← The StoryBrand Podcast
The StoryBrand Podcast
#40: The One Sentence Every Business Owner Needs (And How to Write It)
00:27:03
Most business owners dread being asked, “So, what do you do?” Not because they don’t know, but because they don’t know how to explain it without rambling. When you stumble through your business model or every service you offer, people glaze...
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- [00:00]
A
Everybody listening is going to know how to give a fantastic elevator pitch by the end of this episode. It's one of the most useful episodes. Everybody needs this thing. I have a formula called a one liner, a truncated elevator pitch. Each one liner has to be about one problem, and it needs to be the problem that resonates most strongly with whoever you're talking to. You're raising the perceived value of what you offer, and you're decreasing cognitive dissonance in the mind of the person that you're talking to. Make sure you got your one liner right.
- [00:31]
B
Hey, it's podcast producer Bobby Richards and I've got a quick question for you. When it comes to your marketing, is it actually cutting through all the noise or is it just adding to it? I ask this because if it's not clearly telling your customers how you can solve their problem, they will not buy from you. But don't worry, because this is exactly why we created StoryBrand your business. It's a brand new hands on live marketing workshop taught by Donald Miller himself, happening January 28th and 29th here in Nashville, Tennessee. At the event, Don will personally teach you the proven storybrand framework that's helped thousands of businesses clarify their message, plus his brand new messaging campaign framework that's designed to help you compete in today's AI driven market. And you won't just learn the frameworks, you'll learn how to implement them into your business right away. You'll craft a controlling idea that drives every piece of your marketing, create survival sound bites your customers actually remember, and build a complete messaging campaign that works. And throughout it all, you won't be doing it alone. You'll be part of a small group of business owners just like you and receive live coaching from storybrand certified guides who are in the room with you. But tickets are limited, so Register now@storybrandyourbusiness.com you don't have to stay stuck trying to figure out how to make your marketing and messaging work for your business. Join us at the Story Brand you'd Business Live event with Donald Miller and walk away with a clear message and a plan you can immediately implement to grow your business. We can't wait to see you there, so go register right now at start storybrandyourbusiness.com youm're listening to the StoryBrand podcast based on Donald Miller's best selling book Building a Story Brand. The StoryBrand framework is made up of seven key elements, all of them anchored in one powerful idea. Your customer is the hero and you are their guide. Each Week on the podcast, you'll get exactly what you need to craft clear messaging that connects with more customers and grows your business. Now let's dive in with your hosts, Donald Miller and Kyle Reed.
- [02:40]
A
Kyle, today we're going to talk about elevator pitches. Have you ever had to give an elevator pitch? Not very well in an elevator.
- [02:45]
C
Not very. No, no, not in an elevator. But I have been put on the spot and I have not delivered, I will say.
- [02:51]
A
Really?
- [02:52]
C
Yeah, it's hard to do. It's hard for me to do.
- [02:54]
A
What were you selling at the time? Was it when you were with us or previous previously, when I used to.
- [02:58]
C
Do freelance work, it was really hard for me to kind of talk about what I did, but also boil it down into the, you know, the whole concept of elevator pitch.
- [03:04]
A
You did sort of social media.
- [03:06]
C
Yeah, you.
- [03:06]
A
Primarily social media.
- [03:08]
C
Primarily running social media accounts for musicians was my gig.
- [03:12]
A
I, I, by the way, very good at that.
- [03:15]
C
Yeah, I enjoyed it. I did a lot, Grew a lot. But was, I was all word of mouth, so I never really had to do the elevator pitch and go get business. Yeah, the day that that word of mouth slowed down a little bit was when I said, I need a new job. But, yeah, no, I'm not very good at it.
- [03:32]
A
Okay, well, today we're going to get good at it. Everybody listening is going to know how to give a fantastic elevator pitch by the end of this episode. One of the most useful episodes of the StoryBrand podcast, I think that we will ever record, because everybody kind of needs this thing. And I have a formula, some of you have heard of it, called a one liner. And one liner is a truncated elevator pitch. You can expand on it to create a shark tank style elevator pitch that might include a demonstration or something like that. But the one liner is something every person needs, and you need to use your one liner anytime somebody asks, what do you do? All right, so let's test this. You know the formula for the one liner. So we're cheating a little bit here, but let me just put you on the spot. Let's say you're back 10 years ago.
