Stop Promoting Your Business. Start Telling Better Stories
A live-stage coaching session where two audience members bring real businesses to the whiteboard and leave with a proof problem, a story formula, and a niche picked in two questions.
Posted
2 months ago
Duration
Format
Talking Head
educational
Views
185.2K
3.3K likes
57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Explaining your value harder never closes a sale; documented proof told as a transformation story does, and that story only works once you have picked one specific client to tell it to.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You run a service or experience business with a strong offer and a fair price, but prospects still say they need to think about it.
Your social content is mostly promotional clips of the product and the view counts have stalled.
You know a story should have a beginning, middle and end but you can't explain why some stories land and yours don't.
You keep switching niches every few months because the first one got hard, and you suspect the problem is you rather than the market.
You sell technical services to small businesses and want a quick way to define one ideal client profile with an AI assistant.
SKIP IF…
You want a tightly edited tutorial. This is a live four-hour workshop excerpt with crowd banter, jokes and tangents throughout.
You already run documented case studies and a narrow, profitable niche. Most of this will be review.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Prospects can't picture the result you promise, a problem the session calls the imagination gap, and no amount of describing it will close that gap. Proof closes it: photos, videos, written and video testimonials of real customers having the experience you sell. That proof gets far more weight when it is framed as a before-and-after arc, built on a simple formula: a character wants something, an obstacle stands in the way, and they end up getting what they need instead of what they wanted, leaving them transformed. The second half turns to niching. Force binary choices (men or women, early or late career, region, revenue band) until the market is tiny, push through the dip instead of restarting, and use an AI assistant to draft and pressure-test one ideal client profile and rank that client's real problems by pain.
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The speaker frames the format: a whiteboard, a dialogue with the room, and a rule to dig into the problem before jumping to answers.
01:19 – 04:30
02 · The travel founder's pitch
An audience member describes a small-group adventure travel business: about 2,000 euros for 7-10 days, 90% retention, seven figures after five years, but struggling to stand out.
04:30 – 07:35
03 · Strip the judgment out of the problem
Words like 'noisy' and 'hypocrisy' get flagged as violent language. The problem is restated neutrally, and the speaker calls the offer a bargain compared with their own $7,500 six-day Japan trip.
07:35 – 10:20
04 · The imagination gap and proof
We are the worst judges of our own value. Prospects can't imagine the result, so the founder needs photos, videos and written and video testimonials of people having the time of their lives, shown before purchase.
10:20 – 14:03
05 · Before-and-after stories
Promotional clips read as commercials. Instead, show a timid traveler's fears first, then drop them onto the ice. The Navy SEAL example shows how a dramatic past makes the present meaningful.
14:03 – 20:20
06 · The story formula
A character wants something and something stands in their way. Romance plots, an art-house tangent, the want-versus-need twist, and a retelling of Whale Rider illustrate how transformation creates emotion.
20:20 – 26:01
07 · Study formats and the thank-you economy
Break down viral formats structurally. A fake-homeless kindness series and free lawn-care videos show escalating stakes and how generosity gets funded by views and brand deals.
26:01 – 29:54
08 · The developer who can't niche
An AI and software developer quit the education niche after a few months. The speaker contrasts that with three years of pursuing his wife and argues giving up means he didn't want it enough.
29:54 – 32:45
09 · Specialization and the five-to-nine
The more specialized people become, the more successful they become. The second business doesn't have to replace the first; it can live in the evening hours with a partner's buy-in.
32:45 – 36:55
10 · Push past the dip
A whiteboard sketch of Seth Godin's Dip, and the channel's own numbers: $17K in year one, $48K in year two, then roughly 3x a year to a multimillion-dollar company.
36:55 – 42:13
11 · Pick a niche in a few questions
Binary choices narrow the market live: men, late career, 40s and 50s, bad with tech, plumbers and electricians, $2-5M revenue, Texas, struggling with speed to lead.
42:13 – 45:14
12 · Prompt your ideal client profile
A live prompt for Claude: describe yourself and the demographic, ask it to question you first and check market size, then list and rank the client's problems by pain and willingness to pay.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Buyers have an imagination gap: they can't picture the result the way you do, so explaining harder never closes it, only proof does.
Historically, business owners are the worst judges of their own value, which is why an outsider can call a 2,000 euro, 7-10 day trip a bargain when the founder can't.
When you have a skill but no proof, take a project for less money just to create the case study that makes the next client say yes.
Proof delivered after purchase is too late. Prospects need to see it in your content before they ever book.
If a social video is obviously a commercial, nobody watches it, no matter how good the footage is.
A transformation only feels big when you show the 'before' first: the person afraid of flying makes the glacier climb meaningful.
A Navy SEAL who was always athletic is a boring story; one who was undersized, bullied and in a coma is a story.
Every story reduces to one sentence: a character wants something and something stands in their way.
No conflict, no story. Without an obstacle there is nothing for an audience to care about.
In a satisfying story the character doesn't get what they want; they get what they need, and that internal shift is what moves the audience.
Judgmental words like 'noisy' and 'hypocrisy' to describe your market make the work feel miserable before you start; describe the problem neutrally.
A lawn-care creator who helps elderly neighbors for free can earn more from views and brand deals than from mowing, which reframes what business they are actually in.
Almost everyone who becomes more specialized becomes more successful, which the session argues is causation, not correlation.
Two binary questions, gender and career stage, eliminate most of a market and turn 'I can't pick a niche' into a workable demographic.
Most people quit in the dip, right before the curve turns up, which is exactly why persistence beats a crowded field.
A YouTube channel that made $17K in year one and $48K in year two grew roughly 3x a year into a multimillion-dollar business because it was not abandoned.
Sloppy prompts produce sloppy output: ask the AI to question you first and to check market size before it recommends an ideal client profile.
Rank your ideal client's problems by pain and willingness to pay, and you'll often find you sell a solution to none of the top ones.
