Rebl Risty, a StoryBrand certified consultant, teaches us how to transform your brand narrative to put your customers at the heart of the story. Learn how to re-engage your network effectively, use strategic prompts to simplify networking, and maintain strong relationships long after the first connection. Tune in for actionable insights to elevate your brand's messaging and engage your audience like never before!
Biggest Takeaways:
Customer as Hero: Emphasize positioning the customer as the hero of your brand story, not your company or product. This approach ensures that your messaging resonates more deeply by focusing on the customer's journey and needs.
Guiding Role: Your business should act as the guide in the customer's journey. Like Yoda to Luke Skywalker, your role is to provide the expertise and support that helps customers overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.
Importance of Clarity: Avoid complexity in your messaging. The key to effective communication is clarity over cleverness. Ensure that your content is easy to understand and directly addresses the needs of your audience.
Utilizing the StoryBrand Framework: Implementing Donald Miller’s StoryBrand framework can revolutionize your marketing by structuring your brand story to engage customers effectively. The framework outlines a clear path for crafting compelling narratives that spotlight the customer as the protagonist.
Consistent Application Across Channels: The principles of the StoryBrand framework are versatile and can be applied across various marketing materials—from websites and social media to emails and beyond. This consistency ensures that every piece of content contributes cohesively to the overarching narrative of your customer as the hero.
Meet Rebl
REBL Risty is Founder & CEO of REBL Marketing. REBL became Certified in the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework, which helps companies eliminate confusion and communicate clearly with their customers to grow their businesses.
Rebl Risty, a StoryBrand certified consultant, teaches us how to transform your brand narrative to put your customers at the heart of the story. Learn how to re-engage your network effectively, use strategic prompts to simplify networking, and maintain strong relationships long after the first connection. Tune in for actionable insights to elevate your brand's messaging and engage your audience like never before!
Biggest Takeaways:
Customer as Hero: Emphasize positioning the customer as the hero of your brand story, not your company or product. This approach ensures that your messaging resonates more deeply by focusing on the customer's journey and needs.
Guiding Role: Your business should act as the guide in the customer's journey. Like Yoda to Luke Skywalker, your role is to provide the expertise and support that helps customers overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.
Importance of Clarity: Avoid complexity in your messaging. The key to effective communication is clarity over cleverness. Ensure that your content is easy to understand and directly addresses the needs of your audience.
Utilizing the StoryBrand Framework: Implementing Donald Miller’s StoryBrand framework can revolutionize your marketing by structuring your brand story to engage customers effectively. The framework outlines a clear path for crafting compelling narratives that spotlight the customer as the protagonist.
Consistent Application Across Channels: The principles of the StoryBrand framework are versatile and can be applied across various marketing materials—from websites and social media to emails and beyond. This consistency ensures that every piece of content contributes cohesively to the overarching narrative of your customer as the hero.
Meet Rebl
REBL Risty is Founder & CEO of REBL Marketing. REBL became Certified in the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework, which helps companies eliminate confusion and communicate clearly with their customers to grow their businesses.
understanding what your customer wants. What's the problem that they're dealing with? That's keeping them from getting what they want right, hey, hey.
Speaker 2:
Today we are talking to Rebel Ristie, who is a StoryBrand certified consultant and she's teaching us how we can bring more customer into our brand stories. So you know how when someone's telling a story and it's all about them, them, them, you just kind of tune out like, okay, well, how am I supposed to get involved in this story? I don't have any skin in the game. That's what happens with your brand when your copywriting. When your copywriting, your website, your social media posts are all about you and you use the word like we or I. It just kind of turns people off.
Speaker 2:
But the whole thing with StoryBrand is being very you-centric your customers that hear of the story and you are the guide that's taking them from point A, which is the unmitigated disaster that is their lives, to point C, where they're on the other side of this hurdle, and they are the hero of the story. So today, raul is going to teach us exactly how to do that. And as a reminder, if you have forgotten or you're new to the show, I am Sarah Noelle Block and you are listening to Tiny Marketing.
Speaker 1:
I am, I am. I've been using StoryBrand for years. I found Donald's book through a friend six years ago. He wrote it five, six years ago and I just love, love. The format it makes so much sense. The framework, the seven steps.
