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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
THE UNNOTICED ENTREPRENEUR
THE VISIBILITY TOOLBOX: ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR GETTING NOTICED
If you don’t want to waste any more money on marketing guru’s, this book is for you.
Stacked with 50 real-world case studies, entrepreneurs explain in their words how they are getting noticed.
Each article is concise, short, and can be read stand alone or taken as a holistic approach.
Discover the mindset, tools and techniques that business owners are using to:
- Craft stories that resonate emotionally with customers.
- Maintain genuine connections, even as they scale.
- Create engaging content to drive lead generation.
- Amplify their message with easy-to-use tech.
- Communicate with their teams.
Includes special insights on podcasting, AI, and measurement.
This is the book that the guru’s don’t want you to read.
The UnNoticed Entrepreneur is the marketing toolbox that you need.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 434
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Who this book is for.
Prologue: The Need for Thymōs
PART ONE: Storify
Chapter One: Introduction.
Chapter Two: The Common Path to Uncommon Success.
Step 1: Identify Your Big Idea
The Three Common Traits All Successful Entrepreneurs Have
Step 2: Niche Down
Step 3: Create Your Avatar
Why You Need to Find or Create the Right Mastermind
Notes
Chapter Three: The Business of Story.
The Story of the World’s Most Industrious Storyteller
How Can You Be Your Customers’ Hero with Brand Bewitchery?
The Business of Your Story
Act One of Brand Bewitchery
How to Help Your Customers Solve a Problem
The Story Cycle and the ABT Framework
Brand Storytelling
A Narrative Spiral, Not a Circle
How to Get the Business to Stand Out
Proof of the Power of Stories
Chapter Four: Be Distinct or Go Extinct.
Unless You Stand Out, You’re Invisible
Brand, Market, Sell
What Is a Brand?
The Role of a Brand Strategist
What You Need To Offer
Make Yourself Distinct or Go Extinct
Chapter Five: 5Cs of Personal Branding.
The 5Cs of Personal Branding
Addressing Challenges
Chapter Six: The 8-seconds Pitch.
The Perfect Tools for Pitching
Make Personalised Pitches
Top Tips for Presenters
Chapter Seven: Case: Constructing a Story.
Telling a Unique Story
Focusing on One Industry
Generating Content, Opening More Opportunities
PART TWO: Personalise
Chapter One: Introduction.
Chapter Two: Teach Bots to Be Compassionate.
How They Help Bridge the Digital Divide
The Process of Teaching Bots
Understanding a Customer’s History
Hyper-Personalisation
Customer Relationship in the Digital Context
Chapter Three: Finding the Appropriate Asia Pacific-based Journalist.
Telum’s Best Features
How Telum Helps Companies Create Connections with Journalists
Why Telum Goes Hand in Hand with a Pr Agency
What Makes Telum Special?
Chapter Four: Call in the PR Cavalry.
The Perks of Hiring a Freelancer over an Agency
What Can the PR Cavalry Offer?
PR Is Not Only for Big Businesses
Chapter Five: The One Million Media Address Book.
How Prowly Gets You Noticed
Personalisation at Scale and Soon-to-Be Media Monitoring with Prowly
Chapter Six: Prospecting on LinkedIn.
The Goal of Waalaxy
How Waalaxy Works
Setting up a Campaign
Scope of Work
The Impact of Waalaxy
Chapter Seven: Website Personalisation at Scale.
What Unless Has to Offer
Why Empathy Matters
Unless’ Global Reach and Cost
Chapter Eight: Auto-Signature to Trust.
Newoldstamp’s Useful Features
Why Newoldstamp Is Special
No Need to Worry About Your Online Safety and Security
Newoldstamp Is for Companies of All Sizes
Chapter Nine: Inbound Marketing for Sales.
Why You Should Focus on Your Inbound Marketing More Than Ads
Finding the Best Content for Your Brand
How to Get Customers Through the Sales Funnel
Chapter Ten: Personal Service Earns Praise.
ReMark’s Service Offering
How ReMark Ensures Long-Term Success at an Affordable Price
Chapter Eleven: Case: A Virtual Village for Parents.
What Is Parentune All About?
Parentune’s Beginnings
Parentune Today
Tapping and Welcoming Experts Into the Platform
A Freemium Model
Parentune in the Time of COVID-19
Promoting Parentune
Chapter Twelve: Case: Building a Toothpaste Tribe.
Creating Awareness
Overcoming Challenges as a New Player in the Industry
Hearing Feedback from Consumers
Adjusting Own Strategy Using Insights from the Market
PART THREE: Engage
Chapter One: Introduction.
Chapter Two: Your Voice Performance.
Your Voice Should Depend on Circumstance and Environment
Proper Preparation
Exercises to Try
Breathing Is Key
Take Your Perception Into Account
Chapter Three: The Engaging Voice.
How to Find the Right Voiceover Artist for the Job
Professional Versus Amateur
Chapter Four: The Power Podcaster.
Be Confident and Passionate
Choose a Production Schedule that Works for You
Find Your Level of Comfort
Get Feedback from Listeners
Set Aside Enough Time for Production Work
Promote, Be Proactive, and Monetise
Choose Tools and Equipment that Suit Your Goals and Capabilities
Note
Chapter Five: Five-Stages to DIY PR.
The Five-Step Methodology
Eliminating the Middleman
The Efficient Way to Do It
Structuring Content for the Media
Avoiding Being Internally Focused
Creating Content Using Different Tools
Giving Voice to Small Startups
Chapter Six: The Media Interview.
Practise and Prepare
Talk About Something Relatable
Know the Program Where You’ll Be Featured
Be Mindful About Audio Quality
Tell a Topic Suitable for the Program
Put Yourself in the Media People’s Chair
Chapter Seven: Crisis Communications.
It’s Better to Be Prepared
Handling a Crisis Remotely
Communications Plans Are a Breathing Document
Trusting Your PR Firm
Chapter Eight: Surveys as a Source.
The Importance of Listening
How Evaluation Is Done
Countering Survey Dropouts
Making Surveys More Accurate
On Anonymity
The Cost of Surveys and Evaluations
Chapter Nine: Content from Social Impact Analytics.
Case study: Reducing Recidivism
What It’s Like Working with ImpactableX
Chapter Ten: The AI Content World.
Let AI Do the Writing for You
AI Is Universal in Its Usage and Its Reach
The Tesseract Academy
Chapter Eleven: Case: Legally Content.
Legal Services Made Accessible and Affordable
Addressing Challenges
Automating Eviction Forms
Making a Positive Impact
Chapter Twelve: Case: Edumercials Shine on Millions of Kids.
Learnings Worth Sharing
How Luna Golightly Came Into Fruition
Getting Help from Online Tools
Boosting Video Performance
Having Confidence in Your Ideas
Building Relationships Goes a Long Way
PART FOUR: Amplify
Chapter One: Introduction.
Chapter Two: Pitching to Journalists.
The Changing Media Landscape
The Press Record Process
Putting a Practical Roadmap
What’s an Effective Pitch
Let Your Pitch Stand Out
Proper Follow-up
On Storytelling
Handling Journalists Who Can’t Make It
Chapter Three: Dreaming of Being on TV?
Getting on TV
Why Bother Being on Radio and Podcast
Trying Out New Platforms
Setting up Your Home Studio
Staying Relevant
Chapter Four: Speaking at Events.
Reinforcing the Power of Purpose
Breaking Into a New Market
Why VaynerSpeakers Remain Tech-Agnostic
It All Boils Down to Authenticity
Leveraging the Internet
It’s Not About Fame, But the Ability to Share
Chapter Five: The Law of Reciprocity.
Navigating LinkedIn
From Waiter to Entrepreneur
The Law of Reciprocity
How to Get Your Audience’s Attention
On Remaining Authentic
Chapter Six: Avoid Podcast Fade.
Know Your Why
Who Should Do a Podcast
Focusing on What’s Possible
Planning Podcast Content
How to Get Other People on Your Show
How to Monetise Your Podcast
On Uploading Your Podcast on YouTube
Chapter Seven: Get Onto Digital Platforms.
The Evolution of Platforms
What Can Small- and Mid-size Companies Do?
Stepping Foot in the Platform Economy
The Role of Data
Marketing in the Digital Age
Chapter Eight: Data and Disruptive Content.
Everything is Data-Driven
The Rise of Data Targeting and Analytical Tools
What’s a Disruptive Content
Listening to Your Audience, Being Aware of What’s In
The Power of Search
Chapter Nine: B2B Content Marketing.
Content that Gives Real Customers
Proper Positioning and Messaging
On the Effectiveness of Podcasts
Repurposing Content
Chapter Ten: Using Gated Content for Leads.
Ensuring Consistency of Voice
It’s All About Advertising
Gated Versus Ungated Content
Role Models to Look Upon
Chapter Eleven: Leverage Online Events.
Tapping Technology
Gamification of Online Events
Replicating Traditional Trade Shows Online
Creating an Environment That Doesn’t Aim for Perfection
Maximising LinkedIn
Chapter Twelve: Virtual Events Online Forever.
How to Create an Event Using Swapcard
Virtual Events Are Here to Stay, Literally
Lower Cost, but Greater Return
Chapter Thirteen: Your Own TV Station.
