It Ain’t Sex that Sells – It’s Story

Using Storytelling to Sell and Market Anything

What is the difference between Sales and Marketing? Sales is when you go out and try to convince people to buy your product and service. Marketing is when you create such a compelling story that people are drawn to it.

Our guest is Eric La Brecque from Applied Storytelling – a brand strategy firm that uses storytelling to build and communicate brands through story. 

 

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Everyone.
Welcome to episode six of the folk Teller storytelling podcast.
It Ain't sex that sells people.
It's story.
And today we have a guest with us uh Eric Labreck from applied storytelling.
He's the CEO he is a brand strategy guru and he's brought storytelling into brand marketing.
Eric,
thanks for being with us.
Great to be with you guys.
Thank you.
And uh we've got uh the other two cohort my cohorts today,
adjectives today,
the ubiquitous ubiquitous Stephen Sadler and the undulating character.
How about that you just mentioned and now you're saying I'm out of here.
Are you jealous?
No,
they all thanks to everyone thought I was undulating.
Well,
I've been undulating for years.
I mean,
you were last night,
let me tell you,
oh my God,
this time here as a guest.
Sorry,
Eric.
The first person we've had physically in the room when we were already,
you guys are setting my mind in overdrive.
I'm thinking well,
of sex cells and story cell is storytelling.
Sexy.
Is it having sex?
What,
what is it?
Ok.
Now,
I've got to kind of juggle this.
Thanks is flowing.
So I'll,
I'll tee this up and then we'll get rolling.
So uh my,
my thought for the day is I had a uh a guru of mine.
His name is Paul Tobin.
I'll have to call him after they say I use this code.
So he said,
he said,
Joseph,
you know the difference between sales and marketing.
I said,
no,
I don't know the difference between sales and marketing.
He said selling is when you go out and try to convince people to buy your product or service.
I'm like,
OK,
that makes sense.
He goes,
marketing is when you tell such a compelling story that people are drawn to it and they,
yeah,
they're drawn and they're drawn to the story.
And this is really,
you know,
Eric,
that's,
this is kind of your Bailey wig.
This is your like your,
your whole philosophy on how you get people to be excited about a brand.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yeah.
Well,
for us,
first of all,
we start with a simple definition.
A brand is a story,
it's a type of story.
Um and it's different from other types of stories and obviously in that you're using it in the marketplace,
we talk about brands and we're talking about buying and selling things,
right?
And also as a form of story,
it's really different.
Um it's really diffuse,
it's told through all kinds of channels at all different times um across time in a different way.
And so this diffuseness is a really interesting aspect of it.
And that's where the work that we do comes in.
If it's so diffuse what ties it all together,
you know,
and there's,
there needs to be some kind of a narrative thread,
some kind of starting point to keep all these different things,
all these different impressions,
meaningful tied together and emotionally,
very powerful.
So I,
I didn't mean to interrupt,
but we've talked in the past about seeing brand through a storytelling lens.
What,
what's different in that than sort of the traditional way people would look,
look at a brand.
Well,
I think the traditional way people do branding and marketing is to think of it as a story.
Um Long before the word brand got thrown about,
let's go back thousands of years to the first marketplace and I'm walking in it and I have come upon something I want to buy and we've got to figure out between me,
the purchaser and you,
the seller,
what am I gonna pay for it?
And the way you're gonna try to get me to pay what you want is by telling me a story about the thing.
It's been a timeless way of selling since the very beginning.
You can hear it in modern marketplaces,
traditional marketplaces today.
And if you take that principle and you say,
OK,
look why isn't that happening now?
Well,
it's because the buyer and seller are separated by media,
they're separated by time because the marketplace is much bigger,
much more complex because we live in,
in modern industrial civilization,
right?
But that principle still holds true.
That's our point of view.
And a brand is really just that it's a story that's told in a marketplace.
So again,
we see it as like the old,
becoming new.
Again.
That's interesting.
I mean,
it's kind of like haggling,
social media has become the modern day haggling.
Haggling is part of it.
You know,
there's the haggle phase,
but there's also the post sell phase.
