May 15, 2025 • 30 mins
Garrett Hammonds and Nolan Rogers tackle a fundamental human element: Storytelling. From dissecting the basic components of a story to debating if a story needs an audience, they reveal why narratives are more than just entertainment – they are the programming language of humanity18. Learn how ancient tales influence modern life and the surprising ways stories drive business decisions. This episode offers insights into the complex relationship between storytelling, ethical marketing, and human connection. Understand why knowing your audience's story is key and how building your own narrative is essential for your brand and personal growth. Don't miss this deep dive into the power and necessity of stories in our lives and work.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
Business
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Solutions Business Solutions We back.
It's me, Garrett Hammons, andNolan Rogers, and it has been an
incredible day.
Today's going to be a little bitdifferent, though.
(00:29):
Nolan, tell everybody what...
the heck we're actually doingwith this podcast.
Well, so practically, there isan ulterior motive.
If one of us is ever to get sickor a guest is unable to appear
on the podcast, this is here foryour listening pleasures.
You're welcome.
But secondly, we both areconsummate storytellers,
(00:50):
officially in one form orfashion or another, and it seems
to be a pretty regular trend andtheme with people that either A,
They don't know what storiesthey need to tell themselves.
B, they don't know how to tellthe stories themselves.
Or C, they don't even know whatthat is.
So let's open the floor ingeneral between the two of us as
(01:12):
far as let's just talk aboutstorytelling.
Let's talk about how we cameacross the skill set of that,
how we would define it, and whatdo we do with it when other
people don't know how.
Yeah.
I mean, I think you touched onit right there where what– What
even is a story?
How do we define a story?
(01:33):
It's a huge question.
It's gigantic.
And I guess we can just make itreally simple.
And I would argue, let's justmake it a simple linguistic
thing of a story as a subject, averb, and an object.
A thing that is doing a thing.
The action that it is taking ona thing that is having something
(01:54):
done to it.
It's just a sentence.
A story is a complete sentence.
I like it.
It's interesting on my end, youknow, there's...
When we start flushing out somany different types of stories,
and, you know, a story, the waythat we first get introduced to
(02:17):
it in, like, grade school is youhave your rising action and
your...
Your, you know, climaxes andyour falling actions and, you
know, those things, those thingsmatter.
But I think something that has aplot and, and a purpose behind
it, you know, is that.
(02:41):
is that a story or does it haveto have other characteristics in
order to be able to, to qualify?
Well, and it's, it's the sameissue of in business, a minimum
viable product, right?
Like what are we going toconsider the minimum viable
story that we're going toaccept?
But if we have, you know,poetry, we have haiku, we have
anything that can say the leafripples on the water period.
(03:05):
Like that's a story.
It conjures an image in yourmind, right?
And it also takes you someplacedepending upon how you tell that
simple sentence.
So is a story something thatexists if there is no one there
to hear it?
And I'm going to argue yes.
(03:26):
I think so too.
Mostly because I'm a fan ofPlato myself.
I'm a recovering Aristotelianphilosopher.
But I would argue that all...
story exists in this kind ofperfect ethereal state, just
somewhere, just based upon howstories come to me, how other
artists describe how thingsappear before them, or just how
(03:47):
things arrive in the world.
We have to take ourselves andkind of put a backseat on what
we presume we do as far asstorytelling.
I would almost argue thatstories themselves have their
own agency and they just findwhoever they need to tell it
through.
Yeah.
I think one characteristic thatI really like seeing
(04:11):
incorporated in a story, though,is that stories really, in order
to be useful, have to havemeaning behind them.
They have to have purpose.
And so when Jack and Jill wentup the hill, I need to figure
(04:33):
out Why in the world, if they'refalling down, who cares?
I fell down when I was a kid.
Well, and funny you mentionedJack and Jill.
So Jack and Jill went up thehill.
Jack fell down, broke his crown,and Jill came tumbling after.
Right after him.
Right after him.
Most of our Grimm's fairy tales,our nursery rhymes, a lot of
(04:54):
those linguistically andhistorically...
have roots going back tens ofthousands of years to things
that we would see in the sky,and Jack and Jill in particular,
is about the sun and the moonand the eclipse cycle.
And so we've had these storiesabout the sun and his sister
going about their business doingthings, Artemis and Apollo.
I mean, all the saints and thenthe ladies that would follow him
(05:17):
around.
We have these understandings ofthese sovereign beings that go
up and rise to a high place, andthen they come together and fall
back down.
Something bad happens.
And Jack and Jill going up thehill is one of those stories
that just mirrors somethingwe've seen in the sky forever.
Yeah.
And it's then the question of,well, why do we keep telling
(05:39):
those stories?
Why are those important?
Why do we sing those littlerhymes to our kids even though
we don't necessarily even knowwhat they mean?
UNKNOWN (05:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (05:47):
And I would argue that it's because it's one of
the necessary functions of life.
I don't think humans as asentient conscious being that is
somehow different from animals.
We were not entirely sure how,but I'm going to argue that we
are one form or fashion oranother.
And storytelling is that facet.
I think without stories,humanity and how we experience
(06:08):
our lives doesn't exist.
I'm going to, I'm going to yes.
And you here too.
I had a, a, communicationscourse in college that was about
narrative theory.
And I actually, I think thatevery single one of our lives is
a, is a living narrative.
It's a living story.
And those lived narratives, um,that's why I kind of asked you,
(06:32):
do you have to have an audience?
And, and in some sense, if, ifthere's something you are
telling as a story, you are justas much an audience as, as
somebody who's listening.
Um, And so when we apply this tobusinesses, or just everyday
(06:53):
life, what are the ways we canput stories into effect that are
useful?
How do we incorporate them intoour everyday lives?
Well, one, this dovetailsperfectly into The Crow.
