How your brand story can help you stand out authentically
When it comes to standing out and getting name recognition, one of the biggest mistakes I see with freelancers and small business owners is that they don’t share stories about themselves. If you’re finding it hard to talk about yourself even though you know that storytelling is a powerful marketing tool, start here.
Most business owners don’t get personal enough because they’re trying to be professional. But what happens when you don’t get personal enough is that you fade into the noise and people forget about you.
So what should you do instead? Tell stories. Stories are sticky. Stories engage us in ways that data and statistics and generic information just don't.
Stories are sticky
When we hear a story, we insert ourselves in it. We put ourselves in the character’s shoes. We do this because we’re all a little bit narcissistic and we each tend to think of ourselves as the center of our individual lives.
Putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes helps us understand their feelings better. This means that we get better at thinking of the person who’s telling the story as a whole real person.
I admit, this can sound silly. You might be thinking, “Of course every person is a whole real person.” But sadly that’s actually not how most of us treat each other — at least it isn’t until we have formed some sort of a personal connection.
When you tell stories, your audience — your listeners, your viewers, your readers — get to understand you better. They form a personal connection with you, and that connection is what makes you memorable.
When I talk to my clients about telling stories about themselves, some of the most common responses I get are:
“I feel really uncomfortable about talking about myself.”
“I hate this idea because it feels like self promotion and that always feels icky.”
“I’m worried about what other people are going to think when they see me talking about myself all the freakin time.”
So if you are thinking any of these things, please know that it’s all normal. And this is exactly why I want to talk to you about the brand story.
What is the brand story?
Your brand story is all about a turning point in your life that explains why you help the people you help. It focuses on your audience and not on you or your accomplishments or your expertise.
It makes you unforgettable.
This is the story that your clients are going to repeat back to you when you ask them what made them want to work with you.
Your brand story has five parts:
Struggle
New direction
Turning point
Realization
Connection
I’m going to use the brand story that I currently have on my about page as an example to explain each of these parts.
As you might already know, my clients are online coaches. They are the audience that I had in mind when I wrote this story.
Part 1: The Struggle
The struggle provides background information about what was going on in your life and what wasn’t working so well, that eventually led to the turning point.
My example:
When I was 20 years old, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and prediabetes. I had never had regular periods, but at this point I had gone for over a year without getting my period and that’s why I went to see the doctor.
My doctors were not super helpful. They told me that I had to lose a ton of weight really quickly or risk getting cervical cancer — and I wasn’t more than 2-3 kilograms heavier than I am now.
They also gave me medication that really damaged my digestive system. They also kept me on the oral contraceptive pill, although I told them repeatedly that I was concerned about the side effects. Things were not going really well.
Part 2: The New Direction
The new direction is something new that you started doing in the process of working through your struggle.
My example:
I got tired of going to doctor’s appointments and getting no support or answers, so I decided to figure it out on my own.
This is when I discovered the world of whole foods and biohacking. I started following experts like Dave Asprey and Tim Ferriss. I started studying how different lifestyle choices affected my insulin resistance.
Part 3: The Turning Point
Just because I call it the “turning point” doesn’t mean that it has to be this big, dramatic moment in your life.
It just has to be a specific event, or a series of little events. Choose something specific that you could go into a lot of detail about, if you're asked to.
My example:
I discovered health coaches! I found that there were health coaches who specialized in women’s hormone health, and worked with them to improve my insulin resistance and get my period back without the pill.
Part 4: The Realization
The realization is where you describe something that you became aware of, or something that you came to understand more clearly as a result of the turning point in Part 3.
My example:
I realized that when it comes to diseases or conditions that affect women, there’s still so much that we just don’t know. Most medical research focuses on white men. And most doctors aren’t equipped with what the latest research does show.
Thankfully, there are health coaches who are qualified and who fill this gap. Instead of relying on drugs that have major side effects, they’re empowering women to heal themselves and to restore their health naturally, through lifestyle changes.
Part 5: The Connection
The connection is where you explain to your audience why the story you’ve told them so far matters to them. Make it super clear why in your business, you choose to work with them.
My example:
I worked with health coaches, and they changed my life — quite literally. So I wanted to connect them with more people so that they could change even more lives.
Health coaches also provided this gateway into the broader coaching world for me: after I experienced just how much I could change by working with someone with this deep expertise in their field, I started seeking out coaches who could help me grow in other parts of my life as well.
I wanted to become a better business owner, a better writer, and a better leader, and found coaches to help me with all of these areas.
Coaches have this power to help people break out of their status quo and experience just life changing growth — and my work is all about connecting these coaches with their people, so that more people all around the world can experience that kind of growth.
Brand Story Recap & Challenge
So that is the brand story! The five parts are:
Struggle
New direction
Turning point
Realization
Connection
I want to challenge you to write the first draft of your brand story and share it in the YouTube comments. I’ll give you feedback so that you can start using your brand story in your marketing and stand out from the crowd.
