SPI 927: The Five-Step Story Method That Grows Your Brand

SPI 927: The Five-Step Story Method That Grows Your Brand

Pat Flynn: Let me tell you a story. It’s 2010, 16 years ago, and I just started speaking on stage, and I’m standing backstage at one of my very first conferences as a speaker, and of course, because it’s my first time, my palms are very sweaty, my heart is absolutely pounding out of my chest, and I’m staring at my notes, I’m looking at my slides, just trying to remember everything that I could, right? Every single bullet point.

And then I get introduced. I step out on stage, look at the sea of faces, and I do what I thought I was supposed to do. I just go right into the tips and tactics and the strategies and all the things that I was invited on stage to talk about, right? And I’m giving them value.

That’s what I thought they wanted. But halfway through, I noticed something. I can tell that the audience is starting to checkout, right? They’re checking their phones, they’re looking at their computers, and some of them are whispering to each other, and that’s not good. That’s the last thing you want to see when you are up on stage.

I’m losing them. So, I stop with all the tips, I take a breath, and I remember that I had forgotten to start with a story. I just wanted to rush into what I knew they wanted to, or I thought I knew what they wanted to hear about. But I go back and tell them the story about how I got laid off from my dream job.

I didn’t have any Word for word sort of scripts related to this. I just told a story how I landed my dream job and then I lost it. And the fear I was experiencing, the very first thing I did was call other architecture firms as soon as I got laid off, because that’s, I just wanted back in. And I told a story about how I started my first online business and suddenly the room changes.

People look up, they lean in, they close their laptops. They’re with me. And that was the moment that I realized that storytelling isn’t just a nice to have. It is the most powerful tool that you can have as a communicator, an entrepreneur, and a creator. Especially a creator. And today I want to give you the ultimate guide to telling stories that move people, build trust, and grow your business, no matter where you’re starting from.

So if you’ve ever thought, I don’t have a story to tell, or I’m not a natural storyteller, this episode is for you, because I thought those exact same things. And there’s a lot of resources out there. There are amazing books, and podcast episodes, and YouTube videos about storytelling. If you’re listening to this now, hopefully this is the one and only episode of anything you need to listen to, if you want to master storytelling once and for all.

So, let’s zoom out for a second. Storytelling, obviously, is not new. In fact, it’s the oldest form of communication that we have. Before there was writing, before there were books, before the internet, there were stories. Stories that were told around campfires, stories painted on cave walls, stories passed down from generation to generation.

Why? Because stories are how we make sense of the world. They’re how we remember things. They’re how we connect. Think about it. Every culture, every religion, every family has its stories. Stories are how we teach lessons, share values, and inspire action in others. It’s not the tips and tactics and strategies that get remembered, it’s the stories that wrap those strategies and tactics and tools within them. And here’s the wild part. Even as technology has advanced, right? Radio, into TV, into podcasts, into YouTube, into short form video platforms, the best content, the content that sticks is always built on a story. And as AI gets better and better at generating information, the one thing it can never truly replicate is the soul of a story told by a real human being.

And that’s why in a world of infinite content, storytelling is our superpower. It will become your superpower. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Pat, I’m just starting out. I don’t have a story. My life isn’t interesting. I haven’t had any dramatic moments happen worth telling a story about. But let me bust that myth right now.

You have stories all around you. You just haven’t learned to see them yet. A story doesn’t have to be a Hollywood blockbuster. It can be a moment of doubt before you hit publish on your first blog post. It can be a conversation you overheard at a coffee shop. It can be the feeling you had when you made your first sale or made your first mistake.

I remember one of my most well responded to presentations started with a story about my son, Keoni. And he was very little at this time. Right now, he’s 16 years old, people. He is 16! Some of you remember when he was on the show, when he was born. And he started talking. Anyway, he’s 16 now, but back when he was I think 7 or 8 years old, he had asked to take an iPad in the car with him.

