Latest / Profit With A Plan / EP323 Your Story Is Your Growth Strategy: Turning Purpose Into Profit

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EP323 Your Story Is Your Growth Strategy: Turning Purpose Into Profit · Profit With A Plan

• 0:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: My guest this week is Dan Gretsch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist-turned-entrepreneur who has helped more than 10,000 businesses grow through story.
• 0:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: He's gonna share how you use your story as a strategic tool to attract customers, hire better talent, and to build a brand people actually connect with.
• 0:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So you'll hear how to become the Jedi of your client's hero journey, and the four ways of storytelling that drives business growth.
• 0:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So if you're ready to make the story work for you, not just sitting on your About page on your website, don't miss this episode of Profit with a Plan podcast.
• 0:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hey, entrepreneurs, are you working too hard for too little profit? Well, welcome to Profit with a Plan podcast, where we help you scale smarter, increase profitability, and build a business that's worth more, whether you keep it or sell it.
• 1:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I'm Marcia Reiner, Business Growth Strategist and the Profit Booster behind Infinite Profit.
• 1:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I've helped countless entrepreneurs to turn their businesses into highly profitable and sale-ready assets.
• 1:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So they enjoy more income now, and a bigger payday later on. So join me for practical strategies, expert insights, and proven steps to make your business more profitable, more valuable, and built to last.
• 1:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Today's episode is sponsored by Infinite Profit, where we don't just talk profit, we deliver it.
• 1:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But before we dive in, I have something special for you. If you're tired of flat revenue and marketing that just doesn't seem to pay off, then the new Profit Booster Growth Map is for you. In just a few minutes, it'll show you exactly how you can bring in more qualified clients, plug the profit leaks that are eating your cash.
• 1:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So get your profit growth map right now at ProfitBooster.viz and start turning missed revenue into real money.
• 2:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Alright, let's jump into today's episode. Today, I'm joined by Dan Gretsch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning NPR and PBS journalist turned entrepreneur and educator.
• 2:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Dan is the creator of the story-driven business methodology, where he helps… where he helps founders and business leaders to use their story as a strategic growth asset.
• 2:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Not just a piece of marketing fluff.
• 2:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Through his company, BizHack Academy, he has trained more than 10,000 businesses in the AI-powered marketing and story-driven growth.
• 2:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: He's testified before Congress on the role of AI in small business, taught at Princeton in Columbia and the University of Miami, and his upcoming book, Your Story Is Your Business, will soon be published in 2027.
• 2:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Today, we're talking about how to turn your story into a real business advantage to drive revenue, attract people, and grow with more purpose. Dan, welcome to Profit with a Plan. I'm so glad you're on today.
• 3:05
  Dan Grech: Thank you so much, I'm so excited to be here.
• 3:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, me too! You know, I love this idea of storytelling. Marketing is changing at such a crazy pace right now, especially with AI and all the videos.
• 3:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I think people forget.
• 3:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That there should be a story behind it, right?
• 3:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And that's why I was so excited to have you on today to talk about this. But before we get into the actual conversation, I'd love to dig just a hair more into Pulitzer Prize and journalism with some really big names. How did you get into that space?
• 3:43
  Dan Grech: Yeah.
• 3:44
  Dan Grech: Well, here's my own origin story, and I teach businesses to do this as well. It starts in junior year of high school, and I took an elective, to be in the school paper, and I was a reporter.
• 3:59
  Dan Grech: And, you know, like, one of the very first stories I did was, based on a personal experience that I had had, having money stolen out of my wallet while I was in gym class.
• 4:12
  Dan Grech: But it was, like, a weird…
• 4:15
  Dan Grech: it was a weird crime, because it was like the wet bandits, you know, from Home Alone, where they turn on the faucet to signal the crime, and then they… makes it really easy for the police to figure out who did it. Well, this particular bandit would steal only
• 4:30
  Dan Grech: 20s and 10s, and leave fives and ones, and so I opened my wallet, and, you know, I was a kind of a…
• 4:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wait a minute, high school with 20s? I mean, there's a disconnect right here.
• 4:40
  Dan Grech: Oh, well, see, I was selling Blow Pops. I was selling Blow Pops for.
• 4:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, got it.
• 4:45
  Dan Grech: I'm like a classic entrepreneur. I was, like, selling blowpops, making hundreds of dollars, had, like, wads of ones, you know, because I sold them at a quarter each, but I did have a few 20s tucked away, and that's why I kind of noticed when the 20s went missing. The other thing is, I was in a ritzy neighborhood, but I was the poorest kid on the block. They used to… literally, I was known in my school as the rich,
• 5:08
  Dan Grech: The rich poor kid.