Takeaway
Proof, told as a story, to one client
WHAT TO LEARN
A strong offer still stalls when prospects can't picture it, so document real transformations, frame them with a clear before and after, and aim them at one narrowly chosen client.
03Strip the judgment out of the problem
Describe your market's problem in neutral terms; calling the space noisy or hypocritical makes the work feel miserable before you begin.
Ask an outsider to price your offer, because owners consistently undervalue what they sell compared with what buyers would pay.
04The imagination gap and proof
Collect photos, videos, and written and video testimonials of customers mid-experience, and publish them where prospects decide, not after booking.
If you lack proof for a new service, take one project at a reduced price purely to create the case study that sells the next one.
05Before-and-after stories
Open customer stories with who the person was before, their fears and limits, so the result carries weight when it arrives.
Find the single moment in someone's past that makes their present achievement dramatic, the way a childhood coma makes a Navy SEAL compelling.
06The story formula
Build stories on one sentence: a character wants something, an obstacle blocks them, and they end up with what they needed instead.
07Study formats and the thank-you economy
When a viral format works, break it down structurally, noting the opening shot, the odd hook moment and how the stakes escalate.
Consider whether your audience would pay you, through views and sponsors, for the help you give rather than the service you bill for.
08The developer who can't niche
Treat quitting a niche after a few months as a sign you didn't want it enough, and decide whether you actually do before switching.
09Specialization and the five-to-nine
A second venture can run in the evening hours alongside the business that pays the bills, with a partner's explicit buy-in.
10Push past the dip
Expect early results to fade into a long dip; persisting through it is how you get past the people who quit right before growth.
11Pick a niche in a few questions
Narrow your niche with forced either-or choices on gender, career stage, industry, revenue band, region and top problem.
12Prompt your ideal client profile
Prompt an AI with who you are and who you serve, ask it to question you first and check market size, then rank the client's problems by pain.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Imagination gap
The distance between the result a seller can picture and what a prospect can picture from a description. Closed by showing proof rather than explaining harder.
Before-and-after story
A content structure that shows a person's state before an experience, builds tension, then shows the change. The setup is what gives the result emotional weight.
Want vs. need
A screenwriting idea where the character pursues an external goal (the want) but ends up gaining an internal lesson (the need), which produces the transformation audiences respond to.
Thank-you economy
A model where creators do generous, often unpaid acts on camera and get paid indirectly through views, ad revenue and brand sponsorships from viewers and companies who support the work.
The Dip
Seth Godin's term for the long stretch after early easy wins when effort rises and results fall. Most people quit there, just before growth would have accelerated.
ICP (ideal client profile)
A specific description of the best-fit customer: who they are, what they earn, where they are, and what problems they pay to solve. Used to focus offers and messaging.
Speed to lead
How quickly a business responds after a prospect inquires through a form, email or call. Slow response loses leads, which makes it a common automation target.
CPM
Cost per mille, the ad revenue earned per thousand views. Used to estimate what a viral video pays from platform ads alone.
Resources
Things they pointed at.
04:37bookJiddu Krishnamurti
09:26channelMorgan Jay (comedian)
15:01bookStory by Robert McKee
17:53productWhale Rider (film)
32:45bookThe Dip by Seth Godin
42:43toolClaude
Quotables
Lines you could clip.
07:36
“Historically speaking, we are the worst judge of our own value.”
one line, universal, no setup→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
08:30
“Human beings have an imagination gap. We cannot imagine things the way that you see things.”
names a concept the viewer instantly recognizes→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
10:22
“If you just use this as a promotional video, no one will watch it, because we know it's a commercial.”
blunt contrarian claim about social content→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
14:33
“There's a character that wants something and something stands in their way.”
the whole formula in one sentence→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
16:27
“Instead of getting what we want, we get what we need.”
“See, I like things that are difficult because it means there's less competition because everybody quits here.”
lands with the dip graph visible→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
43:42
“So sometimes it spits out something not good. I don't blame the machine. I blame you.”
funny, sharp take on prompting→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
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See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
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metaphoranalogystory
We have a short four hours together. This is my favorite format of working together. I have a whiteboard.
I have markers. I'm a happy boy. The way this works is I have some slides, but the slides are only here as a visual aid to what we're doing.
I want to begin this master class by delving into the problems. the challenges that you're facing, because this is all about you. I've been talking to so many of you guys the last couple of days that I want to make sure you leave this event with no FOMO.
You have not missed anything. Yeah? Is that okay?
All right. We can do this together. So what I want to do is I want you to really think about the problem.
Because most presenters, when you ask a question, they just go into answer mode. So you feel like you have this one shot to package all the information. But I'm not most presenters, see?
I have a dialogue with you. So give me a little, and we start to dialogue. We're in rapport, and we'll show you how this is done.
I really want you to think about the problem, because that's all I listen to. We'll start with you guys. Can we get the mic runners here?
By the way, before we get started, I just want to say, can we just give it up for the mic runners, please, everybody? It's a difficult job. Difficult job.
Somebody give them the mic. Give them the mic. And then also the AV team, the audio team, the video team, they've been amazing to work with.
You guys are amazing. Thank you. So we have a product in travel business and we are focusing a lot on experience.
But how can you brand this experience in a world where there is so much noise and everyone is trying to cover their products in experience, you know, like make them look like everything is experience, you know, like. Okay, let's slow down. The way you begin this is I want you to put it on your best trailer voice.
In a world of experience design. Okay, and then you ask the question. Go ahead.
So, in a world full of noise. That's pretty good. Would you watch that movie?
Give it a little more gravitas, bro. Use your chest voice. Let's go.
In a world. Give me some bass there. In a world full of experience and noise.
How can we make... The most of our actual fun.
He's really good, guys. I don't know what he asked, but he's really good. Hey, give me a fist bump here.
That was really good. You guys, okay. This is the example.
We play. We're going to play together. Somebody might get hurt, more you than me, but somebody might get hurt.
That's okay. It's always funny for everyone except for that person. Okay.
I don't understand the conflict. You say it's a very noisy world. Yes.
Okay. So I'll write the word noisy. Now what else?
What else do I need to know? You need to know that we are focusing on experience. That's becoming the product.
Okay. And you're in travel, right? Yes, in travel business, yeah.
What kind of travel? Well, we are taking people to adventures like in Iceland or in destinations. Oh, okay.
That are different than what they usually do. Yeah. And we do it like with small groups, so the experience is like more customized.
Okay, high -end bespoke? Yeah, somewhat, but we try to keep the price low. So we make people come back.
We have like a 90 % rate of retention, for example. What's your price? Roughly?
Like 2 ,000 euros, like I would say. Oh, that's great. How many days?
Like you get like 7 to 10 days. Wow. Chris, we have to take a trip.
I think this is a sales pitch for this room. This is a fake question, I believe. Okay, 7 to 10 days for 2K.
That's fantastic. You good at doing this? Yeah, actually, we are really good.
Can you make money doing this? Yes, we got to seven figures this year after five years. Wow.
Well, first of all, congratulations. Thanks. Seven figures euro, not ron, right?
Yeah. Okay, okay. Just double check in here.
You know what? We should talk later. I want to do experience travel for people to travel with me.
This is an excellent price. We'll charge 8K. We'll pay you the two.
Yeah, no worries. You're good, right? You're happy.
No, this is real. I'm not kidding around. Yeah.
Will you connect with Drigo, my right hand guy? Yeah, sure. For real.
Okay. So what's your problem now? So my problem is that I want to show people that we are doing things differently.
Okay. But there is so much hypocrisy I see. Oh, yeah.
Okay. Let's stop. Okay.
There's a mindset thing here. Yeah. We have to be very mindful of how we use words.
He's like so much noise, hypocrisy. Is anybody excited to work in that space? No.
So what we want to do, Krishnamurti said this, the highest form of intelligence is to observe without judgment. So words that are judging, that assign value to things, like noisy and hypocrisy, that's very violent language to describe something. If you show up every single day and say, I hate my job, I hate my clients, I hate my life, guess what?
You're going to be really miserable. People backstage. A little concerned for me, like, how you doing?
I said, excellent. Best day of my life. And I mean that.
I am just glad I'm alive. And I have an opportunity to speak to so many of you, right? Yeah.
It could be because there's a lot of sunshine in California, so I'm just happy. A lot of rain and clouds here. But let's just change our disposition on this a little bit, okay?
We have a problem. We just want to solve the problem. Strip away all the emotional language here.
And please pay attention, everybody, because we're going to do this for the next four hours. Let's not have me repeat this over and over again. Drigo, am I doing okay?
You're doing great, Chris. When I need your help, will you be ready? Perfect.
Okay. So you just need to show the experience, yes? Exactly.
What have you tried? Well, we've tried to show a little bit behind the scenes. Wow.
Photos? Videos? Yeah, and all the content we have on the website, all the photos are actually made by us.
We don't use any stock or something. Well, I wouldn't brag too much about that, but okay. That's not a selling point.
We didn't use AI or stock. It's okay. No, I'm just saying we keep our thought process.
Okay. Are they really sexy images and videos? People doing exciting, amazing things?
Somehow. See, somehow I don't believe you now. Like somehow I don't believe Drigo is saying nice things about me.
Well, we try to put the perspective like if you were there with your eyes, like POV perspective in the areas we show. That's not the question I asked. Okay.
It's like, say, are you married? Say I'm your wife and like, where were you? And you're like, I had drinks.
You're not answering the same question. We have to be on the same wavelength here. You got it?
Let's stay married for a long time, yes? I mean, that's a good thing, right? I've heard some rumors, but okay.
We'll talk about that later. So the videos have to be so exciting that I just want to book it now. Because I tell you right now, based on my experience, this is a very compelling price.
Drigo, we were just in Japan last year. How much do we charge for people to travel with us for six days? $7 ,500.
That is a bargain. That is a bargain. So this is one of those things where, in my experience, this is a bargain.
It's an offer so good that I should be stupid to say no to. Fantastic job on that. So all you have to do, in my opinion, is to show people the experience that you say you're giving them.
Yes, that's the hard thing. No, because you can hire people to do that. Are you a cinematographer, editor?
No, I'm basically a graphic designer turned brand strategist. The answer is no. Just say no.
That's fine. So what we do is we try to do too much ourselves and so then the work doesn't look right. And I gotta tell you something.
Historically speaking, we are the worst judge of our own value. Everybody feel this? We are the last one to say we're worth something.
Right? So... When you have someone with fresh eyes who can look at you objectively, like me, and say, this is a bargain.
This is amazing. If you can deliver a great experience. Now I need proof.
Guess where the proof is. Where's the proof, my friend? Well, in the actual product, right?
When you come with us. No, it's too late. I need to see the proof.
So then in the content. Be more specific. Pictures, videos, right?
Yes. These things are not stock. Okay, we need to see great photos and videos and we need to see testimonials.
Oh, yeah. We need to see it written and we need to see it in video form. We need to see people having the best time of their lives.
Yeah. Okay? We don't have a lot of that.
So, here's the problem. And this is what everybody here has. Human beings have an imagination gap.
We cannot imagine things the way that you see things. Okay? For example, there was a time which I did not do brand strategy at all.
But it was really clear I could do this, but I didn't have proof. So every time I asked a client, would you like to hire us to do brand strategy for 30K, they would say no, because there's an imagination gap. I had to close the gap.
How do we close the gap? We agreed to do a project for less money than we would. So then now I have proof.
I show that proof, and now people say yes. So you just have to document the proof of people having an amazing experience in all forms of media. photos, videos, illustrations, testimonials, audio, everything that you can think of, you share.
Okay. Okay? Now, I imagine you're sharing this on your website.
Yeah, and mostly social media. What platform? On Instagram, mostly.
Okay. A lot of views? Yeah.
How big is your following? Well, I don't remember exactly. So suspicious.