- [04:18]
C
This is gonna be fun.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah. You handle social media accounts for musicians here in Nashville. Kyle, what do you do? We're at a cocktail party. Kyle, what do you do?
- [04:28]
C
I hope I solve the problem. You know, this, like, do it intuitively without trying to use our friend sitting across the street from Michael Jordan here. You know, trying to. Trying to work on this. I help solve the problem.
- [04:42]
A
Michael Jordan would do a terrible one liner. I hope I'm better than that.
- [04:46]
C
Oh, goodness. I help solve the problem of what to post and when to post it for musicians.
- [04:51]
A
Okay. Yeah. Fayez is probably not going to get any business.
- [04:53]
C
There you go. See, I just want to say to everyone listening, you're welcome. Okay. I'll give you the gift of going first.
- [05:00]
A
I do think in the Olympics, they should always have one normal guy.
- [05:04]
C
That's me right now.
- [05:05]
A
Just show everybody. Okay, so you did one thing right according to the framework, and that is you started with the problem. So the way the formula works is problematic. Product, solution, or result? Really? Problem product. Let's say result problem is the hook. And the reason that when somebody asks, what do you do? I don't want to say, well, I'm the CEO of storybrand, or I wrote a book called Building a Story Brand because it devalues what I actually do when I just tell people what I do. What I want to do is position what I do as the solution to a problem. And, you know, it's a broken record, but everybody needs to hear it again. We value people, things, products, ideas, vision strategies that solve problems. And when that problem is articulated very, very well, the brain doesn't have to figure out what problem that solves. So you're doing two things. You're raising the perceived value of what you offer, and you're decreasing cognitive dissonance in the mind of the person that you're talking to. The cognitive dissonance happens when I say, well, I'm the CEO of StoryBrand. What story brand? That sounds like an ad agency or something. I don't know. All of that is gone. Right. When I don't lead with that, what I actually say is, a lot of people have trouble talking about their products and their ideas in such a way that people want to listen when they have that problem. They call me. I'm the CEO of storybrand. So now I've just explained what storybrand does and who it does it to and what problem it solves, which gives me automatic value with the person that I'm talking to.
- [06:55]
C
So would I lead with something around the lines of most artists don't know what to post.
- [07:00]
A
Fantastic conversation here. This is it. Because the problem that you've got, or you used to have, is you solve a thousand problems. So the first problem you solve is don't know when to post or whatever. I don't remember how you said it.
- [07:14]
C
Yeah. Don't know what to post and when to post it.
- [07:16]
A
Yeah. You know, there's a thousand problems that you solved as A social media person. So what you want to do, you can only have one. You cannot have. Commas are not your friend. We say that all the time. Commas are not your friend. So. And by commas are not your friend, what I merely mean is, don't give me a list. You can't. If it's going to be an interesting sentence, it can't have three problems. It has to be one problem. Because you don't want to get nuanced here. This is a. You're introducing yourself at a cocktail party. You don't have to tell the whole truth. You can tell part of the truth and you're fine because the rest of the truth will unfold later. It's not the job of this sentence. This is one of those curiosity sound bites that we talked about in a previous. Previous episode. So what you really want to do is you want to say you want to find the problem and workshop the problem and brainstorm the problem and test the problem until you get the biggest possible response. So if you say, well, a lot of people don't know when to post on social media. I am a social media consultant. My guess is that there's not a lot of people who have ever thought about not knowing when to post.
- [08:21]
C
Not a big enough problem.
- [08:22]
A
Exactly. It's not a problem that resonates. So you're gonna say that, and people are gonna go, oh, that's interesting. But if you said something like, in order to grow a brand, social media is absolutely necessary. It's where people find out about the products that they're gonna buy, the people that they're going to follow, the leaders that they're going to vote for. You have to be on social media. The problem is a lot of people don't want to be on social media. In fact, they hate it. My name is Kyle Reed, and I handle your social media for you. Yeah, I come to your house for one hour a week. We get it done. I post it, I write the post, I edit it, I get it up. You don't even have to be on Instagram or LinkedIn or TikTok in order to see the advantage of it. See what I'm saying?