Speaker 1:
It's simple, but it's just so apical to any business and the nice thing as a business, when you're trying to storytell, it's really hard because what you want to lead with is products and services and benefits and all these things right. And it really says okay, hey, you need to tell a story, which, yeah, in our mind, we all know we need to tell stories how people connect better. But how, how do you do it? And that's what the framework does.
Speaker 2:
It says okay, this is how you do it yeah. You're right. It feels vague when you're given the advice you need to sell the stories and it's like well, what does that mean? Are you talking about case studies, customer stories? But can you explain how that works? Like what is the story that we're supposed to be telling?
Speaker 1:
The story? Well, it goes back to Donald Miller. If you don't know who he is, he's an author and he has developed the framework and now has StoryBrand and Business Made Simple. So the idea as an author writing books and then screenplays we all are attracted to and get absorbed with the idea of stories. When we hear a story, it draws us in because we can see ourself in that story and it engages us in our brain in a different way. So what he's done is created a seven-part framework and it's very simple. It's understanding what your customer wants. What's the problem that they're dealing with? That's keeping them from getting what they want right. So when you think about the latest movie you watched, what's the first opening scenes? It's usually something dramatic happening.
Speaker 2:
Yeah you're throwing an action.
Speaker 1:
Exactly Somebody's hanging off a cliff or they just broke up with their love of the life and that type of thing. So it's that tragedy problem that happens. And now they've got to the hero. Your customer has to find their way back to what they want to find love again, to find the diamond, whatever it is right In the storyline, and that's the idea. It's following that whole storyline. It's following that whole storyline and you are the hero, not the hero, but you're the guide. Your customer is the hero, you're the guide, you're helping.
Speaker 1:
And every one of the best examples is Star Wars. Right, you've got Luke who's confused. He's the hero of the story. He doesn't know what to do, he doesn't understand his powers, and then Yoda comes along. He's the guide, helping him, train him, find the answers, to find the path to get to where he wants that type of thing. So you are the guide in your business to your hero, the customer, and you're giving them the plan, You're helping them figure out how to get to what they want. And that, basically, is the formula for StoryBrand and, like I said, I've been using it for years and it does work. And the nice thing about it is it works.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it just works it does, and it's a formula, so it's easy to I mean, from an outside perspective. It's not always easy to do it for yourself, but it's easy for a guide to be able to apply that formula to another person's business. And I'm a writer so I study writing all the time. Every single book that I read about the practice of writing like Save the cat it all applies to marketing. Every single time I read one, I'm like holy cow. That is, that's just marketing and then guiding people through their challenges, getting them through these obstacles and getting them to their triumphant end.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, and, like we were talking earlier, sometimes it's so obvious and we know we need to do these things and the storytelling is all about the messaging and your branding and, you know, keeping it simple. One of the things that I like to say is, instead of being clever and cute, you want to be clear and concise, and that's the great thing about the formula is it helps you hone that down, because otherwise, as business owners, as marketers, we want to do everything and with so much going on in the world, this is a basic core philosophy and something that every business needs in their business is just good, clean, clear messaging, branding, and then from there you can build.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you're right. There's so much clutter in our lives. We don't want to have to decipher your funny copy. I don't know what you actually do.
Speaker 1:
Right, and recently we I'll come up with some really clever stuff and then you go and say it or it's on your website and people like I don't understand yeah but what does that mean?
Speaker 2:
yeah, so oh my gosh. So why is it important for the customer to be the hero?
Speaker 1:
Because in like every story, the customer Not. How do I say this in a not? Well, let's say we're all self-centric in many ways, right?
Speaker 2:
We're in survival mode.
Speaker 1:
Right. So here's the idea with the messaging and the branding on a simple, simplified is that we're all in survival tactic. We're just trying to quickly understand and maneuver where we need to go right. And so if you are making yourself the hero of Reb Recy at Rebel Marketing is the hero for my clients then my client gets lost because I'm talking about myself.
