#19 - How to Differentiate Your College or University by Dramatically Clarifying and Simplifying Your Message
My guest today is Josh Cantrell. Josh is the founder of Signal Brandworks which is an agency working brands on clarifying and simplifying their messaging and marketing content and helping them craft marketing collateral that moves people to action.
In this episode we cover things like why saying “we’re the best school” is counterproductive and what to say instead. Taking vague messaging and making it clear and direct and make concrete sense to people.
We talk about how storytelling connects people emotionally to your school and helps them tune out a lot of other options.
We also talk about Chat GPT - how to use it as a tool for helping you get your message out there, and how not to use it, and whether Ben Franklin and Mary Poppins would be good babysitters.
LINKS
Connect with Josh:
-Linkedin
-Website
Mentioned in this episode:
-Pricing for Video Storytelling Subscription: pricing.unveild.tv
-Download the 3-part storytelling framework for student/alumni testimonials - "3 Absolutely Crucial Components Every Compelling College Student/Alumni Testimonial Needs"
-"Building a Story Brand" book by Donald Miller
-Marketing Made Simple podcast
Interested in creating compelling student success stories?
Learn more about our video storytelling subscriptions
by downloading our pricing guide.
Interested in creating compelling student success stories?
Learn more about our video storytelling subscriptions
by downloading our pricing guide.
Transcript (done with AI so only about 80% accurate):
00:00:00:20 - 00:00:20:22
Speaker 1
Y'all. The enrollment cliff. Here it comes. You know that if. If there ever was a time to differentiate your school and really hone your messaging. Now is the time. Making vague claims like we're the best such and such school in the world, or we're industry leading this or that or the other is well just please stop doing that.
00:00:20:22 - 00:00:49:05
Speaker 1
Let's just knock that off. It's time to move beyond that and get specific, get clear and figure out how to communicate the value of your school to prospective students in a way that's easy for them to understand and digest and make decisions based off of. And that's realistic. And today, I'm thrilled to introduce you one of the people in this marketing messaging arena that I respect the most, and that's going to really challenge the way that your school thinks about messaging.
00:00:49:21 - 00:00:55:07
Speaker 1
His name is Josh Cantrell of Signal BrandWorks. Stay tuned.
00:00:57:15 - 00:01:21:05
Speaker 1
Hey, welcome to the Higher Ed Storytelling University podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. I'm happy to announce we are now part of the Be Podcast Network, which is a network of podcasts in the education space. Lots of great content for leaders and educators in all roles there, so go check them out. But this is a podcast dedicated to helping higher ed marketers tell better stories, create better content and enroll more students.
00:01:21:05 - 00:01:45:10
Speaker 1
My name is John Azoni I’m the founder at UNVEILD, a video production company working specifically with college marketing teams on automating their video storytelling content through a subscription approach. you can Learn more at unveild.tv that’s UNVEILD.tv. If you’re listening to this podcast for the first time, go ahead and subscribe. And if you’ve been listening for a while now and haven’t left a review I’d love for you to break the seal and do that.
00:01:45:20 - 00:02:13:00
Speaker 1
My guest today is Josh Cantrell. Josh is the founder of Signal Brandworks, which is an agency working with brands on clarifying and simplifying their messaging and marketing content and helping them craft marketing collateral that moves people to action. In this episode, we cover things like why saying we're the best school is counterproductive and what to say instead taking vague messaging and making it clear and direct and making it and making make concrete sense to people.
00:02:13:10 - 00:02:32:14
Speaker 1
We talk about how storytelling connects people emotionally to your school and helps them tune out a lot of other options. We also talk about chat. A very relevant topic now, how to use it as a tool for helping you, you know, get your message out there and how not to use it and whether Ben Franklin and Mary Poppins would be good babysitters.
00:02:33:06 - 00:02:37:06
Speaker 1
So here's my conversation with Josh Cantrell. Josh, thanks for joining us.
00:02:37:16 - 00:02:38:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, man, glad to be here.
00:02:40:05 - 00:02:53:01
Speaker 1
So do you help B2B brands simplify complex stuff so it's easier to sell? That's that's your LinkedIn headline. And I like that. That's even in itself a complex idea that's simplified, right?
00:02:53:04 - 00:03:09:20
Speaker 2
Another one I use a lot as a B2B speech therapist, and so that's been getting a lot of traction lately. They're like, Hey, that's clever. I'm like, Well, the goal is not necessarily to be clever, but I do find that a lot of people, when they sell something big or complex and and there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of elements to it.
00:03:10:05 - 00:03:28:21
Speaker 2
They just have they end up just kind of like stumbling over their words a lot. Right? Or they end up saying so much that the real meat and potatoes of their core of it gets lost. And my son, who's four or five, he was diagnosed last year with autism, and he's been going through speech doing some speech therapy work.
00:03:28:21 - 00:03:52:22
Speaker 2
And I was just realizing, man, there's a lot of parallels between what I help people with, like learning like, let's not overcomplicate things, let's simplify it down to kind of a barebones, like what's actually going to help you Like lay the foundation work for understanding bigger picture concepts and building relationships with your words and all that stuff. So anyway, that's part of why I kind of adopted that as well.
00:03:53:16 - 00:04:08:13
Speaker 1
That's really interesting. I didn't know that about your son that's in that there's a there's a show called What's it called? It's about it's about people with autism who are entering like the dating world or something like that. It's like Netflix.
00:04:08:20 - 00:04:09:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's.
00:04:09:14 - 00:04:27:17
Speaker 1
Called Dating on the Spectrum. So I bought that. And it's really interesting, the speech coach that comes before they have a date that that like helps them talk about like what's really important to say in this moment like how you know, how do you get her to talk? How do you how do you clearly talk about it anyway?
00:04:28:05 - 00:04:30:09
Speaker 1
Anyway, that's an interesting parallel.
00:04:30:12 - 00:05:00:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. And with, you know, just treading lightly and how we talk about that stuff, I do think there are some or just just walking with care as we kind of make an analogy or parallel like that. It's not obviously the same thing, but. Right. But I do think that it can be difficult for there is some truth to the fact that it is very difficult to simplify what you do in a way that somebody else can receive it and that.
00:05:00:17 - 00:05:31:17
Speaker 2
And so I think there are some just like with as my son is going through therapy and learning some things, like there are some real when it gets down to it, it's really just practicing a few tools or a few techniques and you stack those techniques, you stack that practice over time. And so what I end up helping people do, you know, in my work and some of the stuff that we've even worked on together is like trying to break down some of that complexity to like the fundamental principles and elements that are going to be most impactful.
