The Power of Storytelling as a Way to Differentiate Your Brand in Saturated Markets

INTRO:

Hey hey, Kathryn here! I’m so glad you’re tuning in. If you’re new to the show, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. If you’ve been around for a bit, you know I’m all about keeping it real with you. Showing you all the sides of entrepreneurship (& life). I mean it’s all connected, right? 

Kathryn Thompson  00:00

Hey, hey, Kathryn here. I'm so glad you're tuning in. If you're new to the show, welcome, welcome. I'm super stoked that you're here. If you've been around for a bit, you know, I'm all about keeping it real with you showing you all sides of entrepreneurship and life. I mean, it's all connected, right. And as always, I am so grateful that I get to sit my beautiful home office in Canada, where I'm located and record this podcast episode. For you. It is a bit of a building block from last week's episode. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, I highly suggest that you do. We talked about a very important topic. And that is how to go against the grain in a world that rewards following the status quo. And I've had so much amazing feedback from y'all. I've been getting emails, DMS, text messages from those that have my cell number, telling me how powerful that episode was and how great that episode was, and how, you know, it really started to light a fire under some people's booty to really push the boundaries and to challenge the status quo, but also the AHA that they know that's what they need to do. Because if you're a trailblazer, if you're a disrupter, if you're an innovator, if you're on a mission to change the way that you do things in your industry, finding the courage first, to go against the status quo. And to challenge it is what you need to do. And it's easier said than done. But I shared three very practical tips on how to really start to do that. But today, I wanted to dive into the power of storytelling one to differentiate yourself and to stand out in the market that you're in, especially if it's saturated, but to storytelling has a really powerful effect of being able to reflect and to communicate your personality, the essence of who you are. And when done well. It helps you express yourself to the fullest. And why that's so important when challenging status quo. Because when we are following, same same, or the cookie-cutter, content and messaging and all of that we ended up just emulating, replicating, duplicating and maybe not even on purpose. And storytelling really helps you break away from that. Because the way in which you tell the story unless you're copying directly somebody's story, you can't duplicate that you can't emulate that, right? You can't duplicate someone's personality. You can't do that through story. And so I wanted to I got the hit of inspiration. While I was sipping on that cold cup of coffee, you can rest assured that I'm drinking a lovely, beautiful warm cup of coffee right now. I also was told how gross it is to let my coffee set, whether it's a couple hours that it gets cold, but honestly, I can do it. I sit all day. And sometimes I'm sipping on that cold cup of coffee, it starts warm, but then turns into an ice cold coffee and iced coffees cool. And in, isn't it? I don't know. Anyways, I am sipping a beautiful warm cup of coffee. And one of my plants had babies. So I have two new babies planted in my office. So I went from having six thriving plants to now eight plants. And I'm super stoked about that. So let's dive into the power of storytelling and really how to use that in your business to differentiate yourself. I want to start though by sharing why this is really important. As I mentioned, I had just jumped off a one to one call with a new client of mine who's been in the market for years now. She's been doing what she's doing. She owns a product based business, she has been selling her product, she's done amazing work. But over the last year and a half, she's noticed more businesses entering the market doing similar things to what she does. And as normal. She's had people reach out saying how are you different than X, Y and Z? This might happen to you too, right? Where you get a message like how are you different than this coach or this entrepreneur this business? Right. And that, to me is always an indication that the market is becoming more saturated. There's more businesses entering that are similar to my own. And I therefore need to evolve my marketing. And that's what is necessary in saturated markets, right? Because what happens is, is the audience becomes sophisticated to what is being sold. Plus, there's a ton more options out there. And so when a customer is looking to figure out what option to take or what you know, business to go with, they're starting to weigh your business versus somebody else's. It doesn't mean that what you do isn't good or anything like that, or it's not good enough because why can't they pick me over somebody else? That's just how humans decide what they're going to invest their money in. They start to compare the other things on the market. What does this person do? differently than the other person, right? It's natural buying processes. But as the market becomes saturated, there's more options out there. So that means there's more opportunity for people to compare brands. And in order to stand out, we've got to evolve our marketing. That is why storytelling is so potent and so powerful. And I'm not talking about like sharing your story and your mission over and over and over, right, that personal story that a lot of brands talk about, right? A lot of other marketers will say, share your story, and storytelling, so powerful, and all these sorts of things. And it is sharing your story and putting a face to the brand. I 100% believe it is super powerful. It humanizes the brand. But I'm talking about how to create storytelling, and everything that you do, from the podcast episodes that you record to the content that you're putting on social media to the reels right, is how to infuse storytelling into that, whether that's a story about you and your brand, and what you do, or it's just storytelling elements that are interlaced into your content. Right. So I think I shared on the outro of the last podcast was I shared an example of JK Rowling and Harry Potter, right? I mean, she created a story, and a very amazing one at that. And it's totally fictional, right? It's not that she wrote about herself and her, you know, this is where I started. And now this is where I am, which is what we see a lot in the online space, right? Like, share your rock bottom moment, and now share your stories of riches. Right, we see that so often in storytelling, this is not what I'm talking about. Right? I'm not talking about that I was broke. And now I'm rich, or I was struggling. And now I'm here, I'm not talking about that story, I'm talking about interlacing. And infusing everything that you do with an element of story, because storytelling cannot be duplicated or emulated, right. And what I mean by that is, and I'm gonna just kind of break it down in some very practical ways and terms for you so that you guys can start to see why one, this is so important, and to how to really start to do this. And, and potentially, I may record more episodes where I'm like, breaking this down even more. But this particular client, I'm going to use her as an example, like I said, she's a product-based business and what often happens with product-based businesses, when they enter the market. And this also happens with service-based businesses, if I'm being honest, is, you know, we focus so much on the product, or the offer, and what's included in that, right. And unless you have a patent for something, which means your your patent that product, which is proprietary to you, it's hard to differentiate when other people enter the market, for example, right? So if you're selling I don't know, like juices, let's just say, you know, when the whole, that whole trend hit the market, right, where people started selling juices, and you could go on a juice diet and all those sorts of things. And there's a local store that opened here that would package create juices that you could then buy, right? Well, what's differentiating you as a juice company, compared to some other juice company that entered the market, when we opened our brick and mortar or winemaking business, there was a lot of other winemaking businesses in the city that produced wine at a small scale and sold it to their customers. Right. So there was no patent on what we were doing is what I'm trying to say is so that anybody could enter the market and offer something very similar. What ends up happening in that regard is you're no longer differentiated by the product itself, right? Unless you have a patent that's like, I have some unique technology that nobody else can replicate, then that can set you apart wholeheartedly. But when you're selling a product, like a pen, or wine, or juices, or, you know, bath bombs or candles, right, there's no patent in what you're doing. There's no unique technology that's going to set you apart. And so the more and more candle companies or bath bomb companies are wine companies that enter the market, the more sophisticated your audience becomes, but the more options are available. And so this is important to understand is that there's you can't just focus on the features that you're selling. And that's what a lot of product-based businesses and service-based businesses do is they focus on the features they focus on, you know, I have this juice, that's celery, and it's a unique recipe that's just for our business and, or for the wine business that we had. Right. It was like we did have a unique product and the fact that the juice that we carry was 100% pure juice, and no other store carried that what that offered us was a superior product in the long run. But it's not the only thing that we needed to communicate Eat and share. And in order to differentiate ourselves, right? Because there was a lot of people already making wine at other stores, right? So it's a narrative that one yes, we use to position ourselves. But we also really humanize the experience and the brand. And that was done through a lot of connection and storytelling and sharing stories of like wine that, you know, I made that I then, you know, shared with family and shared at Easter, shared at Christmas or whatever. That's often how a lot of my stuff sold was because I'd be like, You know what, I made this new wine, and then I paired it, we barbecued the other day, and I paired it with, you know, this wine or whatever. And that's usually where a lot of the sales would happen. So storytelling is, like I said, a really powerful way, especially in the saturated market. And what the big mistake is that a lot of businesses do is they focus on the features. And that will work if there's not other competing businesses in your industry. And there are not a lot of industries that are just like a standalone businesses. And they're the only ones that offer this right. So this was the case that this client of mine started to experience. She had someone reach out to her and say, How are you different than X, Y, and Z? And anytime somebody asks that question, I've had that done in my business. I've heard it from clients. Anytime you're getting a question of how are you different than anybody else, or somebody else in your industry, it's an indication and sort of like a bit of a red flag to go, Hmm, we need to sort of dive into this and evolve our marketing because there's other people in the industry now and people aren't sure how we're different or for the same company or any of that. And so, I've been working with her to come up with a messaging strategy, and a content strategy that's going to really help differentiate her brand from other people and storytelling and the power of that is how to do it because it can't be replicated. And the elements in which you want to ensure that you're infusing into your content and into your copy our into your copy is vital. And especially if you start to get the questions of like, how are you different than X, Y and Z, right. And like I said, this is not about sharing your rags to riches story over and over again, or sharing the mission behind your business over and over again. While those are important in order to put a face to the person running the business to humanize the brand, you can also use the power of story in a very powerful way, in every piece of content that you create, especially if you have a product that you're like, Hmm, I'm selling the features of my product, I'm selling the juice, I'm selling the wine I'm selling, you know, the pen, so to speak, right? It's like, How do I tell a story about the pen? Or how do I tell a story about the wine, right, and or, or juice for example. And so I'm just going to give you an example of how you can draw people in with a story in one single post that has nothing to do with your rise to fame or your life story, right. But it can be tidbits of that story to give some depth and vibrancy to what you do that's not duplicated. So for example, if you have a juice company, and you're selling juices, and you pick your flavors based on, I don't know, life experiences, or health benefits, and all those sorts of things, but let's say you you came up with a new spring flavor of juice, and there's a bit of a hint of cinnamon in it. And well Cinnamon has all these amazing properties for health and all that and you can sell that you can say something like, you know, I we actually love the smell of cinnamon, and well it has all these health, beautiful health benefits for you. And list those. The reason why we wanted to give this particular juice a hint of cinnamon, beyond just the health benefits is like cinnamon reminds us of being at our grandma's house because every time we walked in, she always had some type of baking or something going on in the kitchen. And it always smelled like this, these hints of cinnamon in her kitchen. And it just reminds us of our grandma, right? You can see how that showcases not only that, okay, yes, you're intentional about the health benefits of the juice that you want to use. But you're also very intentional with why you created that juice, right? What was the reason behind it? Right? There's some nostalgia there, right, which is a really powerful storytelling technique. Right? So you're infusing that into that one piece of content, and you're using it once to influence and inspire your audience. But you're also doing it in a way that's going to differentiate you and that can't be duplicated, because your nostalgia, your memories are your own. Right. And another company, if they came out and said, You know, I go to my grandmas and I have I smell cinnamon, I mean, that's a direct duplication, and it's going to be very apparent to everybody around that you shared a story of your grandma and why you created this particular juice, right? And why it's so important that you do put cinnamon in because Cinnamon has benefits, but it's also a really lovely reminder of your grandma. And if somebody else relates to that, and you know, like, oh, yeah, whenever I'd go to my grandma's house, it smelled like you know, there was this like Rose perfume or, you know, she had these fresh-baked buns in the oven every time or all of those sorts of things that people start to remember their grandma and the experiences they've had, right? So it doesn't always have to be your life story. But it can be tidbits memories, nostalgia, things that are going to emit an emotion within somebody that can't be duplicated, or replicated. The other really big element of storytelling, right is they often say the character, right? Who's the character in the story? And really even deeper than that piece of it is the personality, right? What type of personality does that person exude? So if you're writing a piece of content, I have a client right now I absolutely adore. And she uses dude for everything. And she's like, Dude, you gotta check this out. Dude, you got to do this. And it's so funny. Because dude, is I call everybody a dude. Right? Craig doesn't necessarily like that. I call him a dude. He's like, I'm not your dude. But I call everybody a dude. And so there's this like, innate connection with that particular client, because I'm like, I love that you put dude in your content that adds personality, because when you actually have a conversation with her in real life, or via zoom, or however you run your business, that's going to one your content is going to emit your personality, which again, can't be duplicated. But when you actually talk to the person in real life, there's going to be massive alignment, and people are gonna go okay, she actually talks this way. So freaking is one thing I always say like oh, so freaking awesome, right? And I remember having a client say to me because I put that in my content all the time, I don't drop the F-bomb that often, just not something I even in conversations is not something I do, right. So I don't put that in my content to emit emotion for the sake of omitting emotion, I'll use the word freaking. And it's funny because I had a client of mine once say, you actually really do say freaking a lot. And I was like, I know I do, right? That one reflects my personality and the content that I create, and it's so infused with that. But then it also creates a massive connection when somebody can actually have a real live conversation with you. And they, and they're like, Okay, the person that's actually writing the content, and sharing the content, the way in which that they do is actually the human behind the brand, right? It's not just for show or for optics, or to get sales, it's actually how they would talk. And so I always look at like character, who's the character behind the brand? How do they talk? What's their tone? How do they, you know, and this is, these are the things I often pull out of my clients. I'm like, what is it like to be in your, say, you have a physical brick and mortar, like, how do you operate? Like, how do you like, how do you talk to your customers? Like, how do you talk to your team, right? So oftentimes, clients of mine are so comfortable with their team, that their team sees a lot of who they are, but maybe the customers, they're not as comfortable with the customers or whatnot. So they're not showing the full side of who they are. And I'm always like, so what is your team? Like, say about you are like, how do how do you interact with them, right? And lots of times, we will say, like I, you know, I'm really funny or easy, like, laid back and easygoing, and like, I kind of joke around with them. And it's like, then you go and look at the content. And their content is very, like static and sort of, like stale and not really reflecting like, the joking or the poking fun or the making fun. That goes on behind the scenes. That's the personality, right? So who is the character running the business? And that's you. Right? So who are you? What's your personality? Like? How do you talk to your best friends? What do you how do you text them? Right? Because again, I don't sit and drop F-bombs with my friends or my family or whatever, but I see freaking a lot. Or I even make up my own words, like, sent out an email this week. And I was like, It's, uh, you know, go listen to the podcast, it's a good or right, like, I just make up my own stuff, just like I make up song lyrics. When I'm singing a song. I never get the lyrics, right. People know that about me. And so that's what I want reflected. But I'm also a very humorous sort of dry humor, cracking jokes, get a good laugh out of a good joke. So a lot of the personality that I want in my content, because I'm the character behind the scenes, is infused with my personality. And so that's another really big piece of storytelling is like, what's your tone? What's the, it's that fullest expression of who you are? How would you express yourself? If you were talking to your best friend that you've had since grade two? Right? How do they know you? How do they describe you? How do they see you? Sometimes it's about uncovering that because we don't often see who likes how we're reflected to people, we don't actually see what they see, per se, it's harder to see and identify that. So sometimes we need a mirror, somebody holding that mirror up and going oh, right. You know, and oftentimes, as business owners, like I said, the biggest mistake is they sell the product, sell the product, sell the product, or sell the offer, that they forget that, you know, the customer actually wants to build some type of connection and trust with the person selling it. And oftentimes, you know, the product, yes, they buy the product or whatever. But it's the way in which they feel when they interact with your brand that actually makes them purchase your product over somebody else's. Right. It's like, how was how did I feel in that whole interaction, that whole customer buying journey from start to finish? And there's so many ways in which you connect with your people, right? It's like, whether it's social media content, the reels, you're creating the emails, you have a physical location, it's like how do they feel when they walk into that physical location? What does it feel like to talk to you on the phone? What does it feel like to purchase something from you? Like, do you feel well taken care of like, is it personalized to me? Do I feel like I'm more than just a transaction or a number? So storytelling is all about emitting emotion, but not in an artificial way? Right? We want to create those story elements of like infusing our personality, creating some type of nostalgia or memory or stirring up that nostalgia in people. The other big one is, you know, the, the senses that we have, right? So oftentimes, I'm like, How can you infuse like that tuning into that? their body and their emotions through senses, right? So the smell of cinnamon in my grandma's home, like not only does that create nostalgia, and you know, get people to think about the memories with their grandma, but anybody that smelt cinnamon knows the smell of cinnamon, so you almost can smell it, even though there might not be cinnamon around you, right? So it's like, but then there's the visual senses, there's the touch, right? So when we think about again, storytelling is like, you know, the soft velvety feel that's like, you know, slipping on like a silk robe. It's like beautiful, like, you can you can tap into the touch and the feeling right or as like, as I ran my fingers through the shag carpet, let's say, you know, it felt like I was running my fingers through tub of butter. I don't know, that might not be the greatest example. But you get what I'm saying is that, you know, the the touch the smell, the sight, the art, like the sound, right? So the sound of rain hitting a tin roof. Right? So you even though there might not be rain hitting the tin roof? You can you can hear it because we've all probably heard rain hit a roof or hit something. Right? So again, how do we bring in the the senses so that when they're reading it, they can they can almost smell, hear? Touch all of those sorts of things, they get it right. Again, these are all things that product and service-based businesses, like when we're just selling the feature. It's like what's the benefit? Right, the benefit is just beyond, like the thing they're gonna get if they're selling a vacuum, right, like a clean home. Awesome, right? But if you can put in like any type of element of like nostalgia or memory or person add some personality to it, like the quirkiness of it, the you know, the humor, the lightheartedness, all of that how bright and shiny you are as a human, but then if you can add any like senses into that it's money, right? It's absolute money, because people then can go, Oh, I'm not just buying a vacuum cleaner, but I'm buying the feeling the emotion, the all of it, right, and they can buy into that. And again, all of that storytelling element, and the elements in which you infuse into your content, are really hard to duplicate without, like outright copywriting. You know, if