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Ryan
So I have to admit, it was always pretty likely that we join in the fun that is the Taylor Swift bandwagon. So here we are talking about what it takes to create raving fans of your brand. No, there won't be choreographed dance or outfit changes, but what I can promise you, there's a whole lot of talk about brand and of course, America's Sweetheart.
The power of brand and story together. One of the greatest multipliers in any business success. We have to break it down into a way which many people can action on. Today we're going to do that through Taylor Swift's record. We're going to get to that. But first and foremost, I want to introduce this lovely guest of ours who goes by the name of Susanna Woodard.
So we have this wonderful history together. You have a storied past, one of which has been focused on a lot of customer centricity. What's we're going to talk a lot about today. Welcome to On the Record. How are you?
Sue
I am so good. Thank you for having me. This is amazing.
Ryan
Well, we're thrilled to have you. Michael and I are going to throw you a lot of tough questions, as we often do. We're going to grill. You're going to see how you're getting into the conversation. First and foremost, though, we do want to draw some parallels to the record. Again today we're going to look at Taylor Swift's All the Swift.
You can get excited. We're going to give you your moment as if you haven't had it already this year. Past few years, we're going to look at Taylor's version of Red and draw parallels to what brand and storytelling can mean for a business.
So, Michael, could you draw a couple lines between these two conversation points?
Micheal
Yeah, I actually think Taylor's version is a big part of this story. Not just for this record, but for Taylor Swift as a whole. I am not a swiftie. I have barely listened to to her music outside of what you hear on the radio or, you know, food shopping. But, I do know her story, and and that is an incredibly powerful technique and tool that they've used, maybe on purpose.
Maybe it was it was organic. But we all we've heard the story of her fighting her label, coming out of this, rerecording all of her music so that she can get what, what she feels she's do in terms of the royalties of it. And that, I think, is an incredible brand piece. Intentional or unintentional, that is unique to her story in a very big way.
Sue
Yeah. So yeah, I agree. I am also admittedly not a swiftie. I did wear red lipstick today as a nod to, you know, but but I agree. I remember hearing that story and that really captured, kind of captured a lot of people's attention. But I also think she's very well known for being a storyteller. Right. Her albums are constantly.
In fact, I think Red is a breakup album. Jake Gyllenhaal, if I remember correctly. But it's just it's very fascinating to me. Just the way she's able to spin a story. I think about her presence over the last couple of years that a lot of the, you know, frankly, a lot of the attention was around her love story with, Kelsea and, you know, like, where was she going to be at the game and all of these what's happening at her concerts.
You know, there's a lot of stories woven into that. So not only does her music tell a story, but I think she's got interesting stories that have really helped build this phenomenal brand that is so swizzle.
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she's one of the biggest brands in the world we can't ignore. I mean, we can't deny it. I mean, Apple T, Swift, comparable brands as far as they're present, which is preposterous to say, but is a reality within this time, right? What I give her credit for, for her team is how tightly they've curated what we see of Taylor, when we see Taylor and how she shows up as well.
I think a great brand, a great story, is often a byproduct of heavily curated thought. Right. It's what's on the editing room floor. It's as impactful as the stuff that we actually consume. Everything that she does is obviously with great intent, and I think that it just has given her fan base such a connected experience, one of which is still, although manufactured, quite authentic as well.
And you can see how diehard her fans are, you know, whether it's her music, her concerts or that her garb, if you will. It's working. It's really working well. So right on. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about before we get into, you know, taking people into the brand evangelism sector, the music itself, how it powered her brand.
So Michael, although it admitted non swiftie, what did you like or maybe what didn't you like about the record.
Micheal
I can appreciate the the polish. I can appreciate the storytelling. And I think there's a lot of that in here. It sounds like her through many different genres. I think for me it's really I mean, there's what, 30 tracks?
Ryan
There are 30 tracks.
Micheal
And so it's a.
Sue
Lot of stories.
Micheal
It's a lot of stories. I think it probably could benefit from being a little bit more condensed, but who am I, right? I mean, it's obviously worked well for her.
Ryan
It certainly has.
Sue
So I just want to know what Jake Gyllenhaal did to her. That was like a 30. Well, you know, 30 track, you know, album, but, but you mentioned the genres, and that's the piece that I think really strikes me about the album is, I think, more than any other album, this one uses so many different, genres.
There's so many different, different ways that you hear her. And I think it's very much like stories that a business will use and then telling their story. There's employee stories, there's founder stories, there's history stories is, you know, customer stories, of course, success stories, failure stories. I mean, there's so many different kinds of things you can do, but it's still is is bringing through the story of your brand.
And that's, I think, to something so brilliant, in this particular album.
Ryan
Yeah, I love it. We've talked about some records that are extremely cohesive. I'm not going to give this record for being strongly cohesive. How could you be 30 songs is, you know, it's all I think she created a bit of a playground. Any genre was within reach, any kind of maybe songwriting collaboration was within reach, and I think that's fun, and it gave her fanbase a lot of different things that they could connect to.
I originally started this conversation with curation. Well, this is the removal of tightly curation. It's like, hey, you want to do a pop song or, you know, with a lot of ironic edge. Like, for instance, everything that's changed has this unusual, like, dubstep drop. Like, I don't think we needed to go there, but she felt she had the space to do so.
She got to experiment. And that's kind of fun and I appreciate her for that. What I did, really finding here was some really intimate moments with Taylor and her voice, the give her credit for being as talented as she's proclaimed to be. I think she's her brand sometimes supersedes her talent. I might suggest there are moments where you see, like how this gal does have it, though.
She is a pure voice, a pure player at heart, and it does transcend time. And I give her credit for it. In a day and age where synthesizers and other things have consumed the youth attention when it comes to music, she's giving guitar music a legitimate chance to live on from for years to come. Because of her work with the guitar on this record and many others, we're gonna see a lot of young pop stars that follow her pathway in 2020.
At the end of 2050, they're going to be people that are representative of these records that have taken place. So shout out to Taylor for inspiring a generation to pick up an instrument that was starting to maybe lose its appeal, but it's always been the backbone of music since really, the dawn of time. So I love her for that.
And that reason mainly only. But the records prolific. You talked about Polish. She is the most well-resourced artist in the world, no question. It shows up in the way of which it's the mixing, mastering and the recording process is is second to none, and it takes a mediocre song and makes it that much better. So someone might not understand why they like it.
The fidelity is so perfect. The decision making with some of the arrangements is just second to none. So yes, do the resources unlock that? But to her credit, she's putting them on display and the masses are consuming them. So shout out to her and her team behind the scenes as well.
Sue
So I will tell you an interesting story, about Taylor Swift is I actually had an Uber driver one day who that was his former job, as he was in the caravan driving a truck over for Taylor on one of her. Not on this particular last tour. But and he did talk about, like, just an unbelievable team.
Exactly as you said. And just the support that she had. But also what a genuinely good person she is. I mean, sometimes it ruins the music or the show when you hear that person's actually like a jerk behind the scenes and you're like, and they're singing these beautiful things. But I loved that story because it's like she there's so much of her just out there.
And it was kind of cool to hear, oh, she's actually a soulful, you know, kind good, you know? Yeah. I'm sure she's not a perfect person, or so says Jake Gyllenhaal. But, you know, I'm just saying. But but I thought it was interesting to hear that perspective as well, from somebody who had been a part of that team and part of her story.
Ryan
Well, I'm I'm feeling poorly for that Uber driver because he was not on this last tour. Is that correct?
Sue
Correct I know.
Ryan
Did you read the headline?
Sue
Yeah.
Ryan
My goodness. So Taylor $197 million was reallocated to the people that brought her recent ticket to life. That's a substantial sum of money. I don't care how many people were involved in this process. Yeah, that poor child.
Sue
I gave him an extra big tip, you know.
Ryan
But incredible. Her again, that's part of her brand. We're going to start to now get into this conversation. Is that giving back? She's relatable. She's kind of America's sweetheart. I mean, many people have been coined that throughout the years. She is that right now she's earned the title. I mean, so shout out to Taylor. You did it right.
And it seems like it's going to continue to perpetuate well into the future. So. All right, Taylor, Swifties, you've, you've been satiated with her feedback. We want to talk about creating brand evangelism. Yeah. So you did it through a lot of strong emotional connections in your career. Relationships are like the building blocks of how you've built your career.
Can you take us through how the power brand, the storytelling is often started with emotions and connectivity.
Sue
Yeah, well, it's very interesting when you look at, I mean, humans have been telling stories since the beginning of time. I mean, this is the way that, you know, the cavemen told each other like, don't go over there because there's a wooly mammoth and, you know, like they, you know, people have been telling stories or stories. There's parables in the Bible.
I mean, there's all of these different ways that this is the way that humans connect with other humans. And you tend to remember if I asked you, what were you doing last Wednesday morning, you might not remember that. But if I said, you know, do you remember the day you got married? Your child was born, you know, somebody special to you died.
You remember those things because there's emotion connected with them. So I love that you bring up emotion out of the gate because your, your brain actually does something different on stories. It has this wonderful little cocktail of serotonin and oxytocin and, and all these different chemicals that cause you to, remember more, recall more, to have a fonder feeling, towards, you know, the person or business that you're talking to.
So emotion is just a huge part of it. And I think there's just no better way to do that for a brand is to find all of the stories. And there's so many of them, find those stories and then find the ways to tell them.
Ryan
Yeah. I want to ask you a hard question, because you and I are going through a rebrand right on the pages, and it's really exciting. But we have to ask ourselves a very difficult, difficult question. What's the right emotion that we latch on to?
Micheal
Right. Yeah.
Ryan
There's a there's a large array, but which is the right one. And how do you go about that decision making process I guess.
Micheal
Yeah. Well I would actually ask you, how do you write. Because I think we're in the middle of it. Right. We, we, we can barely see the end result. And we're kind of like feeling around it. It feels like we're in a dark room. We're trying to figure out what where do we stand. But I don't think we have the answer yet, which is it's an interesting place to be.
What should we be looking for?
Sue
Well, I would tell you actually, you know, you made some interesting points earlier talking about curation, you know, and how do you, you know, what do you keep and what do you, you know, leave on the cutting room floor. But I think you, you start really wide because you've got so many stories in your business. Everybody does.
Every brand has all these amazing stories. Not every single one is one you always want to tell. But when you think about the stories of your customers, I mean the story that the human brain loves the most as most attracted to, is the hero's journey. You know, this is what happened, ran into these challenges and then, you know, done to the last.
I mean, it's the basic storyline of every great movie, book, etc., right? And so think about like, you know, a founder story, the history of the company challenges that you ran into along the way. And how do you, you know, how were they overcome? Some amazing, you know, customer stories are my favorites, I think. And you, you and I raised up a lot of those stories and working together.
But finding the ways that your customers can tell stories instead of you telling stories about yourself, right. It's so powerful. Your employee stories, you know, how did somebody come find your company and. And what did it mean to them? You know, how did they go help a customer and do something that changed their life? I mean, these are the stories that,
I would encourage you to go go abroad, collect the stories. I think sometimes people, over complicate it and make it to too hard, too complicated, too big of a project. I think you just start collecting and gathering all of these stories and not over processing it and over producing it, but gather all the stories, and then you really start to kind of find these narratives that that weave through of man.
These are the stories that really are going to resonate with our own employees. You know, your own employees are part of your brand evangelists, brand ambassadors. It's how you help recruit people in and retain them with your customers. It's, you know, how they will, you know, drive revenue, get retention, referrals. You know, they're it just has so much power and it's so cost effective.
Right? I mean, that's the other thing that I love about it is it doesn't, you know, you don't have to have a huge spend to collect the true stories that are already laying there littered about your business. And so I'd encourage you go wide and gather as many stories as you can. Yeah. And then curate from there. All right.
Ryan
I like that. I mean, Michael, we we talk about our product, our product first organization, the technological parity that exists in 2025 and beyond. The point field is a bit leveled. So the power of brand, the power of story now becomes that competitive differentiator. Your feels on it. Things you could harken back to in the past that are not relevant today perhaps.
Micheal
Yeah. I mean I think we're trying to lean into it and I think we're trying to find our footing again. I think we have that story, which was where for solopreneurs. Where for? We're for the small small business.
Sue
Micheal
But we realized our product wasn't actually aligned with that story in, in a meaningful way. And so there was actually a lot of conflict in that relationship. And so we're trying to find well, we do have a customer base that we're well aligned with who we haven't speaking to that much. And I think what we we're in the process of doing is finding those new stories, some of those old stories from when we started and and we were aligned with them and bringing them back, and resurfacing them.
So we're in an interesting time. And, and maybe by the next season we'll actually have some, some answers. What are some brands that we should be looking at like what are some of those stories that you've seen where you like? Yeah, they really nailed it.
Sue
Well, when you think about think about the brands that you love that create great customer experiences, it's interesting that I almost always can think of, oh, like, there's a cool story that I know about them. So I think about chewy is a brand that people love, right? And one of the stories that probably a lot of people know about Chewy is they're they're unbelievable with if you have a pet that passes away and you've got something you need to, you know, return, they will send you flowers and a sympathy card and they'll accept back anything.
And they donated. And I just got that's a cool story, you know, about that business. And you hear and see people telling stories, for example, about chewy. One I mean, just the other day, this is I spend a lot of time on, on Delta because I travel a lot. And you, you know, you're forced to sit and watch the screen and all the things, you know, but I remember they had this one little thing where they're telling, you know, it's kind of a story of this person who wanted to make their next level, of status.
And they went on a, to a, remote relative's wedding, you know, somewhere overseas so that they could make status. And it was kind of like the story of the CNM person going to this wedding. And here she is, dance. And she made her status and and I remember, like, I see a lot of Delta stuff, but that one jumped out at me because I was like, you know, I've been there trying to make my next status.
And I liked just the little story that it wove. With that it was much more compelling to me than we are Delta and we're cool, you know? So I think it's interesting, like as you are going through this journey, as many of your customers and clients are going through this journey, it's, you know, it's yes. Looking at the brands that you maybe admire, what kind of stories are they telling?
But again, that I you'll find that the stories are there. They're there. It's just a matter of, you know, it's not creating them. It's finding them. Yeah. Right. Because they're there.
Ryan
Yeah.
Micheal
I think like when we look at the record or maybe just t Swift, as a whole, you mentioned how getting your customers to tell your stories, and that's something that we see a lot, whether it's, it's it's purposeful or not. I did a deep dive on TikTok of just Taylor Swift content. She was just in Vancouver. So there's a ton.
Sue
Of are you sure you're not a tiered? And like to me, Swift, you might sound a little swift right now, but.
Micheal
Some of the stories are like dissecting her, facial expressions as she's walking, right? Like they can't really deep now, those aren't controlled by her camp, necessarily. Right. As a brand, how much risk do you take on when you're doing that and have are there brands that you've seen control that narrative really well?
Sue
That's an interesting point because she's larger than life, right? I mean, it's it's like, you know, the world is going to be talking about her. And I think there's very little you can do to probably control and curate some of that. I think most of us are not, not don't suffer from that same problem. And so we can be a little bit more careful around it.
But I think in many cases, your customers generally are very excited to tell a story if they are only asked. Right, because there are, you know, great stories that they have. And frankly, the thing I've always loved about raising up customer stories is it's not, you know, me talking, why aren't we cool in our business, you know, are you talking about your business?