Speaker 1:
The hero wants to talk about themselves and and you know, if you think about in the movies, the hero is usually the one that's lost. They're confused. As somebody who's going to solve your problems, you don't want to think I mean he's been lost. Right, you're the one, the client. I don't want to say they're confused, but they are a little lost as marketers. Our clients come to us because they don't know what to do in marketing. Maybe they've tried things. It's not working. They want to have a guide. They want someone to tell them what to do. At the end of the day, everyone wants to have that expert that says confidently this is what you need to do, this is how we're going to fix it, and then they fix it for them. And that's what the guide does. Right, the hero is the one that's usually on the path to getting there, and then they're the hero to somebody else, so we write the messaging for them. That makes them the guide and their customer the hero.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that makes sense. We don't want to be the confused people. The business owner should not be the person that's seeking out a solution, that is confused and stumbling through life. They need to be the person who, the lighthouse, the person who shows you the way, the path.
Speaker 1:
Yep, and if you think about yourself as the guide versus the hero, you stop talking about I, we, me, and you start saying you how I help. You know like you really focus on that customer and it's it's just a different perspective and it draws that customer in. So when, for example, the reading copy on your website and it's you clearly state are you, you're struggling with marketing, you're about ready to throw it all in, right, but you don't do that yet, because we know how you feel, you are the hero of your own story and we can help you define that.
Speaker 2:
So, for those who haven't read Donald Miller's book yet, he has a formula for what your website should look like the order of the copy on your homepage. And if you go to my website, you'll see that's the order. I'm using this story brand formula for my own copywriting, but really that's exactly what it is. You talk about their challenges first and then bring them through that journey on how what their life can look like in the end. Like. This is these are the sucky things that are happening right now, and you should know that, because you should be talking to your customers and having this conversation. And this is like and then your transformation statement this is what your life can look like after Yep, yeah, so you can do this. Well, in your copy. Is there a?
Speaker 1:
way you can pull this into social media, into email, into content creation, absolutely. So we start with the seven part formula, which breaks down the problem, the challenges, and here's the thing is, you know you try to write, we call it a brand script. You can write one for each audience, each service. And then part of the seven-part formula is what we call negative stakes and positive stakes, and the negative stakes are all the things that could happen to your customer if they don't work with you, and the positive stakes are all the things that happen when they do work with you.
Speaker 1:
So these become great subject lines for email, for social media posts. We like to formulate our social media posts in problem solution and you know kind of problem solution or problem, what do you do? And solution or what, what life like you said how, what does life look like after they work with you? So, kind of using that three step for social media posts, as you mentioned, there's a whole format for website, using all of that same, those same steps, where you know you can use it for lead magnets, lead nurturing campaigns. It's. It's a nice formula because it does parlay then into different formats for marketing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it sounds like you can use this problem, journey, solution formula and pretty much everything that you create. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, would it be nice to finally have a formula that works and that's what I love about StoryBrand.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I honestly haven't found a client yet that it doesn't work on and, as we know, as marketers, you adjust and there's certain parts that do and certain parts that don't, but for the most part, I take all of our clients, whether they sign up for that in the beginning or not. They all get to go through it at some point and it really helps them understand how to better talk about themselves. And I think you mentioned and then you can also use it what Donald's famous for is the one-liner how do you introduce yourself at a party? We're now helping our clients apply that to their LinkedIn profiles, so it's all about messaging and really dialing that down to something clear and concise.
Speaker 2:
Can you walk me through some one-liners that you've created and how you did that?
Speaker 1:
Oh, yeah, yeah, oh my gosh, it's hard right to get something down.
Speaker 2:
So one sentence. Yeah, it's hard, I have. I like to write in soundbites when I'm creating a messaging strategy, but that one liner. I've written plenty but I never feel like they're perfect. I want to hear how you go through that process.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So we start like who's your client and what is the problem that they're really challenged with? And then you know that takes a little bit, so I should pull up there's. I just worked with a client actually earlier this week. He is a startup providing like strategic COO services and he helps with acquisition of companies, strategic planning, all of those things he's a fractional COO Fractional COO CEO strategic planning. So he had all kinds of things in his headline for Well, actually, no, I take that back. In his LinkedIn headline he had fractional CFO.
Speaker 1:
I wasn't even one of those people I was going to mention when you no, it was like fractional CFO done. So what we did is boil that down to he is a fractional CFO and that's a key term, so we wanted to keep that in there. But we focused on he helps CEOs, cos or the C-suite. He helps CEOs and CFOs optimize strategic planning so that they can focus on their business.
Speaker 1:
And it was kind of a weird play as to how we got there, but what we try not to do is put in too much and we don't want to talk about just what he does. We want to talk about the customer. So we identified he's uh, he helped CEOs and CFOs simplify the strategic planning process so they can get back to work, basically because what happens is a lot of um, c-level, um, c-level professionals get stuck working in their business and they don't have time to do strategic planning and that type of thing. So he's helping them boil that down so that he does strategic planning and helping them with that. And as I'm talking through this, I'm like my gosh, I'm horrible explaining what he does.
Speaker 2:
But I like that you call out who his customer is right at the beginning, especially with LinkedIn. That makes it so much easier to get new leads when they can see oh, I'm exactly your person, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And I think that's part of the challenge is we try to be all things to everybody, and the reality is, as you know, sarah, the more you can focus and be clear about who you really work with and what the problem is that you solve, then that's really where you connect with them at a different level. And then the ideas with the one liner is that they go oh, tell me more. Oh, that's interesting, I'd like to know more. So it's don't put everything in the one-liner, is so they go oh, tell me more. Oh, that's interesting, I'd like to know more. So don't put everything in the one-liner, it's just enough to get them interested.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's a really good point, just like an attention grabber, but you're calling out who your customer is and what problem you solve. And those are the two most important things. They don't really need to know the how. The how isn't that important, they just want, like the transformation. What is wrong with my life now and what could my life look like later?
Speaker 1:
Yep, exactly, and that's true, and the idea is that you get their attention so that they want to learn more, and then you get a little bit into the how, and that's what we call the plan. You know, it's the three or four steps of how you engage and what life looks like. But yeah, again, it's just, it's a great formula. I love using it and I highly recommend people, if they aren't familiar with it, go look up StoryBrand or give me a call, I'm happy to talk to them about it?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and listen to the Marketing Made Simple podcast and your podcast. Can you tell people about it? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so revolutionize your marketing, your business, your life, which you've been on, Sarah, I have. Thank you. It's a fun little podcast. I actually started it a little bit before COVID, where I would just go into colleagues, friends' offices and I would do short interviews with my camera and mic and then, over COVID, I really started to pick it up doing Zoom. Back then we only had Zoom.
Speaker 1:
Now you've got StreamYard and Riverside and from there I kind of went on pause for a little bit and then I picked it back up last year and we focus on small business owners, executives and marketers who are trying to figure out how to do marketing. And I love to bring in experts like you who are good at marketing. You know you're great at B2B professional services, small business marketing. I've had, you know, search and optimization, business development, People are good at AI Just talking and it's about having a conversation around how to do better marketing from the small business perspective, the small business owner perspective and marketers. And I say revolutionize your marketing, but also then your business, and then hopefully you're revolutionizing your life through having strong marketing, strong business and then-.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, do you have a freebie or anything like that?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you know, speaking of the format and the formula, I found one of the best ways to introduce people is I'm more than happy to do a free consultation on your website and look at your messaging. That's a deal and a half. It really is, and I guarantee everybody who meets with me will walk away with at least one or two actual items that they can just do themselves, implement themselves, and it's usually their headline. Yeah, that's usually the biggest takeaway, but it could be a couple other things too. I guarantee you'll be easy for them to implement.
Speaker 2:
And that's that, folks. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Rebel. Make sure to take her up on that offer and I guarantee you're going to be better because of it. Storybound really is amazing. I binged the entire book on a single flight from Chicago to California. It was amazing and it really changed the way I thought about brand messaging and I completely tweaked everything. So if you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, subscribe. Make sure to tell your friends about it. Hit that share button.
Speaker 2:
Today's episode was the first of a three-part series on brand. Now you want to make sure to stay tuned and look for those upcoming episodes on it, on brand because we will wrap it up with a workshop where I will teach you how to create your one-liner so you finally know how to talk about your business with absolute ease. By the end of the workshop, you'll have yours nailed and you'll feel really good about it. So go to the show notes and I will share that link for you to sign up for that workshop. And, as usual, I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you so much. Every single week, this show grows and it's because of you, it's 100% not me. It is because of you and I really appreciate you tuning in, and just so you know. Tuning in and just so you know, you can picture me refreshing my Buzzsprout analytics every Sunday when the episode drops, because I'm always curious who's listening, where you're listening from, and all of that I'm ridiculous. I'll see you next week. Bye.