5 Surprising Ways Storytelling can Elevate Your Brand

We can view it from more of a victim mentality, lack of a better word, sitting around and kind of waiting for what's gonna come at us. Or we can view it as, hey, how can I offer solutions to the market with what I'm seeing happen right now and the shifts that happen? And how can I kind of get ahead of that and, and ride the wave when it comes? How can we show up as solutionaries in this marketplace right now?

Welcome to the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast. A show where we interview high-voltage entrepreneurs growing and scaling through e-commerce, real estate, and other Wealth Without Wall Street ventures, showing you the path to making your first or next million.

All right, folks, my next guest I'm excited to invite you to listen to today is gonna talk about branding and identification of your storyline and building a narrative around your brand, maybe your personal life. Uh, she's been doing this for the last 20 years. She is, uh, involved both in her family and her life. You have an MBA if I'm not mistaken. Um, I do. Yeah. Has that worked out well for you?

It has. Yeah. I mean, I use some of it.

We'll get into that. Um, and so you're building, uh, storywork.co, which is basically a, what is it? Is a think tank kind of, of ideas and creation and strategy. Can you give me some more about that?

Yeah.

So Storywork is really just a platform. Um, it's a curation of leaders that are really pouring into people. And so that is really the goal. I help people really define their stories and make them matter.

That's cool. And how did you get involved in this?

So about 8 years ago, I decided to start my own company after having years and years of VC experience, just working for different startup companies. And so it's just been an incredible journey of years and years of family business entrepreneurship. And then being a part of building startups. And I just really wanted to be on the other side of that.

Yeah. You are a mom.

Couple of—

I am.

How do you balance the work life, a home life, business life, and having children around you?

Yeah, this is the classic question, right? And you know the answer to this, like there's no perfect balance. So I have 2 girls, they're 11 and 9. Every day is different. It's definitely just such a process. But, and I would say like some days I feel like I'm winning and other days I feel like I'm failing miserably, just to keep it real. But overall, I just try to be present in the moment. I think that's just the biggest lesson is like, okay, pay attention right now. Put your phone away. We have actually a no phone zone in our laundry room that I set up years ago because I just thought like, I have got to get away from this thing. And if I keep it out here, I'm just going to keep checking my email. I'm going to be responding to texts or calls and I just have to not do that. So that has helped tremendously.

We balance that as much as we can do. I have 4 daughters and we homeschool, so they're always around.

We're always doing things together as a family.

Yeah.

that understanding the work-life balance is very different for me. And my wife has obviously different work-life balance in the way that she manages that. But we've also had 2 to 4 week digital timeouts, literally where there's no computer, no screens, no nothing for 2 to 4 weeks.

Wow.

Dad's the only one that gets to do that.

That is amazing.

What has that been like? I mean, do you feel a clarity of mind that comes to you or what?

I have to stay in the tech space. So I'm literally the only one that gets the free pass, unfortunately. But when we go out there, the television, there's no movies, no shows, nobody's on their laptop. Nobody has any access to any of that. For different reasons. They're not on them very much. But then what happens is you notice the kids go back to playing and having fun and doing other creative things and making up games or congregating together. They just, they go back to a natural ingrained need to, or to, you know, community. And so you see that play out in everything they're doing together because there's 4 of 'em and they're closest in age to almost like friends. They're like friends' sisters. So they find very interesting things to do together all the time.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

And such a different life work balance. That's for darn sure.

But good for you guys.

Yeah, it's been fun. It's been a long journey. I know it, it takes time to get to balance. You mentioned 8 years. I think everybody who might be listening to you wondering how do you get started, maybe you can give 'em some pointers. Maybe you can give them a storyline, uh, of, of consideration for them.

Oh wow. How do you get started? Okay. So I think it's just a matter of being brave over and over again and really stepping out. I think it's also knowing who you are and who you're serving. I think it's really getting clear on that first. Like for me, it was just looking back at the entire journey of my career so far and actually my life and thinking through who have I always been? What are the threads and themes in my life that I recognize as gifts and talents? And then how do I want to use those in what I'm creating here? So that's really what I encourage everyone as they're starting. And then this becomes your marketing and your messaging story. That's very clear. So that's how we help people define their stories and make them matter. So I had to do it for myself first. So I was looking back at the themes in my life and I was thinking through, I've always been an observer. I've always been a writer, a reflector. And then what I've done with that is I've taken those themes and threads and I've translated them into something that I'm practicing tangibly every day. Yes. So for me growing up, that was looking like How am I navigating friendships? How am I navigating the world around me? Right? How am I moving through life? What do I wanna commit to? What do I wanna spend time doing? And then as I got into my career, it was really looking at, you know, how am I doing this for other companies? How am I pulling what I see and helping them reach their target audience effectively and intentionally? And so then when I started Storywork, I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna take those themes. I'm gonna take what I've already been doing.