There's a guy, his name is Morgan Jay. Do you guys know the comedian Morgan Jay? He's the autotune comedian and he sings a song suspicious as...
You know the words. I don't know. I think it's like around 10K or something like that.
Okay. Are you ashamed of that or are you proud of that? No, I mean, I don't know what to think about it.
Doesn't feel like he's that proud of it. 10K is not that easy to get these days. Yeah, I know.
I feel we are so much more. 10K, bro. We are so much more.
Okay, there's a lot of work. You know the cool thing is... These kinds of videos with a strong emotional hook are highly watchable.
Okay, let's get into content marketing, everybody, okay? Now, many of you are using social, and you're probably using it the wrong way. So if you just use this as a promotional video, no one will watch it, because we know it's a commercial.
We know this, but we keep doing things like this. What we want to do is to show a story. It's called a before and after story.
Okay? Before and after. Okay?
Do you know what that means? Well, I can guess. You can guess?
Okay, well, let's test your guessing. What are we going to show before and after? Well, it's before you go into, I mean, before you experience, like, our product, or what?
Well, you're running out of enthusiasm. No, I'm just going into thinking mode now. Okay.
Brain processing. It's the beach ball on the Mac. Yeah.
Okay. The before and after is we want to see great change. We want to see an arc.
Okay. So I'll draw a red marker here. We want to see this arc.
How were we before? How are we after? How are we transformed by the experience?
So you can interview some timid people who talk about like, I've never left my country. The farthest I've ever traveled was 200 miles away from home, and I drove in a car. I'm afraid of flying.
I'm afraid of spiders. I don't like ice. I'm not good with cold weather.
Okay? And you build up the tension. So, like, what's going to happen to this person?
And then you drop them into the ice, and they're, like, drowning. And then they're climbing an ice mountain. You see, now that story, those visuals have a lot more weight because I set up the story.
Driegel, you've mastered this. Yes. Tell me a time when you had a story that you needed to work on and how you found that contrasting point.
We talked about this recently.
I think the recent story for me was the filming at the airport where I wasn't really sure how to tell that story and I had to tap back into a moment when I was younger. Which story was this? The airport one.
You got to set it up so the audience knows. I wasn't ready for that question, Chris.
It's pretty easy to be up here, yeah? It's a little bit harder than you make it look sometimes. Okay, okay.
So does everybody have this thing here? So what we do is we like to tell the story looking forward, like how things are great. And if we do that, that's totally okay.
And we often forget there's something that happened previously that sets up the meaning of this story. I'm on a quest for love, for adventure. I've always been told I can't do this, I'll never accomplish this, and then we get to go again.
Watch this, okay? Let's say there's a Navy SEAL, okay? And they're super athletic, they can do everything, and they have this reputation as badasses.
Not only are they strong, they're tough, and they're smart. They can do everything. Pretty boring story, right?
But let's say that you were undersized, picked on all your life, and you experienced a car crash when you were young, and you were in a coma for seven days. And you got out of it, and you asked yourself, what's the meaning of my life? And you started to exercise, and you got fit.
And you decided to take on the biggest challenge of your life. And that's how I became a Navy SEAL. See the difference there?
So what we do is we pull those points apart, the past and the present and the future, and we find that one node, because there's a million nodes that make that story more dramatic, more interesting, and set up the motivation for why we do what we do. So you have a very common problem. I do something cool.
An affordable price. Everyone should say yes to it. So you've done the hard work.
Okay? The next part is you have to be a better storyteller, and I have some slides for that. So I'll show you, okay?
Thanks, Drigo. All right, bro.
Round of applause for Drigo, everybody.
Okay. I only have like 67 slides here, so let me find the one that's right. Okay, here we go.
Story formula. Can we see this? Yeah, okay, cool.
All right. There's a story formula. I used to teach sequential design for almost 15 years at Art Center.
And as far as I can tell, I've taken the most complicated structures. I did not invent this, but I just made it simpler. That's my job, to make complicated things simpler.
So it looks like this, okay? Every story has these three components. And you just need to remember, this is so easy that I actually taught my children this when they're five years old.
There's a character and they want something. Something stands in their way. There's a character that wants something and something stands in their way.
Notice the way I set up today's workshop with you is what is it that you want and what's standing in your way? It's called an obstacle or a challenge. Something's holding you back.
Oftentimes we think it's a physical thing, but most of the times it's a mindset thing, okay? Without the obstacle, there is no story. Robert McKee wrote the book called Story.
He teaches and consults with Hollywood screenwriters. No conflict, no story. Somebody wants something and can't get it.
Right? So the classic love story is boy falls in love with girl, boy can't get girl because. That's the beginning of the story.
Because why? Because their families hate each other. That's Romeo and Juliet.
Right? Boy falls in love with girl but can't get girl. Why?
Because he's rich and she's a maid. That's a maid in Manhattan. Boy falls in love with girl, can't get girl.
Why? Because she's a prostitute and he's a rich dude. This is the same freaking story over and over again, right?
Because boy owns the giant mega bookstore and woman owns a small independent bookstore. That's You Got Mail. It happens over and over again.
And when we deviate from the formula, those movies don't perform. I used to go to art school and the cool thing at art school was to go to art house movies. Experimental art, you know, French avant -garde.
They're unwatchable. But I had to pretend like, oh my God, this is so amazing. I'm like, what happened?
I don't know. They just ended the movie. She dropped the donut and it was done.
I'm like, what? That's why they're not popular anymore, okay? You just need to know the formula.
So what happens then is we hit the obstacle and instead of getting what we want, we get what we need. Oftentimes what we want is something external and what we need is something internal. Okay?
Boy wants girl, can't get girl, because boy's nerd, girl's cheerleader. Happens all the time, right? And what he does is he has money.
Instead of buying the instrument, like a flute or a saxophone, he uses the money to say, hey, can you pretend to like me? I'll be really popular in high school. And then all of a sudden, people start to like him.
And then the girl actually has real feelings. She catches feelings for him, right? But he becomes a jerk.
Because he's like, now I'm popular, girl. I don't need you. So what he thought he wanted was to be popular, what he needed to do was to be confident and to learn that he is enough.
Make sense? There's a want and then there's a need. So at the end of the story, the character is transformed.
So character, one obstacle, instead of getting what you want, you get what you need and you're left transformed. That transformation is what makes us emotionally engaged with the story. Everybody understand?
Without that transformation, we're like really angry, like why won't you learn the lesson? Okay. Have you guys seen the movie Well Rider?
It's a really old film. I think it's from New Zealand. It's a beautiful film.
I watched it and I like cried like a baby. I don't even cry. It was internal tears.
But the story was the father thought this small village was too small for him so he went to the city. So he abandoned his girl because he's out there trying to make money. And the grandfather became bitter that the boy left and betrayed the village.
And because she was the only child of this man, he thought she was an omen for the village. So whenever they couldn't catch fish, when things were going bad, the grandfather would blame her. And now I'm sitting there so mad, like what does little girl ever do to you?
And she worked so hard to prove herself against all the boys. They're on the water and they would die for pearls, I believe. And she could hold her breath longer than everyone.
She would find everything and she would risk her life all the time. just to prove that she's as good as the boys. But no matter what she did, her grandfather never loved her.
And it was heartbreaking. I'm just getting choked up thinking about it right now, okay? So one day, there's a whale that beaches itself on the shore, and it's not a good sign.
Not a good sign. And so they don't know what to do. They're like praying.
They're doing all the kinds of things they can do. She decides to go out and touch the whale. And for whatever reason in the story, she climbs on top of the whale and she holds on to the whale.
And for whatever reason, movie magic, the whale wakes up and it starts to swim out into the ocean. So she saves the whale. In the process, all the villagers are going crazy.
They're running after her and they're like, let go of the whale. And she won't let go of the whale. And the whale goes underwater.
And she's down there for a long time. And then they go after her with the boats and everything. And eventually her body floats up.
Sad story. They do save her, and in that moment, the grandfather finally sees her for who she is and forgives her for what her father had done. That's a story of a man transformed.
We needed to see that. Because in ourselves, we see ourselves in the character on the screen. Like, we need to learn to love and move beyond what things look like, our prejudice and our ideas about that.
That's how you tell a story. Does that make sense, everybody? Okay, you got that?
Okay, great. Okay, that's storytelling, okay? Are we good?
You got some ideas? Okay, what you need to do is you go on the internet and you look for formats. When you find something that works structurally, you have to understand and break it apart.
Like, why does this work? They had a wide shot for the opening scene. There was a, what is called the non sequitur, a random weird moment that really hooked me.
And you get people involved in the story, okay? There's a guy, I forget his name. He's a young guy.
I think he's American. He's a white boy. And he goes out into poor parts of America or the world, really poor parts, and he pretends to be homeless.
If you've seen his content, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. He'll sit on the floor like this, and he'll have dirty socks on, and he'll wait outside of a supermarket or something in a really poor part of town. And somebody will come by, usually a black person.
He goes, excuse me, could you give me some money so I can buy a pair of shoes? And he goes, oh, the person's like, yes, what do you need? I just need a pair of shoes.
And he goes, what's happened to your life? He goes, you know, I'm homeless. I'm just trying to figure things out.
He goes, wait right here. What shoe size are you? He goes into the store.
He comes out and he gives him a pair of shoes. And he goes, I got you some water and I got you a sandwich. And the guy's like really touched.
He goes, why would you do this for me? He goes, you know what? I don't have a lot myself.
I can't even pay rent. But I know when someone needs help, I'm going to help them. Like right now, I'm like, boom.
And you go into the whole thing like, don't do it, Chris. Just don't do it. It's just a video.
I know it's a video. It's staged for me. I know.
Stop. Stop. And I can't help myself.
Okay? And they get into this whole dialogue. And he goes, you know what?
I'm not poor. I'm not homeless. I don't need this.
Take this back. He goes, no, no. It's for you.
It's for you. He goes, you know what? I was just waiting for the first person to do a nice thing for me.
He goes, you know what? Here, here's $1 ,000. And the man's like, no, no, you know?
And they're often very religious. They're like, oh, Jesus, I needed this money. They go through this whole thing.
I'm like, oh, pull it together. You know, rocks and hammers, rocks and hammers. I got this, right?
We can do this. And so all of a sudden, I'm hooked into the story. And then he goes, you know what?
Hold on, I got one more surprise for you. He has a blue duffel bag, brings the duffel bag out. It's $10 ,000 now.
He goes, you know what? Are you a fan of the blah, blah, blah team? And he goes, yes.
He goes, you're gonna have front row seats. I'm gonna take you. And you know what?
We're gonna go in this car. That's your car. It was like, it doesn't stop.
It doesn't stop. And I love this message because it is great for people to do random acts of generosity, random acts of kindness. So we see so many negative things.
This young man has raised more money for charity than the other content creator. It's amazing. So you have to find your story.
And that's a format that all of you can use. There's a problem. There's expectations.
And the stakes get higher and higher. I give you it back. Here's $1 ,000.
Here's $10 ,000. Here's the car. Here's the tickets to the favorite game that you've always wanted to go to.
Actually, I bought you a house. It is amazing. Yes, he actually does crazy things.
Isn't it amazing? And you know what happens? Companies give him money.
We talk about things like the attention economy. You guys know the attention economy? You know this?
Yes, okay. If you don't know, just say, I don't know. Attention economy, okay?
I think there's something called the thank you economy. And I think it's cooler than the attention economy. Attention feels empty sometimes.
But the thank you economy is you do good in the world with no expectations, and we, the audience, thank you for it by watching it, by supporting you. So when these videos get 10 million views, sometimes they get even more than that, a corporate company will come in like, we like what you do, young man, young lady. How much money do you owe?
Okay, Hyundai, you want to give us a car? Cool. Chicago Bulls tickets?
Great. Isn't that amazing? We can just do good for other people.
