The Art Of Persuasive Storytelling

The Momentum Marketing Podcast

This is the art of persuasive storytelling.

Hey there, I'm Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I'm a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author. In each episode, you'll get real world, practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you're ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you're in the right place.

Hey there, friend. It's Jillian Kendrick back for another episode of The Moment Marketing Podcast. I am super excited that you're here with me today. I've hit the 20 week mark in my pregnancy with baby number two, I am really excited about that. So it kind of means that I'm halfway there, which is really exciting and things are getting going. I can feel the baby a whole lot more, lots of kicks and jabs and pokes and it's very exciting. It's also made me incredibly tired and sore and all of the symptoms are settling in. So that's kind of made me a little bit unproductive lately, if I'm honest, but that's ok in the time that I've had and as much as I can possibly get done while we're balancing and in being in between childcare and working with clients and hosting webinars and reducing more content and doing all the things. I've actually been writing a whole lot more lately because I've needed to. But it's really helped me think about the way that I write and my content strategy. And I was thinking about episodes and topics for the podcast. And I thought, you know, this would be such a good episode to talk about storytelling and marketing. How to do persuasive storytelling. Now you can Google this and find Don Miller's story brand. There are all sorts of marketing books out there, about like the words to use for persuasion or the way to craft something or the this and that, right. Chris Voss is another really good example of someone who can take persuasion and storytelling and kind of craft those things very methodically, but rather than teach you somebody else's stuff, I really wanted to sit down and think through, OK, what do I know about persuasive storytelling? How do I do it? How do I do it inside of my own business? And that's what I'm gonna share with you today.

Before we get started, as always, if you haven't watched or listened to my master class on how I get over 600 leads every single month without cold dming people without posting in groups without posting on social media every single day go ahead to jilliankendrick.com/masterclass and you can grab your copy of the free training right there. What's really great about this free training is, yes, obviously you have to sign for it, but I hate it when you go to a training page and then you have to sign up for like a specific date and time. That is not the case here. As soon as you sign up, you're going to get access to the training and then you can watch it immediately or you can save it for another day. Whatever works for you. I wanted to make it as easy as possible. I hate going to webinar registration pages and then figuring out whether or not I can commit to a certain time or a certain date because I'm a busy entrepreneur. Life happens and sometimes you just can't make those, right? So I wanted to make it as easy and simple for you as possible. So go ahead to jilliankendrick.com/masterclass and grab your access to that free training. It is so so good.

Now, the topic at hand, there are four things that I believe contribute to persuasive storytelling. And when we're talking about persuasive storytelling, I'm not talking about like NLP, I'm not talking about like mind game or manipulation type of tactics. I'm not even talking sales tactics because I really hate those. I hate the sleeves. I hate the way that you can come off like that. Not a fan. But when I'm talking about persuasive storytelling, I'm talking about making a connection with a person going deep into who they are, what they need, understanding their pain points and desires. And then obviously, we need to make money. So delivering something that can fulfill on it. Right?

So, number one for me is relatability and connection, some sort of relatability and connection. Your audience needs to be able to see themselves inside of whatever story you're telling. Now, obviously, it's your story. It doesn't have to be something that they've experienced themselves, but there needs to be little pieces or little hints to it, right? Let me give you an example and it's kind of an odd example, but this happened to me recently and I, I really connected with it. So a girlfriend of mine had a very traumatic birth of her second child without going into any sort of detail. I really connected with her story because I didn't necessarily have a traumatic birth per se with my son. But the fact that I had been through childbirth previously was one point of connection that I had with her story.

The second point of connection that I had was when she was telling me about the nurses not believing that she was in labor or not fully understanding what she was going through. And even though my birth experience was not that necessarily, I can totally relate as a woman. And even just as a human being to moments where I've tried to explain something, I'm telling the truth. I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve and yet someone doesn't believe me. So I can totally relate to that even though I have never been through what she's been through. And then of course, the ending of her story, the relief of their son being born and, you know, eventually everything was fine and et cetera, et cetera. I can definitely relate to the relief of, ok, this child has finally come into this world and everything is ok. And right, even now as a parent, I can feel that way when my kid stumbles or falls or says he has a boo boo and tells me that he's all right. Right.

It's a sense of relief. So it's not necessarily about the relatability of telling your story or telling a story that other people have gone through, but it's about your ability as a storyteller to pepper in moments of connectivity. I don't have to relate to her birthing story, but I can relate to those little moments I can relate to oh gosh, that must have been so scary. Oh my goodness. I can't believe that nurse didn't believe you or oh, this the right. I can relate to those moments even though my birth experience was completely different than hers.

I, as an entrepreneur, I could listen to a Fortune 100 CEO telling stories about, you know, frustrations of employees or things not going well and stuff like that. And even though I might not have experienced that thing specifically or at the scale that, you know, a fortune 100 CEO would, would experience it. As a business owner and someone who's been in this world for 13 plus years, I can relate to those little bits of connectivity, the little pieces that are peppered into the story. So you don't have to write a story that's fake. You don't have to sit and find a story that is relatable to everybody around you. You just have to be a good enough storyteller to piece in those moments of connection. And if you can do that where other people, even people who aren't parents, right? People who have never gone through childbirth can probably relate to somebody not understanding them or not believing them when they were telling the truth, right? I think every human being could relate to experiencing that. So as long as you can piece in those little moments of connection, tell whatever story you have, it doesn't have to be the everyman story. It doesn't have to be 100% relatable as long as you're putting in those moments of connection. So connection and relatability are an absolute number one for me.

Number two, when it comes to persuasive storytelling, there has to be some sort of transformation, there has to be a journey from A to B. There has to be something that was overcome or learned or gained or even lost as a result of that story, right? You need to move people. You can't just say, well, I was hungry. So I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then I ate that peanut butter sandwich and it was delicious. And then I wasn't hungry anymore. Which yes, OK. In and of itself, that is a transformation. You went from not being hungry to making a sandwich to no longer being hungry. And that, yes, that's a transformation. But it needs to move people. And most especially if you can share something that you've overcome, something that you've gained something that you've lost something that you've learned, something that you've done, which shows that transformation that other people are looking for. That is a pretty incredible and equally relatable story. A lot of the entrepreneurs and coaches that I see having big success with persuasive storytelling right now are the ones who are sharing their success stories. They're the ones sharing the testimonials. They're the ones sharing. Hey, I went from working my 9 to 5 job for X dollars an hour to owning my own business. And now I make six figures or seven figures or whatever it is. Because if you have a captive audience of people who are looking for the same thing, then you can be persuasive, then you can sell to them. The air time of when the biggest loser is airing on NBC is a great moment for an Adkins Shake commercial or a gym membership commercial or something like that. Because people who watch that show, who are interested in weight loss, who are a captive audience to that show and are watching the stories of these contestants play out, they're receptive to hearing about or seeing a mechanism, the gym membership or the shakes or the protein bars or the whatever the mechanism that will help them achieve that goal.

Persuasive storytelling must have number four for me is something called future casting. So future casting from as much as I know about it, I do believe that Russell Bronson coined the phrase future casting, but he might not have. And if I'm wrong, that's totally fine. Please tell me comment. Let me know if that's not the case. If you know somebody else who coined that phrase. Anyhow, what is future casting? Future casting goes right along with transformation or overcoming something. Future casting is painting the picture of what it will look like in the future once that person has achieved that goal or has achieved that transformation. So let me give you a for instance. In your storytelling, you could say, you know, I did this and I did that and I drank the shakes and blah, blah, blah, and I lost a 100 pounds and it's great. And then you can say, imagine if you could do the same. Imagine how much energy you would have if you lost 30% of your body weight. Imagine how good you would feel, walking into a store and being able to pick any clothes right off the rack that you wanted and not having to special order big or tall sizes. Imagine playing with your kids and not getting winded. Right. That's future casting. That's your ability as a storyteller to paint the picture and show them what the future will look like when they achieve the transformation or the thing that they're looking for? Ok, you wanna make money in your business? Well, that's wonderful. But what does money mean to you? Is it freedom? Is it time, is it? I can hire a housekeeper and never have to do dishes again. Is it I can go on vacations and pay for them in cash and never could go on a vacation when I was a kid because we grew up poor, right? Like what does it mean for you or what does it mean for your audience? So you paint that picture of what it will look like in the future. That's future casting.

And the number four and last must have for persuasive storytelling in 2024 that I believe is absolutely true and have found success using this is simply that you can't hide your best information behind a paywall. So storytelling is about building trust, you can tell an amazing story. But if nobody believes you, if nobody trusts you, then the story doesn't matter, you're not going to persuade or convince anyone to take any action. If you yourself don't believe it. And if you haven't given them reason to believe it too. And what I see with a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners is that they're so worried about giving away the farm that they give away nothing. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that, oh, you should give your absolute best stuff for free and then everybody will be like, oh, this is amazing. What's the paid stuff? I'm not here to tell you that. And I'm not even saying that that's wrong. It is a strategy. It can work. It works for some people. But I've found and I have had a lot of success with sharing a taste of those trade secrets. Give them a little bit to nibble on, give them something that they can take and go oh, I learned that or oh, I didn't know that or, oh, man, she's right. And it doesn't even have to be that you teach them something or give something away. It can be a disbelief that they have in their minds that you then change. It can be all sorts of things but hiding all of your information behind a paywall and limiting yourself and being unwilling to share just because somebody hasn't paid you yet. Now, yes. Again, don't give away your best stuff for free. Right. Save that. But give them a hint, give them something, lead them down the path and make them curious to want more that will help with your persuasive storytelling. You can use phrases within your storytelling. Like do you wanna find out how? Do you wanna learn more? And then instantly in their head, whether they say it out loud or not, they're thinking, yes.

So in your persuasive storytelling, make sure you are creating connections. You are displaying transformations, you are future casting and you are sharing without limiting yourself and hiding everything behind a paywall. Good luck with your persuasive storytelling in 2024. And I can't wait to hear more about your success.

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing Podcast. If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life or given you insight on how you can build your own momentum, then please share this with a friend. And if you’re ready to grow your business on autopilot, then I want to help you get there easier and faster with a free copy of my entrepreneur’s survival kit.

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Thank you so much for joining me and I’ll see you on the next episode.

All content is written and recorded by Jillian Kendrick Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.

The Momentum Marketing Podcast

By Jillian Kendrick

Episode: #57

Topic: The Art Of Persuasive Storytelling

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