 There is a true divide between those who understand the power of story and those who don't. Welcome to the We Are Slam Show where we share marketing agency insights, ideas, and best practices to help your business grow. My name is Tyler Kelly and I'm the co-founder and chief strategist at Slam Agency. We're a full-service digital marketing agency that helps brands realize and reach their highest potential. And today, if there's one thing that we can take away from this entire quarantine experience, just this journey, this evolution that we've all been on, it's this. It's that there is a true divide between those who understand the power of story and how to use it to drive results and those who don't. Because over these last several weeks, what you've found is that the way that you used to market, the way that you used to advertise, just isn't going to get you to where you need to go when we get out of this thing, right? Things have changed. There's a new normal. And that new normal, I believe, starts with storytelling. Now, here's the secret. Facts tell stories sell. Long after they've forgotten your sales pitch, people will remember your story. There's just something about stories that connect with us on that visceral, on that emotional level in a way that drives results. And that's what I want to share with you today. There's just something about story that drives connections, that builds momentum, that creates movements. And today, I want to introduce you to three story frameworks. Now, what's a framework? A framework is really, it's like a template that you can use to develop your story. And it's important to use templates. Why is this? Because you don't have to reinvent the wheel. These frameworks have been developed. They've been tested. They've been executed multiple times, and they've been proven to work. They work because as marketers, you have a tendency to make two fatal mistakes. Those mistakes are that your copy, your messages don't always focus on helping people to survive and thrive. We talked last week about the only thing that customers care about is themselves. And the only thing that people buy is transformation. So how is your product? How is your service helping people to get to that next level, helping them to survive and thrive, helping them to escape pain and garner pleasure? How is this happening? How is your product or service allowing that to happen? The second mistake that you often make is that your message, your offer is just, it's too confusing. And here's the thing. Anytime your customer, your potential customer is confused, they're automatically in their brain saying no to your offer, right? You can't confuse your customers, your potential customers. And so what does the framework do? A framework allows you to avoid potentially sidestep those two mistakes. It's going to help you to keep your message on point clear and simple so that number one, your users aren't confused. And that number two, it keeps you focused to avoid that first fatal mistake, which is not focusing on what's in it for them. So I want to introduce you to a few frameworks. And if you've not heard this word before, then these are going to be completely new to you. But if you've been exploring frameworks and you're wondering which ones are best for your business, then this video, this podcast will help you decide. So the first is the Storybrand framework. Donald Miller Storybrand refers to this as the SB7 framework. It's essentially based on the narrative method of storytelling. Now, essentially it's, you have a character, the character is never you, it's always your customer. Like every good story, for instance, Star Wars, the hero in his or her journey meets a guide. The guide shows them what to do, what not to do. It gives them a call to action or a challenge. And then they go out on their journey and they accomplish this or they face doom. Now, in the movies, they're always going to accomplish, you know, the good guy's always going to win normally, right? And that's what has to happen in your story. If, you know, your customer, if your potential customer comes through and buys your product or service, follows through on that call to action on that guidance, the guidance that you're providing as a guide to them, then guess what? They're going to succeed. You give them a plan, you lay it out, here's what you need to do. Here are the steps to transformation. Then you provide a call to action. The call to action is really, you know, if you don't ask, then you won't receive an answer. You always have to ask. You always have to say, take this step. You can't just give them the steps and then, you know, leave it at that. You have to say, I want you to do this next. Here's the step. Here's the call to action. Click here, sign up here, do this. If you don't say those things, then guess what? They're not going to do it. So you give them a plan and you give them a call to action. This call to action is going to help them to avoid failure. But as part of this process, what you want to do is you want to kind of hint at, if you don't follow through, if you don't do this, then you know what? You're risking this failure. And if you don't want to risk, if you don't want to see, you know, that failure, if you don't want to continue to be in this status quote state, then do this call to action. If you do this call to action, you follow this plan, then guess what? You're going to get this and that right there is the end of the story, the success, the hero, winning, evolving, becoming your customer and thriving, surviving and thriving. Okay? So that is the Storybrand SB7 framework. And it sounds like, you know, most stories that we are aware of them. The most amazing thing is that our brains have been hardwired to tune in the stories like these. This is why we love stories like these, Rocky, Star Wars, you know, these movies that just make you feel good. It's because it's been hardwired into our system, into our brains, in a way that when we come across a story like this, we see ourselves as the hero and we see ourselves in the journey. And if you can do this as a marketing director for your customers, for your potential customers, if they can see themselves in the story, in the story where you're the guide and you provide a plan and a call to action that is in success, then you're going to kill it. You're going to kill it in your position. Okay? The second framework I want to introduce you to is called the Pixar framework. Now, this one was created by a story artist at Pixar. What she noticed, her name was Emma Cotes, what she noticed is that in all of their successful stories, in all of their movies that like went blockbuster, what she found is that they had a similar journey. And so she outlined that and she said, okay, this is the framework. This is how to tell a story. Like, this is what works. And so it's a super simple framework. It forces you to be concise and disciplined in your marketing message. And actually, this was something that Dan Pink and one of his books discovered and he came across Emma's blog post in talking about story and said, okay, this is what makes the perfect pitch. So if you're a marketing director out there and looking at how to pitch your product, how to pitch your service, look up the Pixar framework, storytelling framework. This is how it goes. Once upon a time, there was this character. Does this sound familiar? And then every day, this character did this thing, right? The status quo. But then one day, they discovered this is where your problem is. They discovered a problem. They discovered this pain point. And because of that, they did this, okay? What is this? This is that potential doing what everyone does, that status quo that what got you here won't get you there. And because of that, they ended up in a place that they didn't want to be in. And so they're seeking a savior. They're seeking a solution. They're seeking an answer to their problem, a solution to their pain point. Until finally, what happens? They meet their guide. They meet their, they find their solution. They find their way. So the hero of the story works, works his or her way through until finally they come across your product or your service, the solution to their problems. Okay? The third framework I want to introduce you to is called the CAR framework. C-A-R, it's an acronym. It stands for context, action and results. And this is a simple one for those of you that don't want to think about it in terms of like Hollywood or storytelling. This is super simple, okay? CAR, C-A-R. C is for context. You've got to set the scene. You've got to describe the characters. You have to describe the status quo, the pain points. This is why it matters to you, the listener. This is why this story matters, set the context. Then action, just like story brand, you have to provide a call to action, okay? If you don't ask, you won't receive. So always provide some sort of action. Give them a plan and call them to action. And then finally, results. Again, super similar to the narrative framework which avoids failure and in success results. What are the results that they're going to achieve? So set the context, provide action steps, and then share the results, show the results, preview the results. If you do this, it's nice and simple. It's the CAR storytelling framework, context, action results. You'll see that your sales will increase. Okay, so three frameworks for you to choose from, play with, story brands, SB7 framework, the Pixar storytelling framework, and CAR-CAR. Choose one of these, work with it, and see how it helps fine-tune your messaging and see how it can help you fine-tune your messaging in a way that drives more results, okay? If you've enjoyed this episode, I want you to subscribe, rate, and review. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up in the comments. And if you've enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. And if you've enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, share it with a friend. Everybody needs to know about storytelling frameworks. Share it with a friend. I'm sure they'll be glad that you did. Thank you for tuning in, and I will see you next week. We've picked something we thank you'll love.