Mm-hmm.

And then I'm going to carry that into, you know, how I can help and coach clients.

Yeah, that's great. When I say the words direct response marketing to you, what does that mean to you?

Oh, direct response marketing. I would probably be the antithesis of that. I think that my process is much longer, steadier, and more consistent. When I think of direct response marketing, I think of more a fly-by-night kind of one-hit wonder type of marketing. So I would say that I'm a little bit more the opposite. I go a little bit against the grain on that. Not that it's, that it never, that I don't believe it can work in certain situations, but I think you've gotta have the overarching storyline first and then you can know when to insert those direct response marketing targets.

Yeah, that's great. It's a good answer. There's not a, a wrong answer per se. We talk about it in, in terms of, for us, the e-com, the world, the narrative of building a product-based, uh, you know, brand for a, for a solution outcome with a customer. you know, wants that product solution. So we have to get down to what are the specific levers that have to be pulled, which is more of a problem reaction solution that follows more of the lines of a direct response. So for a brand like a narrative or what you call an identity-based strategy, what does that look like in terms of a brand, a person, a business?

Sure. Yeah. So identity-based strategy is really the process of looking at a person or a business and pulling out what their differentiators are, right? So we'll keep it simple. It's like marketing speak. Everybody knows that, right? So what makes them different? I used an example of a paint shop the other day, so I'm going to stick with that example.

Okay.

So say there's an individual that's a local, you know, mom and pop shop and they have a paint business and they have that paint business because their grandfather was an artist years ago and was just a painter and a creative and a visionary and used all these different types of paints and started a paint shop out of that love, right? And then we've got the granddaughter that's running it and say her name is Martha. And Martha has just continued this family business for generations because she also is a creative and loves to paint. She learned it from her grandfather, right? And so there's a story there. There's a storyline there. And so if you're going to go there or you're going to go to Home Depot and get paint, right? What's the differentiator? How do we call that out? How do we share pieces of that story?

Mm-hmm.

And how do they weave that into their marketing, but also their offerings? So like the offerings for their business might look like the fact that you can come in and maybe they host painting workshops in their store, right? Maybe they have design consults with local families that are looking to shape the color and the texture of their home. And so they're going to have a different vision and a different take on that versus walking into Home Depot and looking at thousands of paint swatches and trying to figure out which one is the right one. So that's what I mean by identity-based strategy, where like their story translates into something that is meaningful and that connects and resonates with their audience.

No, and that's good. That's identifying market opportunities to go take small, mid-sized businesses and have them compete with large corporate brands that have sort of a bland, non-commercialized feel to them, sort of a gray feel. And you're putting a little color back in, uh, like a Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Well, you get down to the point of, what is my, how can I move and be a speedboat amongst a lot of Titanics? If you're in most of these businesses now today, there are Titanics everywhere. Like people are like, if you sell on Amazon, well, you're competing with Amazon itself. And it's, well, that's true. And I'm also competing with all the major brands that are out there as well, um, or brands that were there in our segment. So we have to look for those critical key identifiers that, uh, turn the narrative back. And, uh, are you noticing what I have noticed in the next 10 years? Maybe you can gimme your opinion on this, but kind of a bell curve of like people sliding up the big corporate chain retail world of things and value of those things. And now they're sliding off the other side, which is like, where's my mom and pop shop? Where's my local person? Where's my, where are my connectivity to this? Are you feeling that too, that there's a shift?

I am so glad that you said that because I really believe that that is the way that things are going. And so much so that I actually wrote a piece a little bit about this, that I think we're just gonna shift back more into local communities, more neighborhoods. You're gonna see just more of a movement toward local businesses and mom and pop shops versus the, the big box retailers, because I think people are burnt out. I think they're just tired. And I think their, their trust has almost been a little bit broken or wavered.

Trust is a great word for that. Yes. Yes.

The question of trust. I just, that's what I see. I see trust. And so I think people want to grab onto what they feel like they can trust and hold onto. And I think that's going to be local. businesses in the future. That's so interesting that you've observed that too. Do you think it's for the same reasons or what do you see?

