Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / [Feature Friday] StoryBrand Guide Erika Bryant on How to Make Your Marketing a Piece of Cake - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 32

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[Feature Friday] StoryBrand Guide Erika Bryant on How to Make Your Marketing a Piece of Cake - The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 32 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:02
  Erika Bryant: But what also happened is I sold a $11,000 project as a result of somebody attending that thing, who saw that I knew more than what I was talking about in that campaign. I also got a new agency partnership who wanted to bring me in for some strategy as a result of one of the emails that I sent about that right. So I think, yeah, you can measure that one campaign and Oh, did I get the signups that I needed, but you also have this plethora of other things that are happening in terms of wareness. And in terms of other money that you're making on the side of that campaign that is, you know, working for you as you show up in the world.
• 0:39
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the ROI online podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown, and this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together.
• 1:23
  Erika Bryant: Thanks, Steve. Nice to be here.
• 1:25
  Steve Brown: You've got this great talent stack of history of working into pretty much helping people set up and run their business better with their marketing, their business development, your story brand guide. Tell me why that really resonated with you give us a little backstory and then why that you just headed that direction.
• 1:48
  Erika Bryant: So I started my career pretty young. I was 21 I was hired by the first consulting company that I worked for, and I worked traditionally in marketing roles throughout my entire career. So my 15 year marketer, and I've worked for companies on the brand side, I've worked on the consulting side work on the agency side and gotten all of these different viewpoints of what marketing looks like. In 2012, I started my own company, and did a lot of marketing campaigns and a lot of marketing activities for different companies. But when I read the story ran book, even after going to school for it and working in it and doing it for so many years.
• 3:19
  Steve Brown: Totally. You know, I think that you're well positioned to really relate with business owners because they're trying to figure it out as they go, or they're having to rely on marketing directors or people that they hire. But most of the time these folks lack a basic understanding of the perspective of the business owner. How am I going to make this initiative show some sort of return? How can it connect with my company and not just be this fun little ditzy marketing effort? Talk to us about the couple of experiences that helps you really realize that and helps you relate so well with folks that are really just wanting to make their business better.
• 4:03
  Erika Bryant: I can look back at a couple of projects that I've done and see, you know, I guess after you after you have the project, there's always a time where you look back and you're like, Okay, did we make the money that we wanted to make? Did we produce the ROI that we wanted to, and you can, you know, see your mistakes. And that's the beauty of marketing, right is you can see your mistakes, and you can do it differently the next time. And you can apply all of these different learnings to the next situation. But I think what's really powerful is looking back and seeing exactly what the problem is, is so powerful for your future projects. So for instance, if I look back at some of the products that I've done, in terms of copy, or in terms of you know, the the data that's available now I can see Wow, that probably wasn't the greatest copy and I can see exactly why that failed. Then I can use what I know now to make it better. And if the you know there's all these different ways that you things that you think about when you're Creating a campaign right where you're going to host this campaign who's going to be the target of the campaign and all these different triggers that you have to figure out and strategize for. And ultimately, if you've targeted the exact thing that made that project fail, you've actually earned way more in, you know, intelligence factor and being able to prevent those things the next time, then, you know, the money that you made off that campaign sometimes. So, for me, I feel like pinpointing those exact things is the ultimate goal. And being able to get that better ROI than next time is a huge lesson.
• 5:36
  Steve Brown: Yeah, there's several levels of this asset that you're building, there's immediate takeaways, the ROI or that we get enough appointments or conversations, whatever the goal was, but the other thing is polishing or improving your, your residual assets that people will experience over a long period of time. So when you're talking about the brand Or the messaging? Those are some other things that are hard to measure? would you would you agree?
