Business of Story

There are dozens of crucial factors to think about when talking to your audience. Anything and everything in your message should be carefully considered. However, almost nothing in the world of story branding is more important, and more overlooked than genuine connection. This fact is nowhere as clear as in the case of Pepsi’s infamous ad. Millions of dollars invested, a world-famous star, a positive call to action, great music, bold cinematography; all gone to waste. Where did they go wrong? All the right stuff was there, what happened? The answer lies in the authenticity of the story they told. This expensive, carefully manufactured, artificial story pales in comparison to the real thing. If a company hopes to share their message with customers, it must be a real connection, based on real events. These real stories are the focus of our conversation today.  Our guest is Jordan Bower, strategic storytelling consultant, brand marketing professional, and an expert in what makes a story real. His tale began when he walked along the entire West Coast of the United States, meeting thousands of people along the way. These brief views into the lives of so many different people painted a clear picture for Jordan. He realized that the connectivity of social media is nowhere near as important as a face-to-face human interaction.  From these experiences, he could pinpoint the key aspects that make a story authentic. Jordan’s Four Pillars of Storytelling are a vital knowledge for content marketing. His personal stories, tips, and advice on authenticity and connectivity are integral for making your story work in today’s world of story branding. Story Marketer of the Week Our Story Marketer of the Week Award goes to Heineken, for their World's Apart advertisement. This brief TV advertisement features the interactions of two people with opposite opinions on highly polarized issues; climate change, transgender people, and feminism. Heineken, however, added a twist. They didn’t know the other’s stance on these issues. The two individuals are given tasks to complete, and in the process, find common ground. When the secret is finally revealed, they are given a choice. They can leave, or stay, and talk about their differences over a cold beer. This social experiment not only calls for the viewers to open their minds and hearts but also humanizes those on the opposite spectrum of an issue. For helping those of different beliefs empathize with each other over a beer, Heineken is the Story Marketer of the Week. In This Show, You’ll Learn: How does social media connection leave us disconnected? What is the importance of authenticity in telling your story? Jordan’s Four Pillars of Storytelling Key Quotes “A story isn’t just the content we communicate, it's also the connection.” – Jordan Bower “We can be connected on social media, but that doesn’t actually represent what a true human connection is actually like.” – Jordan Bower “What’s important to remember is that what you’re saying isn’t nearly as important as how you’re saying it.” – Jordan Bower “Business people are people too.” – Jordan Bower “The more we’re connected, the more we’re actually disconnected.” – Park Howell “Data brings you no emotion.” – Park Howell Mentioned in this episode Jordan Bower Jordan Bower Twitter How I Built This Cheryl Strayed Homo Digitalis Wells Fargo Pepsi Uber Google Ventures The Sprint Book by Jake Knapp Apple Steve Job

What do you think is the most valuable survival tool in an arctic expedition? A nice winter coat? Snowshoes? Warm hat? For a 900 mile trek through one of the most dangerous places on earth, over hidden crevasses, calving glaciers, and frozen landscapes, one of the most critical tools is the ability to communicate the right story. Joining us on this edition of Business of Story is adventurer Robert Swan, the first man to journey across both the North and South Poles unaided. His dream of traversing the ice caps began in his childhood, and when he was an adult, he was ready to go, but he couldn’t do it alone. For the next seven years, he worked hard to find sponsorship for this journey, and through the many rejections, he could learn from his mistakes and refine a compelling story to gain support. Robert used these very same storytelling techniques to inspire his fellow arctic companions and survive the ice. Today, he is one of the leading experts in the field of sustainability leadership, bringing students from around the world to visit the ice caps. Decades of experience has taught Robert the necessity of storytelling in leadership roles. To be able to craft a narrative, convince people of their own personal gain, and trust in those around you is the mark of a good leader. In This Show, You’ll Learn: How great leaders use storytelling to rally support Importance of credibility in your narrative Telling your story through someone else’s point of view Key Quotes “Trust yourself. If you don’t trust you, who is going to trust you?” – Robert Swan “Every time I was told no, I listen to why these people told me no.” – Robert Swan “Trust will inspire people more than anything.” – Robert Swan ‘You really connected with their legacy, they didn’t even realize they were part of these expeditions.” – Park Howell Mentioned in this episode Robert Swan Robert Swan Twitter Destination, Antarctica Antarctica 2041 A Walk to the Pole 2041 Climate Force Robert Falcon Scott Jacques Cousteau Earnest Shackleton NASA Red Bull South Pole Station    

The world of brand marketing is changing rapidly. Ad campaigns don't work like they used to. Because brands are no longer the storytellers. They're the story makers handing their stories to their customers in hopes they'll share it with their world. Smart brands are focused on making movements, like REI's #OptOutside effort. Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign. Or Heineken's recent "Open Your World" work. How do you turn an ad campaign into a meaningful movement that matters? It starts by creating a relationship with your audiences through your story marketing. Brand relationship expert, Kimberly Manno Reott of Context Partners, joins us from her home in Madrid, Spain. She explores the three elements and six critical roles to every successful movement. Context Partners is a new type of design firm focused on relationships at scale. We all face a changing world where identity, information, and power are rapidly shifting. Traditional models of communication are failing and once-passive audiences are coalescing into powerful, vocal communities. Kimberley and her team help organizations like Microsoft, Lilly and the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rainforest Alliance build, navigate and leverage their relationships to shape the future. Kimberly will teach you how to craft a compelling message and structure the right team with the correct personalities to turn your campaign into a movement.  In This Show, You’ll Learn: How to approach business storytelling through the lens of relationships, particularly through the STORYTELLER. The three-story plot points you need to make any movement take off The six aspirational roles people play to make your cause successful And the almighty power of chocolate to bring clarity to your story. Key Quotes: “All business strategy is a story.” – Park Howell “In traditional marketing, consumers get segmented by demographics… that way of segmenting people is kind of old school and actually doesn’t allow you to build the relationships that are lasting.” –  Kimberly Manno Reott “It ultimately comes down to building these relationships by truly understanding your audience.” –Park Howell Mentioned in this episode: Kimberly Manno Reott Kimberly Manno Reott Twitter Context Partners Rockefeller Foundation Sally Hogshead Fascination Advantage Assessment Rainforest Alliance GreenBiz Arab Spring Twitter Aspirationals Vincent Stanley Patagonia New York Times Damnation Yvonne Chouinard Schwinn Stingray  

How would you go about creating a brand story for a person? Would you be able to sell an individual’s personal story or even your own? We at Business of Story focus on teaching storytelling and branding techniques for media marketers, advertisers, nonprofits, and other business-oriented organizations and leaders.  Today we ask you to think of another area you can improve upon with a little bit of storytelling. Marketing your own life is something that may be overlooked a bit too frequently, but if you can harness the power of story, the possibilities of your personal growth are endless. With a bit of narrative, you’ll stand out above the rest, whether it be a job interview, making a big sale or just gaining a positive reputation in your community. Our guest on this podcast episode is Sally Hogshead of How to Fascinate. Author, advertiser, branding expert, media marketer and mother of eight, Sally joins us to share her story and what led her to the creation of her Fascination Personality Test. Discover How The World Sees You with Sally Hogshead's Personality Test Her creativity has been a defining part of her character, and from elementary school classrooms to international corporate offices, Sally’s experiences in story brand marketing have helped her craft her personality test to help you understand and utilize your own character. This wonderful and insightful test is unlike any other I’ve ever taken, and to prove it, Sally is going to let you take the test for free! Visit her Website and enter the code ‘story17’ for an opportunity to gain insight into your personality traits and how to best use your strengths. Story on!  