And because of the views via social media, we can build completely different kinds of businesses. I'll give you one more example. I love to share this example.
There's a series of videos that go around about people doing really humble things, like blue -collar stuff. Not white -collar, blue -collar. Like washing the car, mowing the lawn.
What else do they do? Washing the rug. You've seen these things?
Carpet cleaners? So what they do is they go to a poor person and they mow the lawn. And it's out of control.
And they're working on it for hours. Now you think there, okay, how long did this young person work on mowing the lawn? Maybe five hours.
At the rate in which blue -collar work is paid, what do you think they get paid? 20 bucks an hour at most. So he might have made 100, 150 bucks for that day.
But instead he helps someone, usually an elderly person, usually a poor person. He takes care of their lawn and the video gets two million views. And if you do the calculation of the CPM, that's thousands of dollars, not to mention the brand deals.
So he's not in the lawn mowing business. He's in the helping people business that corporations then pay for, that we pay for by watching. That is the thank you economy.
I share this with you because many of you are locked into what you do and what you sell. But if you make a small pivot from what you do and what you sell, you can have a completely new business that's 100 % aligned with who you are. And to me, that's the wealth that I want to have, to be paid to help people.
Because I think I have the best job in the world. Yeah, you guys understand. Thank you economy.
Okay, beautiful. Let's have another question. Thank you.
Let's do this another question Hello hi, I do AI and software development and I have a huge challenge niching down What's your challenge? I don't know what niche to pick Have you tried? Yeah I tried education because that was my previous business and it was pretty terrible because most of coaches, turns out, they don't make enough money for my services.
Okay, so you tried education and it didn't work out? Yes. How long did you try it for?
A few months. That's a good effort.
Are you married? Yes. Was it easy?
No. How long did you try it for? Three years and going.
So you really wanted her or him? Yes. No judgment.
Yeah? Or they? Okay.
So three years was a good time. How long would you have tried? Forever.
Right. That's a good answer. Is she here?
No. Okay. Because I would say blink twice if you feel safe.
Okay. I thought that was a lady. Okay, fine.
She's not here. That's sad. She didn't want to be here?
She has a more successful business, so.
Good catch, bro. Good catch. He was running fast after her because she was running faster, but eventually he caught her.
Right? Yeah. I think that's how tigers eat deer.
They eventually get tired. And you keep running. I like that.
You know, a side note here. I have this theory. Are there any single men here?
Raise your hand. Give it up for the single men.
Oh my God, that was so sad. It was like, single men?
Holy cow, no judgment. There's like five single guys here. Any single women here?
Raise your hand. Let's get it from single women. Woo!
Holy cow. Hold on, lower your hands. Boys, pay attention.
There's way more of them than you. This is called a seller's market. You understand this?
My gosh. Are you getting hit on at the bar all the time? See, in America, we have to try really hard.
Here, you just stand.
No? You shower and you stand. That's all you need to do.
Because there's like 200 to 5. Is it true or not? Yeah?
Ladies, oh my God, that's a tough job out there, huh? Welcome to our world. You have to get a personality.
You have to be charming. And you have to be successful. So this guy will chase you.
Okay. Wow, okay, what were we talking about? Oh, three years and three months.
Do you really want it? Yeah, for sure. So why did you stop?
So I suspect... Okay, go ahead. Sorry.
It felt easier in other niches where, like, the need is higher because if you're a coach and you have two or three clients, you're not thinking about automating and... doing all that. Okay.
All right. I mean, every time somebody tells me they want something and give up, my argument is you don't really want it. Because if I want something, you cannot stop me.
You know that expression, if you don't want to learn, you cannot be taught. But if you want to learn, no one can stop you? Yep.
Okay. So for some reason, you don't want it that much. That's okay.
That's okay. I'm not judging you. Okay, I just happen to have the next slide.
It's called specialization. It just worked out this way. Okay, most people suffer from the lack of clarity about who they serve.
They try to serve too many people, and when you serve too many people, you serve no one.
You serve nobody. So we gotta pick. And picking is kind of hard, and I'll talk about that later, right?
But specialization, in my opinion, now feel free to argue with me. If some of you guys like to argue with me, it's okay. I find that almost everybody that I know, with the exception of a very small percent, the more specialized they become, the more successful they become.
There is, I believe now, not just correlation, but causation. Who here is a generalist and is doing really well, is just crushing it? Just a couple of people.
And who is a specialist and is crushing it? Look around the room. Look around the room.
I mean, there should be more than that. Maybe everyone else is in the middle. Okay?
Yeah, I have another business and I crash it because it's specialized. And? What's your problem then?
Is that a flex on us? You already got the girl. You already got the girl.
No, like, I want to do this thing because I resonate way more with it. It's just, I look at my other business, I see how well things work and how everything has a process, but in here it's, like, super difficult to create it from scratch because I don't know who to focus. Yeah.
Difficult things are worth having. Easy things are not worth pursuing. You pursued this woman for three years.
She was difficult. Did it work out? You don't have to say that, but yes.
The answer is yes, of course. Okay, so here's what we can do. You have a business that you're crushing it in.
You have this other thing you want to do. It's called education. They don't have to be either or.
You can do both. So you know that expression, there's your nine to five and then there's your five to nine? Have you guys heard that?
What you do for your money, nine to five. What you do for your soul, five to nine. You have more hours than you think.
You have kids? No. Good.
Keep it that way for a little bit. No, for real. Having children complicates everything.
The cool thing about you and your wife or your partner is you can say, honey, I need your support in this. I know you make a lot more money than me, so you'll understand. But I'm all for feminism.
Is it okay if I be the wife for a little bit and just work on my personal thing? So I'll do my part here, but I need this extra time to do this other thing. And I'm going to ask you for two years where I get to explore this because it's deep in my heart that I need to make this work.
I'm going to make a lot of bad decisions along the way, but it's a learning process. Can I get your buy -in on this? What would she say to that?
She already encourages me. What? She already encourages me.
Oh, I thought you said she already divorced me. No, no, no. That's a pretty sad story.