• 6:07
  Erika Bryant: Absolutely. I think we try as marketers to measure customer lifetime value and you know, clicks on it. You know, when social media first came out, it's a great example. We had to get all the likes all the likes, and then I think a lot of people realize it about the legs, it's about the engagement score, and all these other things. But I think, you know, as we move along, you get to see some of that stuff unfold. Right, you can only do the best with what you have at the time. And, you know, we we have way more data now than we did ever before we're able to dive into those things. But yeah, you get to look at customer lifetime value and see, did this one campaign perform on its own? Okay, or did it contribute to the greater good of the next campaign in the next campaign? I can't tell you how many times I've launched a campaign and gotten far more results outside of that campaign than I ever like. It just wasn't And then on the radar, right, like I launched an email marketing masterclass, for example. So when I did this talk about email marketing to this specific group of targeted people, I launched it online. I talked about it on my LinkedIn and in my Facebook groups and all these different places I'd send emails about and all this good stuff. And yes, people came to the email marketing masterclass. But what also happened is I sold a $11,000 project as a result of somebody attending that thing, who saw that I knew more than what I was talking about in that campaign. I also got an agency partnership who wanted to bring me in for some strategy as a result of one of the emails that I sent about that right. So I think, yeah, you can measure that one campaign and Oh, did I get the signups that I needed, but you also have this plethora of other things that are happening in terms of wareness and in terms of other money that you're making on the side of that campaign that is, you know, working for you as you show up in the world.
• 7:57
  Steve Brown: Yeah, those are it's The long game mindset but how it fits into the long game when everyone's trying to just see the short game item. And I'm the struggle for a lot of folks in our position is to communicate the long game vision when, when they're just looking for a quick win. How do you know how do you navigate that trap, if you will, because you can fall for that trap.
• 8:29
  Erika Bryant: You can as a business owner, you try to take your emotions out of it, right? So it with an abundance mindset, we know that if I put it out there and if I put myself out there, there's more than enough for everybody to go around. And if I do all these things, then all these things are going to happen to me, right like I I strongly feel that when we remove our emotions from the outcome and we say you know what, if this project is supposed to land it will if I did my best In this particular arena, then things will happen. And I can honestly say that pre story brand and post story brand are two different scenarios in terms of ROI, pre story brand, I think we did great. You know, I've got some great measurements and metrics from other campaigns that I've done. And I really consider them to be successful, even still to this day, post story brand and applying the story brand framework to these projects and these campaigns and these emails and all this good stuff, exponential results, right, so I can see a direct correlation between that and story brand. Along with that, I feel like I can rest a lot on Hey, the story brand framework works. I don't have to guess at these things anymore. I don't have to take, you know, I don't have to be just sitting back here like hope this thing works. It works every time. Right? So I don't have to worry about any of those things.
• 9:57
  Steve Brown: Seems like the story brand framework helps. Your customers also start to get a deeper application on how they can use it to communicate better and their organization or they start to take those lessons and apply them to other areas, not just the marketing part.
• 10:16
  Erika Bryant: Absolutely. I have one client who applied it to his training, his onboarding and training. And almost within like two weeks, I would have to say he was calling me back saying, This is amazing. My whole staff doesn't look at him. He had like, it was really sweet. He had like 12 different values that he that he had for his people. And you know, nobody knew what any of those things are. And he did the whole thing where he walked around and he gave five people five bucks if you could recite them all and nobody could ever recite them all and it was frustrated. But then after applying the story brand framework to all of it and getting really clear on what those things are and getting rid of all the noise, people understand And they can recite it. And if they can recite it, they can implement it right. So streaming doesn't just apply to marketing applies to all that says Secondly,
• 11:09
  Steve Brown: I think it addresses so everybody says we're in the attention economy. Now and, and attention is like getting someone's attention. But I think really, it's about earning the focus. So you can get someone's attention, but you can lose them just as fast as you got their attention. But there are certain ways to connect with the brain deeply and earn their focus where you buy your back. Basically, I get more time to go ahead and prove out what the initial attraction was from that attention point.
• 11:46
  Erika Bryant: Absolutely.
• 11:46
  Steve Brown: So, in that example, that you're talking about with the person that his intention was good, he wanted it to create this culture, but when he realized he's making it more like what's the old 1414 modem handling process. But if you quickly update, just you use the system of the framework, then quickly you can make it more like fiber optic connection.
• 12:12
  Erika Bryant: That's so true. I have a favorite quote. I'll be interested if you'll be interesting.
• 12:20
  Steve Brown: Yeah, and that's harder said than done. Right?
• 12:24
  Erika Bryant: Yeah, but it talks about, you know, if you have that focus, like you want people to focus on your brand, and I heard Actually, it was very interesting. I went to a conference maybe two years ago, and in one session, this woman said, and I will never forget that she said, people tell us that we have the mind stand or the attention span of a goldfish. And that, you know, they have all these different things that they cite as to to back that point up right, you know, 140 characters on Twitter, you know, all this scrolling feeds or whatever. But Tell me why Netflix, Netflix has this button that comes up in the middle of the show that you're watching or a middle of a series that you're watching. It says, Are you still watching? It's not an attention span problem. It is an interesting problem, right? Are you interesting or not? And then in the very next, a segment that I went to somebody flashed up the picture of the goldfish and was like, we don't have the attention span. Here's why I went off about it. But it's so true, right? If you'll be interesting, he'll be interested. I'll keep watching, I'll binge watch 10 episodes. If it's really, really good. We just have to be interesting.
• 13:39
  Steve Brown: So I think about you know, as a business owner, we get that a parking lot needs to be clean and very clear where we're supposed to park where the door is where the open sign is, we get the physical world the need that we need to have everything in order to facilitate a flow. Communicate where people go. But as far as knowing how to do that virtually where most of us really have struggled most of the business, folks, even marketing directors we need a marketing director may get it but they're having a hard time communicating the value to the business owner because they're legitimately asking, how's this going to make things better. And if you think Gary Vee has a great quote, where he talks about how our grandparents were better suited to take advantage of social media now than we are, because they got, how important it was that you just need to serve your customers and connect with them as humans. So when I think of your social media campaigns or whatever, we all understand the value of having a sample platter here, it tastes This, this, we get that and it's a way to be generous. It's a way to connect. It's a way to let people sample and that's all that We're doing in the virtual world with doing a version of that.
• 15:05
  Erika Bryant: That's very true. And a lot of the business owners that I talked to, and I suffered from this in my own marketing life, if you will, which is why I think I get it really well is we sit down to write an email, or we sit down write a piece of marketing material, and we just all of a sudden lose our human ability. And we put on this marketing hat and we start talking like we don't even talk in real life. And it blows my mind because I used to do this, I used to sit down and be like, Oh, well, I need to and then I got to address this and I got to address this and I got it, you know, and I've got it. You know, and at the end of it, I've got an email that goes off on six different rabbit trails and doesn't actually connect home and at the end, I'm like, okay, so if you want to buy from me, you just let me know, right? None of that works right. And you might scrape some off the top of people who you know, may be read that way, but that does not what that's not effective. When we're clear, when we're concise when we tell people exactly what we want them to do, they're going to do it. And a lot of people will come to me and they'll say, you know, like, this email is so short. And I'm like, Yeah, well, that email made $60,000. Why? Because it was clear, because I told them exactly what what to do. And so we've got to stop putting on that funny little marketing hat that we do. And we got to start being human.
• 16:25
  Steve Brown: That email so short, yeah. So as your attention span, right?
• 16:30
  Erika Bryant: Unless you're interesting,
• 16:32
  Steve Brown: Right? We get all these emails. I was given a class on, you know, impactful application of using video for your emails. So every day I get, I don't know how many emails 100 200. And so I look through the titles right quick and see which ones I need to spend some time on and then when I open them, and if it's real long. I default to I'll read that later. When I have to But if it's real quick and impactful, I can quickly process it and decide what to do with that. And I don't think people are realizing that you need to create this content as if you were sitting and having a beer with someone, and they were your friend, how would you talk about what you do to that person?
• 17:21
  Erika Bryant: Mm hmm. Absolutely.
• 17:24
  Steve Brown: And it's so hard. Why is it so hard to communicate professionally, in that way?
• 17:31
  Erika Bryant: I think it's because we get in our heads and we tell ourselves these stories about what the other side is looking like, right? Oh, I've got a nail to target. I've got to nail exactly their voice and I've got to speak to them and exactly their pain point. And if I don't get the pain point, right, then I'm not going to get the business. And it's all these stories we're telling ourselves that just simply aren't true. And I think going back to what I said previously, we have to take the emotions out of it. I know it's very difficult to do that. But we've got to take our own anxieties. About the performance of this, and just trust the process, right? So we can trust and we can lean on to the systems that we know are proven to work, right, like the story brand framework proven to work. In fact, they proved it. They did a story brand HQ, they proved it. They wrote a book about it. They did some courses on it. Dr. JJ Peterson went and got his doctorate on it. And then I learned it. And then I have proven it for myself with my clients, right. So now I can rest in the fact of, if I follow this framework, if I talk about your story, in terms of you being the guide, and then being the hero and guiding them to get them what they want, giving them a clear plan to action, all that stuff. I know it's going to work. So I can remove all my anxiety out of that because I have a plan. A lot of marketers and a lot of business owners are like, I really know how to do the thing that I know how to do. That might be my craft that might be you know, whatever the business is It's whatever your passion is, and your passion may not be in marketing, right? And so you have to trust and frameworks and you have to trust in other guides to help you get what you need. I literally just experienced this last week, I was having a ton of anxiety about the accounting in my business, because I had talked to somebody about some particular thing. And they were like, yeah, if you're doing it this way, you're doing it wrong while I was doing it that way. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I don't have a handle on this. I have a CPA. He's not real responsive or proactive. I should say he's responsive, but definitely not proactive and telling me what and I'm like, Am I missing this? What is going on? And so I'm scouring the web like, I need, what do I need? Who do I need? Right? What is what is it and I felt in that moment, I thought, wow, this is exactly what a business owner feels like when they don't know anything about marketing. Right? And that's how I felt about the accounting. In my business and so, I went back to a woman that I had talked to as an accountant. And I was like, Okay, ready to accept your proposal to clear my books and get all this stuff straight for all this good stuff, but I can, I can sympathize with not knowing what you don't know, and the anxiety that comes with that. And then just trying all the things I've been in business for a long time for eight years. And I haven't had, you know, this level of detail that I really actually needed in my business until something scared me. Right. And I don't want to be unlike that. So I can imagine what that feels like for business owners who don't know anything about marketing, and something scaring them like, wow, I just spent $5,000 in a campaign and I didn't get my money back, or I didn't make the targeted whatever, or I didn't see the results from that particular campaign. That's painful, right? And so we need to get it right. We need to test all the things and bring our experience in and do it right. The next I
• 21:02
  Steve Brown: want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI quickstart Academy for authors. Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place. We want to create a great foundation and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics, we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns and that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with. You have a great idea you have a great book, but what do you want to do? You want to get your book in front of more people, you want to make it easy for them to find you learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you, hire you for a conference or maybe sign up for the services. Your book promotes. So what is the Quickstart Academy for authors? Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors and the experts from the ROI quickstart team. It's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the Quickstart Academy for authors, you can visit ROI online.com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode. So let's talk about why you went back to this lady. So in that moment when you were you were swirling around around the drain, okay, you fell that's real emotional. Okay. Well, vulnerable. You felt like oh my My gosh, everything I worked for is at risk. Okay? You didn't know who to trust. You were. You were grabbing for someone to trust you don't know. And so you went back to this lady because you knew where you met her you had some level of, but you still had to veteran a little bit. No.
• 23:22
  Erika Bryant: So she, I had, I've known that I needed an accountant for a while. Call it six months a year, something like that. In fact, I probably knew way before that, but I wasn't actively looking for someone. I had talked to another storebrand Guide. And you know, I said, Do you know Do you know any accountants? Blah, blah, blah. And she's like, Yes, I have an amazing line. She's here in Texas. So she knows, you know, it's really great to have somebody who knows the laws of the specific state that you're in. That's, that's important. And so why don't you meet her? So I talked to her and I was like, man, she's really smart. I feel like she knows her stuff. But how do I know if she knows her stuff or not? Right? Like she just sounds smart to me, but I can You know, how do I how do I even vet this person? And I looked at other stuff online and at her reviews and you know, kind of had been kicking the tires and for whatever reason, I just kept having this resistance of not quite ready to pull the trigger yet, you know, oh, that's a lot of money to spend on accounting, something I've been doing for myself for a, you know, for eight years. But it wasn't until the pain was great enough. And this this scared feeling that I had about my business and that you're right, I was like, Everything I have is at stake, right? If I don't do this, right, the IRS is going to come after me or whatever, right. And I just want to be a, an honest business. Right. And so it wasn't until the pain was that great that I actually was like, Okay, I need to sign your proposal. So she had sent me a proposal, but I just kind of was like the pain wasn't great enough for me to sign it yet. You know, had nothing to do with her. And and I even went back and I was like googling different things. And I was looking in Facebook groups that I meant for business owners to see if there's anybody recommended. And so I looked up a couple of people We were recommended and their reviews are like, not that great. I was like, man, if these are the people they're recommending, but she's great, then maybe, no, she's good. So I just did like a skinny version of her proposal to test her out. And we're going to start working together this week. So I feel really confident in that. But I'm also not throwing all my eggs in one basket, like I know, a lot of business owners do when they trust, you know, marketers and things like that.
• 25:25
  Steve Brown: Yeah. So if you were to kind of evaluate her platform, what would you do different now knowing knowing that, what that persona is feels and experiences and how much research so to the business, those are kind of listening, wondering, Well, what would she have done different kind of draw a picture of what that would have looked like that would have helped you?
• 25:52
  Erika Bryant: Interesting, because when I was looking for this, I was like, man, I need to go into the story Rand slack community and tell people Hey next account, you have This is the message for them, right?
• 26:02
  Steve Brown: Serious
• 26:03
  Erika Bryant: These are the things that I was thinking and feeling and doing at the time that I had this need.
• 30:14
  Steve Brown: I'm ready. I love this. This is a framework by the way,
• 30:18
  Erika Bryant: Framework/formula.
• 32:24
  Steve Brown: I love it. You give value. There's your little samples, and you're giving them your best samples, right? But you're saying, hey, if you want more of this, then why don't we work on this together so you can do the same thing? Absolutely. What's the best example of someone that you really are proud of? The problem you help them solve?
• 32:53
  Erika Bryant: I'm currently working with a roofing client. And this roofing client came to me and they said got over the last 10 years we've wasted so much money with other marketers and, and in fact, he was so pessimistic about marketers and saying, you know how they just take people's money, and nothing they do ever works. And you know, he can't tell me how much money he's just, you know, thrown out of the airplane to not ever get back. And so I, the sales cycle for this project was long, mostly because I had to convince him that I wasn't looped in with those types of marketers, right? I am. I have a guarantee on my work. If your marketing doesn't work, I will do more for you until it works, right. So I had to talk to him and his team for a long time to get them comfortable with me and build trust. There was a lot of in person meetings, there was a lot of taking phone calls and answering questions and things like that. And since we've started working together, he I I basically told him Reason all this that, like I could sell you on doing exactly what you asked me to do, let's go do some Facebook ads or let's go do some LinkedIn ads, I could sell you on that all day long if I didn't care about the outcome, but I care about the outcome. And I need to tell you that your brand doesn't look as professional as you want it to. your social media does not have it. Like, all these random things are happening on your social media. And it's not doing you any service. What I when I search for you, this is what comes up. When I look at your website, it doesn't look as professional as I know you want it to be and I know your company is. And so I will not sell you on the thing that you asked me for because that's not your problem. Right? Your problem is your messaging. Your problem is your branding. Let's fix those things first, then we can get to do all the you know, because you wanted to do some radio ads and some Facebook ads and other things like that. And I was like, no point like, yeah, sure, throw your money at that, but no point it's not gonna work for you. And so now we're we're getting on to the very end of the project, and you know, there's been some hail storms around here in Texas, which is kind of, and we've got tons of roofers around here because of that, and everybody gets a new roof every few years. But the whole point of that is to say that if, if people come to us, and we sell them exactly what they're asking for, we're not really doing them a service, right? We need to understand what they want. Sell them what they want, and what they need. Right. That's what they're coming to me for. That's what they're getting the expertise for. So have we reached success yet? Not yet. And we just launched a new website. We just launched some brochures and things like that. And there's some hail storms happening right now. But I have a feeling I have a sneaking suspicion that it's coming.