I've been having to eat for thepast three months of realizing
that people didn't care aboutwhatever business name I came up
(07:15):
with to describe what I do.
People cared about Nolan ClayRogers.
People purchase my story and theproducts of what's come out of
that story.
People don't necessarilypurchase Hammond's Media.
They purchase Garrett and Grace.
I would argue that the way thatwe start narrowing this down is
we have to presume up front thata business owner, all the
(07:39):
relevant constituents, and theemployees, those individual
stories are what peoplepurchase.
Yeah, I think the businesses whodo it right.
But then it's a strange...
it's a strange conversation whenyou start to scale, um, because
(08:01):
say somebody like Sephora,Sephora is incredible at their,
their content that they produce,telling the stories of their
individual store managers andthe influencers who, um, you
know, help to get their productout there.
But then it's like, you know,you look at, at, um, I don't
(08:26):
know, Ford, Ford, you have, youhave these macro stories being
told, but it's more of like,like lifestyles and we do buy
things because of a brand thatwe relate to.
other people who also have thebrand.
(08:47):
So the story takes a differentform.
It's not about the individualsat the company.
It's about the individuals intheir community who also
associate with that samelifestyle and brand.
And that's part of the problemwhere people get into the issue
of ethical business or a goodsalesman versus a sleazy
(09:07):
salesman.
It's the question that I have toask a lot of my clients in
session is, whose stories areyou running off of?
Are you running off of storiesthat you and your family
generated for yourself based onyour own best understanding of
the world and you and yourcontext within it?
Or are you running off ofstories that you've only read in
books and seen on TV and havebeen just packaged and handed to
(09:30):
you to make your neurons fire atthe expected rates to get you to
buy?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's something that...
It's a huge problem in themarketing industry because...
We don't really have any—we haveunspoken ethical handbooks, but
(09:50):
we don't have a whole lot ofregulatory bodies in place for
this.
Now, there are certain thingsthat, you know, there are legal
requirements of it, but there'sa lot of tactics that, you know,
we call them—oh, there's a newname for them— subversive
(10:14):
patterns.
It's essentially manipulatingpeople.
And so stories are powerful, butnot always in the right ways.
And there's kind of then thecuriosity, because what you're
mentioning is just a tool.
So we can also argue that asubversive pattern is my
understanding that I can shiftmy tone to ask my daughter a
(10:36):
question, and I can getdifferent results based on the
tone.
So am I a a more or less moralperson for shifting my tone
upwards to get her to payattention to me and shift where
she's paying attention to?
Am I immoral for having to shiftmy tone to be monotonous and
lower in order for her tounderstand the seriousness of a
(10:56):
situation?
And I would argue the use of thetool isn't the manipulation.
It's not the moral wrong.
No, it's the intent.
So it's like if I'm marketing...
you know, using some of these,these subversive patterns.
I hope that's the right, theright terminology for it.
Sounds good for now.
I accept the story.
(11:17):
And I'm marketing a product topeople who are living off of the
retirement funds who maybe can'tafford it, but I'm going to
convince them using X, Y, and Zto do it anyway, through my
storytelling or the, the, youknow, all the different tactics
that I incorporate.
And then now they are moreimpoverished.
(11:42):
Maybe they, they can't get, youknow, the next meal, but they
have whatever I sold them, youknow?
So that's, that's, you know,pattern, the exact same tactics
can be used.
And in one instance, be ethical.
And in another instance, beunethical.
Exactly.
And I, part of me argues thatthe reason why one is more
(12:06):
ethical than the other, becausea company wants to be able to
sell its product, right?
That is the spoken understandingof like somebody that has a
business talks to you.
It's like they have something tosell you.
Right.
But the problem, especially inthat old retirement age folks,
why they're so preyed upon isbecause they're alone.
Nobody talks to them.
Nobody checks in on them.
(12:27):
And so what does that mean?
They have a deficit of stories.
They don't have their kidscalling them up every other day
and seeing how they're doing,hearing the story of the past
few days and then being able totell them their own stories.
But if the only phone callthey've gotten that's a real
human is somebody selling themsomething and they're selling it
with verve and excitement andthey're able to connect with
(12:49):
them and use some of thoserapport building techniques that
most salesmen know, that's theonly human interaction they've
had that has made them feelgood.
Yeah.
In who knows how long.
And that's really the perniciousportion is outsourcing agency
to, well, it's the salesmen orthe marketers.
Well, they're just the bad guys.
(13:09):
I would argue that it's thecommunity we entrench ourselves
in that is at more fault forbad, unethical marketing
techniques working in the firstplace.
Yeah.
Well, and it's interestingbecause there are some things
most of the time in life thatwe're going through, especially
nowadays, we're filling ourschedules.
(13:30):
And so, sorry, going off on alittle bit of a different
direction, but hopefully I'llfollow.
But the things we fill our liveswith, we're always trying to
find shortcuts to save time inother places.
Dr.
Robert Cialdini, who's a big guywithin the behavioral marketing
(13:52):
space, he It calls them clickwords because it's the sound of
a tape recorder when you pressplay.
It's, you know, it just goesaround.
But it's these automaticresponses that we, not
everyone's susceptible to themin the same ways, but most of
the time as a general rule, weare.
You know, for instance, when weuse the word because in a
(14:17):
sentence, there was a big studythat was done where somebody was
wanting to, Cut in line.
And, you know, in one instance,there were several different
instances, so I'll butcher it ifI try and do the whole thing.
But essentially, if the controlis not saying because, but
(14:38):
asking you to cut in line, andthen saying, hey, can I cut in
line because, insert whatever,the study found that whether
there was...
a reasonable thing after thebecause or an unreasonable
thing.
If it was just a repeatment,hey, can I cut in line because I
really need to cut in line?
(14:58):
It still had a much higherpercentage of people letting you
cut.