• 5:10
  Dan Grech: You know, my mother was a public school teacher, my dad was a clothing salesman with no college degree, and they were all doctors and lawyers' kids. So, here I am selling blowpops, and I always had money, and they never did.
• 5:22
  Dan Grech: And so I go to gym class, and I walk…
• 5:24
  Dan Grech: out of gym class, and all my ones are still there, but my 20s are missing, and I noticed. So, when I'm in journalism class, I start to do a little bit of an investigation. I asked all my friends an initial survey, and more than half of them had already had… had also had money stolen. And then I did a school-wide survey, and 40% of freshmen who had arrived 2 months
• 5:47
  Dan Grech: prior had also had money stolen from them. More than three-quarters of the school had had money stolen from them, so I published the results of this, my… one of my first articles, and two weeks later, the head of campus security was fired.
• 6:01
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, no! Wow!
• 6:04
  Dan Grech: Yes.
• 6:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow.
• 6:05
  Dan Grech: the people I interviewed for my article. But anyway, obviously, I wasn't the one who, like, figured out who was doing the stealing, but it was rampant. And once that happened, and I remember seeing everybody reading my article, I was just hooked.
• 6:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it, I love it. A classic storyteller you are, right out of the get-go, you know, you come in with a great high school story that we've all probably experienced one way or at a time, but, did you ever figure out who caught it? Was it the security guy, or was it a kid?
• 6:33
  Dan Grech: Well, it was the security guard,
• 6:36
  Dan Grech: you know, the head of campus security, who I interviewed for the story, but I didn't figure out that it was him, it was this principal who did. But it was, like, it was very clear that it was someone with very… because almost all the stealing was happening during gym… during gym class, and the gym doors were locked.
• 6:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Got it. Wow.
• 6:56
  Dan Grech: It had to be someone with a key, or some way to get into the gym, and it just… That's funny. It was pretty obvious in retrospect. I didn't figure that part out. I just… who would have thought the head of campus security would be the one doing something like that?
• 7:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Especially your freshman year at age 15, or you were junior year, you were, like, 16 or something, you know, who would have thought to put those dots together?
• 7:15
  Dan Grech: Yeah. So, anyway, it was, it was really, you know, and then I, I used… I did journalism in college to pay for my books.
• 7:24
  Dan Grech: You know, they assigned me to wash dishes. I'm like, forget this. So I used to do freelancing to pay for my books, and have a little bit of pocket money, and then, got internships out of college at the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Miami Herald, and just went, you know, 20-year career
• 7:42
  Dan Grech: From there. Just very, very fortunate. And this was at a time… you know, journalism wasn't, like, flourishing, but it certainly wasn't where it is today, where it's just really struggling. And I just had just the most amazing time, was a foreign correspondent, was part of a Pulitzer Prize.
• 7:58
  Dan Grech: And, it really seeded where I've arrived to today, which is around storytelling. So I… I don't have an MBA, I have an MFA.
• 8:09
  Dan Grech: I like to think of myself as, like, I'm the poorest kid on the block of business as well, in that, like, what I know about business, I primarily learned by reading, you know, books in the last 10 years, and then, of course, practitioning, being a business owner, and learning by doing.
• 8:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah.
• 8:31
  Dan Grech: The thing that happened, that, like, really seeded this business is, I realized when I lost my job in journalism that I needed to reinvent as a… and I wanted to reinvent as a business storyteller. And so, I said, okay, I want to be a business storyteller, and they're like, yeah, that's called marketing.
• 8:48
  Dan Grech: I'm like, yeah, that's what I want to do. And then I'm like, yeah, but it should be online, right? Because that's where everything is these days. They're like, damn, that's called digital marketing.
• 8:56
  Dan Grech: I'm literally writing down in my notebook, digital marketing. That's how clueless I was. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go spend a few weeks, I'll go learn digital marketing, right? Like, completely had no idea what I was talking about. And obviously, here I am, still learning to this day, but,
• 9:12
  Dan Grech: what happened is I started… the best way that I have found to… Learn is by teaching.
• 9:19
  Dan Grech: And so I started teaching at the local community college, marketing for small businesses, and learned so much in, you know, having to stand in front of a class and pretend I knew what I was talking about, and, you know, first thing I did was hire a co-instructor, you know? Like, I kind of stumbled my way through it for a few years until I figured it out, and then I built a whole business around
• 9:38
  Dan Grech: teaching marketing to businesses called BizHack Academy.