00:05:31:17 - 00:05:42:05
Speaker 2
And you can get better at that stuff over time. And I've seen you develop in what you've done as you've kind of built your business and studio and, and it's just, it's super cool to see.
00:05:42:06 - 00:06:07:23
Speaker 1
So yeah, for people listening, Josh and I go back several years to when I was at a previous production company, Shout out to Tell studios and, and I was part of the conversations about clarifying that company's message when I started my own when I started unveiled, Josh was one of my first calls to to just help me like kind of just like get a good messaging foundation.
00:06:07:23 - 00:06:36:00
Speaker 1
And so that's kind of we've we've worked together on the, the, the storytelling resource that I, that I, that I give away a free download. Josh and I built that together. You know, if you've ever gotten an email emails for me, Josh and I worked on those a little bit together and then also just a lot of like how, how I, how I set up this podcast and how I positioned it has come from my relationship with my yeah, my relationship in my work with Josh.
00:06:37:18 - 00:06:41:04
Speaker 1
So, yeah, you know, thank you for that.
00:06:41:07 - 00:07:07:08
Speaker 2
I it so first off it was a lot of fun like it's you're just a fun guy and in the second half I just love being able to kind of watch how you take it it you've made some changes and what's fun about what we did together, a lot of it we did in a day, right? Like we did a little bit of prep and then obviously you've made you've done work, but that was part of our my funnel in the Day copywriting workshop where we sat down for literally like seven, 8 hours and just knocked a bunch of this stuff out.
00:07:07:08 - 00:07:17:17
Speaker 2
So it's and yeah, there have been changes and that just that happens like as you kind of dials and things end or make some tweaks. But the bulk of it we got, we got done in that one day.
00:07:18:04 - 00:07:30:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. That was, that was awesome. That was really fun. Day. So speaking of which, why don't you tell our listeners just like what what do you do practically? Like, what can people come to you for? Oh.
00:07:30:16 - 00:07:50:05
Speaker 2
Yes. So one of the things that my clients experience is that they find it hard to take all the amazingness that they have internally in their company and put that into just simple marketing stuff like a website. Like how do you talk about you do all this amazing stuff, how do you put it on a website in a way that makes people go, Huh, I want that.
00:07:51:02 - 00:08:23:11
Speaker 2
That's the goal, right? We want them to go, Huh? I want that. So I hope people get that that expression, that that interaction with a potential client from there, from the website, by starting a little bit bigger picture and changing how we're talking about some things. So one of those things is if you've ever heard of a story brand framework we bring, we use the story brand framework a lot to help simplify the complexity and simplify what a company does or an organization or a school what they do, so that it's really easy to understand and not just simple.
00:08:23:13 - 00:08:45:08
Speaker 2
Then we'll take it another step forward and think about how do we make that even more compelling? How do we differentiate you from your competitors, How we describe, how do we describe your process, the way you do what you do or the way you get an outcome for people in a way that makes them go a light bulb go off and go, Oh, that is different, That is interesting, that is cool.
00:08:45:08 - 00:09:08:17
Speaker 2
That's kind of what I want. How people describe the problems that their customers are experiencing so that when they when they talk about or when they when the client or prospect hears them, they go, huh, That organization, that school of that company can help me. They get me. And then once we get the kind of story crafted and the website crafted, we'll help them create assets to help them sell or build their pipeline.
00:09:08:20 - 00:09:29:00
Speaker 2
So emails, lead magnet resources, ongoing blog content that builds, you know, that generates thought leadership type stuff. You know, even social media content, video scripts, a lot of stuff like that. So there's a lot of implications once we get the main story and the main stuff dialed in. But those are the kind of two parts.
00:09:29:19 - 00:09:57:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, and we work together. Like I said, early on in starting my business with your Funnel in a day workshop, which was, you know, really, really helping me create a resource that people that would be valuable to people and then that would help me be able to, you know, start to nurture them. And then, you know, we work together on how to nurture those those relationships through email.
00:09:57:12 - 00:10:25:02
Speaker 1
And so I think it's really it's just I think it was really applicable to really any industry, any any any type of organization that has invested interest in nurturing prospective leads, prospective students, you know, is really, really valuable. And yeah, we it was an intense day of just full brain use, you know. Yeah. And, but yeah, we got it done.
00:10:25:02 - 00:10:53:09
Speaker 1
And honestly that was, that was some of the best money that I spent on my, on my business, which, you know, I just think like, yeah, I could just talk for days about how like helpful that was, you know, just, but just the act of clarifying your message, even just that in itself is exciting and so helpful when you can take a complex, vague idea and figure out like, who is that for and how do I talk about that?
00:10:53:09 - 00:11:16:10
Speaker 1
What are the words that I use? And then and then how to format those communications, how to, how to format your website so that it's accessible for people to, you know, want to keep scrolling through and getting value as they're scrolling through so much stuff. One of the I I've mentioned story brands several times on this podcast, but I mean, I've never actually given like a very good explanation of what it is.
00:11:16:10 - 00:11:19:20
Speaker 1
So. So can you explain like what is the story brand framework?
00:11:20:05 - 00:11:46:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, so story brand framework is a way of changing, changing, simplifying what you do so that you can leverage the power of story to connect with people more emotionally, more on a on a more real clear, simple level. So essentially it's a seven part framework that uses the power of story to clarify a company or a school or an organization's message.
00:11:46:23 - 00:12:07:21
Speaker 2
So it's based on the premise that you, as the person selling something, are not the hero of the story. Right. We hear that kind of line that's become pretty popular these days. But really, your customer is the hero of the story that you are entering into. You are positioned as the guide and you need to be positioned as the guide.
00:12:07:21 - 00:12:31:06
Speaker 2
So the Luke, the Yoda to the Luke Skywalker there, the Luke Skywalker trying to go out and accomplish something, trying to find the right school, trying to build a career, trying to do these amazing get, you know, get trained and and learn some things and have amazing experiences. And you, the school come along if you come along and position yourself as the hero like I am the most amazing one in this story, then they're going to kind of like check out they're not actually looking for another hero, right?
00:12:31:06 - 00:13:08:07
Speaker 2
They're looking for someone who can guide them to where they need to go. So what our messaging needs to do is not necessarily just position ourselves as an authority or a hero per se, but to position ourselves more as like a resource and a and a help to help them get the what they want. So the story framework has seven components and they all kind of are mapped to these kind of ancient elements of story that are kind of wired into our human DNA for how we process the world and we just kind of tap into that to make how you talk about what you do really simple, clear and and super compelling and fun
00:13:08:07 - 00:13:29:19
Speaker 2
for a prospect to to read, you know, a lot of times you go to a website for something that, you know, some business or organization website and and it's all about them. It's all information about them. It's all like a proof about, you know them and how amazing they are. And so there's, you know, there's a place for that.
00:13:29:19 - 00:13:40:22
Speaker 2
There's a place for building proof and authority in your marketing. But if that's the only tool in your toolbox, you're really missing out. So yeah, that's that's essentially it.
00:13:41:21 - 00:14:04:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, It's almost like like I've said before on this podcast, it's like the the way that people or organizations talk is like middle or end of the funnel kind of communications, you know, where they, they have a website where people are mostly landing on that, probably having, you know, heard of the institution before. But but they're still kind of curious.
00:14:04:04 - 00:14:26:12
Speaker 1
They're still in that kind of a awareness phase. And that's the phase to like really inspire, you know, people. It's not really it's not really the place to convince. It's to get them to go to the next step. But I think a lot of organizations in higher ed institutions stay in that area of like, I want to convince you to come to this school or other schools.
00:14:26:12 - 00:14:29:21
Speaker 1
And like, people aren't really ready for that yet because they're. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:14:29:22 - 00:14:52:22
Speaker 2
That's interesting. I also see the opposite, you know. I see I see the opposite a lot where people only inspire or they only talk about, you know, positive, happy things, but they don't ever talk about challenges. They don't ever talk about, you know, they don't they don't try to sell, you know, like there's a balance between inspiration and calling someone to action.
00:14:52:22 - 00:15:09:17
Speaker 2
And both of those things need to you need to be able to do both of those things. And the whole spectrum of your marketing efforts should cover all of that, you know, But on on websites, a lot I see more often than not, I see people that just don't don't do any selling or don't do any maybe calling to action.
00:15:09:17 - 00:15:11:19
Speaker 2
It's like all real fluffy.
00:15:11:22 - 00:15:12:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, or.
00:15:12:16 - 00:15:35:04
Speaker 2
Kind of vague stuff with no, no hard like, well, what do I do if I'm ready to buy? Why should I buy? You know, like, and even in the higher ed world, you know, it could probably be easy to think that we're not we're not really selling. But you are, you know, I don't know if if that's as much if you find that a lot in your conversations with people.
00:15:35:04 - 00:15:52:04
Speaker 2
But there is a place to sell. You know, you're selling a product, you're selling a brand and experience and a way of encountering the world through education. And so, yeah, I think all let's say it's good to sell. Yeah.
00:15:52:12 - 00:16:18:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, I noticed that a lot too. And, and you know Don Miller in the story brand framework talks about that too. It's like don't make it hard for people to buy from you, you know? Yeah. A lot of people stay in that in that sort of inspiring sort of messaging phase, but then they don't ever ask them to do anything cool, like, you know, on the web page.
00:16:18:12 - 00:16:39:12
Speaker 1
Like it should be easy when they when they're on a landing page or whatever a program page to know what the next step is and how to apply or how to get more information, book, you know, a call or whatever, however that process works. I mean, that's a lot of I mean, a lot of organizations miss that. And that's something I'm just really keyed into.
00:16:39:12 - 00:16:47:23
Speaker 1
Like when I'm on someone's website, I'm like, Yeah, you burn it's like you burn calories trying to figure out how to give them money, you know?
00:16:48:02 - 00:17:09:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, not going to cause this challenge is particularly hard because people are not going to just like more than likely, if someone's not already ready, they're coming to the website in order to apply or submit an application or to request an application or whatever your process is for acquiring and enrolling students. More often than not, they're gathering information.
00:17:10:17 - 00:17:32:00
Speaker 2
So I find that, yeah, there's there's a couple of different things that you need to have. One is that kind of direct call to action where like, Hey, if you're ready to apply, apply Now, the other one might be speak to an advisor or speak to a you know, speak to somebody. So what's the next phase? What's the next phase down from somebody that's ready to do something with you?
00:17:32:00 - 00:18:13:08
Speaker 2
And then for the people that are kind of in the in the research and just kind of feeling some stuff out there, maybe an opportunity for some for, you know, some higher ed for schools, for lack of a better word, for, you know, universities, colleges to offer some sort of lead magnet. I know it's probably not a big thing in this world, but some sort of resource that can help you build your email list and or and it could be even just go on to go into social, but some sort of value add for people that aren't quite ready to speak to somebody, aren't quite ready to you know, enroll but need we need to
00:18:13:08 - 00:18:29:19
Speaker 2
move them into a higher level of relationship and engagement with the with the organization, with the brand. And so a lead back, some sort of resource that you give in exchange for an email address or phone number or even just like to follow on social, something like that.
00:18:29:19 - 00:18:49:02
Speaker 1
You're like a free like free course, like a free, you know, sample of, you know, one of your program courses or something. I've seen colleges do that really well in one way that like, I'm not I'm not in the market to go back to school but like I've I've taken some of these, you know, of courses here and there and I'm like, I just want to go to this college now.
00:18:49:02 - 00:19:14:20
Speaker 1
I yeah, I miss learning, you know, and just learning like this so and so. So, you know, I were talking before we started recording here about just differentiating different schools, needing to differentiate themselves from each other and the pattern that that, that schools fall into about saying the same things about themselves as everyone else. So what would be your advice?
00:19:14:20 - 00:19:26:14
Speaker 1
Because that's a that's a I would say that's probably one of the most top of mind. You know, things on a marketing teams, you know, mind is like, how do we separate ourselves? What, what advice would you give?
00:19:27:12 - 00:19:52:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I think the tendency for across really almost every industry is to discount the things that that do actually make you different. A lot of times we think, oh, we've got to have, you know, if we're competing against this kind of school, we've got to do it that way. We've got to market like they do. But you don't, you know, like you are you, you everything about you.
00:19:53:04 - 00:20:17:07
Speaker 2
There are some people out there, you know, out there in the world who are looking for exactly what you are. And so really, I think the first step is taking taking in an inventory of both your assets, like the benefits, the things that you have that you bring to the table that are just like real about your campus, your location, like, you know, your staff, like your focus, you know, things like that.
00:20:17:07 - 00:20:50:08
Speaker 2
Just taking an inventory of every positive thing you have going for you and not just assuming that you already know what those things are. I find that when people really sit down and they're thinking at a high level, but then also granularly, what do what is awesome about us and about our our university, our college, then man, there's a lot more stuff that could come out that you realize if you're if you're willing to go deeper and get a little bit granular and think about it as an inventory, like I'm going to make an inventory of every single thing that is awesome about us.
00:20:52:01 - 00:21:14:03
Speaker 2
On the other side, there is there's another inventory that I encourage people to think through. It's like the process inventory, what what is unique or distinctive, and it doesn't have to be massively unique or massively distinctive, but just slightly unique, slightly different and slightly distinctive about your approach to how you do higher education. What what is your unique flavor?
00:21:14:10 - 00:21:37:22
Speaker 2
And instead of thinking that man, it has to be totally different or totally unique, it's like, No, let's think about all these things are adding together. I've heard you're familiar with the Dilbert comics, like the guy Scott Adams, I believe is the the guy that wrote those and illustrated those. And I read a blog of his recently, got a great blog, actually.
00:21:38:07 - 00:21:59:15
Speaker 2
And and it was like, there's two ways to become the best. And there's two ways to to achieve success kind of. Right, Right. And to achieve notoriety for your success. One is to actually be the best. And there's a very, very small amount of people that are ever actually going to be the best in the entire world at that thing.
00:22:00:00 - 00:22:18:18
Speaker 2
So the other option is to be the top 20% in a few different areas. And once you put once you stack those 2 to 3 different areas on top of each other, you're the best in the world at those doing those three things together. And so I'd be thinking, what are we, the university? What is our university, our school or whatever?
00:22:18:18 - 00:22:47:05
Speaker 2
What are we the top 20% in and how can we stack those things together and use that to kind of like define and position your value proposition as opposed to thinking we've got to play the same game? Harvard Place or we've got to play the same game. This other, you know, the number one place like you don't play that don't play that game, you know, and it ends up when we do that, when we play the same game or we try to be a different version of them.
00:22:47:19 - 00:23:19:21
Speaker 2
It it waters down everything you're doing and the people that are really looking for that unique set stack or set of top 20% and in the world, that collection, then they're going to find it or they're going to be really, really grateful. So I mean, those are two different accent, two different, maybe three different exercises. I think to help distinguish that another another like real quick thought here is the we could get into this but stories, I think that's a big part of it but that may be another conversation.
00:23:21:03 - 00:23:53:09
Speaker 1
Yeah there's a you know, going back to what you said about being the top 20% like or something like that, there's a school that I follow who will always say we're the best business school in the world, but I just just out of curiosity, one day I was like, let me let me research that.
00:23:53:16 - 00:23:58:07
Speaker 1
But they weren't even in the top 100. It's like, yeah.
00:23:58:19 - 00:24:19:07
Speaker 2
Oh, man, that's so funny. Because we do that. We think that the way to compete and the way to build authority is by making a claim. And then whether that claim is true or not, we don't really care. But we're like the best. The industry leading this. You know, I see that a lot in the business world, but man, like what happens when they read a report and you're ranked number 20, you know?
00:24:20:17 - 00:24:41:04
Speaker 2
Well, it erodes trust when we make these claims. And and then, you know, it's really hard to validate that kind of stuff. Anyway, Harvard, is it, you know, Harvard or, you know, whatever, some other school, the best school in the world. Like how you know, how are we measuring that? Well, one school's metric for success might be different from another schools metric for success.
00:24:41:04 - 00:25:06:10
Speaker 2
You know, So I think, like, find out what's important to you and important to your people and build your claims around that. Don't build your claims around, quote unquote, best build your current claims around what it is your audience is actually trying to accomplish by going to your your school university. And so the I think one of the ways we can do that is by, you know, actually communicating with our with people.
00:25:06:12 - 00:25:06:19
Speaker 2
So.
00:25:07:08 - 00:25:30:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, a billboard one time driving down the freeway for a dental company or dental office or whatever, It's a the top dental company in Michigan or whatever. And then in really little text it said as voted on by our staff, like they thought I wasn't going to see that part.
00:25:30:15 - 00:25:32:18
Speaker 2
Oh man, this is amazing.
00:25:34:19 - 00:25:37:04
Speaker 1
Technically, you know.
00:25:37:04 - 00:26:00:14
Speaker 2
It's so much better to just say, say, really friendly dentists, you know, just say that whatever, you know, I don't care. And you show your logo A, it's like are people here's the other thing, man. A small percentage of people are actually looking for, quote unquote, the best they want quote, they want that stamp that's certifiable, the best ever.
00:26:00:14 - 00:26:20:03
Speaker 2
The rest of the 90% of other people are looking for the right fit, you know? And so when we're playing this game, when we're playing the game of the best versus the best, like you, it ends up leading to a lot of just blah marketing. Everybody saying the same thing, doing the same things, you know, different ways of saying the best or whatever.
00:26:20:03 - 00:26:40:09
Speaker 2
But like what actually makes you unique and distinctive? Like when you go out, going back to the dating conversation are when you go out and you're single, are you looking for the literally the best person in the entire world? Like, is that how you think about it? Are you looking for someone that that fits you? You know, you're looking for somebody that fits you.
00:26:40:09 - 00:27:03:00
Speaker 2
There's no way of quantifying who's the best, you know what I mean? Like, that's not how we're thinking about it. So I don't know if that analogy can can hold up to, you know, too many layers of of scrutiny here. But I think the idea is worth considering. Like, are we playing the wrong game or should we be focusing on who we really are and finding the people and getting getting that in front of the people who want that particular thing?
00:27:04:08 - 00:27:26:09
Speaker 1
Yeah. When, when, when Laura, my wife, Laura, and I have, you know, random, just funny conversations about like, why do you love me or something like that. I'm like, Because you're mine. Well, yeah, there's no, like, logical, like I could list things that I like about you, but that's not why I chose to marry you. I didn't choose to marry you based on a logical, broken list.
00:27:26:09 - 00:28:00:02
Speaker 1
You know, I chose marry you because we. We developed a connection. And I think that really, like, that's that's the nature. And then that's where storytelling fits in, because storytelling is is that connector. It creates that emotional connection to where now in the, you know, in a in a whole sea of thousands of of possible universities and colleges, they're emotionally bonded to the one that captured their attention and kind of bonded them to themselves through storytelling, through messaging, whatever.
00:28:00:02 - 00:28:25:11
Speaker 1
And so they may not be they might not. Yeah, like you said, they may know who's the best, but they like that one because that's who they develop the connection with. And, you know, it's like let other people let like, like for you, like, I don't know, a lot of, you know, funnel messaging experts and stuff, but I've worked with you and we've developed a connection.
00:28:25:11 - 00:28:36:09
Speaker 1
And so if anyone asks me, I'm be like, Josh is the best. You know, you guys could very well there might be someone better. I don't know. Probably not. But there are.
00:28:36:13 - 00:28:56:15
Speaker 2
There are. I'm not the number one in the entire world. And if you're looking for that, I'm sorry, but I am top 20 and in quite a few areas and, you know and like own in their own in that collection man that can be it's a powerful thing. So anyway yeah that's a that's a great that's a fun little angle I haven't really ever explored before.