Creating Her Network
Democratising Communication Through Technology
Growing the Organic Way
Opportunities to Earn
Changing Trends
Chapter Fourteen: Case: Joking Apart, Amazon Ranking.
The School of Hard Knock Knocks
What Made Morry Pick Apple TV
Chapter Fifteen: Case: Punk Rock Live.
Filming Music Videos
The Birth of “New York Hardcore Chronicles Live”
Using Hashtags, Ensuring Brand Continuity
More Than the Sum of All Parts
Building His Network
PART FIVE: Know
Chapter One: Introduction.
Chapter Two: Second Golden Martech Age.
Agility and Low-Cost Development
The “Second Golden Age of Martech”
Five Things Every Business Should Have When Going Online
AI and Budget for the Small Business Owner
Chapter Three: Choosing the Right Martech.
The 30-Minute Rule
Trends Your Business Might Not Want to Miss Out
What About the Data?
The Democratisation of Marketing Technology
Why Engage with Your Audience
The Impact of Video
Taking Geography Into Account
Chapter Four: Bias-Free Views on Behaviour.
Everybody Is Living in Media Bubbles
The Importance of Narratives
Global Information Made Accessible
Chapter Five: Social Listening as Protection.
Forewarned Is Forearmed.
Author’s Note
Notes
Chapter Six: STOP! Don’t Post Too Much.
No Longer Window Dressing
The Problem Qnary Solves
The Best Way to Understand Your Customers Is to Be One Yourself
Chapter Seven: Tracking Content Context.
From Fact-Checking to Media-Monitoring
Understanding Sentiments
How Their Technology Can Be Used
On Choosing a Topic to Track
What’s Next?
On Countering Bots
Chapter Eight: Only Qualified Leads Matter.
Marketing Qualified Leads
How Do You Reach Out and Get People to Talk to You?
Podcasting and the Edge It Offers
Chapter Nine: Case: Pew Research Center.
“The Single Biggest Problem with Communication.”
How Pew Research Center Gathers Information
Conclusion: It's Your Thymōs Time
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Guest Directory
Bibliography
Podcasts I listen to about PR and business:
Books: [in alphabetical order]
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Who this book is for
Prologue: The Need for Thymōs
Begin Reading
Conclusion: It's Your Thymōs Time
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Guest Directory
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
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THE UNNOTICED ENTREPRENEUR
GIVING ENTREPRENEURS THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO GET THE RECOGNITION THEY DESERVE
JIM JAMES
This edition first published 2021
Copyright © 2024 by Jim James. All rights reserved.
Edition HistoryCopyright © 2021 by Jim James.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Jim James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
Registered OfficesJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USAJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of WarrantyWhile the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781394195343 (Paperback)ISBN 9780857089779 (ePDF)ISBN 9780857089762 (ePub)
Cover Design: WileyCover Images: Sunray pattern © NeMaria/Shutterstock, blue toolbox © Stephen Plaster/Shutterstock
15 MINUTES OF FAME IS NOT ENOUGH. A BUSINESS NEEDS TO GET NOTICED ALL THE TIME.
Entrepreneurs know that their key role is to share the vision of the company. If you can sell the why, customers will buy the service.
Most business owners don't trust their own creative instincts, think an agency will cost a bomb and let them down, and believe that fame is the preserve of the big company.
This book delivers ideas and examples so that you don't have to be frustrated at being unnoticed.
Recognition is not a function of scale nor budget, but of simple and authentic ways to help people to understand you and your business.
Let my guests and I share with you how to #getnoticed for free.
You can do this. SPEAK|pr™
FRUSTRATED AT BEING THE UNNOTICED?
Fifty experts share how you can get noticed for what you do.
Who this book is for.
I dedicate this book to entrepreneurs who are passionate about creating value from nothing; the people who take risks themselves so that they can make a difference for the benefit of others.
My hope is that the ideas in this collection of essays will give you the ideas, connections, and motivation to get noticed for all the good that you do.
Prologue: The Need for Thymōs
I drove the Morgan Roadster into the Forbidden City in Beijing without a permit and felt the excitement of creating a spectacle which was at once both foolhardy and audacious. The dark blue uniformed police were making their way towards my film crew, and I held back the clamouring crowds craning their necks to see this British sports car that looked as though it had arrived by time machine. I shouted instructions to the photographers from a Chinese magazine to keep filming; I would not lose this perfect PR moment. This British racing green sports car with top down, chrome spoke wheels gleaming in the sunshine within sight of the portrait of Chairman Mao was going to be the cheapest, cheekiest, and most impactful public relations launch in the Middle Kingdom. And so it was. The Autocar publishers laid out the photos of my tan interior 4-seater Roadster across the pages of their magazine, and I had launched my business in China for free.
