More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
1. Schedule an appointment. 2. Allow us to create a customized plan. 3. Let’s execute the plan together.
A post-purchase process plan is best used when our customers might have problems imagining how they would use our product after they buy it.
The post-purchase process plan does the same thing a prepurchase process plan does, in the sense that it alleviates confusion. When a customer is looking at the wide span between themselves and the integration of a complicated product, they’re less likely to make a purchase. But when they read your plan, they think to themselves, Oh, I can do that. That’s not hard, and they click “Buy Now.”
Again, the key to the success of any plan is to alleviate confusion for our customers. What steps do they need to take to do business with you? Spell out those steps, and it’ll be as though you’ve paved a sidewalk through a field. More people will cross the field.
An agreement plan is best understood as a list of agreements you make with your customers to help them overcome their fear of doing business with you.
An agreement plan can also work to increase the perceived value of a service you promise to provide.
Unlike a process plan, an agreement plan often works in the background. Agreement plans do not have to be featured on the home page of your website (though they could be), but as customers get to know you, they’ll sense a deeper level to your service and may realize why when they finally encounter your agreement plan.
The best way to arrive at an agreement plan is to list all the things your customer might be concerned about as it relates to your product or service and then counter that list with agreements that will alleviate their fears.
StoryBrand Principle Five: Customers do not take action unless they are challenged to take action.
The reason characters have to be challenged to take action is because everybody sitting in the dark theater knows human beings do not make major life decisions unless something challenges them to do so.
One of the biggest hindrances to business success is that we think customers can read our minds. It’s obvious to us that we want them to place an order (why else would we be talking to them about our products?), so we assume it’s obvious to them too. It isn’t.
There should be a “Buy Now” button in the top right corner of your website, and it shouldn’t be cluttered with a bunch of other buttons. The same call to action should be repeated above the fold and in the center of your website, and again and again as people scroll down the page.
The reality is when we try to sell passively, we communicate a lack of belief in our product. When we don’t ask clearly for the sale, the customer senses weakness. They sense we’re asking for charity rather than to change their lives. Customers aren’t looking for brands that are filled with doubt and want affirmation; they’re looking for brands that have solutions to their problems.
If we can change our customer’s story for the better, why shouldn’t we be bold about inviting them to do business with us?
At StoryBrand we recommend two kinds of calls to action: direct calls to action and transitional calls to action. They work like two phases of a relationship.
Direct calls to action include requests like “buy now,” “schedule an appointment,” or “call today.” A direct call to action is something that leads to a sale, or at least is the first step down a path that leads to a sale.
Transitional calls to action, however, contain less risk and usually offer a customer something for free. Transitional calls to action can be used to “on-ramp” potential customers to an eventual purchase. Inviting people to watch a webinar or download a PDF are good examples of transitional calls to action.
It bears repeating: there should be one obvious button to press on your website, and it should be the direct call to action. When I say, “one obvious button,” I don’t mean “only one button,” but rather one that stands out. Make the button a different color, larger, a bolder text, whatever you
Our customers should always know we want to marry them. Even if they’re not ready, we should keep saying it. You just never know when they’re going to want to make a commitment, and when they do, you want to be on one knee, holding flowers, smiling for the picture.
Direct calls to action are simple and obvious (though ridiculously underused), but transitional calls to action can be equally as powerful to grow your business.
Stake a claim to your territory. If you want to be known as the leader in a certain territory, stake a claim to that territory before the competition beats you to it. Creating a PDF, a video series, or anything else that positions you as the expert is a great way to establish authority.
Create reciprocity. I’ve never worried about giving away too much free information. In fact, the more generous a brand is, the more reciprocity they create. All relationships are give-and-take, and the more you give to your customers, the more likely they will be to give something back in the future. Give freely.
Position yourself as the guide. When you help your customers solve a problem, even for free, you position yourself as the guide. The next time they encounter a problem in that area of their lives, they will look to you for help.
Free information: Create a white paper or free PDF educating customers about your field of expertise. This will position you as a guide in your customer’s story and create reciprocity. Educational videos, podcasts, webinars, and even live events are great transitional calls to action that on-ramp customers toward a purchase.
Testimonials: Creating a video or PDF including testimonials from happy clients creates a story map in the minds of potential customers. When they see others experience a successful ending to their story, they will want that same ending for themselves.
Samples: If you can give away free samples of your product, do it. Offering a customer the ability to test-drive a car, taste your seasoning, sample your music, or read a few pages of your book are great ways to introduce potential customers to your products.
Free trial: Offering a limited-time free trial works as a risk-removal policy that helps to on-ramp your customers. Once they try your product, they may not be able to live without it.
StoryBrand Principle Six: Every human being is trying to avoid a tragic ending.
A story lives and dies based on the question: Will the hero succeed or will they fail? Throughout a story, storytellers foreshadow a potential successful ending and a potential tragic ending. The audience remains in suspense as long as the storyteller keeps the hero teetering on the precipice of success and failure. The only two motivations a hero has in a story are to escape something bad or experience something good. Such is life. Our desire to avoid pain motivates us to seek a resolution to our problems.
As a rule, each scene in a movie must answer the question: What’s at stake for the hero? Every conversation, every chase scene, every reflective montage should serve the movie in the same way: it must either move the character closer to, or further from, the tragic result that might befall them.
In Dominic Infante, Andrew Rancer, and Deanna Womack’s book Building Communication Theory, they propose a four-step process called a “fear appeal.”
First, we must make a reader (or listener) know they are vulnerable to a threat. For example: “Nearly 30 percent of all homes have evidence of termite infestation.”
Second, we should let the reader know that since they’re vulnerable, they should take action to reduce their vulnerability. “Since nobody wants termites, you should do something about it to protect your home.”
Third, we should let them know about a specific call to action that protects them from the risk. “We offer a complete home treatment that wil...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Fourth, we should challenge people to take this specific action. “Call us today and sch...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
We do not need to use a great deal of fear in the story we’re telling our customers. Just a pinch of salt in the recipe will do. While we do need to communicate something from the failure category in order to complete our BrandScript, too many warnings about imminent doom will turn customers off.
What negative consequences are you helping customers avoid?
StoryBrand Principle Seven: Never assume people understand how your brand can change their lives. Tell them.
Successful brands, like successful leaders, make it clear what life will look like if somebody engages their products or services.
One of the problems we run into with StoryBrand clients is the vision they paint for their customer’s future is too fuzzy. Nobody gets excited about a muddled vision. Stories aren’t vague, they’re defined; they’re about specific things happening to specific people. Otherwise they’re not stories; they’re just lofty notions.
The three dominant ways storytellers end a story is by allowing the hero to 1. Win some sort of power or position. 2. Be unified with somebody or something that makes them whole. 3. Experience some kind of self-realization that also makes them whole.
If our brand can participate in making our customers more esteemed, respected, and appealing in a social context, we’re offering something they want.
Offer access:
Create scarcity:
Offer a premium:
Offer identity association:
The controlling idea of this kind of ending is that the character is rescued by somebody or something else that they needed in order for them to be made complete. In
Reduced anxiety:
Reduced workload:
More time:
