audience who are everything why we do
this podcast in the first place,cause without sharing things
that people will resonate with,there's no point to the podcast,
so thank you as well.
Listeners, viewers, forrecording, watching along,
following, subscribing, whateveryou do, thank you because this
is all for you.
Brilliant.
(41:41):
All right, that's enough backpatting.
I will see you all next week.
Peace
Adrian (41:44):
Cheers.
Bye.
Good afternoon, welcome back to MarketPulse podcast.
(00:02):
This week's guest needs nointroduction.
If you follow the show, youbetter be following the show.
And if you're not following theshow, you need to rewind back, I
don't know, about five to 10episodes and come find Adrian
Fuller's first episode, becauseAdrian has a fantastic
background in the Hollywoodscene.
You learn to be a producer ofall things.
You learn from the best, notonly to be a producer, but learn
(00:25):
from the best.
And we shared a fantasticepisode together.
I've I love the conversationthat flowed out of that.
Welcome back to the show,Adrian, for a round two,
ironically recording in the sameweek that your first episode has
gone live to the public, right?
Adrian (00:39):
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
By the way, Paul, I do followthe show and I know exactly who
this guest is.
He's a wonderful man.
Paul (00:47):
so.
Good.
Yes.
I had lots of positive
Adrian (00:50):
was great.
Paul (00:51):
say about
Adrian (00:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
I have to say, man, this is theonly time, this is the only time
I've ever done two episodes ofthe same podcast.
and I'm only doing it because ofhow much fun we had the first
time.
And that, that really is atestament to your skills as an
interviewer and a podcaster.
So thanks for having me.
This is amazing.
And it's been a lot of fun.
(01:13):
I think, if there's anyone outthere, who's looking to start
their own podccast,
Paul (01:17):
I think more than anything the beauty of having a podcast
is that you get to meet afantastic diverse range of
people who have an amazing storyto tell and if you open yourself
to just letting friendshiphappen and have fun and connect
with your guests, podcasting canbe really rewarding.
(01:39):
I love it.
I love it.
I don't ever want to stop.
As people are watching along athome, your episode alone made me
sit and think a little bit moreabout where MarketPulse is going
to go, because I've been we'vebeen doing really well, we
launched last year we've hadover where are we at now, 50
guests I think we're at, sowe're really marching through
(02:01):
the episodes now however, we'vehad over however, I felt like we
were missing a trick.
I don't feel like we were hornedenough on particular areas.
So I'm going to launch a seasontwo in April of next year,
because that's how far ahead weare.
It's a good thing,
Adrian (02:16):
That's amazing.
Paul (02:16):
the ass to manage, right?
Adrian (02:18):
Yeah, I can imagine.
Right
Paul (02:31):
less around the marketing side, but we're still going to,
I'm going to.
I'm going to move towards themarketing areas, but I want to
help share because almost everyguest we've had on the show has
said to me I didn't set out todo what I'm doing now.
I got there because X happened,Y happened, and I followed Z.
And that for me is fascinating.
(02:51):
I love understanding how theworld connects with each other
and how everything just findsits place and you find your
place in the world if you letit.
Which is nice to lead into thisepisode of MarketPulse.
Because you learned yourstorytelling skills back in
Hollywood, right?
So just, for those that haven'tyet seen the episode, and I'm
really annoyed with them alreadyfor not having seen the episode,
(03:12):
get it watched.
Pause this right now, go watchit.
But for those that
Adrian (03:15):
on.
Paul (03:17):
just give us the, 30,000 foot view of, your background so
that they're, they understandwhy you are qualified to talk
about storytelling of allthings.
Adrian (03:26):
Yeah, first let me say the, model that you employed in
your podcast series of I'm goingto start and then I'm going to
learn from some, learn from 50episodes and then adjust for
season two is perfect.
It's how I live my life.
So I think maybe that's why weget on so well.
But, so yeah, for those whohaven't seen the first season
(03:46):
episode or the first episode ofus talking together I'm my first
career was in Hollywood as aHollywood producer.
I produced movies, TV,commercials, music videos.
After about 20 years of doingthat.
I, just was tired of the feastor famine lifestyle.
I was tired of the 24 7 Neverbeing able to see my kid grow up
(04:07):
and the whole thing.
And you really have to be outthere and be competitive.
And it ends up being a youngerman's game.
As I got into my late thirties,early forties, I started to
become the oldest person in theroom, and that was a weird thing
too.
So the writing was on the wall,changed careers.
That's what I did.
And we, my wife and I, and ourdaughter moved to Denver,
Colorado left Los Angeles wherewe had been for 20 years.
(04:29):
And I changed careers and gotinto marketing.
So that's my backstory inhopefully 30 seconds or less.
Paul (04:36):
it's a really powerful backstory.
And, just to further qualifythat,'cause there's, a lot of
people that I talk to that are,yeah.
I come outta Hollywood, right?
Like you learned your trade fromJohn Hughes, who, I have to say
gone too soon.
But one of the most amazinginfluential, directors and
producers of my youth.
If anybody out there is oh yeah,there's loads of people that
have come out of Hollywood,right?