• 9:42
  Dan Grech: And one of the things that I kept noticing as I was working with these businesses is you would speak to this entrepreneur, Marcia, and they were just this vivid, larger-than-life character, and then you would read their website, and it was, like, de-peopled.
• 9:57
  Dan Grech: It was just a service, or a product. It was no human behind it.
• 10:03
  Dan Grech: And so it just started from that basic curiosity of, like, who are you, and why do you do this? And then the next step is, like, and why don't you put that on your website?
• 10:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly, right? So many people don't know how to build a website that, you know, I mean, and way back when, websites were just glorified business cards anyways, or brochures, right? And now they're actually…
• 10:24
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: you know, product solutions and offers and pieces and moving parts, that you have to have so much more to it. But I think the thing that has stuck…
• 10:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: from way back when, website building and so on, about… is that About Us page, is because buyers still want to know who they're buying from, and why they want you over the, you know, multi, multi-numbers of people that are out there doing the same thing as you.
• 10:54
  Dan Grech: You know, we buy from people… we do business with people we like and trust.
• 10:59
  Dan Grech: And that human element has always been true, and will never go away.
• 11:06
  Dan Grech: And there's this beautiful line by Patty Digg, D-I-G-H, and it's, the shortest distance between two people is a story.
• 11:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it. I love it. Okay, so let's talk about stories then. How does one craft one to really…
• 11:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: bring out the best parts of them in a way that… now we're talking marketing stories, right? In a way that the buyer connects.
• 11:32
  Dan Grech: Yeah.
• 11:33
  Dan Grech: So… you know, I call marketing and sales, or customer acquisition.
• 11:41
  Dan Grech: you know, selling to strangers. And so, what you really need to do is use, you know, your communications, first digital and then in person, you know, live, you know, they can be done over a Zoom.
• 11:54
  Dan Grech: But, you know, the sales call, so to speak. They need to basically, as quickly as possible, establish trust and credibility.
• 12:04
  Dan Grech: And story is one of the most powerful techniques, and one of the fastest ways
• 12:11
  Dan Grech: to establish trust and credibility. Now, there are other really important ways as well, social proof, you know.
• 12:18
  Dan Grech: you know, case studies and testimonials. There's, you know, your credentials, you know, who you've worked for and other folks you've done this for. And then there's story, you know, why you do what you do and why it matters.
• 12:34
  Dan Grech: And so that's what we do, is we help businesses identify their business story, why they do what they do, and why it matters, and then articulate it in the way that's most likely to get someone to convert from a stranger to a sale.
• 12:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That sounds amazing, but not easily done, right?
• 12:56
  Dan Grech: No.
• 12:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's why we need people like you and your courses and your programs to help people understand how to articulate that.
• 13:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I mean, I… I swear, I… you get these… you get these people that… that know their jam, right? They know their widget they're selling, or the service. They could be the best attorney, or the… the… the best plumber, or whatever it is that they are out there, but then when they…
• 13:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: come to public speaking or talking and describing what it is and why that the value is really coming with me. They fall flat on their face every time.
• 13:32
  Dan Grech: Yeah. Mo… about 80% of businesses, according to surveys, are what are known as technicians.
• 13:38
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And, you know, this is talked a lot about by Michael Gerber in the E-Myth Revisited, but a technician is, like, in his book, he talks about the baker of pies.
• 13:49
  Dan Grech: Right? And the baker of pies used to work for someone else's bakery, and they got tired of working for someone else's bakery, so then they, what does he call it? Like, it had an entrepreneurial spasm, and then they started their own business, they took the leap, and then they realized that they were… they are the worst boss they've ever had.
• 14:09
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And the worst employee.
• 14:10
  Dan Grech: Yeah, and the worst employee. Like, they would fire each other if they could.
• 14:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly, in a heartbeat.
• 14:16
  Dan Grech: And so the core, you know, of being a business person is not doing the thing, it's acquiring the customer.
• 14:27
  Dan Grech: The last seat that a CEO leaves vacant is the sales seat.
• 14:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, right? Which is the most important part of the entire company. That paired with marketing, right?
• 14:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: It's… it's everything.
• 14:41
  Dan Grech: It's the core of your job, but it's not what you came into it doing. Like, most of us are technicians. Like, I started a training company, and I was a teacher at the local community college, you know what I mean? And, you know, many people are like, they're a plumber, and they start a plumbing company, they're a roofer, and they start a roofing company, and only 20% of business owners are what are… what he calls entrepreneurs, who are, like, the people who work on the business, not in it.