00:28:56:15 - 00:28:57:02
Speaker 2
I like that.
00:28:58:19 - 00:29:16:15
Speaker 1
Quick break here to tell you just to just tell you how it is. I know you think you're college or university is the best. You feel that it's like if you live in America or Germany or Australia, in your mind, that's the best country because it's yours. You have a sense of ownership with it, you have something invested in it.
00:29:16:15 - 00:29:36:09
Speaker 1
But you can say that until you're blue in the face. But guess what? Prospective students don't have that same perspective. They're not starting from that place of ownership of the brand. They're on the outside looking at all these schools that are saying they're the best. And when that's happening, nobody's actually saying anything helpful. And as Josh said, most people aren't looking for the best.
00:29:36:19 - 00:29:59:10
Speaker 1
They're looking for the best fit for them. They're looking for the school that grabs their attention and and convinces them that they're the best fit. And that's where storytelling comes into play. Stories of successful students and alumni give perspective of students, someone to relate to, a human to relate to, someone they can look at and say, I see myself in that person and I want their story to be my story.
00:29:59:10 - 00:30:20:23
Speaker 1
I want to go where they went. If it's a fit for her or him, then it's probably a great fit for me. Whether or not that's the best school in the universe, whatever that means, and telling these stories through video is a very relevant way to communicate that. I'm not going to say it's the best way because I would be a big hypocrite because not every mode of communicating is the best all the time.
00:30:21:16 - 00:30:55:14
Speaker 1
But if your school is wanting to tell more stories through video, you might be thinking me and making even one video just takes a ton of legwork. There's so many steps to go through to herd all the cats and you get one video out of that. But imagine having 132 videos across the year and pretty much all you had to do was find the stories to tell and pass them on to someone else to tell them without having to do so much of the tedious work that goes into one by one making videos at Unveiled.
00:30:55:14 - 00:31:22:14
Speaker 1
Our aim is to take the friction out of telling great stories, whether you're a big school or a small liberal arts college, you can tell really compelling stories all year round anywhere in the world and fill your content calendar with video content because we're going to batch shoot a year's worth of content and then every month drip out to you one new student or alumni story, along with a whole package of additional video content, you're going to get the full length story, which is usually 2 to 3 minutes.
00:31:22:14 - 00:31:47:02
Speaker 1
You'll get a 30 second cut down, a 15 second cut down to use in various ways, and then you're going to get eight topical videos that are repurposed from the interview. So we really aim to make that a smooth process and automate that video content for you so you can just sit back and wait for videos from your school shot in a very high end way to just show up in your inbox and then all you have to do is deploy them.
00:31:47:06 - 00:32:07:03
Speaker 1
Just send do what you do with them. So if you're interested and you're like me and you want to know pricing before you actually really talk to somebody or live human, you can go to pricing.unveild.tv and download our pricing guide. It's got everything in it that you need to know. And then the next step from there is just book a call with us, which you can do.
00:32:07:03 - 00:32:21:10
Speaker 1
Also on our website. All right. Back to my conversation with Josh Cantrell. So tell me, like you kind of talked about this a little bit, What's the process you take companies through to help them narrow down their message?
00:32:22:06 - 00:32:53:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the the easiest way to say it is brain dump, absolute total breakdown. Tell me everything that you think is important about what you do and then tell me about who you're actually trying to reach. And so our secret sauce is taking taking that the people you're trying to reach and what it is you do and and, and Matt marrying those things together, what do you do and what's important for them.
00:32:53:20 - 00:33:14:10
Speaker 2
So, you know, the nuts and bolts of it are pretty straightforward. Like we've got a questionnaire that kind of walks through pain related questions like who is and what is what is your audience struggling with? Like what are your how does that actually make them feel inside? What is your plan for helping them solve that problem? How do they over how do you overcome that problem?
00:33:14:10 - 00:33:35:04
Speaker 2
Like, who are you to say that you can help these people? They justify. Tell me a little bit about how you are. What makes you an authority in this space? Tell me about not just the process of accomplishing what you how how you actually accomplish those results for people, but but also how can they how can they work with you?
00:33:35:05 - 00:33:56:01
Speaker 2
Like, let's make that plan, that path really, really simple and clear. How do we call them to action appropriately? What kind of success are we trying to portray? What kind of negative consequences for making the wrong decision are we trying to help them avoid? Those are, you know, kind of basically very simply walking through the story brand framework.
00:33:56:16 - 00:34:13:00
Speaker 2
That's kind of what it looks like. And then how do we craft the answers that we've identified as being the most impactful to our audience? How do we craft that into some sort of narrative, some sort of story? And there are some very simple ways we do. We do that as well. And the outcome of it is, is pretty profound for a lot of people.
00:34:13:00 - 00:34:34:06
Speaker 2
I've had people in tears literally at the end of just like years trying to figure this stuff out. And then we've got man, we've got a very simple framework that can help, help demystify and clutter pull out all the irrelevant stuff and say, Hey, that's actually not that important. Somebody that on the outside can come in and say, Hey, that's actually not that important.
00:34:34:06 - 00:34:39:14
Speaker 2
This stuff is really important. Let's hone in on that stuff. So anyway, that's that's it in a nutshell.
00:34:40:13 - 00:35:00:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. The, the like emotional release of adding structure to your life and like simplifying complex things. It's like, oh my gosh, yeah. Yes. Like that's, that's how we should talk about like I needed somebody to come in and just say, Why don't you say this? And then, you know, just. Yeah.
00:35:01:01 - 00:35:26:11
Speaker 2
And simplifying complex things is one way to think about it. It's also clarifying vague things, another one or clarifying hard to pin down concepts. So what makes you better as an organization? That's hard, you know, that's a vague there's a lot to that. And so it may not necessarily seem complex on the outside, but but it's a it's a hard to pin down concept, but people don't buy things that are really hard to pin down.
00:35:26:16 - 00:35:49:08
Speaker 2
You know what I mean? People buy things that have a distinct clear value proposition. And so that is what we want. That is what I want all my clients to have. Like to go from vague, uncertain, confused, to clear, compelling and totally on the nose and relevant and exciting for people. So that's that. That's how we think about it.
00:35:50:03 - 00:36:03:10
Speaker 1
Love it. Do you have any examples of maybe company, B2B company or whoever that you've worked with that that has a complicated messaging structure or a complicated product that you help simplify in like kind of what the results of that were?