(04:58):
Adrian learned from the best.
So I have a lot of respect foryour background.
Definitely.
Adrian (05:03):
John.
John was, before he was adirector or before, when I say
before, I mean the mostimportant thing to him in his
life, when it came to his work,was his writing.
That's what he did.
He was a prolific writer.
He had hundreds and hundreds ofscreenplays written that no
one's ever heard of.
They were on a shelf in the inthe warehouse where he kept all
the props from the movies, whichI got to, one of my first jobs
(05:25):
was to organize the warehouse,and I just went through those
scripts with his permission, andon my lunch breaks, got to read
these amazing scripts that, allof his movies have been great,
but these are even, some of themwere even better, so that to me
was a huge lesson, and that'swhat launched my career.
I, I decided to go into writingmore than anything else first,
and that's where he became mymentor.
I was able to sit with JohnHughes, I can't believe I'm
(05:46):
still saying this.
And have lunch and ask questionsabout writing movies.
Nobody gets the opportunity,like in their careers.
So it was pretty exciting.
Paul (05:54):
no, that, and that is a phenomenal grounding in, in
storytelling above anythingelse, right?
Forget the movies, forgeteverything else.
It's, storytelling and I'm a bigbeliever that.
In this day and age, we've lostthe ability to tell stories,
whether it's for your businesscase, for your project that
you're trying to get the seniormanagement to buy into and give
(06:17):
you budget for and fund youridea, or whether it's, As a
salesperson trying to encourageanother entity, another business
to buy your products andservices and to help them
understand why they should careabout what you do or whether
it's just sitting around thedinner table talking to each
other we've just lost theability to tell stories.
(06:40):
And for those of us who canstill tell stories, I love
stories.
I, I sit and read every nightwith my son.
I, he's got such an imaginationalready and I just, I think that
is something that is a skillthat, going forward when you've
got things like AI and largelanguage models about it's that
ability that I don't think thatwill ever be replaced by AI.
(07:03):
You might come close sometimes,but I think that is what keeps
us human.
And it's how we pass knowledgefrom one generation to the next,
and from one community to thenext, it's so important to us.
It, like,
Adrian (07:16):
It's funny you say that, Paul.
I'm sorry to cut you off, but itis the most important thing to
humankind.
It's the way we do everything.
It's the way we communicate.
It's the way we learn.
It's the way we plan.
It just, it's amazinglyimportant for business.
And for all the departments inbusiness and we can get into
that later if you want, but it'sextremely important.
(07:37):
In fact, it's innate.
Human beings just naturally gettogether and tell stories.
And they do them in differentways, but they're still telling
stories.
I think about the oldest cavepainting known to man is 80, 000
years old or some crazy, I thinkit's 85, 000 years old, that
they discovered in theMediterranean somewhere.
And it's just, it's called theRed Hand Cave.
And it's just.
Prince of Red Hands.
(07:58):
And they didn't, they justthought it was artwork or
something at the time.
And then some archaeologistsdiscovered, maybe about five
years ago that it's actually astory being told about a hunt
and some other things thathappened in that area.
And so the human beings, thinkabout this, back 85, 000 years
ago, felt the need tocommunicate In some permanent
(08:20):
form on a wall to whoever'sgoing to come along.
Maybe they weren't thinkingabout the future, but that's
what ended up happening tocommunicate a story.
It's pretty amazing.
Paul (08:30):
And more, than that, I think, as business owners, we
forget the power of our ownstory.
I talk a lot about marketing,and you can dress marketing up
however you want, butultimately, it's the ability to
tell the story of you.
Your business and your peoplewithin your business, if you
have them.
I don't, intentionally, but butI've learned to articulate my
(08:55):
story and I enjoy telling mystory because I know it
entertains people in the waythat I tell it.
It's not because I feel selfimportant, or, I, and that's
what a lot of people worry aboutin this day and age, is they
worry that they sound as thoughthey're bragging, or they're not
humble, or they're trying toshow off and I think that comes
from, correct me if I'm wrongI'd love to hear your thoughts
(09:17):
on this, Adrian, but I thinkthat comes from having the wrong
mindset when you're telling thestory in the first place.
Adrian (09:23):
Yeah, I think it could also come, I've been thinking a
lot about this.
For those who watched the firstepisode, you probably get that.
I'm the guy who goes as deep asI go down these rabbit holes.
And I've been thinking a lotabout the power of story, but
more importantly, the value ofstory when it comes to business
and marketing.
And I noticed that somecompanies I worked at.
Where if you go all the way backto the genesis of the company,
(09:47):
they started the company becausethey had a passion for
something, or they had a need togo out and do this thing was a
purpose in life.
Those stories Then continue onthrough the company's through
line of their, the linear lifeof the company.
And they become easier andeasier to tell because they're
authentic and they're real.
And the companies that getstarted because I want to make
(10:08):
money.
That's the only reason I'mstarting this company.
I don't care what I'm selling.
I'm just going to sellsomething.
Those stories tend to fall flat.
In fact, the customer tends toget immediately.
Oh, you're just sellingsomething.
You don't really, there's nopassion.
There's no reason.
There's just money and that'sall it is.
