Posted by: Daniel Levis
May 28, 2008
Issue #427

Deeper Into The Heart
of Great Sales Storytelling
And Mythmaking …

Dear Web Business Builder,

In last week’s edition of Web Marketing Advisor I revealed some advanced concepts for bonding buyer to seller through the hero’s journey.

In a nutshell, the hero’s journey is a shared story of discovery:

• The seller wants something and is having trouble getting it.
• The object of the seller’s desire is the same as the buyer’s. Therefore the buyer identifies with the seller.
• The seller embarks on a quest to overcome obstacles that stand in his way.
• A great struggle ensues.
• The seller prevails and is transformed through the realization of his desire.
• The buyer observes the path to attainment through the seller’s trial.

Down through the ages the hero’s journey has inspired man’s imagination. It has made men’s blood boil, driving them blindly into battle.

It has been a source of power and influence for politicians in times of peace. And has formed the bedrock of social control over people’s behavior throughout the millennia.

You’ve experienced it in bedtime stories and comic books … in church … on television … in novels … and at the movies. Everywhere you turn, it haunts you. The time, place and characters may change, but the structure remains the same: a chariot on which rides a hero with a thousand different faces. And the hero is YOU!

A Catalyst for ACTION …

Where sales copy is concerned, this remarkable story-form crystallizes the hopes, dreams and aspirations of your reader into a moment of confidence and clarity that becomes a catalyst for ACTION! Such is the source of its tremendous power to influence and persuade.

At the root of every great story there is a premise that rides subliminally under the narrative. A premise is like the moral of the story, which an author seeks to prove through the narrative.

• In Aesop’s fable of The Tortoise and the Hare, the plodding and determined tortoise wins a race against the much-faster yet extremely arrogant hare. The moral of the story: "slow and steady wins the race."
• In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth plot murder after murder to satisfy their ruthless ambition until their subjects rise against them. Macbeth perishes as he lived — by the sword. And Lady Macbeth dies of haunting fear. The moral of the story: “ruthless ambition leads to destruction.”
• In the movie Citizen Kane, a fabulously wealthy newspaperman whose political ambitions are shattered by the revelation of an extramarital affair descends into morose reclusion in an opulent castle. The moral of the story: “money and power can’t buy happiness.”

Unlike dramatic stories, selling stories rarely ends in tragedy. But they always have a premise that ties your product to some desirable outcome your prospects desperately want.

For example:

• Owning brand x leads to being accepted by the beautiful people …
• Owning brand x makes you important …
• Owning brand x means more friends and more fun …
• Owning brand x makes you more attractive to the opposite sex …
• Owning brand x gets you even with people who’ve slighted you …
• Owning brand x means you’ll be safe …
• Owning brand x leads to physical, social, and philosophical order and equilibrium (a place for everything, and everything in its place) …
• Owning brand x means you’re an insider, privy to secrets others aren’t …
• Owning brand x proves you belong to a certain heritage and adhere to its moral codes …
• Owning brand x leads to physical health and vitality …
• Owning brand x leads to personal independence …
• Owning brand x makes you a leader, able to exert power and influence over others …
• Owning brand x leads to charitable and philanthropic capacity …
• Owning brand x leads to healthier, happier children …
• Owning brand x leads to wealth, material abundance and social status …

Any one of these premises can be applied to literally dozens of unrelated products. You have a cornucopia of hero’s journey themes to work with from just this small list.

So rather than coming right out and saying, “buy brand x and you’ll be a big shot everybody looks up to”, you communicate it subtly through story. And it doesn’t have to be a long involved story either.

The hero’s journey is such a well-recognized fixture of our psychological landscape that even the most scaled down version communicates volumes. It taps instantly into how we expect a story should be told. And we happily project ourselves into the drama …

All you can read of this circa 1937 Charles Atlas ad image is the headline, sub-heads and comic bubbles and instantly you recognize the hero’s journey.

Under the headline you can rest assured Atlas is relating the story of how he was shaking in his wing-tips knowing he’d be going up against a much bigger, much stronger opponent on the appointed showdown. At that stage he has no idea how he’s going to come out of it unscathed … but he’s determined to find a way. He embarks on a metaphorical journey.

In the second block of copy, under the sub-head “And Then I Made a Discovery” Atlas goes on to reveal the incredible secret that allowed him to bulk up in just 7 days and whip the astonished bully.

And in the third block of copy under the sub-head “I’ll Prove in the first 7 days that YOU can have a Body like Mine!” he returns to share the magic pill with other defenders of what’s good and right. It’s the classic hero’s journey.

The hero’s journey can be stretched into much more than a single piece of copy.

Each piece of copy you write has a purpose. Your objective may be to tell the story of a new product from A to Z. Or it may be to reinforce that product pitch through a series of follow-up messages.

Today’s message may be intended to build rapport, reciprocity and anticipation … tomorrow’s to counter a particularly thorny objection … tomorrow’s to create a sense of urgency.

Whatever your end, there is probably a fragment of your client’s hero’s journey you can tell to slide your premise effortlessly under your prospect’s persuasion radar.

The Stuff Of Legend …

The hero’s journey can also form the fabric of an entire mythology you build around a spokesperson, product, or business over the course of months or even years.

The greater myth is like a large tapestry, rich with interweaving patterns that you, the sales storyteller, mix and match as the need arises to create new stories — a sort of Chinese menu approach to storytelling, where you select a character angle from Column A, a plot line from Column B, a premise from Column C and so on.

I’ll give you a great example of this:

Part of the Jay Abraham myth is the story of Mr. X.

The Mr. X promo begins with the story of how one of Jay’s consulting clients distills huge unauthorized volumes of Jay’s consultations and recorded material into a format purportedly better organized, better presented, better clarified and better explained than Jay had done himself.

Jay cries foul, settles with Mr. X out of court, and makes the material available to his clients.

The story injects drama, intrigue and entertainment value into what could otherwise have been just another info-product release. It immediately sucks you in and engages you.

Without this brilliant piece of storytelling, even the most discriminating Abraham aficionado would have had to struggle much harder to find a logical excuse for dropping everything and reinvesting in Jay.

With it, Jay builds a very logical rationale for purchasing this program no matter how much Jay Abraham material you already possess.

It’s a wonderful example of pulling pieces out of the larger drama — Jay’s hero’s journey — and using them to solve a marketing problem.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis
Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor
THE TOTAL PACKAGE™

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2 Comments »

1. Comment by Barnabas Ng — May 29, 2008 @ 9:49 am

   Daniel

   excellent stuff. Stories do bring out the curiosity of a person.

2. Comment by Susan Connors — May 31, 2008 @ 5:04 am

   Hello Daniel, 

   Great storytelling is essential for marketing. It creates, instills an idea, raises emotions, bringing the reader closer to the product or person. It demystifies and creates reality, helping trust be developed.

   Helps the person understand, the how to or why, a company or product came into being. Thus establishing a bond that will be remembered for time to come. This storytelling and bond creation will help make a person remember you above the competition. Setting you or your product, helping create a unique position and brand.

   Thank you for the time to write and inspire.

   Sue in Aus