From Hero to Customer

Tom Nixon (00:01.282)
Welcome back. What an altar bull horns in bulls eyes. Curtis today’s guest, imagine, well, I think I know was throwing things at his proverbial radio or podcasting device. earlier in the season when you and I got on the topic of storytelling, the hero’s journey, I specifically mentioned the Joseph Campbell angle to the hero’s journey and today’s guests, you know, took me behind the woodshed in a meeting later that week and said, how did you not?

Bring up Story Brand in this context. So we’re going to find out why, but I, you, you’re a big fan of storytelling yourself there, Curtis.

Curtis Hays (00:41.671)
become a fan of storytelling. Yes, you’ve helped me become a convert for sure. It’s been a bit of journey for me, again, coming at things from more of a analytical, technical perspective and not truly seeing and appreciating what goes into the story. And now it’s like my eyes have been opened to it more and more each day, I think.

Tom Nixon (00:46.338)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (01:07.611)
You start to see it and notice it more actually in use and see where it’s being done well and not done well. It’s been a fun journey for me.

Tom Nixon (01:07.628)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (01:20.534)
Well, and if you listened to the Jenny Dietrich episode, Curtis was telling the story about how he got convinced to buy a special kind of gas can for his tractor. And it just so happens you told me off air, Jenny applied that story, told that relayed that story to a client and a light bulb went off and they said, okay. Now it makes sense. All back to the power of storytelling. Yeah.

Curtis Hays (01:42.001)
Yep. Yep. I mean, it could have been any product. didn’t, it wasn’t that it was a gas can. It was more of just putting it into terms, and providing an example that allowed the customer to understand. Right. And I think that’s what we’re saying with storytelling. Sometimes when you just blurt out features and solutions and practice areas and like all these other terminologies, it’s like, okay, what are you trying to say? Or.

Are you saying anything differently than anybody else? It’s all just noise. So as soon as you can tell a story that starts to resonate, and that’s what happened to me with the gas can, I immediately resonated with the problem. So.

Tom Nixon (02:14.434)
Yes, yes.

Tom Nixon (02:26.924)
Yeah, exactly. Well, so because I was willfully negligent in referencing specifically StoryBrain, which is a very specific thing, it comes with a certification like PESO. We’re going to learn all about it from the man who took me behind the woodshed. Please welcome everybody. Mike Eiley, the CEO of Lovasco Consulting Group. finally, welcome to the show.

Mike Iley (02:49.382)
Yes, thanks Tom, thanks Curtis, appreciate it.

Tom Nixon (02:52.6)
We should fully devolve. Yes.

Curtis Hays (02:53.023)
Thank you for being an avid listener to the show. We’ve talked about you a little bit on the show. We have a customer who we’ve shared once or twice, which you probably picked up on.

Mike Iley (03:05.084)
You’ve alluded to a few things that I’m like, know who they’re talking about over there. So.

Tom Nixon (03:09.986)
Yes. Well, welcome.

Curtis Hays (03:11.421)
But it’s great to be back to storytelling, Tom, because this is a customer. We should let everybody know that Mike is a customer. And we’re hoping, Mike, that you could do some storytelling for our audience today.

Mike Iley (03:25.256)
Yes.

Tom Nixon (03:26.486)
And along with that, that divulging of the, you know, the full disclosure, we should mention that the story brand as it relates to Mike Eile in Lovosco predates us. So we came into this and he had already done the work of story brand. So why don’t we dive into that, Mike, just explain just at a high level, what the heck we’re talking about and why it’s important.

Mike Iley (03:48.061)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. If you think about messaging, I mean, you guys have been talking about story for quite some time. And when I first approached a marketing project, probably about five years ago or so, you know, the website was really nothing more than an online brochure that just said, Hey, we, we’re a benefits broker. We’ve got a 401k consulting arm and we have a, you know, life insurance wealth management practice.

which is as generic as it possibly could be, you know, it just really was meant to be a proof of concept. You know, these are generally what we do. And I struggled. I said, Hey, I, you know, I need to find a program of service, no way to showcase our services in a different way that resonates with people. And, you know, it’s funny, we’d already adopted the Sandler sales system, which Tom, I know you is near and dear to your heart.

Tom Nixon (04:44.312)
Mm-hmm. For sure.

Mike Iley (04:46.32)
And one of the core pieces of Sandler is actually, instead of like going in and pitching your services and just trying to get an opportunity to pitch your service, you’re actually going in and just finding out if someone has pain or has a problem that needs to be solved. And when I started trying to find a marketing strategy that aligned with that,

I tripped over Storybrand and realized that Storybrand was really the structure is to say, let’s clarify your message and make sure that you’re identifying the problems that your ideal client is trying to solve. So in that no pressure, kind of prospecting style that we really love, consultative approach, we found Storybrand. And basically,

when we’re communicating to our ideal customer, we know what their biggest pain points are. And if we come across somebody that doesn’t have those pain points, then they’re simply just not a customer of ours. And it makes it really, really simple that way.

Tom Nixon (05:54.262)
Yeah. And that’s okay. Right. And you actually want to find that out going back to Sandler as soon as possible, rather than at the last minute, once you’ve already gone through the hard work of pitching, proposing, et cetera. So I mentioned in our episode that the whole notion of story, like the hero’s journey is oftentimes attributed to this Joseph Campbell, who wrote a book back in the forties, I think, but it’s been applied more recently in more formally by whom and by what, and then tell us about this.

Cause you worked with a certified story brand, facilitator, coach, or whatever it is, right?

Mike Iley (06:28.882)
We did. Yeah, they walked us through a process of just asking us a bunch of questions. Because again, Storybrand is totally around that hero’s journey where you’re identifying the hero, which is not you, not you as, not us, right? It’s the customer. Basically, what is our ideal customer profile? What is the hero? Let’s define that person and who they are. But that hero has a problem.

and we need to clearly identify that problem. And then once we’ve done that, we can clearly position, we can articulate that we’re the guide that can help you solve that problem and give them a very clear plan of like, hey, this is how you get there. Here’s step one, here’s step two, here’s step three to make it very easy to buy in. Another thing Storybrand stresses is making sure that you have a strong

Tom Nixon (07:02.082)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Iley (07:28.05)
call to action in all your marketing. A lot of times, websites do a really poor job of just displaying a bunch of capabilities, but don’t actually have a proper call to action, and maybe even a secondary call to action if someone doesn’t want to do the primary thing. And we can talk about that. Then it actually just talks about what success looks like, and then what failure looks like if you don’t actually take action.

And then just kind of has a transformational statement that just says, hey, this is what you should expect, you know, if you engage in our services and, you know, solve these problems. So.

Tom Nixon (08:07.756)
And that is sorry, that is a story arc, right? So similar Curtis to what you and I, you and I kind of glommed onto the star Wars metaphor earlier in the season. And we identified the hero is Luke Skywalker, right? And he needed to avenge his parents’ death, do something. He needed justice. And he met somebody, a guide along the way, Obi-Wan who would say, I think I could teach you something. I think I can get you where you need to go.

Mike Iley (08:31.272)
you all.

Tom Nixon (08:37.26)
And then, by the way, they re like so that was the that would be us in that case. But the product or service was actually the Millennium Falcon, right? Because they needed to get from point A to point B had Han Solo approached Luke Skywalker before his aunt and uncle were slain by Darth Vader and said, hey, I got this really fast ship. It’ll get you from point A to point B in two parsecs. Would he have cared? So the question is now.

We’ve had some fun debates, Curtis off air between you, Mike and I, and how closely what he just described aligns or does not align with why, how, what, and I’m going to let you take the opening salvo. What do you think?

Curtis Hays (09:20.049)
Well, I think it does in conception. I think maybe there’s some confusion of whether or not it does in actual execution. So if we’re jumping to that, I know we’ve had some conversations, Mike, about, you know, if story brand says you have to clearly articulate what you do so people know when they first land on your brand. And I don’t know if I’m there.

I think is a lot because I guess if we use this example, did you know, did Luke Skywalker know at the point that he met Obi-Wan what exactly he did and how he could solve his problem?

Tom Nixon (10:03.982)
I knew you’d use that as a cudgel against it. But go ahead, continue. I’m liking where this is going.

Curtis Hays (10:07.731)
You know, he starts showing him the lightsaber and a few other things and he’s and he starts telling him a journey so that he can relate to them, right? He gives him a story about somebody else that was on a journey, kind of like how you might share a case study or a testimonial. And then pulls out some items in his toolbox and here’s some things that might help you along the way. And then he also says, I’ll go on this journey with you.

Mike Iley (10:09.458)
to get them.

Tom Nixon (10:25.954)
Man, you’re good, Curtis. Wow.

Curtis Hays (10:36.957)
It’s very consultative approach. Yeah. But did he know he was a Jedi like right off the bat? and, you know, so I think that’s where I’ve started my eyes have opened to this idea that, and I struggled with this with a lot of businesses, law firm working with right now. It’s like,

Tom Nixon (10:39.736)
You

Consultative sales right there.

Mike Iley (10:43.57)
Yeah, it’s good.

Curtis Hays (11:04.891)
In our menu navigation, do we call it services or do we call it practice areas? Well, customers even know and I think they will. Right. I think those types of navigational pieces are fairly straightforward and most people are pretty savvy, but what we’re not is patient. And so you, you have a very short period of time to grab somebody’s attention. And if I had to pick one of the three, why, how, what?

I’m convinced it’s the why. Now if you can use an eyebrow or you can use something else to sprinkle in the what and the how, great. But if you only have one line, I’m focused on the why.

Mike Iley (11:48.755)
Yeah, I guess the contrasting thought there would be, and Curtis, you nailed it with the eyebrow comment, is that like, hey, when someone’s looking for services and they visit a website, Luke Skywalker wasn’t visiting Obi-Wan’s website, of course, right? Yeah, he might have had a brochure, but it was written on stone somewhere, right?

Tom Nixon (12:07.278)
This is a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

Curtis Hays (12:10.013)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (12:14.061)
You

Mike Iley (12:16.316)
You know, in that situation, if someone is finds your website, obviously, like starting with the why, which is really, you know, this the beginning of a end of a story brand narrative, which we can we can parallel that there should be at least an eyebrow that just says, hey, like, for example, for you guys, you know, your performance marketers, you know, if I’m looking for a performance marketer,

I want to make sure that at least I know that I’ve found a performance marketer. But then immediately we get into the language you guys would use is the why. And Storybrand would say, hey, make sure that you immediately identify the hero, which is like you speak a statement that just says, hey, you’re this person that’s frustrated with X, and Z.

Right. Yeah, that is me. That is me. That’s exactly what it is. You know, I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m a farm boy longing for something more. Right. You know, and, know, I’m just looking around like, yeah, it’s exactly who I am. He literally wrote a story brand narrative for me. Right. You know, what’s his problem? Then it goes right into like the problem. He’s you know, the empire threatens the galaxy. Right. And Luke Skywalker, he feels small. He feels inexperienced.

Tom Nixon (13:18.84)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Mike Iley (13:41.029)
and purposeless, right? And he knows that evil just shouldn’t dominate good. Right. And he’s just like, right. And then all of a sudden he meets Obi-Wan and later Yoda and Yoda gets into the hole. You know, he’s you know, he’s been there before he understands where he’s at and he’s got a path. What is his path? You know, become a, you know, become a Jedi. You know, go save your sister and, you know, join the Empire.

They know, right? Very clear.

Tom Nixon (14:12.491)
Spoiler alerts abound here. You haven’t yet seen the picture.

Curtis Hays (14:15.379)
Mike watched the trilogy this week. Came prepared for today’s episode.

Mike Iley (14:19.526)
Right.

Tom Nixon (14:21.88)
Yep. Yeah, we walked right into that, didn’t we, Curtis? But you know what? You know, if we’ve had fun debates, and I do mean fun because I think there’s more alignment than there is, you divergence. I philosophically, like you said, Curtis, we are in lockstep. Number one rule of thumb. Who is the client or who? Sorry. Who is the hero? The prospective client, not yourself. If you’re starting with statements that begin with we or our or our product right away, you’re misaligned. So

Mike Iley (14:21.894)
Right. Yes. You did walk right into that. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (14:51.414)
If I could just since you workshopped Curtis’s website, I don’t know that I would do your website any differently whether it’s Why How What or Storybrand because people get there and they say taking great care of the people who who you you care most about doesn’t say we take care of them. It says kind of implies that this is we’re all in the business of taking care. That’s what the hero cares about whether it’s somebody who’s trying to build wealth for their family or somebody who’s trying to keep a a motivated highly

compensated, retained workforce. They’re in the business of caring about people. You align with that, right? That’s a why. And then you say at Lavosco, we help you do just that. Whether it’s attracting and retaining top talent with tailored total reward strategies. That’s kind of a how and a what. Or providing individuals with personalized financial planning for a secure future. How and what. How we simplify complexities. You can focus on what truly matters most, your people. And that’s a great closing why.

That all of that’s above the fold. You didn’t list your products or services really other than allude to them generally. So that’s how I would approach it, Curtis. mean, that’s, does that sound like why, how, what to you?

Curtis Hays (15:58.6)
Mm-hmm.

It does. think the one thing that I would always take into consideration is are the people who are visiting, first visiting this narrative, do they know what they need yet?

Tom Nixon (16:18.702)
We don’t always know that.

Curtis Hays (16:19.879)
Right? And if they don’t know what they need, then you, you articulating what that specifically is, that what maybe isn’t the right time for you to position that. Now, if your audience who’s coming there, they, they know what they need. and you just need to differentiate yourself from competitors that, that may be a little bit different and you kind of hit at, you know, their pain a little bit and those types of things.

Tom Nixon (16:36.781)
And this is

Mike Iley (16:44.04)
Well, yeah, they may not know what they need, but do they know what problems they’re trying to solve?

Curtis Hays (16:52.615)
Well, which is another thing that I mean, I would think they would know the pain. There’s some pain. Do they know how to solve that pain or articulate it or know what tool they need to solve that problem? You know, I think that’s sort of what’s in question and where would we get that information, Tom?

Tom Nixon (17:11.022)
We would go and ask the customer, right? We have clients. think it’s. Yeah. And I was going to just chime in. I guess I just try it, try it again, but, it’s going to vary on product category, client, whatever. have clients that, have solutions that the market is not only not brand aware.

Curtis Hays (17:13.095)
Right. And then use that data to inform the messaging.

Mike Iley (17:14.29)
Well.

Tom Nixon (17:31.32)
They’re not even solution aware and they’re not even category aware. So they’re charming along and they’re busy. have all sorts of pain working in Excel or something. They have no idea that there’s something out here that would solve, make all that pain go away. And they’re not even out looking for it. So that’s a different customer than somebody who’s like, all right, we’re taking our benefits business to market. We need three bids. Let’s go find the best companies. Totally different scenario.

Mike Iley (17:53.939)
Yeah. Well, you know, sorry, you’re going to pivot time, but let me let me make one point here about just identifying problems. And I feel like this does align with yours with the why, because when you say when you use the word start with why, obviously, you’re not using Simon Sinek start with a why. That’s a whole nother framework. Right. You’re saying like. Like what you’re really saying, what problems are they trying to do? What is their problem? Right. Right.

Tom Nixon (18:12.098)
Right. Yep.

Tom Nixon (18:20.558)
100%. What’s the pain.

Mike Iley (18:22.632)
So if I have, if my elbow hurts, right, and I go to a doctor and I walk in and say, hey, my elbow hurts, right. And that doctor says to me, oh, well, you know, I’m a board certified XYZ and I’ve got all these certs and look at all my resumes and my fancy coat. And I know all the people and all this kind of thing. And I’m to give you the best recommendation ever. And, you know, here’s three references as well. I’m going to be like, oh, OK.

guess I should trust you because you just gave me all your credentials and told me how special you are. That’s one approach. But then I have another doctor that just says, you know, your elbow hurts and I’ll bet you like when you extend it out like this, it hurts even more. And did you happen to eat something, you know, before that might have caused some inflammation? And I’ll bet you like, you know, when you do this, that your elbow doesn’t hurt as much. Isn’t that correct?

And he goes even deeper to identify my problem better than I can even begin to articulate it myself.

Like he’s literally done the best marketing to me possible by identifying the problem in a more articulate fashion than I even realized that I had. Right. Right. So he’s identified my why. Like why? What’s going on? I don’t care what his certifications are. I don’t care what his background is. don’t want he literally understands the problem better than I do. You know. Right. Yeah. Yes.

Tom Nixon (19:39.018)
Absolutely. Yep.

Tom Nixon (19:44.366)
100%.

Curtis Hays (19:54.417)
Which is why, which is why Tom does the interviews.

Tom Nixon (19:54.982)
100%, 1000%. That’s exactly. Exactly right. Yeah. So, I asked the questions. I’m like, alright. So, you know, I find somebody else. Tell me about the time your elbow got hurt. What did you feel like? It was it was.

Mike Iley (20:08.114)
You guys remember when we first started together and I said, hey guys, we just need to start writing some copy for this, this, that, and another thing. And I remember Tom raising his hand and saying, no, no, no, no, no. I want to talk to your customers first to find out if you’re actually solving the problems you think you’re solving.

Tom Nixon (20:26.254)
Good news for you. You were and then some and that is rare. mean so a plus. Yeah, I did want to pivot back to story brand because so story brand in the modern era now is developed by Donald Miller who wrote the book story brand right 2.0 building a brand building a story brand 2.0 and so you’ve been through this process process getting back to tell us the story about now you’ve met the

Mike Iley (20:33.224)
for the week.

Tom Nixon (20:52.556)
the person who is now going to take you through the process and you need to adopt this into a company, not only just from a messaging standpoint, I would imagine, but you’re kind of got to adopt the principles behind it. So just tell us how that went and what the outcomes were.

Mike Iley (21:05.874)
Yeah, yeah, we, yeah, when we engaged with the story brand and certified guide that was going to walk us through this, it was really heavily focused on the narrative first, we needed to get the copy down. And what she did was just kind of walk us through a process of, she asked us a bunch of questions to understand who the customer is, you who the hero was, she wanted to make sure we were zeroed in on our ICP. And then really,

you know, pressed us on to making sure we knew the problems that they were trying to solve. Right. And she really broke it down. There was there’s there’s an external problem. There’s their internal problem. And there’s a philosophical problem around why what is what what they’re doing is wrong. Right. So she would just kind of pry that out of us for every one of the disciplines that we do. Right. And then we work on the statement that positions us properly as the guide. Right.

and then develop a proper plan to make it really easy for us for them to understand what it takes to work with us. And then really structuring what it meant to look like, what success meant look like and what failure meant look like as well. That was a critical piece of the journey. Drafting all that content again. Then once we had that, the process went off to do a designer.

And they really could take that copy and bring it to life from a design perspective. It was actually very straightforward because the Storybrand structure, really anybody that kind of understands Story and learns the process can really facilitate that process pretty easily.

Tom Nixon (22:55.203)
Yeah.

One thing, Curtis that I really like about story brand, the process is something that maybe we should incorporate more into ours, which is not only here’s what the happy ending looks like, right? Here’s what happily ever after looks like if you do this, but also like if you don’t do this kind of here’s like the bad ending that we tested with the audience and they all said down thumb so that we had to make it a happy ending. So, have you seen yourself trying to like work some of that it as well, Curtis or should

way.

Curtis Hays (23:26.717)
Well, my sales coach that I used to have, who we had on the show, Dave Tier, with Coaches Corner, he would teach that, certainly, in the sales process and to ask those questions. Okay, if you don’t address this problem right now, what happens? Is it status quo? Do things get worse? You know, those types of things. I curious how…

Tom Nixon (23:34.019)
Mm-hmm.

Curtis Hays (23:53.204)
Now that we’re talking about it, how we incorporate that into marketing messaging. Um, no, no, no. So do you have, do you have any thoughts on that? Like I understand the point of doing it in the internal framework, but where did, how do we translate that into marketing messaging?

Tom Nixon (24:09.26)
Yeah. I think, well, I think we might have to ask the expert here, but I think it needs to come like sort of after the what it’s almost like a closing argument. So, you know, you buy these Watts, this is what you’re going to have this great thing. We’re going to kill Darth Vader and we’re all going to, you know, the empire will be defeated, but you have to wait for the third movie.

you don’t do this thing, the Emperor is going to zap Luke Skywalker and the movie ends after number two. I don’t know exactly, but Mike could be interested. You went through this. Like when do you weave that part of the narrative in?

Mike Iley (24:40.636)
Yeah, right after we do the call to action on a page where it just says, hey, this is how you can solve your problems. Then you immediately say like, okay, if they happen to scroll past that call to action, be like, well, I’m not really ready quite yet to take action and get help. Okay, well, let’s just lay out what your success and failure looks like. Right. We start off with a success and we say Luke destroys the Death Star, rescues the princess and begins his journey as a Jedi.

which feels great or, there was my, yeah, Leah dies, the rebellion is crushed and the empire rules. And you literally paint that picture where they can see like, hey, if I don’t do anything, this is what’s gonna happen. But if I take action right now, I’ll have this success. And being able to lay that out next to each other is critical. And again, it goes back to even Curtis, which you were saying from a sales process of…

Tom Nixon (25:12.033)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (25:21.71)
Thank you.

Mike Iley (25:40.605)
I know in Sandler, the common question is, like, hey, how long has that been a problem? What have you done to try to fix that? What is it costing you? And that’s just meant to help them really understand what their current state of failure looks like and feels like. So then we can paint the picture for what success looks like after that.

Tom Nixon (26:02.478)
Give us a sense for then you said you gave it to a designer. I see the website now and we’ll link to it in the show notes, but it’s the vasco group.com. You can see all of this in action. What what you finally got a set and you were happy with it. Can you either quantify or qualify sort of what how that felt to say like it’s great to finally get that up on the web as opposed to what you had before, which was a brochure and just a list of the wares that you pedal.

Mike Iley (26:32.754)
Yeah, I mean, it’s really, it’s been very helpful from a sales tool where people find the website and they know exactly what problems we solve. It’s just very clear that way. We have existing clients that go to the website and maybe they’re currently a benefits client, but they didn’t realize that we did 401k and we see the problems that we solve on the 401k side and they call us up and we have a conversation. It’s actually even helped our internal salespeople that

Maybe have a tendency, know, every salesperson, you know, has a knee-jerk tendency to want to pitch and show their wares. But internally, we’re always having the language come back to, OK, well, what problems do they have? What problems did they present or what pain did they have? And if they didn’t present any pain or problems, then we really shouldn’t try to move them any farther along the conversation. Right. So it’s just it’s kind of gotten ingrained into the culture.

Tom Nixon (27:28.237)
Right.

Tom Nixon (27:32.622)
Yeah.

That sounds like episode one of the trilogy of trilogies just went nowhere. It should have stopped. That’s an editorial. I tell you what’s really interesting is to see the internal documentation that I’ve now been privy to, which is for each of your heroes, your ICPs, the document spells out. Here’s who this person is. Here’s the pain that they’ve been dealing with. Here’s what success, a successful journey would look like. Here’s if they don’t, this is what ends up with. And then all of that stuff is clearly articulated so that I

Mike Iley (27:39.144)
Bye.

Tom Nixon (28:03.312)
think it could be more than just a messaging document. think this would I would try to implement this throughout the entire company. Say guys, gals, this is why we exist. This is what the happily ever after looks like. I mean, did you go that far with it,

Mike Iley (28:16.364)
Right. Well, absolutely. And like when we think about what we’re trying to do for people across the organization and we’re trying to cast vision for employees to say like, hey, what the heck are we doing and why are we doing it? The story brand narrative does a great job of solving that, you know, to your point, Tom, of just saying like, hey, what is our why? Again, Simon Sinek’s why here this time. What is our why behind what we do? You know, we’re not just

Tom Nixon (28:35.906)
That does.

Tom Nixon (28:41.389)
Right.

Mike Iley (28:44.86)
running numbers and running reports here, we’re actually changing lives.

Tom Nixon (28:49.548)
Yeah. Honestly, I truly get that from your team. really do. it’s more so definitely your team. But what I heard from your customers, when they, you weren’t in the room, you would have been very proud of. I, know, with their permission, I would give you the transcript, but, so Curtis, over to you now, do you, you’ve got to be sitting on some star war or something or other.

Curtis Hays (29:12.219)
Not Star Wars, but I think that’s what Mike is showing is the maturity that can happen in an organization when they go through that process, which I think you have to do if you’re trying to grow or scale. Because as you bring on more people, the opportunity for mixed messaging becomes really apparent. You’re a small team, five, six, even 10 people. It’s usually pretty easy to keep that messaging intact.

particularly as you grow sales and marketing, you get some rogue salespeople or, and I mean rogue, it’s sort of in a good way, some high-A personalities who are just eager to sell and they will do whatever they can to sell, which doesn’t necessarily mean what they’re doing is on brand, right? And so I think solidifying this, having it become a blueprint or even dare I say Bible within the

Mike Iley (30:01.416)
Really.

Curtis Hays (30:12.047)
organization. Now anyone who touches that organization, which is what we’ve said all the times about our why, how, what, Tom, is you bring in a PR agency, you bring in a social media writer, whoever that is that we can give them this brand voice that says, this is how we communicate, this is who we communicate to. And they can use that now as their guide as they put messaging out into the world. And you create that consistency, which is really vital.

Tom Nixon (30:42.19)
I thought I would run through a quick exercise with both of you. so this is the story brands own story brand narrative. So doctors healing thyself here. Right. So as I’m reading through this, tell me Curtis on the one hand, are you hearing a why, how, what funnel? And then we’ll ask Mike to, grade the, the expert here, the Jedi on, did they follow their own?

their own recipe, right? So starts out is your brand struggling to get attention? Your customers are getting hit with 10,000 marketing messages every day. It’s harder than ever to cut through the noise. Leads aren’t coming in and sales are down. Your emails are aren’t getting opened or read. Your website isn’t converting customers. Your marketing efforts aren’t getting a return.

Story brand helps you put your customer, not your brand at the center of a clear message that cuts through the noise and grows your business. And then it’s got two call to action. Once get story brand certified or find a story brand guide. So I’ll start with you, Curtis. Is your brand struggling to get attention? It sets up this problem. There’s 10,000 messages. being bombarded in the metrics that you’re looking at every day are starting to show that it’s not getting through.

Curtis Hays (32:04.915)
Yeah, I clearly heard a why. Yep. Yep.

Tom Nixon (32:06.69)
Yep. Yep. over to you, Mike. So we’ve led with the, we know who the hero is. I, should point out too, that it seems as though the story brand narrative advocates that you talk in the second person to the hero, your customers and some of your website copy says that too. So, have we led with a, a strong problem or Yep.

Mike Iley (32:30.258)
think so. Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Nixon (32:32.896)
Are we so then it concludes story brand helps you put your customer, not your brand at the center of a clear message that cuts through the noise and grows your business. That sounds like it happily ever after. Boom.

Curtis Hays (32:44.527)
It does. I didn’t hear a how though.

Tom Nixon (32:48.172)
And I didn’t hear a what, which I’m okay with because I would always like, if you’ve got their attention, they’re going to keep scrolling and figure out how and what. So,

Curtis Hays (32:50.321)
Right.

Curtis Hays (32:58.215)
Yeah.

Mike Iley (32:59.612)
Well, and one note that Storybrand actually has a challenge with right now, and it’s actually very similar to Lovasko’s challenge, understand that Lovasko is four different disciplines where we have four sub-narratives of the problems that we solve. Storybrand’s in that position as well right now, because they’re both trying to certify guides and then also help people get a Storybrand narrative written.

Tom Nixon (33:13.602)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Iley (33:25.52)
Right? So they almost have the door one, door number two, and that’s what that page articulates.

Tom Nixon (33:30.766)
Yep, they need to present those stories. We have so many clients that are in that same boat. If I scroll down, by the way, just to continue the story, there’s a section that says how storytelling can change your business fast based on Donald, Donald Miller’s bestselling book, which now it’s sold over a million copies. Story brand is the world’s foremost messaging clarification framework.

You can use it to clarify your message or become certified to help other people clarify theirs. So we’re starting to get into the house. There’s a little more clarity. All right. There’s going to be a system of methodology to it. probably to the point now where I’m interested in clicking. All right. There’s a demo here. I might watch that. So now that user, if I’m, if I was going through that journey, I’d be like, all right, I’m just clicking on stuff to find out what the what’s are. And that’s, think what you want people to do. Right.

Mike Iley (34:16.584)
Create the curiosity.

Curtis Hays (34:17.971)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Nixon (34:17.994)
Exactly. So I would give it an A obviously on the story brand front. What would you give it on the why how what Curtis?

Curtis Hays (34:24.883)
Yeah, I’d give it an A. And I think the most important, I would wait of the three, I would wait. They’re not 33%, 33%, 33%. There is a way higher weight to the Y than there is to anything else. Because you could copy your competitors’ hows and what’s likely, but it’s that Y that you need to get correct to really.

Tom Nixon (34:26.06)
Yeah, so.

Tom Nixon (34:39.544)
Yeah. Agreed.

Tom Nixon (34:49.666)
Ooh, pro tip there. Use your how section to delineate the difference between you and every other one. Right? So that’s your, you know, once you’ve got them hooked because you’ve articulated their why now, how are you different than the next five websites that they’re going to go look at? So Mike, you teased before we got on air that you had something of a quiz for Curtis. Are you ready to present that?

Mike Iley (35:14.024)
I am. In fact, this is a good segue. Tom, you just did a nice job reading through the Story Brand website narrative there. And what I want to do for you guys is I’m going to read through a Story Brand narrative, but I’m going to intentionally leave the brand name out. You’ll see me just kind of do like a little bit of air quote brand name. And when I finish the…

Tom Nixon (35:34.882)
Okay.

Mike Iley (35:43.25)
full script, I want you guys to try to guess what the brand is.

Tom Nixon (35:48.46)
Okay. All right. I’m game.

Mike Iley (35:49.804)
It’s a little bit challenging because it’s not fully a brand, but hopefully you’ll capture it. All right, you guys ready?

Tom Nixon (35:55.119)
Okay. I’m ready. I’m going to put on my blinders like Luke Skywalker so I can focus.

Mike Iley (35:59.837)
There you go. There you go. All right. So you’re someone who works hard, carries the weight of responsibility, and craves a moment where life feels light again. Deep down, you want to escape the grind, even just for a while. But here’s the problem. Life feels loud and stressful. Music today is often chaotic, heavy, and forgettable.

You’re tired of playlists that don’t set the right mood. Instead of feeling calm, connected, you end up hearing more noise. That’s where Brand steps in. It’s the trusted captain at the helm guiding you back to smoother scenes. You don’t need another playlist. You need a proven escape that delivers good vibes every time.

Here’s how it works. Press play on a timeless hits from the late 70s and early 80s. Number two, let’s go as the smooth harmonies and breezy grooves wash over you. Number three, relax as you’re cruising down the highway, grilling on the deck or just unwinding at work. Don’t settle for the noise. Sail away with the brand name. Fire up a station.

playlist or vinyl and let the soundtrack of leisure do its thing. This is you want to feel a wave of calm and nostalgia. The cool confidence of the captain’s hats lifestyle. Like life has just slowed down to the perfect temple or or you can keep scrolling through random playlists, drowning in noise and missing out on that escape that you’re craving.

Tom Nixon (37:55.651)
That’s an absolute work of art. it in the Louvre. Curtis, I’ll let you guess. Curtis, product name or brand name is?

Curtis Hays (37:59.582)
He’s hired. He’s hired.

Mike Iley (38:00.818)
Yeah.

Curtis Hays (38:06.035)
Well, it’s your Yacht Rock podcast.

Tom Nixon (38:08.686)
Well, not the podcast, but it’s Yacht Rock in general. would imagine, Yes, perfectly played. He just proved he listens. Right. And now I don’t even have to make the plug. This is like just perfect. But you know what’s hilarious about that? It, I mean, you probably had AI or something do that. Right. Nailed it. It nailed it. don’t you think? I mean, you’re the story brand expert. I’m the out rock expert.

Curtis Hays (38:11.143)
Yeah.

Mike Iley (38:11.208)
You deserve deserve it. You deserve it.

Mike Iley (38:24.456)
Yeah, really easy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it made me feel like, I don’t even listen to Yatt Rock. I just hear you talk about it all the time. And I’m like, no, I want to go listen to it.

Tom Nixon (38:38.274)
Yeah. Well, you want to know why? Because why how what? This is exactly that described my journey into getting into Yacht Rock. I was so sick of modern music. I wasn’t hearing anything new. I’m like, well, I followed my older brother into the past and I said, well, he’s looking back. Maybe there’s gems there. And so that’s how we did it. So that’s hilarious. You got to send that to me. I’m going to forward it to my co-host. Wow. All right. Perfectly. I mean, I don’t know how what better place to end.

Curtis Hays (38:41.032)
Yeah.

Mike Iley (38:58.971)
Sure.

Curtis Hays (39:04.273)
Well, I think it really articulates again, you you read a narrative mic, which was just interesting from, cause I’m not the storyteller, but listening to you actually tell a story. were, you were articulating this in a story way that again, for our audience, it’s putting your customer into the shoes and the way that you’re telling the story. And that’s when you know it’s being effective. They can actually see themselves in what they’re reading and

When we talk, why, how, what, it’s not necessarily three sections. So we’re not, when we say it, we’re not necessarily translating it to a webpage. That’s why, how, what. It could be, it could be as simple as that, three sections, but you might need a homepage or a landing page or whatever. That’s 12 sections that articulates it.

right? And Josh has talked about social proof and those types of things that might need to be on that page. It’s meant to be a framework, both of these, the story brand as well as why, how, what, of taking that prospective customer, that prospect on a journey to see themselves in that shoes. And that’s just what you have to remember, that there is an art to this and that art has a science, the framework.

of telling somebody about your brand if you want it to be more likely to be received. That’s what I’m starting to realize. You can’t just regurgitate. We do SEO and we’re better than everybody else because we’re the SEO guru. Like noise, hello.

Tom Nixon (40:39.042)
Yeah.

Tom Nixon (40:44.065)
Right.

Tom Nixon (40:48.59)
Well, and I’ll just give you my final thought for today and then I’ll back to you, Mike, for years. But not only was that perfectly executed and authentic to like why I listened to Yacht Rock exactly, but it wove it in. was the I heard why how what but then I also heard the or else what and that’s the thing that that’s going to be my big takeaway. If you don’t do this, you’re you’re back to the same old pain that you just described to me. So

Good stuff Mike. What are your final thoughts? What would you tell somebody who is in the same boat you were had the pain like I can’t figure out how to message this my company my product my service

Mike Iley (41:28.998)
Yeah, I would just tell them like, I know they have a tendency to want to just again show their wares and say how great they are. And again, to use your Curtis’s example, like we’re the best SEO people out there. the problem extends further than that. People that are looking for SEO are really looking to solve a deeper problem. And they really need to dive in and figure out what that problem is.

And if the messaging can identify that problem better than anybody else can, then that’s the SEO guy that we’re going to hire. Well, and I’ll even add to that, identify the problem and then give them a very clear path to solve. Because again, so many organizations have a very poor way of articulating how to actually work with them.

Tom Nixon (42:04.93)
Bingo.

Tom Nixon (42:22.486)
Absolutely. Well said. Perfect. Well, thank you for coming on. Mike. I appreciate this turned not to be a debate which we thought it might so there’s more alignment than divergence. Like I said, so I am off to watch the best of all Star Wars movies, which is of course Mike.

Mike Iley (42:40.634)
I don’t know which one it is

Tom Nixon (42:42.2)
Okay, Curtis.

Curtis Hays (42:43.397)
A new hope. The very first one.

Tom Nixon (42:45.942)
Rogue One. See you next week, everyone.