How to attract potential customers through storytelling — Bill Harper | BrandBossHQ

In today’s competitive business environment, standing out from the competition can be challenging. One tool that can help you differentiate yourself and crush your competition is storytelling. Storytelling can help you grow your audience and build a loyal customer base. On today’s The Small Business Show, we’re joined once again by Bill Harper, CEO & Chief Officer of BrandBoss HQ, to tell us more about how he has helped hundreds of companies tell their story and create their brand. 

When we think about storytelling, we typically coincide with telling kids a bedtime story reading fairy tales, or even young children’s imagination; however, Harper asserts that storytelling is the primary subject that BrandBossHQ prizes itself in helping their clients. Harper also notes that storytelling starts from everything of how we develop education, religion, and even making decisions. It all begins with the stories we create. In business, that’s a huge thing we miss. Usually, companies try to lead with the future or benefits of their product, but people can’t relate to that. That’s why, when you see businesses that use storytelling examples, like Geico’s Caveman, those stories unite us because we can relate to them. 

So, these companies that run straight to the marketing miss the opportunity to connect effectively. The storytelling step is the difference between advertising, buying out space, running an advertisement, and creating a pleasurable brand that people enjoy connecting to. For example, when you say commercials for cruises or resorts, they show you the experience, not how much you are paying for your room. Also, the marketing for Las Vegas: What happens in Vegas stays there, does a fantastic job of promising a unique story that will last for the rest of your life. 

Brands exist to either make something happen or make something go away. To illustrate, the brand “Liquid Death” is doing a fantastic job implementing this. According to Harper, the brand is water in a can with the promise to murder your thirst. “It’s generating $100 million investment in a $700 million evaluation.” Several companies believe it’s an innovation that leads their business. When you evaluate a company’s success, like liquid death, they repeat what has been done, but it’s been done strategically using an aluminum can instead of plastic. By doing so, they can fight the plastic war and buy “murdering your thirst. “It gives them a point of difference than the 17 bottles of water you could find at any gas station. “That combination of things tell an amazing story and sets them apart from the competition.”

Storytelling

When developing your brands story, “The biggest thing is addressing the primary pain point,” emphasizes Harper. You’ll gain traction by telling the story within your research, which examines what pain points your company wants to focus on. Once you identify the pain point, you can then generate a story. Harper illustrates the issues companies face in trying to be everything for everyone. However, customers don’t remember that. Customers typically focus on one company specializing in the one thing that solves their end goal. In comparison, the features and benefits should be a secondary solution to the problem.