And they get turned off by that.
I think I really do believethat's true.
I sense it as a customer myself.
(10:30):
You can just see it in theadvertising.
And it's because the marketingteam that goes to create those
messages doesn't really have anybase to come from.
And so they have no, so theyhave to create something out of
thin air.
And sometimes there's an amazingcampaign, but in general,
they'll fall flat.
Paul (10:46):
And it links with the company vision as well, right?
So you can tell that they havean engaging story to tell
because they understand thatthey want to make an impact
that's bigger than makingrevenue in the business.
And I think that's so powerfulto help with your marketing
because it's I've said for along time, I love to talk to
purpose driven businessesbecause a purpose driven
(11:08):
business, a purpose centricbusiness can shout from the
rooftops about what they do allday long.
Adrian (11:14):
Mm hmm.
Paul (11:14):
want, because nobody's going to accuse them of spamming
people, or pit slapping people,or being boring or monotonous.
Because there's an ultimategreater good behind what they
do.
But there are businesses, otherthan purpose driven businesses,
that find the ability to do thatbecause they've tied their
origin story, traced it all theway through to the company
vision, and they live by thatand breathe it.
(11:35):
Is that fair?
Adrian (11:37):
Yeah, that's totally fair.
And I think it all stems fromhaving or having for the purpose
driven business, there is abackstory.
There's a reason they're purposedriven, right?
There's that thing.
There's the purpose.
If you don't have thatbackstory, Then it all falls
flat.
And to your point about AI, Ithink where we are right now is
that AI doesn't create abackstory.
It just creates the story in themoment.
(11:57):
And that's why a lot of timesthey fall flat.
I've done this many times where,you have someone say, Hey, put
together a purpose statement forour website.
But the company has no realpurpose.
And so you can read in thatstatement that it doesn't feel
real.
And then you use AI to make itbetter.
And maybe it's crafted better asa written piece, a paragraph,
but it, there's still nobackstory.
And that comes through, it fallsflat.
(12:20):
Paul, I wanted to, thisbackstory thing has been on my
mind so much lately because I'mrealizing how important it is
for all of the things we justtalked about.
And I went back to my, prior tothis recording, I wanted to go
back and look at some of thethings I'd done in the past.
And, we talked about John Hughesand I started my career as a
writer.
One of the things that John didand taught me, and I think what
(12:43):
makes the difference between agood film or a good piece of
entertainment or content versus,versus a great piece, the
difference there is that backstory.
John didn't just sit down andwrite, 16 Candles or whatever
the movie was.
And tell that story of just thatmoment.
He took months and months andmapped out the backstories of
(13:05):
those characters.
So that when he finally told thestory that we went to see in the
movie theater, It felt likethese characters were fuller,
they were more developed, butyou didn't know why.
You might not even have knownthe backstories.
It's only for John on his wall,on his, written on his papers.
You go to the theater and youexperience this and it feels
(13:26):
deeper, it feels more real,authentic, you can identify with
the characters, it feelsrelevant.
And that's what he taught me wasthat's due to taking that time
to create real backstories forthese fictional characters.
And so I started diving intothat and started realizing, oh,
wait a second.
That's also the difference inbusiness and marketing, right?
(13:47):
You sit down and you, write outa, character that's an, you have
all these archetypes forcharacters and, good writers can
just figure out, okay, I'll, Ineed an anti-hero, I need a, a
wise old blah, blah, blah.
And then you put'em together andyou make a movie.
But if you take that extra timeand write all those backstories
of those characters, that whenyou sit, when you actually go to
write that movie, it's going toeven be a greater experience for
(14:09):
you as the writer.
So there is more value in themovie.
The movies do better.
They perform better at the boxoffice.
They get more awards.
They potentially could create, ahistoric filmmaker status for
someone like John or Tarantinoor some of these guys who really
know how to do it.
And if you take that and pushthat into the world of business,
(14:31):
it's the same thing.
And so I started diving down atthe value of story recently.
And I started looking at, okay,these brands have great
backstories.
It's Coca Cola or whatever.
Nike, whatever that backstoryis.
We all know those backstories.
We know The, sort of linear arcof Nike and, how, where
different celebrities came inalong the way, like Michael
Jordan and how that changed thecompany.
(14:52):
And we know all those greatbackstories.
So I found online, and thisisn't, this was really amazing.
It was like a light bulb momentfor me.
There is this study that wasdone in 2009 called the
significant objects study wherethese researchers and it,
forgive me, I don't remembertheir names, but if you look up,
if you Google significantobjects study, they've got their
own website.
And they went, these researcherswanted to prove there was actual
(15:17):
monetary value in story forbrands.
They went to yard sales and fleamarkets and they bought about
200 little trinkets.
These little, whatever it was, akeychain from Florida, a little
plastic horse that some girlplayed with, whatever.
They bought 200 of thesetrinkets.
And the trinkets were all valuebetween a dollar and two
(15:39):
dollars.
There was nothing more than twodollars.
They spent three, four hundreddollars on these trinkets.
They then hired writers to writea backstory for those trinkets.
Each one of them.
And they put them on eBay forsale along with the backstory.
