Ep. 150 – WOW! ==> Dr. J.J. Peterson! HEAD OF STORYBRAND! How to Make Your Customer The Hero! ===> Best Selling Author! Host of TOP U.S. Podcast ‘Marketing Made Simple’

Foreign.

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins and pitfalls to avoid. Also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that. We are here for do this, not that.

And we got a special guest. There's no other way to put it. I'm going to tell you who this is, but I'm not kidding. He's like a big deal. He really is.

I don't even know if I'm going to do him justice. So we got Dr. J.J. peterson here. Now, if you know who that is, then you know it's a big deal.

Now if you don't know who that is, you're really in for something special. We're going to get into this whole framework that he has for businesses and their brands. But let me give you a little bit of background.

So Dr. JJ heads up story Brand, which is this book that became a framework, that became a movement and we're going to get into that. But he's also the co host of one of my absolute favorite podcasts called Marketing Made Simple.

If you do nothing else coming out of this thing, you need to listen to Marketing Made Simple. It brings like happiness to your day. It's phenomenal and it's always on the top of the charts. He's a Wall Street Journal best selling author.

I don't know he has time to do all this stuff because he's also a professor of management and stuff at Vanderbilt University. You did it. You've done it all. Dr. J.J. peterson, welcome to do this, not that.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

It's fun, amazing, excellent.

All right, so before we get into what is this story brand thing and what should we be doing with our brand and all stuff, how did Dr. J.J. peterson become Dr. J.J. peterson?

Well, my PhD specifically took 10 years, which it never takes anybody that long. But I, I come from, my background is really, I come from a lot of educators and pastors actually.

And so people who are really good storytellers and my dad in particular, like growing up, he used to have us when we were kids, listen to Garrison Keiller, like most kids, you know, listening to music in the car. My dad was having listen to Garrison Keiller. So we learned like, who people don't know. He's like the story, amazing storyteller.

So my dad was a storyteller, my family's. And so story has always been a thing that I've been fascinated by. And kind of my trajectory took a lot of different areas. I actually was.

I graduated a degree in communication and did, like, nonprofit communication for a while. I actually toured and did improv comedy for a while. And I was a speaker and an author, and that ended up leading me into Hollywood. And I did.

Did some acting, and I directed a documentary and on street children in Ethiopia and all this stuff. And it kind of came and there. And then I was a professor, so I taught communications. And it was. It felt very eclectic to me for a very long time.

They're like, oh, you did marketing for nonprofit. You're doing improv comedy. You teach at a university, you're in Hollywood. There was all of these things. And it came to a point where I actually sold.

I was living in Southern California and sold. I was professor at a university and sold a reality television show to a production company called Bad A Brothers.

And the premise was, my brothers and I are so not bad a that we can't even say the word.

So we travel around the United States and we find the old laws, the weird laws that are on the books, like, you can't cross the Minnesota border with the duck on your head, and we break those laws to be more bad A. And so.

So I left the university, and that's when I met Donna Miller, who was in the process of kind of developing story brand, teaching people how to create great stories in their market using film theory, really, using story frameworks from film and the. And story theory that went back all the way. Goes back all the way, really, to Aristotle and Plato even. And I was also at the time finishing my.

Studying my PhD and I was studying narrative marketing and narrative principles in just communication. And he was like, hey, why don't you. Why don't we kind of start working together on some stuff?

So I'd kind of done the Hollywood thing, I'd done the marketing thing, I'd done the teaching thing.

And all of a sudden he came to me and it was like, that's exactly what he was creating was this organization who taught people how to use the power of story to create clear marketing and messaging. And I was like, this is my. My career always felt very eclectic until that moment.

I was like, you mean I can combine teaching humor, story, and marketing all in one thing? And so we've been doing it now for 10 years where we take the principles of story, the. The rules really, of what makes a good story.

And we teach marketers and we teach businesses how to use those principles to create great marketing that works.

You're like the most interesting human being alive. Like, what is that? That's. I don't even. And you probably even scratch the surface on everything you've done. That is. Wait, I have a question though.

