The Power of Storytelling for Contractors with Rosalynn Verges

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Contractor Radio. I am your host, Jim Johnson, and we have another amazing episode for you this week. And as always, we like to start off with what we call the two minute drill. It's a quick little bit from us in regards to the content that we're going to be sharing. Our goal with Contractor Radio is to give you something that's entertaining, informational, educational, hopefully strategic and tactical that helps you move your business forward. We're kind of like your little secret thing that you know about that maybe some of your competitors don't, to help you move you forward and get in control of your business so you can grow it and find that financial freedom and personal freedom that we're all searching for as entrepreneurs. And so today we're going to be talking about this thing called making a customer or even a person in your business the hero. And what we mean by that is there's this hero's journey or this ability to tell stories about our business that caused there to be some attraction, caused there to be some wanting to be a part of that particular story. And most of the time, when we approach these stories, we approach these stories from a perspective that we are the hero. The company itself or the individual that is the leader tends to be the hero, but that's not really the goal. We're going to talk about this storytelling aspect of things with our special guest today. I can't wait to bring her on. She is absolutely amazing when it comes to this. But one of the things I did to kind of get down this path myself and to really understand the value of it to our marketing and really the. The thing I like most about it is it drives your ideal client. Not just a whole bunch of leads, not just a whole bunch of people that might be interested in our stuff, but it's really attracting the ideal client. And when you have the ideal client in front of you, there's some things that happen. Those things are higher closing percentages. Those things are alignment in what you're after, in your purpose. And so you're going to have more experience. That is a good experience for your salespeople, your staff, your production team, and everybody else that you have in. In your contracting business. So I'm going to give you a couple of tools that you could probably go and find really quickly that would help you to better understand this idea of storytelling and the value that it has to your business. And really this idea of power of storytelling. So one of those is to go learn everything you can about the hero's journey that's where I started. That's this concept of a person being involved in your story that is starting out with a struggle. They come across a guide, that guide gives them the advice they need. They still end up with some obstacles and challenges, and in the end, they figure it all out and they solve all the problems and they achieve the thing that they're after. It's a story arc that's been around for years. It's actually biblical, which is really cool to understand that this thing has been there for a very long time. Now. There's another aspect of this that makes it a little bit more practical for you guys and something that I've been learning and studying ever since I met our guest. And that idea is this idea of storybrand. It's a book written by Don Miller. You can go and download that, put that on your Audible or your Kindle and spend some time reading that because you're going to find out the power of great storytelling in your contracting business as we talk today. So this guest that I've got coming on, she holds a very special place in our heart here. She is actually one of our coaches. She is our lead executive champion, HR coach, but she's also our champion of marketing, something she's uber passionate about. She understands it. She has a ton of experience at it, and she was brought to us by one of our other coaches. We call them the Northern sisters. It is so great to have them and I am so excited to bring on our absolute rock star with when it comes to HR and marketing strategy, Rosalind Vergis. Roz, welcome to the show.

Hi, Jim. How you doing?

I am doing fantastic. And one of the things I love about Roz is Roz, despite whatever may be going on in her life, always has a smile on her face and she's always in a good mood. And it's one of the things we teach. We talk about these habits of leaders and one of those habits is setting the example. And sometimes we don't always feel great, but we want to set the example for everybody else. And Roz does a great job of living to that core leadership habit of ours here. So, Roz, we're going to talk about storytelling today. I think you're pretty passionate about that. But before we get there, we want to take just a second out. We're going to hear a word from our sponsor. We'll come right back.

Sounds great.

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All right, and now back to our Contractor Radio podcast with our champion coach here at Contractor Coach Pro, Rosalind Verges. And again, we're talking about storytelling, the power that that has for your contracting business. And we're going to get there, I promise. But before we get there, how did you get to where you are today? Give us a little bit of your backstory so people understand who Roz is and what Roz is all about. And I really hope you include the last thing you were doing before you came to be a part of our team.

Well, I absolutely will, Jim, since it's a really big part of me. But I guess, you know, if we were to count the number of jobs Roz has had, I feel like we'd need probably a spreadsheet to detail it out and all the different roles I've had. But I've really started my career in advertising and marketing. I worked for newspaper. That's where I met my husband. He's a journalist. But I loved that job. I loved being in advertising because I really got to see the power of kind of storytelling and psychology and watch those come together in the form of art. So it was something I've just always been really passionate about. But then actually one of my clients tapped me in to come and work for their organization doing human resources. It's something I never would have necessarily expected for myself, but I loved it. I had the opportunity to work for a Fortune 500 company and really learn everything I could about business, about operations and about HR and how to really run a good ship that's focused on culture and people. And then from there, I did HR for quite a few years, got PHR certified and pursued that career path for a long time, but really found myself missing the marketing and advertising side of things. So I went back into marketing and advertising, worked for an awesome agency, really focused on experiential advertising here in the Twin Cities as well, and got to run some really fun campaigns. And then I kicked off my own business, which is focused on culture and leadership, as you know, Jim, and really found myself really loving that. Really loving. Helping leaders basically do HR and integrate their leadership and their culture into all of their business practices and kind of rethink how they treat their employees. But. But it was hard to run a business, as you know, Jim. It took a lot of hours. I've got young kids, and ultimately I actually found myself called into ministry, Something, again, I never could have foreseen. But God just takes us on some really interesting paths in life, and I was really blessed with that opportunity. I loved my time in ministry. And then this year, just kind of in light of everything with kids, being home and doing distance learning, I had the wonderful opportunity again. God kind of just steered my ship a little bit in the right direction to CCP and have loved coming on and being our HR coach and our marketing champion.

