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- [00:00]
Alex
Companies are desperately hiring Storyteller. Just look at the proof. Storyteller job postings doubled on LinkedIn this year and Google's hiring a storyteller. And they're willing to pay them over $275,000. Why? So distribution is the castle. Storytelling is the moat. Content is the bridge. Not the journalist, not the PR company, not the ugc. The content you create, the stories you tell, the distribution you build and the narrative you form. That's what you need to focus on in 2026. So in this, so in this episode, I'm going to teach you how to position your stories, segment those stories, develop non stop story ideas, and then how the fastest growing brands and how the fastest growing brands on social are telling those stories, plus examples of each. Let's dive in. So this kind of piggies back off the episode that we just had, right. I put a headline on the school doc that was the importance of storytelling from a friend's lens. And the reason for that is people don't, people don't truly grasp how powerful storytelling is because you go on Twitter and you see tweets from, from the thread boys. And I was a thread boy once.
- [01:03]
Ben
But like you're an OG thread boy.
- [01:04]
Alex
I'm a, I'm OG thread boy. But at the same time I was in the game. There's no thread boys. The same people that like copy our formats now are the same people that like copy our content now that they just rip literally the script and they post it knowing it's going to go viral. Those are now the thread boys we hate. Okay. There's thread boys who will post things like, storytelling is the best marketing. Yeah. And it gets like 10,000 views.
- [01:27]
Ben
Yeah.
- [01:28]
Alex
And then there's no substance. If somebody was to be like, hey, like, what do you mean it's the best market? Like how, how would I build my brain?
- [01:34]
Ben
What's just kind of fluff?
- [01:35]
Alex
It's, it's what are the fortune cookie wise. Right. There's a fortune cookie strategy. And so this is how I want brands to understand this and to look at storytelling through this lens. Every piece of content that you create and you distribute creates some kind of impression on a viewer. Right. And over time and compounded over and over again. That piece of content, that story is going to create a narrative. Right. That is that story that's formed in someone's head about your brand. Whether it's extremely luxury like Jacquemus or whatever.
- [02:09]
Ben
The Jack Raymond.
- [02:10]
Alex
Yes. Very luxury. Like them where like you step around and you know, anytime you put them on, you have this feeling of I'm this type of person. Right. Like that impression was created quickly by the individuals in that store by telling you the backstory of why it was made, how it was made, who has worn it. Like those are all stories. Right? Like yeah, you heard one big story, but when you break it down, like those are all different stories that were told to you that eventually influenced the story that you created in your head. That's what I don't think people as understand is I brands create stories so that you create a story about them in your head.
- [02:44]
Ben
Yeah.
- [02:45]
Alex
That is extremely important.
- [02:46]
Ben
And your relationship with the brand through that story. And I think it's a quick opportunity to talk about like finding that one liner story as well. Because what they've done a really good job about is all their influencer videos. Like all these people that they'll gift and have make an unboxing video. It's a super easy narrative for them to push, which is the scarcity piece. Like we only make 500 of these. Like this is the Birkin of sunglasses. I think the Birkin of sunglasses. Not that I'm even a Birkin guy. But like that does very quickly allow you to understand and build the narrative. Right. If you're someone who's in the, in the market whatsoever for luxury goods, this the Birkin of sunglasses. Now it's very quick. So that one liner is also something that people should really think about with story filing and yeah. How that narrative kind of builds a relationship with the prospect.
- [03:34]
Alex
I'm there with you. And that feeds the next line, which is to be able to do that, to do that at a high level, you need to tell a magnitude of magnificent stories to create that narrative. Right. So that that association is created in some instead. Because that narrative is going to influence how somebody sees your brand, how they feel about your brand, how much they think you should cost and then also most importantly, how you're going to describe them to another person. Right. Because you had a, because you could have came in here and been like, this is the, the most bullshit thing I've ever bought. I now want to get a pair based off like how you justified the $1,300. Right. Seventeen hundred dollars, whatever the the price may be.
- [04:14]
Ben
Yeah, but it's again, it's that one liner. Right. You want to quickly get that information into someone's head. Like this is the burger sunglasser.
- [04:20]
Alex
And I think it's important to say as well with, you know, with how much AI there is and how we're all able to put out people, beautiful visuals. The story has gotten more and more important. Yeah.
- [04:31]
Ben
And it's only like, you know, it's one of those things ideologically. Like, what do you. What do you think is going to happen? Is that going to continue to accelerate as a trend? Like, there's just going to be more and more slops. So this is why everyone's freaking out about the storytelling hiring is because those people are just going to be exponentially more valuable over the next five years.
- [04:49]
Alex
And so the funny thing is, there's a Steve Jobs quote from I think the 80s or the 90s that is so relevant now because back then when he was talking about, you know, he's talking about computers and their computing process and what they're able to do with it in phones and shit. But he said no amount of technology can turn a bad story into a good story. That is so vital now to be able to look at AI and be able to look at, like, the images and the visuals that we're able to create and be like, yes, it's a cool visual, but it doesn't mean it's a good story. You know, and there's what we're going to go through, how you can tell a good story. And then there's another quote from Robert McKee where it says. Where he says, the most powerful way to put ideas into the world is through storytelling. Now, the thought of most powerful way to put ideas into the world, that is content, right? That is distributing content onto some kind of platform, right? And the way I've been describing is like. Or thinking about it is distribution is the castle. Storytelling is the moat, and then the content is the bridge. It's. So distribution is everything, right? Like, it is the castle. If you're looking at the castle like that is the brand, you don't have it. Your castle is not going to be as big as the next castle down, down the road, right? The storytelling is going to be how defensible you're going to be able to be in comparison to other categories and. Or if you're just producing content to other content that hits people's feet, content is then the way that you're going to deliver it, right. It's going to be the thing, the volume that you do it in, the quality that you do. It is going to be determined how big that motor is, how big the castle is. Right? Like those stories and the way you distribute are. Are equally as important. And the reality is you can either pay for it or even earn there's, if I had a, you know, a hundred million dollars right now, I can definitely out compete the, you know, like if McCoy has a brand and I have a brand, he's bootstrapping. I'm, I'm funded. I have a hundred million dollars in the bank. I could out compete him on distribution to start. That sounds sexy. He could outbeat me on story. Even If I have 100 million. Doesn't matter. Like the storyteller is going to. Yeah, yeah. It definitely levels the playing field. So. But when you think about storytelling is what others can't compete with, you know, unless they hire. Right. These storytellers that they're bringing onto their company. But the reality is the best storyteller is going to win. That's why Nike has always won. It's why they're kind of, they're not losing, but they're backtracking. Yeah, there's people that are catching up on running. Is catching up on running. If you look at their social in the things that they're doing, they're doing a magnificent job of telling stories within the running space. That's why it feels like on is kind of in that position to be able to overtake Nike from a, at least in running with running with innovation and storytelling. Right.
- [07:31]
Ben
But Nike was the OG I mean, they were the OG tellers ever. I just made a video in Monopoly. Yes.
- [07:37]
Alex
Yeah, them and Apple. I just made a video, I think last week where I was just talking about. Oh, it was that. Did you see that video that I made like on the mic kind of here, like.
- [07:47]
Ben
Yeah, yeah.
- [07:48]
Alex
Where I was pre doing my little.
- [07:49]
Ben
Kind of like battle rap bunch. You're on the Eminem shit 8 mile. I can ask.
- [07:58]
Alex
But there was a line I, I, I put in there about like Nike used to tell us to like to chase our greatness. Right. And like failure was just part of the success and XYZ thing. And it was like, and it's so true that Nike used to make you fall in love with some kind of story and see yourself in some kind of story, that it made you just feel like you knew the only way you were going to accomplish it was wearing Nikes. Anyways, just to reiterate before I get into some specifics, storytelling is what widens and deepens your moat and makes your castle defensible. So as you start building out your content strategy, don't just think about ideas, don't just think about concepts and formats. Think about the stories that you're going to create that are going to make you defensible from the competition. And the other content that people see on their feet. Content is also the biggest way to build the biggest castle and the biggest moat. Right. And on top of that, it's your way in. So as we go into 2026, content, storytelling, right. You could publish content that is terrible and not win and up the volume, combine it with a storytelling. This is. That's how you're going to win. Right? That is very general information, but we're going to get layers deep into that. It is interesting though to see a lot of the brands that, you know, maybe we've talked about on the pod or at least that are on DTC Twitter, spend, you know, a lot of time tweeting about their success, them being 100 million, $200 million brand. And like they, A lot of people see them as like DTC darlings. They're all hyper focused on our gag. They're all watching the pod, listening to Colin, Oren, et cetera. Like Kane, like all the people that are talking about content, they're spending a lot of time consuming all of us and a bunch of other individuals as well because they now feel left behind on the content space. They feel extremely like, wow, we put all. We prioritize nothing but paid. And it's funny because it's things that you and I have talked about for two years now where I saw a tweet recently, it's like things that we're going to change in 2026, we're not going to silo organic and pay anymore. They're going to be won. And I was like, wow. While talking about this for two years and a bunch of other things like that, where organis can be the engine that informs our data points for other channels, et cetera. Yeah. But the next element that I want to dive into is how to position your stories in a way where it's directed to the right person that perceives the story in the right way. Because when you actually break down a lot of the best stories on social, you'll be able to. You could kind of formulate them into these buckets. So, number one being, you're the hero in your journey. Right. This can be your father's story. This can be like bad om. I mean, I'll go into the examples, but like bad omvis, they're the hero in their journey. It's not the customers. It's not mom or dad. It is them. Hey, I, I quit my company to start this frozen bean and cheese company and now I'm achieving a Believing private equity launches. You heard this one? And so when we look at like pillars attached to it, it's on the inspirational side. It could also be education or it could also be entertaining and inspired, right? So like when we think about education, motivation, inspiration, all of those elements that, that people attach to attach two concepts to make it successful, you want to be thinking about what other layers you can, you can add to these buckets. Number two, you're the hero they're aiming to be. This is the aspirational side, right? This is the person that is going into ALD and is not buying it, but is buying the latte, right? Because they're like, I can't really buy ald, but they see ALD as like this person. Even if it's a fictional person that they, they want to be like the fuck.
- [11:37]
Ben
Very popular in infospace. And like, you know, this is obviously the one where it's like, look at me, I've done this. Come, come be like me. You know, personal trainers, fitness coaches, trading, right? Sports betting, you name it. Those spheres of influence are coming from social proof and the authority of, I've already done this. You want to turn into me 100%.
- [11:56]
Alex
Number three, your customer is the hero, right? This is me taking, you know, when, when we worked with Raw, way back before, before they got acquired, we were working on a series with them where they took somebody that was overweight and wanted to like, has always dreamed of being a healthy individual. And we had like a lifestyle transformation where every episode it was focused on like nutrition and, and you know, by the time of 12 weeks it was like, can they lose 20 pounds? Can they lose 30 pounds? Right? That positioned the customer as the hero. Jocko's just now doing something similar with somebody that's like 4 or 500 pounds where they're taking their a customer, Someone's a die hard customer, die hard Jocko fan, and they're making that person hear on their own story. But the brand's rich, right? Which makes it super, super powerful. There's a lot of things that you could layer in. You could layer education. Hey, we're focused on nutrition today. Therefore, by focusing on like nutrition today, they can take an educational side to be like, well, to be able to do so, you gotta reduce the amount of fats that you're having because of the X, Y, Z thing, right? Like you could take those angles. Then there's inspirational and entertaining, right? It's also an inspirational element to see somebody go from maybe £300 to two ache, right? And then 280 to.
- [13:08]
Ben
In the education piece. Giving a blueprint for doing that is gonna reach a lot of people and be interested. Even those who, like, don't need to lose £300, but 85.
