Ever since humans learned to communicate, storytelling has been instilled in our DNA.
Why?
Storytelling is the best way to pass down knowledge to other people.
Every time we meet up with friends, we spend almost all of our time telling stories. They could be new stories or old stories. It doesn’t matter.
We love telling and hearing stories.
This brand journey that you’re about to begin is going to have its roots set in storytelling.
Here is where a lot of people freak out because they think that they don’t have a great story to tell and I’m going to tell you that it doesn’t matter if you have a great story to tell.
Why?
Because your brand story isn’t about you.
It’s about them.
Your audience.
Remember that great brands are transformative?
The story of your brand is the story of the person that interacts with it and how they are able to transform into the person they want to become.
The Hero
Here is the gamechanger.
In your brand’s story, you are not the Hero.
In fact, you don’t want to be unless you’re paying yourself.
The audience is the Hero.
They may like to listen to your story of rags to riches but to be honest, that doesn’t apply to them or help them out at all.
They want to know how their story is going to end.
They want their own happy ending.
Props to you for getting yours, but how can they get theirs?
Think about any movie that you’ve fallen in love with. Why is that?
It isn’t because of the effects or the musical score.
It’s because you can relate to one or more characters. You see yourself in those characters.
In essence, you become the Hero of the movie.
If you can learn to tell a great story then you can learn how to build a great brand.
Don’t worry, the rest of this guide is going to show you how to tell a great story.
Nothing New
I’ll admit that when I first started to understand the power of storytelling and how it relates to business I was amazed. I didn’t know how extensive it was but I figured I had uncovered something new.
That’s how my ego likes to treat me.
Fortunately, there are people that have been exploring the art of storytelling and how it relates to business a lot longer than me.
Most notably Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller and Storytelling Made Easy by Michael Hauge.
Both are great books that I highly recommend.
What I hope to do in this handbook is to take the knowledge that I’ve gathered from others along with my own experience in building brands to craft a guide that works for anyone looking to build their own business.
No matter what type of Pocket Business you wish to build.
Thankfully, this really just means you have to follow a simple framework that all creative storytellers use.
Comedy, romance, drama, horror, it doesn’t matter. They all follow the same framework. Once you see and understand this framework your eyes will open up bigly.
You’ll start to see how other successful brands implement this framework.
So without wasting any more time, let’s dive in.