I remember purchasing or bringing in a leather jacket to uh a leather repair,
clothing repair place and I paid the price I was happy to pay for it was kind of expensive.
And afterwards,
the the guy who specialized in leather was telling me how beautiful it was and how beautiful my jacket was and how it deserved all this care left me feeling really good.
We're in post tale now,
you know,
so there are phases of it and you know,
in the direct marketing marketplace too,
you sure do.
You're making the right decision by spending that money on that leather jacket,
right?
To get it right?
And we're building a relationship,
right?
Like I'm appreciating it.
There's a little element of entertainment and there's an element of respect.
He's telling me a story about how much he cares about me and what I brought to him to work on.
So,
Eric back up a little bit,
I mean,
it's amazing having you here in studio and just your work.
I mean,
just that alone of,
of what you do and building brands.
And I think that's,
there's a,
I guess what I want to hear a little bit is you brag on yourself a little bit about and it doesn't necessarily mean names as much,
which is,
boy,
this is,
this is the credibility you bring to this podcast.
where like,
where are you coming from?
Eric?
It's like,
I almost feel you came in like all of a sudden we got real serious and sacred.
There's like a sacred,
the sacred story and we've got a sacred storyteller in here.
And um I mean,
that's knowing about where he came from or what,
what your origin story.
Yoda.
I look,
I,
I seriously,
I think I was in a series.
It's one of those stories of being in the right place at the right time and being lucky enough to recognize it.
So,
as a kid,
I grew up in a household where stories were big.
My father was a probation officer and every night at the table,
we had these incredible stories of the people in his case load,
you know.
So oral storytelling was something that I grew up on in a particular way.
I also grew up in the border region.
So San Diego and Tijuana Sister Cities and my dad,
uh who's bilingual would take me down to Tijuana with him and there,
we would purchase all kinds of things and some of the touristy things were in marketplaces where you haggled to go back to what Steve was saying as a kid,
I got into haggling.
I loved it.
I thought it was awesome and it made the things that came out of there that I purchased,
you know,
Guitar Morocco's a chess set,
um feel even more special.
So there's that right.
And then let's zoom ahead a little bit.
I'm in Hollywood,
if you will.
I'm in L A and my office.
I'm at this point,
I'm kind of a copywriter,
kind of a marketing consultant.
Haven't really thought about the storytelling thing.
I end up working next to a remarkable duo Linda Berman.
Jonathan Katz.
Linda Berman was a marketer behind Caswell Massey and Jonathan Katz had the biggest,
one of the biggest uh um uh like prop houses in town.
And they were in the thick of developing this idea of themed retailing and themed retailing involved developing backstories.
And these backstories would be given to visual merchandisers,
marketers,
people making the clothes to help create these themed environments.
So,
you know,
I worked with them on these environments when we figured out that we kind of dug each other guest.
The guest stores were one Discovery Flagship Store,
Nature Conserve,
uh Nature Company had a store,
um you know,
so themed retailing was another stage,
right?
And then I kind of thought Well,
um ok.
Uh if you can do this for retail,
can't you make back stories for anything?
And there are some other steps along the way,
but maybe those are the two key parts of my origin story.
And here it was awesome.
So here I'm in L A,
right?
And all the writers and basically that's what I am are drawn into the entertainment industry and there's good money there and a lot of fun and you're part of what L A is.
A lot of L A is about and I've got this little place to myself,
right.
I'm in this big city with a lot of commerce going on,
that's not entertainment and some of it's entertainment and there's this need or this recognition that this kind of approach to selling stuff um works.
So it was like being this little tiny fish in this big big pond and really I should have been eaten alive,
but there were no other fish.
So it was a great place to start.
I'm,
I'm always grateful to L A for being a place that's entrepreneurial and spirit and,
and uh where I could figure out some of these ideas and kind of like Hollywood production model you could say applied to um applied to brand thinking right,
right place at the right time.
I mean,
I think Malcolm Gladwell and Out Outliers,
right about his talk of people that have had a success because of being at the right place and the right time,
the right place and the right time you got me thinking about.
So a couple of years ago they did this experiment on ebay and they bought,
they went and bought a bunch of the,
these little salt and pepper shakers and whatever.
