Speaker 1:

Yep.

Jacob:

Cool. Ready whenever.

Speaker 1:

Go for it.

Jacob:

All right. I did a little book report for you guys. I read Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller and I got a really good amount of value out of it. I've been trying to figure out a good way of directing my marketing and trying to figure out the best way to reach my customers. This is a little bit about Building a StoryBrand. They have something called the StoryBrand 7 Framework and it's basically the seven principles that go into making a good story. There are two key mistakes that most businesses make when talking about their brands. First, they fail to focus on aspects of their offer that help people survive and thrive, and then they make customers tax their brains, or just work too hard trying to understand what that business offers.

Jacob:

Building a StoryBrand is designed to help clarify your message, develop quality websites, incredible keynotes, emails that get opened, and sales letters that people actually respond to. The ability to clarify our message separates the winners from the losers is what they said a couple of different times, and that's in each industry. The book actually goes in and they really explain, they take real-life examples and talk about it in a way that really resonated with me at least, talked about Nike, and all the fun things that are classic business examples.

Jacob:

The frame of a story, there is a common flow for nearly every story, whether it be in a movie, a book, or the story of consumers. First, you've got a character who wants something and they encounter a problem before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a guide steps into their lives and gives them a plan and calls them to action. That action helps them avoid failure and it ends in success. That's kind of the seven there, character, problem, guide, plan, call to action, failure, success.

Jacob:

It is important to realize that the customer is actually the hero of their story, not your brand. Apparently this was one of the main things that a lot of businesses don't realize. The customer is the most important thing and you're just playing a supporting role. Essentially we are not Superman flying in to save the day, we're just there to help Superman solve a problem. For example, help buy the farm to keep it in the family, that's how I describe it. You must help define what your customer wants as it relates to your business and then choose a desire or ambition that is relevant, how they survive and thrive. In other words, your solution helps people feel safer, healthier, happier, or stronger. This could mean saving them money, giving them status, et cetera, which of course can relate to real estate really, really closely there.

Jacob:

Companies tend to sell solutions to external problems, but customers buy solutions to internal ones. The three levels of problems, you as the guide, help your customers which are the heroes, solve are going to be external, which is the physical or tangible problem. Internal, a backstory of frustration the external problem created. Then philosophical, which is a story bigger than just the customer that adds meaning. If you can resolve all three levels of problems in your customer's story, you create the climactic scene that allows for relief and closure to the story. In real estate, the problem could be that their rent keeps increasing, which forces them to move and impacts their overall lifestyle and maybe the well being of their cat that just doesn't like moving, which I have a cat that hates moving, hates new places and gets really stressed out.

Jacob:

Principle three is meeting a guide, so that would be the real estate agent. When looking back on your past, you'll realize that there was a guide to help you through most of life's challenges. The guide is an incredibly important role and you want to play that part in your customer's story. You as the guide are the one with the most authority to solve your customer's problem, however, you must also have a lot of empathy and humility to see the story is not about the guide, but the hero instead. Never forget that that's one of the most important parts, just focus your messaging towards your customer successes and don't focus on your own.

Jacob:

Principle four, the guide gives them a plan. Customers generally don't feel comfortable making a commitment to buy unless you clearly lay out a plan for them. You want to create a series of steps to help guide them down the right path to the ultimate solution. This helps decrease the feeling of risk and increase their comfort level with doing business with you. If you don't give them a clear plan of next steps for how to place an order and immediately engage with you, they'll just sit and be confused and fall into inaction, which is like with a lot of investors, analysis paralysis type of situation. An example of a plan for realtors to provide for their clients would be like a 10 step buyer or sellers guide. That could even be something that's on your website, just lining out or outlining the process that they would be going through and how you'd be able to help with that?

Jacob:

The next one is principle five, which calls them to action. Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to do so. You must clearly ask them to place an order, put in an offer, buy your product, et cetera. Your calls to action must be bold and repeated often. You can utilize transitional calls to action like free information through your website, maybe an Instagram, blog, whatever it may be, through testimonials that you have, samples, or maybe a free trial, which doesn't really work in real estate but that's kind of where they're going. It could also just be as simple as contact me today button on your website, but you'd want that on every single page, you want it popping up and you want it to be in their face because you want them to have no choice but to reach out to you.

Jacob:

Principle six, every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending. I think this one makes a lot of sense to me, humans tend to avoid pain before they seek pleasure. As a result, the first goal that motivates us is avoiding a tragic ending. At every step along the path of the plan you provided to your customer, you want to remind them that following your plan will help them to avert disaster. One important thing is, do not be a fear monger and don't just say all this doom and gloom, if you're not working with me you are going to buy a terrible property, blah, blah, blah. You do want them to realize that you can be the best person for them to help them achieve their dreams of home ownership or buying an investment property or whatever it may be.

Jacob:

Principle seven ends in success. Help the hero visualize what it would look like to have a successful ending. The resolution must be specific and clearly identified so your customer knows exactly what to hope for. There are three dominant ways good storytellers bring about a happy ending. That's basically by enabling the heroes to achieve one of the following, which is win some sort of power or position/status, be unified with somebody or something that makes them whole, and experience some self-realization or transcendence that makes them whole. Basically buying a property, selling property, investing in a property.

Jacob:

What does that look like for your customer? Overall, think of your customer as a protagonist in your brand's story. In every great story, a hero encounters a problem to be solved and a challenge to be won and you can be that person that helps them get through it. You can also implement the StoryBrand Framework in your business by going to mystorybrand.com. It's actually pretty cool, you can create a free account and just identify the seven elements of great storytelling that can help grow your business. I started that process, I am excited to get through it, but I apparently don't have that. Here we go. Nope. I closed the window. Basically, it's mystorybrand.com and it's actually a pretty cool way of outlining what your marketing should look like and how to target good clients. That's it.

Speaker 3:

Can you go back to, I think it's slide 10?

Jacob:

Slide 10. Was it slide 10?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so when you're talking about the heroes achieving one of the following, I'm trying to think about real estate. For one, win some sort of power, position, or status, would that be like a buyer getting their offer accepted for the terms that they want?

Jacob:

Yeah, you want to help them visualize having a home and for a lot of people, power and position and status... homeownership is one of the biggest and most powerful things that people can do and people feel really empowered once they've achieved that level of homeownership. For other people, maybe they already have a decent house but they're trying to level up, and keeping up with the Joneses is a real thing, so that's kind of where position/status comes into meet helping someone find their dream home, one that they can show off.

Speaker 3:

Got it.

Jacob:

Anybody else?

Speaker 3:

Good deal.