It's just wild to me.
There's so many things out therethat our brains just process in
such unique ways.
Well, and it's also...
It speaks to human craving aswell, because if you just cut in
(15:18):
line, but you don't give anybodya reason, that's a lack of a
story, right?
And so anybody that sees you cutin line say, hey, there's no
reason.
The story here is that we're allafter this thing.
And the rules are, you've got todo this, that, and the other.
But when we tell a small becausestory, I've got to cut in line
real quick because I have thisreally big meeting that I've got
coming up and it's going toreally affect my promotion for
(15:40):
my wife and kids.
Whether that story is true ornot, it makes a person feel
special.
And it engenders pro-socialbehavior of, oh, I'm helping
this person.
I'm doing them a favor.
And it's kind of back to whatmakes, say, unethical sales work
is a lack of human connection.
And so if we just understandthat storytelling, it's not only
(16:01):
something that is required forus to live good lives, we spend
billions of dollars acrossmultiple industries for
storytelling entertainment, forbusiness purposes, for making a
profit, but also just in our ownlives.
We see little things happen, andwe don't necessarily know why,
but we tell ourselves a storyabout them.
And so it just really unfoldsback to how...
(16:26):
It just seems to be that we needstories so much we will accept
any story that comes across us,especially if it's a bigger
story than the one we're livingright now.
And I think that's where thepernicious nature of some of the
unethical things come in isrealizing that a lot of people
aren't living a very big story.
And what is our duty as peoplethat are entrenched in a
(16:48):
community, in a global exchangeof ideas?
What stories should we betelling?
I think, I think, um, so mybrain, I, I straight away want
to go to like, like tackletactical conversations.
Like in this instance, we tellthese stories in this instance,
we, you know, but I love where,where we've gone today in that,
(17:12):
you know, stories are aboutconnection.
Stories are about beingunderstood, you know, somebody
on the phone, if you, you know,If you haven't had a lot of
human connection and somebody isgiving you a sales pitch where
they seemingly understand you,it's going to make a big impact.
(17:37):
And then you layer on top ofthat a bunch of other...
human conditioning things fromrepeated patterns of stories
where we assume something, evenif that's not what's happening
in the stories being told to us.
That's one really interestingelement is...
(18:03):
Let's talk a little bit, if youdon't mind, about the
understanding portion.
How do we use stories to beunderstood?
Mm-hmm.
So this is kind of not aroundabout way of getting to
that.
How do we use stories to beunderstood?
But which stories help usunderstand life itself is also
(18:26):
an interesting direction to gofirst.
Because Bruno Bettelheim, he wasa child psychologist about the
60s and 70s.
And he learned that children whowere just raised on the little
engine that could, just chuggingup the hill, right?
It's a very simple story that wedon't even know why he was
chugging up the hill.
We just know that he was on atrack, we're going up, and he
(18:47):
thinks he can, he thinks he can,and then he finally comes back
down the other side of the hill.
That's it of that story.
Versus children who were readRapunzel, Little Red Riding
Hood, the classical Grimm'sfairy tales, the children who
only had these modern littleengine that could stories were
less able to deal with thehardships of life.
They had lessened outcomes asfar as success, as far as mental
(19:10):
stability, as far as grit anddetermination to just get
through hard times in life.
Whereas people that had Aslittle children, those just
basic Grimm's fairy tales thatwe all take for granted all the
time, those stories were so muchricher in symbolism and imagery
and tradition that it allowedthem to deal with their parents'
divorce, or it allowed them todeal with bullies at school, or
(19:31):
it allowed them to find theirpurpose in the world, just
because the story was richerthan the modern little engine
that could.
And so I think part of theto-be-understood we have to be
fed stories that actually allowus to understand the world as
well.
So it's this weird input outputproblem of scientifically, we
(19:53):
understand that humans are notblank slates.
We do have some inborn processesand understandings, but there's
also parts of us that can beprogrammed and philosophers of
wax poetic on our humansinnately good or humans innately
bad.
It seems more like humans areinnately programmable and the
programming language is storyand And that's then what allows
(20:15):
us to be understood is if we'vehad garbage input most of our
lives, this is why censorshiplaws and other things come into
place because they're intendedto make sure that we're being
fed with good programming, goodstories that will allow us to be
understood better by the widerpublic.
But then it's the problem ofwhat stories are we cutting off?
(20:36):
How are we determining thatvalue of What is a good story
again?
Right, right.
Let's not even bring in likepropaganda.
I know,
SPEAKER_01 (20:45):
right?
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
Yeah, no, it's such a powerful thing when harnessed
correctly.
And there's even a whole, youknow, It started off as just a
book called Story Brand, BuildYour Story Brand.
But there's a lot of people whohave joined in and they've had a
(21:08):
bunch of sub-companies oroffshoots that they've built
now.
I kind of go back to some ofthose patterns of stories that
we go through.
One of the things that I washearing from you is that we
don't just need to hear one ofstory, we need a diversity of
(21:32):
stories in order to bewell-rounded in how we process
the world.
Most definitely.
And especially to the degree towhich, again, in my industry,
self-knowledge is the gig.
I'm trying to give you tools tounderstand yourself.
The problem is most people, theyeither don't have the time, they
may not have the introspectiveskill sets to be able to do
(21:54):
that.
But it also means that mostpeople, how they're going to be
able to get on a better track isbe exposed to different internal
nutrients that they may not knowthey need, which is then where
we get public broadcastingversus private broadcasting,
stories in the night from yourgrandma versus stories that are
at reading time at the localpublic library.
(22:16):
All of these things are soimportant to understand in just
how do we get these stories topeople.
which then is the problem of themedium is also the message.
When we make an Instagram postthat shows one level of
investment of the storyteller,but also the audience, whereas
(22:37):
whenever we're face to face,which is where most business
owners from my understanding,get the most success is when one
human can talk to another humanand tell their stories back and
forth.