I have spent my life building brands by using public relations, with conventional campaigns augmented with moments like the Forbidden City photoshoot in 2011. I first got a taste for public relations when I needed to raise money at 18 by jumping out of an aeroplane, and convincing a store in my hometown of Canterbury to give me expedition equipment in return for media coverage. In Manchester, at postgraduate University, my friends and I organised the Manchester Marketing Mix and raised money for charity. After 5 years working variously in an advertising agency, a food import business, and a music technology company, in 1995 I left for Singapore to start my agency, EASTWEST Public Relations. I was 28 and so full of ambition and belief. When China entered the WTO in 2001, I was drawn to this magnet of entrepreneurial opportunity. I moved to Beijing in 2006 to start a communications business in a country where I couldn't speak the language.
For a person who has always enjoyed talking, as my family will tell you, being in a place where I could neither understand nor be understood created a massive learning experience, especially when I was in the business of helping others to communicate. Over a period of 13 years, I built several businesses, including the official importer of the Morgan Motor Company, my own EASTWEST Public Relations, and Wake Drinks. I also created the British Business Awards, the British Motorsport Festival and was hired as the interim CEO of Lotus Cars in China. I built all of these without spending money on advertising or expensive events. Just as I had done when I made my expeditions to Australia and Central America self-funded through sponsorship. What I have wanted to do with this book is have industry experts and technologists explain how you too can #getnoticed, with my experience being used to curate their insights for you.
For over 25 years, I have enjoyed both success and failure in business, and I think I can save you some of my mistakes, as I've asked experts on your behalf what will improve your chances of success. I've been a founder, an employee, and a consultant, and so I know the pain of wasting money and not being allowed to spend money, and watching others spend it unwisely. In all these situations, though, I came to appreciate that effective communication is an essential element of personal and professional success. Building businesses in China without a budget and not able to read or write Mandarin, and in a market of immense scale, taught me the valuable lessons of focus, visualisation of messaging, and the essential need to use technology for the entire process.
Back now in the UK, with time to reflect and COVID enforcing long periods of concentration, I wanted to help other business owners communicate, not by asking them to become PR professionals but by sharing free and effective means to #getnoticed. When I returned to England in 2019, I saw my brilliant sister struggling to share her much needed message about the impact of light on children simply because she didn't know how to build a story and to share it. I saw so many people struggling under COVID, who needed new marketing skills just in order to survive. I wanted to help in a way that used my skills to the best effect. So in June 2020, I started “The UnNoticed Show” podcast, to help all those amazing entrepreneurs like my sister who can't afford an agency, and frankly don't really need one either, but can do such good if they can find ways to share their message.
I have sought experts, entrepreneurs, and technologists who are solving the problems founders face every day, and put them into a framework so that this is public relations for people who don't want to become PR professionals, just to use PR for their purposes. First though, let's address the poor reputation of public relations itself, that it is just “spin” or “gin-slings.” Getting noticed goes much deeper than that.
Getting noticed is more than just a business issue, it's personal. Thymōs is the Greek term for the need for recognition, and in Platonic philosophy is that area of the soul where feelings of pride, indignation, shame, etc. are located. In his book TheEnd of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama coined the terms: “Megalothymia” which refers to the need to be recognised as superior to others, and “Isothymia” is the need to be recognised as merely equal to others. In Homeric poems, thymōs is one of a family of terms associated with the internal psychological processes of thought, emotion, volition, and motivation.
Today, we know that feelings of pride and self-esteem impact levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain, releasing the “happy chemical” at a biological and sociological level, meaning that we need to get noticed as people. As entrepreneurs we are the business, we put our heart, souls and bodies into these ventures with all kinds of dreams, and anonymity does nothing to validate our aspirations, nor deliver sales. Anyone who has undertaken investor relations will know that the third-party validation of media or analyst coverage can affect valuations, recruitment is easier when candidates have heard of your company, supplier credit terms are better and of course sales pipelines fill up much more quickly.
I've compiled this second volume of The UnNoticed Show© to give you ways to release more serotonin into the collective bloodstream of your company. This book is a curation of just 50 articles drawn from the >200 interviews, which I've held since June 2020 with entrepreneurs, experts, and technology providers on the 20-minute format podcast. The style that you are going to read is conversational because these are curated versions of the transcripts, not elements drafted into a new article. I've taken this approach intentionally because I want to share the energy, tone, and personality of my guests as if you were to meet them.
I kept each episode intentionally short for two reasons: (i) You won't have a lot of time, and will want to get to the details; and (ii) You don't want to become PR experts, just to learn enough to give directions to others to take the right strategy. It was hard to decide on just 50, but I want to keep to the philosophy of being economical with your time.
Besides the guest essays, I introduce the SPEAK|pr™ programme as a framework for approaching public relations. This is a five-stage method I have developed to help structure the approach. There is a wealth of tactical information available on the internet, but it seems to me there is a dearth of strategy, and yet as business owners, we need to create a consistency and automated flow of information that, once set up, we can give to others to implement. I want to provide a broader overview of what thinking needs to go into developing a consistent communications campaign. I'll introduce a framework which I have been working under the name “SPEAK|pr™” which stands for: Storify, Personalise, Engage, Amplify, Know. I have curated the interviews nominally by each stage of the framework, although there is overlap of course and ask for you to forgive the omissions or repetitions for which I am entirely to blame. I invited my guests to answer one of two questions:
Entrepreneurs to answer — “How do you get noticed?”
Technologists and experts to answer — “How do you help entrepreneurs get noticed?”
In doing so I have hoped to create both an inside-out and outside-in approach, which serves you in whatever role you play. This isn't of course a textbook, it is a series of conversations and formatted that way, with practical, easy to implement ideas which you can use to improve the recognition that you and your organisation receive from the people that matter. I have an online programme and mastermind for the SPEAK|pr™ programme for anyone who would like to go into more depth, but the goal of this book is to include you in the conversations I have had with 50 people around the world who are solving the same problems that you are facing every day.
I am most grateful to all of my guests for sharing their time and insights with me and allowing me to share these in the podcast, articles, and now this book. I am also grateful to everyone who has listened to The UnNoticed Show and been patient with me as I have rambled, stumbled, and stuttered whilst learning this new medium. I couldn't believe it when I learned that the show has reached the top 3% ranking of worldwide podcasts, with listeners from 121 countries and 2151 cities. It just goes to show that there are people like us all over the world who experience frustration daily at being unnoticed and having a business which has potential that is unfulfilled. We are all searching for Thymōs for all the right reasons – as the Champion of the UnNoticed, I want to help you find yours.
Keep on communicating!
JIM JAMES
PART ONEStorify
Chapter OneIntroduction.
“Marketing is no longer about what you sell, but about the stories you tell.”
— Seth Godin, Author
When I started the Morgan business in China, I knew I had to tell the story of this 100-year-old brand from the UK with a locally relevant context. If I were to simply promote a hand-built car being sold to retirees in the UK as being available to the newly rich in China, I would fail. Instead, I had to make the ownership of a Morgan be seen as a part of the life story of those Chinese who aspired to be seen as international, as cultured, and as this was China, a healthy dose of Megalothymia. This had to be their story being told through the ownership of my cars.
People love stories, and yet in business, we often cannot remember that this simple narrative device is how we all learn and engage with concepts and with other people. Storify stands for the process by which you can think about your business as if it were a story in a novel or a film, with a cast, a plot, and set of circumstances and challenges to be overcome. The traditional approach to public relations is that the hero for the story of the company is the founder or CEO, but actually, the most successful campaigns are when the hero is the customer and the company is the facilitator, the mentor that enables that hero, who is the centre of your story, to accomplish their objectives.
Underpinning the idea of storification is that you are placing yourself and your business in a position of service to your clients. When we talk about storification, it’s really liberating because your communication is about the story of your customer, staff or partner, and how you help them fulfil their journey with you in a supportive role. In practical terms, this meant that I was constantly looking at my 3D strategy of “Drive, Display, and Digital” to create stories around the Morgan brand with Chinese as the central characters in my cast.
In this section, I’ve covered interviews which will help you define what your story is, how to tell it, to brand yourself and your company, and a case study of how a focus on one story helped an Agency in America to grow. John Lee Dumas shared with me three central chapters from his best-selling book, The Common Path to UnCommon Success culminating from his podcast EO on Fire which has interviewed over 3000 entrepreneurs. Park Howell, “The World’s Most Industrious Story Teller” gives a three-part series which is a synopsis of his book and course, which shows you how to construct the narrative for your business. Branding guru Gerry Foster has coached over 100 000 business owners and shared his approach “To be distinct or extinct,” and Michelle Griffen delivered the “5Cs” of personal branding to complement Gerry’s masterclass. Eight seconds is all we have when pitching, or the audience will lose concentration, and you’ll lose the sale, and Martin Barnes explains the core concepts of great presentations so that the story doesn’t get lost in the PowerPoint animation. Finally, just to prove that story really works, Chris Martin of Atlas Marketing is focused on the construction industry, and shares a case study of how they solved a clients’ PR problem with a story about the willingness of their client to work to the peculiar time table of their clients.
The power of story is that when done well, it becomes retold by those who are part of it. Ultimately, in order for the story of your company to be told beyond your own network, it’s necessary for others to share it with their networks. By understanding the power of story, and placing your customers, team, and partners at the centre of that story you will have amplification; but we will talk about that later on.
Chapter TwoThe Common Path to Uncommon Success.
Interview with Puerto Rico based John Lee Dumas; the best-selling author and host of the EO on Fire podcast.
If you don’t know John Lee Dumas, he is the founder and host of the award-winning podcast “Entrepreneurs on Fire.” He has over a million monthly listeners and seven figures of annual revenue, which he very generously and transparently shares. He also has a new book entitled The Common Path to Uncommon Success.
In the past eight years, John has done 3000 interviews with successful entrepreneurs. He has spent thousands of hours talking with people who have achieved massive levels of success. From those conversations, he has discovered that there is a very common path to uncommon success.
Step 1: Identify Your Big Idea
One misconception John first wants to address is how people are made to believe that the path to success is complicated or hidden, but that’s not true. The path to uncommon success is simple and clear, which is why he has created a 17-step roadmap, and this begins with your big idea. So many people never think about what their big idea is, what that looks like, or what that means, which is why they don’t achieve success. John’s big idea, back in 2012, was to do the first ever daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs. Because he was the first and only daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs, that meant he was the best, but he was also the worst.
Back to his book, John has interviewed 17 amazing entrepreneurs that contributed to his 17 chronological steps, each one specifically because they are experts in that one specific step. Hal Elrod is the entrepreneur John interviewed for his big idea and his basis for writing Chapter One of his big book, and he shares that Hal’s big idea was creating a Miracle Morning, which everybody needs to start, and he hopes people realise that that is where the power lies.
The Three Common Traits All Successful Entrepreneurs Have
One important lesson John has uncovered is that no one is born an entrepreneur. John gave entrepreneurship a try at 32 years old, and here he is now, so it is never too late. The successful entrepreneurs he’s interviewed have specific characteristics in common, the first of which is that they are all productive, meaning they are producing the right content. The second common trait these entrepreneurs have is discipline, because without the daily plan of action, you’re not going to achieve the level of uncommon success you want. The third shared trait is being focused, which is where you follow one course until success. If you have one big idea and you focus laser-like on that one big idea, you stand a chance of achieving success.
If you fail, John says it’s because of one reason: you haven’t created the best solution to a real problem, which is a simple concept that most people don’t seem to grasp. Entrepreneurs on Fire did so great even back in 2012 when it was first launched, because it was the best solution to a real problem, the problem being that people wanted more interviews and entrepreneurs to listen to. Nobody was doing it, so John created the only, therefore the best, solution to a real problem.
Step 2: Niche Down
Most people create a watered down solution to a hypothetical problem and nobody cares, but what his book does is it takes you on that journey to help you identify your big idea and then move into Chapter Two, which is about discovering your niche within that big idea. For John, there’s no niche too small, because even a niche of one is big enough. Niche down until you can be the best solution to a real problem, he says. Whether it might be six or seven levels down, or only two or three, you need to go through that process.
Step 3: Create Your Avatar
Step three is creating your avatar. That’s the perfect customer, client, listener, follower, or consumer of your content, products, or services. Having multiple avatars will cause you to fall back onto having generic marketing, and you will blend in and not be heard or discovered. John’s avatar back when he launched Entrepreneurs on Fire was a 32-year-old father of two young children in a 25-minute commute to work whose name is Jimmy. This didn’t mean that other people weren’t listening to his podcast, but he served his avatar better than anybody else, and he achieved success as a result.
John has really managed to communicate his value around the world, and he says that he’s been able to do so by keeping things simple and clear. He goes back to his beginning steps about identifying a big idea and discovering the niche within that big idea that you can be the best solution to a real problem. And then, once you create your avatar as a next step, you go out and find them. That avatar could be listening to podcasts, on YouTube, watching shows, on social media, reading blogs, or more. Though his book outlines this simple concept, John cautions that it is not a simple process, because if it was, everybody would be doing it.
Now, in terms of the timeline, John says an entrepreneur should be able to implement these 17 steps realistically in 3–6 months and build a foundation for a successful business. In the end, John’s goal is to release people from that inability to get behind things that they believe in. John and his partner, Kate, have been able to donate multiple six figures to causes they believe in. Over the years, they have built five schools in developing countries such as Guatemala, Laos, and Cambodia. They are giving the gift of education, because they’re financially in a situation to be able to do that, which is admirable. Apart from that, he wants to give the common path to uncommon success to his audience, so that they can achieve the type of uncommon success that they want to and the type of financial freedom that they can so they can ultimately support and give back to something that they believe in.