Just,
just worthless information,
just kind of junk.
And so,
so these guys bought and then they had,
um,
the,
the control was just posting the objects and,
and putting them up for auction and then they hired a bunch of writers.
It was the same items to write a back story for each item,
these salt and pepper shakers and pin wheels and whatever.
Um And the result was people were willing to pay more than 10 times more for the same item that had a story versus just the item power,
the power,
the power of the story.
So,
Eric,
you were able to,
through this experience,
you were able to sort of codify uh sort of the mechanism for telling a story and you've got this brand wheel.
And so,
you know,
tell us a little bit about that.
So what you,
you've been able to do is kind of make a business out of brand storytelling.
How you know,
how,
how are you doing that?
Well,
if you go back to that example,
um which is a great example.
I love that.
I think it's called like the significant objects.
Yeah,
it's fun to track down.
Um you might say,
ok,
that's great.
Um And very talented writers worked on that.
How could we,
to your point,
how could we make a business out of it?
How can we replicate that?
And if you just start from scratch all the time,
you're gonna be,
you know,
really frustrated and have a hard time making deadlines.
So we kind of figured out the story framework that worked generally.
Um And it turns out to be a version of the,
you know,
classic adventure story,
but we broke down the different pieces of it.
And then we mapped that framework to brand elements,
vision,
mission positioning,
promise,
value propositions,
things that are commonly used terms and ideas in brand marketing and figured out where they fit into that adventure story framework.
So it was your peanut butter,
my chocolate um fairly simple.
Um And that was it,
you know,
so that is the brand wheel uh that we use,
well,
actually the elements of the brand wheel and then you apply them to the story framework.
And that's,
that's how you kind of build a scalable business,
I guess.
And the framework,
the framework itself,
we've talked about this before.
There's only so many models out there of that framework to use for the storytelling.
Yeah,
I mean,
there there could be more,
I mean,
the classic model that you see if you type in brand marketing is this kind of a pyramid and look,
I mean,
whatever gets you to have a deep relationship and have an emotional connection to the people and the things you're buying.
Um,
you don't even have to have a story in mind to do it to just,
we think it's a great way to go.
But that pyramid just didn't,
I don't know,
it didn't sit right with me.
I've seen great work done using that.
It's very common but I'm just not a pyramid guy.
I'm a circle guy.
I really am.
You know,
I like to see things rippling out and circles concentric circles.
I don't know,
it just does something for me.
So Steve Jobs was all about the story.
I mean,
he wasn't about,
you know,
trying to say,
hey,
we make computers.
It was literally,
you know,
everything that he was doing was literally about,
you know,
what you can use these computers for the same as Nike.
Nike isn't about shoes.
They don't market,
everyone knows they make shoes,
but it's all about that story.
How do you simplify that message down because they obviously like just do it as a very,
very short phrase.
But there's an entire story process built around pretty well.
Every ad to these companies.
Great question.
Yeah.
Well,
uh from my way of looking at it,
just do.
It is the title of the story.
So you write the story,
it's got to have a great title and honestly,
Steve,
that's how we go about exploring and creating taglines.
We save that for last and there's a story and it needs a title and we want it to be catchy.
And there's your tagline.
Excellent.
There's a,
there's a scene out there called Less is More,
is that you,
you apply to that as well.
They're in applied storytelling.
Less is more you try to narrow it down.
Do you?
I,
I guess help me understand that from your lens.
Um Well,
simple is really good.
Um I don't know stories.
I mean,
when you're creating a story,
some things end up on the editing room floor,
so to speak and some things stay in and I guess a great story is one that has focus but has the capacity to become very rich if you wanted to.
So within,
you know,
there are many layers and levels that you can get into the story at the end of the day.
Sure,
we want to be able to distill it down.
Less is more as proof that you can have more.
I have a question.
So you're doing this commercially.
So you're doing this for commercial clients,
Eric.
And um I'm sure along the way,
there have been a few that didn't appreciate uh your sophistication.
Uh And I'm so I'm curious because I like a little dirt.
Uh Tell me,
tell me a story about when uh when you had a big win and everyone got it and then tell me like an epic fail like where it just the what?