- [09:06]
C
Yep, 100%.
- [09:07]
A
That problem is probably gonna resonate a lot more strongly. So number one is you need to figure out the one problem that you're gonna talk about as it relates to your brand. You say, and then I can hear the pushback with the listener. Right now they're saying, but we solve so many problems. We solve this. And they think, I Call it value stacking. They think that if you value stack, you're worth more. But actually, if you value stack all the problems that you solve, you're diluting the message. Because a good story is about one thing. Benji is trying to find his way back home. Not. Benji is trying to find his way back home and also get an acting job as a SAG actor for dogs. You know, that's not. That's two. That's two different movies. So make it about one thing. Now, you can have multiple one liners for different demographics, different people, different products, but each one liner has to be about one problem. And it needs to be the problem that resonates most strongly with whoever you're talking to.
- [10:04]
C
Because I'm curious, because one of the things that pops out in my brain right away is sometimes I want to lead with the uniqueness of me in my one liner. And I think what I'm hearing you say is if you lead with why you're unique versus not leading with a problem, you again, are not gonna get as much business.
- [10:23]
A
Not at all.
- [10:24]
C
The tendency for most is to say, why are we different? So one of the things I would say in the past is like, I'm really good at help translating your message to an audience. That was my unique character. Like, that was my skill. I could speak in their voice.
- [10:37]
A
If you just say, a lot of musical artists are having trouble finding their cult following. I help you find that cult following.
- [10:44]
C
Because that's the problem. Speaking to that problem rather than saying, I'm. Yeah, that makes sense.
- [10:48]
A
That's exactly it. I mean, imagine if I'm a therap therapist, and I say, a lot of couples are wondering whether or not they should actually get married. I meet with you twice, and I tell you whether or not you should actually get married.
- [11:01]
C
Now, there's something in that one line.
- [11:02]
A
See what I'm saying?
- [11:03]
C
But there's something in that one line that I think, okay, we've kind of dialogued about the problem. I think there's something you did in the second part was where you gave some sort of actionable. Here's how it works. So talk to me about that.
- [11:14]
A
Yeah. So the second part, Part one is a problem. A lot of couples wonder whether or not they should get married. I'm a therapist. I meet with you twice, and I tell you whether or not you should get married. So I meet. I'm a therapist who meets with you twice. As the product.
- [11:28]
C
Yes.
- [11:29]
A
Now, notice I didn't say I'm a therapist and I can meet with you, blah, blah, blah. It was extremely specific. I'm a therapist. I meet with you twice and I tell you whether or not you should get married. I have an open story loop. Should we get married? And a closed story loop that I'm offering. I'll tell you.
- [11:46]
C
Yep.
- [11:46]
A
Whether or not you should.
- [11:47]
C
Yep.
- [11:48]
A
So that you don't spend a lifetime married to somebody you regret marrying.
- [11:52]
C
It's huge.
- [11:53]
A
That's the result. So those are three parts problem, product, result.
- [11:57]
C
Yes.
- [11:58]
A
And those three parts need to be in the one liner. That's. We're opening a story loop in part one, we're closing a story loop in part three, and the product is the sandwich in the middle.
- [12:08]
C
And if we go back to beat up on Kyle Day, that was also the spot I struggled with, was giving a pretty clear plan or framework of how I do that. Right.
- [12:19]
A
So you need. Yeah. Instead of saying, I'm a social media manager, you need to say, I show up at your house once a week. Yeah.
- [12:24]
C
Yeah.
- [12:25]
A
For one hour.
- [12:25]
C
Yes.
- [12:26]
A
And then I do the editing. You actually spell out how this product solves that problem. I hate social media. I don't want to be on social media. I don't want anything to do with it. But I understand it seems necessary to grow my business because that is the modern Yellow Pages, if you will.
- [12:42]
C
I think that plan also gives trust to you as well. Because someone's hearing. It's not ethereal, it's not theoretical. There's a legit, like, they've done this. There's a plan.
- [12:51]
A
Well, they also. If I say a lot of couples are wondering whether or not they should get married, I'm a therapist who helps you figure out whether or not you should get married. That's decent. I would give that a C minus. The reason I give a C minus instead of an A plus is because it creates some cognitive dissonance. How do you have a test? Do you have an assessment? Do I have to meet with you? Do I have to meet with your wife? Are you going to meet with us individually? Are you going to ask me questions in front of my fiance that are going to be embarrassing to me? You see what I'm saying?
- [13:20]
C
Yes. A lot of calories are being burned.
- [13:21]
A
A lot of calories are being burned. And it's not that they can actually articulate what their cognitive dissonance is about, but it exists and it's going to keep them from doing business with you. So what you want to do is state very clearly, here's what it looks like to do business with Me, you know, if I have a piece of software, you download this software in about two days, you're addicted to it, and it's gonna make you a lot of money. Right? So now I know I download it. There is some cognitive distance for two days, but 48 hours later, I love it. And it's actually gonna grow my business. You just said something that's gonna make me download it now rather than live for the next year thinking, I really gotta go Download that. It's 48 hours of my sacrifice.
- [14:06]
C
Does the plan answer objections to the customer?
- [14:09]
A
It can, absolutely. You want to know what those objections are? And you want to get them in that part too. Okay, I remember our, our. The sales pitch that the contractor who built our dream house gave. You'd easily think this is the worst sales pitch in the world. His name is Worcester. Brian, not Brian Worcester. His first name is Worcester. His last name is Brian Worcester. Yeah. Like Worcestershire sauce.
- [14:32]
C
Yeah.
- [14:33]
A
And Worcester sat us down and we had already found our architect. I think we might have even had our elevations and all the plans drawn up. And we were going to start interviewing contractors. Worcester came over and he said he looked at the plans, we talked about it probably an hour. And then he said, okay, here's my pitch. I only build one house a year. I don't have a website. It's all word of mouth. I build high quality houses. I never stop building your house. Thirty years from now, if a light bulb goes out, you just call me and I come over and I change it. I keep working on that house for the rest of my life. So I only build one house a year. I can only afford to build one house a year. I am more expensive than anybody else that you're going to meet with. And I'm going to take longer, but it's going to be done right. And we did not interview anybody else. We were like, okay, shoot, how much more expensive? How long is this going to take?
- [15:33]
C
More money from me?
- [15:34]
A
But everybody else in my mind had shortcuts and Worcester didn't. And we're gonna have to pay for that. We're gonna have to pay for. No shortcuts gonna be taken. He ended up being more expensive than anybody. He took longer. But we live in a house that is ridiculously overbuilt. I mean, it is. A perfectionist built that house and we will never have a problem with it. And it's worth everything that we paid for it. The thing that he solved was, we will be very happy with this house. We're going to pay for it. We're going to have to wait for it, but we're going to be extremely satisfied with this house because it's going to be done right.
- [16:13]
C
Yeah. And he answered all those probably questions in the back of your head.
- [16:16]
A
A soundbite.
- [16:17]
C
Yeah. That's so giving in.
- [16:18]
A
A soundbite.
- [16:18]
C
Yeah. That's good. Okay, so we've broken down kind of that story loop, the plan. How do people close the story loop in their one liner?
- [16:27]
A
The way you close it. There's three parts again, it's problem product, result, and result is the happy ever after.
- [16:34]
C
Okay.
