How to create stories that sell

Foreign. Hey, guys, what's up? Matt here. And today I'm going to talk to you about how to create stories that sell. So it's sort of a methodology that I've been using for a while on exactly how to sort of craft a story that puts in certain frameworks and hooks and all that kind of stuff in order to, I guess, make it easier for the person to transition through the sales process. If you like this stuff, make sure you stay all the way to the end, because I've got a few little bombshells there towards the end. Plus, I'm actually going to show you a story and exactly what frameworks and hooks are in it. Make sure you, like, subscribe. Hit the notification bell and cue the intro. From childhood, we are all conditioned to learn and listen to stories. We always place ourselves in the protagonist, right? So if we're watching Thor, like, then we picture ourselves as Thor. Like, you know, oh, man, if I was an Asgardian, I'd be Thor, right?

You are an old man and a fool.

So when we hear stories, we tend to become introspective and we ask ourselves questions. And so it's in those questions where people convince themselves to move forward. I'm under the impression that we can't convince people to do stuff. All we can do is try and get them to convince themselves for us. Telling stories allows someone to become introspective, start asking themselves questions, start thinking as if they're, you know, their protagonist. And then they put themselves in their position and ask, what would I do today? What I'm going to do is show you, like, the step by step process that I take that allows me to kind of create stories. And they have to be real stories. Otherwise it just comes off as disingenuous. Like, we don't want to lie to prospects and all that kind of good stuff. Basically just want to create a process where we can, like, I guess, take a story, take a concept, use something that has happened in our life, and then from there translate that genuinely and with congruence to the prospects that they can become introspective, put themselves in the positions that we were in, or using an analogy that somebody else or even a fictional character was in. And then from there, and they can start to ask themselves, what would I have done in that situation?

Right?

And that's how we create the story that sells. So the first thing that you need to know is that, you know, you need to understand what concept you're trying to convey.

Right?

Because you can't just tell a series of random stories or something that you and your mates did. Like, you can't waffle on for ages and expect it to be a powerful story that's going to allow someone to change their way of thinking, right? It's got to be a targeted approach. You're trying to get the person to place themselves in the protagonist. You want them to really ask what would they have done in that situation. You want them to become introspective. So we need to have a framework that we want them to buy into. It needs to be kind of laid out for them. So what I'm going to do is insert a clip of a story that I told at a recent seminar that I did with Marco Cortesi and Eli Wilde about how to sell wood stories. Right? So this is a masterclass. This is where I kind of take them through the first time that I ever bought coaching. So listen to this and then we'll come back and I'll kind of tell you exactly what frameworks were in there and what I was trying to get.

So I opened up a gym in a place called Bonnie Junction, which is similar to opening a gym in Beverly Hills. Okay? Like, it's a very expensive area. The rent's very expensive. There's. There's lots and lots of gyms. There are 55 gyms in the locality of which none of that I knew when I opened the gym because I didn't bother, I didn't really bother doing any market research. I'm sort of a dive in type person. Anyway, we had a three month rent free period and the rent was around 12 and a half thousand dollars a month. And so I don't know if you guys have ever known, but gyms are fairly expensive to open. So it cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars to open it. And then I was $90,000 in debt by the time we'd finished it. I had a business overdraft because I couldn't get a loan. So I had an overdraft, about 18% interest rate. The interest payments alone were $1,000 a month. And so opened it. And then six weeks in, we had 10 clients, like 50 bucks a week. So I had six weeks to then figure out a way to pay rent. And I was strolling on Facebook and I saw an advertisement and it was, hey, how to get a hundred leads per month in your fitness business? And I was like, well, that would solve all my problems. And like I had done pretty much everything. Like I had tried very hard. I had walked around in a gorilla suit giving away free Body fat assessments. I had done B2B stuff. So I'd gone to all the local businesses, I'd hired hot chicks and bikinis to hand out flyers. Um, I wore a swimsuit, handed out flyers, and I'm not even a very good looking dude. So that was a bit of a, bit of a last ditch. I had literally tried everything that I could possibly do within the realms of possibility and things that I knew how to do in order to get it, and it wasn't really working. But we were, we were, we were working hard and we were making slow progress. And so this, this seminar was at 9pm I think, and I was driving home from a long day of, you know, trying to find people to give us some fucking money. And it wasn't like, it wasn't the best spot, but I was driving home and it was at 9pm and I called my girlfriend who's now my wife, and I was like, hey, I don't know if I'm going to go to this thing. And she's like, no, you should go like, what's the harm? Just, just go. You know, I felt like lazy basically. And I was like, okay, I'll go. Sweet as. Anyway, I sit here and this guy's name is Travis and he had like five gyms at the time and he sat at a presentation just like what we're doing now. But it was sort of about 30 people in the room. And he was saying how he has managed to get all these leads for his gym, convert them into sales, make the money, et cetera, et cetera. Pretty, pretty standard thing, right? And so I was like, okay, this looks pretty good. And then at the end of it, he goes, and it's six and a half thousand dollars for eight weeks of coaching. I was like, fuck, I didn't have, I didn't have six and a half K, right? Like, I mean, we can all, you know, my thought was we can all get access to money, right? Like there's, we can always find out. Like, you know, we can. I could sell on Facebook, Marketplace, or I could get a loan or I could credit card, whatever. I just, I didn't, I mean, I was 90 grand in debt, right? I didn't have the money. So he kept talking. I left the room real quick and I called my dad because my dad's a mentor of mine and I can go on to that later. But my dad had a lot of success and then he ended up in the GFC in 2008. He lost everything, had a stroke anyway, but he's a mentor of mine. And so I called him up and I go, this is what's happening. And he goes. And I was like, there's this course and this. And he sort of knew all the background of the gym. And I was like, okay. Well, he just said, well, do you have the money? I was like, no. I was like, I can find it. I can figure it out. He was like, okay, well, do you. Do you think it will work? And I said, well, yeah, yeah. I mean, the guy's got the numbers, he's got the track record. Like, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't, you know, you can never know until you do it, you know? I mean, like, guess, but it seems like it's going to work. And he goes, okay. He goes, and what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And I was like, that's okay. Dad's bringing the a game of dadding today. He's stepping it up a notch, right? And I was like, well, I would do it. Like, why wouldn't you if you knew you couldn't fail? And so he said to me, he goes, well, I'm pretty sure that I didn't raise you to act in any other way. I was like, okay, okay. So I went back in and mind you, I have a girlfriend and a business partner, okay? Business partner. Didn't even know I was going to seminar, just so you know. So. But I go, okay. I walked to the front and I said, okay, I'll do it. I can put 3K down. That's what I got. That's like. That gives me enough money to pay.

For food this week.

And that's pretty much everything that I can muster up. And you're going to have to let me payment plan the rest. Now, I put it on two different cards, right? So I put like 1800 on one and 12 on the other. He was like, okay. And. And then I. And then I was like, okay, shit, fuck, this is a thing that's happening. I didn't even know coaching was a thing back then. Like, I was. I remember I came from the army, a year off, and then kind of gym open a gym. I didn't know there was this whole self development realm. Like, I think I'd only heard Tony Robbins name like once in my whole life before that. Um, and so then I was driving home and I was like, holy fuck, what have I done? I've just committed to six and a half thousand dollars. I don't have to learn a skill that I don't even have the first. I didn't even know, like, how to log into the back end of Facebook. I was totally technically inept anyway. And then I was gonna. This is back in the days optimized press, when I was gonna have to learn how to build my own landing pages and shit, right? So this just shows you how far back it was. But. So I went home that night and I was like, hey, baby. Spent all our money. She was cool with it, though. My wife is a very supportive lady. And she goes, well, do you think it's going to work? And do you think it's the best thing for us in our future? I said, yes, I do. She goes, and I back you 100%. She's like, I always will. And I was like, okay, well, I appreciate that. And that's why we're now married with two beautiful children. Now, my business partner was a different person. It was a different thing. And my business partner's a great guy. He's no longer my business partner. That's a business that I sold a long time ago. But he's very much like a type C personality. Like, we all know those people that, you know, they're just like. They have. Everything has to line up for it to work right. The timing's gotta be right, the detail's gotta be right. Every T's gotta be crossed, every I's gotta be dotted. And so I was sort of the driving force behind the relationship in terms of, like, getting stuff done. And he was much more of the detail, kind of, I guess, sometimes cleaning up my mess, but also benefiting from the fact that I was willing to take risk and he was very unwilling to take risk. And so I saw the next day, and I was like, hey, hey, man. You know, like, all that money that we don't have? I was like, yeah, well, now we have less of that. So I bought us a course. It was six and a half grants, eight weeks, and I'm going to learn how to be a rock star marketer. And he was like, the fuck you are. We need to get a refund. We need to do this. And I was like. I was like, okay, I understand. And I know that maybe I shouldn't have acted without consulting you, but I felt like it was within our best interest. And so we then, like. We then went through about an hour and a half conversation where I had to use the sales skills that I've sort of developed into what I have now to get him over the line. And eventually what I sort of told him was, was where I came up with this analogy about an island because.

We, we had tried everything.

I had tried, like, fucking walking around in a gorilla suit giving out free body fats. And it had led us to be in a position of where we were ultimately unhappy, unsuccessful, and we were going to fail. There was no way that we could afford that rent bill of 12 and a half thousand dollars that was due in like, I think six or six weeks time. And so I said to him, I was like, okay, man, like, picture yourself on an island, right? And I was like, you're surrounded by water 17 nautical miles, and that's all you can see. And so every single decision that the person who's on the island makes is based off the fact that you're on an island surrounded by water, with limited resources, which is totally fair and it makes sense, right? Because, like, people make decisions based off their perspective. I said, but the problem is, man, like, we're. We have to start making decisions based on the perspective that we want to have. Otherwise this is the only thing we're ever going to see. And so I said, like, you know, like, the thing is, like, we need to. We need to get the input of someone who's on top of a fucking mountain. Like, we need to be able to see everything. We need to. I want to see the mountains. I want to see the fucking jungles. I want to see that, this, I want to see that, that. I want to fucking see it, right? And, like, I know that it's possible because I just fucking saw a dude last night that is sitting up there crushing it, driving the fucking Audi R8 with five gyms, happy as fucking Larry. I was like, it's fucking there, like. And the guys on top of the mountain, like, basically handing us a rope, going, fucking, come on up. And I was like, okay. And so I was like, the difficult thing is, man, right now, like, we're in a position where we can barely see it. I said, so how do we get from here to there? And I was like, there's a couple of difficult decisions that need to be made. I was like, the first of all is you have to believe it with me. Like, I'm there. Like, I can fucking see it. The haze is gone. I can see the mountain, like. But, like, you got to see it with me, man. The second hard thing is that, like, we have to pick a direction. I was like, now I think it's that way, you know, Fuck, man. Like, that's all I got. I can just go with my gut. And the third thing is dude, we got to start walking. And if we're going to allow, if we're going to let the fact that like, the water might be too deep for us to hold us back, like, how much fucking longer are we going to walk around the outside of this goddamn mountain where the view never changes? So I just said to him, I was like, man, like, how much longer are you willing to fucking walk around this thing? I was like, let's fucking pick a direction, dude. Let's just go for it. What's the worst that could happen? We drown. Fuck, dude, like, I hate to break it to you, but we're breathing through straws already. And he said, okay. And I was like, oh, okay, that worked. I was like, sales skills. And then so over the next 72 hours, I consume the entire eight week course, right. I then became their best student because I was like, well, fuck this. If I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it in half. So I might as well just, you know, sorry, lack of my vernacular. I might as well just go balls deep into this thing and figure out how to do it, how to go hard in the paint. And then I went down. Honestly, I went down. I think over the next two years I spent about $60,000 on development. 40 of it was with the same guy.

