In this plot-rich episode, Kyle Gray, CEO of The Story Engine, shares how he has helped hundreds of startups and small businesses create scalable content marketing strategies.
You will discover:
– The three stories that will sell your product or service to you
– The tragic cost of winging your sales presentations
– What to do on every sales call before you try to close the deal
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of a high demand coach podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach, actually a sage among coaches, someone that you really going to enjoy getting to know here in the next couple of minutes. With me today is the one and only Kyle Gray. Now Kyle is an entrepreneur. He’s a Story Strategist, and an author who helps coaches startups and influencers to use their storytelling to communicate their value better and create connections and trust with their audience. He combines timeless storytelling with cutting edge marketing, to ensure that you’ve got the right story to tell why you’re presenting while you’re on sales calls, or in conversation both online and offline. He uses the one clear path to sale system to turn your story into a powerful sales and marketing tool, which is very, very important. I can’t wait to dive into that. Now, because two books on marketing, selling the story and the story engine will help you to quickly get clear on what your story is what story you’re trying to tell, and then use it to start selling on how to build systems to tell that story. At scale. We’ll call it so excited to have you here. Welcome to the show. Before we dive into what I think is gonna be a an awesome conversation, I’d love to hear a little bit how did you get to this point? What were you doing before helping entrepreneurs tell their stories? And how did it lead you there?
Kyle Gray
Well, there’s lots of threads that lead to this. And I’ll be sure to be brief. And I think that’s a sign of being good at what you do if you can. The first place that I really started in storytelling and messaging was as a singer songwriter in my late teens, early 20s. I thought that was the only way I was going to be able to live a happy and fulfilled life. I ended up putting a lot of pressure on myself to create great songs all the time and burning myself out a bit. But a few years down the line, found content marketing and was hired by a startup to help grow the startup by telling their story, which is the foundation and the origin of the book, The Story engine and where that book came from. While I was growing this startup, and I was also traveling around the world learning different languages being in a lot of different places. I had come down with really bad gut health and an autoimmune condition that dominated and decimated my life in my mid to late 20s. And a lot of the times that I couldn’t get my mind straight, no matter how many Tony Robbins books I read, I was feeling pain all over my body, and was in a really, really bad place. And while my copywriting and storytelling career was still going, I found myself facilitating a workshop filled with health and wellness experts. And one of them was just happened to be a gut health expert. And I noticed that she was so smart, and so brilliant at what she did and had such a difficult time actually communicating that in a way that got results. And we started working together. And I regained my access to my health and started to have a totally new perspective on how to use storytelling and why to use storytelling, which kind of leads me to where I am right now. And I’m in a bit of a crisis myself as I feel like perhaps over branded myself around storytelling. And I think it’s it’s one of the most beautiful things that I do. And I feel that it’s about 35% of the real magic that I create. And what I love to do, which which involves storytelling, is I almost see it like a martial art of the mind these days. How do we listen to our our ideal clients? How do we understand with them and connect with them, and help communicate and teach and share messages in a way that overcomes their biggest objections, their limiting beliefs in a way that inspires trust? How do we share who we are, and why we care and all this genius that’s crowded up in our minds, and get it out in a way that’s quick and efficient and lands in the hearts of our audience?
Scott Ritzheimer
No. So you do this, and we’re going to hit on each of these steps here. But you do this by combining at least out of the gate two very, very different words. So you have story, an engine and to an extent, I couldn’t think of two more different words, see things that you know, one is kind of relational and feeling the other is an engine. So why is it that you chose to pull these two concepts together? And how does that work? What’s the power of a story engine?
Kyle Gray
That’s a great question. I really appreciate it. And what it boils down to is the fact that stories, speeches, great presentations are a series of small parts. There are key ingredients to each story. There are powerful statements that you can make. And if you understand the individual parts they formed together to create momentum and push you forward like an engine. And this is one of the biggest gaps that I see many experts facing is they have so much to say, but they don’t exactly know what to say or why to say it. And a lot of the times they’re just winging it. But when you can really boil it down to step by step frameworks that are easy to apply and understand this is when you start getting that really efficient movement in motion in your communication in your stories in your messaging. And that’s what creates the momentum of the engine, while it compiled of many different stories and teachings and statements that add up to who you are.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So what are some of the key parts? What are some of the those those big aha moments that we can create are? What is the language that we use to do that?