We limit iPad time, and for a while he was starting to want more and more of it and he had asked to take this iPad in the car and we had this conversation. And the conversation eventually led me to say yes, because of the way that he talked about it. To make a long story short, I’m not going to tell this story here, not in full, but the gist of it is I had asked him to convince me why I should let him, and he came up with a really great answer, which was so we could learn how to play Minecraft and become a better builder, so that if I as a former architect wanted to learn more about architecture, he could teach me.

And I thought that was a worthy, yes. And so I pulled that story. It was just a small little moment in a day that I pulled out and I refined and practiced and it became an incredible, comedic, but very important moment on stage, this was at Youpreneur in the UK, at Chris Ducker’s event back before COVID, I think it was 2018, I gave a presentation where that story embedded itself, and it was all about the idea of knowing who your audience is, and what’s in it for them, and you speak to them, not about you, you, you, you talk about them, them, them.

So, this was just, again, the whole purpose of me saying this here, that was just a little moment. Nothing life changing, nothing that was gonna make any headlines, but it was a moment that made sense to pull out and share as a story that then has become a part of a dinner conversation at one point, it was brought on stage several times because it was so well received the first time, and this is the idea of building your story bank over time, collecting these stories, putting them into Notion, and collecting these things over time so you can use them when you might need them down the road.

Alright, the secret is to learning to see your everyday experience as stories, and then learning how to wrap them in a way that connects with others, and that’s what I’m gonna teach you today. So, let’s get nerdy for a second. Why do stories work? It’s not just because they’re entertaining. When you hear a story, your brain releases oxytocin. The Connection Chemical.

There’s a chemical, yes, in our brains that help us connect. Stories activate more parts of your brain than facts or data alone. You don’t just process the information, you feel it, you remember it. It’s sort of like mirror neurons. And that’s why you can remember the plot of a movie you saw 10 years ago, but you can’t remember the bullet points from a meeting last week.

Stories create empathy. They build trust. They make your message stick. And in business, that is everything. Shoutout to Dan and Chip Heath, who wrote the book Made to Stick. That was one of the first business books that I read. And the reason why I remember a lot of that book is because they wrapped a lot of their lessons in stories.

Which makes sense because that book was about how to get things to stick and not be forgotten.

Okay, so let’s get practical now. I’m going to teach you something called the Five C Method. This is a simple, repeatable framework that you can use to tell any story, whether it’s on a podcast, in a video on stage, or even in a small sales call. And there are many frameworks for storytelling. You’ll see this mirrors a lot of very famous ones.

There’s a hero’s journey and a few others like that. But this is the Five C Method. One is context. Two is character, three is conflict, four is change, and five is conclusion. Context, character, conflict, change, conclusion. So let’s break it down.

Number one, context. Set the scene. Where are we? When is this happening? What is the situation?

So for example, I already shared something. It was 2010. I was backstage at my first conference. My heart was pounding. Palms are sweaty. Those details in storytelling are really important because they become relatable, right? The heart pounding, the palms sweaty. That was purposefully put in there.

Two, who is the character? Well, the story is about what or who it could be. You, it could be a customer, a friend, or even someone you read about, but it has to be somebody, right? I was the new guy, terrified of public speaking, convinced that I was about to embarrass myself.

Three. Conflict. What is the challenge, the obstacle, or where does the tension exist?

Every great story has a problem to solve. For example, I started my talk, but people were checking their phones. I was losing them. I felt like a fraud. Those are conflicting thoughts. Thoughts that conflict with where my goal is, or where I want to be, or what I want to do.

Change is number four. What happened next? What did I do? Or what did you do? What did you realize? This is the turning point in the story. I stopped reading off my bullet points, and I just started telling them a story about how I got laid off. Started going into what was going through my mind, my first reactions, my first steps about starting over.

Suddenly, people looked up, and they leaned in.

And then five, conclusion, how did it end? What did I learn? What is the takeaway? And the takeaway there was I learned that facts and tips are forgettable, but stories connect. And that’s how I built my business from that moment on. So that’s it.