Yeah, I mean, I see similarity in it because I look at it in terms of not just me, but what my wife buys and what her peer group buys around and kind of the way they look at things. There's practical and utilitarian uses for things that get delivered from Amazon, but then there's localized specific things they're going to get now where they're willing to go out and kind of research and do and look for these kinds of things as opposed to just, well, there's the big box store. Let me just go see what they have. I'm going to go down here. and support local dollars with particular ladies or communication. I specifically see it more on her side of the buying and for the girls and for the community and the way that that community has changed. On the online world, I see that growing obviously dramatically different in our space because the, the 2020 thing and beyond was massive adoption for online. It was forced online. I think that forced online is something I'm also referencing here is that people are looking to trust localized brands, get back out of the main food supply systems. When 11 million pounds of beef is recalled, they're like, well, how do I find the local farmer to go get my beef off the hoof, grass-fed, grass-finished. Like they're going, pushing the other direction. They're like, well, I want out of this system. And that's kind of how I see it from my perspective based on who I'm talking to. So, and, and just overarching, noticing there's a lot of localized things that are happening with these companies now. Like Amazon, for example, putting a lot of local businesses on their platform to do local installations with any products bought on the platform.

Like, yes.

HVAC and plumbing people and local businesses are actually exploding. Due to their connectivity to those things. So that's kind of where I see.

I love it. And I'm all for that and support it 100%. And I'm glad that they're getting the hint that this is the direction they've got to go if they want to stay— honestly, I mean, it sounds extreme to say stay relevant, but I really do believe that there's going to be a larger shift as more disruption occurs.

There is more disruption. Yeah. And you talk about the trust and people are questioning a lot in the world right now. Where's their trust and who's telling the right thing and where's what's information or disinformation? And I think they're still trying to find out like the trust. So for example, me the other day, and I'm not gonna call them out, but there's this particular orange juice brand that got called out. Yeah. That's owned by a larger major conglomerate that turns out they've got the Teflon, the PFAS, um, in their drink, even though it just says orange juice and it's one thing, they actually have a 100-time chemical that is 100 times stronger than the allowed average inside of orange juice. And I went and realized I had it in my fridge and I poured it out. So I think we're waking up. Right? To who we can trust and do. And I see that in the business world of people having conversations and things like podcasts and stuff are becoming more relevant because people are searching for that real information, those real people, and you know who they are actually helping and for what reasons they're actually doing it. As opposed to just going, it's a big brand, I can trust it. That kind of is no longer the phrase I hear anymore.

No, it's so true. It's really, it's shifting back towards the opposite direction. And so for entrepreneurs listening, or if you are a person that has had a small business for years, or You're thinking of starting one, now is probably going to be your moment. Like now is the time because if you see that trend coming, you see a shift coming overall, you want to get on that wave and you want to ride it, right? So we had a speaker, a leadership speaker a while ago that was talking about the fact that to start his company, he's got a major company now. He just raised his sail at the right time and let the wind come.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think we're in a moment where we are raising the sail at the right time for local businesses and letting that wind come. And I think it's just, it's going to be a defining moment for many.

Well, I agree.

And I agree that the people who are listening to this are probably going to be thinking a little bit into the future, 12, 24 months, not too far off, maybe even the next 3 to 6 months based on current economic changes. There's always disruption in the marketplace. There's always opportunity. And I think you were alluding to this. There's always, even in the moment of change, there's opportunity. As Warren Buffett says, when there's blood in the street. Right? There's money to be made. So with coming changes and opportunities, I think that there's still never been a better time to start a business, to move out of the system, to enable yourself and empower yourself. And this is a, these kinds of times in market, these times of changes in economic and socioeconomic, even geopolitical, let's say, create ramps of lots of innovative opportunities for the right brands to run.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So we can view it and it's all how we view it, right? So How can we show up as solutionaries in this marketplace right now? So I think it's just, we can view it from more of a victim mentality, lack of a better word, sitting around and kind of waiting for what's gonna come at us. Or we can view it as, hey, how can I offer solutions to the market with what I'm seeing happen right now and the shifts that happen? And how can I kind of get ahead of that and, and ride the wave when it comes?

Yeah. Well, like Mark Cuban says, although I'm not a big fan of him anymore, but like he says, You don't have the resources, be resourceful. So you're right. It gets down to being resourceful with opportunities. If you're like, well, I can't get involved because it's too expensive, you are already missing the opportunity that most of us has taken a risk. We wouldn't be on this call today. And I'm sure you wouldn't either if that was the thing that came outta your mouth when it came to, to thinking about what the business could look like and what it could do for you and where your future opportunities will lie for yourself.

Yeah.

Does that drive any legacy for you? Like, how do you think about it? Uh, I know mine's different from my perspective as a, you know, husband and father and a businessman, and obviously yours is different as a mom and an entrepreneur and a business lady. But what, what do you think about legacy? Where do you want it to go? Do you want your daughters involved in your business? Do you think about next steps?