And you know what happened?
That 1.
25 little plastic horse sold for65 because it had that
(16:04):
backstory.
And that study has beencorroborated 10 or 11 times
since, so it's not just a oneoff kind of thing.
And here's the craziest part ofit all, Paul.
They told the buyer that thestory wasn't real.
Here's a fake story that awriter wrote for this little
tchotchke.
And the tchotchke cost us 1.
25.
We're selling it to you for 65.
(16:24):
And they, were all purchased.
They made a 3, 000 percentincrease in, ROI or revenue.
And so it really dawned on me.
Oh my gosh, if that's strong, ifyou have a strong backstory.
And it's weird to say, even ifit's fake, but if you have
something that can anchor your,product, your brand, your
service, you are actually goingto increase the value of those
(16:47):
things.
You will generate more revenueif that's what you care about.
But you have to have that reallystrong creative backstory.
Paul (16:56):
I think that's a beautiful way of describing the real value
that, that, that story can haveon things.
I know if I think, if I think ofany brand that I align with, I
know their backstory, the onesthat I don't align with, the
ones that I don't just don'tcare about.
I don't know their backstory.
You might have them, but don'tcare about them enough to,
(17:17):
understand it.
So there's definitely somethingin that, when somebody asks me,
Paul, what services do youprovide in Javelin Content?
I don't dive into the services.
I intentionally don't dive intothe services.
I dive into why I offer theservices, how I got there, and
why I'm different.
And I explain all that firstbefore I even talk to them about
(17:38):
the services.
And if they look bored when I'mtelling them that, it's a really
good indicator to me that weshouldn't work together.
Adrian (17:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Paul (17:45):
cause I'm going to do this all the time.
I'm going to tell you storieswhether you like it or not.
Adrian (17:49):
Yeah,
Paul (17:49):
handle the stories, we shouldn't work together.
Okay,
Adrian (17:52):
Yeah,
Paul (17:53):
and then the really crazy people make it to Whatsapp.
And then the real stories
Adrian (17:57):
Oh, man.
Paul (17:57):
through.
But
Adrian (17:58):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
exactly.
When you're anonymous.
yeah,
Paul (18:02):
yeah,
Adrian (18:03):
about this, man, if someone bought that tchotchke, I
just realized now, sorry to cutyou off, but they bought that
little horse tchotchke Imentioned, and they put it on,
they bought it because they wantto put it on the mantle at their
house so that when their friendsand family come over, they have
something to talk about and theycan tell that story.
And I think that's what we want.
I think that's what, it's weirdto say this because the customer
(18:23):
wants the product or they wantthe service, right?
They need that thing.
So that's important.
But I think they also want thestory.
It's weird.
I don't know that they go aroundtelling their friends I bought
these new shoes, but let me tellyou the story behind the shoes.
I don't think that happens, butI think inherently we want that
story?
I don't know.
It feels natural to me to wantit.
Paul (18:45):
I think, imagine a situation where it's you versus
somebody, like a competitor.
Versus you in the marketplace,and there's a customer kind of
sat there, they've shortlistedboth of you, you both provide
the services that customerneeds, you your messaging all
kind of aligns, the price pointsroughly about right, and you're
probably maybe slightly bit moreexpensive than your competition,
(19:08):
but then you lead with a story,and you tell them why you do
what you do, and that transformsthe customer's opinion of you,
And they start to see you as waymore of an authority.
They differentiate you fromeverybody else.
They can see that you've been intheir shoes perhaps, or you,
understand them on an emotionallevel.
(19:30):
People will pay more for thatall day long.
They'll pay more for thatservice because they know that
you get them.
Therefore, you're not going tolet them down.
Whereas competitor A over here.
They might provide all the sameservices, they might do a really
good job, they might do a betterjob than you do, but because
they're a gamble, you always gofor safe.
we always choose what's safe andwhat's credible.
(19:52):
And, much the same as if youlook on Amazon and you try and
buy something on Amazon I don'tlook for the positive reviews
first.
Nobody does.
If I come across a productthat's 5 star reviews I ain't
buying it because it's notgenuine.
If it's 4.
5, 4.
5 stars, brilliant.
What's wrong with it?
And can I live with that?
Cause if I can live with that,otherwise it's got a pretty
(20:13):
perfect rating.
I like it.
I'll buy that.
Adrian (20:16):
Yeah.
Yeah,
Paul (20:23):
like, Oh, I'm, you know what's coming, right?
I'm like, oh, here's a, pramthat, that's my seven year old's
grown out of it now three yearsago, but it's, been left in the
garage.
We've looked after it, but it'sbeen left in the garage.
It's really lonely.
It's had a good innings.
We've, got lots of memoriesattached to this.
We've had our first footballgame in there.
We've, done this, that, theother.
(20:43):
Please put it to a good home.
I'm looking for respectableparents to come along and buy
this and put it to some good usecause we really care about this
pram.
And you get people messaging youlike, that message is brilliant,
I'm gonna tell all my friendsabout it.
not hard we all have stories,and yet I still come across
people who claim that they don'thave a story.
My story's boring, you don'twanna know.