• 15:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Sure.
• 15:07
  Dan Grech: So the trick…
• 15:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's what's so funny, because that's my jam, is I love doing that kind of stuff, but it's so funny. I meet the people that are the technicians all the time, and I'm sharing with them ideas and directions and goals and things like that, that they… they just go, yeah, that's a great idea, but they have no idea or the ability to actually implement it, which
• 15:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: evolved my company over the last 2 years, where I'm actually helping companies to implement now, because they can't do it. They just, as much as they want it, I mean, the… the step-by-step is right in front of them, and they still…
• 15:42
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Can't do it.
• 15:43
  Dan Grech: Yeah. So, but most of these folks that you and I work with are not themselves marketers? Correct.
• 15:49
  Dan Grech: salespeople. They are people who have figured it out through trial and error. What they are is the doers, the technician, the operator. So generally, small businesses are really good at operating in a really, like, intimate, customer-friendly way. If they weren't good at that, they would never have stayed in business.
• 16:05
  Dan Grech: but they're not good at growing the business, and that's what I'm trying to provide, is, like, a simple framework to leverage your most unique.
• 16:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: asset. So, most small businesses are what I call Me Too businesses.
• 16:18
  Dan Grech: Meaning, there are a whole raft of competitors that look more or less the same.
• 16:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yep.
• 16:26
  Dan Grech: And what I'm trying to do is turn them from a Me Too business to a story-driven business.
• 16:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, I love it.
• 16:31
  Dan Grech: Where the unique.
• 16:34
  Dan Grech: and very personal reasons for doing what they do, and the larger mission that they have, are at the very center of all of their communications, and their customer experience, and their hiring. It's like… it's like a… the story-driven business is more than just one that uses, like, pretty language around marketing, but it actually
• 16:54
  Dan Grech: hires around the same values that it articulates in its marketing, that it uses, when it's building relationships in the community. And also, the fourth dimension, which is really powerful, Marcia, is mindset, and the owner, and how they feel about their business. Like, so many business owners feel trapped
• 17:13
  Dan Grech: In a prison of their own making.
• 17:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yes, exactly.
• 17:17
  Dan Grech: Yeah, and the key to get out, I believe, is reminding yourself regularly why you're doing what you're doing and why it matters.
• 17:24
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, so you've… you've hit on a real solid reason on why we want to have this storytelling in our business, so that way, A, we can keep ourself motivated, right, and not feel trapped in our company, but we can hire better people that…
• 17:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Feel the same way, and can help,
• 17:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: move the boulder up the hill, right? And also so that our clients, or our prospective clients, will choose us in that Me Too environment. So you've done a great job at explaining that, but now I'm gonna trick you. I'm gonna make you come to the table with something. You mentioned a framework.
• 18:01
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Give me a highlight or a peek into your framework on how you help companies to build that story.
• 18:07
  Dan Grech: Yeah. So… It's a… it's a 3-step process.
• 18:12
  Dan Grech: And the first step is discover, and define. The second step, is to build that, story-driven framework, and then sort of the story to strategy, and then the third is the ignite, where then you use it in all communication. So let's start with the first stage, which is the define.
• 18:37
  Dan Grech: So, the Discover and Define, many business owners have never written down their story, and the discover and define is getting it written down, sometimes the first time. And the reason this is important is twofold. You cannot use it as a strategic
• 18:57
  Dan Grech: Growth asset if it's not written down.
• 19:01
  Dan Grech: So my big belief is that story, your story, is one of the most powerful assets you have, but you can't use an asset if it's not actually documented.
• 19:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Because then how can you get your salespeople or your staff to believe in it if it's stuck up in your head, right?
• 19:17
  Dan Grech: Exactly. And, you know, the objection I hear all the time is the customer is the hero objection. And I, you know, it's all about them. And I want to be clear, like, that's, you know, I really agree with the idea that you always want to communicate with prospects and customers from their perspective.
• 19:38
  Dan Grech: But you are the CEO, the Chief Energy.
• 19:42
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Mmm.
• 19:44
  Dan Grech: Of your company, and the source energy
• 19:48
  Dan Grech: of your CEO role comes from your values and your personal history.
• 19:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hmm…
• 19:55
  Dan Grech: So let's document that. And then, oh, by the way, in the age of AI, you can then train the AI, once that story's written down.
• 20:03
  Dan Grech: you can train the AI on it.