- [13:19]
Alex
The next one. You're creating the hero. So this would be a fictional character that you create. I'll go through examples later down the. In the episode where, you know, when we did the tier campaign, we created this fictional. Here, right. This scientist was on this mission to develop a. A super shoe for daily. For people who ran every single day. We developed that fictional character, and by doing so, we created. We created this hero slash character that people could latch onto, and we can tell stories through the next one. Your product is the hero, right? Your product is the hero they were searching for. We could talk about Moisey Walsh. They created a detergent for the people that maybe would get rashes from using Tide Pods or that were getting, you know, didn't want to use single. Single use plastics or they didn't want to use all the different toxins that are inside Tide. Right. Their product is the hero. The last one. Your team is the hero. If you're going to be focusing on the people that are on your team or going to be leveraging their brands, you can position the things that they do as, you know, they. Sorry. You can position the people that are doing the things that make your brand your brand as heroes. Right. And there's two ways to really do this. Fiction and nonfiction. There's ways of doing this where. I know, again, I'll go through this, but there's ways of doing this through the nonfiction lens, of course. And that's the easiest way to do it because you don't have to, like, craft a world really, to be able to do. So when you go the nonfiction route, you do have to craft a world. When we shot with. I mean, even being fiction. Yeah, sorry, mythic, creative fiction world or fictional world. So, you know, even when I'm playing, like, this little professor role here, we have to create, like, this little, small fictional classroom setting to be able to create that feeling of, like, me feeling like a professor. Right. It takes more resources. On the nonfiction side, there's a lot of things that you can do. Your story is your moat. The things that you deal with on a daily basis is. Is your moat. Like, you're. Sorry, your stories, your moat. And so your. Your. The things that you face on a daily basis can be your angles, they can be your ideas. They can be the concepts that you're going to build around and so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through nonfiction ways of taking something as a pillar and then building an idea off of it. So, number one, nonfiction. Let me send this to you. So there's a company called Black Horse Lay. I don't know if you've seen them. They're a gene company. The first way that you can build around this is your reasoning. So if you have a specific reasoning or opinion as to why you do something, you can build a story router. I'll give two examples from Black Horse Lane. They never do Black Friday. Neither does north or Patagonia. They never do Black Friday. They just do a quick talking head in the factory why we never do Black Friday. And they give their reasoning behind it. And there's a lot of people that support it. Right. Number two, why we offer free repairs for life. They're, I would say, like a fairly expensive jean. You know, when we talk about what you were just talking about at the middle class, like, they're, you know, they're definitely positioned as, as luxury. They offer free repairs for life, and they have a strong stance as to why they do that. So if you take your reasoning behind a value that you have as a company or a thing that you stand by or a procedure or something within your company that you know is a big differentiator, you can take that position, that story as a content piece. Hey, we've never done Black Friday. There's a lot of companies that have never done Black Friday, but the world doesn't know it because they don't create the content around it.
- [16:40]
Ben
Right.
- [16:40]
Alex
A lot of people are free cares.
- [16:42]
Ben
For life, or they do, but, like, where people are missing. What you're trying to say is that the distribution must happen on social and this, you know, speaking of things that we've been, you know, screaming into the sky for years, but it's like there's no distribution even remotely close in terms of overall potential, of who you can reach, how quickly you can reach them. But if they had never made that video, hey, you wouldn't even heard of this area. Right? But then, b, it's like you don't have an opportunity. We can't.
- [17:14]
Alex
Yes.
- [17:15]
Ben
You know, and like, there's just so many things about it that I don't know. People, like, make a, you know, we, we. We see all these enterprise brands all the time. They're like, well, how do we get our message out? You know, or, or like, where do we tell people about this? You know, benefit? Or maybe we'll you know, and do some marketing materials in. In store. It's like, no, dude, just make like 10 different variants of a, of a TikTok.
- [17:38]
Alex
100, 100. Number two, why you're different. So if you are again, we look at Boise Wash. To, to Tide. You look at midday squares to Hershey's. You could look at Feastables to Hershey's or you could look at Joy. Right? Like there's so many examples. But if you look at all the different reasons why you're different. If I, if I got a whiteboard out and I'm like, hey, convince me to love your brand over somebody else. Explain to me by explaining everything that you're. That you do differently or that makes you different than your competitor. Can you do. So this brand called Canned Goods Clothing. Have you seen them?
- [18:10]
Ben
Canned Goods Clothing.
- [18:11]
Alex
What's super interesting about them, they created a video that has 200,000 likes. So probably has, I don't know, like 3 million views, 4 million views. And they created this, this video where it described like this is a. I think it was like a can press or something like that. And it's like we package all of our clothing in here. Clothing in here. Okay. Why? It was like two reasons. So number one being most of the clothes comes in. In like single use packaging. Yeah, right. You get it. You throw it away, whatever. And then number two was. Which I guess for him is part of the ending which we'll go into for another thing later, but it's part of the. And then number two, they were like, well, if we can pack food in the can, like why can't we pack clothes? And so now they're attaching a story to the can as well. But if that's one of the things that makes you different, makes you really stand out, that like now the can is actually the thing that you collect. All of a sudden you have a very strong positioning for you against the, you know, the other, the other grains in the world. Super interestful brand doing some really, really cool shit.
- [19:14]
Ben
Yeah. The identity becomes kind of ingrained in it as well. Like, you know, if he is the products that they're putting out, the canned goods, like that story, it now says something about this gibbony cares that's kind of that out of the box crazy, you know. So when they make a respect the locals or they're like doing all these different needs, but the identity of them is so native to like Gen G to you know, caring and being relatable and actually like doing something for people which is you know, just can't move it slightly. The story allows them to have so many downstream successful pieces of content. The original core story that they defined in that narrative is now able to be replicated across the rest of their entire soul vision. Yes.