Context, character, conflict, change, conclusion. And you can use this for big stories, you can use it for small stories, even micro stories in your social posts.

Now, let’s talk about how to find stories. Here’s the secret. Every day is full of potential stories. You just have to train yourself to notice them. And here are three ways to spot stories.

So, number one, moments of emotion. Anytime you feel something throughout the day, fear, excitement, frustration, joy, that is a story seed. So go throughout today, the rest of today and tomorrow, and think about when you feel some sort of emotion. Those are opportunities for stories.

Firsts and fails. This is another way to discover stories, right? Your first sale, your first rejection, your first big win, your biggest mistake. These are gold. Why? Because people want their first whatever as well as an audience, or they are going through those similar kinds of failures, or they’ve experienced that before, or it’s the thing they want to avoid, so they want to learn how to avoid that. They are interested in how you handle that.

And number three, questions and conversations. Anytime someone asks you a question or you find yourself explaining something, that’s a story waiting to be told. Yes, it might be more factual, but that’s where you can take that fact and wrap a story around it. So what I would do at this point is start your story bank, if you haven’t already. A story journal, perhaps. It’s maybe a small notepad that you have on your phone and or a physical one. Every day, jot down one thing, at least one thing, that happened that made you feel something or taught you something. And you’re going to be amazed about a week or two from now, you’ll find that you’ll have a small collection of stories that you’re able to pull out and refine and optimize.

You’re going to be amazed at how many stories you have in such a short period of time. So let’s go back to the beginning for a second. Storytelling is how we as humans survived. It’s how we warned each other about danger, taught each other about how to hunt, how to love, how to live. And as technology advances, AI, automation, deep fakes, the one thing that will always set you apart is your ability to tell a real human story. This is going to become the most valuable skill that any human being can learn. No algorithm can replicate your lived experience. No AI can capture the soul of your journey. And that is why, as entrepreneurs and creators, storytelling isn’t just a skill.

It is a skill. Literally, your last best advantage. So let’s break down the Five C Method once again. Those  Five Cs are Context, Character, Conflict, Change, and Conclusion. So let’s go through some examples. So example number one, the customer win. And I love this example because it really speaks to one of my favorite storytelling books.

And this is Donald Miller’s StoryBrand 101, or How to Build a StoryBrand is the actual name of the book, and this is where you make your customers the hero of the story. You tell their context, their character, you talk about them, their conflict, their change, and where they ended up. And ideally, when you tell that story about your customer, or your subscriber, or your follower, people will want to go to the same place where they got that transformation, i. e. you.

Okay, so the customer win. Example one. Last month, I got an email from Sarah, a new course student. This is context. Now you have a place in this story as a listener. Sarah was a mom of three, working nights, trying to start a side hustle. This is who it’s about, and I explained a little bit more about her.

Working mom, starting a side hustle. Conflict. She tried three different businesses and failed every single time. Not where she wants to be. Something that’s relatable to the audience as well. Here’s the change. But, after joining the SPI Community, she landed her first client. And now she’s making an extra $1,000 a month, and more importantly, she believes in herself again.

So that is a huge customer win, and we try to tell these stories all the time. And you maybe heard recently a number of people who had participated in our 30 day video challenge. We just wrapped our 14 day challenge, and we’re going to have more stories to pull out from that as well. And the more we do that, the more excited the audience gets because these are real people.

I’m not just telling my story, I’m telling a story of somebody like them, maybe a future version of them, for example.

Example two, the personal fail. A few years ago, I launched a product that totally flopped. Many of you have heard this story already. But I was so sure that it was going to work. I had done all the research, I had hired the right developer, even my friends have launched similar things that did very well with a smaller audience than mine.

I never launched it. I felt embarrassed because what I ended up creating was something that nobody needed. So instead of hiding the things that I create, I share them up front. I’ve learned, in conclusion, that sharing your ideas up front and having people poke holes in them before you spend money, before you dedicate that time, before you create the thing, is so much more valuable than the worry of somebody stealing that idea.