• 20:05
  Dan Grech: Because…
• 20:06
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Amazing.
• 20:07
  Dan Grech: Yeah, this is really important, because I want to talk to you. AI knows a lot, and AI is probably a smarter, better writer than most of us, but there are a couple things AI doesn't know. They don't know about our lived experiences. They don't know our life anecdotes. They don't know our unique observations. They don't know our hard-won insights.
• 20:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Mmm…
• 20:26
  Dan Grech: So that's the define and discover, is…
• 20:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it.
• 20:29
  Dan Grech: Get that down and tell them.
• 20:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So, there are many ways, you know, I know a lot of business owners, they're like, I don't have time for this, right? I'm chasing customers and putting out fire. But it's really… it could be done in version 1,
• 20:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: in and after Friday afternoon, right? I mean, with today's technology, you can even voice-to-text this, and tell your story, and kind of work it through in your own process, and then give it to the AI to clean it up and make it look and sound, you know, reasonable, like linear and story-driven.
• 21:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So I don't think it's… I think the answer or the problem that the Heisman that we would give in years past was, I didn't have time. But now it's so darn easy, it's silly not to have it.
• 21:13
  Dan Grech: Yeah, it's, it's, for the define phase,
• 21:19
  Dan Grech: leveraging AI as, like, a thought partner, and we actually have built a virtual biographer who basically does exactly what you described, which is helps you by asking those questions.
• 21:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it.
• 21:35
  Dan Grech: And we'll talk at the end a little bit about how they can get connected up to the virtual biographer and so forth, but I don't… you know, so AI can help with the defining, but the next stage is deploy, right? So stage two is, alright, I have this story, but how do I connect that to business strategy?
• 21:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right.
• 21:52
  Dan Grech: how do I make money with this? How do I connect this to growth? And that is actually very,
• 21:59
  Dan Grech: harder in some ways than developing the story, because what I have found with more than a thousand business owners I've worked with is once they have the story, they don't know where to put it, right?
• 22:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right.
• 22:11
  Dan Grech: after you get through the obvious answers, which is on your website about page, on your LinkedIn about, you know, in your social media bio, and it often kind of stops there.
• 22:22
  Dan Grech: But I'll give you, like, a really concrete example. I was talking to one of my clients, and he has a conference coming up a week from Friday, and he wants to come in there at his prepared best, and the way for him to be at his prepared best is to have a script of what is he going to say
• 22:41
  Dan Grech: In the 30-second or 1 minute that he meets a new prospect.
• 22:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right, times a thousand if he's at a conference, right?
• 22:48
  Dan Grech: So, we're gonna develop a story-driven script about why he does what he does and why it matters, to make that initial great first impression, to get that business card to then follow up with a sales call, and then when the sales call happens.
• 23:01
  Dan Grech: They talk about why they do what they do and why it matters as part of the deck, and it then becomes not just this one-off, but this cons… yeah, this consistent…
• 23:12
  Dan Grech: deployment, and so that's what phase…
• 23:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love that.
• 23:15
  Dan Grech: Yeah. Phase 2 is about is deploying it, and it… it also should be consistent with, like, how you talk about yourself on social media should be the exact, have the same core values as how you hire.
• 23:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So, give me… give me a brief example, because oftentimes, like, when I get a client, a new client, and I'm onboarding them, I'm like, okay, so tell me in your words what you do. Oh, well, I'm a… I'm a chiropractor.
• 23:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And? You know, I mean, they label themselves rather than telling a story. So, can you give us a brief example about how that, little 30-second commercial might come together?
• 23:49
  Dan Grech: Yeah, you know, I'm a chiropractor, you know, I'm somebody who, like, presses on your back until it makes a cracking noise, or, you know, that's like the what I do, right?
• 24:01
  Dan Grech: I'm a chiropractor, I, help, people move without pain, so they can live their best life.
• 24:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it.
• 24:11
  Dan Grech: You know what I mean? So, it's… it's really… that's… that's the Simon Sinek
• 24:16
  Dan Grech: People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
• 24:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly.
• 24:20
  Dan Grech: That's the move, and that's a leadership principle, right? So he primarily did it as a way to, like, be a visionary and get people to follow you, but it's also a sales principle, right? It's a marketing and sales principle, which is, ultimately.
• 24:35
  Dan Grech: The reason we exist as businesses is to solve a pain.
• 24:40
  Dan Grech: That our client is having.