Why You Need to Find or Create the Right Mastermind
On his podcast, John ends every single one with, “Hey, Fire Nation. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You’ve been hanging out with myself and Jim today, so keep up the heat,” and one of the steps in his book is teaching people how to create or join a mastermind. If you’re not in a mastermind, John says you’re missing out. The accountability, the companionship, the lessons, and the collaboration are all critical, which is why he teaches you how to find the right mastermind or how to create the right mastermind, and then how to make sure your mastermind is being run correctly, which is also key. If that’s not part of what you’re doing on a weekly basis, you’re never going to achieve the levels of uncommon success that you’re capable of.
To learn more about John, you can visit his website.*†
Notes
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There, he explains in a video more details about his book, of which there are five bonuses that come with the pre-order. They are going to slowly start to take those bonuses away, so it is a timely thing to jump on it now and lock in all five of those bonuses. If you live in the US, one bonus is free delivery of all three of his journals, the Freedom, Mastery, and Podcast Journals. If you’re outside the US, you still get immediate access to all three of those journals, which are all bestsellers and are on sale on Amazon for $45.
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There are so many lessons to be learned from John Lee Dumas. Again, his book,
The Common Path to Uncommon Success
, is available for pre-order. So, don’t forget to identify your big idea, find your niche, and create your avatar. With the SPEAK|pr programme, this will help you Storify your business, personalise the avatar, create compelling content, amplify that through technologies, and then use the Active Communications Index to track how much you’re doing against your goals so you can achieve the success you envision.
Chapter ThreeThe Business of Story.
Interview with Phoenix, Arizona, based Park Howell; “The world’s most industrious storyteller,” author of Brand Bewitchery, The Narrative Gym for Business, and top rated podcast “The Business of Story.”
Fresh from launching his book, Brand Bewitchery Park was so full of great information and energy that I asked him to come onto three separate 20-minute episodes. The result is three articles which summarise how you can create a story for the heroes of your business.
Albert Einstein once said that if you want your children to be smart, tell them stories. But if you want them to be brilliant, tell them more stories. Park Howell is known as, by all accounts, “The world’s most industrious storyteller,” and he’s launched a book called Brand Bewitchery: How to Wield the Story Cycle SystemTMto Craft Spellbinding Stories for Your Brand. Aside from that, he has his Business of Story podcast where he shares how he can help you and your business grow.
The Story of the World’s Most Industrious Storyteller
Park has been in the advertising branding-marketing world for 35 years. Before that, he studied and got his degree in Public Relations from Washington State University. He was in the PR world and worked for a couple of agencies where he found himself in a cubicle writing, which he got bored of. He was lucky, though, because the PR firm he was working for, which was also his very first employer, had a very small, struggling ad department, and they were getting overwhelmed with work, so they asked him to write a few ads. This was something that he discovered he enjoyed doing. So, he then worked in agencies that had both advertising and PR, and eventually started his own firm in 1995 called Park & Co. 2006 is when Park started looking for an answer, and that’s where he found story. That was the genesis of him finally writing and producing Brand Bewitchery, his new book.
He said it was really easy back then, when the brands owned the influence of mass media. They had radio, TV, billboards, outdoor direct mail events, public relations, and no Yelp. In 2006, all of that started to change with the advent of the internet, e-commerce, and blogs. Today, 14 years later, it has extremely shifted. When before, brands used to own the influence of mass media, now, the masses are the media, and they own your story. People are so bombarded with content that the brain cannot remotely digest at all.
When it comes to what made him believe that a story should emerge out of this sea of digital and social media, he says it was around the time that his middle child, his son Parker, had just started film school at Chapman University in Orange, California, which is a prominent film school. His son graduated in 2010, has been in Hollywood ever since, and is a director who does a lot of work in virtual reality and mixed reality motion graphics. With his son being in school, this pushed Park to evolve as a communicator. He said to himself, “My son is going to school to become a competitive storyteller in the storytelling capital of the world, LA. What do they teach him? What does Hollywood know that I should know that could give me an advantage over my competition and help me understand how to communicate with my clients and help them hack through the noise and hook the hearts of their audiences?” That’s where he found storytelling.
How Can You Be Your Customers’ Hero with Brand Bewitchery?
In Brand Bewitchery, Park writes about the need for the business owner to be a mentor to their customer’s hero. It’s not like telling stories at bedtime. This is really about how you convert your story into a promise, a client, or a customer, and it begins by thinking as a storyteller and thinking through the narrative mind. As Park’s son was going to Chapman, he told his son to send him his books once he’s through with them, since he’s paying for them anyway. He wanted to know what they were teaching him, and there, he came across the hero’s journey and saw it as an amazing strategy that he could use in business storytelling, and that was the inspiration for his 10-step Story Cycle System.
