77. The Customer is The Hero

For decades entrepreneurs and business owners have positioned themselves at the center of their marketing efforts. By focusing solely on the company’s achievements and sharing stories about their experience and industry expertise they lose the attention of their prospective customers.

On this episode of the High-Performance Marketing podcast, I’ll guide you through a discussion on how to use the core concept idea of the Story Brand 7-part framework, to move away from the "about us" concept and instead position your customer as the center focus and hero of your marketing message so you get them to listen and do business with you.

Transcript

Welcome to The High Performance Marketing Podcast, a show focused on helping entrepreneurs and small business owners connect with their ideal customers using simple marketing and quality content. I'm your Marketing Guide, Ali Garbero.

I review the websites of potential customers every week. And probably the most common theme, the central focus of each website I visit - almost always heavily focuses on this “about us” concept. The words on the page are about the business itself, its leadership, its services, the company’s expertise and knowledge of their industry.

And that’s because for decades, brands have positioned themselves at the center of their marketing efforts focusing solely on the company’s achievements and features.

If your website looks and sounds the same, I’m here to let you know, it’s costing you customers.

On today’s episode of the Podcast, I’ll talk you through how to use the core concept idea of the Story Brand 7 part framework, to move away from the about us concept and instead position your customer as the center focus and hero of your marketing message so you get them to listen, take action and do business with you.

First, let’s start with a challenge. The human brain is pretty busy. It’s trying to do two things and that's to survive and thrive. Any information that falls outside of those two things, will turn into noise and you’ll soon find yourself daydreaming.

For example, if Tony Horton’s P90x infomercials had gone on and on about how his DVD’s were made from carbon polyurethane - or some crazy material, and how they pair up really well with an infrared DVD player - well we’d all have tuned out. What Tony said was - you want ripped muscles (I E - to thrive with a sexy body) then P90x is going to get you those results.

Often, entrepreneurs and business owners want their websites to have paragraphs and paragraphs of long drawn out information because they want their customers to know everything about their company - but again that’s problematic, because all your customers really want, is for you to tell them how your real estate services will make them millionaires, or how your financial planning services will help them retire early.

So this is where story comes in. Story helps the brain make sense of things, and story writing and storytelling involves key elements that turn stories into things we remember and that impact and influence us.

The first of which is that every great story begins with a protagonist or main character who wants something. What did Daniel want in the Karate Kid? He wanted to know how to defend himself against the Cobra Kai and gain their respect.

Another example: In a movie I recently watched “You before me” which if you haven’t watched it - after listening to this podcast - head over and watch the movie. I absolutely loved it - in this movie - the main character Lou - wants a job so she can help her family financially.

So there’s always something the character wants, but the next part of story telling includes the obstacle that’s standing in the way of what they want.

In the karate kid, Daniel’s obstacle is getting bullied and it’s hard for him to defend himself. In you before me, Lou can’t seem to find a job she’s suited for.

The main character of every story begins their journey in one spot and transforms throughout th