00:36:04:10 - 00:36:31:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, we've worked with one company that was a a travel advisor. It was a marketing agency for travel agents, travel advisors, and then they were saying all sorts of complex, all sorts of different things. Like just a lot of times what we find is that people, they default to just not knowing. They don't know the silver thread that runs through, like the thing that unites everything that they do, all their services, all the audiences that that serve.
00:36:31:04 - 00:36:55:23
Speaker 2
Like they don't have that figured out, that clear and so what they end up doing is just kind of like vomiting out all their services and all the things that make them that they do. And so agent agencies I found are pretty bad at this. But, you know, colleges and universities and anybody in the ED education space, like a lot of times it's like, hey, we did this, we did this, we the baby is notorious for this as well.
00:36:55:23 - 00:37:20:07
Speaker 2
It's like you have so much capacity, you can solve so many different problems. How do you how do you streamline it all down to like this is actually the core of everything that we've that we solve for people. And so we're able to kind of help help one of those companies do that. And then we turn it into an email sequence and think ten, ten emails are so kind of reinforcing this kind of newly unified message.
00:37:20:14 - 00:37:46:15
Speaker 2
And over the course of literally about ten emails, we did some sales, some sales oriented emails and some sales work in there. And for the past, like 3 to 5 years, they had only had 120. They'd only been able to get to about 120 clients. And so just through the course of this work that we did and then these these about ten emails, they went from 120 to like 230 clients.
00:37:47:10 - 00:38:03:02
Speaker 2
And so it literally doubled their business and potentially saved the business. So it was one of those that I was like particularly proud of because it was one we could say the word, you know, we help them double their business, which was fun. But then too, it was a big deal for them. You know, It's a very big deal.
00:38:03:09 - 00:38:27:13
Speaker 2
I had another client, a lot of what I do for for smaller organizations and startups and even solo consultants or entrepreneurs is is work that bears fruit. After a few different years, maybe a year or two years. And so the results can be things like what you talked about before. Like, man, I feel I feel confident or I feel clear.
00:38:27:13 - 00:38:49:17
Speaker 2
I feel excited about the the vision that I have for how to talk about what I do so that, you know, in my emails, my outbound emails and my nurture sequences and I lead back to in my podcast intro, it's like I feel like, hey, we've got we've got the thing, we've got the story. And so a lot of our work ends up not being super quantifiable just because of the nature of like where an organization starts and then where they go.
00:38:49:17 - 00:39:25:02
Speaker 2
But, you know, I've had, you know, I get testimonials like, like this changed my life, you know, or like I have been struggling with this for years and now I finally feel confident. So it's it's stuff like that that's valuable. But on the B2B side, when we do larger organizations and stuff like that where we you know, we've got one organization we work with where they, you know, they're just consistently using our messaging to generate leads through the market, the content sponsorships that they do.
00:39:26:12 - 00:39:48:23
Speaker 2
So they're writing on another media platform that they've paid for a sponsorship to, to write content on this other company's website, and they didn't know what to say. And so we're able to come in, you know, clarify the core message and then write content that supports that message. And then they're able to put that on a platform where somebody else has the audience and it all drives back to the to the to their website and to this kind of unified message.
00:39:48:23 - 00:40:01:02
Speaker 2
And, you know, they're getting that's how they've been building their business over the past the past few years. And then, you know, I've got a lot of other fun stories, but those are some of the the kind of key ones that come to mind.
00:40:01:14 - 00:40:28:22
Speaker 1
Those are so good. So what I like about your work is that, you know, there is what to say and how to say it, but then also how to format it visually. There's what's there's, you know, what the words are, but then like, how do they get spaced out on the page? How do you lead someone through your website in a way that's clear in the emails I get from you, I rarely open anyone's emails.
00:40:28:22 - 00:40:55:20
Speaker 1
And so in and I open most of yours. Not all of them. I open most of them too, because I know like I'm going to learn something and they're effective. Like the, like the reason the reason why we did the funnel in a day workshop was because an email that I got from you or something and I feel like it was some sort of communication, mass communication that I got from you where I was like, Oh yeah, let's do that.
00:40:55:20 - 00:41:14:04
Speaker 1
I like. And I think that in itself is a skill. I was just like, how do you Because you can open an email and be completely overwhelmed by, well, that's a big block of text. No thanks. Yeah. And it could be the same words, but it's like how you format them. So talk about the importance of formatting.
00:41:14:11 - 00:41:42:22
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, this is a big deal, man. We talk about. Okay, so here's the we are used to we are used to interacting with the world in a screen that's like about this big, you know what I mean? And so we're reading a lot. I think people are reading a lot and but we're consuming a lot. But one of the things that brands need to understand is that how you put the communication on the page.
00:41:42:22 - 00:42:03:01
Speaker 2
Can can either support like lead people into consuming the content which they you need them and want them to, or it can make them bounce away. And so I think that one thing to keep in mind here is like, does this look hard to read? If it looks hard to read, then people are going to be less likely to to want to read it.
00:42:03:04 - 00:42:21:05
Speaker 2
You know, if it and here's one of the ways like an example of something looking hard to read is a paragraph with 3 to 5 sentences in it most of the time like you don't you don't need a paragraph with 3 to 5 sentences in it most of the time for Internet based writing, whether it's, you know, not necessarily always a blog.
00:42:21:05 - 00:42:47:21
Speaker 2
I think a blog is is a little bit different. People are you know, you still need to think about visually breaking some things up and we can talk about how to do that. But if you're writing an email most of the time, I encourage people to have one or two sentences tops per paragraph. It's not like an essay where you need to have like each paragraph is its own distinct kind of thought, you know, and you've got three to 3 to 7 sentences and they all support this one.
00:42:48:03 - 00:43:27:10
Speaker 2
One you know, topic, but no like 127712, two sentences per paragraph and then insert a little break and then sometimes insert like if you're really changing subjects and it's important, but little like three hyphens in the middle, like it's super simple, basic stuff, but and I mean, I use a lot of ellipses, so it's not that it's not going to pass any AP test, but but it is it does pass the Does this email help accomplish does the copy on this in this does the text in this email help accomplish the purpose of this email?
00:43:27:14 - 00:43:30:07
Speaker 2
It passes them, right? And so like.
00:43:30:10 - 00:43:31:04
Speaker 1
With an ellipses.
00:43:31:09 - 00:43:33:20
Speaker 2
Let's see, this is like the three little dots at the end of a sentence. And so.
00:43:33:21 - 00:43:34:05
Speaker 1
Oh.
00:43:34:14 - 00:44:00:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I'm thinking about how can I create, how can I visually and verbally create some sort of slot like slide down the email. So a lot of times people are going to make it seem really easy for my thoughts and my words and visually for people's minds to just progress logically to the next sentence and not even just logically, like emotionally like, Oh, that.