For whatever reason,
it just fell apart,
the client didn't get it or whatever.
But let's start with uh let's start with the,
the good news.
Like what,
what's a really like strong example where you felt like you got the story,
right?
It resonated with the client and the audience and then the flip of like what was an epic fail?
Well,
one of the high points of getting the story right in general is when so remember we're creating the equivalent of treatment,
right?
The story is what's happening all the time in the world.
People are hearing the story,
they're sharing it.
But the the treatment if you will the back story,
one of the high points is when you share that at least that's what should be one of the high points people feel good,
they might clap,
uh they might cry,
they might do something.
One of the most satisfying moments was working on the story for Detroit,
the tourism and economic economic development story back in 2006,
sharing that with a very diverse audience,
people,
with a lot of different agendas brought together in a room,
legislators,
news people,
community members and sharing that story and having a journalist jump up from her seat and say I'm so excited I can pee oh that was good.
That was good.
Another great moment in a more practical way was in the sharing of this,
you know,
of the narrative for uh Pharma Company,
Biotech company,
um the VP of investor relations got up from the meeting,
he got something he needed.
He went into a call with the um analyst for their category covering them and was sharing,
you know,
a new idea about what the company was all about and it worked,
you know,
and the analysts have been pounding on him for a while.
So finding that way to meaning is really important and really satisfying and seeing these anecdotal instances where all of a sudden it's clicking,
right?
It works.
That's,
well,
they see themselves in,
they see themselves in there and that's really goes back to,
you know,
the opening statement about telling the story is so compelling that people are drawn to it,
they see they,
they want to engage,
they see themselves in it.
That's got to feel good.
Yeah,
it feels fantastic,
so fascinated by,
by all of this and,
you know,
we're gonna have Steve,
I'm gonna have you jump in because,
you know,
Eric,
all your work with,
with brand storytelling.
And it's funny because Eric and I met years ago because,
you know,
the work that I do in education and training and a lot of it ties into internal corporate culture and I've always been about storytelling.
So I'm looking inside the organization and using storytelling to get people engaged with the culture.
So story or brand and Eric and I have talked about this before,
you know,
brand internally is culture externally,
it's called brand but internally.
And so,
you know,
Eric and I start talking about,
well,
typically the two don't talk.
Um but if you have alignment internal with an organization,
like you mentioned,
like Nike just do it if you bring that brand internally and make it part of the culture.
Now you've got,
you know,
you've got amplification inward and outward,
which is a very,
a very powerful thing.
Uh Have,
have you ever seen where a company uh the employees didn't like the brand that you were creating for them initially?
Sure.
I mean,
there are instances where the employees have,
have need to be brought along.
Um I mean,
that's something that our process now kind of accounts for like they're involved in the process somewhat.
So,
but there are people,
you know,
not necessarily a staff at large,
but there are people who don't necessarily like the story for a variety of reasons.
Usually I'd say it's because they feel that their role or the thing that they're championing isn't represented well enough.
Um And we really try to work on that.
I mean,
you know,
we want people when we're in a work session and we're interviewing them to be loud and stand up for their particular agenda so that we can account for it.
So yeah,
it happens but,
but not necessarily that much and sometimes it's just change people,
you know,
it's a comfort zone that they don't want to leave.
Right.
And all of a sudden you're changing the story,
you're not changing it,
but you're enhancing the story and it causes some change.
That's true.
And that brings me to a kind of a fail.
I don't know if it was a total fail.
And I,
it wasn't fortunately an embarrassing fail.
But one of the hardest things to do when you're,
one of the hardest storytelling assignments is bringing cultures together to your point,
Joseph,
and you have people who've grown up together,
built a company together,
they have a certain way of being right.
They have certain shared beliefs and when they're brought into a larger organization that's acquired them,
let's say,
and things are gonna be different,
there can be real resistance.
So there have been a number of instances where that's been a real sticking point and in one case,
the company that was acquired said,
look,
we have all the recognition in Europe.
This was a global acquisition.
Uh We're just not gonna go with that story,
we're just not gonna do it.
And the client really didn't have the leverage,
you know,
they wanted that to happen and it probably would have been a good thing.
But in this case,
so much of the market,
so much of the business was owned by this acquisition that they just flat out refused.
Yeah.
Well,
you're hitting on a,
a really big point and that's,
you know,
we usually get pulled in a moment you,
you talk about change.
I mean,
we're,
we're change agents when you're a lot of times when you're a storyteller,
especially in business you get brought in because the story's changed.
There's been a merger acquisition,
something's happened.
So you're an agent of change.
And what happens is Instigator.
I think that's what you,
that's what you are instigator and it's at those points of change where some people are excited about it.
Some people say no,
I like it the old way or you know,
they don't want the new story.
They don't want the new story because they're comfortable with the old one and they'll bring it down.
Yeah,
quickly.
And it's like to cut off your nose to spite your face type thing,
you know,
and Eric uh what's exciting about your work and,
and you and I are partnering up on,
on workshops and,
and I,
I love what I love what Joseph mentioned earlier as well is there's an internal facing story and there's an external facing story and,
and we get those together.
That's where to me,
that's where the real power comes because if you can get those two aligned,
that's powerful.
Yeah,
absolutely.
We love working on both sides of the mirror if you will or front of house,
back of house,
however you break it down.
Um There are different needs that the two audiences have.
Um But at the end of the day,
um your external story,
which is really where we focus most is going to be so much more powerful and so much more credible.
If the people who are really creating it,
to be honest,
understand that and feel like they're living it and they're representing it because it's not a one and done either.
So,
you know,
so Eric,
your process kind of ends.
When you've crafted the story,
you've crafted the messaging.
Yeah,
you,
you've,
you've created those components and give them back to the organization.
And then Steve like your work is when that story's been written,
then the challenge with the organization is,
well,
how are we communicating that out?
How are we amplifying?
Now?
We've got,
we finally got our poop in a group and uh we're all agreeing,
this is our story.
They all look at me poop in a group and,
and,
and that's not really my work.
I don't do that anymore.
The poop in a group.
You did that.
I did.
Yeah,
but it's not what I do now,
but you have an expertise in that.
You know,
there's a kind of an ongoing discussion in the brand world about,
you know,
who's,
whose story is it,
right?
And what,
what does that mean?
Well,
yeah,
in a sense like,
you know,
with the rise of social media,
there's been a school of people who say,
well,
the story is only what the um customer thinks it is.
If the customer says this is your story then you know,
that is your story and we don't come from that school.
I mean,
ultimately,
you want people to take up the story and make it their own and cosplay it.
If you will tattoo it on their bodies,
whatever design their lives around it.
But to me,
that's not really honest.
I think the honest way to look at this is who has the most skin in the game,
the people selling the product,
right?
They're the ones who are going to put the time and the energy into crafting that story.
Yes.
Ultimately,
if no one hears it or if no one gets it,
it's a story poorly told,
but it's still your job,
it's still your ownership at the end of the day,
still your responsibility.
And when you think of it like,
hey,
you know,
we're making a brand as opposed to these people making a movie,
no one says uh that movie is the,
you know,
the audience made that movie.
Uh No,
it doesn't work that way.
The audience determines whether it's a good movie or not validates it by supporting it lives it and all that stuff.
But at the end of the day,
you know,
there's a movie studio,
there's a writer,
there's a director,
they're producers.
It's interesting you bring that up because uh the last episode,
we were talking about publishing,
we talked about who owns the copyright these days,
right?
With A I out there now there's there's some challenges with and even lawsuits right about who owns and in working in branding and what you do with telling the story.
How do you secure that,
that they remain as the owner of that content of that brand of that story?
Well,
again,
what we're doing,
it's probably simple in our world.
I mean,
the,
you know,
the treatment,
the backstory that we're working to build.
Um I,
I don't know,
I mean,
you would copyright it as the,
as the company,
but it,
it's like a movie treatment.
It doesn't really have a lot of value until it's activated.
So I don't know that people are exactly struggling over that.
All,
all the other stuff that you know,
comes from,
it is copyrighted,
you know,
and the company owns it.
I think it's fairly simple.
I might not be thinking it through very well,
but,
but here's a more complex thing.