- [20:01]
Alex
They do another thing too. They give you like a flower seed on top of your, on top of your can. You can tell stories based off the questions that people ask you in the comments. Your content can be literally the comments that you get on E. Right? Or in your content. So what if I'm Black Horse Lane, I'll send you this specific one. Somebody or the E took all the people ask him and like, hey, why are your jeans so expensive? And he turned it into a content base. The content piece starts off with like all the comments showing it and then it's like, well, number one, we actually pay affordable wages to everybody. And that works with us in London. He's like, which I guess is like not a longer thing, but this video has 3000 likes on it. You know what I mean? Like, this is a very, very good performing piece of content and it's a good middle funnel piece of content where it's like, it's content for your followers, but based on how you package it, it can expand past your followers. It's not going to be a hundred thousand like video. It's not going to do a 3 mil view video, but it could be a hundred thousand view video which is a very, very powerful video. And it's probably around that, that bar. What I'm the takeaway here is look at all the, the common denominators in your, in your comments. Right? Look at the questions that are repeatedly asked. If you ask questions that you, you collected all the time. The, you know, whatever, there are stories there to be told. His story was, it's not just, hey, it's a great gene. It's. Well like if the genes are very extensive because we, we pay our employees very well, then the store like again, like it's so easy to think about macro stories that I need to talk about how jewels change the the world. And like no, no, no. Like there's micro stories that need to be told every single day, that being one of them. Right? Like, and like there's, there's now affinity attached to horseshit. Like he does that for his employees. Like he takes care. Like he cares about not only the product, they care about the craft and the people build it. Doing the craft. Creating crap.
- [21:56]
Ben
Yeah, yeah.
- [21:57]
Alex
Powerful.
- [21:58]
Ben
Yeah.
- [21:58]
Alex
Next thing, your transformation. So I don't know if you've seen and this is a more obvious one but it's still good to to touch on. So Sour Milk, have you seen that?
- [22:07]
Ben
It's one of the crazier brand names ever.
- [22:09]
Alex
Crazy. And I think it's like a yogurt brand. Yeah, this is one of those. One from I'm not sure on the name. Like I hope it works for you, Sour Milk.
- [22:18]
Ben
I like this brand, man.
- [22:19]
Alex
I do too. The brand is really cool. Brand is really cool. But anyways, like long story short, she shared her transformation right. Like, like I'm not going to go too deep into this one but in this specific carousel that I share, she's talking about how like a year of building my first company completely and filter. It's been almost 12 months since I quit my job in private equity. Started yoga company with my best friend. There's some reflections. So all she's done here is look at okay I'm going through this transformation with where I quit my private equity job to launch this company called Sour Bill. Let me share about the in betweens of the last 12 months. People are going to resonate today, right? Bad. Ominous. A sweat Equity favorite. A sweat Equity listener. Sam. I don't know if you've talked to Sam in the DMV or anything. Like I'm flowers all the same. Sam was a dog so we've had her talk a few times at cut 30. She isn't meticulous about what she tests like Nisha 1000% have her on an episode for Sweat I drew like she would come in here and drop just after the game and like not to function light at all. It's been a guest for Sweat I pretty like by hands down like the best their transformation was around Hank and How US is 9 to 5 Corporate job to start a frozen demon cheese breather company. Here's how it's going so far, right? Like it's not only I am transforming but I am inviting you into my transformation so that you can be a part of it as well. Okay, next one your team's pov. If you're going to be doing content around or employee generated content, you might as well do it well and do it right and tell a very good story. So you know the easiest I would say people to be able to do this are creative directors, art director art directors, creators. Like I just sent you a clip. If I you know we should like as in household distribution we should be doing this because like we're doing pieces of content every single you know we're doing productions Every single week where it's like pov, you work as a creative director and then it shows. It's literally just like what we call it cut 30, like a, a 10 shot where just 10 quick shots with a, with you know, headline on top of it. That's all it is. This is a great one. Pov work as a creative director shows like how a piece of like a product is made. It shows the BTS of it shows like the, the final product. Right. Very easy. You could be doing this POV, you're formulating chocolate for 24 hours, you know, for 24 straight hours. Yeah, right. Like there's so many ways and angles to be able to do this, but to still like this tells a story. So when we think about storytelling we have to dumb it down or simple simplify it a bit so that we understand you can tell micro stories. And micro stories can still perform extremely well. You don't need to do a hundred thousand dollar campaign if you are hit us up.
- [25:09]
Ben
I think, you know, what you just said is probably the most key thing that holds people back is they think that storytelling equals this grandiose sort of investment that you need to, you know, think about it, right? And you, you do need to have a lot of different underlying strategy and, and you have to know kind of what works and what doesn't. But at the same time you need to ship, you know, like you do need to just post a lot and iterate and I mean it almost might be more important to be meticulous about testing than it is to like put in strategy work. Right? Because as long as you can list out those variables that you're going to be testing, maybe that's the angle, maybe that's the hook, maybe that's the first frame. Whatever it is, like eventually you're going to find something that works. The ten shot idea, I mean, you know, that's the other piece, right? Is like we. There are different formats that if you're like structuring a content strategy, you should, you know, kind of make sure you're getting footage for. Yeah, right. Like this is why you always want to fill B roll. But you also want to be, you know, doing a story time from your couch or like a green screen video, whatever it is, because it just gives you that optionality. But yeah, it doesn't have to be such a big investment at all. It really can just be like the light trimming audio and wall of text and some BTs tell a great story.
- [26:34]
Alex
What you said is key. When you're starting out and you're building out a content strategy. All these brands that are going to start doing it. Build out a testing strategy first. Yeah, do not build out a content strategy. You're not in a place to know and understand what's going to work. You've never had anything work. So therefore you need to test and figure out what works before you say, hey, we're gonna do more of this and invest all into this to determine what works. Right. So like that is absolute key anyways. Number two or not number two, the next one, your enemy. So Moisey Walsh, their entire play at the beginning was how can we make people despise Ty. Despise all the big laundry detergent.
- [27:11]
Ben
I would actually say with them, they tapped into everyone hating Kai already to too. Like there is an element of. They made them an enemy with their content and they did an excellent job like building the case for why Tide was evil. But there is a. A really big trend right now is basically someone saying the quiet part out loud. You know, this is obviously the microplastic stuff like this is so prominent in health and wellness is like you being a voice or like the silent majority. That's right. Everyone's kind of tired of Tide and you know, the monopoly of them and gain and all these people proctoring gamble really have on your shelf. And so like we kind of know that they're probably screwing you. And you know, I'm gonna actually vocalize that I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you your talking points basically like I'm gonna do the research for you and in this video you're gonna have now those three things that you can say your friends like, yo, you didn't know that like Tide pods contain this microplastics that ruin your fertility or like struck your hormones.
- [28:07]
Alex
Right? So what's crazy is because of a. Is exactly what you just said because of a Moisey Wash video. I've told everybody and anybody that I know that for if for any reason we're on a laundry detergent subject or just like clean products subject. I bring up the fact that do you know that there's ingredients in Thai that are banned in New York that are banned in like two different states. They hit me with that fact as one of the hooks. And I was like, if it's banned and it's going on my body every single day there, there's a problem here. And so I only buy Moise and wash now even though it's 40, $50.
- [28:40]
Ben
Like he did a really good job too. Because not only did they stop with the or. Not only did they start with the enemy marketing, but he also leaned into the scents. Right. So he has a multiple depth to one cleanse.
- [28:50]
Alex
They actually smell amazing. It smells like cloud. Have you used it?
- [28:55]
Ben
I regret to admit I'm using podcasts. I'm using like some subproctor ark because it's easy.
- [29:01]
Alex
Like they're. The friction level is so. It's so low.
- [29:04]
Ben
Yeah. I'm a last minute essentials kind of guy. So like, you know, I don't. I don't have paper towels right now. I got like, I got like three. I got like tiniest little bit of a roll is left. Paper towels, you know, you can live without. You can let that burn for a little bit.
- [29:19]
Alex
We haven't had paper towels in the office.
- [29:21]
Ben
I know you don't got a microwave in here, dude.
- [29:24]
Alex
No, we ordered one and then Amazon did not deliver it and so we had to cancel. Then we never ordered against. That was the true.
- [29:30]
Ben
Yeah. Anyways, that's. That's my barrier adventure with Mosey Fair. He just used me on Amazon.
- [29:35]
Alex
He is on Amazon. That's where I get him converted. That's. That's where I go. But I just have to have it on the subscription. Okay. The next one, your product, but specifically what you can do with it. I'm get. I'm going to show you one of my favorite examples of this. So look at the text I just sent you. There's a brand called Fairway Village or Far Away. Sorry, Faraway Village. Look at these videos. What? This is great. Isn't this one of the most beautiful pieces of content you've ever seen? 2.7 million likes on the piece of content that I just sent you. 2.1 million followers on IG.
- [30:10]
Ben
Like, this is real.
- [30:11]
Alex
This is. Bro. I'm the only one. I don't know if it is or isn't my AI sets is pretend going off. So they also have millions of views on the or millions of subs.subs on YouTube. So I have a feeling that it is real, bro. Like, yeah, I mean it goes deep. 267 posts. Like it goes deep. And it's supposed to be this village, right? Like maybe I should have done a little bit more research to see if this is real or not.
- [30:36]
Ben
But I don't. You know, Right?
- [30:40]
Alex
Huh?
- [30:41]
Ben
Is it?
- [30:41]
Alex
This is real. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
- [30:45]
Ben
Yeah, I'm all in for sure. Welcome to our rural Azerbaijani village, located near the heart of the majestic Caucus Mountains.
- [30:54]
Alex
Okay, so it's real.
- [30:55]
Ben
Yeah, they're.
- [30:55]
Alex
They're out in Azerbaijani 1.8 subs on. On YouTube. Okay, here's the A2 out there, bro. This is sick. This is probably one of the coolest brands, like, coolest pieces of content that I've seen in a while, so. Yeah, you would. Do you have any idea what they sell?
- [31:13]
Ben
I see socks on pen posts, but on socks.
- [31:16]
Alex
Yeah, but they sell knives and cutting boards.
- [31:18]
Ben
I was gonna guess, like, some sort of seasoning or some. Some sort of, like, cooking adjacent product. Yeah.
- [31:24]
Alex
Right. They sell knives and cutting boards. When you consume the content, you just, like, all you see is what you can do with it. Right. They're. They're cutting strawberries. They're like, cutting the steak. They're cutting meats. Like, that is all you're witnessing. You see it on the cutting boards. You see it on the knot, or you see them using the knot, bro. Within like, three minutes. Because I watched three pieces of content, I was like, I need something from. I had no idea what they sold. How many. Making this good pounds. Like, you have to sell something. What is it, bro? Bought it all. Not all of it, but I bought a cutting board.
- [31:56]
Ben
They had a bundle.
- [31:57]
Alex
I bought some knives and I bought a cutting board, and I was just like, yeah. I'm only gonna use this, though, for, like, my fruits, because I want to feel like this. You get what I'm saying?
- [32:06]
Ben
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:06]
Alex
But this is one of the coolest accounts I've probably ever seen. Yeah.
- [32:09]
Ben
They're fascinating.
- [32:10]
Alex
Yeah. Like, the. In the color, the. The use of, like, crazy scale. The fact that it does feel like AI because of the use of scale. Like, one of the. The thumbnails is just a mountain of strawberries.
- [32:21]
Ben
Yeah.
- [32:22]
Alex
You know what I'm saying? And. Oh, dude, it's such a good.
- [32:24]
Ben
They also do a really good job with thumbnails. None of these thumbnails really correlate to the. This is an incredibly sophisticated.
- [32:32]
Alex
Yes.
- [32:32]
Ben
Operate. You know what I mean? Like, they really know what they're doing.
- [32:35]
Alex
Like, I mean, we just turned towards the camera and you could see. Yeah. Like, they're literally creating clickable thumbnails for their IG that feel like YouTube. Right, right. You know what I'm saying? Like, that. Look at how many tacos she's holding.
- [32:48]
Ben
Yeah. And everything is, like, very inherently, like, viral.