In March, The Virgin Group honored storytelling month on its website because Richard Branson believes that the strength and ability to tell stories effectively drives performance in business.  Branson is just one business leader who has tapped into the ancient craft of storytelling to drive performance and mold the behaviors that construct the culture within many of his booming companies.  Another one of these astonishing storytellers is our guest today, Doug Keeley. Doug, the founder of The Mark of a Leader, believes that his life and career path were ultimately changed by the narrative of Tim Burton‘s film, Big Fish, after he lost everything in the crash of his $50 million company. Doug will share with us how he learned to drive performance through compelling storytelling and how narrative can help you construct the level of prosperity you deserve in your company.  He originates from Toronto, Canada, where he formed his storyteller skills by being an elite jazz guitarist, a brand marketing guru, and an acclaimed speaker and storytelling coach to many leaders.  Story on ~ Park In This Show, You’ll Learn:  The five levels of leadership engagement through narrative How you can use all five levels of leadership engagement even though your competitors are only utilizing two of them How you can apply the ‘storytelling for leaders’ program in your business Key Quotes: “All great organizations have a story about how they started and stories that show their culture. I put that together with leadership, and that’s how I ended up here.” – Doug Keeley “One day, we were this crazy, great company and the next day it was gone. That was a very scary moment.” – Doug Keeley “Kids aren’t learning by the written word – they are learning by video. At some point in the not too distant future, you’re going to drop in virtual reality to that, and it’s going to completely change how we tell stories.” –Park Howell “We take this corporate drivel, self-aggrandizing features, and benefits and turn them into stories. If we’re good at it, we make people think, and that’s all Hollywood does—that’s what great writers do.” – Doug Keeley “In religion, the story will tell you ‘this is how we want you to behave in this circumstance.’ When you put a whole bunch of behaviors together, that’s called culture because the dominant behaviors of any group are what their culture is all about and inarguably in the world of corporate culture, culture drives performance.” – Doug Keeley  

Your customers don’t want to hear about what you make. They want a story about what you make happen. That’s why Robert Rose urges you to transform your marketing department into a storytelling department. Turn your adverbs and adjectives into adventures in your story marketing to move your audiences to action.   Our guest today has us covered in storytelling from music to Hollywood to creating stories for the largest brands. He’s a sought-after social content marketing strategist, speaker, author, and conspirator of business success. Robert is the chief strategy officer for the content advisory, the consulting and education group for the Content Marketing Institute.  He co-hosts This Old Marketing podcast with Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute. He also co-wrote a book with Joe called “Managing Content Marketing,” which is widely considered to be the owners manual of the content marketing process. Robert has helped develop content and customer experience strategies for large enterprises such as Oracle, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Allstate Insurance, Microsoft, Capital One, AT&T, PEPCO, UPS—and the list just keeps going!   In This Show, You'll Learn:  How to transform your marketing department into a storytelling institute The biggest mistake most people make in content marketing Why you should move your advertising marketing and sales content from featuring adverbs to focusing on adventures Key Quotes: "Build those strategic initiatives, those platforms that will help you tell your story that delivers value over time and build that audience so that you get the value of all the content you're creating, not just the individual assets that you're creating." - Robert Rose "I'm a big believer in when people say, 'content is king.' Then I say, 'Storytelling is the kingdom sorcerer,' - because that's where the magic happens." - Park Howell "It's about helping them understand that there is another world out there for content that can actually be valuable to the customer - that they can tell stories with." - Robert Rose "Transform it from an approach of describing value to describing an experience with value packed into it." - Park Howell  "We can put adjectives in front of nouns, and we can talk about synergies, paradigms, and all sorts of stuff that we're good at it. We can do those things well, but the creation of content for value sake for the audience is a different muscle. It's about delivering value in the content." - Robert Rose Mentioned in this episode: Robert Rose Robert Rose on Twitter contentadvisory.net Content Marketing Institute (CMI) Joe Pulizzi "Managing Content Marketing" by Robert Rose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Jay Baer The Hero's Journey Showtime Red Shoe Diaries Ben Folds Joseph Campbell UBM Chapman University "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder "Story" by Robert McKee Doug Keeley

One thing we can all agree on is that the digital world is a dynamic place to tell our stories.  Never in the history of advertising and marketing have brand storytellers like you had more ways to share your messages.  But these days it seems nearly impossible to cut through the clutter, and that's why there's a gathering every year in San Diego with the top social media experts to help you figure this out. It's Social Media Marketing World and it just took place. During my time in San Diego, I had the privilege of getting not one, not two, but three interviews with wonderful story brand creators.  In the corridors of the Social Media Marketing World conference venue, we taped this show. Joining us are Ian Cleary of RazorSocial, Peg Fitzpatrick, author of The Art of Social Media, and Brian Fanzo of iSocialFanz and cohost of the SmackTalk podcast. These three individuals are pioneers of the world of social media marketing and have boundless insights into how you can best optimize your business’ posts, tweets, and updates. Their methods of being heard in the cacophony of the social media content storm are you guessed it -- storytelling! Listen in for tips, tricks, stories, and experiences from these social media pros. Show Guests:  Ian Cleary Peg Fitzpatrick Brian Fanzo In This Show, You'll Learn: Why  developing relationships is crucial for engagement on social media and content marketing platforms How to use visuals and interactive narratives to tell a more powerful story The importance of authenticity in social media Key Quotes: "You need to understand: Do you have the right audience?" —Ian Cleary  "There's nothing better at the end of the day, to build a relationship, than when we sit side-by-side having a chat." —Ian Cleary  "You feel like, I'll just add a little more and a little more, but simple is so good!" —Peg Fitzpatrick "The first thing you want to do is make sure you know what your brand is." —Peg Fitzpatrick "For me, I didn't feel like I was doing anything that was special. I always loved sharing." —Brian Fanzo   "Social media and digital is hard and painful if you're putting on a persona or you're telling a story that really isn't you." —Brian Fanzo "I think if content is king, then certainly storytelling is the kingdom sorcerer because it's where the magic happens." —Park Howell "People buy stories much more than anything else." —Park Howell Mentioned in this episode: Ian Cleary RazorSocial Mark Schaefer Lisa Loeffler Peg Fitzpatrick The Art of Social Media, Power Tips for Power Users TailWind Guy Kawasaki Unsplash & LibreStock Brian Fanzo Be Yourself Online Course Robert Scoble Jay Baer Christin Kardos ADHD Social Media Marketing World Michael Stelzner Phil Mershon About Business of Story Podcast The Business of Story is hosted by trusted brand story strategist and keynote speaker Park Howell and is among the top business and marketing podcasts geared toward founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and communication leaders. Each episode brings you the brightest content creators, advertising creatives, authors, screenwriters, makers, marketers, and brand raconteurs that show you how to make your brand story marketing stand out and achieve epic growth in your organization.    

On this show, we'll cover how data-driven campaigns are killing the Democratic Party and how you can keep it from happening to your brand. Joining us is a highly decorated thirty-year veteran of the direct mail industry who has worked solely with the Democratic Party, Dave Gold. Dave is the founding partner of Bouchard Gold Communications. His clients have included Senator Joe Biden, Governor Ann Richards, Congresswoman Betty McCollum, attorney generals, coalitions, causes, propositions, and initiatives. Dave has truly seen it all. The most troubling recent trend is a reliance on big data, which is leading to micro-targeting and micro-thinking without a compelling overarching narrative for audiences to connect with. On this episode, you'll learn about the importance of communicating values to stir emotions that drive behavior towards your brand, how Republicans are trumping Democrats with their compelling use of narrative, and how you can do the same to your competition. We'll also share how a Christmas tree can act as the foundational story in everything you do.  You'll Learn: How you can prevent data-driven campaigns from killing your brand Why communicating values to stir emotions that drive behavior towards your brand is important How you can use compelling narrative to trump your competition Key Quotes: "I often say that if you don’t change somebody’s behavior with a program of mail, then you've killed trees for no purpose." - @DaveGold6 (click to tweet) "What we have to do is find a narrative thread that connects the different issues." - @DaveGold6 (click to tweet) "Issues are to a campaign message what ornaments are to a Christmas tree." - @DaveGold6 (click to tweet) "I believe in message-driven, data-informed campaigns." - @DaveGold6 (click to tweet) "People buy with their hearts and justify their purchases with their heads." - @DaveGold6 (click to tweet) "Brands need to take a deep breath, step back, and say that it’s not about them - it’s about their customers first and foremost.” - @ParkHowell (click to tweet) Mentioned in This Episode: Politico - Data-Driven Campaigns Are Killing the Democratic Party MIT - Political Science Bouchard & Gold Communications Dave Gold on Twitter: @DaveGold6 Story marketer of the week: Tempur-Pedic commercial Are you ready to get your brand story straight? Get your storytelling marketing started with the DIY guide to compelling brand stories that sell.

