Momentum Podcast: 472

StoryBrand Simplicity

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

This week Cadey and I are attending the Donald Miller Storybrand conference. We're only one day into the conference and we have already gained so much. You'll often hear me talk about lowering the complexity within your business. This is something that has been reinforced for me this week. Simplicity is the key. There's an epidemic today of entrepreneurs who are doing too much. When you spread yourself too thin, you're not going to be able to innovate and create the momentum you want. When you keep things simple you can create massive focus and that's how businesses explode. If you're not growing maybe you've said yes to way too much. Not everything is an opportunity. Are you ready to grow your business faster?

The best way to set up a call with my team and get some more information for yourself is to head to billionairecode.com

Full Audio Transcript

Yesterday, Cadey and I went to Donald Miller's StoryBrand seminar, and it was a lesson in simplicity. I talk often about how difficult it is to scale a business that's complicated. Well, sitting in Donald Miller's class for a day was a picture of not just simplicity, but how effective you can be when you keep things simple, and you focus on what you're good at.

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum Podcast. Made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum, so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop, and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution. And we always will be.

Yesterday was a really amazing day at Donald Miller's StoryBrand conference. It was incredible in the morning because it was by far my favorite part, was Donald Miller comes out and did about an hour and a half talk about the StoryBrand framework. And listening to him talk about story and how to market with story and the elements of story, even though it was only a 90 minute, maybe a little bit longer presentation, was just amazing because we were watching someone who has extreme mastery of their subject matter and extreme mastery of what they do. And you could feel that just listening to him.

It was truly entertaining. I learned a ton, it was amazing, and I feel like we're going to go back and apply this to our marketing and really create some much more effective messaging and much more connected messaging just from what we got in the day yesterday. And we have all of today left, so definitely really good seminar and definitely something I'm glad we came to, and I would do again. Now, here's where I learned a ton, is that in the seminar yesterday we went through a single framework, not even a whole framework, part of a single framework. We basically went through the StoryBrand story framework. It's a seven part framework. And yesterday we got through the first five parts, which blew me away because in one of our classes, if somebody comes ...

And it's a little noisy in the background. Sorry, we're walking to downtown Nashville right now to go get a smoothie. And just figured I'd record this really quick. But what was amazing was, if somebody comes to one of our classes, they might learn somewhere between 15 and 20 frameworks that are all rapidly applied, that are effective in decision making and that will move them forward like crazy. But our base framework is the planning cadence that we teach. It's the planning system that we've put together.

And when I look at that base framework, we should be putting a lot more focus on that as a company and a lot more messaging around that as a company. Because when I look at Donald Miller's company, they are exploding. There was probably close to 300 people here, all of whom paid about $3,000 to be here. They do these events six to 10 times a year. And all of his executive team who we got to talk to several of them yesterday, or his leadership team yesterday, all of them are talking about becoming $100 billion company, and it's $100 billion company based on 100 million, 100 million, sorry, not billion.

They probably will do 100 billion after that, but they were talking about becoming a hundred million dollar company and 100 million dollar company all based on a single framework that they teach over and over and over again. And what blew me away is, when you talk to people in the room, there's people in the room from companies like Proctor & Gamble, like Tide. There's small businesses, there's large businesses, there's doctors offices, there's entrepreneurs. The breadth of companies is amazing of who was in the room, but all of them are coming for one thing, for that highly specialized, incredibly clear, expert level StoryBrand framework that everyone knows works like crazy. Because this is what the entire company focuses on, and they focus on this one thing. And as a result, they are incredibly well known for this one framework.

Whenever somebody tells me I can't simplify my business, I can't make it easier, I can't pair down my offering, I can't cut anything off, I lose clients. I look at a company like StoryBrand and I think, here's an entire business that's been created on, grown on, and is expanding on incredible simplicity, one framework. Everybody in the company is an absolute expert on the framework. And what was interesting too is when we talked to the guides that were there, the team members that were there, the people that work independently with StoryBrand framework, that are contractors, that use the framework in their businesses. All of them, know it at a level where we were getting consistent answers from everybody we ask questions. All of them noted a level where they were able to demonstrate a level of expertise that was comforting and gave us momentum. It made us feel like we were doing the right thing. Everybody who was in the room understood the framework because it was so simple and it's such a major part of what this organization does.

So here's how I'm going to apply it to our business. I'm going back, and I'm looking at me saying, what's really important? Emily Hirsch yesterday, I who I love and is one of my closest friends in the world, and is exploding her business and holy cow, the news that Emily has gotten this week has just been insane. I'll share it when I'm allowed to share it, but her business is growing so fast, and the people she's working with are so overwhelming. I'm so proud of her. She put up a post this week from Steve Jobs on Facebook that said, "Innovation is saying no to a thousand things and yes to one thing." And yesterday when we were in the StoryBrand conference, that kept echoing in my head. This company has said no to thousands of things, and they say yes to one thing, the StoryBrand framework.

And I guarantee you people have said, hey, can you guys do this over here? Can you apply it in a different way or can you change the deliverable or is there more that you guys can do? And you know what I think they've done, is gone back to the same framework over and over again because they're wildly successful with it. And because it changes the way the business is market, and they don't need to expand beyond it. So when I talked to an entrepreneur these days who says, "I'm a serial entrepreneur." And I said, "Well, let me ask you a few questions about your business." And in a few minutes, I've determined they have three businesses that are all under $100,000 a year, that are all incredibly complex, and they're wondering why they're not growing. Here's what I think about a business site StoryBrand because there's an epidemic today of entrepreneurs who are doing too much, trying to do too many things at once, have too many businesses at the same time, having cracked seven figures and are already starting the second or the third or the fourth partnership.

We spread ourselves so thin. We feel like everything's an opportunity. And what we need to understand is that we're not going to innovate, we're not going to create this success we want, we're not going to create the momentum we want if we're trying to focus on everything at the same time. That is a losing proposition, and it will always move you backwards. So I'm applying this to my business and what's really important and how do we get really clear for our clients what our key frameworks are and how do we simplify it even further what we're presenting, so the clients have more momentum, so more clarity and so that my entire team understands what's going on? And I think our business is very similar to Donald Miller's. It should be very similar to yours. If you talk to any person on my team about our content, about what we do, about the cadence, about how to communicate, about how to hold a targeted interaction, about what our critical number is, any of those things.

Any person on my team should be able to give you an adequate answer that moves you forward and gives you momentum because our company uses exactly our content 100% of the time. We don't teach anything that we don't apply ourselves and we make sure that if we're applying ourselves, we're doing it at a level where we could teach it. And I saw the same thing with StoryBrand yesterday. They were explaining to us, this is how you use the framework, this is how we use it. This is how you can apply it, this is how we apply it. See, when you keep things simple, when you pull out all the complication, when you make your deliverables simple enough that everyone in the business can understand them, when you become known for that one thing, when you create massive focus, that's when your business is going to explode.

There's a reason why Russell Brunson and so many other people, but Russell's the one who I hear it from most often, say one product, one funnel, one promotion or one product, one price, one promotion, one Avatar, one product, one promotion. There's a lot of one in those. And the messaging is, create one product that you can sell to one population in one way until you hit a million dollars and you're going to explode. When I look at Donald Miller's company, they're looking at going all the way to $100 million with a very similar strategy. And when I look at the companies that I've been coaching that had been wildly successful, same thing. You look at very, very tight product line, very focused Avatar, not too many different things, not too much different complication and the businesses grow like crazy. If you're not growing, maybe you've just said yes to way too much.

If you're ready to start growing your business faster, we can help. You don't have to do this all on your own. Reach out to us. The best way to set up a call with a member of my team and to get some information for yourself is to go to billionairecode.com. If you go to billionairecode.com, three things will happen. One, we'll ask you to fill out a quick application. Once you're done with that too, we will show you exactly where you are on the billionaire code, so you know where you are and what you should be focused on. And three, we will give you an opportunity to set up a call with a member of my team so that we can help you understand where you are and how we can help you. Go to billionairecode.com, fill out the application, know exactly where you are, and then get help. Billionairecode.com.

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With gratitude,

Alex

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