“I saw you doing a handstand in the Sydney Morning Herald,” the woman told me. “And I thought, that’s the business coach for me.”
It’s not uncommon that people start working with me, already knowing my taste in music, my likes and dislikes, and more. While there’s plenty that I don’t share, the stories that I do mean that clients are primed and ready to go once we start together.
The more of myself I show on the internet, the better my marketing works to attract ideal-fit clients, and to repel bad-fit people.
In a world drowning in marketing and content, small business owners face a paradox: we have never had more choices, yet we’re buying slower, needing more exposure and touchpoints from a brand, and overwhelmed by indecision.
AI videos are starting to creep into my social media feeds. Right now, they’re noticeably AI. But soon, they won’t be. Soon it’ll be impossible to tell the difference between a real person, building influence and an audience, and a bot.
Right now, people are hungry for something – and somebody – who’s real. Right now we’re on the precipice of an AI-generated content avalanche, which also makes now the perfect opportunity for bold business owners to better position themselves as leaders and experts.
Rapport through storytelling
Many business owners tell me that what brings them sales is disconnected to their marketing. Small business marketing is often focused on brand awareness and education, nurturing people with plenty of generous content that offers micro transformations.
But the activities that bring small business owners sales are entirely separate – mostly word-of-mouth referrals and face-to-face, old-fashioned networking.
When I told a business buddy recently that I didn’t really like networking events and only did it sporadically, she responded, “but how do you find new clients?”
New clients find me – through social media, through joining my email list, or being in the audience when I’m speaking or training groups (employed by clients).If your small business marketing isn’t bringing you a steady stream of leads then it’s likely a lack of effective storytelling.
We are surrounded by stories. Humans don’t trade facts and figures. They exchange stories, both online and off. When we share experiences with others – and our thoughts and feelings resulting from these experiences – we’re developing rapport. We’re inviting people into a shared experience, to create a new story together.
When you tell a story online, your audience is not just hearing it, but they’re living it with you. This is why we donate to ‘Go Fund Mes’, why we sign petitions, choose one brand over another, or rave about someone who’s event we attended – because the stories told and experiences shared connect far more powerfully than any list of credentials or achievements.
Any old marketer can declare the importance of storytelling. It’s something else entirely to transmute these stories through screens, to pluck the heartstrings of strangers and make them feel something.
Digital marketing and social media have been mainstream for about 13 years now (pretty much as long as I’ve been training and coaching on it) – so average marketing is no longer good enough.
We’ve had 13 years of developing our ability to smell authenticity and fakery. Smart, discerning people can discern manufactured narratives and performative vulnerability. We can smell an exaggeration a mile away.
And too often, owners hold themselves back, mistakenly believing that the stories worthy of sharing need to be grand or dramatic. Without a rags to riches story, we may count ourselves out of storytelling, missing the opportunity.
Because it’s not just rapport that we develop through screens with strangers when we know how to tell good stories. It’s also the opportunity to shift dominant narratives, to change culture, to help others feel seen and heard, even though we’ve never met.
Trust through storytelling
Recently, at my Reputation to Revenue event in Sydney, a woman (a bloody legend of a leader) flew from Queensland to attend. The last time this woman worked with me was inside one of my programs 10 years ago. For 10 years, this woman has been receiving my marketing emails, waiting for the right time to work with me.
Similarly, the stories you share via your marketing accumulate like deposits in a trust bank, each one adding credibility and building anticipation.
The media is talking about a trust recession – a widespread decline in consumer and societal trust in businesses, digital content, and institutions, increased skepticism, and hesitancy in purchasing.
Never has trust been more important in small business. As an online business, running very occasional face-to-face events or programs, my business cannot afford to wait for word-of-mouth recommendations.
My marketing storytelling needs to be continuously meeting new people where they’re at, demonstrating my expertise, showing my point-of-difference, nurturing through consistently delivering useful, valuable, relevant information, and then moving warm leads into hot.
For hot leads – people who are actively seeking a solution to the problems I solve – my storytelling must be even sharper.
I need to share my approach, proprietary process or expert framework, and show how the point-of-difference inherent in this is also likely the reason why other approaches haven’t worked.
I don’t assume people are naïve virgins who’ve never worked with my competitors, nor attempted to solve their problems by themselves. I assume my audience is intelligent, critical thinking, perhaps a little skeptical, or even cynical. I assume they are empowered, and are repelled by overly simplistic, black-and-white thinking. I assume they’re looking for a thought partner, not a strong-armed leaders who’s going to tell them what to do.
I make these assumptions because these are the people I’m seeking to call in:
- Critical thinking, intelligent
- Open minded with liberal politics and a sense of civic duty and shared responsibility
- Creative and sensitive
- Open minded and curious
- Highly experienced, with at least 10 years doing what they’re doing
By respecting my audience and assuming intelligence, my marketing is not going to appeal to a different type of person. And by include some strong opinions in my direct sales storytelling, I’m seeking to deliberately repel people who would be a bad fit for my business. I want people to get an excellent return on their investment, so it makes no sense to work with people who aren’t a good match.
Stories that sell
Some people are excellent storytellers, brilliant at building community and massive audiences. But when it comes to asking their audience book or buy – they fall flat.
Owners tend to fall into one of two camps – they’re great at building community but confuse being liked with being paid and find it hard if not impossible to sell to people they consider friends.
Or their storytelling to sell is like a blunt instrument of insistent, entitled demands, hammering their audience with features, benefits, bonuses and inclusions, and leaving no space for rapport, imagination, trust, wonder, vulnerability, and heart-to-heart connection.
Stories that sell are stories that hook people in, ask them to identify with the very specific situation or circumstance that the business is selling to, and then clearly and concisely educating on the key points of the offer and – this part’s important – inviting the next step with an effective call-to-action.
The missing piece with crafting stories that sell – either through video, written, or audio – is that the owner must embody their message. When the owner is reading a script, playing lose with the truth, or doing the old “do as I say, don’t do as I do”, then the audience picks up that funky smell again.
Walking your talk is absolutely pivotal to create a resonant energy. When your energy is resonant, your story leads to bookings, sales, and clients who commit to your business over the long-term.
When your energy is dissonant, you’re popular, but you’re broke.
Fly Your Freak Flag
Here’s what corporations would pay millions to bottle: your weirdness is your competitive advantage.
And yet, in our haste to be perceived as “professional”, we have dulled down and denied the very thing that is our unfair advantage: that people do business with people.
Your quirks, rough edges, and things you’re a little bit embarrassed about, that you’d prefer your competitors not to know – these very things are signals that help your ideal clients find you. When you fly your freak flag through your stories, you’re not seeking to appeal to everyone. You’re sending a beacon to your people, the ones who will become not just clients, but your advocates.
You are the only one qualified to tell your story. And your story is ongoing and developing, in every interaction, every choice, every moment. It’s not the grand ending; it is the behind-the-scenes dress rehearsal.
You’re not just telling stories, you’re modeling possibilities, showing new ways of thinking, and why this matters. Nobody wants to hear about our values, we want to see them in action.
By sharing real, human, personal stories that reach through screens to pluck the heartstrings of strangers and making people feel something, only then can you propel them to action.
The world is full of big talkers. But people who walk their talk? Who translate deep expertise and passion into words that make meaning for others? People who mean what they say and say what they mean? This is far less common and increasingly important.
So tell your story. Tell it imperfectly, honestly, and often. It’s not just highly profitable, it may just shift the cultural narrative.
Join Ignite Visibility Accelerator: advanced storytelling for leaders and experts. Early bird flies September 30.
