How The Art of Impactful Brand Storytelling Can Drive 6X Growth

Eric Eden :
0:59

Welcome to today's episode. Our guest today is Ryan. He is a branding and messaging expert. He's been working in this area for over 20 years and is going to share some awesome things on that topic with us today. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Holck:
1:16

Hey, thank you, Eric. It is so good to be with you today. I appreciate the chance to share with your audience appreciate the chance to share with your audience.

Eric Eden :
1:27

Why don't we start by you just giving us some context about who you are and what you do before we jump into your story? Yeah, so.

Ryan Holck:
1:32

I have been doing marketing specifically for about 20 years, but before that I spent about seven years working in the nonprofit space in some other capacities, and what it allowed me to do was to get a heart for understanding some key messaging tools, because I saw some things at play in the nonprofit space that really conveyed into the for-profit space and businesses in marketing.

Ryan Holck:
2:03

And there was this kind of combination for me of going, hey, I could be creative and I can be a marketer at the same time, and so great opportunity then for me to marry the two together and go I could help nonprofits, I could help for-profits because at the end of the day, it comes down to story. And so I've spent really the last 10, 20 years really 10 years with intentionality, figuring out how to help organizations tell their story better and tell their story clearly so that people act. When they engage with them, If they come to their website, they take action. If they meet them in person, they know what next steps to take for their business, for their organization. So it's this weird hybrid of it's marketing but it's storytelling and it's a whole lot of narrative in the mix Sounds pretty fun.

Eric Eden :
2:59

And since you are a professional storyteller, why don't you tell us a story about some of the best marketing you've done that you're most proud of?

Ryan Holck:
3:19

But it was some of the most effective marketing and that was for a nonprofit that actually was local and they had been in existence for a number of years. But they had a unique problem in that there was a gap for them between their donors understanding what they did on an ongoing basis and their volunteers understanding the impact they were making when they showed up. And so we walk into as a team to try and figure out how can we help them better, share their story with clarity and share the impact that they make with their everyday work so that people, at the end of the day, understand and they see the ROI for their volunteer hours, they see the ROI for donations that are given. And what we did was we walked in and figured out if we took it all away. At the end of the day, what impact are we making? Who is benefiting from our product and service that we provide, from when they come out to us? How are they benefiting? Okay, who are those ideal people? And let's figure out how to share their story and how their life was changed by interacting with our nonprofit.

Ryan Holck:
4:34

And what I realized in the process of that was that same principle could be used in a for-profit business in a mom and pop shop is. If we spent more time thinking about how are we changing the life of the people we serve, rather than talking about marketing from our standpoint. If we let those people share their story or got ideas from how their lives were changed, and we could tell the stories of those that people would engage at significantly different levels, our marketing would look different. It would be easy to write emails, easy to do social, easy to do video, because we'd be telling stories of real life people rather than just making up marketing. That makes sense. It makes it more about the people who we serve than about the organization itself, which, at the end of the day, I think is what is more powerful for us to convey.

Eric Eden :
5:35

So it's about impact right.

Ryan Holck:
5:38

It is totally and completely about impact. It is impacts the word that I actually use for my own life. It's the word I use when I'm working with nonprofits or for-profits, talking about what is the impact we're making and how can we amplify that so people understand our story better.

Eric Eden :
5:57

And so what is the key to communicating impact? How do you tell that story in the most effective way?

Ryan Holck:
6:05

The most effective way that I found is a four-part framework, and I oftentimes I use a hanger as an example of it. And the reason I use a hanger is because our family, or my wife's family, owned a tuxedo shop and I learned really quickly that a quality hanger was amazing, but a plastic janky hanger broke instantly and that on a hanger there are there's two arms. There's a base cross piece and then there's the hook. And so I think of storytelling like this that there's an arm of. I want to identify who that character is that we need to talk about in this story so that listeners connect emotionally. I want to have the other arm of. It is really about what conflict or challenge are they facing in their life and how can we share it in a way that builds empathy with a listener and maybe even helps them see a little of themselves in the story. The base cross piece is what are the consequences of action or inaction? Did they address the conflict? Did something change in their life? How is stuff better or worse as a result? And then the hook of it is what's the call to action or what's the next step I'm supposed to take? What am I supposed to do with this story? Why did you just tell me this story?

Ryan Holck:
7:29

In nonprofits we tell it almost like it's testimonial style videos. In for-profits, I use the same framework, but we talk about how are we making the life better? Why would this product or service even be needed? What happens if they do or don't use it as a consequence? And that call to action then is buy now or engage with us, book a call, those type of things. So the framework really transcends where it is used, but it at least gives us something very quickly to say hey, I can use that.

Ryan Holck:
8:04

And the other cool thing is I don't know how often you are in front of people where you're like I need to have a story right now. But I love thinking of it as a hanger, because when I'm in the right situation I want to be able to look in my closet and go that's the story I need to share right now. This is the story I need to share right now. And if we can think of it and in terms of there's just some big idea, bullets of who's the character, what's the conflict, the consequences and the call to action, if I've only got to remember four bullets, I can remember a lot of stories and make things a whole lot more portable and repeatable, because I'm not trying to remember an eight minute written documentation of someone's story. It's just, it's big ideas, because that's what's going to connect with the listener.

Eric Eden :
8:52

The interesting thing is I work with a lot of companies. What I've noticed is for a lot of companies, it's very hard for them to tell their unique story and why they're different and why they're better. Some companies I work with I go to their website. I can't even figure out from their website what they do. I'm like you're really bad at this. You're really bad at telling your story in person and on your website.

Eric Eden :
9:18

But it's even worse because a lot of companies I would go in and I would talk to people at the company and every single person would talk about what the company does in a different way, not necessarily conflicting, but in different ways. That I found very confusing and not consistent at all at all. And I actually told the management team of this one company. I came in and I talked to all the leaders in the company, trying to get a sense of who they are, what they do, and after I met with all of them, I said I met with all of them. I really can't work with you guys because I can't figure out what you guys do after I talk to all the leaders in the company. But, more importantly, I don't think the people who work here know what you do either. I've had a very extreme sort of experiences like that where people really struggle with this. Why do people struggle with this so much?

Ryan Holck:
10:17

I think people struggle with it largely because and what you just echoed is what I see on a daily and weekly basis I think people struggle with it for two reasons. First of all, they have not done the hard work of truly identifying. We figured out a product or service to sell, but why are we doing it? What are we really solving in the world? And so I think that's part of it. They haven't done the work of really talking about how is this making a win for users, for our ideal customer, so they don't know what to talk about and share.

Ryan Holck:
10:55

The other thing is, I think there is a challenge for people, when they are inside the proverbial bubble, to look out with clarity and say how do I explain what we do to somebody who doesn't spend 40, 50, 60 hours a week thinking of it, who has seven seconds on a website to grasp the 30,000 foot view of who, our businesses and what we do? And, as you said, you talked to everyone and had a question. I spent an hour on the phone with someone and we were 56 minutes in. I looked at the time. I'm like how long has this taken Before he said one sentence where I went. Is that really what you do. Why don't you lead with that and I think that's a challenge for a lot of people is we are so close to it that we aren't sure what the end listener needs to actually hear. Done the work of really figuring out, honing in what is that impact, so that I can talk about it from the side of impact rather than just all the cool things that my product or service does.

Eric Eden :
12:30

I guess there's a saying that when you're inside the jar it's hard to know what's on the label. Yes, past the hero image on the homepage, 95% of people only look at the homepage and they don't even scroll down. You have 20 seconds for people to process a couple sentences. You don't have a lot of time, and so to your example you have to know which thing to lead with, otherwise people won't even take the time to hear your story Very much, and I think of it as I am trading or buying time.

Ryan Holck:
13:02

If my first two sentences, when that hero section loads, connect with the reader, then they're going to give me another 10, 15 seconds, maybe another 10 or 15 seconds. I know if I can have someone on my site for a minute, 15, a minute and a half. I have done huge things and won tremendously. But if I haven't figured out the story clearly enough and they're there a minute and a half and they don't click a next step, action button, then there's still a gap in my communication. I figured out how to get them to stick, but I failed to end with a call to action that actually made them want to take the next step and connect with us.

Eric Eden :
13:45

So the first hurdle is getting past the initial 20 seconds, and then you're saying you really just have a minute to win it.

Ryan Holck:
13:52

You do, you do very much and it's part of what with that organization I led with at the beginning of what we found in the process of sharing, when we identified what stories needed to be shared like what was the big impact idea and then whose individual stories help support that then to tell that story in ways that it was cohesive, so you didn't just capture attention but you kept the attention long enough for them to win it as you just said it and understand so that when they were presented with a, would you like to be a volunteer or would you help support this organization? When they got the book, a call option, people took it because we had hooked them at the beginning. In that 10 to 20 seconds we had shared enough with empathy and connection and impact that they understood the win that was being provided and they moved on. Then they wanted to engage with us. They wanted to engage with the organization.

Ryan Holck:
14:58

They, in three years time, tripled the budget of the organization and five years later the budget is almost 6x five and a half 6x because people began to understand with clarity what is the impact. What are stories that support the impact? How are we keeping people engaged long enough to hear the story enough times, in enough ways, with repetition, that they actually take action?

Eric Eden :
15:26

I think the way to highlight impact in most cases is to have very customer-focused marketing. Have the customers be the heroes, if you will, in the marketing, and it doesn't necessarily need to be in my mind a testimonial where people give exact figures of I use this product or service and it had this huge impact. Like, people don't have to give away necessarily those confidential numbers, but when people talk about impact is I use this product or service, I was able to get things done twice as fast, or we were able to double our revenue because we followed the process with this product or service. I think, more broadly, people can talk about impact without talking about exact results. That might be confidential.

Ryan Holck:
16:30

Yeah, very much, and I am finding more and more that there is a fine line. A lot of people think about testimonials and what in their mind is the two sentences you got at Yelp or what someone typed into Google review that, if you read them, actually say nothing, like they're not even helpful. They pretty much just say this company actually exists and they deliver a product. Most of the time they're not giving you enough information. So that's what a lot of people think of when I say I think you need a testimonial, and they're like I don't get it. That's not the kind of testimony I mean. I want something that says that how it changed, how I was impacted, what actually happened with my life or my home. I used this product and things got better and this is how, and I think you're right that those can be said in just a couple sentences. They don't always have to give the nitty gritty information.

Ryan Holck:
17:27

The nonprofit that I started talking about serves people whose face we can't share because of legal reasons and foster care system and all sorts of like protection things we had to get really creative on. How can I use the ideas and the thoughts that they share with us without ever showing their face. I can't do a video clip, I can't do social, traditional social that shows their face talking about what happens when they came and worked with us. So we had to get creative on the big idea is we see these kinds of life change happen or our product and service impacts people in these ways? Okay, there's a broad idea I can talk about without giving a specific number, but for years, trident was what was it? Four out of five dentists. Like what five dentists? What four dentists? It was a testimonial, without being super specific, and that's, I think.

Ryan Holck:
18:28

Really, what we can do in our marketing is, if we know the big idea, yeah, if someone wants specific, that could point you to that person, but most people are not going to say can you give me the name and contact information of Sally that you just quoted, because I want to hear her words. I'm not sure you're telling me the truth. If people are that skeptical about what we're providing, they're probably never going to buy. They're probably not who we want to be spending time with. So, finding the big ideas, then, of what is that general and how can I share it? We 2X'd our phone calls during work hours by doing these three things on our website. Within two months I noticed contact forms fill-ins had tripled because we changed the subscribe or book a call option on our website, those kind of things. I didn't give a specific of how many, but you at least get an idea of oh, you've got the volume. Something changed dramatically in your business as a result of using these services, these products.

Eric Eden :
19:35

So given how hard it is to tell a good story for most businesses and to differentiate themselves and to be unique broadly, what advice do you give marketers on how to tell a great story?

Ryan Holck:
19:53

I say that you've got to start by finding the right story to tell. You've got to figure out how to tell it with simplicity and then you've got to figure out how to repeat it with intentionality so that people hear it. If the adage is true that it's seven or more interactions with a call to action before people are ever going to act, you can't stop at. We talked about this three times, we tried this campaign and it didn't work. There's a reason why people buy radio ads that play 30, 40, 50 times. There's a reason why traditional media had repetition built in and we've got to find ways in our marketing to make sure I know what story I'm telling. I'm going to tell it super clearly and I'm going to tell it with repeated strategy behind the repetition so I get that message in front of the same people over and over.

Eric Eden :
20:58

Let's not make this hard again and just keep repeating it until people believe you. That's great advice. So I believe you have a couple resources that you can make available to listeners. Can you share what those are?

Ryan Holck:
21:12

I do. So there are two things that I find are recurring challenges faced by especially small businesses. The first one is what on earth is that story and how do and it's a three-step little short video process that you can walk through to help clarity around what is the story we need to be sharing and how can we do it with simplicity. So that's the first one, and if you're trying to figure out how do I talk about the complex things that we do in simple, easy ways, that's a great first step. The other one is that oftentimes clarity reveals itself, or a lack of clarity, in two places in face-to-face conversations and on your website, as we've already talked some about.

Ryan Holck:
22:11

And so if you have a website that you see people are landing and bouncing away from without taking action, you're not seeing people click on your buttons, call when you expect that they're going to, you probably have website messaging audit and it legitimately will take you 10 minutes. I've had friends run it on their content to make sure. Can I really do this in 10 minutes and do I learn enough that if I make the changes, I will see things change in my business and in the interactions on the website? So that's. The second item is a 10-minute website audit. That's a short video and a little worksheet, and at the end you will know what is and isn't working in your initial messaging.

Eric Eden :
23:04

That's great. Thank you for sharing those resources. I'll link to them in the show notes so everyone can easily get to it. Really appreciate you joining us today and sharing these stories and this advice. Encourage everyone to share this episode with their friends so they can learn the secrets to great storytelling that we've been talking about here, and thanks so much for being with us today. We really appreciate it.