• 35:50
  Steve Brown: Yeah, I love that story because it illustrates the trap that most of the competitors that we that are in our industry. Quick to fix the problem. That's not the real problem. And to be able to discuss what the real problem is to help them see around the corner and understand it is takes a little bit of confidence takes some experience, but it also is a way to really relate with them as a business person. I can do this, but you I'm giving you more of the same and you're trying to control and drive as a business owner should be you're telling me to fix the wrong things.
• 36:34
  Erika Bryant: Absolutely.
• 36:35
  Steve Brown: Yeah. I love that. So what's the this has been an excellent conversation that I really appreciate you being a great guest today. What's one question that you wish I would have asked you that you would love to answer?
• 36:52
  Erika Bryant: I'd love to address customer retention. So a lot of people and I talk about this in my business as well. A lot of people will come to me and they'll say, I need new people. I need new people, I need new people. And I'm like, did you know that people have already bought from you before 80% more likely to buy from you again. So what is your email campaign look like? What is your existing social media look like? What is your surprise and delight look like for those people who are already doing business with you? You can grow your business exponentially by literally doing the things that you have with your own existing customers, and then they don't become customers, they become clients and they have a bigger lifetime customer value. It's so much easier to convince somebody who's already done business with you to do it again, right. If you deliver on what you say you do, then it's so easy. And I think that gets skipped over a lot in marketing. And so there is a book that really enlightened me to a lot of this by Joey Coleman called, never lose a customer again, he's a phenomenal, has a phenomenal framework for this sort of thing where he takes you through The different pieces of it. But I think that gets skipped over time and time again. And it's like, Whoa, you want to spend all this time, money and effort. And this is hard, right? I'm about the free, cheap and easy. All right Piece of cake. Right? Easy. And so talk to your existing customers. And then that will give you more money that you can imagine to fuel those outside, you know, new customer acquisition campaigns that you're looking for.
• 38:25
  Steve Brown: I love that. That's a very solid, wisdom based answer. Erica, great. Great. I appreciate that so much. Well, thank you so much. Where can people connect with you? After they've listened and they go, this girl is wise and can hook us up?
• 38:46
  Erika Bryant: Yeah, so you can find me a piece of cake marketing.com I have a Facebook group, Piece of cake marketing society. And I launched a couple of things here, there and everywhere. The next thing I'm launching is Piece of cake sales funnels to help you You figure out that it is easy to launch a sales funnel, right. And lastly, I'm about to launch my very own podcast. I'm doing it in terms of seasons. And so the framework that I mentioned today is going to be the first season of that podcast. So look forward to that soon. What's the name of that
• 39:19
  Steve Brown: podcast?
• 39:21
  Erika Bryant: Piece of cake marketing insights?
• 39:23
  Steve Brown: Perfect. We need it. So thank you so much for being on the ROI online podcast.
• 39:32
  Erika Bryant: Absolutely. Great to be here. Thanks for listening to another fun
• 39:35
  Steve Brown: episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.