Kyle Gray
Yeah, there’s some, there’s some frameworks that are really good to be more felt than memorized. And there’s some that are really important to be memorized perfectly, a great place to start with one of the places I love to start as an origin story. This is my how I got into the business story or how I came across the certain problem that I solve right now. And what a lot of people think, is that this is me reading my resume. But that’s not true. What we want to do is use our ideal clients language, as close as possible in our own story to communicate to them, Hey, I understand exactly how you feel right now and what you’re going through. And I have gone through a process to figure out the solution. So that’s one example. Another really powerful statement that we could make right after telling an origin story, especially for those who have stories that are really extreme, maybe a soldier or a veteran, or somebody who went through something really challenging. Not everybody can relate to that. Or they may think that that nobody can. And so there’s things like a universalizing statement that basically goes my story looks like this. For you, your story could look like this, that or the other. But there’s an underlying truth behind all of this. And this is an amazing statement, once we get this really refined to bridge the gap with our audience and really solidify that trust. And so there’s a bunch of different things like this. Also, when we go to teaching, I think a lot of people make the mistake of just teaching as much information as possible. But if we can hone in on a success projection story, we, which is a story about a client that we’ve worked with, we can boil it down to what’s the biggest limiting belief that they’re facing right here. And what’s one way that we helped this client get better in that limiting belief and what happened there? And it allows us to that frees us up from thinking about how much can I cram into these next 10 minutes to what’s one thing I can teach in these 10 minutes, that’s going to move my listener forward?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, there’s so much in there. And I love this idea of the origin story, and how you describe this using your ideal clients language. So one, if you don’t know who your ideal client is, that’s the work that you have to go through there. But for a lot of the coaches and consultants I work with a lot of them are working with organizations are trying to scale up. And a perfect example of this just illustrated for at least from my world is if you’re trying to work with businesses that are scaling up, don’t use the phrase small business, because there’s no Founder CEO of an organization is trying to scale that still considers themselves a small business, even though technically be that for quite some time. You’ve got to understand what their language is for it. And you’d also don’t need the technical jargon that you’ve learned in the nine your ways to Sunday that we can say. So I love that idea of using your ideal clients language is so powerful. And then that universalizing statement, one of the things I’ve found in years of sales is that folks are always looking for a reason to say that this won’t work for me. Right. And that goes straight to the heart of that issue. I love that. And it seems from the outside, it seems like it’s easy to skip. But if we skip that, right, we give them that out, and it undermines the rest of the conversation. Fantastic. So as some, as folks are telling the story, they’re starting to nail some of the different parts. One of the things we don’t, you know, we’ve not necessarily started a business to be storytellers, right? That’s not I’m not in business to tell my story to the world. I’m not necessarily even in business to tell my client story. I’m in business to help clients to create those stories. So we can’t stop at storytelling, we have to move to some kind of action and how do you bridge those gaps? You talk maybe talk to us about your book, the selling the story?