Oh, I love that. I love that question. And it's such an interesting and relevant question to me right now because we've actually been talking a lot about this. So my husband is in finance and, you know, he's been in finance for a very long time. And so I'm more on the entrepreneur side, right? So we, we play that, we balance each other out that way for sure, which is like a great balance. And we've been just observing our kids and talking about it as they get older. And I think they've, they've seen both sides and I think they have watched like my journey and I just, a book, I just published my first book. So like they're seeing that and they're, and they're going, whoa, that's out there. You can do that. Like you can do that yourself.

That's really cool.

And so my wife—

quick shout out for the book.

Hold on, I'll interrupt, but quick shout out for the book. What was the book's name?

Yeah, quick shout out. Okay, so it's called Seen, Known, and Heard and How It Changes Everything. And you can get it on Amazon, Barnes Noble, wherever books are sold.

So go check it out, folks. Sorry, not to interrupt.

Yeah, go check it out. It's all about kind of what we're talking about with identity-based strategy and stuff.

Awesome.

And so I think they're looking at that and I'm seeing their dreams come to life or fragments of them. And so when I look at my family, I'm also thinking, What's our identity as a family? And I'm looking at my daughters and thinking like, what is, what's each of their identities and how are they different? So my youngest daughter, I'm seeing, loves music. Music is in her mind like all the time. And she's been playing guitar for a couple of years. And so she just published her first album on iTunes. She paid the $28 herself to get on the, uh, to get on the platform. That is amazing. And she just uses my computer and records like voice memos. And I'm like, let's do this. You name the songs, we're gonna upload them. And so she was able to see that like, I can create something. I'm going to invest in it.

Yeah.

I'm gonna take, you know, that risk and then I'm gonna put it on a platform. I'm gonna share it. And so she's experiencing that, like almost that she doesn't have as much fear as I have because the older you get, the more roadblocks you have. Right.

But she's like, yeah, let's do that.

I'm like, wow, I'm a lot more Scared than you are to put my work out there.

That is super cool, but that's what servant leadership, and I've, it's so great to hear you say that because I, I've been recently pondering this and dealing with it in my own family. And I hear this with a lot of people I talk to and, and a number of guys that I've mentored who come and are like, I don't know if I should put my kid in homeschooling or private school, or I should leave them where they are. And you hear them in the, they're in the entrepreneurial journey. Their entire family is this alternative, you know, way of thinking and lifestyle, as yet they put their kids over here. And I'm like, why are your kids over here? They should be over here. And I hear you saying, my kids are my Passion, their drive. I'm excited to help them do what they do. I'm leading things so that they will follow into things I want them to do and become. And that's super cool to hear you say that. I feel at times like I'm the only other one that's doing that. I, I, my 16-year-old daughter followed me. I published my book in January of this year and she published hers in June on Amazon.

Nice.

That is awesome. She published her novel, 300 pages of it, which is super cool. And she spent a year writing it on her own. Which was fascinating and fun. And I just, pour into your family if you're going to have them do the things that you would expect them to do later on. And it just, there's, to me it's a little mind-boggling that people aren't doing what you're doing, which is pouring into your kids. And if they want music and helping 'em enable them to go get the music out there and become entrepreneurial when they're entrepreneurs themselves.

You know, it's, it's, it's, you know, Neil, I would say that there's a couple of blocks and I think this is what I do with leaders and entrepreneurs as I coach them and walk alongside of them. We've all got stuff that drains us, that drains our energy and exhausts us. And so for years, I mean, our family, we went through some like really difficult stuff just with my older daughter for a little bit. And I just had, I mean, I couldn't even think straight. I had no energy. It was like everything I was doing was surviving. Everything we were doing was getting up and trying to stay in our routine and like keep it together. Right. So there's periods of time that you're going to go through seasons where You've just got to keep your sanity, quite frankly, and you've got to keep it together and you got to work on yourself. You got to work on each other. Right. And then there's going to be seasons where you start to get your strength back and you start to get your energy back and you have more space to be creative and to dream and to, to really lead your family in those extra areas. And so I would also just challenge whoever's listening, like, know your season, like discern.

Yeah.

Discern where you are and discern what's needed. So in that season, I needed to be steady. I just needed to be a steady presence and I needed to show up. In this season, I, it's, it's like a, I feel like I'm in an all-in time with my family where I need to pour into them first before I'm pouring into my business and my work and really making sure that I have that priority straight. My tendency can be to pour so much into my work because I love it and it fuels me.

