I’ve grown my LinkedIn audience to 40,000+.
And an email list to 3,500+ in the last 12 months.
At first I used to imitate the big creators.
To try and find a sense of belonging.
But the inner entrepreneur in me soon realized that copying others restricted the one thing that stood out for me. My own identity.
It was fun to begin with but repetition, or more so copied repetition was soul sucking.
Take away a profile, the colors, the visuals and you sound like everyone else.
It wasn’t until I shared a “come out story” about how I was a broke musician working for $50/night playing jazz at weddings, turned 7-figure business consultant that I got people’s ears to perk.
The best part? It was a story that no one could replicate.
So I dug deeper to create a strategy that was immutable by others but mutable for me.
It could be replicated, taught, and installed into people’s businesses.
But it couldn’t be copied.
Because the sole purpose was to show people who you are.
And people buy into you before buying into what you do.
1/ Moments versus summaries
One thing to distinguish is the difference between a moment and a summary.
Where people go wrong is they tell you a summary of a life event.
That quickly bores the reader.
The catch? Paint a 5 second moment.
The secret is, if you can grab some pen and paper and draw out the scene, or rather “fit it in your pocket”, then you’ve got yourself a win.
Example of summary:
I was in high school and this happened. When I went to university something else happened. During my first job this happened. Now I’m here.
Example of a 5 second moment:
I had to pick out 1 watermelon from the 20 around me at the grocery store. They all looked green and juice on the outside. A lady stared at me in awe, while she held a little walking stick.
See the difference?
2/ The framework
Now you’ve got yourself a magic trick.
Let’s put it to the test.
I birthed the Story → Lesson → Pivot → Offer Framework which I use daily in my emails to print magic internet money.
Because when someone feels a sense of belonging, and can relate, they buy into you or the product you sell.
Story:
Pick out a 5 second moment you could map out. Similar to the watermelon example I mentioned above.
Lesson:
Draw out a lesson from the 5 second moment.
Pivot:
This is where you switch and create, almost a “bow tie” between your story and the offer that’s about to come in the next step.
Offer:
You unselfishly plug your offer that enables someone to buy into the next step.
Let’s map out an example. Note, stories could even be one-liners. As long as there’s a scene, a person, a time, a place - you’re golden.
“I ran 15KM yesterday, and let loose. Running takes a lot of preparation and endurance. Just like in business where it’s a marathon not a sprint. If you’d like to build some business endurance, you might consider my product “X”.
See what we did there?
This tiny framework has enabled me to make over $600k through my tiny email list of 3,500 over the last year.
It’s fun, it gets people to keep coming back, and makes the writing journey more enjoyable.
3/ Building your story bank
80% of knowing what to write comes from your ideation process.
20% is the actual writing.
I use a simple Google Keep app on my phone to write one-liners that remind me of 5 second moments.
I pick one every day and apply the framework to it.
Think of:
- Day to day events
- Client calls
- Questions you are asked
- Problems you solved
It could be anything you wish that’s interesting.
Remember.
Content is communication in context.
And if no one can replicate your story, it’s unique to you.
👉I recently scaled down my agency that stressed me out and scaled up my one person consultancy to $30k/month. If you want the offer document that sold $600k worth of high ticket offers through stories, you can grab it here.