• 24:42
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly. And so…
• 24:44
  Dan Grech: The idea is you are in business to help solve
• 24:49
  Dan Grech: Pain for people like them, so that they can live a better version of their lives.
• 24:55
  Dan Grech: My favorite example of this is,
• 24:59
  Dan Grech: they're called the Greater Need. They're a bagel shop in… outside of Philadelphia, where I grew up. Oh, Need! Okay, cool. Exactly, so…
• 25:09
  Dan Grech: Yeah, so need, like, K-N-E-A-D, but obviously the… this is, like, more… this is a purpose-driven bagel shop, as you can tell from their name, so the,
• 25:20
  Dan Grech: The larger need that they're fulfilling is, you know, the founder's family had celiac.
• 25:29
  Dan Grech: Oh!
• 25:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh!
• 25:30
  Dan Grech: and they wanted to break bread together, literally, but they couldn't do it over normal glutinous bread, so she created a gluten-free bagel recipe that became the Greater Need Bakery. And so.
• 25:42
  Dan Grech: Yeah, it's… What an amazing story, right?
• 25:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And that's… that's it! That's… that's the piece that I think a lot… a large number, I don't even know the percentage of it, but a large number of businesses
• 25:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: don't have. That's why this story is so important, that you have to go, oh, that's cool, oh, that's cute, oh, wait, aww, right? I fell into your story, and I'm totally committed into buying her bagels because of the story you presented.
• 26:11
  Dan Grech: Yeah, and it's hilarious because when you read her website, you realize that she has a larger purpose than just selling bagels or bagel chips.
• 26:21
  Dan Grech: It's, she is part of a… what is known in the industry as the free from movement, so free from adulterants, free from gluten, free from any toxins.
• 26:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Differentiator.
• 26:34
  Dan Grech: Yeah, and so, it's a differentiator, like, she's a gluten-free bagel, but it's also, like, she's playing at something way bigger than selling bagel chips.
• 26:43
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hmm.
• 26:44
  Dan Grech: She is part of a movement to allow people to be able to eat food that doesn't make them sick.
• 26:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Ugh.
• 26:52
  Dan Grech: And to allow them to share that food
• 26:55
  Dan Grech: Without fear or worry with their family.
• 26:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Because their family can maybe be able to eat gluten, but then, you know, she's sitting there not having any bread, but now she can share with them, and it's probably so tasty that their family doesn't even realize it's gluten-free, right?
• 27:10
  Dan Grech: You know, my wife is gluten-free, and for years, we just didn't eat pizza for the family. And then now, over the last couple of years, like, gluten-free pizza has become a thing, and now we get to have pizza again.
• 27:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Cauliflower crust, yep.
• 27:22
  Dan Grech: And it's funny, like, I… grew up every Friday having pizza night in my family, and literally.
• 27:30
  Dan Grech: for years, with my now family, we couldn't have pizza night, because… and it's like…
• 27:36
  Dan Grech: Pizza Night is seriously one of my favorite memories growing up, and I have such vivid memories of going to Bella Pizza in suburban Philadelphia, and my dad
• 27:44
  Dan Grech: would always get the, you know, the chicken platter, and then we would have the pizza, and there would always be, like, 3 pieces left over, and then at that night, my sister and I would sneak downstairs and eat the remaining pizza so that it was all gone by the morning. Like, it was like this whole vivid thing, and I couldn't have that with my family, because my wife can't eat gluten until recently, where she can, and it's because
• 28:09
  Dan Grech: because of pizza shops like The Greater Need, who recognize that it's way… about way more than just
• 28:16
  Dan Grech: a good pizza with cupping pepperoni. You know, it's about bringing families together and creating shared memories over food.
• 28:24
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it. I love it. This is so good, and I think… I think as business owners, if we can create this kind of story using your framework, and I know you've got one more section of it, but it's like, this is really what brings the buyer towards you and helps you choose them.
• 28:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Or them choosing you over somebody else, or worse, that story of you not having pizza on Friday night because your wife couldn't, and then now you can, right?
• 28:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And there's so much more to this story that actually differentiates yourself to bring those client attraction factors to you, and really set you up for why you're doing business. And I love the storytelling, and you're telling us some great stories.
• 29:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: to get on to the third piece before we run out of time.
• 29:11
  Dan Grech: Yeah, it's Define, right? Where you actually identify and discover the story. It's deploy, where you develop a story-to-business strategy roadmap. And then the last one is Ignite, and that is
• 29:25
  Dan Grech: Bringing this story to all of your stakeholders, including your employees, so they can become storytellers, too.
• 29:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, I love it.
• 29:35
  Dan Grech: Yeah, so that third phase is really, like.
• 29:38
  Dan Grech: about, bringing the story into the world, and getting it, like, igniting your whole team around that story. And, one of my favorite stories about the Ignite phase is one of the most extraordinary companies I've ever had the benefit of working with is called Textamol. Textamol is a software company based in Frisco, Texas, right near Dallas.
• 30:02
  Dan Grech: And they sell text messaging services as a service, like a SaaS business, they're B2B, and they are literally, like, in the same business as spammers.
• 30:15
  Dan Grech: So, they could be… it's like one of the most hated industries.
• 30:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right.
• 30:19
  Dan Grech: And they have somehow managed to be a purpose-driven text messaging software. They have, create on their website a statement of larger purpose that they will never be a part of spamming.
• 30:37
  Dan Grech: That they are part of a mission to help facilitate communication that people want to receive.
• 30:44
  Dan Grech: They work with churches, they work with nonprofits, and they have the most extraordinary corporate culture you've ever seen.
• 30:52
  Dan Grech: And they just transitioned after 18 years to employee-owned. Wow. And then the craziest part of… the craziest part of all of this is they self-identify as what's called an evergreen company. Have you ever heard of the evergreen movement?
• 31:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yes.
• 31:06
  Dan Grech: Yeah, so these, they want to be around for 100 years.
• 31:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it.
• 31:11
  Dan Grech: And so, they have this…
• 31:12
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And they called the elephant out, right? All the people that are thinking, oh, text company, you're just a bunch of spammers, right? They called the elephant in the room out and said, no, this is what we're trying to… we're trying to avoid, right? We're trying to take care of that industry and making it, you know, communications the best way that your audience wants to communicate with you.
• 31:33
  Dan Grech: Yeah, they take, like, one of the most hated industries, and they've built a story-driven business.
• 31:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it.
• 31:40
  Dan Grech: And, you know, the reason that they became employee-owned is because they were getting so many acquisition requests, companies that wanted… because, like, PE, you'll go in, and it'll hoover up 30 businesses like this, and then it will destroy their culture. And they had spent 18 years, like, business artists, creating this beautiful culture, that was human-driven and purpose-values-led.
• 32:03
  Dan Grech: And they just didn't want it to go away, and so they became part of the Evergreen Movement, and they became employee-owned. And it's incredible. They have this incredible document, that you can find on their website, text them all. It's called the Culture Code.
• 32:17
  Dan Grech: And the culture code, the copyright, is year 18 of 100.
• 32:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, love it.
• 32:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Love it! Oh my goodness. Dan, this is so much fun! You have really encouraged me to think on my own story.
• 32:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, I mean, my story, I don't know how touching and pulling it is, but, you know, I learned from mistakes my parents had.
• 32:41
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And that evolved in the way I do my business, so now I'm not just helping you grow your company, but I'm helping you prepare to sell. And there's a huge story in that. Now I'm thinking to myself, I really need to articulate that more.
• 32:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Because there's so many people that have watched their companies die, or their parents' companies dies, or whatever.
• 33:02
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And… and that's why now I… I need to… I need to… I need to storeify, I guess, if that's a word. Marcia made-up word! Storify! And, and, and have that be really the driving force of the why I do my business.
• 33:17
  Dan Grech: Yeah.
• 33:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Good.
• 33:19
  Dan Grech: Yeah, you know, you went there on your own, and I have often found that when you authentically share.
• 33:26
  Dan Grech: often the way it is received is by them reciprocating. And so, maybe another benefit that I haven't emphasized enough is it creates these beautiful, authentic connections.
• 33:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Ugh, exactly.
• 33:43
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly.
• 33:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Ugh, which is what… which is what the buyer wants.
• 33:48
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: really, truly, when they're making a decision and in that Me Too community of businesses that are, you know, large and farmed out there.
• 33:58
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: they want somebody that they feel like, oh, well, if I buy from them, I feel better, right? You know, or, oh, they're right, they're just like, they think like me, or they do something, and they want that connection. So that story, as you've explained so many examples, is really that connection point.
• 34:17
  Dan Grech: Yeah, and I'd love to give you a little homework assignment, you and your listeners, which is, I have to imagine that our listeners are having little popping moments, like, I call it, like, popcorn, like, little.
• 34:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah!
• 34:29
  Dan Grech: Where they're starting to think about their experiences of childhood, in childhood, and they're starting to begin to connect the dots of how those childhood influences led them to where they are.
