The Ultimate Sales Story 9781973998037, 1973998033

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The Ultimate Selling Story Cut Through the Marketing Clutter Forge a Powerful Bond with Your Market And Set Up the Sale Using the Hero’s Journey of Story Selling

Roy Furr

The Ultimate Selling Story Printed by: Fresh Look, Inc. Lincoln, NE 68510 www.FreshLookInc.com Copyright © 2017, Roy Furr Published in the United States of America 170720-00867 ISBN-13: 978-1973998037 ISBN-10: 1973998033 No parts of this publication may be reproduced without correct attribution to the author of this book. For more information on 90-Minute Books including finding out how you can publish your own book, visit 90minutebooks.com or call (863) 318-0464

Here’s What’s Inside… Introduction...............................................................1 Part I: Why Story Selling? ......................................7 Part II: The Ultimate Selling Story .................. 15 Part III: 3 Pillars of Highly-Effective Storytelling.............................................................. 35 Appendix A: This “hack” instantly makes you a better writer, speaker, and salesperson… ................ 43 Appendix B: How to make a big sale believable and compelling... ............................................................ 48 Appendix C: The 3-Step Story Formula .................................. 48 Appendix D: 5 lessons learned from the Broadway show Hamilton about story selling… ......................... 61 Appendix E: Find the selling story by working backwards… ............................................................ 69

Wait: Before you dive in! You’ll love this book, I promise. And, you’ll get even more out of it with these additional resources… FREE Companion Template and Training  Go to: StorySellingTemplate.com This book comes with a companion template you can use as a shortcut and easy one-page reference guide, the next time you’re crafting your version of The Ultimate Selling Story. Plus, you’ll also get a free and exclusive video workshop on advanced story selling techniques. Get both FREE at: StorySellingTemplate.com Go Deep & Develop Story Selling Mastery  Go to: StorySellingMasterClass.com If you’re serious about building your storytelling and persuasion skills, you shouldn’t stop with The Ultimate Selling Story. Go deep on each of the 3 Pillars of HighlyEffective Story Selling and develop mastery of story-based persuasion. Learn more at: StorySellingMasterClass.com

Introduction Cut Through The Marketing Clutter The average prospect living in a modern industrialized society sees 5,000 to 10,000 marketing messages every day. These show up in the form of logos, ads, commercials, images, and so on. Your prospects are being over-promised and over-sold. So much so, that it’s not just that they don’t believe what your marketing promises to them. They don’t even pay attention. Their anti-advertising and anti-selling filters are set on high. Your prospect is tired of used-carsalesman tactics and internet marketing schemes. Not only that, they’re just as uninterested in corporate speak that doesn’t care about them and instead prioritizes an image or a feeling of a brand. Modern technology has given your prospect the promise of better, easier connection. And yet, they’re feeling more isolated than ever before. With less real human connection. All of this adds up to your prospect wanting to feel understood. They light up when you feel real, authentic, vulnerable. And when you’re speaking about something relevant and important to them. 1

Forge A Powerful Bond With Your Market Story is the fastest path you have to cut through all of this, all of these limitations based on the state of your prospect today. Specifically, the Ultimate Selling Story is a formula for breaking through, making a human connection with your prospects, helping them feel understood and setting up the sale in the clearest, most direct way possible. But what about you, taking on the role of storyteller and story seller? Whether you are a copywriter, a marketer, a business owner, a salesperson, or a speaker, however you define your role such that you’d be interested in story selling, you may have this fundamental objection. You may think, “But I’m not a natural born storyteller.” I want to tell you that’s okay. In the last few years, I’ve helped clients tell their stories in a way that has generated millions in revenue and profits. And yet, I started out as a storytelling failure. When I was in college, I took a course on writing modern short fiction. I wrote something based on what excited me about the story. Basically, all the details and flowery language of classic English literature. This is the kind of writing I’d been taught through school, through academics, to perfect 2

and excel at. And yet, when I got my graded story back, the grade was bad and the criticism was worse. The professor told me readers today were not interested in writing like mine. They wanted something clearer, more direct, which connected with them. They wouldn’t put up with my fancy language, they just wanted to be entertained. I, for the first time in a writing class, got a terrible grade on the story I wrote. And that’s because I didn’t understand how to put myself in the reader’s shoes and connect with them based on their experience. And yet, that one piece of feedback forever changed the way I thought about writing and storytelling, and set me down a path to advertising success... And Set Up The Sale Ever since then, I’ve learned not just how to tell stories that interest readers. But how to tell a story such that I’m able to get people to take action. That I’m able to generate leads, customers, sales, and profits with my story selling. I got into marketing and business in 2005. I quickly realized the people who did best in business and especially marketing were masters of storytelling. I was coming from a background where I did not feel like a master of storytelling. I knew if I was going to make a decent living at 3

this, I had to get way better at telling a story which hooked my audience and moved them toward a buying decision. Since then, I’ve created multiple seven-figure advertising campaigns which have been primarily centered on stories. This is coming from someone who’s not a natural storyteller. Frankly, I’m not even a natural sales person or marketer either, but I did learn what works. I learned specifically how sales people, marketers, entrepreneurs and business owners use stories to generate real business results, meaning more leads, more customers, more sales, and more profits. The right story to the right market in the right media attached to the right offer at the right time is like capturing lightning in a bottle. I saw this, I wanted to do it, and so I studied both how entertainment or fiction storytellers do it and how business or nonfiction storytellers do it. I discovered a lot that worked about the way others approach stories. And I also found some holes, some shortcomings, especially in the way stories are taught in a selling context. After searching and searching for someone to tell me the better way, I decided I was just going to have to lay it out on my own for myself. What I did was go back to all the studying and research and experience I had up until that point. And I combined the best of what I learned with my own experience and observations. In fact, I 4

identified over a dozen specific story templates relevant to using stories in selling or business context. I taught this in a course, which initially retailed for about $500, called “The Story Selling Master Class.” If you want to learn more about that program, you can go to StorySellingMasterClass.com. Using The Hero’s Journey Of Story Selling Then, as I dug deeper, I discovered that, among those 12 selling story templates, there was one main narrative which flowed through nearly every specific story template. This one narrative, if you could master it, would take you from zero to effective story seller in almost no time flat. If you’re writing fiction, you probably know you’re going to follow the hero’s journey. It’s the underlying narrative arc of nearly every great story, as identified by Joseph Campbell. It was used as a template to write Star Wars and other great Hollywood fiction. And is used as a template for telling fiction stories over and over and over again, to great critical and box office acclaim. The Ultimate Selling Story is like that, but it’s for selling. In fact, I lovingly refer to it as “the hero’s journey of story selling.” This is the one story arc which can be told from your perspective or your customer’s perspective to instantly get the listener, reader, viewer, or 5

prospect you’re speaking to one-on-one to immediately recognize the value of your offer, and feel compelled to take you up on it. And now it’s yours. That said, learning this does come with a certain responsibility. I’ve proven to myself the transformative breakthrough power of story selling, and specifically, The Ultimate Selling Story. Your responsibility is to take this template and formula, learn it, and find a way to use it to tell your story, or your customer’s story. This is not a long book. Rather, it’s a book designed to be finished fast, giving you the essential framework you need to go out there and start applying what you learn. So you can tell your own version of The Ultimate Selling Story. And enjoy more leads, customers, sales, and profits as a result. I look forward to hearing about your results and newfound story selling success! Yours for bigger breakthroughs,

Roy Furr

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Part I: Why Story Selling? “95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously.” Harvard Business Review Stories are the most natural form of communication. As humans, we’ve been telling written stories for thousands of years. And it is likely we’ve been telling word of mouth stories for tens of thousands, perhaps, even hundreds of thousands of years. Every major culture is defined by its stories. Our stories, quite literally, are our culture. Stories are easier to remember. Stories get passed along. And stories reach us at a deep level. If you use a logical sales and marketing pitch, you’re speaking to the head of your prospect. That’s important because the head is where their buying decisions are justified. But stories speak to the heart and the gut. And that’s important, because the heart and the gut are where buying decisions are made. You have a choice. If you use stories, you’re choosing to speak to your prospect where their buying decision is made. But if you restrict your persuasive messaging to logical appeals, you’re only

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speaking to where buying decisions are justified after they are made. And as the Harvard Business Review reported, 95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously. That’s in the heart and the gut, not the head. Once you get the heart and gut on board, you can and should use logic to show your prospect how they’re making the right decision. However, it’s almost impossible to move the other way: to convince the head, then to move the heart and gut. Connect With Your Market Stories are a connection from heart to heart. From gut to gut. From human to human. Once that connection is made, the head will follow. Today, we have more ways to connect than ever. And yet, we feel more disconnected. That’s painful. We need connection. We thrive on connection. Stories are uniquely able to create that connection we need. It’s why we watch movies, and it’s why stories work so well in presentations or advertisements, in marketing videos, on the internet, in print, wherever.

