How to Use Storytelling for Fitness Business | Best ways to use your story to sell in content

What's up, Coach? I'm Beverly Simpson and today's video, we're sitting down with Amazon best selling author Katie Soy about how to use the power of storytelling in your business.

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Let's get started. What's up, Coach? I'm Beverly Simpson, the owner of beesimson Fitness and the founder of the PT Profit formula and PT Profit podcast. Today's video is an interview I did for the podcast with Amazon best selling author Katie Soy. I'm super excited to bring her to you because by the end of this video, you'll discover how you can start implementing your story. So even if you think that your story is not that great or awesome, she is going to break that down for you. Inside of this video, she's also going to give you some tools that you can instantly implement to weave your story into your content. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. Hi Katie. Thanks so much for joining me on this show today. How are you?

I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to get the chance to chat with you because we're friends and we're also colleagues and you're just the best. So I'm excited to be here.

Oh, that's great. No, you are the best. Honestly, I'm super pumped. I think that your stuff that you are going to bring to the audience today, I just, I know they're going to love it. I know. I'm so excited. So just to kick us off for fun today, can you tell little bit about who you are and who you serve and how you got there?

Yes. So I am the founder of the Story Collective and I help business owners, usually entrepreneurs, personal brands, companies who are too close to their company mission to see the value of their authentic, vulnerable experiences and how you can relate those to branding and business in a really powerful way. So I help people really unleash the power of their personal stories in business branding.

Ooh, so good. So how did you get into that?

It's been, in one way it feels like it's been a journey and another way it feels like I've been doing this my whole life. So I have always been a writer. In fact, I am a writer. I have a book on Amazon, I'm working on other fiction books right now. And that kind of led me to a marketing copywriting career for a mortgage company in the corporate world. And then that led me to consulting on the side and helping people do that on the side, which brought me to people going well, how do you talk about tough stuff in business? How do you humanize, like, for example, like working in mortgage. How do you humanize loan officers?

Right?

Everybody sells the same product at different companies, right? How do you humanize those people in communities? How do you humanize the mortgage industry, which over the last decade has gotten some negative press over the years, right? Because of stuff going on in the industry? And then that led to the conversation of how do you tell. Like, how do you differentiate. How do you differentiate yourself if you are somebody who sells a similar product to a ton of other people? And then how do I tell stories in my business, my professional branding, that are really personable or really vulnerable or really raw, right? Because people kind of tend to think, oh, I have to be this way in business, this way, my personal life. And so once you have that intersection of taking those stories, the things that have happened to you, different experiences that have shaped who you are, probably shaped why you started your business, and you tell them in this brilliant way, you connect your ideal audience, you build trust, right? So you can sell more easily in an authentic, real way, and you can change the world, right? It's those stories that make people feel less alone. It's those stories that, like, we hand out to other people and go, oh, they did this too, so it's possible for me. So to me, there's like the business ROI of storytelling, you know, builds trust, you know, connects to your audience, you know, grows your audience, helps people want to buy from you more easily, you know, kind of in the 3D, right? But then there's also this higher purpose step of it, too. Like, those stories are what connect other people to us and help people feel less alone.

And I love it. And we're just gonna go really deep into it. The things that you said, which I think is such a powerful point, and it's something that I always bring to my clients that work with me that I feel most people miss, is that it's so easy to look out into the industry. And so for us, I'm talking to fitness professionals, and it's to see, like, oh, I can't reinvent human body biomechanics and, you know, teach people how to, you know, squat and deadlift a different way. Our skeletal system had. And muscular system, it's not changing.

Acro level for.

For just argument's sake. So they miss the fact that their story and that their context is part of what makes them unique, Right? And I think so many people forget that and then struggle to weave that into their business. Content.

And I totally agree with you. And I think, you know, for your example of. And your clients who are in fitness, if you're trying to sell the same thing everybody else is selling, it's just like with loan officers, right?

Or any.

Any MLM company, it's, how do you make yourself unique? And yet there's this inner resistance in a lot of my clients, I find into sharing what actually makes them unique. So, for example, you and I have chatted before. We're friends. So you know that I've had kind of a whole mental health journey over the last few years.

Right.

And so if I'm looking for a fitness coach, I'm going to naturally gravitate more towards somebody who is open about working out when you're depressed or working out when you are. You know, how do you feel your body and feed yourself the right nutrition and supplements when you're dealing with depression, anxiety, things like that, Sharing about their journey and how food helped them and they healed themselves.

Right.

And like, workouts fueled like that helped their. That helped them process with all that stuff, I'm naturally going to gravitate. Like, look at. Look at postpartum moms. Right?

Right.

There's a natural. There's a natural draw. Like, it's. It's just. It's just, you know, story mechanics. It's how we're. It's how we operate.

Right.

That's how the human brain operates. We're going to go to our, you know, women trainers or trainers who are very supportive of this postpartum community and the changes that you've just gone through and all of that. So telling these stories, it's almost like, that's the one. Everybody's like, how do I be unique? But then I find this resistance of, oh, well, I can't talk about that because that's too much.

Right.

And interestingly enough, I feel like a lot of my clients come to me with stories of trauma, with stories that have been considered more sensitive. Um, and so are those harder to tell in branding? Sure. But to me, to me, they're the most challenging because they can be the most impactful. And when shared the right way, that can completely shift somebody's life. Yes, yes. It can sell your products and connect to your audience, but it can change somebody's life. When you go, I was here and you're here right now, and I know how dark it feels.

Right.

And whatever it is, but I got out of it.

Right.

That's what storytelling is. And so to me, yeah, it's. It's that's the main thing that makes us unique. And I think it also helps people build trust with you.

Right.

Like, you can go. Here's why I can talk to you about this. Stories also build credibility in your brand, and you can use them to overcome, you know, objections in your marketing and your messaging and your branding too. Like, your stories can go. Here's why. Like, I've got proof of why I can help you, right? So there's just so many things that it does from a business standpoint, but I feel like people can be hesitant to go, I don't want to talk about that, Katie. Like, come on. And I'm like, no, this is the hidden gem, what we need to bring to the front of your brand. Yeah.

So I just want to jump in here real quick, because I recognize that since Katie and I are such good friends, that we talk about storytelling, and I think. I think that people understand conceptually, like, what a story is. But I think when we are actually look at it from a deconstruction, like a deconstructing it point of view, and really asking yourself, like, well, what is. You know, what does constitute as a story? I think that we can all conceptually understand that. But I'd love to, like, just take a look at it from. Just take a little bit of a closer look at it. What do you mean when you're talking about a story?

This is a great question, and it's one that I love, because when people come to me and they're like, I don't want to tell this story. I want to tell this story frequently, I go, that's not a story, right? So a story typically involves. It's like a recipe ingredient. So I'll give you a long answer to this question, right? It's like, in any recipe, you know, there are certain things that you're gonna have. If you bake a cake versus making cookies or versus making a roast, right? Whatever it is. So in stories, you have main characters, you have conflict, right? There's no story without conflict. Look at any movie, any book. Beverly knows I'm a huge movie, TV show, fiction book lover, right? That's my jam. And you have main characters, you have conflict. They either overcome that conflict, they overcome challenges, right? Or they don't. And that's. That's. That's when you have tragedies happen, right? And then you have an ending. So you've got your ingredients of your main characters, your conflict or your challenges, Your. Your beginning, your middle, and your end, right? And so when you're telling a story. Again, whether it's business, friend at coffee shop, right? This is how the brain naturally tells and registers stories. So that's. I don't know if that's helpful for the answer to your question. So when we tell this in business, we want to make sure. Usually my niche is helping clients tell stories that put their clients in the hero's journey.

Right?

So again, same thing. You've got your hero as your main character. Probably you, maybe it's a client, maybe it's a client that you've helped. It's testimonial. And you're kind of bringing that testimonial to life. So it's not kind of one dimensional, somebody saying, oh, this helped me. It's three dimensional, where you're telling the story.

Right.

Does that make any sense? Because you're actually going to go into more detail about what this testimonial involved. And so you're going to have, you know, identify your main characters, your conflict or your challenges, your inciting incidents, 1, 2 or 3, and then your ending and how that was resolved. And the resolve is really where you can build your credibility and establish that trust. And so the hero's journey follows that same. And we've all heard this, right? The hero's journey follows that same lineup. And again, you can place yourself in that so that you show clients what's possible for them. And I always use this example, like we've all been at dinner parties or at coffee or out with friends, and you've heard people tell similar stories, like, different ways. So like you can tell when somebody's being arrogant. And we all have heard this at some conference or some event that we've been to in some, you know, like when somebody's telling a story and it's like the brag rights, you know what I mean? Like, they're just telling the story to sound great versus somebody sharing a story where you're like, and then I dealt with this and this was probably the wrong way to handle it. And then I went here and then my friend came and helped me with. You know what I mean? There's a different feeling. And so we want to tell the story in a way that makes the client see what's possible for them, even if you're using yourself as an example. And so that's really kind of those key ingredients following the hero's journey and making sure that we use that so the client can see what's possible. Not so we're getting some sort of, you know, good feeling or for Our ego of telling the story. That's what I advise my clients.

Oh, and this is so good. I'm glad that you brought this up because I think this is something that I know a lot of my clients struggle with, because one of the things that I'm gearing, you know, that I'm teaching them, and I didn't say it quite as eloquently as you did, but what you said was making sure that in your storytelling or in your content, you're positioning your client as the hero. And I think what.

Yes, yes, yes.

So many people is that when they're telling a story about themselves, they're having a challenging time putting themselves in the guide position and putting their client in the hero position.

Right.

And I think, yeah, that's. That's a very common struggle. And I think that first of all, if this is new and if you're wanting to tell stories the right way, probably this might feel really weird to tell a story about yourself, but I always tell my clients, you can tell that story in a way that involves humility and in a way that clearly defines the road that's possible for your client.

Right.

It's just all in the way that you tell the story. So one of the things. So my niche with my one on one clients is helping them identify. Because you just asked, what is story? And my next follow up to this was going to be, there's also different kinds of stories. You need to have different kinds of stories at the ready to tell on your branding. If you want examples on this. If you've ever followed Brendan Burchard, Tony Robbins, Right. Like top people in the entrepreneur space. Brendon Burchard tells the same stories at his conferences over and over and over again. And I've heard him tell the same stories that I've seen him speak three different times. And I still laugh because he's such a great storyteller.

Right.

So you need to have, as a business owner, you need to have your stories.

Right?

So it's not just one story that you're telling. And so I think some people are like, well, how do I tell this story and not make it about me? Well, that story might be about you because it might be the best example that shows your client that they can accomplish something like you accomplished as well. That might be the best way to tell the story. So instead of being focused on, oh, it's about me or it's about them, I want to focus on the best way to tell the story to get the point across. If you're the best example, then you're the best example. But we can also include other types of stories that are going to touch on your clients that aren't going to be about you, that are going to be about a friend, or they're going to be about, you know, that, that 3D testimonial I kind of mentioned.

Right.

So I would say, first of all, it can be about you, and that's not always bad. And second, you're going to have, you're going to have a handful of stories at the ready, just like these guys that we see that tell these stories for their business.

Right?