What,
what happens,
what happens when the brand story goes out but it's misinterpreted by the audience or it's usurped by someone who wasn't the target audience.
Well,
that happens all the time.
And what would be an example of that?
Like what would be a like a story that tells that where boy,
this is what happened here was the story.
Here is the brand,
this is how it got usurped,
they pronounce that,
right?
Depends on which part of the world you come from.
But we,
we,
we,
we,
no,
so uh are you asking me or are you asking Eric,
Eric?
Let's stay on topic,
which is surp,
surp usa surp.
Um,
well,
you know,
I guess this is the,
this is where maybe the copyright issue comes in,
right?
It's not really owned,
right.
So we have a client right now that it's in a very hot category are very hot paradigm in this category that they,
the business that they're in and they're really frustrated.
They're a small company,
they're just getting started.
They come up with cool messages.
They come up with a cool story and a bigger company has eyes on them and they suck all that stuff,
all those messages,
all those great ideas as soon as this little company generates them bang,
they're just sucked right up and they're amplified and they're repurposed and the little guys are basically competing against their own story.
The father giving them the father,
right.
Yeah.
You know,
and so yeah,
and they,
it does.
Exactly.
And they come to us and they say,
how can we,
you know,
how can we,
how can we goof proof it or,
you know,
own owner,
proof it.
And um that's hard to do,
you know,
I mean,
um there are different ways you can,
you can try to do it but um purposely give them a misaligned message.
What if they were to do that?
Like provide some type of misaligned story message and see the big guys grab that then.
But you'd be,
you'd be suffering from it,
you know,
early on.
So they're not controlling the story.
Hm.
What do you mean they're not controlling their story digitally.
So there's ways to do that.
You mentioned that earlier about the authorization is just one small piece.
But I mean,
if I'm for folk tellers,
for example,
when I first met Joseph,
the whole thing that you have to do with any company is to lock down the brand and you do that by making sure that that name,
you can secure it across all the different social channels through the domain name,
uh through any form of copy writing,
all that thing.
And if,
if you can't lock all those different names down right now,
then select a different name for your company or for your startup because you'll never be able to control the narrative and someone else will always control it to that point.
That's the brand.
But the Eric's point,
you're talking about the story that's associated with that brand,
that's what's getting grabbed,
so to speak,
right?
Um It's important to lock down the names and sometimes it's harder for somebody to get a good message without a name attached to it.
But yeah,
the things we're talking about are a little bit have a little bit less form,
right?
They're,
they're harder to own.
Um I mean,
broadly,
I would agree with Steve that the more you can control it um and stay consistent maybe you can win through consistency.
Um finding fresh ways to say things,
understanding that you've got fast followers.
And so you're gonna continue to be the one who's being followed,
right?
Because you're gonna come up with fresh ways to say things and you know that at the end of the day,
you're trying to differentiate,
you're trying to find a positioning that no one else can own a story that no one else can tell as,
as well as you can.
And you know,
you may get swamped,
but there's probably a kernel if you stay with it that you can own and no one else can,
can quite claim um going back to the client we're working with right now.
Um We kind of,
you know,
so the point of the story is to apply it,
right?
It's not,
we're not just telling the story,
we're using it to do things and we pointed out that the positioning that they had would enable them to develop a test,
um proof of concept that none of their other competitors could even do.
Uh So that's where the story led to an insight about how we could set up a demo if you will.
And the very parameters of the demo were such that no one else could even compete.
So it was the storytelling,
storytelling is doing a lot of things,
right?
It's differentiating,
it's increasing the perceived value which goes back to the significant objects.
It's helping people in the,
you know,
in disruptive categories,
a new role of storytelling is accelerating the time to which something becomes meaningful,
the time to which I understand it and I can fit it into,
you know,
this unfamiliar thing into my world.
Uh You know,
so we're taking it and we're looking at the feedback loop like,
OK,
how can we use this to develop tools?
How can we use this to inform product differentiation and so on?
So,
in some ways,
all these things working together might play a kind of ground game to allow you to win out over that big competitor who's literally eating your words and then spitting them out again.