• 34:43
  Dan Grech: And so, my homework to you all is, you know.
• 34:47
  Dan Grech: And you cannot do this by yourself.
• 34:50
  Dan Grech: And so my biggest recommendation, yes, you can try to do it with AI and our virtual biographer, or just
• 34:57
  Dan Grech: Take a good listener, someone who loves you, and who won't judge you, and sit down over a beer or a glass of wine, and have them ask you, why is what you're doing, why does it matter, and why is it so important to you? Oh, I love it. And who taught you to value that?
• 35:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it. And record it, right?
• 35:17
  Dan Grech: Oh yeah, definitely record it, make sure you're playing.
• 35:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: or one of those third-party recordings, because you'll miss something, or you'll say something, and you're like, that was great, and you can never replicate it again. But yes, I love it.
• 35:29
  Dan Grech: Yeah.
• 35:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exercise.
• 35:30
  Dan Grech: So dig into the… we call this the why chain, sort of why do you do what you do? Why does it matter, why is it important? And keep… keep digging deeper. I believe that every small business is story-driven, whether they know it or not.
• 35:46
  Dan Grech: And the reason I believe this is because the very definition of a business is that you create a product or a service that provides value.
• 35:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly.
• 35:56
  Dan Grech: You wouldn't be in business if you weren't providing value, and providing value and being story-driven is the same thing.
• 36:01
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly. Dan, this is great, and I know we could go on for days on these. These stories are so… they're already touching me, and I know they're touching the audience, so we need to have listeners find you, and so where can listeners get more information about the story-driven
• 36:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And how they can really pull that out of themselves. You gave us some great examples, but I want them to find you, definitely.
• 36:23
  Dan Grech: Yeah, thank you so much for that, and thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for all that you're doing for businesses like mine, and, you know, kind of fulfilling what your mom and dad taught you, and your mission. The best way for folks who want to learn more is to go to the
• 36:42
  Dan Grech: storydrivenbusiness.com.
• 36:45
  Dan Grech: And on there, you'll see more information about the work that we do, and an opportunity to schedule a call with me.
• 36:53
  Dan Grech: And I give, you know, free 30-minute consultations, to any story-driven business owner, to help guide them on their journey, to becoming more story-driven. So, thestorydrivenbusiness.com, and you'll learn more about what we do, our virtual biographer, and you can book a call with me.
• 37:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, excellent! That's very… that's very helpful, and I know that because…
• 37:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: we don't know where to start, and I know your simple idea of sitting down with a friend and have them ask you questions, if they're not skilled at that, or you're not thinking in the way that you should think, you need the expert to help draw it out from you. So I appreciate the fact that you're giving that 30 minutes away to say, hey, let me draw on a couple ideas out of you so we can get the wheels spinning.
• 37:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Right? It's nothing worse than… I mean, as a writer, right? Looking at that, you know, white page and the cursor flashing at you, and you're like, where do I start, right?
• 37:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: this is the perfect place to start. So, listeners, I would encourage you to take Dan up on his offer, and go check it out, and also look at his little, little AI biographer. I'm sure that's going to be super helpful along the way, too, once you get that initial idea out.
• 38:05
  Dan Grech: Yeah, I like to think of myself as a mirror, like a storytelling mirror, and so the benefit of me meeting with you, or you working with someone, is it's very hard to see yourself clearly if you don't look in the mirror.
• 38:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Exactly. Oh, that's good. That's really good. I hope that gets into your book, because that's a really good line.
• 38:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Alright, listeners, thanks for tuning in today. I hope you picked up some valuable insight and actionable ideas that can help your business be more profitable. And I know, right, just… if you're… if you listen to this, I know you're feeling this, and I know you know stories are a super important way to communicate.
• 38:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: the value that you provide, and… and that connection point with your audience. So, this is, yeah, this is really, really good stuff.
• 38:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, so before you go…
• 38:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, I thought I'd share one more time, if you're ready to bring in more of the right clients and keep more of what you earned, go grab your free Profit Booster Growth Map. It's going to pinpoint the top 3 moves to grow revenue and stop those profit leaks fast. So go get it anytime at ProfitBooster.biz.
• 39:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And, while you're at it, don't forget to subscribe! You don't want to miss future shows! You can always find Profit with a Plan on any of your favorite podcast players, and we're looking forward to more great profitable strategies on next week's show. So until then, make your plans and profit with them. Thank you so very much, Dan. This was great.
• 39:33
  Dan Grech: Thank you for the opportunity.