00:44:00:06 - 00:44:32:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, that ended in a little bit of a cliffhanger here. How can I answer that down in the next paragraph instead of just immediately answering it right there? Like create a little bit of rhythm and flow visually through, you know, paragraph breaks and ideally images is a big part as well. Like if you've got images that can can, that can support a concept like that's a, that's one of the thing, one of the tools and you talk about that people don't use like, yes, you can communicate something verbally, but it's twice as impactful if you can also communicate that visually.
00:44:32:21 - 00:44:50:11
Speaker 2
So if you really need somebody to understand something or to feel a certain way at a certain point, or if you just want want to reinforce the main thing, like some sort of visual or graphic or image that can, can support, that can help break up the text, obviously, and and just help get your point across. So.
00:44:51:03 - 00:45:11:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's almost like I mean, the difference between because you wouldn't write like that if you were writing a book, like you were writing a book about marketing, it would be very more like journalistic, like solid blocks of text. But by that time you've earned the right to be heard. You know, someone has picked up your book, purchased it, and said, I'm going to commit to reading this.
00:45:11:21 - 00:45:24:05
Speaker 1
Whereas in an email communication, you're trying to it's like breadcrumbs. It's like it's like trying to just get them to the next little step so that they're in a place where they're like, okay, now I'm listening to you. What do you have to tell me? You know?
00:45:24:05 - 00:45:48:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, it's good. And I think like a couple of one guy that I really love, he doesn't necessarily always do this in emails, but even in his books, his books are really pithy, helpful, insightful comment and comments and content. But he's also a visual artist, and so he illustrates the pages and illustrates the concepts. And so Austin Kleon, if you ever heard Austin Kleon show your work and still like an artist.
00:45:48:22 - 00:45:50:06
Speaker 2
Oh man, you got it. You got.
00:45:50:15 - 00:45:51:02
Speaker 1
That book.
00:45:51:02 - 00:46:24:03
Speaker 2
Though? Yeah. See, like an artist and and show your work. He's got some others, I think. But really I love the way he campaign. It combines visuals with text and and especially if. If there's some sort of visual element to your brand, I'd be thinking about how can or your school, you know, what you teach and be thinking about how can we make this more beautiful and not just for its own sake, but in order to like, reinforce the concepts and move people through to the point where we want them to be, you know, get them to consume all the content.
00:46:25:07 - 00:46:48:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think a lot about that. Even just like when I, when I post snippets of this podcast, like I'm constantly refining like the frame that that sits in, you know, the vertical frame, it's like, how can I make this like satisfying but not like too confusing, but like visually, like someone can land here and be like, okay, like my brain can function here for me.
00:46:48:15 - 00:47:15:10
Speaker 2
You know? Yeah, Yeah, it is. It is interesting to think about that because I think a lot of times people are purely thinking, how do we make this look good? And that's not the question design is really supposed to answer. You know. That's not the thing that design as opposed to do design is meant to, is meant as a tool to communicate something right or to to create a connection to accomplish something.
00:47:15:10 - 00:47:36:02
Speaker 2
So as I've got one client right now that I'm like, Man, some of this stuff is just really overdesigned. You need to just chill out and let the content in The thing speak for itself a little bit more, create a little more white space man, create a little less intense graphics so that the content can, can talk and really have it its proper place.
00:47:37:06 - 00:48:09:21
Speaker 2
And so it's it's a fine balance. I'm no expert at it, but but I know it needs it does as you grow as you know when you're really when you're just starting out, it's I think, a little less important, you know, using, you know, doing a lot of visual work. But as your brand develops and you have more opportunities to take your your identity or to expand your identity out into other senses, like, you know, visually and audio and, you know, all that stuff, then then it becomes more important.
00:48:09:21 - 00:48:13:05
Speaker 2
You can flesh out that brand over time. But anyway.
00:48:13:05 - 00:48:19:10
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's great. Have you use chat at all in in your work?
00:48:19:20 - 00:48:50:12
Speaker 2
I have, yeah I found it and it's a, it's, it's, it's almost like a great it's like a really good intern, you know, a really good research intern who can write really fast, but has no personality of its own and rich and, and so one of the things I like to think about is like if you had a you know, if you're going to use this to help make yourself faster and better, don't don't it don't outsource your thinking excuse me or your personality to this robot.
00:48:51:05 - 00:49:15:01
Speaker 2
Once you train it, there are things we could do to train it into like, don't. Yeah, don't give it. Don't give it access to, like, the accelerator, the brakes, the steering wheel, you know, like all that stuff. Let's just just give it one specific thing that you're trying to do, whether it's brainstorming or manipulating or and then use your your personality, your vision as a as a filter.
00:49:16:05 - 00:49:38:05
Speaker 2
Like right now, man, I I've got 3 to 5 people that normally put out really interesting things and really thoughtful content. And I'm and then over the past couple of months, I just see, wow, you just outsourced your whole personality to chatty Everything every writing sounds terrible. Like a robot wrote it. It's very accurate. Yeah, Grammar's great.
00:49:38:15 - 00:49:40:18
Speaker 1
But do accurate. Yeah.
00:49:41:02 - 00:49:59:21
Speaker 2
Accurate. And so anyway, it's it's a powerful tool. It's really fun. But when only when you think of it as a really smart research and writing intern that you to direct and give and give some some very particular and strict guidelines to. So I'm actually a product using it so.
00:50:00:10 - 00:50:03:22
Speaker 1
Really yeah can you talk about it or is it under wraps.
00:50:04:14 - 00:50:29:21
Speaker 2
It's it's never going to make money. It's just something I did for fun. But it is essentially it'll work a lot better when we have access to Chatty Beauty four, which will come out soon and we'll get access to. But it's essentially like a, uh, it sounds silly, but it's basically a way to get advice from dead people.
00:50:29:21 - 00:50:52:10
Speaker 2
I respect. So really, if I have one. Yeah. You ever heard of the concept of the Have you ever heard of the concept of like a historical board of advisors where like, hey, I've got an issue in my life or my business and I need to and I really wish I could get. And how would how would Abraham Lincoln have handled this challenge in my life or my business?
00:50:52:10 - 00:51:22:15
Speaker 2
It'd be super cool if he was just sitting in my office or if I had him on speed dial. And so we've trained this. We change trends, Jets, Chatbot, and we're building a simple web app to basically let you build profiles for all the people whose thinking you respect over time and present challenges to them. Give them some context and then let them generate, generate thoughts, ideas, stories from their own speaking and writing and life, and then like, bring that back into your world a little bit like.