somebody all of a sudden turned around and wrote a very similar novel to JK Rowling's, you know, Harry Potter, I mean, it would be quite obvious that it was a copy cat, right, or a duplication of it. And the same goes for your business. And, and the same goes for brands within like the industry, right is like it becomes a very red glaring, you know, flag that someone's completely copying, copying what you do. And so when we can infuse the power of storytelling into what we do, not only are you going to evolve your marketing, but you're also going to differentiate yourself. And the more you can be the fullest expression of who you are, and really actually show up in your brand in a way that's like the full reflection of you, you start to carve your own path, you start to ditch the cookie-cutter, one size fits all approach to marketing, you start to step out of the boxes that you might have put yourself into, because that the way of selling or the way of communicating or the way of connecting with your audience was very scripted, and very, like stale and sort of static, you start to break out of that, which is the essence of why I created this podcast. And it's really the mission that I'm on is beyond just helping businesses create really wildly successful businesses. It's like, I want you to feel frickin good in your business, I want you to wake up and be like, I actually enjoy marketing, I actually enjoy creating content, I actually enjoy being able to sit and imagine and bring to life this story that I'm telling about my product, that's just, you know, beyond just selling a pen or selling, you know, a batch of wine are selling a thing of juice, right as like, I there is a why behind why you do a lot of the things you do in your business. And that is such a really intricate part of like interlacing, the storytelling within that. And oftentimes as business owners, we don't take the time to share that with our audience. And we don't take the time to add that into our content. And what ends up happening is, especially in a saturated market is we just blend in because we sound like everybody else selling the pen, the juice, the wine, the coaching programs, right? I have this coaching container that helps people go from x to x, like boring, right and no offense to that, but it's boring, right? It's like everybody's selling a coaching package that's telling you how to go from point A to point B Right. I mean, it's done, it's been done. And if you're not the first person doing it, you're not going to stand out. And so it's like, so what about that coaching package? Can you open people up to a way of feeling, tapping into some relatable memories, getting them to admit some emotion within them that's like, oh, man, I felt that I felt every ounce of that story, I felt every ounce of that piece of content. And this doesn't mean that you've got to pump out content every day. That's another massive mistake. And it's something I want to talk about in another podcast episode is that whole notion of like, I need to be inspired every day to create content and pump it out, because then I have consistency. And that's going to dilute your stories, because you're going to feel rushed, you're going to feel pressured to just churn out content, like it's a commodity. And what you do is not a commodity, right? It's and when we when we make things a commodity, like a pen, or a glass of wine, or, you know, a cup of coffee, which are commodities in their own right, when when we sell it like a commodity to the masses, we dilute our message, we dilute our brilliance, we dilute our medicine, that you're that you're here to do your soul's work, the work that you're meant to do, the passion you have for why you started your business, the passion you have for why you're offering what you offer, you dilute that when you try to shove it into some box, and eliminate all of the juiciness which is storytelling in a lot of ways you remove all of that. And it just becomes stale static content that's just blending into the noise. So this is why I'm so passionate about infusing story into what you do. Metaphors is another beautiful way to add an element of storytelling and add that into your content. Because a lot of times people can reference metaphors to write again, I could dive into how to do all of this, I just wanted to give you a basis or an understanding or just some examples of how you can go about starting to do this today. And if I hadn't, you know, the really long podcast I was that I could dive all into this. And I may do a masterclass at some point in the future too, to share even more with you how to do this, and how to infuse that story. But it's far beyond just sharing your story of why you do what you do. But it's it's literally adding that into every piece of content that you create, that will really help you stand out and differentiate your brand, but also help you carve your own path and really challenge the status quo. Because there is something unique and different about what you do, right. And there's this sort of aha moment or resonance that's going to come when you start to create those stories, and you start to use your imagination and you start to dabble in that creativity that's going to really unlock a lot of the things within you that and that fullest expression that we want to see. Because when we're just following the status quo of the path of this is how I market and this is how I sell and this is the way to do it. And you know, you're following the scripts and the templates and you're within that box, you're limiting yourself to the mass of possibility. And so storytelling really helps you open that up, go against the grain in a lot of ways and push the boundaries of status quo of following the right or wrong ways of marketing and selling your business. So I really hope that you enjoyed this podcast as we dive dived into. There's just the different ways in which you can add some elements of storytelling into your content and also the power of that and why it's so vital, especially in a saturated market. Cheers