Today we are investigating how you can use story marketing to turn a commodity into commotion. We’re talking about elevating a fairly banal item, like socks, into a meaningful and sought after experience—all through the brand stories you share! I know it sounds crazy, but socks are a $6 billion global industry. Imagine the market share you might carve out simply by disrupting the norm with story?  Today we’re going to meet two people who have done exactly that through their plucky five-year-old company, Sock Club. That’s right! I am a proud Sock Club member. The company, which was born in 2012 as a small side project, has become one of the premier sock-subscription services. They send quality American-made socks to subscribers around the world. Every month, Sock Club designs and releases a one-of-a-kind sock design. They tell the story of the inspiration behind the design that accompanies each pair. Joining us today is Sock Club Co-founder, Noah Lee, and Creative Brand Manager, Melissa Huisman, who have spent the past fifteen months bringing the brand voice to life through creative marketing and storytelling. So, how can you use story marketing and turn a basic commodity into a meaningful experience? Let’s find out!  You’ll Learn: How you can carve out a market share for your brand by using effective storytelling How you can bring a personality and voice to your brand through story Why you should use creative marketing to turn a commodity into a meaningful experience Key Quotes: “If we were going to do this we would do it through humor and we would do it through colorful socks.” —Noah Lee @SockClub (click to tweet) “Something that we strongly believe in is the power of storytelling and the power of human truth.” —@mk_huis (click to tweet) “How can we say one thing that matters and encourage someone to take the next step in their journey to be bold or courageous?” —@mk_huis (click to tweet) “You have to think about what’s going to influence them or how they will walk away and think about your brand.” —Noah Lee @SockClub (click to tweet) “There are stories that already exist in your product, you just need to bring them to the surface.” —@mk_huis (click to tweet)   Mentioned in This Episode: Sock Club Sock Club on Twitter @SockClub Melissa Huisman on Twitter @mk_huis The Ranier The Amelia Ranier Beer  

Joel Capperella joins us on Business of Story; and today, we talk about why you must recognize and tap into the dramatic nature of what's actually happening in your sales conversions, the journey your customer's on, and what stories they're telling themselves about you at that moment. We're also going to look at the most powerful word in storytelling, and that word is 'why.' That's all about the power of why in your story, listening in your storytelling, and in your story selling. At the end of the show, Joel has a tool for you to make sure you have the proper story alignment in your sales pipeline. Let's explore how to use story marketing to fill your sales funnel with the right folks. You'll Learn: How to use the right story marketing to up your sales conversion rates Why the word "why" is so powerful in storytelling Why you need to always be attuned to your customer's journey Key Quotes: "It's not just enough to have good content. It has to be content that connects." - @JoelCapperella (click to tweet) I still have to be very intentional about sitting down, designing, and mapping out the story that I'm going to tell." - @ParkHowell (click to tweet) "Start with a moment. Start with a human experience around your product or service, and listen to it." - @ParkHowell (click to tweet) "I really believe that above all, story is a catalyst to really great things within our organizations." - @JoelCapperella (click to tweet) "If we have trouble telling our own story, or our customer's stories, we have to assume that our customers are too." - @JoelCapperella (click to tweet) Mentioned in This Episode: Joel Capperella Joel Capperella on Twitter - @JoelCapperella SaaS Content Alignment Review Gary Vaynerchuk "Daily V"