(21:06):
Do you think that's true ofanyone?
Cause, I have to, I doubt it.
I just think
Adrian (21:11):
no, we talked
Paul (21:12):
out your story.
Adrian (21:14):
you and I talked about before the show, some, first
off, I want to say, there's alot of things I want to say, but
first off, you said you don'thave any employees, but the
people in your business are us,the people you interview, and I
think that's brilliant, becauseI would love to do that, by the
way, as a living, it'd be greatto just keep meeting new people,
but yeah, no, I think they're,Look, when you're in a business
that has no differentiatorcompared to your competitors,
(21:36):
that really sets you apart.
I was in that business.
It was a property restoration.
We were all the same, right?
It was a, it wasn't a commoditynecessarily, but it was, every
company basically did the exactsame thing.
The only differentiator you havein that business That is your
story.
That's it.
And so you have to have a betterstory.
And like you just said, if youcan just, I think everyone has a
(21:57):
story.
Some people don't want to tellit.
Some people are afraid to tellit, like we, you and I talked
about before the podcast, someof your guests, you have to
really pull out the story fromthem.
And why is that?
what's, and obviously that goesinto a whole, psychological
trauma, a childhood kind ofthing that I'm not qualified to
talk about, but I do havefriends that are like that.
He just, and it gets hardbecause you want I tell a story,
(22:20):
you respond, you tell a story, Irespond.
That's the natural course ofthings.
In the market, it's the samenatural course of things.
You tell a story, a customerresponds, so it's, it's
definitely It can be definitelytough if they don't want to tell
their story.
Paul (22:36):
show a couple of weeks back, Andrew Wood.
And Andrew has a fantasticbackstory.
So he grew up with dyslexia,potentially ADHD.
We're not sure, dyslexia was theonly thing that was diagnosed
for him.
So he, hangs his hat on that andit wasn't diagnosed until he was
in his mid teens, by which pointhe was already in trouble.
He ended up in the prisonsystem.
He had a conscious choice to getout of that.
(22:57):
And now runs a 10 million pounda year business and growing
rapidly, right?
A complete transformation, abrilliant story.
And we recorded this storytwice, cause we had a tech
failure the first time, we lostthe first episode.
But I, I remember recording itwith him a few weeks before and
he was really anxious andhalfway through he's telling me
like, I don't do marketing, I'mnot a marketing person.
I just came on to help share mystory and X, Y and Z and and
(23:20):
then we re recorded and he'd hadtime to think about some of the
things that I'd said to himabout, you know what, I think
that's a really powerful storyand you should share it and,
work on it.
And it, and he came back on theshow as a completely different
person.
And the episode that you'll seereleased into the public was so
much more.
It flowed so much nicer.
It was, you could see there waspassion behind what he was
saying.
(23:40):
He wasn't deflecting and makinghimself sound as though he
didn't know what he was doing.
Cause he absolutely does knowwhat he's doing.
It's just not a consciouschoice.
But the story's in there.
The story was there and he knewthat the story had real power
for his business.
But he's also conscious.
He doesn't want to come acrossas, using that story for
revenue, right?
Like it's not, and that's notwhat he's about.
(24:02):
He's about, I want to impactyoung people who might end up in
that same situation.
That is a powerful story.
It's not why you should buy fromme, but it does help you
remember me if that makes sense.
Adrian (24:12):
yeah, I can't even ima I don't No, I don't know Andrew,
but I would say that I wouldhazard to guess that the past
still, pun pump punches him inthe face every day.
In other words I would imaginethat even with his success now
and growing success, that hestill feels that, like the guy
(24:32):
who went to prison, do you knowwhat I mean?
He feels, feel, still feels likethat young thug or whatever, or
whatever the term is.
We all have that.
And then that in that initialround with you.
That came up and that blockedhim and that made him insecure
and nervous.
And then maybe because of theinitial round, he felt
comfortable, had some storieswith you and felt, okay, I can
talk to this person.
(24:53):
He's, like minded and I canconnect.
And that opened up on the secondround.
I don't know, but I wouldimagine it's gotta be tough.
It's gotta be tough for peoplewho are highly successful that
came from nothing because theymust always have the nothing
creeping up in their ear,telling them that they don't
know what they're doing.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think we all go through thatto some degree.
ahem, we talked about brandsearlier and my god, think about
(25:17):
Apple.
What a great, I think that's theone legacy of Steve Jobs people
don't talk enough about.
is The You The stories that hecreated.
he and or the people at Appleunder him.
And the company is, I think,faltering a little bit lately.
I've been hearing some badthings about the new phone, and
there's not a lot of good designbehind the new update, etc, Who
knows?
I'm not a tech person.
But I would just say that ifthey get back to any company
(25:41):
that falters after many years ofsuccess, you've got to get back
to that story.
What was that original storythat was being told?
It's highly valuable, and Ican't.
I can't express that enough forany business leader.
It just got to know your storyand it's got to be, an impactful
story.
Paul (25:58):
I think there's an interesting thing in that as
well around storytellers whoCreate stories within their
business community as well.
And that's what Steve Jobs wasreally good at.
