There is Power in Telling Your Story

Today is a hit splits episode for Author audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

There is power in telling your story. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I am a best selling author of over 40 books. I'm an author coach, I'm the creator of Author Audience Academy, and I'm on a mission. I'm passionate to help you reach more people with your message. My husband and I just finished two days of speaking in Massachusetts at a Christian school. And between the two of us, in two days we spoke 19 times. Oh my goodness, 19 times. My husband spoke 12. I spoke seven. It was powerful. It was a powerful reminder to me of how your story matters because stories impact lives like nothing else. So basic copywriting, even just like a sales page or your emails and other things is basically the power of telling a story. So when is the last time you have told your story? I told my story today and yesterday to teen girls. I did a teen girl session and I shared really honestly some of my story and it was powerful. Like, I had someone come up to me today afterwards and she had never told anyone what she told me today, but she felt comfortable telling me because she knew my story. And I told my story this morning in chapel to middle school and high school and I was able to share the story of my grandma's murder and how 20 years later it happened when I was 8 years old. And 20 years later I was able, through the power of Christ to finally forgive my grandma's murderer. That is a powerful story and it's true. It's what's happened to me.

I'm really working on getting better at telling my story, but I love seeing the connection that happens. And it doesn't mean you have to share your dirty laundry. It doesn't mean you have to share everything. It doesn't mean you have to share all the details. But what story can you tell to your target audience that they'll know? First of all, you're a real person. You have a life that sometimes you go through hard things or sometimes you've overcome something.

What is a story you can tell? I want you to be able to think about that right now and write something down, jot down a note. What is a story you can tell? There are stories that happen to us every day that we can talk about in our marketing. And I love to teach about online marketing. I love to teach about how you can reach more people with your message. So what are some ways that you can integrate even simple stories? So maybe you're out working in the garden and you're doing weeding and you can relate that to stinkin thinkin and weeds that come in our minds. I recently sent out an email and I shared. I said, this is embarrassing.

Something like that as the subject line. I was sharing this story about how my husband and I were in Belize, Central America, and I had taken four years of Spanish in high school. I had taken one year of Spanish in college, two semesters. I should have been fluent. Fluent. Like I had five years of Spanish. I should have been fluent. And I could not communicate with anyone. It was so frustrating. Like, I excel in school, but I couldn't communicate. I felt both deaf and mute and I felt like a failure. I felt like I couldn't do, like here we were missionaries and I couldn't talk to anyone. The missionaries recommended I have a tutor and she came in and she helped me learn conversational Spanish. Halfway through the week, I was in tears. I thought, this isn't going to work. I'm not going to be able to get this. And yet at the end of one week, I was speaking and able to have conversations with people in Spanish after one week. And so it was a powerful story of my failures. And it was embarrassing. It was something that I was sharing more in a vulnerable way, but it was also sharing how I was able to overcome that even though I was in tears. Halfway through the week, I was able to overcome. So that's the kind of stories I'm talking about. I'm not talking about like, you have to share your deepest, darkest secrets. I'm talking about real life. Like, what kind of things have you gone through? What kind of things have you dealt with? And how can you share that with your target audience to encourage them, to motivate them, but to also.

Bond them to you. And I actually got someone telling me, like, they replied back. They were like, shelly, this is such a great email. Thank you for sending me this email. And you know what? That was a promotional email. It was an email that I was selling a product and I had people thanking me for sending them that story and that email. So, you know, there's so many different ways you can tell your story. But the action tip I have for you today is to start doing some sort of document or list of stories that you have in your life. They could be funny stories. People love humor. It could be a funny story, it could be an inspirational story. It could be just an interesting story, something that you've gone through in your life, and then just start making a list. I have that in Evernote. I do that because I want to include a lot of those stories in my webinars and my speeches when I'm speaking. But also those are great things to include in emails, on sales pages, in live video, and to just really use as analogies to help teach. I encourage you start your document. It can be in Google Docs, it can be Evernote, it can be on your phone, in the Notes app. Make that list, put one thing on it today. Who is in? Who's going to take action? If you're going to take action, type yes in the comments. Right now you're going to start making a list of the stories that you can share and I want you to take action. I don't want you just to take in more information, but to take action because that's what's going to get you results. I'll see you next time. Bye Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.