- [16:34]
A
It's the so that. So if we were talking about a client of mine, you need a budget. Who has a budget app. You would download this app so that you never worry about money again. That's the happily ever after. So that you know you married somebody that you can count on. So that you know you married the right person might be a better way of saying that. So that you don't have to worry about social media, but you enjoy all the benefits. See? So that's very important. Now, here's where people make mistakes. They get elusive. So that you can be fulfilled. So that you see what I'm saying? It's like, no. So that you can know that you married the right person. Specifics in stories matter. If I said, hey, let's skip today's podcast recording because there's a new movie about, about a guy looking for fulfillment. You're not interested. But if I say, hey, Brad Pitt plays a formula one driver and you know, he comes out of retirement and wins a grand, you know, whatever. You're like, okay, great. Specifics. And you want to have specifics in your one liner to create sort of visual pictures. But also what it really does is it reduces cognitive dissonance. What are you talking about? Nobody should ever say, what are you talking about? They should say, tell me more. But they should not be confused after your one liner about what you actually saw, what problem you actually solve. And if you use this one liner and you get it right, it takes a while to get it right. A storybrand guide can help you. By the way, marketingmadesimple.com, find a storybrand certified guide. I've trained them all. They can help you write your one liner and all of your other survival sound bites and lead generators and all that stuff. Or if you don't want to spend that kind of Money, go to StoryBrand AI and there's a one liner asset inside of StoryBrand AI, but you need to workshop it. Figure it out, take a while and make sure you got your one liner right. And then watch what happens when you use it. What should happen whenever you use it is people should want to know more. If they change the subject, you haven't dialed it in. I don't even care if they have the problem. If they don't have the problem, then they should still want to know more because you have made them curious about something that seems very important. Really, really important. There was a gal I go speak at Tony Robbins, Business Mastery twice a year. He puts me on basically the 10pm slot. And I used to be sort of offended by that because I'm like, 10pm, my gosh. I go to bed at 9:30 and then I realized he's got a thousand people in the room and he puts me at that spot so they'll stay up late. That's what I tell myself. At least I don't know if that's true or not.
- [19:16]
C
Good sound bite.
- [19:17]
A
Anyway, I end with the one liner workshop. I end with one liner and a thousand people in the room create one liners. And they stand up and they go to a microphone. They read me their one liner and I edit that on the fly. And a lady stood up and she has a book deal with Simon and Schuster. That's a big deal. That's not a joke. And her book is about angels, specifically archangels and the fact that they're among us. Okay, so are you a little bit intrigued?
- [19:48]
C
I mean, come on.
- [19:49]
A
A little bit. Yeah.
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C
But I'm also like, probably not going to read that.
- [19:53]
A
Well, let me try to change your mind.
- [19:54]
C
Okay.
- [19:56]
A
So she was saying things like, archangels help connect us with the divine and blah, blah, blah. And none of it was interesting to me because I can't get my head around that. So what I told her was, okay, if I turn this book over, there needs to be a one liner, and the one liner needs to be this. If you are reading this sentence, you have interacted with angels without knowing it. In this book, I will teach you to recognize that you are not dealing with a human being. Now, are you kind of interested? Yes. Are you more interested in that book?
- [20:34]
C
I want to know where they're at. Yeah.
- [20:37]
A
So that you can know you're interacting with angels and learn the wisdom of eternity and apply it to your life. Yeah. You're happily ever after. That was actually a hard part. I don't know what we came up with there, but you've got to open. So the problem is, according to this woman, I am interacting with Angels, and I don't know it. That's the problem. So you've opened a story loop. Now imagine a movie trailer. And the movie trailer is the average person interacts with an actual angel sent from heaven who is not a human being twice a week.
- [21:09]
C
Yeah.
- [21:11]
A
Whoopi Goldberg, they actually made this movie, what is it called? Ghost or something like that. So that you want. You want it to feel like a movie trailer. When you say it, people just go, oh, I gotta see that.
- [21:28]
C
Well, it's.
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A
I gotta know more.
- [21:29]
C
It's so fascinating because the difference there is, say, for me to say is you're interacting with angels. You just don't know it. Versus leading with a problem.
- [21:38]
A
Well, you agitated a problem. That is a problem. The problem is you don't know it.
- [21:43]
C
Yeah. If you just told me, I'd go, okay. But if you lead with that problem.
- [21:49]
A
You don't know it. Yeah. And you're not getting the wisdom or whatever that you need, which, again, is.
- [21:53]
C
That power of what everybody is seeking, I think, is to have the. The one liner elevator pitch.
- [21:58]
A
That's right.
- [21:59]
C
To create intrigue. That's the whole point of it. Right. Is. Is to get that intrigue. So that's. That's super fascinating. Yeah. Okay, so we've talked a little bit about walking through a formula of how you make a one liner. Where should people use this?