00:51:23:04 - 00:51:42:09
Speaker 2
So it's we're still messing around with it. It's just like a little fun project for my developer friend and I. But, but it's actually been really interesting, like especially when they can bring specific quotes that they've said that in some way actually do apply to my challenge in my life right now. So anyway, this is kind of a fun thing, but.
00:51:42:21 - 00:52:03:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I've been having fun messing around with it. I use it for all kinds that my one of my favorite uses for it has been. I always find it really hard to find good case studies for the things that I think about, like the things that I want to write emails about or content about. And I always like, like I'll read a book and I'm like, Man, where do they find these?
00:52:03:15 - 00:52:20:14
Speaker 1
Like these, these, these genius like case studies of companies that have done this before? But I recently asked to like, find me good examples of, you know, emotional storytelling in, in advertisement. And it gave me like a list of five, some couple of them I already knew about, but a few of them I didn't. And I was like, sweet.
00:52:20:14 - 00:52:39:22
Speaker 1
Like that just gives me a jumping off point. Mm hmm. I even use it for my my, my seven year old Elly. She's been home sick the last couple of days, and so we've been using that time to. Her birthday's coming up next month and she wants to do a music video since she's doing a music video to this pink song.
00:52:40:06 - 00:52:59:23
Speaker 1
And and so her and I were in pre-production the other day. So like, she's having she's having three of her friends over and the whole the whole birthday party is just filming this music video. And then but, you know, she's got all these ideas. So we asked GP like, what would be like, good backgrounds for this song by Pink?
00:53:00:22 - 00:53:17:06
Speaker 1
And and he came up with some good ideas and then we kind of were like, okay, so let's start thinking in that direction. Even like even then, you know, yesterday, one of the hardest things I feel like when kids are sick is like, What do I do with you all day? Yeah, you know, especially when you're just sick the day before.
00:53:17:06 - 00:53:19:09
Speaker 1
We've kind of, like, gotten all the fun stuff out of the way.
00:53:19:17 - 00:53:19:23
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:53:21:00 - 00:53:30:05
Speaker 1
So I asked Chartbeat, like, what to do with a seven year old. That's at home in Troy, Michigan, Gives, like, 20 things.
00:53:30:13 - 00:53:51:10
Speaker 2
I love it. My favorite thing to do is to is to improve it. Like it gives you your initial wanting to be like, No, this isn't good enough. Give me some more and do it. Give me ideas as if as if Mary Poppins was my actual babysitter, You know, like what would you do? You know, or give me ideas.
00:53:51:10 - 00:54:16:08
Speaker 2
And that's one of my favorite things to do, is I like it because it's been three so far. Can't it can't search through the Internet like you're not seeing live stuff. So but anything that was available until about 20, I believe, is 2020, you can get access to it. So people that have like an established personality and the cumulative, you know, database on the Internet, you know, you can kind of lean on that.
00:54:16:08 - 00:54:37:00
Speaker 2
And so, you know, what would you if Teddy Roosevelt was my babysitter for a day, how would he what kind of activities would he do with to you know, to make sure my daughter's mind and body are engaged and having a great day, you know? Well, I guess she's six. She's not doing a whole lot. Maybe just. Yeah, you know, stuff like that.
00:54:37:00 - 00:54:50:19
Speaker 2
Teddy Roosevelt's gonna be a terrible babysitter first, but Mary Poppins might be a little better. But yeah, so basically adding using other people's personalities to get the kind of result you want through Chatty Betty is kind of the main point. I'm getting that.
00:54:51:00 - 00:55:01:11
Speaker 1
That's really interesting. I've never thought about it that way. How how, how would Mary Poppins find something to do? Who is who is probably infinitely more creative as a parent than I am? Right?
00:55:02:10 - 00:55:04:16
Speaker 2
Exactly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
00:55:05:05 - 00:55:23:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm always like my go tos are like, All right, you want to play Uno now? All right? Do you want to go paint? Go. Come out the studio with me and paint right now, and I'll do that. All right, Well, where else can we do that Doesn't cost money because I don't want to take you to Chucky Cheese every day, You know, Here.
00:55:23:04 - 00:55:48:08
Speaker 1
It's like, So what are they going to we're going to ask you. Oh, I guess that was that was. That was pretty much it. What are you mentioned a couple of resources, but what are some some resources for organizations, I guess our audience being higher ed institutions, but that you'd recommend for people wanting to clarify their message if they were wanting to kind of take the next step and go, Yeah, we really need to get focused.
00:55:49:00 - 00:56:07:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, the first thing you might want to do is just go to my website. Signalbrandworks.com and schedule a chat. Like if I, if I can help you, Let's talk about your issues, your challenges, if I can help you find a resource that I think you could that you could benefit from. Great. I'll connect you there.
00:56:07:06 - 00:56:28:04
Speaker 2
If not, we could talk and strategize a little bit about what it would look like to work together and how we can you accomplish some of your, you know, your objectives, whatever they are, how we can simplify and clarify your message. But but some of the other resources that I really like, I mean, the Building a Story Brand book by Don Miller is a fantastic place to start.
00:56:29:17 - 00:56:51:17
Speaker 2
I have given away many, many copies of that book. That's fantastic. And then the marketing made Simple podcast is also put out by the story Grand Business Made Simple is the company, but Story brand is the marketing branch of that now and marketing made simple as there is their marketing Focus podcast. That's a great a great place to go podcast.
00:56:51:17 - 00:56:52:12
Speaker 1
One of my favorites.
00:56:52:17 - 00:57:01:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. And then the other one would be, Hey, just follow me on LinkedIn, let's connect on LinkedIn and I post and write about this stuff all the time. So it's Josh Cantrell on LinkedIn.
00:57:02:03 - 00:57:11:20
Speaker 1
Okay, cool. Awesome. Man, this has been so great to talk to you. It's yeah, it's fun to just a fireside chat about stuff we just care about really.
00:57:11:20 - 00:57:14:12
Speaker 2
Man, this has been great. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
00:57:15:15 - 00:57:40:05
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening. Three things I want to give you before you go. Number one reminder, go to pricing.unveild.tv. If you're interested in our subscriptions and download our pricing guide. Number two, if you want to take the storytelling you're already doing to the next level, I have a free resource for. You. It's a three part framework for creating compelling student and alumni testimonials and you can get that at unveild.tv/studenttestimonials and all these links earlier in the show notes.
00:57:40:21 - 00:57:55:18
Speaker 1
Number three leave your review for this podcast helped so ton. Thanks for listening. My name is John Azoni go connect me on LinkedIn. And in the meantime we will catch you on the next episode of the Higher Ed Storytelling University podcast. Thanks.
