People buy your story first then your product - Week 7 Critique

I sit here at ICON16, an entrepreneur’s smorgasbord. Powerful speakers like Lisa Nichols, David Ramsey, and Digital Marketer Ryan Deiss inspiring, igniting, and communicating a common theme throughout their diverse messages. If you connect to the person whatever you are trying to achieve, the power lives in the relationship. People buy your story before they buy your product.

The importance of relationship building is not a new topic; it’s just one we seldom have formal training on in academia. Lisa Nichols, CEO, Motivating the Masses offers an easy approach to capturing your client using storytelling. She called it the Dip Theory. Step 1 - You meet your prospective client and tell them who you are now, your achievements, the BIG you. Step 2 - you tell them about an all time low, she calls this the Dip. Step 3 - you tell them about your rise from your Dip. What you have been through and who you get to be because of your life lessons.

To demonstrate the power of this familiar (high, low, high) story arc Lisa called a participant from the audience to take a stab at the Dip Theory approach. He told a pretty good story about his business, an education framework for online High School students that makes them totally responsible for their education. Inspired by his own lack of responsibility as a High School student and being offered an opportunity to get his act together independent of parental or school pressure.

The participant did a pretty good job telling us about his product, what inspired it, and why his product was special. However, when Lisa Nichols retold his story focusing on how he felt; disappointment in his self, how he felt embarrassment for his lack of accomplishment, how his parents felt, and what he had to tap into to overcome this personal challenge the entire audience was wowed. Whatever he was selling we all were open to buy two!

It was the emotions that hooked the audience. It was the emotional content that gave meaning, texture, and connection to the context and his product.

Lisa was masterful at labeling the emotional content of his message. A skill a good storyteller masters.

There is a finite range of emotions we all feel at some points in our lives. Emotions are the common thread we all share and relationships are built through conversations and the exchange of this emotional energy.