Even if that story is just howmuch things cost to do this job.
That's where most business getsdone because it's this true
investment and exchange ofstories between two people.
Even if that story is just aprofit and loss statement.
(23:00):
And it gets to the problem, likeyou were saying, of propaganda
or anything else.
How do we get here?
How do we determine the quality?
And most of it is, one, we'vejust got to know that if we're
not getting the results we wantin life, we need to know that we
need better stories.
I think that's step one.
(23:20):
And then step two is knowingthat we need better stories is
asking yourself if you can tellyour own story about yourself.
Who are the characters in yourstory?
What, what, what are theirgoals?
How are they going to get frompoint one to point two and
beyond, you know, having, havingthose things, things blocked out
(23:42):
incredibly helpful in life andin business.
And, um, I'll say as well, onething, this is just a marketing
pet peeve on my side.
When you were building outaudience segments, if you have
built out audience segments, noteverybody does.
What your most powerful tool is,is understanding who they are
(24:07):
and being able to say, I dothis.
get what your pain points are.
I understand what platforms thatyou're on.
I understand who you have to askpermission from in order to buy
this product.
It's going to be one of yourbiggest selling tools.
(24:28):
And in fact, when I'm creatingcustomer avatars with clients, I
don't do it with everybody, butit's useful sometimes.
I often will say, if we unpackedthe contents of this person's
pocket.
What would be in their pockets?
And it's like people will say,what am I going to learn from
(24:51):
that that's going to help mewith my marketing?
Well, do they have an iPhone ordo they have an Android?
Do they carry a pack ofcigarettes?
It's going to tell you quite abit, actually.
But it also just puts you in themindset of how can I have a deep
(25:15):
understanding of these people?
And the more you understand themand their stories, the more
you're gonna be able tocommunicate your story.
And at the heart of it, whenmarketing is done ethically,
you're trying to be able to helppeople solve problems that they
need legitimate solutions to.
(25:36):
You shouldn't be trying to helppeople solve problems that they
don't need solutions to orsomething that's not a problem
that you're still selling themsomething for.
But I want to ask you about thisbecause this is a really
interesting thing, thehuman-to-human interaction.
I think about my e-commercebusinesses that I work with
(25:56):
where a lot of the time you goto a website and you buy
something and you leave.
So there's not that directhuman-to-human interaction.
Where do you see...
I have thoughts on this, butwhat do you think about those
types of stories?
Those, to a degree, they make methink of hagiography.
(26:19):
So hagiography is the studyof...
That's a big word.
It's basically the study of howdoes someone become a saint?
How does somebody have thisdivine, magical story that comes
around them?
So you can make a hagiography ofChrist.
You can have a hagiography of anancient historical figure that
we only have their name on atablet.
You can make it of anypolitician you can think of.
(26:41):
You can make any story appeardivine.
But what hagiography does inparticular is in the study of
medieval Europe, it createsthese pilgrimages, these saints
that have left us holy relics orholy wells or special places.
that drove an entire industry ofpilgrimage from one cathedral to
another, from one small villageto another, just based on the
(27:03):
stories of the special peoplethat were around them.
Now, where this comes intoe-commerce is the understanding
of, again, part of what peopleare buying, whenever they're not
necessarily buying person toperson, they're buying a story
that's attached to the item,which also means that the
storytelling is visual, Thestorytelling is any
recommendations that they'veheard.
(27:23):
The storytelling is, in part,how big of a problem does this
thing they are buying, sightunseen, solve for them?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, first off, wasn'texpecting the direction you went
with that, but quite fun.
But yeah, and that kind of goesback around to at scale,
(27:44):
different businesses, the storylooks...
you know, varied depending onwhat you're doing and what size
of a company that you are.
And, um, a lot of the timebranding, branding, people
think, okay, I get a, I get alogo and, uh, you know, I, I try
(28:06):
and use some specific words.
Branding truly is not about whatyou do.
It's how your audience perceivesyou.
And all of those efforts thatyou're putting on, on your end
is your attempt to influence thethat brand.
But the brand is trulycontrolled by the audience.
And so as audience members, witha lot of these companies we
(28:27):
interact with, we have atremendous amount of power and
then in a lot of instances wehave very little power.
Talking to you, Google.
But that also infolds in a lotof what people misplaces the
agency.
So it's not just the marketingagency's fault.
It's the agency of our owninternal marketer because we're
(28:51):
not willing to sell ourselves onour own story and its own
importance.
And so for a lot of businessowners or people in general that
it's like, well, where do Istart?
What do I have to do?
How do I tell stories?
Tell it to six, seven year oldyou.
That is your customer.
That is your client.
Because most people's state ofconsciousness when they are
buying, they're not buying as anadult.
(29:12):
They are buying because a tinythem feels freer, feels safer,
feels like a problem is going toget solved.
that puts a whole lot lessstress on big you.
And so the best place that anyperson can start when they don't
know how to tell stories or theydon't think it's quality is just
write the copy, make the video.
(29:32):
Gosh, I'm really having to readmyself the right act over here.
Okay, yes, there will be aYouTube video out for the end of
the week.
Good Lord, Nolan.
You just have to write it to youbecause that's the only thing we
can do.
is when we actually unpack thatprocess of going through all the
cool stuff we've done or the notcool stuff and the failures that
(29:53):
creates brand, that createsinvestment, that creates
differentiation and niching downjust by telling the story to
you.
And that's what you have to dofirst as a business owner.
Because otherwise, even if theygo to Hammonds Media or if they
go to some other agency, if theycan't even sit down and see
themselves as the thing that'svaluable...
(30:14):
It doesn't matter what strategygets come up with.
So with that, this has been alovely discussion, Garrett.
I always appreciate getting tochat with you untrammeled
despite our time constraints,which we'll have to hang out
some more.
What a cool story we made today.
It was a wonderful story.
And we are so excited to hearthe stories that our network
(30:35):
continues to come up with.
So as always, stay sharp.
Think biz.
Business
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Solutions Business Solutions We back.
It's me, Garrett Hammons, andNolan Rogers, and it has been an
incredible day.
Today's going to be a little bitdifferent, though.
(00:29):
Nolan, tell everybody what...
the heck we're actually doingwith this podcast.
Well, so practically, there isan ulterior motive.
If one of us is ever to get sickor a guest is unable to appear
on the podcast, this is here foryour listening pleasures.
You're welcome.
But secondly, we both areconsummate storytellers,
(00:50):
officially in one form orfashion or another, and it seems
to be a pretty regular trend andtheme with people that either A,
They don't know what storiesthey need to tell themselves.
B, they don't know how to tellthe stories themselves.
Or C, they don't even know whatthat is.
So let's open the floor ingeneral between the two of us as
(01:12):
far as let's just talk aboutstorytelling.
Let's talk about how we cameacross the skill set of that,
how we would define it, and whatdo we do with it when other
people don't know how.
Yeah.
I mean, I think you touched onit right there where what– What
even is a story?
How do we define a story?
(01:33):
It's a huge question.
It's gigantic.
And I guess we can just make itreally simple.
And I would argue, let's justmake it a simple linguistic
thing of a story as a subject, averb, and an object.
A thing that is doing a thing.
The action that it is taking ona thing that is having something
(01:54):
done to it.
It's just a sentence.
A story is a complete sentence.
I like it.
It's interesting on my end, youknow, there's...
When we start flushing out somany different types of stories,
and, you know, a story, the waythat we first get introduced to
(02:17):
it in, like, grade school is youhave your rising action and
your...
Your, you know, climaxes andyour falling actions and, you
know, those things, those thingsmatter.
But I think something that has aplot and, and a purpose behind
it, you know, is that.
(02:41):
is that a story or does it haveto have other characteristics in
order to be able to, to qualify?
Well, and it's, it's the sameissue of in business, a minimum
viable product, right?
Like what are we going toconsider the minimum viable
story that we're going toaccept?
But if we have, you know,poetry, we have haiku, we have
anything that can say the leafripples on the water period.
(03:05):
Like that's a story.
It conjures an image in yourmind, right?
And it also takes you someplacedepending upon how you tell that
simple sentence.
So is a story something thatexists if there is no one there
to hear it?
And I'm going to argue yes.
(03:26):
I think so too.
Mostly because I'm a fan ofPlato myself.
I'm a recovering Aristotelianphilosopher.
But I would argue that all...
story exists in this kind ofperfect ethereal state, just
somewhere, just based upon howstories come to me, how other
artists describe how thingsappear before them, or just how
(03:47):
things arrive in the world.
We have to take ourselves andkind of put a backseat on what
we presume we do as far asstorytelling.
I would almost argue thatstories themselves have their
own agency and they just findwhoever they need to tell it
through.
Yeah.
I think one characteristic thatI really like seeing
(04:11):
incorporated in a story, though,is that stories really, in order
to be useful, have to havemeaning behind them.
They have to have purpose.
And so when Jack and Jill wentup the hill, I need to figure
(04:33):
out Why in the world, if they'refalling down, who cares?
I fell down when I was a kid.
Well, and funny you mentionedJack and Jill.
So Jack and Jill went up thehill.
Jack fell down, broke his crown,and Jill came tumbling after.
Right after him.
Right after him.
Most of our Grimm's fairy tales,our nursery rhymes, a lot of
(04:54):
those linguistically andhistorically...
have roots going back tens ofthousands of years to things
that we would see in the sky,and Jack and Jill in particular,
is about the sun and the moonand the eclipse cycle.
And so we've had these storiesabout the sun and his sister
going about their business doingthings, Artemis and Apollo.
I mean, all the saints and thenthe ladies that would follow him
(05:17):
around.
We have these understandings ofthese sovereign beings that go
up and rise to a high place, andthen they come together and fall
back down.
Something bad happens.
And Jack and Jill going up thehill is one of those stories
that just mirrors somethingwe've seen in the sky forever.
Yeah.
And it's then the question of,well, why do we keep telling
(05:39):
those stories?
Why are those important?
Why do we sing those littlerhymes to our kids even though
we don't necessarily even knowwhat they mean?
UNKNOWN (05:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (05:47):
And I would argue that it's because it's one of
the necessary functions of life.
I don't think humans as asentient conscious being that is
somehow different from animals.
We were not entirely sure how,but I'm going to argue that we
are one form or fashion oranother.
And storytelling is that facet.
I think without stories,humanity and how we experience
(06:08):
our lives doesn't exist.
I'm going to, I'm going to yes.
And you here too.
I had a, a, communicationscourse in college that was about
narrative theory.
And I actually, I think thatevery single one of our lives is
a, is a living narrative.
It's a living story.
And those lived narratives, um,that's why I kind of asked you,
(06:32):
do you have to have an audience?
And, and in some sense, if, ifthere's something you are
telling as a story, you are justas much an audience as, as
somebody who's listening.
Um, And so when we apply this tobusinesses, or just everyday
(06:53):
life, what are the ways we canput stories into effect that are
useful?
How do we incorporate them intoour everyday lives?
Well, one, this dovetailsperfectly into The Crow.
I've been having to eat for thepast three months of realizing
that people didn't care aboutwhatever business name I came up
(07:15):
with to describe what I do.
People cared about Nolan ClayRogers.
People purchase my story and theproducts of what's come out of
that story.
People don't necessarilypurchase Hammond's Media.
They purchase Garrett and Grace.