Yeah, we couldn't be happier. Obviously, your. Your background is extensive. You have a wide range of skill sets, which we weren't even really looking for you, to be honest. But whenever Jenny came to us and said, hey, I got this person, I think she'd be a great fit, and we got to meet you, I knew I had to figure out a place for you. And whenever you find great talent, you make room for that talent. It's one of our core beliefs as being a business owner is, hey, we can figure out how to use this talent. And you've. Come on, you've done a great job with our clients already. They love you. It's one of my proudest things is all of our coaches are loved by our clients more than they love me. That's what I want to see. I want to see our coaches really be the highlight of what we do here. And our customers are really the highlight. It's more about them than it is about us. So what's your greatest achievement to date? Now we can all go to family, right? So not family. We know that you can tell your husband and kids later, yes, you're my greatest achievement. But besides them, what's your greatest achievement today?

Yeah, you know, Jim, honestly, when. When I hear that question, what comes to mind first and foremost for me is being asked to be someone else's mentor has honestly been one of the most rewarding feelings I've ever had and one of the most rewarding opportunities. You know, those relationships that you build in a mentor, mentee relationship, I feel like just give back tenfold to you. And so to be seen by someone else as a leader, as someone that they want to grow and learn from, I think it's just a tremendous honor, and it's something that I've really been passionate about in my personal life and in my personal time. Is mentoring other female professionals. And so that's definitely been hands down, one of my greatest achievements.

No wonder you're a coach. It kind of fits, right? And not everybody can be one. It's harder work than people think, number one. And there's some really close relationships that happen that sometimes people can honestly be uncomfortable with. In this leadership position, you really have a lot of responsibility, and we find it very rewarding and very fulfilling. And it seems like you do too. So it's a great match. So let's get into what we're going to talk about today. Let's talk about the power of storytelling, especially for contractors, and why that thing is so important. So can you give us just a real quick breakdown of what do you mean by storytelling when it comes to your contracting business?

Yeah. So basically the idea, Jim, is that you want to start to understand what is the experience that. That your clients are having. Understanding kind of what they're after, what their goals are, and helping them build a narrative around that. I mean, so much of advertising and marketing is about identifying the feelings and the emotions that people are going through in their business, because that, at the core, is what human beings connect to. Right. We've all kind of been, since the beginning of time, we've been storytellers. I think that's so innate in our human nature. And so when we think about it in terms of our contracting business, we're really trying to identify what is the narrative, the purpose that your business serves, how does it help others, and how does it help those individuals really become who they want to become or achieve what they want to achieve. So the idea is really capturing the elements and the feelings that are a part of that whole story and kind of how we interact and relate to one another and then being able to share that back so that your clients, your community, that they can see themselves in that, and it's going to attract them and help them feel engaged to it. I mean, I'm sure, you know, Jim, you have your friends who are great storytellers and your friends who maybe missed the mark a little bit. Who are those people that you want to listen to? I mean, I know myself a great story. I'm just sucked right into it. Right?

Yeah. The storyteller that comes to mind for me is my grandfather. My grandfather was a great storyteller. He was really good at, you know, the setting up of it and setting the scene and bringing the context to it and all of that good stuff. And then the build up and then this kind of climax to it. And then wrapping it all up in this nice, neat little bow. And. And I have some friends, like you said. I got some friends that are really good storytellers. It's one of the things that I really enjoy. I enjoy storytelling as something that kind of prided myself in with my own kids. So I had these stories that were kind of the funniest. I have two kinds of stories I tell. Well, actually three. I have funny stories, I have life lesson stories, and then I have scary stories. Scary stories are my favorite to tell. Whenever I got a group of kids that are about 9, 10 ish to 13, 14 ish. And I've been banned from a vacation spot with other families because I told their kids this scary story on this night. And none of their kids would sleep in their room. They all had to go sleep with their parents. The parents are like, you're not allowed to come back again. So I get into it. My kids still talk about them today. And so those things are so memorable. That's what it is for me. This thing becomes so memorable that you constantly are drawn back to it. That's what we want to do with our business. We want to tell a memorable story that we're not necessarily the highlight of, I think. And so what's the first thing I got to understand when I'm telling this story? What do I got to understand in order to tell this story?

Yeah, I think the key is really understanding your client. What is that identity that they're searching for? Who do they want to become? What's important to them? What are their goals? I think you have to really have clarity around that end game, what you're working toward, so that you can start to identify the steps that you need to take to help get them there. If you're the guide in this, in the situation.

Awesome. So we need to understand what they're trying to achieve or what they aspire to. Their goal, where their end game. This sounds very familiar. Sounds like building a strategy, right? What's the end goal? And then we can kind of build backwards from that. And. And then we need to understand a little bit about what our role is. So can you explain to us what our role is as the guide and not the hero? What. What that actually means?

Yeah, I think the key to really being a good guide is again, starting with having a really clear understanding of who they are, what's important to them, but then also really asking those questions, understanding that they are on the journey. You're just kind of walking alongside them. And so you need to Ask questions that help lead them there, but you don't want to necessarily push them there. Right. The other piece, I think, is really being intentional about being empathetic. You know, we follow people who we feel like are in our corners, people who are rooting for us, who have our best interests in mind. And so when we have that connection, I feel like we're much more likely to follow people and to follow that guide. And then the last thing I think, too, is really being a person that they can trust, a person who has experience, who has the authority, who is able to provide them the knowledge and experience that they don't have without you as the guide.

So I was very fortunate. When you first came on, you were like, hey, I want to be the champion of marketing. Thank you. I am so tired of being a marketing champion at this business. I really. I'm so happy you came on board. And one of the first things you asked me is, well, what's your story? And I went, well, you know, this. This is who our ideal client is. This is what we do for them. This is how we do it. This is what ends up happening whenever we do coach them. And then you walked me through this exercise came from that book, right from storybrand. And it helped us really identify, because people, while they get what we do, that we coach contractors, they don't get what it means, really. It's like, oh, you coach contractors, but what does that actually mean? And what we ended up coming down to was that we are their guide to help them get control business so they can find that personal and financial freedom that they're after. It was so clarifying for us. It's now something that we kind of preach and we know about, and we're telling that story in everything we do, which has spoken more and more and more to those clients. And they're starting. We're starting to see the results from that now. They're drawn to it because that's the hero they want to be. They want to be in control of their business. They want to grow their business. They want to pursue those passions and dreams that they have outside of their business, as well as in their business business and the success they want for that. And so there's. There's kind of this third aspect of this that's really important. And so there's this. How important is the risk, reward, outcome of this story?

Yeah, absolutely. I think as a guide, you know, we're coming alongside them, and we really want to help them understand what. What can happen if they take our advice and what can happen if they don't? I mean, it's just kind of similar to being a parent, Jim. You know, I've got my kids, and if they choose not to follow rules or follow my suggestions, they're going to have a certain outcome. Right. But if we don't give any clarity to what those potential outcomes can be, there's not really necessarily going to be the same motivation to follow those recommendations of the guide. And so we do really want to bring clarity to what the risks are and to what the rewards are so that they can get the full picture. Because that's the part of the benefit as the guide, is we're looking at it from above. We've walked the journey before. If you think about going up a mountain, the guide leader who's taking you up that hike, they've taken that path again and again and again. So they have the path already in their mind. They know where they're going. But the person who's climbing up that mountain, for the first time ever, they don't know what's around the bend. They can't see it. They have no idea. And so as the guide, you want to provide clarity to them so that you can help them avoid some of those risks and the obstacles and ultimately help them reach the reward that they're seeking.

So it sounds to me like I've got to. I've got to know what the end goal is, figure out what I got to do to be the guide along that path. But I also got to tell them, you know, what's going to happen one way or the other if you choose to follow this path. This is what could happen if we do. So if you choose not to go on this journey together, these are some of the consequences of maybe not following that particular prescription. And so identifying those things about yourself, they're not as easy as they sound like, especially when it comes to contracting. So I thought maybe today you and I could maybe give an example for a contractor. Do you up for that?

Yeah, that sounds great.

I know we didn't talk about that before, but as I was. As we were going through this conversation, I'm like, hey, how do we apply this to actual contracts? Because we're talking pretty high level right now, but let's do an example if we can. Sure. So I'm a residential contractor.

I'm a homeowner.

Perfect. So we're going to work on this together just a bit.

Sounds great.

And so I need to understand the aspirational goal of you as the homeowner. If you're going to find a contractor, what's the. I'm trying to find a contractor to do whatever it is. We don't even have to pick a particular trade. But I know I need somebody to do this thing for me at my home.

Yeah, well, Jim, I'm a busy mom. I've got kids, I've got a husband. We're in distance learning right now. So really, I need somebody that's going to come alongside me and can just take this off my plate. It's heavy.

That was actually one of the very first things we identified as a. As a contractor back in the day when I was doing my own contracting. It was like, you know, people aren't all caught up in price as much as everybody thinks they're more caught up in stress. Take the stress off me and I'll pay a little more. You put stress on me and make me have to organize everything and all that other good stuff. Well, yeah, I'm not going to pay you very much. And so understanding those needs of that homeowner. You're busy. You got kids at home. Like, right now, the story might be a little bit different because of this whole pandemic thing that we're dealing with versus what it might have been a year ago or what it might be next year. And so this is something you're looking at all the time.