Yesterday, I got an email from a well-known copywriter. The subject line read, “It’s story time for your business.”
This email was obviously a solo ad – somebody paid to send an advertisement to the copywriter’s list. The advertised offer was a free training held by a “story coach” who happens to be “one of the world’s top storytelling experts.”
I was intrigued. What might I learn from a top storytelling expert?
The suspicious thing was, the story coach’s email was itself not written as a story.
“Maybe she’s trying to tease me,” I thought. “I must see what kind of wondrous Harry Potter-like yarn a story coach can weave.”
So I went to the website of the story coach herself.
There were no stories anywhere on the front page. But there was a promo video. I watched a few minutes of it. No stories in there either.
The teasing was starting to get a little annoying.
So I went to the about page. Still nothing! All I found was how important stories are, and how life is too short not to share your true story, and how storytelling can help you make more money.
But then finally, at the bottom of the about page, I found it. The story coach’s story. It was there, under the heading, “The Story.” It went like this:
ONCE UPON A TIME, the story coach was born in a country far, far away
She then moved to another country for university
She then worked at some NGOs and got married
She then realized her “passion for adult learning”
She then started working as a corporate trainer
She then specialized as a story coach
She then became, and today still remains, “honored and delighted to empower people and businesses world-wide”
THE END
Maybe, maybe, this story coach has some valuable advice to give to her students.
If so, then she clearly forgets to apply her advice to her own business. Because the above “story” is so un-riveting that it immediately sabotages the claim she is a storytelling expert.
The way I see it:
if you want to sell with a personal story today, you better make sure your personal story is remarkable. Barring that, you better make sure you are a remarkable storyteller.
The trouble is the vast majority of people — most copywriters and “story coaches” included — do not have any remarkable personal stories and are not all that remarkable as storytellers.
So does that mean most people in business should stay away from telling stories?
Well, if I were coaching the story coach, I would advise her, for two good reasons, to pony up $75 and get my Most Valuable Email training before the price goes up on Sunday at midnight PST.
Reason one is that Most Valuable Emails are perfect for anybody who sells services or info products about topics like marketing, copywriting, or writing. If you write about those topics, then the Most Valuable Email trick is immediate and instant to use.
Reason two is that each time you write a Most Valuable Email, it makes you a tiny but significant bit better at whatever it is you are writing about.
So If you are a marketer writing about marketing topics, it makes you a better marketer.
If you are a copywriter writing about sales copy, it makes you a better copywriter.
And if you are a so-called storytelling expert, then writing Most Valuable Emails at first make you decent and then maybe even good at telling stories.
So that’s my advice. In case you want to find out more about the Most Valuable Email training, take a look at the following, non-storified, sales page: