The Art of Authority Podcast Ep 6 - Quick Lesson on Story Selling | Mike Saunders The Authority Positioning Coach

Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.

Hey, guys. Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach, bringing you another episode of the Art of Authority. Hey, so listen, here is something that you need to keep in mind. And I literally walked back in from teaching a two hour workshop for our local business development center and yesterday morning taught a separate two hour workshop. So these thoughts are coming to mind and they're a recurring theme, and it's really important that you need to keep in mind for your business. Yesterday I taught business social media, and today I taught storytelling for your business, or as I like to call it, story selling. Because as you know, facts tell, but stories sell. So today I introduced the word workshop by doing something really interesting. And I had a group of people there, and I pulled up the screen and I googled this, this phrase, and I pulled up a video and I showed my wife and daughters singing the national anthem for the 2018 Colorado Opening Day of the Senate. And I asked the class afterwards, I said, hey, you know, how many people like the national anthem? And hey, that was a unique rendition. Right? Okay. How much do you think that my family got paid for doing that? Zero. Right. It was just a neat experience. Really, really neat experience. And then I said, you might be surprised to find. Well, I think, I guess the way to put it is you might be surprised to learn how they got booked for that engagement. So that was on a Wednesday morning just a few months ago. And Monday night, we got a phone call. And you know how many times that we get telemarketing calls and you hit delete. Or, you know, during the election season, you get a message that you, this is Senator. And you're like, oh, good gracious. You know, that's just really boring. I don't want to hear that right now. Well, we got home this specific Monday night from a basketball game the girls were playing in and picked up messages. And my wife is putting this on speakerphone going, you've got to hear this, and starts up, you know, this is Jerry Sonnenberg with the Colorado State Senate. And I'm like, oh, what? And he goes, would you be at all available for Wednesday morning to sing the national anthem for our 2018, you know, opening day at the Colorado Senate? And so she proceeded to call him back and said all the details. And when we're in his chambers, before they sang that morning, we said, how in the World did you locate us? And this is where the interesting part comes in. Because my wife and daughters had sang the national anthem for Colorado Christian University basketball team where my daughter goes to school. And I have videoed it and I had uploaded that video on the National Western Stock show and Rodeo, you know, contest page here in Denver, because they had this contest to see who can get sel or get the most votes to sing the national anthem at one of the rodeos. And we got over 700 votes, or they did, I should say, because I don't sing. But they got about 700 votes and did not win. And. But it was fun. It was interesting to tell everyone to go vote for us and all that. Well, he said that on a Sunday morning, two days before or three days before this opening day at the Colorado Senate, he gets a call from one of his senators saying the quartet that we booked to sing the anthem bail, they couldn't make it for whatever reason. Help find someone out. So he goes to Google and Googles quartet that sings the national anthem, Denver, Colorado, finds the National Western contest page and thinks, hey, that's awesome because there's gonna be a lot of people to choose from. Let me see who I can pick. And he listens to a bunch. He sees my wife and daughters. He notices the CCU banner in front of the scores table that they were singing at. Knew a person over there, called them up and said, please put me in touch with these people, right? And they called the athletic director. They knew how to contact us. And there, there's a message, right? Here's the takeaway. You never know online or social media when someone will see what you've put out there, when someone will take that piece of knowledge that you are dropping in your, you know, digital footprint, as it, as it were, keep doing it. Don't think that one video is going to do it. And bring you all of the business that you can handle. You've got to keep on, you've got to keep plugging away because at the right moment in time, when pain point hits. Now this is kind of getting back to yesterday's workshop that I taught where the sales cycle in, in business has changed to where we now have so many people that have access online and social media that it's changed the way that we buy things. We do research online. So someone that is experiencing some discomfort or pain, maybe it's not even physical, maybe it's just a problem in their business, problem in their personal relationship, health, you know, spiritual, it doesn't matter. But some incident Pain point comes up, they go searching for the answer. Will they find you? Will they find that your business is the solution to their problem? Well, if you have put out content, whether it is blog post, articles, videos, Facebook lives, podcast episodes, press releases, written books, pick one, it doesn't matter. Do some, all one, two, three. It really doesn't matter. Get out there, educate your target audience. Because when you are seen as that authority, that expert about that specific topic, you will get found just like my wife and daughters. Well, let me tie it back into today's workshop. So I opened up with that explanation. I played them the video, I told them how the senator found us, and I said, that didn't pay us a dime. But if this was your business and you had done something like that, and someone then had that pain point, that need in their business, and they go searching around for something and they find something interesting and unique, because that's a whole other topic. Interesting and unique. In fact, you ought to do a search on YouTube for my chili. How a chili cook off. Winning a chili cook off can make you. Oh, how did I put it? Winning a chili cook off illustrates competitive advantage. So you need to stand out. When you can do that in your business and you can stand out for all the right reasons, for all the right ways, not in a strange way, but just in a good educational way, because you're standing out. Your competitors aren't doing that. Your competitors are still putting out flyers with discounts and coupons. Nothing wrong with those in moderation. But when you can be that person that is seen as that expert, authority, credible source and influencer in reality, people will come to you. Here's the recurring theme when I was teaching this workshop today on story selling, and I gave that example, I said, which would have been easier for me to say, you need to create competitive advantage for your business so people can remember you and you stand out. Okay, the next topic is target audience you need to create. It would have gone in one ear and out the other, but I illustrated that with a specific story of my wife and daughters, of the opening day of the Colorado Senate, of the national anthem, of how he found us. And it made the point they the light bulb just went off for them. Here's the other piece of that storytelling. You know how we tend to see a lot of things online with facts and figures and stats and numbers in this presentation that I did. And if you ever want the slides from this, I'll shoot them over to you. Just send me a quick email or a comment here. But I Gave this example in the workshop where this college professor did this experiment. And the experiment was to have six or seven people in their class. She handed out these case studies and she said present them in front of the class like two or three minutes. And she gave all but one ones that were facts and figures and hey, research shows and this validates that. And then one person, she had them relate the case facts as a story. She then didn't tell anybody and she just had them do all the presentations and then passed out a survey and said, how many people? Write down as much as you can remember about each one of Those case studies. 5% remembered the facts and figures. 63 or 68%. One of the two. Over 65% remembered the one about the story. So what's the takeaway? Create your solution to your target audience's problem in the form of some type of a story. Not necessarily a once upon a time, but some way that illustrates what you do. And maybe it's getting one of your clients or strategic alliances to illustrate what you do in the form of maybe a video or a case study so that story can tell your target audience how you can help them. So that's the recurring theme that I wanted to bring to you guys today in this episode. And I really want you to think about that. I want you to think about how you can take one specific element aspect of your business. What solution do you provide to your target audience for a specific problem? Now, you might provide 10 solutions to 10 problems, but pick one, focus on that, create a story around it, an example, maybe you know, even a theme like think about Star Wars. You know, Yoda guides Luke along with Obi Wan Kenobi to fight the forces of, you know, the Empire and Darth Vader. How can you be that guide? How can you be that Yoda to your target audience to help them understand, to educate them, to guide them to be their advocate in overcoming some challenge. And your business is the solution because remember, when you are educating and doing it in an engaging manner, people will remember that way more than facts and figures. And as we wrap this up, until next time, remember that building your authority is your number one priority. Make it a great day.

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