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Because we want to feel the heart, the real person inside. We’re looking for transparency, honesty, openness. Stories are a channel for this connection, and a shortcut we use to reach it. Once that connection is there, it transcends any product, service, or offers we may put out into the marketplace. That connection, when established correctly through story selling, creates a follower, a fan, and a friend for life. Which is way bigger and far more valuable as a relationship than simply having a customer. Having someone become a follower, a fan, and a friend for life means they’re going to be connected with you beyond this transaction, for any value you want to give them and offers you want to make in the future. Create Believable Selling Messages Not only that, stories make the rest of what you’re saying feel more real. The biggest barrier in marketing today in this world of clutter, overpromises, and overselling is believability. In mature markets and, increasingly, in all markets, this has created the biggest promise phenomenon. I’m sure you’ll recognize this. It’s the phenomenon where each marketer makes a

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bigger promise in an attempt to win out the competition in the customers’ eyes. One weight loss marketer says, “I’ll help you lose two pounds this week.” The next one says, “I’ll help you lose five pounds.” Pretty soon, they’re saying, “I’ll help you lose 20 pounds.” That’s the biggest promise phenomenon. In stocks, it is, “I have a stock that’s going to grow 50% in the next month.” The next is, “I have a stock that’s going to increase 100% in the next month.” The next is, “I have a stock that’s going to multiply ten times.” Again, that’s the biggest promise phenomenon. Each marketer makes a bigger promise than the last, trying to win the competition. Eventually, the promises grow so incredible that they become in-credible, meaning no longer credible. Believability evaporates, especially when it comes to making yet another promise. How do you get around that? If you guessed that the answer is stories, you’re right. Stories are a way around the biggest promise phenomenon, to connect with your prospects in a way which doesn’t require you to overinflate promises just to be heard. Get Them To Pay Attention Even better, people want to pay attention to the stories you tell. It’s almost hardwired. 10

We have been using stories for tens of thousands, if not, hundreds of thousands of years. They are universal. If your prospects are human beings, no matter the market, they will resonate with a well-told story that’s relevant to them. Because stories speak to the heart and gut, they’re not filtered in the same way claims, promises, and other logical appeals are. When you tell a story about someone besides the prospect, that is, you tell a story about yourself or another customer, the focus they give you moves outside of themselves. This gives them permission to pay attention to what you’re saying in a way where they don’t feel like they have to filter. Plus, that focus moved outside of ourselves is a more natural place for us to sustain attention. Just think about the last time you went to a movie, and it held your interest for two hours. Then, as you were walking out of the movie theater, you almost had to pause and reorient yourself to real life going on around you. Because your attention had been in the story for such an extended period. Multiply Your Message Through Media One more important point about stories is that they can be captured, repeated, and multiplied through media.

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If you have been involved with direct marketing, direct response marketing, mail order marketing, you may know that, way back in the early 1900s, some significant advertisers by the names of John E. Kennedy, Claude Hopkins, and Albert Lasker introduced a definition of advertising as salesmanship in print. Today, I refer to that as selling multiplied through media. Or simply, selling multiplied. Because today we’re not just talking about print advertising or direct mail letters. We’re talking about all the multimedia that’s available to us as a modern marketer. When you’re able to capture a compelling sales pitch or selling the story in media, you can multiply that to reach thousands or even millions of prospects with little more effort than reaching one. A written story can be shared on the internet or in print. Through advertisements, web pages, books, emails, letters, and so on. A story told through a video can be shared on YouTube, on your website, on webinars, or through any other video delivery mechanism. A story told in audio can be shared on podcasts and recordings and broadcasts. It can be transcribed. It can be shared in multiple media. Speeches and presentations are also great ways to deliver stories, selling one-to-many rather

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than one-to-one or multiplied through some replicable media. Plus, when you have a good selling story, you can learn it, you can memorize it, you can repeat it, and you can share it. As can everyone on your team, your internal sales staff, and other members of your staff who interact with customers. Everyone can memorize those stories and use them to drive your sales. Make Your Prospect Vibrate Finally, the right story can make your prospect vibrate. This language comes from Marty Edelston, the founder of Boardroom, Inc. Under Marty’s leadership, Boardroom grew to be a $150million-a-year direct response publisher. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Marty, but shortly after he passed away, Marty’s business partner, Brian Kurtz, held a huge commemoration event in his honor. The event was called The Titans of Direct Response, and I had the great fortune of working with Brian on the story-based promotion for that event. Here’s something Brian shared with us at Titans. Under Marty, and under Brian, Boardroom sent well over a billion pieces of direct mail as their primary method for growing their business. It’s

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what pushed them up to $100 million and beyond in annual sales. Marty looked at nearly every piece of marketing before it went out the door. And he had one most important question about the copy. Marty’s question was, “Does it make me vibrate?” That is, “Does this message stir a visceral emotional reaction that I will want to take action on by placing an order?” I know it’s happened to me more than once. I’ve worked for weeks or months on a campaign. The team has put it into production. And when I first see the finished product, it’s a chance to experience it anew. I start reading or watching, and I feel myself getting lost in the story. I feel the emotions stirring. Suddenly, I notice my heart racing. I’m vibrating. That’s when I know I’ve created a winner. And more often than not, the secret to creating that visceral reaction is the right story. With that said, I think it’s time for us to dive into the Ultimate Selling Story.

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Part II: The Ultimate Selling Story Now we get to the core content of this book, which is the Ultimate Selling Story formula. Or, as I called it before, the hero’s journey of story selling. This method is very easy to remember. I have given it an acronym that makes it easy for you to memorize, easy for you to recall, and easy for you to use. That acronym is PAISA, which stands for Problem, Agitate, Invalidate, Solve, and Ask. This is a natural narrative arc based on principles of effective story-based persuasion. While it can be used more generically and is very useful in crafting any selling or marketing message, this formula is best used as the narrative arc for crafting selling stories, and it’s very versatile. You can tell the PAISA story from your perspective: “I had this problem. Here’s why it was so bad. I looked at all the other solutions out there and couldn’t find one that fit the bill, so I solved it which led to XYZ product or service, and now you can get it, here’s how.” Or you can tell the PAISA story about a customer as a case study: “Our customer had this problem. It got so bad, they went out looking for all the other solutions that were out there and were coming up empty until they found us and

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realized our unique solution was perfect for them, and now you can get the results they got.” I said this is versatile. You can use it to tell your story or to tell your customer’s story. You can use it to sell products, to sell services, to sell information, to sell software. You can use it to sell almost anything under the sun, just by some creative application of the five steps. For example, I used it to sell a product, an EMPresistant backup solar generator. I’m not going to go too deep into what an EMP is here, but it’s a pulse of electricity that flies through the air and can wreak havoc with modern electronics. I had a client who had built a very high-end backup solar generator inside an EMP-resistant case. We identified how to use the PAISA formula to tell a story which led to the prospects only wanting to buy his backup solar generator. We generated seven figures in sales results very quickly, within a couple of months, based on this story. I’ve used it to sell services. I’ve used it to sell consulting packages. Where somebody has a problem they know they want to have solved, where you can speak to that issue and agitate the experience of that problem. You can invalidate all the other solutions they’ve tried. You can lay out your consulting as the solution which is superior. And then you can ask them to take action by signing up. I’ve used it to sell information, including an IT training video subscription. I’ve used it to sell 16

software. You can use it for products which solve many kinds of problems: health problems, wealth problems, relationship problems. You can use it in a very versatile way. The question is, “What problem is my prospect facing right now?” Then from there, “What is their experience if that problem remains unsolved? How have other solutions been inferior and thus invalid? What is unique about my solution that will get them the result they want, which is the answer to the problem?” Then, “What offer do I put in front of them to get them to take action now?” Like the hero’s journey, this is a nearly universal narrative template you can plug and play for almost any market, any offer, and any business. Again, you just need to determine who had the problem and could make a great subject for the story. And from there, simply follow the steps. How did they come to recognize this problem in their life? How was the unsolved problem causing agitation in their internal and external life experience? Why were other solutions, including doing it themselves, buying an alternative product or service, or leaving the problem unsolved all invalid? How did they land on your solution and what were the buying criteria which convinced them your product or service was right for them? 17

Importantly, what was the result they got from implementing the solution? Then how can I, your prospect, get the solution for myself? What does it come with and why do I need to act now? Let’s go deeper into each of those five steps: Problem, Agitate, Invalidate, Solve and Ask. Start With The Problem When you want to speak to the problem, here’s what you need to do. The problem you present must connect with the prospect for instant recognition. I started off the introduction to this book saying your prospect is exposed to 5,000, to 10,000 advertising and selling messages every day. Their filters are on high such that most of those messages can’t even get through. The way you get through is by connecting with them based on a problem they are experiencing right now. Your goal in every marketing or selling communication is to have your ideal prospect decide within the first five seconds that this is exactly what they’ve been looking for. In the headline, in the intro or whatever you’re putting out there that forms the first impression in their mind, they should recognize you’re speaking to a familiar even pressing problem and addressing it in a language they resonate with. Essentially, you’re speaking to the problem which kept them up last night. 18

A problem is a market. This is one of the most valuable lessons you can learn in business. Because if you understand a problem a large enough group of people have, that problem defines the market. And it defines the products and services and offers you’re able to put out into that market to get business results for yourself. Demographics, psychographics, and even behavioral measures are sometimes used to measure markets. The more accurate definition of a market though is this: it’s people looking to solve XYZ problem. Problems can be negative situations, but note here that a problem can also be an opportunity or desire that’s unfulfilled. Your prospect has a dream, they have desires, and they have a sense of what their destiny is. The gap between where they are now and where they want to be, that’s just as much of a problem as any fear, frustration, or failure they are experiencing. You speak to that gap, whether it’s negative or positive, and you have identified a problem you can solve. Finally, about problems, you do need to be speaking to a market that is ready, willing, and able to buy, and that’s big enough to support your business.

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When you can target a broad enough segment of a population who are able and ready to invest in a solution to a problem, that’s when you have a business that can really take off. I’ve made the mistake of doing the opposite before, of providing a great solution to a problem that very few people had. When I was just getting into marketing, just learning marketing, I sold a tutorial video from my dad on how to cut foam wings for model airplanes and we owned that market for a number of years. However, that market was so small that even though we were able to get people who are ready, willing, and able to buy, it never amounted to a business. You need to have a broad enough segment of the population who are able and willing to invest in the solution to a problem to create a sizable, scalable business from that. Importantly, even if the market is able and willing, they must also be made ready to invest in the solution. Your messaging can get those who are ready now to take immediate action, and it can move those who aren’t quite ready to a more urgent response, which is exactly what the Ultimate Selling Story is designed to do. Agitate The Experience Of The Problem At this point, we have determined the problem that exists in our market and which we are going to speak to. Either from our perspective, or from 20

the standpoint of a customer whose case study we’re going to put out into the market. We speak to that problem in such a way that our target market has instant recognition we are talking about something which matters to them. When you have done that—and it can take place over a couple of sentences, a few words if you do it right—then you can move on to agitating the experience of that problem in your prospect’s life. The question for this agitate step is, “What are the emotional and practical tolls of not solving the problem?” This speaks to an important truth you have to recognize in selling. Having a problem is not enough reason to take action. You don’t have to look very far to see people who are staying in bad situations and individuals who are putting up with insufficient conditions for a very, very long time. People will stay in bad relationships for years. They’ll remain in a bad job getting underpaid and overworked for years. People will know their health behaviors are leading them to some major problems down the road but not change those behaviors for years. It’s human nature to procrastinate, to put off until tomorrow what isn’t screaming to be addressed today.

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In this agitation step of telling the Ultimate Selling Story, you must make the problem scream. How do you do that? By asking a series of critical questions. What are the immediate and obvious consequences of not solving this problem? What are the long-term implications of the problem going unsolved? How will not solving this problem keep your prospect from fulfilling their dreams, their desires, and their destiny? How will leaving this issue unsolved realize their fears, their frustrations, and their failures? What is their worst-case scenario of not taking action to resolve this issue now? What is the internal struggle that comes with not solving the external problem? I’ll speak to that last question for just a moment. Because if you’ve studied the hero’s journey much at all, you’ll recognize that the hero goes through not one but two journeys. There’s the external journey, which is the pursuit and achievement of an external, visible goal. And then there’s the internal journey, the journey of transformation that takes place as they pursue their external goal. As the hero is going through their external journey, they’re having internal struggles. And as your prospect is dealing with an external or 22

practical problem in their life, they’re having internal, emotional conflicts. If you want to agitate to the point where they’re going to want to take action on almost no matter what offer you put in front of them, you have to speak to that internal struggle. The next thing you want to consider, whether you’re telling this story from your perspective or a customer’s perspective, is what problems were run into when trying to find a good solution. Most products or services are created to solve a problem in a way that hasn’t been tried before. At least, most outstanding goods or services are set up with that intention. The reason it happened is the person who created that product or service went out looking at alternate solutions which were in the market and recognized that none of them quite met their needs like they were hoping. When they experienced the problem in a way that wasn’t too pressing, it gave them time they could go out and window shop for solutions. They could look at all of the different options available to them in the marketplace. They could consider doing some DIY project to solve the problem on their own. While they were window shopping solutions, they started to establish a series of buying criteria for what that perfect solution would look like. 23

This is something that happens naturally, through looking and asking the question, “What do I want that I’m not seeing available to me in the marketplace? What am I looking for in a product or service to solve this problem that I am not seeing available to me right now?” This is part of the agitation phase. Because when you’re looking for a solution to a problem that’s not pressing, you are clarifying all those little details of the problem. You’re understanding the impact on your life, and the need for a solution that is a perfect fit for your experience of the problem. The agitation comes from not being able to find a perfect fit solution. Then we get to an essential point. We’ve laid out the problem either from our perspective or a customer’s perspective. And we’ve laid out this internal and external experience of realizing the impact this problem is going to have on our life. And the internal and external experience of not being able to find an adequate solution. Then we reach a point you’ll see in fiction as well as nonfiction story selling. It’s the darkest hour. This is that moment where, suddenly, a solution becomes urgent.

