Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Lisa Bloom. After a successful corporate career, Lisa took the leap into entrepreneurship, becoming an author, speaker, and coach. She built Story Coach, a global business that supports organizations, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. She helps them master their speaking skills, enhance leadership, and create marketing that speaks to their audience. As a best selling author of The Story Advantage, Cinderella and the Coach, and her latest Seven Stories That Sell, Lisa inspires countless individuals with storytelling techniques. There's nothing Lisa loves more than spending time with her family, walking her dog, traveling, reading, and sharing stories.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:06]:
All the way from Israel, Lisa, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you back to the show, and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Lisa Bloom [00:01:15]:
Thank you so much, Susan. It's great to be here.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:17]:
Well, Lisa, I am so excited about your new book. I love what you've written in the past, and I know that this is something that I am going to want to read. I know that it's about to come out. So first of all, let's talk about storytelling. I mean, why is storytelling so important, especially when it comes to marketing? Because, as you know, our authors need to market and story is, well, tell us. Why is it important?
Lisa Bloom [00:01:50]:
Yes. First and foremost, just storytelling is very powerful. And if you're working with people who are writing, who are publishing, then they have a sense of how important the story is. But story is great in terms of just being able to I think most of us are avid story readers and story lovers, but what's really important is to understand what happens when we read a story and how deeply we identify with the story and how connected we feel to the storyteller even if we don't know who the storyteller is. What happens from a in a business context is that we connect through story and we build trust through story and we learn how to really kind of leverage the influence and the persuasion that we have when we use story. It's just become very, very powerful. And for me, what's so important is that I'm not asking people to use storytelling in a kind of a, you know, used car salesperson type way in a manipulative way. I'm talking about using genuine real stories, sometimes vulnerable stories, but authentic story as a way to connect.
Lisa Bloom [00:02:53]:
That's the kind of storytelling I talk about and I teach, and that's what's really powerful in a business context and particularly around sales.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:00]:
And I love hearing that. And what comes to mind for me is that idea of that authentic story and how to relate it to what you want to talk about, whether it's, as you say, through a speech or whether it's through your actual marketing. How do you sort of find that connection?
Lisa Bloom [00:03:23]:
Yeah. You know, that's kind of the big question because, in a sense, the biggest challenge, which is to find the right story to tell it at the right time to the right audience. It's totally learnable. Like, we can figure this out. But firstly, the piece on how do we find the stories. Well, we're living stories all the time. We're experiencing story all the time, and it's about paying attention to what's going on around you, what's going on in your life. And on a day to day basis, we have these moments that are kind of story worthy.
Lisa Bloom [00:03:52]:
So it's about really paying attention and beginning to then identify the moment and craft it into a story that's going to be relevant for your business. And then relevance is the big word here because a story, no matter how interesting it is, if it's not relevant to your audience, then it's probably not going to work. That requires that we understand who our audience is. The next step is really understanding who the audience is so that we can find the relevance in our personal experiences. Tell them the stories and then create these very deep and trusting relationships as a result.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:23]:
You're so good at this, obviously, because this is your business that I just love it having heard so many of your stories. And you can find just the smallest things that the everydayness. I think about the story where you were in the boardroom with a little booty when you it fell out, your little kid's knitted booty and you it fell out of your bag or something and you used that to make a point.
Lisa Bloom [00:04:50]:
And I was like Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:04:51]:
I would never think of something quite so, I don't know, a bit trivial, but something so small that it would be relevant.
Lisa Bloom [00:05:00]:
Well, I talk about taking the mundane and turning the mundane into magic. And to me it's about finding that moment and and seeing the moment in terms of how it makes you feel. When this pivotal moment happens, you feel different afterwards. It can be something very small and you can just notice something And it's a very small thing, but you're slightly changed and you're moved. And when you can take that moment and then craft it into a story, what happens is people relate to the moment because of its mundaneness, because it's something simple and trivial, because trivial things happen to us all the time. And most of the time, we're not paying attention. Years ago, when my coach said to me, you know, you should tell more stories. And at the time, I was writing a blog and I was writing a story once a month.
Lisa Bloom [00:05:44]:
And she said to me, you know, you need to write a story every week. And my reaction was, you know, my life isn't that interesting. I can't find a story every week. How will I find a story? And she just said, oh, I trust you. You'll find it. And what I started doing was because I had a deadline, because every Tuesday, I put out this story, I had to find a story. And sometimes it would be until the last minute, you know, and I'd be pulling out my hair trying to find a story. But after some time, I started noticing these moments because I had to see the stories.
Lisa Bloom [00:06:13]:
And it was such a gift to me, not just because I could write stories and I then proceeded to write a story every week for 10 years and build my audience through this blog. Not just because of that, but because it made me pay more attention to my life. And so these stories, these moments that turn into stories, they become the moments that actually create meaning in our life. Because at the end of the day, story is all about making meaning. Right? And when we can transfer that meaning to the other person, to the potential client, suddenly there's a connection between us and there's trust between us. And they think, oh, if she can help me feel this way, if she can help me see this way, if she can help me shift my perspective, then I can trust her to invest in her program or her services or whatever it is that she's doing. And that's basically how it works.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:56]:
And that's brilliant. And that idea of noticing and paying attention to your life, which as you say, I mean, we go through life every day. Something is happening and yet we don't think of it necessarily, and I'm talking about myself in particular, that it would make a good story. And as you said, it's mundane. Why would that be of interest?
Lisa Bloom [00:07:21]:
Something happens in the moment. You know, something happens that's surprising. And unless we pay attention to that instantaneous sense of, oh, what was that? You know, there's just tiny moment. You could be sitting in a coffee shop and looking at someone across the way and it reminds you of someone. And suddenly there's a moment where you feel a jolt, a very tiny shift in yourself. It's usually emotional or sometimes, you know, there's all kinds of little shifts that you feel. And when you notice, oh, what was that? And then you think, well, what actually happened here? And you begin to see it as potentially a story. It's like, to me, it's like the seed of story.
Lisa Bloom [00:07:56]:
And then you can massage it a little little bit and contemplate, reflect on it, and then see what's actually there. They're the moments that can turn into some of the most amazing stories. It's phenomenal. Mhmm.
Susan Friedmann [00:08:07]:
Let's pivot a little bit and talk about your book because you've got 7 stories that sell. Let's talk about a couple of them and why they're so important. So first of all, let's talk about the story and then maybe why it's so important and how we can use them.
Lisa Bloom [00:08:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. What happened was over the years of working with story, working with clients to help them develop stories, we would work on all the different kinds of stories. I'm not a believer that there's this one story that's gonna change your life and change your business. I think our lives are too interesting and too complex and too varied to kind of boil it all down to one story. So instead, what I encourage people to do is to really understand how to tell stories, how to create stories, how to craft stories, and then take these moments and turn them into stories that you can use across the board.
Lisa Bloom [00:08:57]:
And what I found is that one of the biggest challenges for many people, many entrepreneurs or writers or authors or coaches or whomever, they struggle to, you know, often they're very, very good at what they do. They might be a brilliant coach or a beautiful writer, but they struggle to actually turn it into a business or to get clients. And so what I discovered was the ability to tell a story in order to really articulate who you are and what you do and various other stories along the way are the critical stories for selling. And so I boiled it down to these 7 stories, and I'll just give you a couple of examples. So one of the stories and the first story actually in the book is called the story of you. And it's a very simple story about kind of who you are and what you do. Now most people, if they tell you, what should I say? It's kind of like instead of it being the elevator pitch, the elevator story, people would say, oh, you have to say, well, I work with x to help them resolve y and so that they get the outcome of z. K.
Lisa Bloom [00:09:56]:
That's kind of the general formula for it, which can work. But oftentimes, it's either very vague or it's very too practiced. And it just doesn't work terribly well. It doesn't sound real almost because it's so highly practiced. What I encourage people to do is to think instead about the moment that they were onto something. Something happened. They were onto something. So I talk about the story of you as being this story which talks about, you know, I'm passionate about something.
Lisa Bloom [00:10:27]:
Why? Because this thing happened, and it made me realize something. And as a result, I work with this person to do that to get this outcome. So, like, that kind of practice sentence might be at the end of the story, but what comes first is firstly the statement of passion, like the statement of this is who I am. I'm a storyteller. My story of me is, oh, I'm passionate about storytelling. Why am I passionate about storytelling? Well, I noticed as a corporate trainer that every time I told a story, something shifted, something happened. There was an amazing engagement. There were people interacting with each other.
Lisa Bloom [00:10:59]:
Suddenly, everything came alive, and they remembered the moment. I work with business owners or coaches or whomever to help them use storytelling in order to get more clients. That's essentially the story of me. I've just described the story of me. And what I encourage people to do is to explore what's the story of you and what happened that got you there? What was that moment of realization? So that's one story, for example. Should I give you another one?
Susan Friedmann [00:11:23]:
I think it would be wonderful. I'm like sewing grossed here, taking notes, which I love to do. Yes. And I love that idea.
Lisa Bloom [00:11:31]:
Well, I'm not gonna go into all 7 because we'll be here for a long time and there's a book that you can read instead, which will be Exactly. In a matter of days.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:39]:
By the book. Yes.
Lisa Bloom [00:11:40]:
Yeah. But I will tell you the second story that it's not the second in order, but it's the one I'd like to talk about is the story that people often don't think about until it's too late. So they build a business or they write the book, but they don't think of this story, which is essential to identify before they actually create their offer or create their book. And that is the story of who. And the story of who is who is this thing for? Who are the people you actually want to do this thing you want to write the book for or you want to offer the service to. For example, when I was writing this book, the 7 stories that sell, I was thinking about the author or the coach or the entrepreneur who really struggles to sell what they do. They're very good at what they do, but they struggle to sell it. And so I could really get into what is that experience.
Lisa Bloom [00:12:30]:
The story of who is the experience of your ideal client. What are they experiencing? What are they struggling with? What are they waking up at night? They can't sleep because they're worrying about it. And what is it that they desire that they dream? Like, that's a story that's so important to identify because if you know who you're selling to, if you know who you're writing for, then it's going to actually resonate for them. And they're much more likely to enjoy whatever it is and to want whatever it is that you offer. The story of who is one of the critical seven stories.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:01]:
Oh, and yes. Because so many authors come to me and I ask them that question. Who is this book for? And I like it when, you know, we can go down into a niche, penetrate a niche market because there's so many more opportunities, but it's usually, well, it's a woman between 3060 or it's everybody. This book is for everybody, but that's not the case as you know. The message might be important for everybody, but you can't sell to everybody.
Lisa Bloom [00:13:33]:
Absolutely. And in a sense, you know, I've come across this even in my own work. Years ago, when my kids were smaller and it was harder to get a quiet time at home, I would go and work in a coffee shop. I wrote my first book in a coffee shop. It was at a time where there were lots of other people who were working in that coffee shop too. And there was the lecturer and there was the student of medicine and there was the marketer and there was the school teacher and there was the all different kinds of people who were in that coffee shop. And whenever I would chat with somebody, they would say, what do you do? And I say, oh, I'm you know, I work with business storytelling, corporate storytelling. They would almost inevitably say to me, oh my goodness.
Lisa Bloom [00:14:10]:
We really need you. I mean, the doctors just so need to be able to tell a story or the teachers so need to be able to tell a story or the market is so like, everybody would tell me that they need storytelling. So, yes, I can see how storytelling is applicable for everybody. But if I was going to offer this to everybody, then nobody would feel like it was specially for them, and it's not a way to build my business. So I had to really understand who was my target market so that I could actually build my business. That's really the story of who. It's very, very important. And it's very tempting to say, well, this work is for everybody and it's relevant for everybody, but that's not going to get you to success.
Lisa Bloom [00:14:45]:
It's only gonna get you to frustration, actually. Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:14:49]:
Yeah. Because I always say, you're throwing spaghetti against the wall, hoping some of it will stick. It's not targeted and it's a very ineffective way to market as we know. So really honing in on who this is for and developing the story around that is dynamite. So powerful. Can we squeeze one more of your stories?
Lisa Bloom [00:15:15]:
Sure. I guess the one that comes to mind is, spoilt for choice here, but I'm gonna give you a juicy one, and that is the failure story. Theoretically, we all know that failure is an important part of success. Right? Everybody says all the big entrepreneurs from Richard Branson to whomever, they'll all tell you about how failure is such a critical part of success and everybody has to fail. And the reality is that when you do fail, it's painful. It's shameful sometimes. It's just horrible. You know, it's really it really sucks.
Lisa Bloom [00:15:48]:
So people's natural reaction is to actually not to tell the failure story and sometimes even to hide it. And I had an example of this where I I did a launch of a program and it was just a massive failure. And I remember the moment when a colleague called me up and said, oh, so how was your launch? And I was so tempted to say, oh, yeah. It was fine. It was great. It had been a disaster. I was literally just broken from it. And instead, I kinda took a deep breath and I said, yeah.
Lisa Bloom [00:16:13]:
It was actually awful. It was a disaster. And what happened as a result of me sharing the failure story was actually she offered me a lot of help. We kind of did a a postmortem of what had happened. She helped me learn from it and, like, I was so better equipped to go forward and be successful afterwards. And I realized when I share this story with people who are in similar stages and have had similar failures, they feel very uplifted by it and they feel that they can relate to it. And so what I'm always trying to teach people is that the failure story, you have to get to a place where you come to terms with the failure, but also you've come to understand the lessons that you've learned from that failure. And when you have, it becomes an incredibly powerful story because one, it helps you bond with your client because they're bound to fail or they may have already failed.
Lisa Bloom [00:17:01]:
It makes you seem more human. And it also makes you just makes you more approachable. And also makes you, in a sense, if you can share your failure and teach the lesson from that failure, instinctively people feel that you'll have empathy and understanding for what they're going through. And so it's just an incredibly powerful and bonding story for people.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:23]:
And you're right. Everybody fails in some way or other. Yeah. I remember when I was laid off for the first time, I was devastated and I wouldn't tell anybody. I was so embarrassed that I'd been laid off from a job and it was purely economics.
Lisa Bloom [00:17:41]:
Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:41]:
And then I think I went into a depression for at least a month. I was just heartbroken.
Lisa Bloom [00:17:49]:
Yeah.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:49]:
And then it happened again 2 years later, and then again another 2 years later. And I was like, there's somebody up there who has got a different plan for me. And that's when I started my own business. And I would never have done that, I don't believe, if these circumstances hadn't happened. But it got to be a joke almost. It was like, okay, I'm getting the message now. It just took 3 times. You know?
Lisa Bloom [00:18:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Susan Friedmann [00:18:18]:
So we all have something that happens to us. And yes, being able to share that because people do feel the pain. Whether it's exactly the same experience, it's unlikely to be, but it could be very similar. But the thing
Lisa Bloom [00:18:35]:
And the thing is that they relate to the pain, but they're also encouraged by the lesson. Yes. And so they it helps them see from a different perspective and it helps them begin to move forward. So it's very, very important to share that story.
Susan Friedmann [00:18:47]:
Yes. Oh, this has been amazing. Lisa, we know that the book's coming out. Tell us more. Tell us how people can get hold of it, how they can find out more about you and what you do?
Lisa Bloom [00:19:01]:
I, at storydashcoach.com, pretty much story coach everywhere, the various social media places. You can find me at story coach. That's Lisa Bloom at story coach. The book, Seven Stories, if you come on to my website, you'll find direction to it. You can also in fact, as a gift, I would love to share with you. You can go to https://story-coach.com/seven-stories-toolkit And what you can find there is actually a free audio of the book. You know, you can go to Amazon or all the other places to actually get the whether it's the Kindle or the hard copy, the soft copy, or whatever it may be.
Lisa Bloom [00:19:43]:
But if you want a free audio of the book that I actually read myself, then you are very welcome to go to storydashcoach.comforward/7dashstoriesdashtoolkit, and you can find it all there.
Susan Friedmann [00:19:57]:
And the 7 is written out. Correct?
Lisa Bloom [00:19:59]:
It is. Yes.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:01]:
Fabulous. I'll put that in the show notes, Lisa. That's very generous. I can't wait to read it. I can't wait to listen to you reading the story as well. Lovely. As you know, you're a pro at this. You've been on the show before.
Susan Friedmann [00:20:16]:
We always leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours?
Lisa Bloom [00:20:22]:
Can I tell a quick story?
Susan Friedmann [00:20:23]:
Of course, you can.
Lisa Bloom [00:20:25]:
Okay. My background is in actual professional storytelling aside from business, and I love traditional tales. And so I'd love to tell a quick story about a king. I think it's a story that's relevant for these times. The king was fascinated by the concept of peace. And so he decided he wanted to own a little bit of peace. And so he asked painters and artists from around the kingdom to paint the perfect picture of peace. And he asked them to bring these pictures to the palace.
Lisa Bloom [00:20:59]:
He decided that he would examine these pictures and he would decide which was the perfect picture of peace and the person who could bring him the perfect picture of peace would get a great reward. And so many people, artists and non artists alike from across the kingdom worked on this and brought these paintings to the palace. And the king had many, many to look through and took days of consideration until finally, he was down to the last two paintings. Now the first of these two paintings, it was a picture of a beautiful lake. And the lake was surrounded by mountains that were mirrored in this almost just glass surface. And above these mountains, which were lush and full of beautiful trees and bushes and so on, was a perfectly clear sky. It was bright blue. Actually, there were a few fluffy white clouds going by and anybody who looked at this painting agreed that it was the perfect picture of peace.
Lisa Bloom [00:21:54]:
And then there was the second one. And the second one, it also had mountains and water, but the mountains were rugged and barren. And the water was a crashing, crashing waterfall that came down the side of the mountains. And above the mountains was a gray angry sky with bolts of lightning going through it. It was clearly a big storm, but didn't look like a very peaceful place at all. But when the king looked closely, he saw that behind the waterfall, there was a rock. And on the rock, there was a bush and in the bush sat a mother bird and she sat on a nest. And she was so peaceful.
Lisa Bloom [00:22:34]:
And he thought to himself as he looked from one to the other, he thought to himself that peace, the true meaning of peace is not when there is a perfect calmness around you and everything is absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and just perfect. But peace is when there's a great storm and there's all kinds of things happening, right? There's thunder and lightning and crashing water and this barrenness and this ruggedness and all kinds of things. And yet in that moment as she sat on that nest, she was the perfect picture of peace. And so ultimately, he chose that second picture because that is the reality that we are often surrounded by this great storm. And yet the secret is to be able to hold a perfect sense of peace in us at that same time. I leave you with that beautiful story because we all live in such a storm. And often, whether you're trying to publish a book or start a business or do all the things that we try to do, it often feels like a great storm. And yet as we continue, if we can have peace in our heart, then
Susan Friedmann [00:23:33]:
I believe all can be solved. Oh, how beautiful. It's like, that's gonna be very hard act to follow, Lisa. I love it. I love it. And just even the way you tell the story, which is obviously so important as well. The the words that you choose and obviously, the emotion that you add to it. Just so powerful, so, so powerful.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:57]:
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.
By the way, listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to, Let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return that you were hoping for. Go to BookMarketingBrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