There’s so much benefit of sharing your ideas and pre selling that idea. And not just to hold yourself accountable, but to have people figure out what’s wrong with it before you create it. The other conclusion of that story was part of the reason why I got into that venture, the software WordPress plugin that I was going to build, was because I was chasing money.

When I made the money the primary objective and not helping people, I didn’t build the right thing. And that was a huge lesson that I’ve now continued to pass forward and I’ve written about in books and have told it here on the podcast many times.

And here is another example, the everyday micro story, this is something that just happens, I’ve already told one about Kaoni and the iPad, but here’s another one.

Yesterday, I was at the grocery store, and the cashier looked exhausted, and she apologized for being slow, this is out of Trader Joe’s, and she was working, I think, a double shift, I found out that she covered for somebody else, and I thanked her. I just thanked her for showing up and told her that she was doing great, and from that point forward, she smiled, and I think I changed her day. I helped it from down spiraling even more, right? Sometimes a small story can make a big difference. So again, just a little example of somebody who I saw having a tough time and help them out. And guess what? Smiles are free. Compliments are free. You can give them away as much as you want and you’re not going to lose anything.

Okay, so let’s get even more practical here, right? Here are my top tips for beginner storytellers. Start small. You don’t need a TED Talk. You could start with a 60 second story on Instagram or short. Or maybe a quick story ends up in your next email. That’s it. It could just start there. It doesn’t have to be this crazy, long, two hour movie.

It could literally be a 60 second video. And this is why, again, I love the idea of starting with short form video. You could practice these things day in and day out and get better at them. You’ll have more opportunities, more reps under your belt. Be sure to use the Five C Method. Write out your story with the five steps.

You can practice telling it out loud. You can use AI in this situation to tell them about the Five C Method and train it on that, and then. Maybe just voice a story that happened to you today and have it come up with the five C’s for you for that story. These sort of opportunities to work with AI as sort of creative partners is where I think AI shines.

When you just input something and copy paste from it or you, you know, use it for art, not good. So number three, be vulnerable. Don’t just share your wins, share your struggles, your doubts, your lessons learned. These are the things that could really connect with people. Next, paint pictures. Use sensory details, right?

What did you see? What did you hear? How did you feel? Or what did you feel? What did it smell like? Did you taste anything? I could have added more to being backstage and wanting to be the best I could be on stage in front of all these people, right? I felt the taste, like a sour taste in my mouth, as if I was about to throw up.

Oh my gosh, you can imagine that. Maybe if I didn’t want it to be so gross, I could talk about the dry mouth feeling that I had, where my tongue would kind of stick to the roof of my mouth. You can even hear that. Next practice, practice, practice. The more stories you tell, the better you will get just by default, right?

Tell stories to your friends, your family, your audience. Do it on stories. If you’re worried about these things living out there forever, practice. And number six, ask for feedback. After you share a story, you don’t have to say how well did you enjoy that story? Rank my story from one to 10. No, you can just ask questions like this.

What’s stuck with you from the story that I just shared? How did you feel about it? Or, can you relate to this? Or, have you gone through anything similar? These are coded ways to ask for feedback. Here’s the most important thing. Start seeing your life as a series of stories. You will never run out of content.

So here’s your challenge. This week, I want you to tell one story. It could be on your podcast, your YouTube channel, maybe your Instagram, or even just to a friend. Use the Five C Method. Context, character, conflict, change, conclusion. And if you’re feeling brave, you could share it with me. You could tag me on Instagram or on X. I’d love to hear it. Because here’s the truth. Your story matters. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be real. And the more you share your stories, the more that you’re going to connect, inspire, and build your own community of superfans. So remember, storytelling isn’t just a marketing tactic.

It’s how we make sense of the world. It’s how we build trust. It’s how we change lives. You have stories worth telling, and the world needs to hear them. Thanks for listening to the SPI Podcast, and I can’t wait to hear your story. So go out there and tell it.