No wonder the long face. Okay, so why did you quit then? I didn't.
I'm still trying things. I feel I have this intuition that there's a way better niche than education for my automations. All right.
Have you read the book The Dip by Seth Godin? No. Okay, good.
I've read it. I'll tell you all about the book right now. I'll tell you the whole book.
And then you should buy the book to support authors. artists, okay? I'm not trying to take money from people.
This is result.
This is effort.
Okay, the longer the effort, this is greater result. I believe this is effort, okay? In the beginning, whenever you try something new, it's not a lot of effort and you get a lot of results.
When you start to post on social media, in fact, the algorithm on most social platforms rewards you when you're new. Create a new account, you make a post, it goes, it goes, and it goes. And it's pretty cool.
And then it feels like you've been shadow banned and all of a sudden it's like, I'm not having a lot of fun anymore. And over time, I'm just putting more and more effort. I'm getting less and less result.
And it goes here. And in here, Seth calls it the dip. This is the dip.
This is fun. I'm a happy boy, happy girl. Everything's great.
Down here, it just feels like so much work and it's no longer fun. So what do we do? We quit.
We start again. We pick a new hobby. What's your next business?
Besides education. I teach people how to code and become programmers. So you're still teaching then?
Yes. So that's working? Yeah.
Okay. Let's pretend you said I became a chef. So, oh, it's so fun to cook.
I'm making great dishes. And oh God, it's getting really hard again. It's getting really hard again.
We quit. And Seth says, we do this over and over again. We just quit all the time.
So you know what? Every time you quit, you start over. Everybody, anybody here do this?
Does this sound remotely? Yeah. We're being honest with each other, right?
Yeah. So what he says is what we have to do is we have to push beyond the dip. I know this is not your question.
I'm just going to use this as a way to talk, okay? I got you. Because I see your eyes.
Okay? So he says, here it's really hard, but all of a sudden, there's this like hockey stick growth where you do this and it's like, wah.
And everybody dies here. Right before gold. Like that three feet from gold.
Just three more feet and you would have found gold. Yeah, my first business, I didn't make money for two years. And it's exactly like what you drew.
Okay. And they're like, whoa, it's so hard. See, I like things that are difficult because it means there's less competition because everybody quits here.
So if I am just persistent and determined, I will get that result. And I've done this over and over again. I'll give you an example, okay?
I'll get to your question eventually, okay? Here's the numbers, if I can remember it, okay? 2014, start YouTube, okay?
During this time, I think we're between four to five million dollars in revenue as a service design business called Blind, okay? Initially, for the hardcore fans, the company was called The School. It was not called The Future, and I was doing it with my business partner back then.
I think that first year, we made $17 ,000, 17K. versus $4 .5 million, year one. Year two, we made something like $48 ,000.
Still not enough to hire anybody. This is barely enough to pay for lunch for the year. So this is usually where people quit.
They're done. But we keep sticking to it. So by the third year, I think we're at 150K.
And I can only sort of remember this because every year we would grow by 3X. And 3X growth is wild. But if you only take into consideration the first year was so terrible.
Right? So eventually, the company becomes a $4 million company because we just keep doing this over and over again. Right?
So this is you and your primary business. This is you and your secondary business. And you could do this.
I've done this so many times. I'm not really talking about you right now. I'm just talking about everybody else.
You want to get back to niching, we'll talk about niching. Okay? So the niching is, people say it's so difficult to niche, and I'm going to show you how easy it is if you trust me.
Do you trust me? Will you do it? Nah.
It's okay. I pretend like you said yes. Everybody asked the question.
No one wants the answer. Okay. Anybody here struggle with niching?
Picking a niche? Great. I have good news and I have even better news for you.
Okay? I'll first share the good news. Okay?
We're going to draw a graph like this. Okay? And that's the graph.
And these are dimensions. Okay? People are like, I can't pick.
I can't pick. I said, well, would you rather work with men or women? And what would you say?
Who said both? You're fired. You have to pick one or the other.
When it's A or B, it's either A or B. It can't be, well, let me think about it, okay? So some people prefer to work with women.
Some people prefer to pick with men. But in theory, if we're split, not in this room clearly, 50 -50, we've just eliminated half the market. This is pretty good.
Now what we can do is we can say, are they early in their career? Are they middle? Are they late in their career?
Was it early? We said middle, are they late? And what would you say then?
Both. Middle. Okay, so you said men?
You prefer men.
What, what, what? Okay, late. Didn't you say middle?
Pick one. Late. Okay, this is good.
So how old are they?
Perfect. I love this. My people.
40s and 50s, yes? Great. Service, please.
Okay. So this is your demographic now, okay? Notice how we've eliminated most of the market already.
I've only asked two questions. It's not that hard. Okay.
What's the thing that's common to these old dudes? They don't know technology. Oh, screw you.
I know technology. Sorry. No.
Some of them don't. We're Gen Xers. We should know technology.
We grew up with some internet. Okay, so they're technophiles. No, what are they?
What do we call these people? Not technophiles. That's the opposite.
Neophytes. Okay, they're bad with tech. Okay, and how do we know this?
Ooh, this is a good marker. Oh, so juicy. I love you.
Bad tech. Okay, what else? They know they need tech to be more efficient in their business.
What kind of business?
Probably something more blue -collar -ish. Not necessarily an internet -first business. Okay, I like this.
Like roofers, electricians, that kind of stuff? Yeah. No, I don't believe you.
That was a pregnant yes. Tell me more. Blue -collar what?
Like, give me an example.
Yes? Give me an example. Yeah, service -based businesses.
Like? Like, yeah, plumbers, electricians. What I said before?
Yeah. Did I convince you or you convinced yourself? Yeah, you convinced me.
Okay.
He feels the heat. Plumber, electrician. This is great.
How much money are they doing a year in revenue? Seven figures. Give me a more specific number.
Two to five. That's perfect. That works for me.