So,
Eric,
if I were to ask you,
I mean,
you and you worked with some major brands,
you've got great experience and,
and your journey's been amazing.
What,
what advice would you give to somebody listening about branding,
about marketing,
about storytelling,
what,
what marketing,
101,
whatever you wanna call it,
what simple advice?
One item,
two items,
what would you give that person?
No,
thanks,
Kurt.
Um There's one item and somebody asked me that question and said,
I have no budget.
I'm just starting,
what do I do?
And I said,
look just be interesting.
OK.
Um Probably in being interesting,
whatever that means to you,
um you're gonna arrive at something that's a little distinct,
right?
Um A voice that's a little distinct,
an idea that's a bit fresh so just start with that and the rest will follow.
All right.
Well,
Eric,
thank you uh for being here.
Uh Joseph.
Yeah,
it's,
it's our first.
You are our first in studio guest.
So hopefully not the last,
right.
Eric,
don't,
don't tell anybody.
Oh,
excellent.
Yeah,
thanks for coming.
So,
Eric,
Eric really,
you know,
his whole focus.
Uh It was great to have him in the studio.
Um His,
his whole focus is on the story,
craft side of things.
But you know,
there's once you have that story,
how do you communicate it out and you know,
we had touched on this in previous podcasts and this,
there's so much noise out there.
Um How do you Steve like,
you know,
this has been your expertise and um you know,
you still work in this space.
But when we met,
you had talked about this concept of a digital footprint and it like,
really sparked my,
sparked my brain to say,
well,
digital footprint,
what's that?
And you had explained to me what you need to do is no one can see you and it doesn't matter how great the thing that you have.
If no one sees you,
it doesn't matter.
So you need to create what you call the digital footprint.
And the more you and you have a whole model for this,
I want to talk about a little bit,
the more you increase your digital presence,
the bigger your footprint gets and eventually,
if it gets big enough people will begin to see it and then people can't ignore it.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Well,
in today's world,
everything is about search,
right?
I mean,
if you're looking for something,
you're going to a field and you're typing in some type of keyword and you're trying to find things or you're following a hashtag or you're doing that type of thing.
Wait a minute,
those yellow pages that I use anymore.
They're not,
they don't work.
Yeah.
II I use them,
right?
Like you need to be taller.
Can you rip those in half?
So how about wrestling?
But it used to rip those but it's,
it's different now because yellow pages were the go to for information for looking up.
Absolutely.
And you're still in that.
It's the same thing really.
I mean,
you're looking for information,
right?
And uh and this is really no different.
What Eric was talking about for most of the time is all about the,
the what I call the C and CF I F IC IC IC F I stands for content frequency and influence.
So it's something that we,
we found out a while ago if you take the three different attributes of digital marketing,
writing great content,
sending it out frequently to all different channels and then having it reinforced with people that have,
have influence,
guess what you get success,
you remove any of those and it doesn't work.
If you just focus on c it will fail,
you just working on sending out uh content at a frequency,
but it's not great content is gonna fail if you don't have people of influence that have,
you know,
a large following or can place it in front of other audiences.
Um,
for example,
if you're selling basketball shoes and,
and um,
someone take a professional athlete,
takes a photo wearing those shoes,
guess what?
Boom,
it goes up.
CF I and that's how everyone should look at.
If you're marketing in a business,
you got to look at those three different things and,
and even the biggest companies don't see that you,
you had told me uh not to name names,
but when you were out in Hollywood,
one of the largest entertainment companies didn't have enough content for you to promote,
to promote their film.
Not even close.
That's crazy.
They would put out one trailer and they would,
you know,
on a billboard and you know,
they were down to Los Angeles and think that they're done.
I'm done marketing and they didn't understand it that no,
that's not the way it works.
You know,
everyone's held to the same,
same algorithm.
So you better figure out and understand how to use that algorithm so you can move up search and it's not just about search too.
It's also about like I shouldn't say that it's still about search,
but it's also about ranking.
For example,
if I'm trying to sell a book or a movie or a podcast and it's on,
on Apple.
Well,
where do I want to rank?
You're gonna want to rank number one?
Well,
how do you rank number one?