It's you've got the customer or you're talking about the customer and the the cool thing that happened, and it kind of puts it over here. You know, everybody's the everybody's the hero of their own story. Right? And very often as a business we make ourselves, you know, we are the hero. We this is what we do, right? Instead of saying, you know, the customer is actually, you know, they're the hero of the story.
But what did we do to help them on their journey? Or how did we, you know, turn something around? How did we save the day? How do we drive ROI? How what what did we do with that customer? And if you can't get the customer to to, you know, get on camera. Not everybody you know will do that.
You telling that story if you have their permission using their brand and their name and all that is super powerful if you don't have permission for whatever reason. Sometimes people are private about that stuff. You tell the story and just say, you know, you don't have to say who it is, but I think, you know, telling those stories.
It it raises up the customer as the hero, but it brings you along, you know, the way for that journey. So I would say I don't, you know, again, I don't know how much, you can, you know, control what other people are going to say out there. I mean, that's kind of the blessing and the curse of social media, right, is that people are going to say what they're going to say, but you raise up a lot of goodwill when you using social media as an example, telling those stories on social media, other people seeing them.
I remember we used to have people call and say, I don't even know what y'all do there, but I want to find out because like, all these people seem to really love you and you're always talking about your customers, right?
Ryan
Yeah, that's the lead generation engine in the world, by the way. If you get that one coming along.
Sue
Yeah. So yeah. So I mean and sometimes we would just like celebrate, we'd have celebrate the customer day and we'd get like we got the, the old cheerleading letters that we just spell out the customer's name and get a bunch of people like, you know, do a thing. And we're like, we're just so excited to have them as a customer.
Or we would. Another cool thing you could do is even just, have like, alerts for whoever your great customers are or whatever, you know, if you've set like a news alert about those, you know, key customers, a key relationships, and you find those things and you celebrate them online on their behalf, ma'am, that's the way you're going to win.
You know, such huge loyalty from these customers in these industries is by paying attention, raising up their stories and then repeating them. Right.
Ryan
Well, you you still use the function of public relations to do so. We would actually find these superstars within these organizations that are winning, and we would actually submit them without them having to do much work for these awards and these opportunities. And imagine that moment when they found out the company that, you know, you've been working alongside of with has just position you for a placement you would never would have anticipated.
So, yeah, I mean, imagine how that customer conversation comes up on contract renewal or if there's any friction in the relationship, they're going to hearken back to that. But man, look what they did for me in that moment when I ask for nothing. Right? I mean, so if you can get these things going in your favor, you can see it's perpetual motion of good and everybody wants it.
So yeah, I'm gonna continue to try unpack that. So we spent a lot of time talking about the outcome that brand evangelists. But it all starts with some early interactions, right. This kind of topic for us today was from leads to brand Evangelist. So I'd love to hear from your vantage point, what do you do early to start to cultivate the relationship that gets to this person who's shouting from the mountaintops about how great you are?
Sue
Well, I do think in many cases it is it is, you know, starting with why are they why are they coming to your business? What problem are they looking to have solved? And, you know, I always like to kind of tee up very early on in a relationship is we want to be able to tell your story.
You know, we love you know, we love, you know, hearing your successes. That's what we're here for is to be able to, you know, raise these things up. So I think you plant those seeds very early on. It's supplement those early interactions where they're seeing somebody else's story that they relate to. You know, you brought up something really interesting talking about, the kinds of customers maybe you've worked with in the past and maybe different customer bases that you're moving to.
I think it's really it's a really fascinating point to think about, people being able to see themselves and relate to the stories that you're telling. Right. And so I think that's a good and it doesn't mean you have to, you know, every business is a little different with how you know how niche you want to be with.
We just work with these people. Are we, you know, work with all kinds of people, but people want to see themselves in the stories that you're telling. And so I think if you think, you know, like, this is the kind of people we want to attract and connect with, how do you tell a story from your point of view, from, you know, a customer's point of view, from an employees point of view that's going to resonate with those folks and bring them along in that journey because they're going to say, I want to be I want to be part of that story, too.
Ryan
Yeah. I mean, and think about Taylor's vulnerability that she opened up. Everybody's been through heartbreak. Everyone's been through a tough breakup. She's had to do so in the public eye. But I mean, that was probably one of her kind of inlets to the connected experience that started from an early t swiftie into one of which is now going to follow her until she stops playing music together.
So I think there's different pathways to how that connected experience happens. And for her, it was I'm going to show you how I am. And I think a lot of people have found that to be very relatable because we're humans and we have these emotions as she's sharing with us. So, Michael, I want to talk through just a product experience a little bit as well.
There early moments when someone buys new technology, there's this moments of excitement and delight. How are we paying those off, and how do you think they are best paid off to create that brand evangelism that we're seeking?
Micheal
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's the old, metric of time to value. I think we, we look at kind of moments in a product journey. How do we get those early on? What is The Verge like? You mentioned the chewy. Right. That's that's obviously at the end of the cycle. What is that same emotion that we can elicit on that first experience as well.
And we look at companies like Zappos. Right. That where you know something goes wrong and they just send you a new pair of shoes. You can return as many times as you want, right? They've removed all of that friction. And it's such a delight as a customer when you realize, oh I'm just going to get what I want from this company, whatever I need.
And, and that creates that loyalty. So I think it's, it's trying to find that moment really early on in the life cycle that creates that extra delight. The product is the expectation is going to solve the problem they hired you to solve. Great. But what is that extra piece. That, that kind of delight. And how early in the customer journey can we create it?
I don't think we always do. But I think the goal is how do we get there. In day one and day two, on day seven, whatever it would be.
Sue
I, I love that you're talking about the customer journey because it's another one of my, like, very favorite topics to talk about is, you know, as a customer journey. But I think, you know, you're on to something so fascinating because I do think that service in general and our feeling of, gosh, it's hard to go somewhere and feel delighted anymore.
I mean, service has just kind of gone downhill. Right? And but there are a lot of places that it even can be. It doesn't have to be always a human doing it. But imagine, you know, celebrating when somebody comes on board, you know, I mean, I think that's something that, you know, in our past, we've done really successfully.
Somebody comes on board and it's like, yay, welcome. You know, you're part of the family. And even sometimes, I mean, I've done things online, you know, we're based on the time of year, done a little shopping of late online. And sometimes when you just get something and it's like a, you know, woohoo! We're so excited that you're, you know, now part of our it was like, wow, you know, I just bought some lotion.
You know, that's cool. But you know, but I think people are hungry for, you know, for many reasons, whether it's, you know, the digital world, social media pandemic, everything else, people are very disconnected and they want to feel part of something. They want to feel like, oh, you're part of us now. And that's something that I think any business can very early on make people feel embraced and excited that they've become like a part of you.
And it is a place where a lot of businesses feel like it's right. When somebody has said, I do and stepped away from the altar in terms of signing up, that it's like, now I haven't heard anything, and now we're like, what's going on? And so it's a place that it's it's really important very early on to to embrace them.
And again, it doesn't have to be, always very, human. You know, we always want to utilize technology and smart ways. Right. But it's such a great way a video I'm a huge fan of using video, of course, is, you know, great video and I think even sending a video, you know, from you being like, man, we're so glad that you're part of our business.
Any business can do that. It's inexpensive to do things like this. Bom Bom is a great solution that's out there. You know you can use that. You know, fire video out there. Everybody's got video, you know, capability. We're all more used to seeing ourselves on video. So you can't be as as shy as you used to be. But something like that early on brings them along and makes them feel like, wow, I'm part of something and I feel connected to something.
So I just think early in the customer journey, grabbing those opportunities and, you know, making them feel welcome and a part of something, know.
Ryan
You get one chance to make a first impression. Right after that, it's gone. And it's often that, you know, that old thing we used to adhere to every touchpoint either builds trust or erodes trust when it's that first impression maybe has the most momentous ones, whether that's in app, and there's some UX moment where we we show a little bit of like, you published your first page.
Holy cow, congratulate. There's different ways of engaging with that, but it's those that forget to do those things. They kind of lose out. And then as time goes on and it's an us versus them consideration, you start to lose that battle in favor of someone who is making those early experiences very positive and very memorable for a brand.
We're told with storytelling, it's memorability. That's our great advantage and outcome of this all. So yeah, I think those are doing it well. It's easy to say, well, I wish I could do more of that. Some of the stuff you said, it's not as difficult as we perceive it to be. And even in product, we can create these moments of delight earlier.
But we tend to sometimes forget about those because it's it's easier to chasing a sexier initiative.
Micheal
We go on to the next feature. That's exactly right. And sometimes we forget about the customer's emotion. Yeah, yeah. As they're using our product, we've we satisfy the need. Sometimes we stop there. And I think what we see is the artists that go that extra mile are some of the ones that we talk to, talk about on the show.
Yep. Obviously Taylor Swift has done an incredible job of that. But that is is really the difference. We can all solve the problem. But who's actually going to elicit the emotion?
Sue
You said something very interesting there because you were talking about, you know, kind of remembering, you know, kind of the making that connection. It's very interesting because there was a study I read recently where it said 68% of people will remember a story, 5% of people will remember a stat. And so I'm glad I told a few stories.
It's definitely not going to remember that stat. But, but I think it's interesting. It's because of that, you know, emotional connection. And again, you can use technology to help you tell those stories as you go. But it also it is it is the repetition. And, you know, very often I think, you know, it's an interesting thing you're talking about where you kind of okay, they're on board and we're going to go off and build the next feature set because that's what they probably want.
And you know, here's this person and sometimes it is it's a repetition, you know, and it's finding that right balance. You never want to overwhelm someone with too many communications, but it's capturing, you know, these these moments, those moments that matter to that customer and then being there with some kind of a contact, and just continuing, I mean, the repetition, they say in marketing, you have to say it nine times before somebody actually, even that.
Ryan
List is growing. I think it's up to 13.
Sue
But so with all the like, digital distractions we have these days. But if you think about that, we get sick of hearing our own like story. We're like, oh, we already told us, right? So many times. And somebody has just started to hear it and go like, connect with your brand and go, you know, so don't stop telling those stories so soon.
And that's I'll tell you an interesting it is another story that I'm going to tell you.
Ryan
It's a story about story.
Sue
It's a story about stories. But, everybody knows about Paul Revere the midnight ride. Right? So there was actually two other guys. Okay. It was. And I saw this thing. It was in Harvard Business Review. They said the story of the midnight ride of Paul Revere and two other guys, and there were two other guys, but they actually had a very interesting part of that whole night.
And what happened and really interesting, there's one time part of the story where one of the guys, it was, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott or the other two guys just try to give him a little prop here, you know, in their afterlife. But one of the guys had some, you know, Redcoats following him, and he came up to a farmhouse and he shouted into the house and said, hey, boys, I've got two of them.
And making it sound like there's nobody in this house, but it chased off these guys. All these interesting things happened right? The only reason that Paul Revere is the guy that we know is because he wrote down the story and he told the story, the other two did not. And so that's why we know his name. He's his own brand of being a this, you know, you know, part of this big epic story of that time.
Other two amazing guys were part of it, didn't tell their stories. And so it's capturing the story, you know. Yeah. Telling it repeatedly. And now we know The Midnight Rider Paul Revere. And there was these two other guys. So and we don't want to be the two other guys. We want to be the brand everybody remembers. Right.
Ryan
So I think you hit on a lot of things is that we we get so bored of our own story. But that's way before anyone else is born. And the marketers of the most notorious of this and I've been guilty. I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. I still struggle to regurgitating things that we've done. And Michael sort of remind me of recent like, hey, go back to that though.
That's really good. Yeah. Fracture the people that we want to see it actually saw it. So we're, we're, we're we're changing our volume.
Sue
You creatives. That's the problem right. It's like that's the next thing.
Ryan
And it's a we're doing ourselves a disservice.