$2 to $5 million in revenue. Okay, so you can start to see now the market got really specific. Do they live in a specific region in the world?
U .S. U .S.? Where in the U .S.?
Texas. Okay. Pretty good place.
No, for real. There's a lot of opportunities in Texas. Okay?
All right. Okay. What problems do they have?
Now we get into like... Solving their problems. So every morning they wake up and I got it.
I just wish this problem would go away What problems do they have?
Speeds to lead the contact Speed what speeds to leave like regular regular regular language here don't you mark? Contact the lead once they inquire. Oh, I see.
Okay, so they have so what do we call that responsiveness? Yeah, okay So they have a challenge with responsiveness, and how are they getting inquiries?
Probably they have some online presence and Google Maps and that. Like email? Email, inquiry forms, websites.
Okay, email, website, stuff like that. It's perfect. And this is ideally aligned to what you do, right?
Yep. Okay, so this is how you pick a niche. You guys got that?
It's not that hard. The problem is we just don't want to make decisions. We really don't.
It's hard. A simple question of where would you like to eat sends us into a 30 -minute discussion. Yeah?
Okay, so what else do you need here to pick your niche? So you do educational content for blue -collar people working in Texas, doing between $2 million to $5 million?
Yeah, you help me a lot. I've helped you a lot? Yeah.
Come on down. Shoot. See, Driegel, this is how you do it.
Where are you? Now he's gone. Okay, anyways, so what we can do is we need to figure out our ICP, our ideal client profile, okay?
And a lot of people struggle with this, and I'll just tell you some hacks to do this, okay? Think of the best client you've ever had in your life. They paid you a lot.
They paid on time. They're easy to work with. They made decisions quickly, and there's a lot of them.
Who are these people? Just look into your history. And make an educated guess.
And here's what we do. Okay, I'm going to freestyle live prompt with you right now, okay? So you're going to go on Claude.
Don't use chat, GBT. Go on Claude and say, I'll pretend I'm you. What's your name?
Peter. Peter. 36?
32. 32. Hey, Claude, I'm 32.
My name is Peter. I provide tech solutions for this specific demographic. And you describe it.
I need help in defining my ideal client profile. Feel free to ask me a few questions before you make a suggestion. Be sure you check that there's enough potential customers in the market before you make this recommendation.
See, the machinery knows all the language. It's much, much smarter than you in terms of its data repository. But when you activate certain keywords, it understands.
But when you start using loose language, it doesn't know what to do. So sloppy input, sloppy output. Okay, so use this term.
You don't even have to type in ideal client profile. You can just say ICP. It knows.
And whatever it spits out, now use your human brain to decide, does this ring true? Does it survive the pressure test? I have to check to see if it's true or not.
So sometimes it spits out something not good. I don't blame the machine. I blame you.
Because you gave it poor input. You gave it conflicting data. You didn't ask it to ask you clarifying questions.
We need to do that. Usually, I'm almost a one or two shot prompter because my prompts are very detailed and they're very specific. Language does matter.
Okay? So you describe it this way. And then you should get your ICP.
Then once you have an ideal client profile really clearly defined, you can say now, what problems do they have that they'd like to get rid of? and use the language that they would use, not the language of marketing, because I wouldn't hear it. So they're gonna use things like, I struggle with this, I hate this.
Those are all their problems. Then you can even ask it, rank, based on what you know, those problems from top, highest, to lowest, in terms of how much pain it's causing them and how much they're willing to pay to make this problem go away. And what might surprise you is you offer none of those solutions.
This is an opportunity.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The title promises a storytelling lesson, but the session opens somewhere more useful: a founder with a seven-figure travel company, a 90% retention rate and a price an outsider calls a bargain, who still can't get strangers to book. The diagnosis isn't the offer. It's that nobody can picture it yet.
Frameworks
Named ideas worth stealing.
08:30concept
The imagination gap
Prospects can't picture the outcome you can. Close the gap with proof, and if you have none, do a discounted project to create it.
Steal forany sales page or portfolio that relies on explaining instead of showing
10:22model
Before-and-after arc
Show who they were before
Build tension about what will happen
Drop them into the experience
Show the transformation
Content that sets up the past makes the present result carry emotional weight.
Steal fortestimonial videos and customer-story social posts
14:33model
Story formula
A character
wants something
something stands in their way
they get what they need instead of what they want
and are left transformed
A simplified screenwriting structure, taught to five-year-olds, that underlies nearly every popular story.
Steal forbrand stories, case studies, video scripts
20:49concept
Escalating-stakes kindness format
Start with a small ask, then keep raising the stakes ($1,000, $10,000, a car, tickets, a house) so the viewer stays hooked.
Steal forany series built on surprise and generosity
23:43concept
The thank-you economy
Do good on camera with no expectation; viewers and sponsors fund it. The lawn mower is really in the helping-people business.
Steal forreframing what a service business sells on social
32:45model
The Dip (Seth Godin)
Early effort brings quick results, then a long slump where most people quit, then hockey-stick growth for those who persist.
Steal fordeciding whether to quit or push on a new venture
37:03list
Binary niche narrowing
Gender
Career stage
Age
Shared trait
Industry
Revenue band
Region
Top problem
Force an either-or answer at each dimension until the market is small and specific.
Steal fordefining a first niche in a single sitting
42:43list
ICP prompt
State who you are and what you provide
Describe the demographic
Ask it to ask clarifying questions first
Ask it to verify market size
Pressure-test the output
List problems in the client's own words
Rank problems by pain and willingness to pay
A detailed one- or two-shot prompt to draft an ideal client profile and its problem list.
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Chris Do live-audits two teenage candle makers with near-identical products on stage, using a brand attribute slider to prove why playing it safe in the middle is exactly where brands go to die.
A two-and-a-half-hour studio session where a YouTube strategist walks five pillars of channel growth and live-workshops real pitches from the audience.
A two-hour Futur masterclass where Matt Essam and Chris Do coach a room of creative-agency owners to build a lead engine out of partners, a scorecard, and one non-negotiable habit.
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