I would argue that the way thatwe start narrowing this down is
we have to presume up front thata business owner, all the
(07:39):
relevant constituents, and theemployees, those individual
stories are what peoplepurchase.
Yeah, I think the businesses whodo it right.
But then it's a strange...
it's a strange conversation whenyou start to scale, um, because
(08:01):
say somebody like Sephora,Sephora is incredible at their,
their content that they produce,telling the stories of their
individual store managers andthe influencers who, um, you
know, help to get their productout there.
But then it's like, you know,you look at, at, um, I don't
(08:26):
know, Ford, Ford, you have, youhave these macro stories being
told, but it's more of like,like lifestyles and we do buy
things because of a brand thatwe relate to.
other people who also have thebrand.
(08:47):
So the story takes a differentform.
It's not about the individualsat the company.
It's about the individuals intheir community who also
associate with that samelifestyle and brand.
And that's part of the problemwhere people get into the issue
of ethical business or a goodsalesman versus a sleazy
(09:07):
salesman.
It's the question that I have toask a lot of my clients in
session is, whose stories areyou running off of?
Are you running off of storiesthat you and your family
generated for yourself based onyour own best understanding of
the world and you and yourcontext within it?
Or are you running off ofstories that you've only read in
books and seen on TV and havebeen just packaged and handed to
(09:30):
you to make your neurons fire atthe expected rates to get you to
buy?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's something that...
It's a huge problem in themarketing industry because...
We don't really have any—we haveunspoken ethical handbooks, but
(09:50):
we don't have a whole lot ofregulatory bodies in place for
this.
Now, there are certain thingsthat, you know, there are legal
requirements of it, but there'sa lot of tactics that, you know,
we call them—oh, there's a newname for them— subversive
(10:14):
patterns.
It's essentially manipulatingpeople.
And so stories are powerful, butnot always in the right ways.
And there's kind of then thecuriosity, because what you're
mentioning is just a tool.
So we can also argue that asubversive pattern is my
understanding that I can shiftmy tone to ask my daughter a
(10:36):
question, and I can getdifferent results based on the
tone.
So am I a a more or less moralperson for shifting my tone
upwards to get her to payattention to me and shift where
she's paying attention to?
Am I immoral for having to shiftmy tone to be monotonous and
lower in order for her tounderstand the seriousness of a
(10:56):
situation?
And I would argue the use of thetool isn't the manipulation.
It's not the moral wrong.
No, it's the intent.
So it's like if I'm marketing...
you know, using some of these,these subversive patterns.
I hope that's the right, theright terminology for it.
Sounds good for now.
I accept the story.
(11:17):
And I'm marketing a product topeople who are living off of the
retirement funds who maybe can'tafford it, but I'm going to
convince them using X, Y, and Zto do it anyway, through my
storytelling or the, the, youknow, all the different tactics
that I incorporate.
And then now they are moreimpoverished.
(11:42):
Maybe they, they can't get, youknow, the next meal, but they
have whatever I sold them, youknow?
So that's, that's, you know,pattern, the exact same tactics
can be used.
And in one instance, be ethical.
And in another instance, beunethical.
Exactly.
And I, part of me argues thatthe reason why one is more
(12:06):
ethical than the other, becausea company wants to be able to
sell its product, right?
That is the spoken understandingof like somebody that has a
business talks to you.
It's like they have something tosell you.
Right.
But the problem, especially inthat old retirement age folks,
why they're so preyed upon isbecause they're alone.
Nobody talks to them.
Nobody checks in on them.
(12:27):
And so what does that mean?
They have a deficit of stories.
They don't have their kidscalling them up every other day
and seeing how they're doing,hearing the story of the past
few days and then being able totell them their own stories.
But if the only phone callthey've gotten that's a real
human is somebody selling themsomething and they're selling it
with verve and excitement andthey're able to connect with
(12:49):
them and use some of thoserapport building techniques that
most salesmen know, that's theonly human interaction they've
had that has made them feelgood.
Yeah.
In who knows how long.
And that's really the perniciousportion is outsourcing agency
to, well, it's the salesmen orthe marketers.
Well, they're just the bad guys.
(13:09):
I would argue that it's thecommunity we entrench ourselves
in that is at more fault forbad, unethical marketing
techniques working in the firstplace.
Yeah.
Well, and it's interestingbecause there are some things
most of the time in life thatwe're going through, especially
nowadays, we're filling ourschedules.
(13:30):
And so, sorry, going off on alittle bit of a different
direction, but hopefully I'llfollow.
But the things we fill our liveswith, we're always trying to
find shortcuts to save time inother places.
Dr.
Robert Cialdini, who's a big guywithin the behavioral marketing
(13:52):
space, he It calls them clickwords because it's the sound of
a tape recorder when you pressplay.
It's, you know, it just goesaround.
But it's these automaticresponses that we, not
everyone's susceptible to themin the same ways, but most of
the time as a general rule, weare.
You know, for instance, when weuse the word because in a
(14:17):
sentence, there was a big studythat was done where somebody was
wanting to, Cut in line.
And, you know, in one instance,there were several different
instances, so I'll butcher it ifI try and do the whole thing.
But essentially, if the controlis not saying because, but
(14:38):
asking you to cut in line, andthen saying, hey, can I cut in
line because, insert whatever,the study found that whether
there was...
a reasonable thing after thebecause or an unreasonable
thing.
If it was just a repeatment,hey, can I cut in line because I
really need to cut in line?
(14:58):
It still had a much higherpercentage of people letting you
cut.
It's just wild to me.
There's so many things out therethat our brains just process in
such unique ways.
Well, and it's also...
It speaks to human craving aswell, because if you just cut in
(15:18):
line, but you don't give anybodya reason, that's a lack of a
story, right?
And so anybody that sees you cutin line say, hey, there's no
reason.