Like you said, it wasn't justabout Steve Jobs story or a
Wozniak story, the story ofApple, that's fine.
But there was a proliferation ofstories that came afterwards
(26:19):
that people will quote until theend of time about how to do
business or how not to dobusiness.
And you've got to think thatwhilst they might not have been
intentional at the time, theywere captured.
Somebody captured them.
and retold them and they built abusiness and a culture within
that business where storytellingwas part of the culture.
(26:42):
And, I've got friends who workin Nike and they get trained on
storytelling, right?
They have to go away.
You get to a certain level ofleadership, they have to go away
and learn to tell stories,right?
And I think that's brilliant.
that
Adrian (26:53):
fantastic.
Paul (26:54):
wow.
Because can you imagine thedifference between, your team
leader meetings and it doesn'tmatter what part of the business
you're from, whether you'recustomer services, loss
prevention, retail, they all goaway and learn to tell stories
so that they can relayinformation properly to their
business.
Adrian (27:09):
That's super important because the company has to be
aligned across all verticals onthe story.
that was something that I wantedto bring up as well.
So you're a hundred percentright.
I think they're brilliant.
Send everybody off to learn howto tell stories, then tell them
the story we're telling.
And everyone, whether it'scustomer service, receiving a
call or it's product design oryeah, they all are aligned with
the, same story.
Paul (27:29):
Or whatever.
You just tell the story and letpeople tell
Adrian (27:32):
Yeah.
Paul (27:33):
Amazing.
Guys, let's just go sit aroundthe campfire.
I've got a story to tell you.
Adrian (27:37):
Yeah,
Paul (27:37):
it?
Oh, it's a business update, butyou're going to like this one.
Adrian (27:39):
Yeah.
Paul (27:39):
this one.
So many years ago.
Adrian (27:42):
Yeah.
Paul (27:44):
Wow.
Y'all, I want to, get thenewsletter.
I want to get the update thisweek.
What is it?
What's the update?
There was this guy in marketingand he thought it would be
amazing.
Adrian (27:55):
That would be amazing.
Those team meetings where youjust tell them the stories.
Yeah.
Oh, it'd be fantastic.
Paul (28:01):
I just.
For those businesses out therethen, that are think, sat there
thinking, we don't really have aback story.
What sort of processes would youencourage them to go through to
help them find their back story?
Cause I know what my advicewould be, I'm keen to see what
yours is.
Adrian (28:17):
Yeah it's not gonna be a business thing.
It's gonna be a improvisationalcomedy thing, if you can believe
it.
In my early life before I becamea producer, I was on the
creative side.
I was writing, as and before Iwas writing, I was in film
school.
And then after Film school.
I went to the second cityimprovisational comedy in
Chicago where I grew up, and Itook classes there and I took
(28:38):
close those classes to become abetter writer.
And I learned two or three sortof tricks of the trade when it
comes to storytelling.
And the first most importantthing in my opinion is
discovery.
So we talked about the backstoryof the characters of a John
Hughes movie, or the backstoryof your, brand.
What discovery is the, reasonthere's that there's the reason
(29:02):
for that backstory.
Imagine you're, just, you'rewalking down the street in your
neighborhood, or let's just saya fictional character, walking
down the street in aneighborhood, and he sees a,
Some trash on the ground.
However, he reacts to that inthat moment, tells you, the
audience, something about him.
So his discovery of the trash isour discovery of him.
(29:23):
He might be angry that there'speople throwing trash on the
ground and he may be Kicks thetrash, ah, he gets all upset,
or, maybe he's the nice guy whopicks it up and puts it into the
bin.
Whoever he is, we learn in thatone moment.
And then the movie is basically,or the story you're telling, is
basically a series ofdiscoveries.
I, he's gonna do this now, okay,now we've got five discoveries,
(29:44):
I get it.
He's the angry guy who hates,litter bugs.
And I know how he's gonna reactin this next moment coming up,
because I know who he is now.
So that discovery is a processthat has to happen, I believe,
within the team.
And I've done this a milliontimes with marketing teams,
where we discover that the storywe're telling really isn't the
(30:04):
character that is that brand.
It's a story that made sensemaybe two years ago when someone
who else was leading marketingwanted to create something that
would get customers attention,but it's not authentic to the
brand.
So you have to go back.
Who, is the brand?
What is it?
Is it male?
Is it female?
Is it both?
What is, What do they do whenthey see trash?
What does the brand character dowhen it sees trash on the
(30:25):
ground?
that's where I would start.
And then, the practicality ofwriting the story.
Oh, I can see you're trying tojump in.
Paul (30:34):
No, I'm just my, I'm, yeah.
Brain's farting at a millionmiles an hour.
I love what you're saying.
I'm just excited.
I love listening to you talkingabout storytelling.
It's fine.
Carry on.
Adrian (30:46):
so it's perfect.
On the practicality side, thisis something we do, that I did
in screenwriting, and in anykind of writing where there's a
story with characters, and thosecharacters have to interact.
But this could be transferred tothe business realm and I'll talk
in a second about how thatworks.
but simply, the old adage it'scalled get in early, sorry, get
(31:10):
in late and get out early.