This has nothing to do with marketing. So your family, everybody in your world is great storytellers.

So like when you get like a, you see your phone ring and somebody in your family, are you like, okay, I need to carve out like an hour because I know they're just going to be talking a really long time about these random things. I mean, because I would be nervous if everybody's a great storyteller.

In my family, we do a lot of sending videos. So we literally do like, it's. What's funny is if we have a story, we put it on a video and we send it to everybody.

And that, that's kind of a rule family, because otherwise, like if it's a phone call, it's probably an emergency. If it's a video, then we know, oh, this is going to be a funny story.

Oh my God. You have like your own personal TikTok amongst your family members. That is, that is amazing.

So, okay, so for the listeners of this thing, they're like, well, my brand is a mess. You know, I mean, I'm the only person in the marketing department in my company, whatever. How can I do story run? How can I tell stories?

I could barely get, you know, anything out the door. So. So where do you start with somebody who's just overwhelmed that wants to tell their story?

Well, that's what I love about this framework because it actually I was that person, like I was right out of college, this young kid who literally was trying to raise money for a nonprofit that was saving people's lives. And I'm like, how do I ask people for money? This is, it should be cake. But how do I create a website?

How do I send out emails that actually invites people to be a part of this amazing transformational thing? But I'm staring at a blank page going, what the hell do I write? Like, I just, I was that person.

And what the story brand framework really does is it helps. We say story is really a sense making device.

It really, when you understand the rules of story, it helps you filter all the information you have down to a single almost like storyline and story purpose. Right? So I even about my organization have so much information. I could tell you stories upon stories about everybody.

I've worked with, all the things that we've done, all this stuff, and it's not about that.

If I'm actually trying to communicate with you and get you to be engaged in working with us and hiring us to offer a service, I need to figure out what story I need to tell for you. And what that really means is I need to figure out how to position you as the hero of the story. You need to see how you can win in working with us.

And the way that you do that is really by following the principles of story that every major movie, every book, really has seven primary elements to it that make it a good story, that make it compelling. And I'll kind of go over those high level really quick.

The first is, in a story, you need to understand the first thing that makes it good is that there is a hero who wants something. And that thing is very, very clear right off the bat, within actually like nine minutes of a movie. We as an audience need to know what hero wants.

And it has to be clear, can't be vague. They're wandering around trying to find it out. Not a good story. They want 10 things. Jason Bourne wants to understand his identity.

Wants to open a bakery, wants to get the girl, run a marathon. Not a good story. One thing, then, after we understand what that character wants, a problem has to get in the way for that hero.

That's what makes a story interesting, that hooks the audience in. Again, if Jason Bourne finds out his identity and then is walking around Paris eating ice cream, the rest of the movie, boring movie.

He needs to encounter a major problem that hooks in the audience. Then that hero needs to meet a guide, somebody who's going to help them win the day.

Because we know heroes, the audience knows the hero can't win this on their own or they wouldn't be in this problem. So they have to meet a guide. Then the guide has to give them element four, a very clear plan to win the day.

In almost every movie, you'll hear the words, what's the plan? Or here's the plan. It's because we have to see there's a way for the hero to win.

Then there's a moment the hero must be called to action, something that forces the hero to move. A lot of times in movies, there's a ticking time bomb that's going to go off, a countdown clock that forces the hero to act.

And then the last two elements of any good story are that we need to know the stakes in the story, which is what Are the positive or negative things that. That can be won or lost if the hero acts or doesn't act? So what are the stakes? What's at stake? What can they win and what can they lose?

What's the success or failure look like?

Those seven elements, a hero wanting something, encountering a problem, meeting a guide who gives them a plan, calls them to action that leads to success or failure, is every story you've ever heard. So the question you actually asked was, where does somebody start as a marketer? So I kind of ran for a lot. But here's the thing.

Here's what we do, and this is what we help people with, is we help people create what's called a brand script.

And what we do is we take those seven elements and we then say, how do you create talking points around those seven elements of story and apply that to your marketing and make your customer the hero? So what is it that they want? We need to have a very clear description in our marketing of what the customer wants.

So many companies out there, they start out with things like, we're going to help you make your life better. Here. I just worked with a person yesterday and on their website, it said, we help you eliminate the poverty of conversations.

You tell me, what does that person do?

I have no idea.

They work with sales teams to make them better. Oh, wow. His website said, we live the poverty of conversations. Nobody is going to know what that means. Just say, I make your sales teams better.

That's what the customer wants. We need that.

When you ask me that, I'm like, am I stupid? Because I have no idea what that means.

No, no, you're not. And, but. And that's the thing, is that the customers aren't either, and they're going to bounce from that page. Then you need to create.

So what does your customer want? Put it on your website. Say it. What is, what is the problem that's getting in the way of what your customers want? Say it.

You need to position yourself as a guide in the story to your customer, not the hero. You help your hero win. So you have to have a lot of empathy and you have to show, like, testimonies that you've helped other people win.

Give some authority. Then what is your plan for the customer? What. What do they need to do to win? Or how are you different? How do you help them win?

What's your call to action? 70% of small businesses in America do not have a strong call to action on their website. That is a. That's. It's embarrassing.

And All, I mean, I could make tons of people millions of dollars if you just put a call to action on your website and then have you shown what can be gained or lost if your customer does or does not do business with you and have you put that in your messaging? We call that a brand script.

And we actually people, can we give this away for free@storybrand.com sb7 where you can go on and literally just go in and fill out boxes that focus all of your messaging around these seven elements. If you start there, that's kind of a longer story.

But if you start there and then use that to kind of audit all of your materials and say, have we talked about our customer's problem? Are we clear about what they want? Have we given them a plan? Do we have a call to action? Have we shown them success and failure?

If you haven't, the easiest thing is just to put some of that right into your marketing. Make the change right there.

So first of all, I think the big thing that you just laid out that was eye opening to me is changing what the lens that you're looking through where it's not about, hey, how, how is my company gonna get more business here? But like you said, how do you make the person the hero that you are marketing to? Because then they want to engage.

But the other thing I got out of it is I'm never going to a movie with you because, like, I feel like you come out of a movie and everyone's like, was it good? Did you like it? And you're like, they only did five out of the seven. It was terrible. Is that, is that your move?

Is that what you do, like, analyze movies?

It's really hard. It's really hard. I actually have to watch a movie. The second time is when I figure out if I actually like it or not the first time.

It's literally like they waited till a minute 11 to establish what the character want. And the, the save the cat moment didn't come early enough. And it was just like, I really do analyze them. And then later.

But it is, sometimes it is fun to go with me because Will go, I didn't love that movie. And then I'll go, here's why you didn't love it. And I'll literally like kind of break it down and say, well, they didn't.

They weren't clear about this. They didn't. The problem didn't have any stakes. And I'll kind of walk through that.

Well, I don't know if it applies, but like, I was Just watching Godzilla. And now I'm sitting here in my head like, did they nail it in the first nine minutes in Godzilla?

But now I have to go back and watch and maybe Godzilla became, you know, he set his agenda out to eat everybody or something like that. So now I'm gonna look at through different lines.

So let me ask you this though, because one of the things that I struggle with in my business is that I have an agency and I do a bunch of stuff and we are somewhat known for email marketing, but that's less than 50% of the revenue of my company. We do lots of other stuff, but I sometimes feel like if we don't lean into what we are known for, then we're known for nothing.

And so my question is, when you're creating this story, do you need to be known for a thing and then you can develop the story further as you bring in customers and clients, or do you tell this like robust story about yourself that is really large and you let people kind of just navigate the part of the story that they care about?

I am a big fan of niching down. The more you can niche until that market is saturated, I think the easier it is to find the people that you really want to work with.

That's my, that's my quick answer. So there's a lot of nuance to that and everything.

What I would probably actually tell you if we were working together, say that we spent a day and I was like walking through everything, is if you're really known for marketing and email marketing, and that's really what a lot of your customers are really struggling with, I would use your lead generators to emphasize email marketing a lot.

And so, you know, you're creating webinars about it, you're doing social media about it, you're creating PDFs about it, and you're bringing people into your website or a landing page that specifically is dealing with email marketing and have them sign up through that and then begin to, once they're in, begin to explore the greater narrative on your actual website, like your grand website. I probably would still go with a higher level story. But here's where it gets tricky. This is why I think the niching part matters.

If you just say we help everybody with marketing and somebody has an email problem, you're competing against 20,000 other marketers who help people with marketing. You sound like everybody else, right?

If you actually can say we help people with marketing, you're going to miss out on some people that, I'm sorry, we help people with Email marketing, you're going to miss out on people who want video and website, which you probably do some video and website stuff, but you're at least going to hook the first. You're the majority of the people that you want to work with through that email messaging.

So it, it's a little bit nuanced, but that's why like some, I work with people all the time who are like, well, I love working with female entrepreneurs, but I feel like that's too limiting.

And I'm like, well, if you love working with them, you know it and that market is not saturated, then I feel like you should say, I help female marketers. I felt I help female entrepreneurs with their marketing.

You're going to attract the right customer, you're going to do the work that you like to do and you're going to basically, I mean, to be a little crass, piss on your territory and say, I own this, I own this. And when you do that, it helps you stand out as a guide in the market and I think an even stronger way.

Right? So you're not going to stand out otherwise, you're just going to be one of many. There's no way to stand out.

So it's nuanced. But truthfully, like I would say lead generators focus in that and then don't be afraid to niche down.

I love that. I love niching down. I love everything about that.

So since you're all about story, I'm curious about something because I sort of feel a certain way and I don't know if you do. I sort of feel that attribution is kind of garbage.

And the reason I say that is that when you talk about a story, attribution is to me very transactional. Somebody downloaded a guide, now the BDR is calling them up and harassing them into a demo or whatever.

Is the idea of storybrand, that attribution is a little bit of a myth that you have to kind of make this signal, this all encompassing signal to really bring people into the tent. Is that the idea?

Explain to me a little bit about what you mean by attribution.

So this person did this. They downloaded a piece of content, they then went to the sales guy or girl and that person tried now to call them and they became a customer.

And they became a customer because they downloaded that guide, that one tip sheet.

It wasn't because they listened to a podcast and they signed up for the newsletter and they've been on our list for three years and all this other nonsense.

I mean, we are big Fans of like, one of the things that drives us internally as we've, we say we've never been, we've never been punished for being a generous brand.

So at every step of the way, we work very hard to be generous, whether that's the initial offering of that PDF or through follow up emails, or through the all those things, or through our podcast. Like, if you listen to our podcast, we give away everything that we sell you later.

Now we do it over like lots of different areas and like, you know, you'd have to listen to hours upon hours upon hours to get it. But I give you literally everything that I would do in a day strategy session. I just, you don't have my brain and you don't have it all together.

So we're all about giving, being generous.

And when it comes to story, when you're really moving into that, like say, creating social media space and creating webinar space and creating PDFs that people are downloading, what you're doing is not trying to tell a story. You're trying to invite customers into a story that they see themselves in.

And the way you do that is by serious, not just giving away stuff, but talking about their problem over and over and over and over and over again. And so when you do that, when you focus on the customer problem, what you're doing is them like just getting a little nod.

Like if somebody is in the fitness industry and they're like, don't you hate that you can't eat ice cream at night? And they're like, yes, right? That's all you're looking for. You're just looking for a yes. And that gets somebody into the story.

And if you can get them there, it's not about trying to sell your product. It's not trying to talk about all the features that you have and not even getting them on a phone call for that quick sale.

It's inviting them into a story that they elect to be in. And this is kind of just to get a little nerdy for a second here. This is all actually based in theory.

It's not like, and by theory, I mean like proven study. It's based in communication theory. In communication theory, there's this principle called narrative transportation.

Narrative transportation is the idea that when somebody sees a good story, they actually project themselves into that story. So if you've ever been in a movie and you've jumped or you've been, or you've laughed, you've cried, experienced narrative transportation.

The studies show that the better the story, the more it follows the rules, and the more it stays in the principles, the higher level of narrative transportation people experience.

The study goes further to say that the higher level of narrative transportation that people experience, the more influence that story has on their thoughts and their actions. The most powerful way to move people to action is through narrative transportation. That happens in a movie and books all the time.

But then, once again, the research goes even further to show that narrative transportation can happen in a website, in emails, and even in as little space as a tweet, social media, Instagram. So your job is not just this, like, give and take kind of thing with the customer. It's transactional.

It's really about saying, getting somebody to see themselves in the story. And when you're selling them to them, you're not convincing them to buy something.

You're giving them a solution to their problem, so they get to be the hero of the story. And if you can do that in PDFs that they download or even in phone calls, that's fine.

But you also want to do that on your website, on your social media.

Every time that you're speaking the words or writing the words, you're trying to help people experience narrative transportation, see themselves in the story, and see a path forward for themselves to win.

Narrative transportation. I like that. I'm going to get, like, a tattoo, a temporary tattoo, but I'm going to get one that's really, really cool. I got to absorb that.

That's meaningful. I'll tell you what's not meaningful.

The last segment of this podcast, which we're about to do, called since you didn't ask, which has nothing to do with anything, but I got to drill into this. So I was very excited at the start of this when you said that you did a reality show. And the premise, your reality show, is amazing.

I happen to love reality tv, and I'm not kidding, but you seem like a very intellectual, smart person. I don't. Do you. I want to know, do you like any reality shows? And if so, I need to know exactly which ones they are.

Wow. RuPaul's Drag Race.

Nice.

So that's. That's one that's up there. Probably. That's probably about it right now. I do watch a lot of documentaries.

What about the Bachelor? Would you watch the Bachelorette? No, no, no. Love is blind. Not happening. Zero.

What was the show? Love on the Spectrum.

Yeah, that was great.

I did watch Love on the Spectrum. Yes.

Oh, okay, good. So I'm not gonna lie.

I have seen an episode or two of the KARDASHIANS even recently. So I have.

There you go. That's almost reality tv. But no, no Real Housewives for you.

You. No, no, I just. I can't. I can't do it. It's the drama.

Here's the part about it is my life is kind of so full with a lot of things and having to my brain move it. I can't do the drama. I can't do the drama.

How about one of the cooking ones, like Top Chef? There's not a lot of.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Those I have, you know, like, British baking show. Yeah. 100.

Oh, I love that show.

Yeah, I've seen every season of that for sure.

The best part about that show is like, all right, today we're going to make pastries. And then they. Because they've always weird pastries I've never heard of, or we're making a blah, blah, blah. I'm like, what the hell is that?

And then by the end, it's like, I gotta eat one of those. Those look great.

Absolutely. I did watch the whole series of Stanley Tucci in Rome.

Yes.

The Italy. But what's funny is I then wrote down we went to Italy, and I went.

I wrote down all the restaurants he went to, like in Rome and in Bologna and all these places, and I went to all of them, and 90% of them were closed because of the pandemic. He filmed it pre and during the pandemic, and I went and all of them were closed. So I was, like, so excited.

I watched every episode and was meticulous about writing down. They were all closed.

Oh, that's brutal. Yeah. Any of those food shows. I will watch all of them. All right, this has been amazing.

So let us all tell us where to find you, where to follow you story, brand, your podcast, everything. We're going to put all in the show notes, but tell everybody how to get into Dr. J.J. peterson's world.

If you're interested in more about Storybrand, it's just storybrand.com and like I said earlier, if you want to start creating those, like, brand scripts, starting to figure out how to play with your customer story, just go to storybrand.com sb7. That'll give you the tool there. And then I'm at Dr. J.J. peterson on the socials, and so you can find me there as well.

And our podcast is Marketing Made Simple.

Yeah. Everybody literally stop listening to this and go listen to Marketing Made Simple. It is one I listen to every single week. It's amazing.

Dr. J.J. peterson, thank you for being here. This has been fantastic and appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. This is fun.

You did it. You made it to the end. Nice, but the party's not over.

Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketer. And hook us up with a five star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time.

Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100% free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Daymond John, Martha Stewart and me. GuruEvents.com check it out.