The key to the hero’s journey and the key to every great story, Park says, is always about a single character or protagonist. It’s not about a family or group. It’s always about a single individual and the journey they’re on. That got Park to thinking back in the olden days, before 2006, when brands owned the influence of mass media and were very brand-centric. They were just cramming content down people’s faces and saying, “You have to do it our way. If you want to be cool, you have to buy our product.” That changed when people started telling their own stories online, calling brands out, and asking for authenticity and honesty. Now, brands have to make a significant paradigm shift and realise they are not the centre of their brand story; their customers are. Once you put your customer at the centre of your story, it requires you to understand them, what they want in life, where they are on their journey to get what they want, and how you can be there as their mentor to guide them through that. It’s a total paradigm shift of taking yourself out of being the centre of the story and placing your audience there. Doing that will give you a whole new view on how to communicate your brand.
Park also talks about nine different descriptors in his book, which came about through helping people pull together their brand story strategy using the Story Cycle System. It was what people started naturally doing, and he calls it the “OOOH” exercise. The three Os, your power threes, stand for Organisation, Offering, and Outcomes. Then he asks you to think of three one-word descriptors that describe your organisation in general, and then finally, to give three one-word descriptors that describe your outcome. What do people actually achieve by using your product or service? Once you have those nine, which is divisible by three, the power of three, tell a story. Grab each one of those words, and you’re going to end up with nine different stories. Tell a story about each particular word, about your real world impact, and how your brand expresses itself and shows up in the world.
It’s a beautiful way to prove what you’re trying to do when you’re creating your brand story, because people are so often very aspirational, as they should be, but sometimes, it’s hard to get your employees on board, but then you overlay these stories and realise that it actually is very much like that. Not only does it prove that what you really stand for is true and authentic, but it also gives you amazing content that you can use in public relations, in inbound and outbound marketing, and on your website. It also changes your focus from telling case studies, which are typically brand-focused, to what Park calls case stories, which are, again, placing your audience or your customer at the centre of the story, and where you show up at the very end to help them achieve something. But again, the story is about them, not about you.
The Business of Your Story
For the Business of Story, Park’s podcast or organisation, he has three words. The first is mage, which is a sorcerer that describes himself to be. His next word is industrious, as the world’s most industrious storyteller as coined by one of his clients, which he liked so much and just ran with it. He also says industrious, because he uses story to build careers, to build businesses, and to build brands. The last word is optimistic, because Park considers himself very optimistic. The Business of Story is about optimism, and a true, well-told story typically has an optimistic view to it. He says it’s a word about his offering. The Business of Story is primal. It is a very primal way that Homo sapiens communicate, as Homo sapiens are the only known being that actually use story, story structure, and problem-solution dynamic. In his offering, what he demonstrates is how primal this is and how people can move from being intuitive storytellers to intentional ones.
Park then mentions this excerpt from his book: “The various narrative frameworks you can use to tell a story have a rich, proven history of effectively connecting with people and moving them to action. In fact, they are primal to us storytelling monkeys. In the fall of 2018, I was working with 60 engineers and executives at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Phoenix. They were a smart and very logic-driven crowd, so I shared with them how our minds are hardwired for story by telling them a tale of Fog, the caveman, which is one of my favourite tales to tell. One evening, Fog returned to his cave looking a little worse for wear. His plump cavern roommate, Larry, grunted, “Fog, you don’t looks so good. What happened?” He explained, “Fog go to stream to catch sabre tooth salmon for dinner.” “Uh huh,” grunted Larry, “but sabre-toothed tiger show up. Fog give tiger salmon. Tiger like salmon better than Fog, so here I am safe in cave with you.” “Aha,” grunted Larry, nodding at the end sight.
And there you have it. Park says it’s a perfect three-act story structure delineated by Larry’s “Uh huh” setup, “Uh oh” conflict, and “Aha” resolution. Its story structure is so basic, even a caveman can do it.
It’s setup, problem, and resolution, and then he goes on to teach people how to use the “And, But, Therefore” (ABT) framework which is the exact same story dynamic, but this can be used in public relations, marketing, and branding, and it is extremely powerful. He’s also got different stages: heroes, stakes, disruption, antagonist, mentor, the journey, the victory, the moral, and the ritual part. To make sense of that, Park brings back to the 10-step Story Cycle System that was inspired by Campbell’s hero’s journey, which is anywhere from 12 to 17 steps, depending on where you read it. This is mapped to business, and you can think of it in the three-act structure.
