The essence of marketing—selling your idea or your business to an investor or prospective client—is communication. You want your audience to understand what you do and why it’s important. When you’ve put your heart into building your company or developing a new product, it’s disheartening to see your pitch fall flat or fail to connect, but it happens more often than you think. That’s because what you need to capture attention, create connections, and inspire action is an emotionally compelling story.
At Squash and Stretch Productions, we’re all about creating the story that gets right to the essence of what you do and its value to potential customers. Without that, all the flashy marketing whistles and bells won’t do you any good, because you won’t have a strong core message that resonates. That’s why we love Donald Miller’s StoryBrand framework. He hasn’t just pinpointed the essential basis of effective marketing—he’s developed a clear structure for clarifying your message through storytelling in a way that is designed to inspire people to listen and respond.
The StoryBrand Difference
Miller introduced his concept of marketing and messaging in 2017 with the book Building a StoryBrand, after establishing a successful career as a bestselling author, public speaker, and business owner. As he says, he wrote the book because he wanted to make marketing easy. The process of following his plan walks you through identifying seven elements each story must-have. Put together, they make it clear why your prospective client needs what you have to offer and walks them to the obvious conclusion—hiring you, backing you, or buying your product. The twist is that the story is not about you.
The key to StoryBrand is that the story you’re creating casts your prospective customer as the main character. That character has a clearly defined problem they want to solve. How do you fit in? You’re the guide who has the solution that will help them. You’re putting the tools in their hand or showing them the path to their happy ending. Your story also lays out the potential consequences of failure and the benefits of success, while conveying a clear call to action that will leave your audience in no doubt of what they should do next.
Sounds simple, right? In a way, it is. It focuses your message clearly on what your client really wants to know—how is your product/service/idea going to help me? But it can be hard for someone close to the subject to take a step back and clearly pick out the elements of a story to create a succinct, focused message. That’s where Squash and Stretch comes in.
Telling Your Story
At Squash and Stretch, we work with companies who have a lot to say but often just a short window in which to convey their message. Our story coaching and creation services help you drill down to the heart of what you need to say to engage your audience and build strong connections. When you’re not sure why your pitch isn’t landing or can’t see the way to turn a complex technical explanation into a narrative nonexperts will grasp instantly, we’ll work with you, focusing on your highest priorities so you start seeing results quickly.
Squash and Stretch can also help you give your story the power of visuals, through high-quality custom animation videos and explainer videos. Whether you need a way to concisely explain a complicated topic and the value of your work to investors and clients or want content that will expand your reach on social media and attract new customers, an animated video can convey a huge amount of information in a short amount of time.
When you’ve put your all into your work, it’s demoralizing when you can’t reach the people who would benefit the most from it. Squash and Stretch can assist you in developing the compelling stories that will get investors and prospective clients excited about your ideas. To find out more about how Squash and Stretch can help tell your story, or to schedule a complimentary initial consultation, contact us here.
Do you need a story coach? Perhaps our Story Maker, Karl Pontau can just unlock yours! More on this HERE
