Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

Speed your way to better storytelling

When I started going to San Diego comic con I wanted to find “work” but I also wanted to meet some of my favorite artists.

Sometimes I just wanted to geek out my inner fan-boy and sometimes I wanted a portfolio review.  Pro tips are the best! One or two tips from a working artist can take months (sometimes years) off a learning curve.

One thing about comic-con used to get under my skin though…

This isn’t exactly rational but…  When I looked at the lines of fans waiting to meet the creative teams, the writers usually had the longest lines.  

This was, well, odd to me.

I always read comics for the art.  I followed my favorite artists from project to project.  I figured if I only wanted to read the stories I’d just buy regular fiction books.  

Right?

Well…  Come to find out, most fans approached comic book buying differently than I did.  Like, almost all of them.

The art may be why I bought comics but it’s the stories that keep most fans coming back again and again.

This is true with movies too.  People may have loved the movie Speed, but if the plot keeps getting dumbed-down (like, Speed 2) people stop watching.  

And you get wonderful reviews like…

“They truly ruined a whole franchise in just two movies…  [from Rotten Tomatoes]

On the surface it’s easy to think the movie was horrible because Keanu Reeves wasn’t in it. Which is partly true.  But the real reason is because the story sucked.

This is why it is so important that you tell YOUR story in your marketing.  And to get better and better at telling it.

Stanford Marketing Professor Jennifer Aaker said, ”Stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone.”

People won’t always remember your USP or proprietary mechanism as much as they’ll remember you story and what inspired you to do what you do.

One book I recommend to help you do this is Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling by Matthew Dicks.  

It’s an awesome book.  Study it.  Apply it.

Adam

Storytelling advice from JK Rowling

Want a fast and easy way to tell better stories for your emails?  Start your story the opposite of how you will end it.  

That’s why in romantic comedies they start with a girl getting dumped by her long-time rich CEO boyfriend.  And to up the stakes she was probably tossed to the curb with a text message.  Or she found out her man was cheating on her with her best friend.

When this happens you know by end of the movie she’ll have found “true love” with some broke fun-spirited guitar player.

This is exactly what JK Rowling did to start Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In the beginning, there’s no magic, no nuttin’.  She doesn’t even talk about Harry the star of the book!

She starts immediately with the Dursleys, Harry’s anti-magical boring aunt and uncle.

Her first line in the book is:

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

[Which means Harry is abnormal….]

“The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.”

[Which means Harry is NOT a fine boy]

For Harry Potter to graduate into a world of magic and wonder he first must drudge in the opposite of that.  

Your message is the same way.  It needs contrast.

I talk about the contrast principle in my free PDF: 7 Mistakes Coaches and Course Creators Make Promoting Products and Services with E-mail.  

You can download it for free here:  https://adamstreet.net

Adam

Sales Fast Food

Back when I sold insurance I made most of my sales from Internet leads.  After a while I received referrals too but my bread and butter was the online ones.

If I could beat the rate the prospect was paying (and the other quotes) I usually got the sell.  I was an independent agent so I had access to more than one company.

When I swung into working with car lots, I thought I hit the holy grail.  People who didn’t have insurance who needed it to buy their new cars.  It was a match made in heaven.

It wasn’t all rosy though.  There was a price for eating all that insurance sales “fast food”. 

When car salesmen needed quotes they wanted them with swiftness of Flash (from the CW TV show).  If you didn’t call them back in minutes they rolled on to the next insurance guy.

Even when I sold the policy things could get sketchy.  Sometimes financing wouldn’t workout and the policy would cancel in a few weeks.  Or the customer would leave in 6 months and go with another company.

And don’t get me wrong… Sales fast-food It’s not just for the insurance industry.  Business owners and entrepreneurs do it everyday.

They focus on going wide instead of going deep.  

I used to buy lists and I was really good with cold traffic.  Even though I made sales it wasn’t the same.  No matter how enchanting  my words were, I mainly attracted people who  shopped on price.  

In the end it was sales fast food all over again.  I could have built the relationship later after I provided the service but I was so into churn-and-burn that I just kept looking for the next dopamine hit.

That’s why it’s so important to “eat your veggies” and build your business the slow way.  My Blockbuster Marketing process may take you longer but you’ll have a more sustainable business and you’ll connect with your prospects and clients.

Like real fast food limit the amount you consume.  Too much of it can make your business feeble and flabby.

For more tips like this sign up for my free daily emails at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

What Claude Hopkins has in common with Costco

I’ve been married for over 20 years and apparently I have date night all wrong.  

My wife needs to forget movies, concerts, and snazzy restaurants.  We’re going to Costco, baby!

Penn (of Penn and Teller) used to take dates to Costco.  https://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/201003?search_term=&pg=79#pg79

It could be the beauty of concrete flooring, those cuddly boxes, or perhaps the delicious free samples.  

People love free samples and sampling is a great marketing tool you should swipe and deploy from our good friends at Costco.

A lot of businesses don’t like to give away free samples though  Samples are a great way to find and hook customers.  Even if you’re offering a service.

I harp about not giving away your services too but there’s a difference.  On the surface it may appear the same.  Like bodies of water.  Most of them look great from a distance but when you get close you see all garbage, ick, and debris.  

Offering your services whilly-nilly hoping something can come of it and strategically offering a limited freebie as a marketing device is totally different.  You get different results too.

The company that runs Costco’s free samples said sampling boosted beer sales by 71 percent and frozen pizza by 600 percent.

In My Life in Advertising Claude Hopkins said, “the hardest struggle of my life has been to educate advertisers to the use of samples.  Or trials of some kind.”

And lemme tell ya, it’s a helluva lot easier to ‘close the sale’ too.  

Why?

Because you’re not asking someone to buy you’re asking them to try.

How easy is that?

One word of caution though.  Don’t think you still don’t need an irresistible offer.  In many cases it’s just as hard to get someone to take the free thing as it is the NOT free thing.  So don’t rest on your marketing laurels.

For more tips like this sign up for my free daily emails at https://adamstreet.net .

Adam

Control Not just a Janet Jackson song

Remember that song by Janet Jackson, Control?  It started like this…

“When I was 17 I did what people told me.  Did what my father said, and let my mother mold me.  But that was a long ago I’m in control, never gonna stop…”

Those lyrics are even better if you knew that Jackson grew up with a tyrannical father.  Control resonated with us because so many of us wanted power over our own lives.  

As business owners and entrepreneurs we like control too. I’m a recovering control-freak.  I get it.  

I would write cold emails, and copy for my ads, and sales pages with great words and flashy hooks.  I acted like I was in control but I really wasn’t.  

Gary Bencivenga said, “If you’re talking to a million people at once, each one of those people has the total power to toss your ad, ignore it, run to the fridge—anything he or she would rather do.”

When I got good at copywriting I kept thinking I could out-fox the fox.  I’d keep rewriting ads and posting on social with more flash than substance.  

This is like pro sports teams who keep drafting and signing free agents instead of building up the current players on their roster.  Focusing on flash (and snazzy tactics) is ok but it makes the long game hard to play.

I should have put just as much time focusing on building relationships with the audience I already had.  Sending value and listening if someone was talking.

I can’t control vanity metrics but I can control that stuff.  I can send an email a day.

This week don’t forget about the fundamentals and focusing on what you have control over.

Wanna get good at the fundamentals?  Go to https://adamstreet.net for free daily emails.

Adam