- [32:51]
Alex
Yes. So this is probably one of my favorite, favorite accounts. But again, I know this is an extreme example. All the other examples have been things that anybody can do. And I still think there's lessons you can learn from this, but they're showing what you can do with the product. They never, at least that I've seen. They're not like in your face about our knives. Number three, your heritage. Ald and Jacques. I was trying to do an episode without talking about them. They just do an excellent job of talking about their heritage and a lot of their content. So if you do have some kind of heritage or some kind of roots attached to your brand, leverage them. Right. Ald talks about his dad being from Greece and like having Greek roots consistently in this content. Jacquemus. One of Jacques's like most viral pieces of content was when they recreated pictures that he found of his family and like them working in the farms, in the fields and they recreate that for the lookbook and they told the story and added the heritage and the history attached to those photos for their next collection, which I think was called like something heritage or, you know, something along those lines. The next one, your numbers. So these, this is better for a zero to one brand, right? To really be able to share your numbers and, and what you're doing day to day and like how much, like if you're inviting people into your journey, they're going to want to know like the transparency and the, the numbers behind what you're actually doing to feel like they're a party bad. Omnis does a really good job of this. I'll also say they, you know, this is part eight or part nine of their series. And what's interesting is when I read you their first hook, which was I just left my nine to five. Corporate Jarvis started Frozen Bean and Cheese burrito company. Here's how it's going so far. That was the first. That was hook number one, hook number two. The new hook is I'm Hank and 12 months ago I quit my nine to five to start Frozen Bean and Cheese Burrito Company. My wife Sam, and we sold 116,000 burritos in our first year. Crush our projecting, crush our projections, yet we're still broke. It's taken the journey that, you know, that they've had and they've kind of transformed it into a way where it's like, okay, we packaged the last year to where we're at now and we're going to continue the series. A lot of people kill the series off. Super interesting how they're testing here. But what I'm saying is the numbers part of it is very interesting. They are sharing that they've sold 116,000 burritos and so as a thing. And you like go, you guys. And then they're like, but we're still broke. And it's like, still go, you guys. But shit. Like, I want to know more, right? That curiosity gap is strong. We talked about poor poor boy coffee years ago, maybe a year and a half ago. A year ago. And he literally has a series where he. It's called the numbers, and he just says gross revenue and number of cups sold. Like, that is his series because it complements his founder series, right? Where he's like, hey, I'm trying to bootstrap my coffee brand and see how big I can get it. So your numbers is something that you can. You can play around if I want to do. You know, if gear series I thought about for me is like taking our creative studio from seven figures to eight figures, right? That would. Can 100% be something that, you know, that I could.
- [35:58]
Ben
Will be interested to me. They'll follow along for that exact reason, right? Because now they're gonna. You're inviting hate too. Like, I think with that, like, people could be like rooting against you to make it for a time where it's underrated, you know, is inviting the haters 100%.
- [36:16]
Alex
The next one is your story. So either the problem you found or the solution you needed. So this is one of the most interesting ones that I've. I've found on. On the Internet, which is this. This girl Ladier. So she used to make rockets for NASA. Now she bakes England.
- [36:35]
Ben
I said hot. Yeah, it came out, but accidentally, just. Just the concept of scientist baker, not anything about the physical dude.
- [36:43]
Alex
And her hook is incredible. It's something along the lines of like. And now making. I used to sketch rockets for a living and now for NASA or something like that. And now I'm. I'm creating pastries with the same precision that I did rockets. But Atlea, she is telling her story, which is the problem that she found is a problem inside of herself. She felt like she was an imposter living this double life, right? And so that double life caused her to start baking and taking that same precision that she was. She was giving to these rockets that she was developing and sketching for NASA into, you know, the things that she's baking. The next one again, we'll go to Moisey Wash. But Moisey washed it one where it was like, why had to start a laundry detergent friend at 23, you know, he talks about the problems that he faced with, like, he would go into. He would go down like the laundry detergent aisle and automatically get a headache from the set. So therefore, he wanted to start something that wouldn't give you a headache. Wouldn't give me a headache. If I'm getting a headache, then of course, the ingredients have to be bad to the point where I have a migraine Chunky fit cookie, which we both know them. Scott was a really good friend. Their angle is two dudes starting next big, big protein cookie brand. Right? And so, like, you can just look at your story and your story is always evolving, which is good for you because that means you're, you're. You're never going to run out of content ideas. Like, they went from doing it in their kitchen to then a small ghost kitchen to now, like, in a giant kitchen. Like, that's a whole narrative you can build around.
- [38:15]
Ben
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Alex
The rabbit hole for people to fall into. Yeah, bro. And the like, he's also, he's. He's currently engaged, getting married. All of a sudden, like, it changes when you go from engaged to married and have a married man build a couple. Right. Like, all these dynamics change how you approach your company and change your day to day. And so I make that relatable to.
- [38:36]
Ben
A new set of people.
- [38:37]
Alex
All right. Poor Boy Coffee is another one. His series was, I'm starting a coffee brand to see how big, how they. I can bootstrap it. Essentially all this is, is, hey, I'm gonna. I have a story. I have this goal that I'm trying to do. I'm gonna take my goal and I'm gonna position it as a story and then bring people on along for that. Your customers are also a story that you can develop around. So pinks, Pink pinks Windows. So there's a series that they do that's called Cop Claim, where they go around atx, they go around different cities, and they do free, free clean for the people that need help. This is an easy way to take. Either take your community or take your customers and turn them into a story. Where I do think they could do the series better. I will say that they could do it a lot better. What I think they should do is they should try to go to underpurpiled places and do these complimentary clean. But they should get the person first reacting as the hook like, oh, my God, I've needed something like this. Then a quick like, okay, perfect, I'm going to clean this up. Or I'm going to clean this up. We're going to trim this up. Whatever. Or not trim. They just do the windows. But things like, that they should. They should foreshadow within the hook and then go into like, a lot of, like, the satisfying aspects of cleaning something. But this is a great example. Like, you can take your customers, you can take your community, you could take the people involved in the company and create a series around it where you have unlimited stories. The fact that they go to comp clean every single week. They have unlimited stores with this.
- [40:06]
Ben
Right.
- [40:07]
Alex
The next one is your experience. So there's a restaurant that's gone viral many times, Austeria Herenata. You know who I'm talking about.
- [40:15]
Ben
I think you talked about them before, right?
- [40:16]
Alex
Yes. Their storytelling is very, very cinematic. It's very beautiful. But it's all about the experience. It's all about how the food is prepared, what it looks like on plate, and the ambiance of the location. And so their story is literally their experience from what someone orders to then it being, you know, arriving on their plate, hitting their table, and just the ambience that they take in. So if you have some kind of experience that people are going to be a part of, figure out again how you can you bring that story to life or. Sorry, that experience. Through life. Through a story. So the next one is your lessons. The. My favorite is softies burgers. Have you seen them? Well, I'm putting you on today.
- [40:58]
Ben
I mean, these are just, you know, deep in the corner in the trances of ig.
- [41:02]
Alex
This is. Yeah, this is that algo that hits you at like 11:30 and you're like, I. I need to wake up at seven.
- [41:08]
Ben
Ram it all nation.
- [41:09]
Alex
But I'm in a great algo right now, and I don't want to find my way out. Yeah, yeah. Like. And when that happens, this is terrible. I'll scroll until I fall asleep. Like, until I fall asleep. Like, within my, you know, holding my phone. I just realized you have a mustache.
- [41:23]
Ben
It's kind of at that stage or it's like, it's not immediately.
- [41:27]
Alex
This is crazy. This is breaking news.
- [41:30]
Ben
It's. Yeah.
- [41:31]
Alex
I've never slew the mustache.
- [41:33]
Ben
It doesn't.
- [41:33]
Alex
It looks good. I'm. How long are you gonna keep it?
- [41:37]
Ben
I don't know where things go. You know, there's a lot of twists and turns in life and my appearance that might be coming soon. You don't know. Oh, my God. I got veneers accusations on On Saturday night.
- [41:51]
Alex
I remember when you. This is actually funny story. Go pop. We just started nibble and, like, things started working well.
- [42:00]
Ben
Oh, I hit that teeth white.
- [42:01]
Alex
Yeah, yeah. It was like one of the first things you did. It was like you, you went and.
- [42:05]
Ben
Got your teeth whitening and I did.
- [42:06]
Alex
A professional thing and boy, was she shining for. You could probably go. You could probably go into our app, Chip Sky. You could probably go into our episode and like, find. Because you were cheesing. Playing two episodes.
- [42:19]
Ben
I was, I was looking straight.
- [42:20]
Alex
Yeah, you're like, let me hit the intro, Alex. So episode number 32. Yeah, but check out Sophie's Burgers.
- [42:28]
Ben
Stove Burgers, you got.
- [42:31]
Alex
I'm trying to hit people with examples, bro, that are, that are not just fashion. We tend to lean more towards fashion and luxury. So Softies Burgers, this burger joint, that stuff started as a, just as a fruit trucker, as like a pop up. Look at their episodes that they do. The episodic show. It's like episode one, minded Problems, episode number two, growing Pain, episode number three. Right. And so but what they're doing is they're taking the lessons that they're learning across building this company and launching a retail spot which wasn't with a, you know, what they did in the past. And they're turning those lessons into the stories that they're telling the will. Right? And they're doing it in a very, very honestly engaging way. Like if you look at their oaks, like one of them for Ground Pains, they're both working, like working a kitchen. And they look at the camera and they're like, really? You want to film a video right now? Like, you see how busy we are?
- [43:31]
Ben
Dude, when did he get here? You think we have time to do.
- [43:34]
Alex
A video right now? Right now. It's an amazing hook, but it also brings to light the idea of growing things right? Like, yo, we're deep in the. Yeah, we're, we're getting tested right now. We're deep in the company right now, trying to, trying to do our thing. Okay, the next one, your process. So Loewe does actually a very good job of Ghost. They have like this glass blowing kind of piece or piece made from, from glass blowing that is like exceptional. And they have this carousel where they just show how it was crafted from beginning to end, dude. And it's like absolutely beautiful. They also have another carousel where they're actually one of the best at creating carousels where like they're walking around with a hand car pushing all the materials to go get it developed. Right. Like your process is your story with your product stored. And so therefore, if you have a robust process and it could even be like you could look at softies Burgers. I know. I'm talking about just clothing in that example. If you could look at Softies Burger and be like, okay, if you're. If you're getting meat from the best places. Yeah.
- [44:46]
Ben
I know.
- [44:47]
Alex
I said, bro. Like, am I. You know, sometimes you say this. That sits in your head.
- [44:50]
Ben
Someone's got to make you define, though, you know, like, what. Where is the best place to take.
- [44:55]
Alex
E. Let me rewind that. Let me rewind. So if you're sourcing meat, that's fine. If you're sourcing quality meat from different farms, it's organic, it's pesticides free. Pesticides free. Like, that is a story in itself, right? But that's your process. So the process of how I get my grains to. Then your plaque is multiple stories. Okay. You have the farmers, what the cows eat, what. What. What makes it organic, how it's pesticide free. Right? Like, these are all stories that you'd be developing around the process to then be able to showcase the product. So the next one is reproduction. So I'm going to send you this video from the laby that has 75,000 likes, has 1.5 million views. It's an absolute banger with video. Sorry, I sit in two things, but look at the one. And it's the story of this shirt that is made of oranges. Literally, the hook is like, what if I told you this was made of oranges? And the shirt's just like rotating on a hanger on a tree. There is an entire production process that has to. That they have to go into detail about. Well, guess what? The world produces this many oranges, and those orange peels every year aren't used. And so XYZ thing, and they go into, like, this ridiculous detail to show how they're making a shirt out of orange. Talk about luxury. When you're. When you're making shirts out of oranges. But, like, showing that production process. Let's say the shirt's $500.
- [46:21]
Ben
Like, I don't know if it's luxury without the story.
- [46:24]
Alex
It's not.
- [46:24]
Ben
It's. It's kind of the takeaway.
- [46:26]
Alex
It's 100%.
- [46:27]
Ben
The takeaway is that.
- [46:28]
Alex
And it's how the store is positioned here, too, that is so key. Because you could either be like, you're making shirts out of oranges, you're broke. But then, like, the way that comes in is like, no, no, no. We're making shirts out of oranges. Right? You're rich, right? And like, there's such a positioning playground showing the process and how many details and how many, like, things need to happen to be able to do that, that make it larger. So your production process, there's a huge angle that you can take here. I know you're short on time, so I'm going to skin spin through the last. They're speaking in that last week. So now we go fiction. So one, you can create a series. You could create a fictional character that you build a, you know, a story around. We have one that's. That's coming out with a brand called Crafted, that's called Waterside Wisdom. And it's like this. Unlike rich uncle, young nephew, they're. The nephew always goes to hang out, hang out with the uncle. The uncle always gives him, like, life advice. And so they're playing like a game of chess while the uncle, like, gives advice, life advice, business advice, relationship advice to the nephew. Right. But it's like shot. True, luxurious is shot in front of, like, Austin, like hills in the background. Extremely beautiful. But we created this fictional scene world and character to tell the story associated with crafted. About values, about time, about. About being timeless, about luxury. Right. Lo House does this as well with their glasses, where they, like this wise old guy is their main character. And. And they transport all the stories through him by transporting all the wisdom to repent. Right. That's a. That's a great example. With Tyr, we created that scientist. So we created this fictional character where the fictional character was dropped off into the desert and he wasn't able to return home until he developed the right shoe. So he was in the lab and they had test subjects. Right. We created this fictional character to the point where we could have created a completely dedicated account to that fictional character. So when we talk about stories, it's like you can create this fictional character and then tell the stories through that individual. Late checkout does the same thing. Every character is this fictional character. Late checkouts, the brand where the entire world of the brand. Yeah. Where the entire world of the brand takes place within the hotel. So all the characters are based off guests that stay at the hotel. So they have the painter, they have the bellboy. Right. These are all characters they build campaigns around, but they all embody what the brand stands for from, like, this creative style that, like, really portrays a specific lifestyle. There's a brand that I think is going to absolutely pop off with one of the coolest websites I've actually ever seen. But they created a series called the Rotorous Man. Is that how you pronounce it? Their whole angle is for Those who become more Hashtag engineer for success. Rotorous World. Rotary World. I'll do two things. Number one being they created this series called the Rotor's Man. The Rotorous man is an individual that embodies the type of people that are going to shop at this brand. It's a watch brand. They just haven't launched our guy. I think so, yes. And so all these fictional characters are created to illustrate the values of the brand. So if you look at the episodes. Right. Let me pull it back up again. If you look at the episodes and you read the captions for each one of these videos, is this a Watch man? Yeah. So Rotorous man, confident within while helping others win. That's episode two. Episode one was Rotorous Man. Loyal to one kind to everyone. This is a series that takes place inside of an elevator and there's multiple people within that elevator. And the Rotorous man, you know, does something to illustrate or to bring to life the idea of loyal to one kind to everyone. Second part, hit their website and tell me this, where I'm at Reuters World. Is this not like, it's not a functional website from the POV of like, would I want to navigate this site every single time? No, but when you actually talk about it being sick, it is hands down, one of the coolest websites. And when we talk about world building.
- [50:34]
Ben
There'S a lot of AI too.
- [50:35]
Alex
Yeah. But they're doing it in a way where it's cool. It's like just cruise. You know what I mean? Like, it's actually really, really cool. So again, if you have these specific values as a brand, you can help illustrate those. Those values through a fictional character that you identify as example the rotors make. Last one that I have is this brand Oldest Road. We created a series with them called Campfire Stories where we brought in like this fictional storyteller and that individual is telling either stories of. Well, one of their customer segments is like luxury travelers or not like luxury travels, but like people that travel, that take timeless pieces with them. Right. And so in that, we created Campfire Stories where it's like these same people telling some of the crazy stories that everybody has crazy travel stories. Right. And some of them have like the wildest travel stories. And so we're, we're taking all, all of them in from, from different customers. And then we're going and going to a range. You're creating like this campfire and literally creating like this storytelling setting. And he's the storyteller for all of these. And so we can create this fictional storyteller to go tell these stories. And so this gives you the ability to be very, very creative. Like, when I look at the nonfiction side, this is very much like 0 to 1, 0 to 5 territory. And once you start really building brand equity with people doesn't mean you can't do those things. If you do them, you just have to do them at a very, very high level where you're. You're building a fiction world that you can add those layers in there. Right. Like, as much as I love canned goods clothing, they're never going to be seen in the same light as Giacomus or even as an Elwood in this case, because of the, the luxury of the content, the production value of the content. But where they're at right now, it's exactly what they should be doing. But in two years, let's say, if they're as big as Elwood is now, they can definitely go still tell the same stories, but through a much higher production lens. When you get into the fictional side, that is when you can do a lot more world building. You could introduce these characters, you could introduce these settings, you can, you can introduce fake characters, you could introduce real characters, you could build world and sets around real characters, et cetera. You can still do these things on a budget. There's a brand called Currently Running who does this on a budget. Like, he's a single single guy, like, building his brand, but at the same time, he is a cinematographer, he's a photographer. Right. And so he has this upper hand on everybody else that he's competing against, that he can take, like the most beautiful vigils. He can tell, you know, stories because he can do it himself. He doesn't need three people, he doesn't need five people. Right. And so all of that to say, like, when somebody does tell you, storytelling is the best marketing. Listen to this episode and do everything this, this episode says. Because you execute against the ideas here and how to position a story. And then the actual examples of, like, you could just take your reasoning for doing something and turn that into the story. You can take your transformation or somebody on your team's POV and transform that into a story. You have endless stories that you can build around. If you have these very, very. And the more stories that you tell next year, just the higher probability of you winning and you outcompeting the person who's leveraging AI, who's you just doing ugc, et cetera, and not telling these amazing stories associated to a player. Yeah, that's all I got. I know that was a lot. So appreciate you bearing with me.
- [54:07]
Ben
No, that's a. That's a good one to bookmark and review for people.
- [54:11]
Alex
Where's that? Our job.