- [22:11]
A
Everywhere.
- [22:12]
C
Let's talk about, obviously, in an elevator, but outside of an elevator.
- [22:15]
A
You can even use it outside the elevator. Like where? All right. Number one place is. You need to memorize it.
- [22:22]
C
Okay.
- [22:22]
A
And it's not something that's going to be intuitive. When somebody says, what do you do? You're going to want to say, I'm the CEO or I own a. Or my grandfather started a company. You've got to force yourself to stop doing that. David Salyers is a friend. He's been an executive at Chick Fil A for almost the entire existence of Chick Fil A. And he was on the team that implemented the My Pleasure response campaign. So this is getting everybody to say my pleasure instead of you're welcome. He told me it took them three years to get everybody on board. And everybody's saying it. That is why, Right? Instead of saying, well, why? Because when somebody says, thank you, they say, you're welcome. They don't say my pleasure. And so they had to say, no, we say my pleasure whenever somebody. And you had to. I don't know how they do it, but they all do it. It's really amazing. That's the Sort of behavioral adjustment that you're going to need in your organization. And it starts with you. So when somebody says, what do you do? Or what does storybrand do? Or what does Acme Plumbing do? Everybody. So part one is you need to respond that way. And part two is you need to get your entire team. Step two is get your entire team to say it. And then step three is you put it in actual text words everywhere. One of the places it can be is on the back of your business card. Business cards are wasted. They're just a phone number and a name. If I go to a conference, I get 20 business cards. I'll go through them when I get home. I can't remember what any of these people do, but if I turn one of those over and it says.
- [24:04]
C
A.
- [24:04]
A
Lot of people want to write a book, but they don't know how. I'm a ghostwriter. I write your book for you so that you can get all the benefits of a book without the headache of actually having to write it. That is what I literally just said is a one liner. I turn that over and there's that thing and I go, oh, I remember Nancy. I would actually love to buy it. Let me, hey, you go to my assistant. Hey, would you give me a zoom call with Nancy? I think I want to write a book without that one liner. I would have not even remembered what she did.
- [24:30]
C
Totally makes total sense.
- [24:31]
A
That's really important. It's also really great to have it on there so that you read it and it's your little thing that you read over and over and over. Memorize. Paint it on the side of your retail wall, put it on. It can actually be the subtitle beneath the header of your website. It can be a lead generator in lead generators. It can be parsed out in emails. You can send it as a text message. It can be the email signature on every employee's email at the bottom. I consider your one liner a hook in a pond. And the more hooks are in the pond, the more fish you're going to catch. So you just want it everywhere, Everywhere.
- [25:10]
C
And just to reiterate something you said earlier, I think you know, I will attest to you are the the best at that. Helping people make one liners you are a pro at. And here's the cool thing is for people listening to this is a storybrand. AI has been trained by you. So there's a resource there for someone. But then also we have guides in our community who've been trained by you as well to help you get the best possible one liner that you can have for your business.
- [25:35]
A
Yeah, there's about 500 of them and they're@marketingmadesimple.com and then if you want to bring your team to Nashville to work with me, go to storybrand.com, get in touch with one of our sales reps because I do a thing called a sound bite strategy session where we come up with all these words for you in one room in one day, and then we do a bunch of follow up zoom calls to make sure that you're executing it well.
- [25:58]
C
But that's awesome. This has been another, like, super valuable episode for anybody listening, including myself. I'm glad I didn't find this one liner exercise a couple years ago because I probably wouldn't be working here, but now I know if I ever need to bring that back.
- [26:11]
A
If you ever need to leave.
- [26:12]
C
Yeah, if I ever need to work on my elevator pitch, I know where to go.
- [26:15]
A
That should be the theme of this podcast, is how to help Kyle get in.
- [26:18]
C
Yeah.
- [26:19]
A
Okay.
- [26:20]
C
We'll see how that goes.
- [26:22]
A
I don't want to lose you. Let me make it very, very clear. He is not available in the open market.
- [26:26]
C
All right, well, I'm uncomfortable now, so let's wrap this episode up.
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B
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