If you have a scene, twocharacters meet in a room and
they talk and they come to someconclusion and then they leave,
oftentimes in filmmaking orregular storytelling in books or
theater you don't have thecharacters enter the room.
And start to talk unless thatentrance and is super important
(31:32):
to the plot of the movie forsome reason you they're already
in the room so and oftentimesThe best storytelling is when
you as the audience come intothe room and they're already in
conversation.
They don't start theconversation.
They've already started a minuteago.
They've gone through all thesurface stuff that we go through
when we have conversations andnow they're at the meat of the
(31:52):
conversation and that's what wecare about.
So why not just jump to that?
The other thing is when yourlead character, when it's
obvious to the audience or toyour character that she or he is
going to obtain their goal forthat scene.
I've come to this room to getthe money that person owes me.
And once they realize that oncethat person either hands over
(32:14):
the money or they realize thatperson's never going to hand
over the money, in other words,there's a resolution in the
character's mind, the scene'sover.
Anything after that is a wasteof time and so you get out.
In other words, you get in late,you get out early, you're
focused on the meat of it.
You see where I'm going withthis?
So from a practical standpoint,when you're working on a story
(32:36):
for your brand, you don't needto tell every last detail of the
history of your brand to get tothe point that the customer
really cares about.
You can give a little Short,brief intro, but then get to the
point.
And so that, and then get outearly so that they're wanting
more.
They want to read the next storyand they want to click to the
next page.
And, a, they're just tricks ofthe trade, so to speak, but
(32:57):
they, work across business aswell.
And that's why there's a robustbusiness around improvisational
comedy training for businessexecutives, because all of these
things are brought up in thattraining.
Paul (33:10):
I think that's some really powerful advice Adrian I'd loved
it if so if you're watchingalong and, you're taking notes
and you want to if you're doingthis, you put this into
practice, send me a message andlet me know.
I want to know, cause I want topass it on to Adrian.
We're not fishing for businesshere.
I want to know who's puttingthis into practice and
discovering things aboutthemselves and about the
business from what we're talkingabout here.
(33:32):
And my two cents on the end ofthat, I'm going all American
here, my two cents on the end ofthat.
Adrian (33:37):
Yeah.
Paul (33:38):
Is tell your story every chance you get.
don't, tell it for the sake oftelling it, but do it for the
sake of teaching yourself yourstory.
And, watch for the reactions asyou tell your story.
And if you come to say somethingand it gets a reaction from the
other person, put that in thenext time.
(33:58):
If it doesn't get a reaction,change what you said.
Change how you see it.
Go down a different pathslightly.
And wait for the reaction.
And if you're getting reactions,then you're telling an engaging
story.
And, you might need to do alittle bit of lead up to get the
reaction, right?
You might need to give a bit ofboring information in order to
be able to talk about this bitover here, that is actually
(34:20):
really interesting and excitingfor people to hear about.
But I've found that, I don'tknow, I've reinvented myself for
four industries now.
And I love networking, I lovebuilding new, it's tough to
build a whole new network in awhole new industry.
But the one thing that kept megoing through it was, I'd start
with a really short story aboutwhy I'm in that industry.
(34:42):
And then I'd build on it, stepby step, and have lots of
conversations, repeat thatstory, and gradually make it
longer, until it's long enough.
Doesn't need to be a long story,but it needs to be long enough.
That when you then dive intoyour services or products or
whatever it is that you're thengoing to talk to them about,
they're open to it becauseyou've shared something about
(35:02):
yourself.
You've shared your journey andthey get why you're doing what
you're doing now.
They align or don't align withyou.
And it becomes very easy alsowhen you do that.
If you build that step by step.
To find the people who youshouldn't work with.
We talked about this before,before the show, right?
A couple of times I've told mystory, and I can see people are
(35:24):
like, I'm going to type it on myemails, all that.
If you're not going to listen tomy story, we shouldn't work
together.
Because I'm going to have totell your story.
You're not going to give me therespect of me, you listening to
my story, then we shouldn't worktogether.
Because you clearly don't careabout the story enough.
And that's a big red flag for meand my business.
I hope that's useful for folksout there who feel like they
(35:46):
don't have a story.
Now you've got Adrian's inputthere on how you can start to
shape that story behind thescenes.
How you can start to figureyourself out and discover what
your story is.
Don't try and tell that wholestory at once all on day one.
Build on it so that you get afeel for what resonates and what
doesn't.
(36:06):
And, you can create the storythat you want to create, as long
as it's true.
Adrian (36:12):
Yeah, let me double click on that for you really
quick, which, I 100 percentagree.
You have to go out and tell yourstory a thousand times.
Whatever that, remember that,what's that thing?
you learn something after 10,000 times.
It's like the same thing.
You, tell the story.
And by the way, during thatprocess, the story is going to
evolve.
(36:33):
Now, this is a big question foryou, Paul.
I wonder what your thoughts areon this, because it seems like
in some parts of our societies,we hate when stories evolve.
You, Mr.
Politician, said two years ago,you believed in this, but now
you believe in that?
I don't trust you.
But is it okay for those storiesto evolve?