Kyle Gray
Absolutely. There’s a couple of things that are really important to consider with storytelling. First is that this is as important of a process and transformative of a process. We’re not only getting clear on our stories to move our clients to action, but a lot of the people that I work with, particularly the ones that are scaling the the CEOs and founders have often found themselves at a, at a certain ceiling that they can’t get past. And a lot of the times the success that they’ve created, takes all of their energy to manage that they’re no longer able to access those visionary states, to, to continue to expand to and by getting clear on your story and your purpose and your why it’s not only going to help you convert more from the stage or from podcasts or doing that thing, but it’s actually going to become a source of fuel, and help you overcome that many of the biggest challenges that you’re facing right now in your business. And that’s the real medicine that I truly enjoy. And that gets me excited as seeing how they change their decision making frameworks and formats. But to your question, there’s a couple of ways that we want to use stories to enhance our sales and move people into action. One of the ways is, through the success projection stories, before we actually make a call to action, I want to make sure that there’s nothing standing in the way of our audience and a decision. And so by telling stories about clients that we’ve worked with in the past, instead of doing it as testimonials, after we make the call to action, where people are leaning back and skeptical, we’re doing it in a way that teaches that adds value. And very subtly, we describe how we’re working with our clients the results that we’re getting. And it gives us an opportunity or gives the audience an opportunity to take a walk in the clients shoes, and visualize what it’s like to be successful with you. So if you do your job, well, by the time you need to make your offer, they already know what you’re going to offer, they already want it. And that’s going to save you a lot of time and energy in making the offer, which is really the most difficult part of speaking and presenting. There’s another great statement to transition out of speaking and teaching and into making an offer. And this is called a grassroots transition. It sounds something like this. All right, I’m gonna be opening it up for questions soon. So if you have a question, write it down. You know, one of the most common questions I get is, Kyle, my, my story’s a little different. My business is a little different. Can you still help me create incredible results and grow my business with better speaking and storytelling? And the answer is yes, I help founders, leaders, and CEOs, just like you attract their ideal clients and create massive transformation within their organization. But better storytelling, there are several things happening here. First, we’re prompting questions. And one of the fastest ways you can lose power and making your offer is by just begging people for questions. And a lot of the times, it’s not that they don’t have questions, but it’s just we spring him on and like a trap. All right, it’s time for questions who has a question and they’re deer in the headlights and they’re all crickets? We don’t want that. And then by prompting questions, we also say, you know, one of the most common questions I get is my things a little different. And everybody thinks their organization, their business is a little bit different. It’s the one of the most common objections out there. And so we’re answering it. And we’re acting like, you know, people are just demanding that I talked about this, I was I was here to add value. I didn’t want to talk about this. But but people want to know how to work with me. And so I’m going to share that and answer this question for you, as a service to all of you good people out there. And this changes the energetics of it and makes it nice and easy. And then, if you do your teaching, right, you transition right, then it’s going to be very simple and straightforward to make your offer. And but there is one more kind of story that we want to do a lot of us experts, we’re very good at the technical and the tactical, practical. But we still want to close with good emotions. And so we want to tell a story that has nothing to do with what we’ve talked about. This is right at the end, we give it our offer. And we’re going to close and we want to create the same feeling that you feel when you watch the rolling credits of a movie towels a great experience. And so we do an aligned ending story. This is a story about a moment in our life that has nothing to do with what we’re teaching, but has the same moral. I’ll give you an example. A lot of us want to leave the audience feeling like it’s time to hire an expert. And this is when I worked on with a financial planner. So I’m going to pretend to be Bob right now. And you’ve just listened to me speak for 90 minutes on retirement. All right, I’m going to leave you with this. I go into the kitchen a few weeks back and my wife’s in there and she says Bob, the dishwashers broken Will you please fix the dishwasher? And I say, or will you please call a repairman? And I say Honey, I’m a smart man. I’m going to fix the dishwasher myself instead of hiring a repairman. I’m going to save us some money and with the money I saved I’m gonna take us out to dinner. How does that sound? She shakes her head. But that’s good enough for me. I open up my laptop and search dishwasher repair on YouTube. And I’m off to the races. I open up the dishwasher. I look in the back and I see this one part that doesn’t look quite right to me. And I’m trying to get it and move it and all of a sudden snap. Now the dishwashers really broken. I peek over the counter hoping my wife has gone away. She’s still there. She’s still shaking her head. She hands me the phone, the repairman is already dialed, I call the repairman over. He comes over, opens up the dishwasher and sees the part I broke. He replaces it, and then closes the dishwasher and says Bob, you’re good to go. And I say wait repairman. The dishwasher was broken before I broke it. Did you fix that too. And he says, Bob, you were just putting too much soap into the dishwasher. So it’s funny, we get them right here, we get them laughing. But the trap is sprung. And now we turn it around. And as if we’re realizing the moral to this story, I’m the parallel between what’s happening right now. You know, it was on that day that I realized how important it was to hire an expert. I repair man who fixes dishwashers every day. And the real funny thing about that story was if I just wouldn’t have all them in the first place, he would have told me I was just putting too much soap into the dishwasher. And I really could have saved enough money to take my wife out to dinner. You know, all of you out there, you’re only going to be planning your retirements once in your life. And how much more important, crucial of a decision is this? You know, I help people plan their retirements every day. And just like it was with that repairman, one phone call to me, could save you a tremendous amount and give you access to the retirement that you are really dreaming up. So I hope that you’ll join me in hiring an expert so we can create the retirement of your dreams together. Thank you. There’s a lot of subtleties happening in there. But it leaves us with just the right feeling. And we need to be able to have a tactical clear path forward. But we also need to have the right feeling especially at the end, if we want our audience to take action. And this is where the blend of great communication, clear concise messaging, and powerful stories all come together to create results for your business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Oh Kyle, I loved it, hanging on every word of it’s just a clear gift, but also one that I’ve seen you do for others. And I would love to see folks tap into so just a moment here, I want to make sure folks know how to get in touch with you so they can do that they can have Bob story for themselves. Before we get there. Just you’ve covered so much ground for us. I’m wondering if you could if you could boil it all down if there was just one thing, if there was, you know, one secret right was the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you want everybody watching your listing today to know.
Kyle Gray
I want you to know that storytelling is accessible and learnable for everyone. And I also want you to understand the danger of just winging it, when you’re speaking with you can bring real frameworks and real strategy into your communication is not just going to transform the results you get when you’re speaking and when you’re marketing and in your sales. It’s going to change how you show up for yourself, how you show up for your teams, how you show up for your family. And it’s all possible through these simple learnable achievable frameworks. And so take the time to do it. I don’t have any of the right answers for you. What I do is I just ask good questions, to draw the answers out of you, and reflect those stories back to you just like I did with the Bob in the dishwasher story. And that’s what I love to do. I can’t tell you what the right way to plan or retirement is. And so this is with me, it’s a co creative process. But you can learn these frameworks by reading a book or I’ll have a really simple way that you can get started with an origin story, which is the most common and useful type of stories. But these are all possible for you. No matter how technical you think you are, no matter how distant you are from these things that are learnable they’re achievable. And you will feel the difference in your own life and in the reaction that your listeners provide for you on this journey.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Again, there’s just so much in there and I want to I want to just call out like your your commitment to seeing this translate into the lives of your clients, not just for the benefit of your client but in your clients. It really does not go on unseen is a remarkable thing about what you do is something I really deeply appreciate. I absolutely love it. So first off, we we met, I believe through your podcast, right? So just give us a quick where can we find your podcast? And then, in addition to that, where can we find more out about the work you do and get connected?
Kyle Gray
Yeah, you can check out my podcast, my books and tons of articles on storytelling, messaging, and communication at thestoryengine.co And that’s where my podcast is. If you want to find me, I’m very active on LinkedIn at you can find me Kyle gray storytelling or Kyle Gray Utah, and I’m also very active on Instagram @heykylegray. And one of the things I would love to offer that I mentioned before is a really simple mini course to get you starting telling better stories right away that’s called the how to choose your perfect story mini course and that’s thestoryengine.co/perfect. And in less than 45 minutes you will know how to start telling your origin story that will get people leaning in wanting to learn more from you and excited for the transformation that you provide.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, well Kyle thanks so much for being here just an honor privilege having you on the show. I always get a little nervous inviting guests when I’ve been on their show because I’m like it was a nice Did I ask you Is it but hopefully I was as at least half as nice as as you are and so just glad to have you here. And yeah, it just an absolute absolute privilege. I guess this is one of those I say this every once in a while and folks are probably a little tired of hearing it but go back and listen to this again because I know I’ve been around this world for a while I know there’s stuff that you missed the first time through maybe even the second time through so go give it another listen you will find absolute gold in there. Kyle it’s clear that you are a master of your craft. Thank you so much and for those of you you know listening you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did. And I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Kyle Gray
Kyle Gray is an entrepreneur, story strategist, and author who helps coaches, startups, and influencers use storytelling to communicate their unique value better and create connections and trust with their audience. He combines timeless storytelling with cutting-edge marketing to ensure you’ve got the right story to tell while presenting, on a sales call, or in conversation, both online and offline. He uses “The One Clear Path To Sales” system to turn your story into a powerful sales and marketing tool. Kyle’s two books on marketing, Selling With Story and The Story Engine, help you quickly get clear on your story and start selling, as well as how to build systems to tell that story at scale.
Want to learn more about Kyle Gray’s work at The Story Engine? Check out his website at https://www.thestoryengine.co/ and get access to his course How to Choose Your Perfect Story at https://www.thestoryengine.co/perfect
Kyle’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylethegray/
Kyle’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heykylegray
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