If I just put the podcast or the video or the,
the song out there and there's nothing behind it to be able to push that.
How does it move to number one?
What makes it go to number one?
Yeah.
What,
what is it?
Well,
it's something that we figured out called D PF for digital Presence factor.
And basically what it is is the size.
It's a waiting.
So imagine a formula that takes the size of your digital footprint that you have for.
Uh we'll use this podcast as an example,
the size of the digital footprint of the podcast.
Now we're just starting.
So we're young.
We don't have a,
a big digital footprint yet.
But as we make more and more episodes and we create more and more web content and more and more social messages and so on and so on,
we're building that DPF.
So it's not like sending out one tweet and going,
hey,
you know,
we're gonna be successful.
That's not gonna work.
We're talking about lots of stuff and it can't all be the same.
It all has to be different and it all has to be interlocked together.
The digital footprint means that they're all tied together.
That's,
that's fascinating.
So it's,
uh,
so you're talking about,
one of the things you're talking about is quantity and the amount that needs to be an ongoing amount.
What about the quality of it does quality come into play?
Absolutely.
Because if you don't,
because the,
the second thing that,
that DPF has to be timed by,
for it to be successful,
it's times by the number of views or the number of downloads.
So say,
for example,
it's an itunes song,
right?
It's digital footprint times the number of downloads or views or whatever on that particular piece of media.
And then,
and what happens if that happens?
You uh you get a high rank position.
So the more downloads that you get the higher,
do you move up the rank,
the less downloads you have the lower you are on the rank.
So I have a question about that Steve,
who,
who,
who is they,
who is it that has this CF I,
this DP,
you know Eieio,
who is doing this,
we invented these,
these whom,
who is the company that I own?
So this isn't something that so call Steve.
So call Steve for CFI,
I wanna get my,
I putting it out there for people to use it.
I mean,
it's,
it's something that I used for years,
but a reason I'm,
I'm going public with it because I don't do it anymore.
I don't market movies anymore.
I don't do any of that stuff.
No,
no you should,
I got your tagline yankee rank but it can be used for Steve will help you.
Yank your rank.
OK.
We're gonna have to have some editing done.
We just went from PG 13 to what ranking or what?
Well,
they know what we're talking.
We're talking about your ranking.
Steve will help you.
Yank your rank,
Steve.
I just didn't,
I just say I done,
Steve will no longer yank your rank.
But can you refer them to someone?
What are we talking about today?
I,
oh Yeah,
CF I and the other one,
DP,
DPWDPF is digital presence factor.
So no,
that's the homework for today.
You know,
remember DPF and remember CFI,
I mean,
the reason we made them into acronyms is so we could remember them,
you know,
because I,
I even I forget and I'll,
I'll start to do marketing for whatever,
like for our own stuff that we do.
And it's like,
OK,
I gotta go back to the basics.
I gotta go back to content frequency influence.
If I keep doing that,
then I,
then I remember,
remember what to do.
So,
yeah,
so OK,
so then let's,
we gotta wrap up.
But uh the piece of advice for people that want to amplify uh you know,
this goes back to,
to the story,
the storytelling and publishing.
Uh how can they amplify their story using digital media?
How do they do it?
Like?
What's,
what's the,
what's your uh 1 to 3 big piece of,
of advice.
I mentioned it when,
when uh Eric was here,
make sure you lock down all the channels first for the name of whatever it is that you're doing,
whether it's a book or whether it's a business or whether it's a podcast or a movie or whatever.
Grab the,
get the common name,
make sure that you've got it right across the board.
Lock that down first.
Once you do,
then you have channels.
And I remember when I first got into social media marketing,
everyone was like,
don't call social media channel.
Well,
that's Boloney.
They are channels,
they're all channels and you have the more channels you have the larger digital footprint that you have,
the larger digital footprint equals success.
That's the way it works.
Beautiful,
great way to end.
This was a powerful one,
guys.
Well,
my brain's still hurting.
I know I probably will doing Eric's content and,
and see what you're writing at the end here.
It's very powerful.
Thanks for helping us Yank,
stop it.
All right.
Thanks,
everyone.
Just went down after this close.
All right,
we'll talk soon.