The story here is that we're allafter this thing.
And the rules are, you've got todo this, that, and the other.
But when we tell a small becausestory, I've got to cut in line
real quick because I have thisreally big meeting that I've got
coming up and it's going toreally affect my promotion for
(15:40):
my wife and kids.
Whether that story is true ornot, it makes a person feel
special.
And it engenders pro-socialbehavior of, oh, I'm helping
this person.
I'm doing them a favor.
And it's kind of back to whatmakes, say, unethical sales work
is a lack of human connection.
And so if we just understandthat storytelling, it's not only
(16:01):
something that is required forus to live good lives, we spend
billions of dollars acrossmultiple industries for
storytelling entertainment, forbusiness purposes, for making a
profit, but also just in our ownlives.
We see little things happen, andwe don't necessarily know why,
but we tell ourselves a storyabout them.
And so it just really unfoldsback to how...
(16:26):
It just seems to be that we needstories so much we will accept
any story that comes across us,especially if it's a bigger
story than the one we're livingright now.
And I think that's where thepernicious nature of some of the
unethical things come in isrealizing that a lot of people
aren't living a very big story.
And what is our duty as peoplethat are entrenched in a
(16:48):
community, in a global exchangeof ideas?
What stories should we betelling?
I think, I think, um, so mybrain, I, I straight away want
to go to like, like tackletactical conversations.
Like in this instance, we tellthese stories in this instance,
we, you know, but I love where,where we've gone today in that,
(17:12):
you know, stories are aboutconnection.
Stories are about beingunderstood, you know, somebody
on the phone, if you, you know,If you haven't had a lot of
human connection and somebody isgiving you a sales pitch where
they seemingly understand you,it's going to make a big impact.
(17:37):
And then you layer on top ofthat a bunch of other...
human conditioning things fromrepeated patterns of stories
where we assume something, evenif that's not what's happening
in the stories being told to us.
That's one really interestingelement is...
(18:03):
Let's talk a little bit, if youdon't mind, about the
understanding portion.
How do we use stories to beunderstood?
Mm-hmm.
So this is kind of not aroundabout way of getting to
that.
How do we use stories to beunderstood?
But which stories help usunderstand life itself is also
(18:26):
an interesting direction to gofirst.
Because Bruno Bettelheim, he wasa child psychologist about the
60s and 70s.
And he learned that children whowere just raised on the little
engine that could, just chuggingup the hill, right?
It's a very simple story that wedon't even know why he was
chugging up the hill.
We just know that he was on atrack, we're going up, and he
(18:47):
thinks he can, he thinks he can,and then he finally comes back
down the other side of the hill.
That's it of that story.
Versus children who were readRapunzel, Little Red Riding
Hood, the classical Grimm'sfairy tales, the children who
only had these modern littleengine that could stories were
less able to deal with thehardships of life.
They had lessened outcomes asfar as success, as far as mental
(19:10):
stability, as far as grit anddetermination to just get
through hard times in life.
Whereas people that had Aslittle children, those just
basic Grimm's fairy tales thatwe all take for granted all the
time, those stories were so muchricher in symbolism and imagery
and tradition that it allowedthem to deal with their parents'
divorce, or it allowed them todeal with bullies at school, or
(19:31):
it allowed them to find theirpurpose in the world, just
because the story was richerthan the modern little engine
that could.
And so I think part of theto-be-understood we have to be
fed stories that actually allowus to understand the world as
well.
So it's this weird input outputproblem of scientifically, we
(19:53):
understand that humans are notblank slates.
We do have some inborn processesand understandings, but there's
also parts of us that can beprogrammed and philosophers of
wax poetic on our humansinnately good or humans innately
bad.
It seems more like humans areinnately programmable and the
programming language is storyand And that's then what allows
(20:15):
us to be understood is if we'vehad garbage input most of our
lives, this is why censorshiplaws and other things come into
place because they're intendedto make sure that we're being
fed with good programming, goodstories that will allow us to be
understood better by the widerpublic.
But then it's the problem ofwhat stories are we cutting off?
(20:36):
How are we determining thatvalue of What is a good story
again?
Right, right.
Let's not even bring in likepropaganda.
I know,
SPEAKER_01 (20:45):
right?
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
Yeah, no, it's such a powerful thing when harnessed
correctly.
And there's even a whole, youknow, It started off as just a
book called Story Brand, BuildYour Story Brand.
But there's a lot of people whohave joined in and they've had a
(21:08):
bunch of sub-companies oroffshoots that they've built
now.
I kind of go back to some ofthose patterns of stories that
we go through.
One of the things that I washearing from you is that we
don't just need to hear one ofstory, we need a diversity of
(21:32):
stories in order to bewell-rounded in how we process
the world.
Most definitely.
And especially to the degree towhich, again, in my industry,
self-knowledge is the gig.
I'm trying to give you tools tounderstand yourself.
The problem is most people, theyeither don't have the time, they
may not have the introspectiveskill sets to be able to do
(21:54):
that.
But it also means that mostpeople, how they're going to be
able to get on a better track isbe exposed to different internal
nutrients that they may not knowthey need, which is then where
we get public broadcastingversus private broadcasting,
stories in the night from yourgrandma versus stories that are
at reading time at the localpublic library.
(22:16):
All of these things are soimportant to understand in just
how do we get these stories topeople.
which then is the problem of themedium is also the message.
When we make an Instagram postthat shows one level of
investment of the storyteller,but also the audience, whereas
(22:37):
whenever we're face to face,which is where most business
owners from my understanding,get the most success is when one
human can talk to another humanand tell their stories back and
forth.
Even if that story is just howmuch things cost to do this job.
That's where most business getsdone because it's this true
investment and exchange ofstories between two people.
Even if that story is just aprofit and loss statement.