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For the entrepreneur, it may be realizing they’re on the brink of bankruptcy. For a health-related problem, it may be an unexpected hospitalization. For a relationship issue, it may be getting dumped. There can be all sorts of things which bring you to that point in time: the darkest hour when that solution becomes urgent. At some point, something happens. And you, as the person who’s trying to solve the problem, cross the threshold from inaction to action. You go from being a window shopper to seeking out the best available solution, right now. The emotions that go along with this include desperation, vulnerability, and hopelessness. It’s essential that, as you are reaching the end of the agitation phase, you bring either yourself or the prospect into those feelings of desperation, of vulnerability, of hopelessness where you know you have a problem. You know you don’t have any choice but to solve it and you need to get a solution, pronto. That is when there is a spark of resolution, a decision to take action. If you created the product or service to solve your own problem, this is the moment where you finally decided to sit down and define what your perfect solution would look like. And realized that you, in fact, were going to have to create it. 25

Or if you’re telling it from the customer’s perspective, this is where they decided, “Okay, it’s time for me not to be a window shopper anymore. It’s time for me to get this solution.” That’s when we get to the invalidate phase. Invalidate All Other Potential Solutions The invalidate phase is where you are in this mad rush to solve the problem. Because you better solve it now, or else things are only going to get much worse. You research all solutions. You look back at all the other solutions that exist in the marketplace, all those things you’ve been window shopping. You compare the features and the benefits you’ve seen. To understand how they’re going to help you solve your problem. It’s the same process whether you’re talking about this from your perspective or a customer perspective. Whether you’re the inventor or telling a case study, you are comparing all the solutions out there in the marketplace and finding that none of them are sufficient to meet your buying criteria. In telling the story this way, you are establishing your buying criteria. As you go, you’re developing an ever longer list that defines what the ideal solution to the problem is. As your prospect is following you along through the story, they are adopting that 26

list as their criteria for what’s going to move them to make a buying decision. You name all the individual elements and identify exactly why they’re needed to create the ideal solution. One of my favorite examples of this is selling that backup solar generator. The client realized one of the competing models had 17 proprietary fuses. If one of them went out in a power emergency situation and you didn’t have a replacement, you suddenly didn’t have backup power. My client installed breakers rather than fuses. And it was that buying criteria which immediately invalidated the other options that may have needed fuses to provide continuous power from the backup power source. Done right, as you establish all of the buying criteria in favor of your product, you’re setting up a category of one that no product or service other than the one you’re about to introduce can occupy. If you are telling this from your perspective, there is a crucial sentence you can throw in, and that sentence is, “I couldn’t find it, so I built it.” Ultimately, your search for a solution had come up empty. You came up with a long list of buying criteria of what the perfect product or service would be, and there was nothing on the market which fulfilled your needs. 27

You decided that if nobody else was going to create the solution, you are going to have to do it. This is when you introduce the product. Present The Perfect Solution You’ve laid out the problem keeping your prospect up at night. You’ve agitated the experience of letting that problem go unsolved. You’ve invalidated all the alternate solutions to that problem. And now, you present your solution. Again, it’s the same narrative arc whether you’re telling it from your perspective as the inventor of the product or a customer’s perspective in a case study format. This is the point where the perfect solution is identified. If this is you, you want to state how you made a dramatic investment in creating the perfect solution. Work in true statements along the lines of, “I poured over a million dollars of my own money into this.” Or, “I spent the last seven years digging into this.” The more extraordinary the effort, the more desirable it becomes for your prospect to have the solution you came out with, which you created, which is your proprietary solution to the problem.

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Discovering this external solution creates an internal sense of triumph. Whether it’s you finding it in the form of making it, or your prospect getting the same feeling from discovering you. You report that it has gotten the results you wanted. Maybe even faster, easier, or cheaper than you could have with any of the other alternative solutions. This is the category of one solution that is the perfect fit to solve this problem. Earlier in the story, you were discussing the problem and solution in more general terms. Now, you’re free to discuss the solution in the form of a product or service. You present the name. You can make a “first and only” statement. “This is the first and only widget designed from the ground up as a complete solution to XYZ problem,” because if you did it right, that’s what it is. It is a proprietary and exclusive solution to the problem as you’ve defined it. Because you had used that buying criteria which has already eliminated all other solutions, your solution was unique from the start. This is a great place to repeat the buying criteria. Previously, you laid it out to invalidate the other solutions which were being considered. Now, 29

you are explaining exactly how your solution fulfills every one of those buying criteria. Here’s one more great story element that can add to persuasively telling the story, if there’s some grain of truth to it. It’s the reluctant hero moment. You initially built the solution to solve the problem for you and you alone. But somewhere along the way you realized it was too good to keep to yourself. Or perhaps someone else told you, pleaded with you, that you simply must share it with the world. So you reluctantly created a product or service and business built around it. That moment, that conversation, that decision to no longer keep it to yourself, to share it with the world, is the reluctant hero moment. And it’s a reliably powerful emotional appeal for prospects who are following you up to this point. Finally, after we’ve gone through the problem, the agitation of leaving the problem unsolved, the invalidation of other solutions available, and the presentation of our solution, we get to the point where we ask. Ask For Action With A Compelling Offer We ask the prospect to take action, to take us up on the offer. Entire books can be and have been written on creating great offers that spur action. I won’t go 30

into too much detail on that here, but I will tell you that there are some important details of the offer you need to think about. First and foremost, the offer you are presenting as part of your selling story should be incredibly relevant. It must be the clear solution to the problem you’ve been talking about up until this point. The offer is where you lay that out in a clear, compelling way. Even if it’s a service, you productize it, you package it. You present it in a way that is easy to understand. You answer the important questions that we all want to have answered before we make a buying decision. What do they get? What’s the customer experience like? How will that lead to the desired result of getting their problem solved? An offer has to address what the investment is to get the product or service being offered. And you will generally increase response if you add some guarantee or risk reversal linked directly to the problem and the solution. The best kind of guarantee in the situation is going to acknowledge where the customer is coming from. “You had XYZ problem, which you wanted to have solved. You’re buying this product or service as the solution to that. If it does not solve that problem, you are out nothing. You risk nothing, and you’re under no obligation unless and until I help you solve that problem.” 31

You can make an offer more appealing by adding something as a bonus at no extra cost that tips the value even further in the customer’s favor. In the context of the Ultimate Selling Story, you make your decision about what to include by asking yourself a couple of instrumental questions. What else can you add that adds to the core offer without making the initial offer feel incomplete? In other words, you don’t want to present your solution and then as a bonus, add on something else which makes it seem like maybe your initial solution wasn’t enough to solve the problem. You can also ask yourself what will help them address the problem faster, easier, and cheaper. Your initial solution is enough to address the problem, but if you add some service on top, it may help them solve it faster and easier, or at less cost. This would make a nice bonus to add to your offer. Then another great way to think of what kind of extra incentives you can add to an offer is to ask the question, what new problem will be created by solving the first? This shows that you’re thinking ahead on their behalf. A good example of this that most business people and marketers would be familiar with is the whole traffic and conversion conundrum on a website. Most people, when they launch a new website, are mostly concerned about getting lots 32

of visitors to that website. Well, if you offer a solution which gets lots of visitors to somebody’s website, they’re going to suddenly realize that not a lot of those visitors are converting into buyers. Your bonus, your addition, is going to help them solve that problem and it makes a natural next step without taking away from the initial solution. Finally, any good offer is going to give them a reason to act now. Consider whether you’re able to put a limited time on the offer, present a limited quantity, or somehow limit access. These are fairly obvious, but they are not the only ways to add urgency to your request for response. Market-relevant urgency factors can be quite powerful. I’ve written a lot for the investment markets and the markets are always moving. If the problem is being able to take advantage of an investment opportunity that is particularly attractive in today’s market, the urgency could be that it’s not going to be as attractive in tomorrow’s market. You can also use personally-relevant urgency factors. If your product solves a personal problem which may come and go through someone’s life, such as a relationship issue, then having something tied to the personally relevant situation that causes someone to be interested in your product, causes them to seek out a solution to their problem, that can be enough for urgency 33

in those situations. Or if it’s tied to a life event such as school, moving, career changes, or other similar event, that alone can be used as a reference point to suggest urgent response. No matter what you’re doing when you are giving them a reason to act now, if your product or service is a legitimate and superior solution to the problem which exists in the marketplace, you want to encourage action like their life depends on it. Do not be afraid of being assertive and direct with asking somebody to take action right away. Because if you legitimately have created the best solution in the marketplace as defined by the buying criteria you laid out and they agree with, if they’re still with you at this point, then you have every right to say, “Listen, this is your best course of action, and it’s an action you need to take now.”

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Part III: 3 Pillars of HighlyEffective Storytelling If you followed the Ultimate Selling Story template or formula in part two, you have a solid narrative arc or story you can use in your marketing and selling. However it’s delivered, however you multiply it through media. And yet, having the right story is only part of being a highly-effective story seller. That is someone who can consistently generate sales results with the stories they tell. Now I want to introduce to you a concept which, in fact, I used to structure my entire Story Selling Master Class. To give you a jumpstart into using the Ultimate Selling Story in your selling and persuasive messages. As I was studying story selling, I realized the best story sellers think way beyond the story itself. In fact, if you want to use stories in any selling context and any media, you are also going to generate the best results by thinking beyond the story itself. You also have to consider how the story makes you appear in the customer’s eyes, which I call character. And how that fits into a broader persuasive context, which is selling. The three pillars are Character, Story, and Selling.

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We will briefly address those here as a way to help you move forward and get the biggest results from using the Ultimate Selling Story. Pillar I: Character What is character? What does it represent? Why is it so important in the context of story selling? Well, the character is how people perceive you. It’s the image of you that they have in their mind. How they understand you in the greater context of their relationship with you, with your business, with your products and services. You can bottle up a sales pitch and send it to a market once, and make some sales and perhaps even some profits. The way you build an enduring business brand and following is by having your market connect with you. Not just respond to your selling message. When you focus on your character in the context of story selling, you will stimulate and grow that relationship every time you reach out and connect with your market. Many character types and archetypes are naturally conducive to selling. Just like if you study the hero’s journey for telling fiction stories, you’ll discover that certain character types and archetypes repeatedly appear throughout those stories. This book is meant to be a primer on The Ultimate Selling Story, so we won’t go into all the 36

character types and which one might be the best fit for you. I can tell you building the right character for yourself, building the right persona that your market recognizes in you, creates a tribe, a group of true fans, who will consistently respond to the value-based offers you put in front of them. Regarding branding or personal branding, this is really what that is about. It’s not about the image you put on your social media profile or the titles you give yourself. It’s about your market’s relationship with your character. If your character, the persona you have created in the market, is a good fit for your market, it will firmly position you and establish your brand as the preferred choice for whatever your product or service is. In selling, you’re probably familiar with the concept of KLT: knowing, liking, and trusting. It’s often thought, in the context of the statement, your market will not buy from you until they know, like, and trust you. While you can be thoughtful in your story selling, in telling the Ultimate Selling Story, do it in such a way that it helps your market know you, know what your internal struggles were as you were faced with this problem. By going through that narrative arc, they will start to like you. They will start to like you because they saw you struggle. They saw you go

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through that internal and external journey to solve the problem. They will trust you because they’ll see how you thought through the buying criteria that were required to create an actual solution to the problem that made sense. All along the way, you are getting them to know, like, and trust you, your character. Or, if you’re telling the story in a case study, from a customer’s perspective, your character may be more of a benevolent leader or parent figure, as an example. You helped them find their solution. And this helpfulness makes you equally known, liked, and trusted. The good character should be a reflection of who you are, but perhaps a little bit larger than life when told through selling and marketing. When you have done this right, what you’ll find is that every piece of marketing you send out to your prospects becomes more and more effective. They’re not just in it for the product, or the service, or the features, or the benefit, or even the marketing message and the promises you make. They’re in it for you, and they’re buying you, which is far stronger than anything else. Pillar II: Story The second pillar of the three pillars is story. We spent most of this book talking about the story, specifically talking about the Ultimate 38

Selling Story. The problem, agitate, invalidate, solve, ask formula that is an outline and a narrative arc that you can use to tell your story or to tell your customer’s or client’s story in such a way that it stimulates more prospects to want to do business with you. There are more than a dozen more specific story selling templates which, if you are serious about learning story selling, you will want to learn, use, and apply. The right story in the right context is the key to using stories persuasively. There are questions like, “How many stories should I use in one presentation, or marketing message, or promotion? Where should certain stories go in my communications with customers based on how long they’ve known me, how long they’ve been doing business with me, how recently they became a prospect?” There are all sorts of questions, not just about how to tell stories, but how to fit them into the relationship such that you are building a stronger relationship with your character through time and generating maximum sales. You need to think about these things as you’re using the Ultimate Selling Story and as you’re using additional story selling templates. And how you can make the best use of different stories to build that relationship and get customers coming back over and over again to buy from you. 39

Pillar III: Selling Finally, that third pillar is selling. When it all comes down to it, that’s what we’re trying to do. We use stories because they connect with our audience in a way which logical appeals won’t, which simply talking about features and benefits won’t. Ultimately, stories must be relevant to the action you want the prospect to take as a result of your persuasive message. Stories can be used throughout the sales process to replace less compelling approaches. An excellent example of that might be a testimonial. A testimonial could be told in the form of, “Oh, this person helped me get this result.” Or it can be described in the form of PAISA or the Ultimate Selling Story. How are you using stories throughout the sales process to replace less compelling approaches? Think about that in the context of using the Ultimate Selling Story in your next marketing or advertising piece, in your next persuasive message. One final point, with regards to selling. The best way to get good at story selling is to master a small collection of stories to be used throughout your marketing and selling whenever appropriate.

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That is, you want to develop a short list of signature stories you tell over and over and over again. You may have your origin story, how you got involved with your market in the first place. You may have your inventor story, which is one way to tell the Ultimate Selling Story. You may have some case studies that you use over and over again that are particularly good fit because they speak to various segments of your target market. You may have any number of specific stories that are the best fit for your business. By developing a collection of those stories you can use throughout your marketing, throughout your advertising, throughout your persuasive messages whenever you give a presentation, whenever you speak to members of your target market, you’re making your life far easier. And you are working every time you tell those stories again and again to build deeper relationships with your market. Plus, those same stories can become tools you can pass on to your team. They can use them one-on-one, or they can multiply them through media, throughout your marketing, content, and other selling messages. Want to go deeper? If you want to tell selling stories that get sevenfigure or greater results, it pays to go beyond 41

what you’ve learned here. It pays to pursue mastery of the three pillars, and how different templates and story formulas work best in different selling contexts. The best way to do that is with The Story Selling Master Class, an in-depth program I delivered going through the three pillars in incredible detail and giving specific applications of story selling principles throughout. To learn more about the Story Selling Master Class, visit StorySellingMasterClass.com

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Appendix A: This “hack” instantly makes you a better writer, speaker, and salesperson… Today’s essay is going to be short and sweet… Because even though I’m publishing this on a Friday afternoon, I’m writing it uncharacteristically early, on Wednesday night. Why? Because right about now, I should be nearing the end of my second day at the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun amusement parks, in Kansas City. Water slides, roller coasters, the works. But mostly, some end-of-summer fun with the family, and a memory that the kids can cherish! And so to make sure you got all the incredible value I deliver to you this week and every other, for FREE, I’m staying up late before hitting the road to write an extra couple issues. On to our topic… So, you wanna be a better writer? Or speaker? Or salesperson? There’s one thing, above so many others, that will make you more compelling. Interesting. Engaging. Persuasive. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re looking to “sell” in the sense of getting someone to give you 43

money in exchange for your products and services… Or simply looking to “sell” your ideas, to move people to join you, in whatever cause. This is universal! In fact, you could call this a “hack” to instantly elevate your ability at all these skills! … At least, I called it a “hack!” So, what is it? I’ll give you 3 guesses. And if any of them are “storytelling,” you’re right! But wait! It’s NOT the kind of “storytelling” that makes your palms get sweaty… It’s not the kind your English teacher made you do all those years ago… It’s not the kind of story telling you’ve deemed yourself a failure at, because your novel or screenplay manuscript got rejected for the umpteenth time… The real “hack” is the discovery that EVERYTHING IS STORY! I barely told a story at the start of this email. If you look at the details, it tells you I’m on a family road trip, to a pair of amusement parks. And that I’m writing on Wednesday night instead 44

of on Friday. And that I’m staying up late to get this out to you. I think even Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t find enough there to make an episode out of. And he literally made a show about nothing. Yet… When it comes to customer communication and SELLING, even this nothing story does a lot. — It makes me human — not a workaholic robot. — It tells you I’m enjoying my summer — which is a generally likable thing to do. — It reinforces to you that family is important to me — which is an endearing trait for most of my readers. — It tells you that I’m dedicated to getting these essays to you, enough so to stay up late the night before a road trip. — It reinforces all the value you get for free every day of every week. All of these things add another dimension to an essay meant to teach you something. They connect you with me. They help you to know, like, and trust me. And I use those words very specifically, because they are critical in making the sale. While mastery of story selling does involve understanding stories and how to tell them, it 45

also involves waking up to the fact that the “Everything is Story” hack is real… It’s easy for novice writers, speakers, salespeople, and other professional communicators to skip this. They focus on the message. If they’re teaching, they focus on the points being taught. (I admittedly do this from time-to-time — we’re all human!) Or, if you’re selling, maybe you focus on the product or service — and its features and benefits. These things are well and good, but they are lifeless on their own. Even a mediocre story connects you with the reader, and gets them interested enough to pay attention to the rest of the message. Which, in many cases, is all you really need to stand out from the crowd. But tell enough okay stories, knowing that “Everything is Story,” and something interesting will start to happen. The power of story will weave its way into everything you do — every message you put out. Then, you’ll start telling good stories. Even a few great ones. And the impact you make — in your writing, speaking, selling, communicating — will be tremendous. 46

And it all starts with that simple “hack.” This article was originally published in Roy Furr’s Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. Get proven ideas to grow your business daily at BreakthroughMarketingSecrets.com.

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Appendix B: How to make a big sale believable and compelling... When I woke up at 4 AM on April 21st, 2016, it was like any other early morning… I stumbled sleepily into the master bathroom, and kept the lights off so my eyes wouldn’t have to adjust. A minute later, I hear footsteps in our bedroom. I assume it’s my wife, who is almost always up before me, no matter how early I get up, and who was already up this morning. As I finish in the bathroom, I flush the toilet and open the door. A shadow bolts past me. A flashing red flashlight in one hand, an iPad in the other… I know in an instant it’s not my wife. “WHO THE F@%K ARE YOU?!” I yell at the dark shadow — a man, I guess from size and build. I chase him toward the bedroom door. From here, he has two directions. If he heads for the front door, he’s out of the house — which is exactly what I want right now. If he turns and heads into the house, he could be headed for the kids’ rooms or for my wife — wherever in the house she is.

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I don’t have to think. I make a split-second decision. I must engage him. He’s running for the front door, and I start landing punches. 1, 2, 3… He’s reaching for the door handle, and I keep hitting. 4, 5… He gets through the door. Drops the flashlight as he runs across our front porch. Gets around the railing, and bolts across our wet garden for the street. I watch him in the streetlight as he runs away down the street. My wife rushes upstairs, we call the cops… There was someone in the area. They get there almost immediately. First one, then probably five cars. Since it was a crime “in progress” on a slow spring morning, they have all the officers they need. While one officer talks me through what happened and gathers evidence at the house, others set up a perimeter around the neighborhood. Minutes later, they catch someone — presumably the guy. 49

He’s got a burglar kit on him in a backpack — the kinds of tools and accessories you’d need to break in to houses. But not our iPad. I was shaken, but by the time I was starting work a couple hours later, I had a plan… It was pretty clear at this point that even if they had caught the guy, our iPad was gone. In fact, at breakfast we had to tell our kids what happened — and that their beloved “button” was gone. (That’s long been our name for it since our oldest saw the one button on it and called it “button.”) They were shaken by the fact someone had broken into our house — impressed by the fact I’d fought him off — but devastated by the fact the “button” was gone. Then, I half-joked to my wife that I’d tell the story to my Breakthrough Marketing Secrets readers, and run a sale to buy a new iPad. By about 10:15 AM, I’d written the email and put the offer out. It wasn’t long before I’d more than earned enough to get a new iPad. By the time the sale was over less than 48 hours after the break-in, I’d actually earned enough off the sale to buy more than a couple iPads.

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My clients were happy, because they got a really good deal (the sale was on my copy review service). My kids were happy because we got a new “button” out of the deal. And I was happy that I could use my marketing skills to make us “whole” again after this unfortunate incident. And yet, there was something else that excited me even more — the proof of the power of story! While I half-realized what I was doing at the time, in hindsight it was crystal-clear. I had just run a “fire sale.” That is, a business has a fire, the smoke damages merchandise, but doesn’t destroy it. It needs to be washed, but it’s basically “good as new.” So they run a big sale. It has a clear and compelling reason. It’s totally believable. And, it’s clearly a short-term opportunity that must either be seized or missed. Bill Glazer, once co-owner of Dan Kennedy’s Glazer-Kennedy Inner Circle, once ran one of these for his menswear business. They’d had a sprinkler malfunction. The clothes all got wet. Then, they dried. But they could no longer be sold as new. His store did get an insurance settlement, but they still had all those clothes they couldn’t sell as new. So they ran a “flood sale.” As you might expect, they sold out! 51

These story-based sales are a breath of fresh air in a world full of BS reasons for running a sale… Compare this to the “3-Day Sale,” “Best Sale of the Season,” and other obviously made-up sales you can find in the ads in every Sunday’s newspaper. If you are believable, people will be more likely to respond to you. Sure, everybody loves a good deal. But when there’s a solid “reason why” for the deal, it’s even better. So a flood, a fire, a burglar who stole your iPad… Those are lemons, waiting to be turned into lemonade by telling the story. They give you a good reason to offer a big sale. They make it believable. They make it compelling. They make it urgent. And they drive response. Once you understand the power of story, you’ll always be on the lookout for the next story like this… While I would prefer never to have our house broken into again, once it happened and everybody was safe, I was ecstatic for the opportunity to tell the story. That’s because I know the power of story in marketing and selling. I’ve learned story makes sales. 52

And, I know how to use a story like this to actually drive purchases. If you want the ability, in a pinch, to make back the cost of a stolen iPad (and then some!), that’s just part of what I teach with the Story Selling Master Class. For more information on the Story Selling Master Class, visit StorySellingMasterClass.com. This article was originally published in Roy Furr’s Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. Get proven ideas to grow your business daily at BreakthroughMarketingSecrets.com.

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Appendix C: The 3-Step Story Formula Here’s an incredibly simple way to create compelling stories… This comes straight outta Hollywood. Before that, from Vaudeville and Broadway. Before that, Shakespeare. Before that, the Ancient Greeks. Before that, other brilliant storytellers. And in between, so many other cultures and hubs of culture and storytellers that I’ve completely glossed over and missed. In fact, you could even suggest that this structure of a great story is rooted in the human subconscious. It’s something that we naturally recognize as “right” when it’s there — and subconsciously miss when it’s not. If you do this right, your stories will gel in the mind of the reader or listener or watcher. If you screw it up, you’ll fail to engage, motivate, captivate, and persuade — but it won’t be clear why. In fact, this touches on the very same principles Joseph Campbell touched on in his seminal work, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, documenting the universality of human stories. George Lucas 54

directly and unabashedly ripped off Campbell’s story structure in creating the blockbuster Star Wars franchise — a multi-billion-dollar swipe! No matter what template or story structure you end up using, at its root should be the deeper structure of… The 3-Step Story Formula! I’ve written before about the structure of a good magic trick, taken from the book and the movie, The Prestige… “Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called ‘The Pledge.’ The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird, or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn’t. The second act is called ‘The Turn.’ The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call ‘The Prestige.’” This is nothing but an adaptation of Shakespeare and his 3-Act plays.

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It’s nothing but an adaptation of this universal 3step story formula behind all great story telling. Step 1: The Setup… All great stories exist in context. They exist in a time and place. They are full of characters living their lives, not aware of what is about to happen to them. This is universal to adventure stories, hero’s journeys, love stories, tragedies, the works… We have to know what’s going on. And so the beginning of the story is all about setting the scene for what is to come. This is where we form our initial bond with the protagonist — the main character, the hero — of the story. Where we develop our natural attraction to him or her. Where we see that they’re someone we want to root for. Step 2: Increasing Conflict… Here, the protagonist is taken out of the ordinary, into a world of complexities and challenges. They have a goal, but there are many barriers standing in the way. Everything seems to be going wrong. Their success is in doubt. If something could go wrong, it will. And it’s not long before everything seems lost. Step 3: The Resolution…

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Just when we think the protagonist is doomed, they bring it back from the brink. Conflict is resolved. Challenges are overcome. They reach their goal — and it changes their life completely. There are a million ways to tell this story… I chose to dramatize the example, because that version of it is so universal. In The Prestige, the setup is the pledge, the introduction of the ordinary thing. The turn is the increasing conflict, where you do something extraordinary. The prestige is the resolution, where you bring it back. In a tragedy, the resolution goes against the protagonist, and the resolution reveals that they will be consumed by the conflict and never reach their goals. In story selling, it’s a bit different. You’re not telling the story exclusively to entertain. But you can still apply the principle. In the context of the Ultimate Selling Story, the setup is the problem. This is where you recognize the gap of a challenge to be overcome or a desire unfulfilled. Next, you get increasing conflict as you agitate the experience of the problem and invalidate other potential solutions. Finally, the resolution comes through the solution and the ask. That’s part of what makes 57

it so effective — it’s based on one of the most fundamental narrative arcs in storytelling. Here’s a good trick I once learned from John Carlton… John Carlton is one of the most successful copywriters alive today. He’s well-respected among copywriters and entrepreneurs. And he occasionally shares his secrets. He teaches a 3-sentence story trick. The idea is to condense the guts of your story down to just 3 sentences. Each sentence follows a step of the 3-Step Story Formula. The Setup: When I came out of the master bathroom at 4 AM, I saw a man streak by me, for the front door — a robber! Increasing Conflict: I attacked the guy as he tried to get out the front door, my iPad in hand, landing a good 5 or 6 punches. The Resolution: I watched him run away down our street as my wife called the police — who responded quick and caught him before he left the neighborhood. Or… The Setup: Boardroom’s founder, Marty Edelston, passed away before he could fulfill a life goal of bringing together all his marketing mentors for a big seminar. 58

Increasing Conflict: So his right-hand-man, Brian Kurtz, reached out to all these top marketing names — some of whom had retired — to ask if they’d come together just once in celebration of Marty. The Resolution: One-by-one, the best said “yes,” and The Titans of Direct Response turned into a once-in-a-lifetime seminar. You get the point. Once you get this, it’s incredibly easy to tell compelling stories! That’s the power of formulas and templates. You don’t have to come up with awesome stories out of nowhere. You simply have to look around, because they’re already out there. Then, you start to fill in details. You find a way to make The Setup as compelling as possible, to get the reader, listener, or viewer on the protagonist’s side before the story really begins. Then, you use Increasing Conflict to up the emotional ante of the story, making the audience root for the main character as they fight to overcome the obstacles. Finally, you bring it to an end with The Resolution, where challenges are ended one way or another.

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It’s all about fitting the details in, and telling them in the most compelling way. The exact same thing applies to using Selling Story templates, like The Ultimate Selling Story, and the dozen-plus templates I shared as part of the Story Selling Master Class. For more information on the Story Selling Master Class, visit StorySellingMasterClass.com. This article was originally published in Roy Furr’s Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. Get proven ideas to grow your business daily at BreakthroughMarketingSecrets.com.

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Appendix D: 5 lessons learned from the Broadway show Hamilton about story selling… My wife, kids, and I are all big fans of Hamilton, the musical… Shortly after it won a pile of Tony awards, we picked up the Original Cast Recording, and spent months with it pretty much on repeat around the house, in the car, and in our headphones. Not only that, we bought the book, Hamilton: The Revolution, too. Co-written with the musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, it goes behind the scenes and into his head through the creating and staging of Hamilton, the musical. It’s an incredible look into the brilliant mind of Miranda, a genius storyteller who deserves all the praise he gets. And, as we’re wont to do when we discover something new we like, we’ve also been scouring YouTube and the internet for stories and clips about the show, its creator, and anything and everything related to it. (If you’ve ever heard the statement, “a buyer is a buyer is a buyer,” this definitely applies here!) One of the things that I love about Miranda is how transparent he is about his whole creative process. He tells where his ideas come from. 61

Why he does things the way he does. Where he was failing, and what changes he made to make it successful. There’s a TON I could go into, and the lessons are many-layered and plentiful. But I picked out 5 lessons that Hamilton and Miranda embody. These are about storytelling. But telling a story in a way that totally captures the imagination of an entire culture. And with those lessons, I’ve included specific insights or reflections — where relevant — on how to use them in story SELLING as well as storytelling. 1. Follow your inspiration. Lin-Manuel Miranda was reading Ron Chernow’s biography of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. That’s when the idea struck. Alexander Hamilton embodied the hip-hop ethos. He was an outcast, orphan immigrant with a feisty spirit. He wanted to fight for freedom, fight for the revolution, fight for anything. He talked fast and thought faster. He was a man of ideas and ambition. He was aimed for the top, and he was not throwing away his shot. (He also died in a blaze of glory, in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.) Miranda saw so many parallels between Hamilton and his favorite hip-hop artists, he actually assumed someone had already found a way to tell Hamilton’s story through hip-hop. By 62

the end of Chapter 2 of the biography, he was on his phone scouring Google, looking for any evidence. When he discovered nobody had, yet, he called the ball. He would create a hip-hop concept album to tell Hamilton’s story. A couple songs written, he got a chance to perform a demo track at The White House. That went over so well, he couldn’t NOT keep developing it. And it grew and grew until it was obvious: this would be Miranda’s second Broadway musical. (He’d gotten a Tony for his musical In The Heights at about this time.) It all came down to Miranda finding inspiration in a story, and wanting to tell it in his way. So many of my biggest-selling promotions have hit me the very same way. I find a story with a connection to the offer I’m going to make. I follow the inspiration to tell it. And it’s a winner. 2. Find your big idea, your concept. This is so closely paralleled to the previous point that it barely counts as its own. But it does also stand alone. Miranda was inspired by Hamilton’s story. But that’s because it was such a great story already. Orphaned and poor, but obviously ambitious and headed somewhere, his community sent him from the Virgin Islands where he was born (a stop in the slave trade) to New York to make a new life for himself. 63

As an immigrant with a chip on his shoulder, he was always fighting to prove himself. And it was this drive, this ambition that shaped our early government, and our early financial system. But all along the way, he faced challenges, toils, and strife. He made a lot of waves, upset a lot of boats, and made a lot of enemies. And eventually, it was his undoing. Orphan immigrant comes to America to make a name for himself. He fights his way to the top, even in the midst of political infighting, the consequences of his own infidelity, and personal squabbles. He succeeds in shaping our early government and financial system, before one of his feuds comes back around and ends it all. Miranda recognized an incredible story line. Then, it was up to him to tell it in the most compelling way. 3. Give meaning to what you’re doing. The concept and big idea are what’s happening on the outside. But there’s a whole other level to the best stories, and that’s the inner conflict and narrative. This where a story gets its meaning. Hamilton’s story was one of the underdog orphan facing the odds and triumphing over them. This is one of the most universally compelling internal journeys in all of storytelling (notice 64

how nearly every Disney story is about an orphan, or at least someone who has been abandoned). What’s the inner journey of the character or narrator of your story? What change takes place in their thoughts and feelings by the time the story is done? While the big idea and concept have to be compelling in themselves, it’s the emotional subnarrative that will make the story stick. For selling, the emotional hook is everything. Find a way to make your character compelling, interesting, and attractive to your prospects. Get them emotionally involved. To overcome adversity and abandonment is a very effective way to do this. Maybe we’re not literally orphans, but perhaps we’ve been orphaned in another way. It’s been said many times that people buy based on emotion, and justify it with logic. This is what will make people buy. 4. Use the most compelling voice. Miranda didn’t set out to write a hip-hop musical. In fact, when he decided to tell Hamilton’s story, he wasn’t even meaning to write a musical at all. But he saw a parallel. Hamilton was a critical part of the American Revolution. He lived it from his formative years until his death. 65

Hip-hop is the music of a cultural revolution. In Miranda’s mind, Hamilton was hip-hop. It didn’t matter that there were hundreds of years between. Hamilton embodied the essence of hip-hop. So Miranda decided to write Hamilton, in hiphop. It evolved into a show. In hindsight, it’s absolutely a first-of-its-kind. I read an analysis last night that Hamilton has over 20,000 words. No other popular musical has come close. The speed of ideas, words, and lyrics is off-the-charts for Broadway. The average words per minute is nearly double that of the closest major musical. And at its fastest, lyrics are coming at you at about 200 words per minute. But, to Miranda’s point, you couldn’t tell this story in quite any other way. When you find the right idea, and the right inspiration, go with whatever voice makes the most sense. I’ve written in many different voices, to fit the unique context. It’s all about matching the story to the market to the offer to the media. Find the sweet spot, and go in it. Because to do otherwise just wouldn’t make sense. 5. Build tension through struggle and conflict. 66

The final lesson I’ll share that’s woven throughout Hamilton is conflict. No story feels complete without conflict. Without fights of some kind. Without having to overcome great odds. At least no epic, emotionally-moving story does. Hamilton fights to overcome his poverty. His orphan status. His immigrant background. He fights to overcome getting pegged as a secretary, when he really wants to fight. He fights for the girl. He fights against slavery. He fights for his ideas, to get them implemented during the war. Then he fights to be a part of Washington’s new government. He’s fighting for the presidency, when he suddenly has to fight to keep any shred of his reputation because of past mistakes. He fights in his writing, and he fights in real life. He fights an old acquaintance who suddenly stole his Father-In-Law’s senate seat, then he fights that same acquaintance in a pistol duel over ever-increasing beef between the two. All along, there is conflict, tension, and unrest. And that’s exactly what makes us root for him. In selling, fighting against the same conflicts and struggle your prospect faces instantly aligns your interests with theirs. Plus it makes your story more interesting.

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Maybe you don’t need to do it at quite the same level in selling as you do in straight story telling (unless it’s relevant)… But if you adopt the mindset while not forgetting that your real job is to sell, you can probably push that line without pushing it too far. Final thought: Selling is entertainment. I don’t think I’ve clearly stated this, in this way, before. When we make a sale, it’s because our prospect gets positive feelings from their interaction with us. That is, in essence, the goal of entertainment. Now, I’m not advocating offbeat humor ads that forget their role as a selling tool. But if you entertain while delivering a sales message, you’re going to get a lot more buy-in than if you don’t. That’s why studying fiction, theater, and other story telling can be such a boon to your selling. Because when you learn how to capture, hold, and carry the attention of an audience, you’ve gone a long way toward getting that audience to take action and take you up on your offer. This article was originally published in Roy Furr’s Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. Get proven ideas to grow your business daily at BreakthroughMarketingSecrets.com.

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Appendix E: Find the selling story by working backwards… Let’s talk about how to tell selling stories that weave perfectly into your offer! First, I want to talk about the WRONG way to pick the stories you’re going to tell in your selling message. And in fact, this is more in lines with the “creative” approach, rather than the systematic, sales-focused approach that I teach and recommend. So here’s the wrong way… You find a story YOU are very excited about… You find a story that excites YOU… You find a story YOU want to tell… And, you tell it. Maybe you’re inspired by Hollywood, so you’re looking to tell a version of the hero’s journey. Maybe it’s unrelated to that, but you have a favorite story about your family, or a slice of life story, or something else. Then, as you’re putting together your marketing piece, your sales letter, your webinar script, your speech, whatever… You stick that story in there. Then, you have to find a way to connect the dots back to your offer. 69

You find it’s hard. Sure, that story may be compelling. People may like it. They may laugh, or cry. It may generate an emotional response. But, it doesn’t generate a business response. It doesn’t bring the prospect any closer to doing business with you. It doesn’t persuade them to take action. You have trouble making more than a cursory link back to your sales pitch. You can’t really tie it into the offer. And it doesn’t really feel like your prospect is any closer to the sale as a result of reading or hearing the story. What gives?! It’s because you approached the decision about which story to tell from the FRONT, not the BACK. While it may seem perfectly normal to start with the story, that’s NOT the most effective way to approach story selling! The best way to find the perfect selling stories is to work backwards — from the offer! For example, when I sat down to write the sales letter for Brian Kurtz’s Titans of Direct Response event, one of the big first questions that I had to ask was, “What am I selling?” And here, I’m not even talking about the benefits. We get to the benefits eventually. I’m talking about what product or service the customer actually gets when they buy from us. 70

The answer was a 2-day seminar, featuring some of the biggest names in direct response marketing, hosted by Brian Kurtz when he was still Executive VP at Boardroom. And the cost was $3,500. This is all very feature-oriented. Pretty compelling features, if you know what you’re getting, but still just features. Then I started to think, with Brian (and David Deutsch, who helped early in the project), what that would mean to the buyers. Well, even one idea from one of the greats has the potential to completely transform your life. A few minutes, listening to them speak, in conversation in the hallways, asking an important question… It could multiply your marketing results, your career, your business. Even a slight shift in perspective, in the world of direct response, can move mountains. (Of cash!) And so as I’m thinking about this, I’m thinking about all I know about Boardroom. I’ve been a student of the industry, so I know a lot. Also, I’m asking Brian questions, trying to get the best ideas out of him. I’m coming at it from lots of angles. I’m sorting through far more that I will never use than what I will. Then, I remember. 71

When Marty Edelston — in whose honor Titans was being held — started Boardroom, he’d hired copywriter Eugene Schwartz really early on to write a sales letter that pretty much launched the company. Marty had been doing okay before that, but once Gene wrote his letter, Boardroom started its growth trajectory that would take them to over $100 million per year. Well, I dug up the details on the story. I found out that Marty spent 70% of the money left in his business bank account to hire Gene. It was the equivalent of $9,000 today. But he wrote the check without flinching. Because he knew the value of investing in Titans. They spent 4 hours together. From that 4 hours, Gene was able to give Marty the headline and ad that would go on and put Boardroom on the map. The rest, as they say, is history. Notice how the details tie back into my selling goal… I told this story at the beginning of the letter for Titans. By the end, I’m going to ask readers to invest in spending a few hours (2 days) with Titans. I’m not going to ask them to invest $9,000, but the total investment isn’t chump change, either. I’m going to ask them, throughout the letter, to believe that spending this time with these 72

Eugene-Schwartz-level Titans will change their life. I made all those points through Marty’s story, without having to come out and say them. And it’s because I knew to work backwards from the offer I was making, and find the details for my story that would justify my prospects to invest in what I’m selling them. This is a huge difference between storytelling and story selling… They’re very different disciplines. With very different rules and best practices. This article was originally published in Roy Furr’s Breakthrough Marketing Secrets. Get proven ideas to grow your business daily at BreakthroughMarketingSecrets.com.

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Don’t forget! Even though you’re done with the book, your story selling mastery is just beginning. Take your next step with these additional resources… FREE Companion Template and Training  Go to: StorySellingTemplate.com This book comes with a companion template you can use as a shortcut and easy one-page reference guide, the next time you’re crafting your version of The Ultimate Selling Story. Plus, you’ll also get a free and exclusive video workshop on advanced story selling techniques. Get both FREE at: StorySellingTemplate.com Go Deep & Develop Story Selling Mastery  Go to: StorySellingMasterClass.com If you’re serious about building your storytelling and persuasion skills, you shouldn’t stop with The Ultimate Selling Story. Go deep on each of the 3 Pillars of HighlyEffective Story Selling and develop mastery of story-based persuasion. Learn more at: StorySellingMasterClass.com

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