Let's have a look at some of the frameworks that are in that story. Okay, the first one is bad debt versus good debt. Some people have to go into debt to buy things to, to get themselves in a better situation. Like, I've done it, I don't see anything wrong with it. Obviously we don't want people to do things that are going to put them in bad financial situations. So I wouldn't recommend someone take out a $50,000 loan or anything. But like my first course that I did, as you just heard the story, was like six and a half grand. I didn't have it, so I had to put some of it on credit card. But I learned a great skill that taught me how to make a lot more money down the track. And so I believe, I don't, I don't see anything wrong with that. Right. So I have to establish that there is good debt versus bad debt. The next thing is that I tried everything. I genuinely did try everything. I had walked around with a gorilla suit, done all these things. It hadn't worked. So I had exhausted my capacity to be able to fix this problem with the current skill set and knowledge that I had. Like, essentially hard work is not enough. The next Thing is, we want. Everyone has access to money if needed. Basically when I said, like, you know, how everyone, you know, I can access money. Right, Right. So I'm kind of getting agreeance and buy in throughout the story that these things are all fact. So we agree on these things. Right. And it's very subtle, but it gives me quite a strong framework to work off and I can build on those foundations later on. And then when I come into the end and I'm doing kind of an identity framework close, it's really going to give me a lot of, for lack of a less vulgar term, ammunition against the person to be able to kind of get them to act in the way that is in their best interest. Right. The next thing is guidance is key. Like a trusted advisor. When I called my father, asked those questions, all that kind of stuff like I got from a trusted advisor. Now what's the whole point of a sales call? Yes, to get a sale. But we get a sale because we become the trusted advisor. I'm kind of planting that seed that, you know, going to a trusted advisor and asking them how to do something, asking them how to make a decision is okay. The next thing is that you can never know that something's going to work until you do it. So. So that's gonna take out some hesitation because you might get like, oh, how do I know it's gonna work? It's like, well, mate, you don't. You know what I mean? But all we can do is put ourselves in the best position to be able to achieve success, you know, so we're trying to get behind on that. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? Again, very, very powerful question to ask yourself. Because if the answer is, well, I would do it, then, like, why wouldn't you do it? Like, why would you put yourself in a position where you're banking on failing partner? Objection. Okay. I didn't ask my wife, I didn't ask my business partner. That's true, I didn't. That happened. And I explained why. Then I explained my process about how to kind of get over that later on and then deep dive into taking action. So explaining how I got my business partner to take action, and then all of a sudden they put themselves in the seat of themselves and the business partner at the same time. And they're kind of going like, okay, like they're thinking to themselves a lot of things as I'm saying that, like, do I just do it? Do I need to? You know, there's a lot of things there. And so by telling a story that takes them through a journey when it's told well, one, it conveys a level of vulnerability on behalf of me, the salesperson. And vulnerability is one of those things where like, it's like a handshake. You put your hand out, someone shakes your hand. It's kind of natural, right? When you convey vulnerability to someone, they will usually convey vulnerability back. It's a fantastic way to create a deeper connection with a prospect and become that trusted advisor by yourself being willing to become vulnerable. And if you're not, you're probably leaving a lot of money on the table. There's a few more frameworks in there and I'm sure that you guys can kind of sit down and figure them out. I think there's like 17 different frameworks in that story. If you want to, you can grab the replay of that for the 27 bucks. I think goes for about five hours. I'll put the link in the description down below. But just from that clip, I think you can see it like you can craft a story that's going to put yourself in a good position to be able to get that program person over the thing that's holding him back. What I want you guys to do is kind of write out your hero story. Like write out and doesn't even have to be about business, right? And this is the thing, it's just about concepts. So I'll talk about weight loss when I'm selling business coaching. I'll talk about business coaching when I'm selling weight loss. It doesn't have to be relative, really specific to the thing that you're selling. It just has to be specific to the concept that you're trying to purvey. And it's not always obvious, but like, everyone's had struggles and everyone's had things that they've gone through that are difficult. And everyone's had to make a difficult choice. And it's about being able to make that difficult choice or being able to identify something within yourself that's holding you back and then you overcoming that through decision making, through action, not through just sitting there thinking about it and waiting. Because that doesn't benefit anybody.

Right?

Okay, guys, so comment down below if you got any questions on this. Make sure you, like, subscribe. Hit the notification bell. And I appreciate you guys for being, being here. Have a great day. Bye.