(23:00):
And it gets to the problem, likeyou were saying, of propaganda
or anything else.
How do we get here?
How do we determine the quality?
And most of it is, one, we'vejust got to know that if we're
not getting the results we wantin life, we need to know that we
need better stories.
I think that's step one.
(23:20):
And then step two is knowingthat we need better stories is
asking yourself if you can tellyour own story about yourself.
Who are the characters in yourstory?
What, what, what are theirgoals?
How are they going to get frompoint one to point two and
beyond, you know, having, havingthose things, things blocked out
(23:42):
incredibly helpful in life andin business.
And, um, I'll say as well, onething, this is just a marketing
pet peeve on my side.
When you were building outaudience segments, if you have
built out audience segments, noteverybody does.
What your most powerful tool is,is understanding who they are
(24:07):
and being able to say, I dothis.
get what your pain points are.
I understand what platforms thatyou're on.
I understand who you have to askpermission from in order to buy
this product.
It's going to be one of yourbiggest selling tools.
(24:28):
And in fact, when I'm creatingcustomer avatars with clients, I
don't do it with everybody, butit's useful sometimes.
I often will say, if we unpackedthe contents of this person's
pocket.
What would be in their pockets?
And it's like people will say,what am I going to learn from
(24:51):
that that's going to help mewith my marketing?
Well, do they have an iPhone ordo they have an Android?
Do they carry a pack ofcigarettes?
It's going to tell you quite abit, actually.
But it also just puts you in themindset of how can I have a deep
(25:15):
understanding of these people?
And the more you understand themand their stories, the more
you're gonna be able tocommunicate your story.
And at the heart of it, whenmarketing is done ethically,
you're trying to be able to helppeople solve problems that they
need legitimate solutions to.
(25:36):
You shouldn't be trying to helppeople solve problems that they
don't need solutions to orsomething that's not a problem
that you're still selling themsomething for.
But I want to ask you about thisbecause this is a really
interesting thing, thehuman-to-human interaction.
I think about my e-commercebusinesses that I work with
(25:56):
where a lot of the time you goto a website and you buy
something and you leave.
So there's not that directhuman-to-human interaction.
Where do you see...
I have thoughts on this, butwhat do you think about those
types of stories?
Those, to a degree, they make methink of hagiography.
(26:19):
So hagiography is the studyof...
That's a big word.
It's basically the study of howdoes someone become a saint?
How does somebody have thisdivine, magical story that comes
around them?
So you can make a hagiography ofChrist.
You can have a hagiography of anancient historical figure that
we only have their name on atablet.
You can make it of anypolitician you can think of.
(26:41):
You can make any story appeardivine.
But what hagiography does inparticular is in the study of
medieval Europe, it createsthese pilgrimages, these saints
that have left us holy relics orholy wells or special places.
that drove an entire industry ofpilgrimage from one cathedral to
another, from one small villageto another, just based on the
(27:03):
stories of the special peoplethat were around them.
Now, where this comes intoe-commerce is the understanding
of, again, part of what peopleare buying, whenever they're not
necessarily buying person toperson, they're buying a story
that's attached to the item,which also means that the
storytelling is visual, Thestorytelling is any
recommendations that they'veheard.
(27:23):
The storytelling is, in part,how big of a problem does this
thing they are buying, sightunseen, solve for them?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, first off, wasn'texpecting the direction you went
with that, but quite fun.
But yeah, and that kind of goesback around to at scale,
(27:44):
different businesses, the storylooks...
you know, varied depending onwhat you're doing and what size
of a company that you are.
And, um, a lot of the timebranding, branding, people
think, okay, I get a, I get alogo and, uh, you know, I, I try
(28:06):
and use some specific words.
Branding truly is not about whatyou do.
It's how your audience perceivesyou.
And all of those efforts thatyou're putting on, on your end
is your attempt to influence thethat brand.
But the brand is trulycontrolled by the audience.
And so as audience members, witha lot of these companies we
(28:27):
interact with, we have atremendous amount of power and
then in a lot of instances wehave very little power.
Talking to you, Google.
But that also infolds in a lotof what people misplaces the
agency.
So it's not just the marketingagency's fault.
It's the agency of our owninternal marketer because we're
(28:51):
not willing to sell ourselves onour own story and its own
importance.
And so for a lot of businessowners or people in general that
it's like, well, where do Istart?
What do I have to do?
How do I tell stories?
Tell it to six, seven year oldyou.
That is your customer.
That is your client.
Because most people's state ofconsciousness when they are
buying, they're not buying as anadult.
(29:12):
They are buying because a tinythem feels freer, feels safer,
feels like a problem is going toget solved.
that puts a whole lot lessstress on big you.
And so the best place that anyperson can start when they don't
know how to tell stories or theydon't think it's quality is just
write the copy, make the video.
(29:32):
Gosh, I'm really having to readmyself the right act over here.
Okay, yes, there will be aYouTube video out for the end of
the week.
Good Lord, Nolan.
You just have to write it to youbecause that's the only thing we
can do.
is when we actually unpack thatprocess of going through all the
cool stuff we've done or the notcool stuff and the failures that
(29:53):
creates brand, that createsinvestment, that creates
differentiation and niching downjust by telling the story to
you.
And that's what you have to dofirst as a business owner.
Because otherwise, even if theygo to Hammonds Media or if they
go to some other agency, if theycan't even sit down and see
themselves as the thing that'svaluable...
(30:14):
It doesn't matter what strategygets come up with.
So with that, this has been alovely discussion, Garrett.
I always appreciate getting tochat with you untrammeled
despite our time constraints,which we'll have to hang out
some more.
What a cool story we made today.
It was a wonderful story.
And we are so excited to hearthe stories that our network
(30:35):
continues to come up with.
So as always, stay sharp.
Think biz.
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