Sue
And you know what greatest hits. You know I mean you think about how often have people repeated, you know I what was it. What's the big song from this one? I knew trouble, I knew you were trouble when you walked in.
Ryan
Yeah. I mean, it's like two minutes. I mean, I'm.
Sue
Not even trying to listen to Taylor Swift. And I know, like, every lyric to that song because it's been repeated like, how many times, right?
Micheal
How many times that she had to play it.
Sue
Like, oh, I can't, I can't even you do wonder, do they ever.
Ryan
Like.
Micheal
Like this is the storytelling.
Sue
Repetition. Yeah, I didn't work, I assure you. I did not work on learning the lyrics to that song. I know the lyrics to that song because it's been repeated. Right? What if she got bored and was like, man, that's not a good. Well, let's move on to something else.
Ryan
Yeah, we learned much through Taylor, and we've learned much through today's discussion as well. So are there any parting thoughts? You're on the road. You're delivering keynotes, anything that you can leave a bunch of people that our viewers and listeners of the show that are often marketers beyond what we've already stated today.
Sue
You know, I mean, I think to to I would wrap a bow around this topic just because I think it's such an important one, that I would encourage people to stop, like, don't overwork it. And I, we had to put a project around this. We need budget. You really don't. You don't need that much to start capturing, you know, uncovering those stories.
Start telling those stories. We've got, you know, social media, we've got our websites, we've got lead pages. We've got, you know, we've got all the places that you can tell these stories. It's cost effective. It's it works. I mean, and I would just encourage people to not, I just feel like we have a tendency to I'm not going to make a, I'm going to make project of people together, like, just, just just do it.
Just get started on this. Because the results on this, they come, they come quickly. They're meaningful to you, you know, adjust course as you go, but just uncover those stories and then empower your customers to also tell those stories. Empower your employees to also tell those stories, encourage them to write like don't keep these things a secret.
Don't keep it just as something in your marketing team does. But get everybody going. Get get the employees from your stories, from your employees. But just just get started with it because it's such a powerful strategy. Don't over manipulate it over process it. And then we're still talking about this in a year. And somebody is thinking, oh, I should have done that.
You know, like, well.
Ryan
If you hadn't won over Michael, you did just now because we like to push process aside in the desire for task. Something running out there. Don't be afraid to just go to market. You're telling us that this is a cost effective way to test? Do you have something in hand that works? And if so, repeat, repeat, repeat. Yes.
If so, we can continue to invest accordingly around that. So yeah. Michael, parting thoughts from your behalf on just brand evangelism and just what it means to you.
Micheal
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think we have a lot to take away from this.
Ryan
We've heard this is good. This is good for us.
Micheal
So, you know, I hope others have it as well. Obviously repetition is key. The customer story is really fascinating for me. Is, is how do we I think we can do a better job.
Ryan
We certainly can.
Micheal
Elevating our own customer stories. And how do we find that kind of surprise and delight and, I don't know, I feel a little bit more inspired by Taylor Swift than I did at the beginning of this conversation. So I think it's a win win win.
Ryan
I like one third Swift, right, making it over 3 or 1 third Swift, you know. But that's the power of story and brand unpacked by all. But Sue thank you so much. You've given us. Thank you for having me. The listeners and the viewers are going to be delighted to hear from your experiences, what they can apply and how they can maybe reframe their thinking to move their business forward into 2025 and beyond.
Sue
I love it, and I'd love to connect, by the way, with the folks on your podcast. I'm on LinkedIn. That's my my choice.
Ryan
Find Your Girl, my.
Sue
Only social media channel that I use. But I because I tend to do a lot of B2B, so I'd encourage I'd love to to connect with people on LinkedIn, but what an honor. I mean, I just have a huge respect for you and what you're doing and the rest of your crew that's over here. You've got amazing, I know, amazing people.
But but thank you. This is, as I said, one of my favorite topics. And I was super glad to be here.
Micheal
Thank you so much.
Ryan
And our pleasure. Yeah.
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