Codie Sanchez argues that storytelling beats raw data when selling ideas. She explains how to turn statistics into memorable narratives by repeatedly asking
If anybody's listening to this and thinking, when do I start the content game? I think you don't create content until you have a story worthy of creating content about. A lot of people tell statistics. Very few people tell stories. If you want to tell an incredible story, you have to ask yourself, so what? Why do they care? So what? Most people tell a story because they think it's interesting, but they don't actually know the so what. And that is the difference between a story that people care about and one that they don't.
The 3-year What was your journey from you to build your audience from zero to where it's at now? Like, can you walk us through that? Because I'm sure people want to emulate it. There's like, how did Codie do it?
One, a couple things. We actually found a study that was fascinating that answered this question. Should you quit your job to go all in on the thing you want to do, your side hustle? When should you quit your job? And they surveyed 5,000 people who decided some to quit their job, some to stay through the period of their startup. And what they found is of those 5,000 people, the ones who continued into their startup for more than a year while working a corporate job succeeded 1/3 more often than those who didn't. And so the reason I say that is because I started this when I still had a quote unquote job. And so if anybody's listening to this and thinking, when do I start the content game? Should I go all in? I think you don't create content until you have a story worthy of creating content about or a skill set worthy of creating content about. So if you want to Logan Paul it, you can.
Mm-hmm.
create incredible stories and you could go super viral.
Spectacles.
Right, exactly. That's an option. But if you wanna be seen as an expert, which I think a lot of people do in their content, you've gotta become the expert first. And I don't buy into this thing where a lot of people today are saying, hey, I wanna become an expert on marketing, but I've never run a marketing company, right? And they can't compete with somebody like you who's done this for years. So I would say step one, Either come up with an incredible story or become an expert on something and then go create content around it.
You do a really good job of storytelling, right? And so like when I talk to Alex and Layla about this, it's like the three of us, at least for me, do not like direct-to-camera where I'm lecturing like you should do it this way, da da da da da, right? But I think you've learned a lot from storytelling, maybe back to your reporter days, right? Are there any like key things, takeaways there that you can share? on storytelling? Because I think you're just a natural at it.
Practice makes perfect. My family had 4 chairs in my parents' living room, and my brother and I always joked that we eventually melted into those 4 chairs with my parents because we would tell stories continuously around them. That's the way that my family communicated, and we would have to debate our ideas. So we were very boisterous. So my brother is more interested in politics, more aggressively interested in politics than I am. And so he would say a point that I thought was crazy, and we'd go at him, and then my dad would have another one, and then my mom would have one. We would all sort of debate. And so for that reason, I think we got good at trying to convince others of our viewpoints. I also did debate team back in the day, 'cause I was super cool.
Right, yeah.
In college. But from a storytelling perspective, oftentimes I think the answer is, if you wanna tell an incredible story, you have to ask yourself, so what? And you have to ask yourself, so what, 10 or 15 times before you tell the story. And every time I think about a story we're gonna tell our audience, I always think, so what? Why do they care? So what? Why did this happen? So what? Why are we saying that line? And most people tell a story because they think it's interesting, but they don't actually know the so what. And that is the difference between a story that people care about and share and one that they don't.
Do you have like an example of that?
Yeah, so for instance, the other day, the difference is this. A lot of people tell statistics, very few people tell stories. The other day, I have a team that does research for me. So one of them was researching the difference in pay between top CEOs, and they found a trend that they thought was interesting. At the very top of the best paid CEOs was Peloton and another company, and then Disney was lower down and Ford was lower down. And they said, we think this is interesting because—
Interesting.
Disney and Ford are much more profitable than Peloton, who has basically burned through all this cash and whatever, but look how much the CEO's making. And I was like, okay, so what? And when they give me statistics, we dive down. So, so the so what is, well, the average person is gonna think that's weird. Why are these Silicon Valley companies getting this and whatever? And so I just say, so, so what? Well, you know, are they funding this company versus that company? And we go down this rabbit hole and that leads to a really good hook. So it's—
There you go.
Yeah, so instead of the story being, this CEO makes more than this, it's Silicon Valley is lighting money on fire by paying these CEOs, and you're never gonna believe how much they do. And then you go, this one, you go, do you know the difference between this? You know, and that's how you tell an interesting story, because you don't just lead with the stats, you lead with the story. Yeah.