They tend to evolve naturallyfor all of us and what you're
talking about as you go out andtell that same story, it's going
(36:55):
to evolve.
It's going to become sharper.
That'll be for sure.
Maybe the core story doesn'tchange, but the sharpness of it
changes.
But is it okay for a brand toevolve its story over time?
I tend to think it's okay.
I can't think of any realexamples in the moment right now
of a brand that did that, but.
I know brands rebrand, theychange their stories, people
change their stories, but from aplace of making them better?
(37:19):
I don't know.
What are your thoughts aboutthat?
Is the evolution of a storyokay?
Paul (37:23):
I think to evolve a story is fine.
It's when you try and wholesalechange the story and tell a
different story, or you changethe end point of the story.
You can't change your vision,right?
If you're a brand, you can'tchange your vision, unless
you've outgrown your vision,which is fine.
I set out to help a thousandpeople, I've helped a thousand
people, now I want to help tenthousand people.
(37:44):
Alright, fine.
But, Dr.
Martens, as a prime example Dr.
Martens will always be Dr.
Martens.
There is no getting away fromtheir backstory, there is no
getting away from what theystand for, and who they serve,
and who they work with.
And if they tried to do that, itwould kill their brand and their
identity.
I think, evolution is the keyword I think it has to evolve to
(38:06):
an extent.
There is always more to it.
You've got to make it relevantto now.
You can't tell the same story 30years later and hope that it
still resonates with the currentaudience because they're going
to be looking for differentthings and you have to tell the
story in a different way toresonate with them.
much about that.
It's just about you've got it.
As long as you're staying trueto your vision and your goals
(38:26):
and your story, the story has toevolve.
That's human nature, right?
Adrian (38:31):
yeah.
think about this too.
The bottom of the marketingfunnel or just the sales funnel,
the business funnel the bottomafter conversion, after sale is
the golden thing that everyone'sgoing after, which is loyalty or
it's advocate.
We wanted to not just make acustomer, we want to make an
advocate.
What does that mean?
We want them to go tell ourstory.
(38:53):
And that customer is going totell the story that they've
learned during their practice.
They're learnings of your brandand purchase, et cetera, and
using the products or service.
And so they may, the customersmay become part of the
storytelling.
They become part of theauthorship of your brand.
And you could wake up 10 yearsfrom now and realize your brand
is not the story you've beentelling.
(39:13):
It's the story that thecustomers have been telling to
the world, and it's becomesomething else.
So there's a natural evolution,I think, to successful business
when the customers get involvedin telling the story.
Paul (39:23):
and that's when you know you've nailed that, real power
behind the
Adrian (39:27):
Right.
Paul (39:28):
believe in you so much, you've become a cause.
Adrian (39:30):
That's right.
That's right.
And you also probably feel likeI've never been a part of that.
So I don't know what that feelslike from a, like a founder's
standpoint or a leadershipstandpoint.
It must feel weird because it'sout of your control at that
point.
The story is in the hands of thepublic and, hopefully it'll be a
positive one.
That continues rather than onethat shifts the other way.
(39:51):
But yeah, it's just, it's awhole thing.
It's, I just love it.
I love telling stories.
I love experiencing stories.
And I love thinking about howall of that applies to
everything that we do every dayin our lives, not just business,
but in our lives.
Paul (40:06):
Adrian, I could quite happily sit here for the next 4
hours and discuss storytelling,like it doesn't ever seem to get
boring, right?
like, you'd think a 40, minuteconversation on storytelling
would start to dry up.
I've probably got more questionsbouncing around in my head now
than when we first started.
But I can't possibly ask peopleto listen to more than what
(40:26):
we've recorded in one go.
I don't know, maybe we have todo a round three, I don't know.
Maybe it becomes
Adrian (40:30):
I think so.
Yeah,
Paul (40:31):
podcast, I don't know.
Let's just start a new podcast,I don't know.
The storytelling podcast.
Adrian (40:36):
Yeah.
I'd be down for that if you wantto do
Paul (40:42):
As ever, it was a genuine pleasure chatting with you today
and I'd like to think that thepeople at home who've watched
along take some great stepstowards being able to tell their
own story in a convincing wayafter listening to what I think
of as a masterclass, right?
I think that is brilliant.
Adrian (40:59):
Oh, thank you.
Paul (41:01):
thank you very much for being a fantastic guest once
again.
Adrian (41:04):
this has been a great pleasure of mine.
I can't thank you enough forasking me to come on twice.
This has been, it feels so goodto hear that it's something is
successful that you're involvedwith.
So tha and, that's because ofyou, Paul.
So thanks to you and Mark Paulsand, the whole group.
I, I really appreciate your timeand giving me the time
Paul (41:20):
Thank you to the audience who are everything why we do
this podcast in the first place,cause without sharing things
that people will resonate with,there's no point to the podcast,
so thank you as well.
Listeners, viewers, forrecording, watching along,
following, subscribing, whateveryou do, thank you because this
is all for you.
Brilliant.
(41:41):
All right, that's enough backpatting.
I will see you all next week.
Peace
Adrian (41:44):
Cheers.
Bye.
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