Yeah.

That I am not pouring into my family in the way that I'm pouring into my clients. So being like 100% transparent, sometimes that can be like a misalignment. And so I have to correct myself, right? When we talk about that work-life balance and say, okay, wait a minute, I just did this for a client and they got this shift. Can I do that for my kids too? Like, can we do that in our marriage too? Oh, wait, we can. So I kind of had this light bulb moment a little while ago. And it's not like a forced thing. It's not like, but it's just, I'm calling out their strengths and who I see them to be when I see it. And so that's all I'm doing. I'm just, I'm just calling them up into who they already are.

That's all.

Yeah. You know, and, and then if I see them getting blocked or trapped in certain things, I'm just helping them, you know, as they walk through that and, and just kind of trying to help them pinpoint what is that block? Is it fear or? Are you believing what someone else is saying about you instead of like who you really are? You know, and so all these things relate to business as well. And so we're walking through this process with clients as they're sharing their work, as they're defining their stories, as they're getting clear on their strategy. But then we can also do this in our families, you know, which is so awesome, which sounds like you guys do some of that too.

Yeah, we've got to share a little bit of that, right? Because I'm operating over here as the dad and you're kind of the mom. We have a very similar structure of thought, but you obviously have a very Uh, different, a mother's approach to the way you think. I've got the father's approach. And while my wife keeps busy over here, there's one thing that we always remember in our family and that Jesus redeems all of our failures. So if we can't be present, uh, uh, every time we try to be showing up is half the battle, right?

True.

So we try to be as present as we can and pour into the things that they have that they're interested in. And that's not just, my, my kids don't have allowances, they get chores.

Right.

Kids don't get spoiled in certain ways. They have work and ethics that are being built into them. It's not just about, so many people hear these things and they think, well, that's all about money. It's all about their drive as being an entrepreneur or whatever. No, I, I want my girls to become great women that are family women. I want them to follow my wife. I want them to be led into purpose and, and driven, uh, value for the family because I feel that's the best use of their energy and time. And so I'm different than that. It's in, some people would hear that and think I'm misogynistic and stuff, and I'm not. I'm actually pro-girl, pro-woman.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, you just like equipped your daughter to write her own novel. So I mean, there's a lot of nuance.

Does it mean I want her to become like the New York Times bestseller and go on a tour and to become the world's greatest whatever. No, not, but if she wants to do that, I'll encourage certain aspects of it. But that really was about proving something to herself at the end of the day. And she didn't need me to do, to push her to do that. What she needed was somebody to guide her and lead her in the interest that she has because writing has become something she's very interested in.

Yeah.

And, and that is cool. It's fun to watch. I got her involved in the e-commerce side and she actually found that the writing was more fun for her in that than the business of e-commerce. So that's where she kind of spun that out. So I would just, for you, kudos. I would encourage anybody listening.

Thank you.

Uh, to check out what you're doing over at Storywork and to ensure that you guys connect with Lauren if it resonates with you today, especially if you're kind of balancing that lady of the home work life entrepreneurial mindset kind of thing like Lauren is. You definitely wanna listen to her, uh, and go check out her life.

Thank you.

Is there, uh, anything I didn't ask you yet on the podcast that you wanted to bring up?

I don't think so. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate the balance between life and work and because that's something that You know, I feel like it's not always highlighted. So I just have really enjoyed that conversation. It's just been great.

Thank you for coming on and sharing a good word with us. Guys, go check that out for sure. See what she's doing in identity-based strategy. If it makes sense to you, your business, local or otherwise, uh, connect with Lauren and see if she can help you create a strategy that will get you some more business or maybe help you balance your work-life initiative. Thanks for coming on again, Lauren.

Thanks, Neil.

Let me ask you this.

If you're serious about building an e-commerce business starting on Amazon FBA, what if myself and my team worked with you one-on-one to execute the steps outlined in the podcast while helping you discover what the heck to sell, how to make sure it's profitable, and how to successfully launch a brand. Plus, how to do it under a consulting plus performance-driven model where I put a $10,000 skin-in-the-game guarantee for those that show up and are serious about building a real business done with us. If yes, text keyword profit to +1-417-413-4209. That's 1-417-413-4209. 877-413-4209, and I will personally respond with a few simple questions. If you're not in the US or Canada, please visit voltage dm dot com. That's voltage dm dot com. Click Get Started and book a no-pressure discovery call with me or a member of my team to learn more about the Business Builders one-on-one coaching and mentoring for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and those looking to build an empire or retire using the power of e-commerce. Once again, thank you for listening, and be sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast.