"The Only Way to Figure Out a Story Is To Tell It" - Andrew Davis, Keynote Speaker - How Stories Happen #1
I know a ton of storytellers and creators and entrepreneurs, but I know exactly zero other people who have learned how to do what they do from both legendary news broadcasters and Kermit the Frog.
Meet Andrew Davis. He is a powerhouse business speaker who’s given speeches in 35 different countries, at more than 50 events every year. He speaks to audiences ranging from marketers and entrepreneurs to plumbers and physicians — and there may not be a storyteller who is this craft-driven and obsessed with telling amazing stories in the worlds of business, marketing, and customer experience.
Andrew hosts a popular video series called the Loyalty Loop on YouTube, and he’s had a long career crafting stories of all kinds, including jobs as a producer for NBC and a writer for the news legend Charles Kuralt.
As an entrepreneur, Andrew has built and sold a marketing agency, produced docuseries for brand clients big and small, and authored multiple books about marketing and customer experience.
In this episode, we dissect one of his signature stories. It's been with him for almost ten years, and he can customize it across audiences and projects to arrive at basically any insight he needs to teach. It’s a rare look at how a true master of the craft executes the tiny things that create a big impact both for his audience and his business.
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Episode Resources:
⚫ Follow Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewdavishere/
⚫ Explore his speaking: https://www.akadrewdavis.com/
⚫ Watch the Loyalty Loop: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeegDFQqmxjBUpr5FCHzlpsKVyeEmPuf3
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🟢 Created in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
🟢 Cover art designed by Blake Ink: https://www.blakeink.com/
🟢 Video animation by La Hacienda: https://www.lahacienda.media/
Episode Transcript
This has been generated by AI and may contain errors.
Jay Acunzo [00:00:03]:
This is How Stories Happen, where experts, entrepreneurs, creators, and communicators dissect a single story piece by piece. We hear how they found it and developed it, how it might improve, and how they're using it to build their business and leave their legacy. It's a show that cares about resonance more than reach. It's about making what matters to our careers, companies, and communities. Because when our work matters more, we need to hustle for attention less. I'm your host, Jay Acunzo. Hey, it's Jay, and welcome to the first ever episode of How Stories Happen. Storytelling is a craft.
Jay Acunzo [00:00:45]:
I think we can agree on that. But if that's true, why do we always learn it in the abstract? We get general advice or fun sounding story structures or pithy sounding quotes. And don't get me wrong, I love all that stuff. But the stuff I love even more never sounds like any kind of process or playbook. It's always in the making sense of it all, where I feel most inspired and also most empowered to do better work. It's the hallway chat with somebody who saw me speak when they come up to me and say that they really appreciated a certain story or bit. And even though they didn't know it, now I understand something about my speech and my storytelling. Or it's the drinks with speakers and writers and podcasters and other creative friends where we talk about the work.
Jay Acunzo [00:01:33]:
Hey, I noticed you did this thing. What if you tried it this way? Or hey, I'm stuck here, what have you done in these scenarios? It's the messing around in a draft when I'm home alone trying to work towards something special, when suddenly something about that piece clicks and I just cackle to myself all alone in my office. Cause I know others will feel the same way once I ship this. It's in the hidden choices, tiny pieces, and sure, the existential crises that all unfold in the minutiae, in the actual making of the thing, which reveals much more to me about myself as the maker, but also much more about storytelling and creativity and business and life. Storytelling is a craft. So it's in the actual crafting that the most inspiring, transformative, and just plain useful ideas sit and hide and reveal themselves. But that is simply not how storytelling is taught or learned, especially in my home base of business. I've spent decades as a business storyteller, first at brands like Google, HubSpot, ESPN, a tiny startup and a VC firm, then as an author, speaker, show host, and consultant.
Jay Acunzo [00:02:48]:
I've given talks to 4000 marketers and 40 CEO's I've hosted docuseries about companies trying to rethink think capitalism and have told stories online. Through my writing practice since 2005, I've told business stories about coffee brands and software companies, exciting new startups, and even a centuries old dictionary. I've traveled the business world into the nooks and crannies of places that hold meaning, regardless of how viral or mass media famous something was, because we're all out here trying to do meaningful work, and that's where the great stories emerge. And in all of that time, I've come away with one driving belief about what we do. This is about resonance, not reach. It's about making things that matter so you can scramble for people's attention less. I mean, on the hamster wheel, you might create a ton of things, but in all that volume, where's the power? That's my obsession. It's what I talk to friends about.
Jay Acunzo [00:03:44]:
It's what I watch other creatives outside the business world agonize over, and it's what we'll talk about on this show. Where does the power of our work come from? The resonance, the thing that makes it special and different and useful both to you and to others. Because in this world, obsessed with being more visible, we care about being more memorable. As Ira Glass likes to say, great stories happen to those who can tell them. He isn't saying that stories only appear to the people who have mastered the craft already. He's saying it is a craft. You don't experience stories. You experience life.
Jay Acunzo [00:04:20]:
Then you. You turn that into stories. On this show, we're exploring the actual crafting of someone's signature stories or important drafts. The process, the posture and the practice of effective storytellers. Yes, right here in the business world, because the world of work affects us all, and it contains so much meaning that should be conveyed through our stories. That's how we build our brands, and it's how we serve our audiences. It's time for us to recognize the difference between learning stories and being storytellers. Welcome to How Stories Happen.
Andrew Davis [00:05:05]:
It takes a while for me to hone a story so that most of the audience is engaged most of the time. And then the doors opened on my floor, and I stepped out, and Steven Jones literally stepped out with me and opened his iPad, and I was like, okay, like, let's do this now. Like, fine. And I was like, wait a second. Do you do that? And he's like, oh, yeah, we do that. And Tony will say, like, oh, my lord, who is your contractor? And I was like, okay, you gotta tell me how you do this. Part of the reason I think people sit up when the Steven Jones story starts is they're like, I'm with you on the journey. Like, let's go.
Andrew Davis [00:05:38]:
Where's this going?
Jay Acunzo [00:05:40]:
I know a ton of storytellers and creators and entrepreneurs, but I know exactly zero other people who have learned to do that stuff from both legendary news broadcasters and Kermit the Frog. But I also don't know too many storytellers who are this craft driven, this obsessed with telling amazing stories in the worlds of business, marketing, and customer experience. But that is Andrew Davis. In my opinion, Andrew is the best living business speaker, but I also might be biased. He's also the person that I credit with helping me become a public speaker. Drew has given speeches in 35 different countries and speaks at more than 50 events every year to audiences ranging from marketers and entrepreneurs to plumbers and physicians. He hosts a popular video series called the Loyalty Loop, which you can find on YouTube or through his newsletter on his website. He also has a long career crafting stories of all kinds, including jobs as a producer for NBC and a writer for the news legend Charles Carraulter.
Jay Acunzo [00:06:49]:
He even worked with that famous felt frog, Kermit, as a production manager for the Jim Henson company. As an entrepreneur, he's built and sold a marketing agency, written multiple books about marketing and customer experience. And today, we dissect one of his signature stories. It's been with him for almost ten years, and he can customize it across audiences, across projects, and to arrive at pretty much any insight that he needs to arrive to. We should all be so lucky, or really, I should say, so practiced as to have a story like this one.
Andrew Davis [00:07:23]:
I'm Andrew Davis, author and keynote speaker. And storytelling. For me, I think just in general, in speaking, plays a really important role. Like, it's what you're doing the entire time you're speaking. If it's 15 minutes or 45 minutes or five minutes, you're trying to bring your audience on a journey with you and keep them engaged and excited about how the story unfolds.
Jay Acunzo [00:07:47]:
What does your creative practice look like? What are you routinely creating and delivering?
Andrew Davis [00:07:53]:
So, the daily practice that I work on is I'm always watching the latest version of a speech, and then I'm constantly looking for ways to improve it. So sometimes that's a joke that didn't land, and I'm trying to figure out, if I just rephrase the joke, will it work? Or do I have to kill the joke? Or sometimes it's like this. Seven minutes just doesn't work. Like, this story seems broken, or the point seems to be missed, or I need to revise the entire thing. And so I spend about an hour a day just working on that little piece. It's like a professional athlete. They watch their game day footage, they analyze what other teams are doing, how the defense is going to play against them, how they played in previous games, specific players, and how they play. I try to take the same approach with storytelling.
Jay Acunzo [00:08:45]:
As a kid, do you remember creating a lot of things, like, can you draw a straight line to what you do now from things you just did for fun or for your friends and family?
Andrew Davis [00:08:52]:
Oh, yeah. No, I was a constant creator, actually. There's a picture of me as a really young kid taking out all the pots and pans in the kitchen while my mom was trying to make something and creating music. And then at a pretty young age, I was really into puppets. And so my mom helped me make some puppets, and I started a. A magic and marionette theater, Eminem puppet theater. And I was doing, like, kids birthday shows for $50 a show. And the Marionette theater was made out of a refrigerator box that we covered in vinyl and put a curtain in, and I had a boombox with a tape that I would play the show on.
Andrew Davis [00:09:34]:
It was pretty hilarious, and it was interspersed with some really pretty basic magic tricks, but it was a pretty successful show. And so there's a pretty straight through line to then working in television, then working in marketing and then, and building my own agency and needing clients and finding that speaking was a good way to do that and creating shows just like I was creating magic and marionette shows to help kind of explain and help people understand complicated changes in the landscape and getting them to kind of rethink their approach or at least share with them some ideas for a new approach. And so, yeah, I think it's something I've always enjoyed doing.
Jay Acunzo [00:10:13]:
What's something? When you got into the profession of developing stories and telling stories, what's something that took a little while to come to terms with? Because I think there's perception, then you get into the business of production or the business of speaking, and then there's the reality of how professionals do it. What was the most surprising to you?
Andrew Davis [00:10:31]:
If you can remember what I find interesting, the audience often doesn't find as interesting, and that's been a struggle for me.
Jay Acunzo [00:10:41]:
Like what?
Andrew Davis [00:10:43]:
There's a really good example, actually, Lumiere's law, which is something that I tried the first time I tried to include it in a speech in 2008. And I created this seven minute or five minute bit about Lumiere's law and where it came from.
Jay Acunzo [00:10:58]:
Lumiere's law is we approach a new medium the way we approach an old medium. And that's why it's motion picture.
Andrew Davis [00:11:06]:
Exactly.
Jay Acunzo [00:11:06]:
Because you had photographs and then you had film, and the first film was just a stationary camera. And it wasn't until people broke the paradigm of photography that they go, well, we could have multiple cameras and follow a story and move the camera around. Like, those were radical ideas. Cause they thought of it as a motion picture first. Lumiere's law.
Andrew Davis [00:11:24]:
That's exactly right. Yeah. So, and there's, like, every new technology or new media has this exact same follow off effect. Sometimes the time isn't right for the story. And so Lumiere's law didn't work for a long time. But the first time it took off and people really got it was when the pandemic hit and we were all moving to zoom. And all of a sudden, we were treating virtual events, which I was doing a lot of. You were doing a lot of all of a sudden, virtual events.
Andrew Davis [00:11:53]:
People were trying to produce the same kind of real world event they would have produced, but just on Zoom. And that's a perfect example of a Lumiere's law. So I did a video about it, and a few thousand people, within a few days, started using the term Lumiere's law. They understood exactly why it made sense. They really resonated with the story of moving pictures and the Lumiere brothers, who gave up on motion pictures. And it really forced people, I think, to rethink the virtual event, you kind of have to rethink everything. So I'm glad it's found its time. But I think remembering that sometimes what you find is interesting, the audience doesn't, which means it doesn't mean the concept is irrelevant.
Andrew Davis [00:12:34]:
It just means the storytelling has to change. But sometimes the story finds its time, and that's been really helpful for me. Instead of just discarding these stories, I have a giant archive of stories. And sometimes I like, wait a second. Like, this is the time for this story. Finally, I can use this.
Jay Acunzo [00:12:56]:
Let's pivot now to the story that we're gonna deconstruct together. It's the story of a man named Steven Jones. He runs a company called Tulsa Renew. Before we get to the story itself, why does the story we're about to hear matter to you? Like, why this one?
Andrew Davis [00:13:10]:
Wow. This story matters to me because Stephen Jones, I think, exemplifies two things about two truths I've learned about marketing. One is sometimes the answer is right in front of the marketer and they ignore it. So like, they feel like they need a better solution, they're looking for a better answer, when in fact what they're doing is great and they just need to focus on doing that and marketing that better. So that's the first thing. And I think the second thing is it exemplifies, I think, what a great customer experience is all about, which is where this story came from. And it's included in the speech that I do called the loyalty loop. And it's so simple.
Andrew Davis [00:14:00]:
The feeling people have after they see or hear the Steven Jones Tulsa Renew story is, holy smokes, if that guy can do that for $1.99, I have no excuse and I should be able to do that too.
Jay Acunzo [00:14:17]:
Well, let's hear this story. I'll lead into it with this lead up. Five to six years ago, we were both speaking at an event in Vegas called Brand Manage Camp Lens grade event. The line that you use in that talk leading up to it, I went and found it on YouTube so I could be sure. But you said to the audience, you have to use the customers and clients. You have to generate the customers and clients you want. Again, part of your talk about the loyalty loop. And then you said, let me show you what this looks like.
Jay Acunzo [00:14:47]:
So for those listening, here is Andrew Davis showing us what this looks like with the story of Tulsa Renault.
Andrew Davis [00:14:55]:
So I met Steven Jones at an event just like brand manage camp actually. And I had just delivered my speech and we were getting into the elevator to go up to our rooms and I was going to drop my bags and all of a sudden, Steven jumps into the elevator with a bunch of other people. And Steven immediately says, gosh, I really enjoyed your speech. That was so great. I would love to show you my brand new website. And I was like, sure, no problem. And I gave him a business card and I said, give me a call. Let's set up a time to chat.
Andrew Davis [00:15:26]:
And he was like, oh, thanks so much. And then the doors opened on my floor and I stepped out and Steven Jones literally stepped out with me and opened his iPad. And I was like, okay, let's do this now. Fine. So he starts going through his website and he shows me his before and after photos. Because Steven Jones is a contractor. He sells windows, siding and doors in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's a commodity, right? And he believes that his website is the best source of marketing for him.
Andrew Davis [00:15:53]:
So he shows me the website, and it looks just like every other contractor's website. It's got before and after photos. And he takes me to his about us page. He's like, we just launched this amazing about us page. It's got a video of me. And the video is only 45 seconds long, but it's a generic, like, hey, you can trust us. I'm Steven Jones from Tulsa Renew. Notice that on his about us blurb, it says, at Tulsa Renew, we believe that you should know exactly what's being done to your house every single day we're on the job.
Andrew Davis [00:16:26]:
And I was like, wait a second. Do you do that? He's like, oh, yeah, we do that. It's called the ultimate client experience. And I was like, okay, you gotta tell me how you do this. He's like, oh, I'll show you. So here's what happens. Imagine at 01:00 after lunch, you're sitting at your desk at home or, you know, at your office, and you get an email from your contractor. And the email says, you know, hey, update.
Andrew Davis [00:16:49]:
Anytime you get an email from a contractor, you kind of panic. But you open the email, and in the email is a video link to a YouTube video. And it says, hey, we just wanted to give you an update on your house. Click here to take a look at the video. You click the link. And when you open this video, it's essentially like a description of what's exactly happened at your house that morning while you're not at home. It's got little arrows pointing at the things that have changed. Like, the siding's taken off here.
Andrew Davis [00:17:20]:
There's a soffit hole we're gonna cover up up here. We should have the flashing done by 05:00 p.m. And people love these videos. People will say things like, hey, Tony, like, come over here. You gotta check out this amazing video from my contractor. And Tony comes over. You play just a few seconds of the video, and Tony will say, like, oh, my lord, who is your contractor? And they will say, well, it's Steven Jones at Tulsa Renew. And they say, oh, my gosh, I would love to.
Andrew Davis [00:17:48]:
Steven's phone number. I have some work I need to have done on my house. Can you give it to me? And all of a sudden, there's your referral, right? What's amazing about this story is that for every job that Steven does, the first day he's on the job, he gets an average of eleven referrals. Eleven referrals. On top of that, he closes about seven out of those eleven referrals. And on top of that, he is not the cheapest in the market. In fact, he costs about 25% more than everybody else in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And he does this with a 99 cent app that he downloaded on the iTunes store.
Andrew Davis [00:18:26]:
It's called Coach's eye. And it's actually not meant for contractors. It's meant for like a sports coach, right? Like a golf coach. And all he does is you teach his foreman how to use that. They shoot the little video. He has a customer service person back at his office that gets the video uploaded and sends the email out, and all of a sudden his business is booming. So all he's done is just focused on creating a great experience for those customers he's already got. And that's what's built his business.
Andrew Davis [00:18:55]:
So when Steven Jones is trying to ask me about his website, at the end of this demonstration of what he could do, I said, like, look, how many leads do you get from the website? He's like, oh, we get like five or six a week, but they're really bad. And I said, well, why are you worrying about your website then? Just keep doing what you're doing, if that's what's building your business. So all we need to do is use the clients and customers. We've got to get more of the customers we want.
Jay Acunzo [00:19:24]:
How'd that feel?
Andrew Davis [00:19:25]:
It felt good. Yeah, it felt a little clunky. I think I forgot some of my good jokes, but that's okay. How is it for you?
Jay Acunzo [00:19:33]:
What I appreciated immediately was there's a bunch of things you did that felt like business storytellers. I'm talking experts, entrepreneurs, marketers, creators. What we tend to do is we share examples.
Andrew Davis [00:19:49]:
Right?
Jay Acunzo [00:19:50]:
Well, it's like, oh, you know, that's like Tulsa Renew sends out these videos that lets them do this, and that leads to this result. And that alone is an improvement on how most of us communicate. Yeah, you don't share examples. This wasn't an example. When you're saying, let me show you how this works, you're literally taking them into the story. So the thing I noticed the most is you slow it way down. And that's what makes it effective to me anyway.
Andrew Davis [00:20:16]:
In part.
Jay Acunzo [00:20:16]:
There's a bunch of stuff which we'll get to, but you slow it way down. You're on the elevator and there's a bunch of other people. You exchange information and you're like, I'm going to talk to this guy later. You step off the elevator, he's right there. Fine, I'll do this. Now you see the website, you know, later you're talking about how he goes about sending these videos. He has this app. He records it.
Jay Acunzo [00:20:34]:
Like you said, you get an email if you're a client of his. Later you open it up. You normally think this, so you're, like, panicking. You click the link. And what all of these things do is it. I know this is something you're passionate about. It goes beyond just, like, grabbing attention. It holds it, and it also raises the stakes, because even though it's not like, and then his business was about to go under, what will happen next? It's not that kind of open loop.
Jay Acunzo [00:21:00]:
It's a tiny thing. It's just, this happened, then this happened, then this happened. And you go, well, what happened next? Even if they're tiny things, you got us these tiny details so that we kind of get lost in the story.
Andrew Davis [00:21:12]:
Yeah. I think a big part of great storytelling is trying to make give, like, strike the right balance, because this is also something that I've had to work on, and I work on it almost with every story. And it kind of goes back to some information that I find interesting, others don't. It takes a while for me to hone a story so that most of the audience is engaged most of the time and enjoying the journey we're going on, because sometimes I will focus on the wrong thing, the thing I think is interesting, or the open loop I believe the audience will want to follow, or the curiosity gap with the big reveal that I think would be an awesome big reveal. But after a few tellings of the story, I can start to sense that, you know what? I should cut this part, or I should add this part. I realized that some people don't really think about those emails. And to make the contrast even more stark, I give an example of the kinds of emails you usually receive, and as a result, the impact Steven makes is so contrasted. The joke I usually tell on stage is, oh, we've all gotten an email from a contractor before, and usually it's something like this, like, urgent, and it's, like, all in caps.
Andrew Davis [00:22:28]:
And then you open the email, and it just has, like, a real bad video of, like, water cascading down your basement wall. And then at the bottom, in lowercase letters, it just says, please call. Like, that's the kind of experience we expect from most contractors. And then when I go on to explain what Steven does and the video, you can see and feel the difference between 99% of the market and what Steven has created.
Jay Acunzo [00:22:54]:
I've seen you share this as a lead story. I call this a lead story in your speech because it's meant to be told end to end and kind of replicate what the audience is going through. It's not meant to zoom into any piece of a methodology as the example.
Andrew Davis [00:23:07]:
No. Yeah. This is a story I probably end up telling once a week, whether that's on stage at an event like next week. I'm speaking at an event in Vegas for air duct cleaning association. So I'm gonna tell the Tulsa renew story. I tell it on podcasts very, very frequently. I tell it on sales calls. Like, if somebody's not familiar with the loyalty loop and they're interested in hiring me to come speak, you know, I kind of exemplify the impact this speech can have by just telling the Steven Jones story.
Andrew Davis [00:23:38]:
Or it's kind of a condensed version of it. You know, I've told it. I've told it at cocktail parties. I've told it standing around, you know, just hanging out with friends. So, yeah, I tell the story a lot. 52 or 53 times a year, easily.
Jay Acunzo [00:23:54]:
Yep. And it's been in your pocket, it's been in your arsenal for, I don't know, six, seven years at least.
Andrew Davis [00:23:59]:
No, 2015. I met him in 2014, and so I've been telling it pretty much since. Since then ish. I don't know, 2015 on. So almost ten years, nine years.
Jay Acunzo [00:24:14]:
I want to do a brief segment called first, last favorite, where we talk about the first moment, the last moment, and your personal favorite moment in the story.
Andrew Davis [00:24:21]:
Okay.
Jay Acunzo [00:24:22]:
You and I have talked about this phenomenon before, but there's these joint phenomena called the primacy and recency effects, where the memory someone has of you or an experience is most formed by the first and the latest experience. Right. So if it's a story, it's the opening moments and the closing moments. And where do we tend to underinvest in developing stories and experiences? Where does it tend to be hardest? How do we open? How do we end? So, first up, last favorite. So the first moment is, you start not with, this is Steven Jones. He's out there in the world. You start with like, well, I met Steven at an event like this. You take us into the elevator, and then we become basically, like, looking through your eyes at the website on his tablet.
Jay Acunzo [00:25:04]:
Why start it that way?
Andrew Davis [00:25:05]:
I started that way because I think everybody can identify with it instantly, especially on a stage. At an event like this, everybody has just got out of an elevator within the last hour and walked into a room with a bunch of other people that they're not familiar with, and it is always a little awkward. And a lot of those people have also seen the speaker later on in an elevator in a restaurant, and had a brief conversation with them. And most of them are not as brave as Steven Jones. So I think immediately the audience feels like this is a situation we've all been in. I can identify this, and I could be Steven Jones. One of the things I'm trying to get the audience to feel constantly is that this story is relevant to me. And when I build a situation like that, they immediately, I hope, in the back of their mind, maybe unconsciously, are at least thinking, oh, yeah, like in an elevator with a speaker, at an event like this, like, here we are.
Andrew Davis [00:26:06]:
I feel like I'm in this story already, so I don't have to do a lot of painting the picture. The picture is painted for me, given where we are and what we're doing currently. And I think it's that story. Part of the reason I think people sit up when the Steven Jones story starts is they're like, oh, at an event like this, I'm with you on the journey. Let's go. Where's this going? Oh, to the elevator. I just got off one. I can picture this hotel, this elevator, how slow it is, how packed it was coming down here.
Andrew Davis [00:26:36]:
So I think they're feeling it more than just thinking about it or listening to it.
Jay Acunzo [00:26:42]:
I think that's completely true. Also, a lot of the storytelling advice you see from real pros is, hey, I'm not just, like, giving you. They don't say it this way, but they're not just giving you a transcript of what they experienced. They're imbuing what they experienced with meaning. And so often, it's not what happened, it's how you felt about what happened, that people are latching onto it. In other words, the emotional stakes of it all. And even though this wasn't a grand moment, I mean, it's pretty flat even to think about, like, oh, you're in an elevator at an event. Everyone has either been in that scenario where it's like, do I talk to this guy or not? I just saw him speak, right? Or I know who he is.
Jay Acunzo [00:27:19]:
Or people have been approached by someone else. Maybe it's a friend or a peer. Maybe it's at a cocktail party, not at an elevator, but where someone goes, can I show you my website? It's really awesome. And you anticipate the fact that this is not going to be awesome. And then maybe you have the realization on the back end as an attendee or as a viewer of your videos or as a listener to this show, Drew, where people go, oh, God, I've been that person. I bet my website isn't as good as I think it is.
Andrew Davis [00:27:44]:
Right?
Jay Acunzo [00:27:44]:
And it's. You're kind of going like, yeah, exactly. Come with me now. Walk with me.
Andrew Davis [00:27:48]:
Yeah, yeah.
Jay Acunzo [00:27:49]:
I think.
Andrew Davis [00:27:49]:
I think. I think. I think your kind of analysis makes me actually rethink maybe why this works. It's like, there is a big piece of the opening of that story that I. That actually, the biggest laugh is when he steps out with me. Right? And I think it's because a lot of people have thought about doing that, but aren't as courageous or as brave or as bold as Steven was and so excited. So I think there is a big kind of cathartic release as that little buildup happens. And, yeah, I think they really have felt those situations in a way.
Jay Acunzo [00:28:27]:
People overuse this word empathy, but it is an empathetic way of telling stories. I think about hitting four beats to tell a story that has empathy, that you're kind of, like, in someone else is seeing things through your eyes or you theirs. It's align, agitate, assert, invite. So, like, align. Like, here's a scenario that might. This is, like, the cliche execution. Stop me if this sounds familiar, but, like, that's effectively what you're doing. It's like, hey, you're going through this.
Jay Acunzo [00:28:56]:
Even though me and Steven are going through this, I'm aligning with you somehow. If you don't do that, the story's already a mess. So the first moments are meant to align somehow with the audience. Then you agitate what you go through. Like, you describe the details. You take us into the minutiae. It's not just like, I met this guy. It's, we're here.
Jay Acunzo [00:29:13]:
This happened. This happened. This happened. Or you're like, I never experienced this. Like, it sucks, right? And then you experience this symptom and this symptom and this symptom, you agitate the frustration. So you align, then you agitate, and then you make some kind of assertion, like, to Steven. Like, you should stop caring about your website, man.
Andrew Davis [00:29:31]:
Like, this is a cliche thing or.
Jay Acunzo [00:29:33]:
A stereotypical bit of advice. It's like, you gotta do it right? It's like he was getting advice. Like, it's your website that'll drive leads. Like, you have a website, you then get leads. It's magic. And you were like, no, man, like, I'm asserting what should be is different than what everyone is telling you maybe not to do.
Andrew Davis [00:29:50]:
Exactly.
Jay Acunzo [00:29:51]:
And then you invite the audience on a journey to do that themselves.
Andrew Davis [00:29:54]:
Yeah.
Jay Acunzo [00:29:54]:
So align, agitate, assert, and that's really coming from your vision and perspective. And then invite to try it themselves.
Andrew Davis [00:30:01]:
Yeah, exactly. Well, I love your four step framework for it. It's pretty, it measures up pretty well. That's really good.
Jay Acunzo [00:30:13]:
Let's talk about the last moment, because the last moment is where that assertion really hits me over the head. And the invitation is then the rest of your video or the rest of your talk or the rest of your guest appearances. Like, now let me teach you in plain language, like, what was going on here? Like, I'll extract the lessons a little bit. But the last moment was basically like, here's the thing. It was a cheap app that wasn't even meant for contractors. I've heard another execution of the story where you're like, you might be thinking, oh, he's got a videographer on staff now.
Andrew Davis [00:30:42]:
That's right.
Jay Acunzo [00:30:43]:
Yeah, he's got, and here's the thing, cheap app. Also, get off the website, man. Just keep doing this, because, again, you can use the clients you have to win the clients you want. So talk to me about why you end it that way with the reveal of this is actually how he technically did it.
Andrew Davis [00:31:00]:
Well, that actually came with time, because the biggest question I would get is how from audiences very quickly after I started telling the Tulsa renew story was like, hey, how exactly does he do that? And I believe I actually had one person in a breakout session raise their hand immediately, and they were like, but, hey, they probably have a production crew and stuff. Like, I'm a really little small company. We're doing a million dollars a year. I can't afford all that. And so part of this for me is like, trying to have a dialogue with the audience. Literally, I'm trying to think, what are they thinking as the story is going along? And it took people hitting me over the head with it to realize that they want to dismiss the story as a one off success and too difficult for us to execute and too complicated. And we don't do video, and no one likes to be on camera. It's essentially, if Steven can do it with a 99 cent app and build a very successful business without worrying about his website, I'm pretty sure you can do it, too.
Andrew Davis [00:32:08]:
And I realized when I changed the ending so that it really revealed that, number one, I stopped getting the question. People sometimes still email me because they forget the name of the app. But I stopped getting the dismissive nature of the story. Well, that's great for Steve, and it'll never work for me. And I started getting people to really think, like, wow, that is so simple. If it's that simple, what could I do that's that simple to transform my business. And that's really what I'm trying to get people to think. So the goal of the story is to just transform their perspectives so that they're not dismissing other industries and case studies and people's ideas and starting to look at them and say, is that simple enough that I could execute something similar? And I've gotten, over the last ten years, probably three or four success stories a year, which might not seem like a lot, but for me, it's a ton of people who have actually not just not just came up with their new idea.
Andrew Davis [00:33:05]:
They've literally taken what Stephen did, and they've transferred it to their business. The very first one I got was a printer who was really upset because they were printing massive magazines and stuff, and they would send the magazine to the creative director and say, hope this looks great. And the magazine creative director would get all upset and say, you didn't think of this? This salesperson actually started going to the line when the magazine was being printed and, like, videotaping, just like Steven Jones did. Like, hey, it just went in and looked like the first copy came out. Like, oh, my gosh. Amazing. I'm going to send you a proof, and I would love to hear what your feedback is. And all of a sudden, creative directors went from being annoyed by a lot of little things to being so excited to get it that when they got it, they got less problems to fix on the backend.
Andrew Davis [00:33:57]:
This transformed his business. So it's really, really nice to see that you can tell a story in a way that helps people embrace an idea and then start doing the thinking for themselves, because I think we live in such an age where they want the template and the form and the heuristics and the checkboxes, and they just want the instructions on how to do it. It's nice to see that you can still entice and inspire people to see a story and then make the connections for themselves.
Jay Acunzo [00:34:30]:
Yeah. Like, I was binge watching Ted Lasso for the 50th time, and he was talking about, there's a photo shoot with Rebecca, the team owner for a women's business magazine in football, and he was like some little girl in an eggplant colored suit, you know, eight year old girl in an eggplant colored pantsuit out there is reading this profile of you thinking, holy cow, my dreams are possible. To me, that's what a story does.
Andrew Davis [00:34:56]:
That's right.
Jay Acunzo [00:34:57]:
It's not meant to say, well, because they did it, you can, too. It's much more powerful to go consider that they did it. So maybe that means you can, too. It's like softening the objection, like opening a door, and then, okay, now let's see what we can do now that you're open to new possibilities, open to a new way of doing business, open to this change that you might actually make. Now, let me give you the tools you need to go and apply this yourself. It's a very different way. A lot of people will criticize a gladwellian form of storytelling. They'll be like, well, it's like, you tell a story, it's like, they did it, and then you can, too.
Jay Acunzo [00:35:35]:
Or the self help be like, I did it, and you can, too. And it's something subtler and more nuanced that you and I try to do.
Andrew Davis [00:35:42]:
Yeah, I think it's important. I think that comes down to humility. I don't think I have the idea that every business should implement. I just don't. Like, I wish I did. I don't. But I feel like my job is to inspire them to think differently about it and find their own solution. And sure, I can give you examples of what other people have done that maybe it will inspire a new idea for you.
Andrew Davis [00:36:11]:
Maybe you can take the exact example and replicate it in your business. Fine. But I think the biggest successes that encourage me to keep doing my work are the ones where I've come up with six ways you can transform your loyalty loop experience and create a great customer experience that brings new referrals. And other people have come up with the other nine. Right? Like, they're not ideas I had. They're ideas they had because they were inspired by the way I was thinking and the stories I was telling to come up with their own ways. That's. I think that's what I'm really trying to encourage.
Andrew Davis [00:36:44]:
I don't have. These aren't the only six ways. This isn't the only way to do business. There are lots of great ways to do business. But like you said, consider this. Maybe if we just think about it differently, we can all come up with new ideas.
Jay Acunzo [00:37:00]:
First, last favorite. What's your favorite part of that story?
Andrew Davis [00:37:04]:
My favorite part of the story, actually. I didn't tell this story on this rendition, but my favorite part of the story, I think, is actually the reaction people have to the emails they get from contractors that they have.
Jay Acunzo [00:37:20]:
That's part of your agitate.
Andrew Davis [00:37:21]:
Right?
Jay Acunzo [00:37:22]:
That's part of the.
Andrew Davis [00:37:22]:
Right agitate, yeah. And it gets such a reaction from the audience because it is so true. And the email I reference is an exact email I got when we were renovating our condo in Charlestown, and it literally said, like, urgent. And it had this terrible video of water cascading down the basement wall and said, please call with his phone number. And so I think people can relate to it. And it's something that I didn't do in the beginning. It's something I kind of worked in because I wanted to make sure people saw the contrast between what the rest of the industry does and what Stephen Jones does. It's just totally the opposite.
Jay Acunzo [00:37:59]:
I feel like this is a story that you've been telling for years, and I feel like we start to at least, I do feel a sense of almost ownership over, you know, not your story. It's Steven Jones's story as told by you, which then you're molding to. Not even just one insight that you extract. Like, there's multiple use cases. Like, you could talk about, use the clients you have to win the clients you want. You could talk about. Show me you're different. Don't tell me you're different.
Jay Acunzo [00:38:23]:
That's a phrase I've heard you say. Another example. I'm working right now with a consulting client to help develop their premise. They are complaining we're surrounded by cheap competitors who are winning business over us. We charge more Steven Jones, 25% more expensive. And I could say to my client, here's the story of Steven Jones. I can see, as I move about the world hearing stories, I could see a direct path to me going, that's mine. Now, how do you navigate that? Cause it's not your story.
Jay Acunzo [00:38:53]:
It's not the Drew Davis story. It's the Steven Jones story.
Andrew Davis [00:38:56]:
Yeah, it's very true. The Jenny Doan story that happened to kind of feel like me. I discovered Jenny Doane.
Jay Acunzo [00:39:06]:
Well, and so. And Jenny Doane is what just really.
Andrew Davis [00:39:08]:
So I wrote a book called Town Inc. Which is all about the central premise is very simple. It's what happens if you market the place you do business more than the business you do. That's the whole idea.
Jay Acunzo [00:39:19]:
And so Jenny runs, like, a quilting empire, basically. Quilting in her town in Hamilton, Missouri.
Andrew Davis [00:39:27]:
Yeah, I found her in Hamilton, Missouri. I wrote about her. I did a podcast episode about her. And all of a sudden, she was everywhere. And you cannot draw a straight line from. Andrew wrote the book and started speaking about her all over the world. There was a Google commercial, actually, that was widely seen on television. She's been on CB's Sunday morning.
Jay Acunzo [00:39:53]:
The co founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, had a podcast.
Andrew Davis [00:39:57]:
No way.
Jay Acunzo [00:39:57]:
That Jenny was featured on. Like, she. She did get out there to, you know, more like, let's say, mainstream or mass media. Business media.
Andrew Davis [00:40:03]:
Yes. Yeah. So I did. At the beginning, I kind of went through a cycle where I was like, oh, my gosh, I discovered Jenny Doane. Why am I not, and why isn't town Inc. As successful as Jenny Doane is? And why don't people source me? Like, after I did my podcast, I released it on PRX, and a reporter the next week had a feature story on NPR's All Things Consider. That was basically my story. But they reported it.
Andrew Davis [00:40:29]:
It was awesome. They did a really great job. But so, like, the first phase is kind of jealousy and envy. Like, oh, my gosh, other people are telling that story. Maybe they're even telling it better than me, but I found the story, and then I think the next phase is, wow, this can only be good for me. Like, it's validation that the story is worth telling. And it was told well the first time. In fact, it was told so well that other people wanted to tell it.
Andrew Davis [00:40:56]:
And I think if you're telling a story, especially in the way that we tell stories that you don't want other people to tell, you're probably in the wrong business. Like, the whole goal for me is for people to hear the story, be inspired to make a change, and then go back and essentially try to tell the same story to their team so that they're inspired, or tell it over cocktails to their boss so that they're inspired to change their perspective. So that's. So I kind of view what we do. The goal is to get other people to repeat the story to others so that they inspire the same change.
Jay Acunzo [00:41:30]:
And I don't think most people have that. They're just looking for examples. They're looking for snapshots or transcripts, moments in time that they convey. Whereas real, effective storytelling is a constructed, creative act. It's the emotional labor that happens between the moment of inspiration as a storyteller where you find the thread or find the whole fully baked story and then disseminating that to your audience, that's what creates your version of that story. That story.
Andrew Davis [00:41:58]:
Yeah. I do think where stories come from is a big piece of this puzzle. Because most people, when I think when they're trying to construct an argument, they'll go to Google or they'll ask chat GPT, like, I need five case studies to support this point, right? And they're looking for literally case studies, which are not stories. And I think where I've found my stories, it's very rarely the feature content of some other platform. In fact, it's usually like a mention, like a quote from someone that just, I'm like, wait a second, that's an interesting quote. This is an interesting article. Who is this person? What do they do? And why do they have that perspective? And next thing you know, like, I'm deep down a rabbit hole and I'm finding out that this person has started this kind of business, and the business is very different and what a unique challenge they have. And next thing I'm thinking, wow, this is an amazing story.
Andrew Davis [00:42:56]:
I'm not sure what the lesson is yet, but I'm gonna archive this story because this is the kind of story I like to tell, and I'd like to tell this at some point. I can tell already. I think so many people, when they take somebody else's story to tell for themselves, they've just robotically copied it or imitated it instead of trying to fit the right context and understand that their version of the story is probably a little different given their goals and their objectives and even their understanding of it. So I get the most satisfaction out of watching the story evolve to fit other people's use case, I guess.
Jay Acunzo [00:43:36]:
Provided someone is sensitive enough, open enough, aware, and alert enough to spot these storytelling threads out in the wilderness. What is the first thing that you personally do once you feel like I have one in my hand? How do you start to pull it and develop it?
Andrew Davis [00:43:51]:
Oh, how do I say start to pull it and develop it? I. Okay, so every time I see a story that I'm interested in telling, I do a tremendous amount of research. And it's probably why I have that problem going back to the very beginning, where the information I might find interesting isn't always the same information that most of the audience finds interesting, because I will dive so deep and have so many different perspectives and learn so many new things in the process of the research that when I go to try to tell this story, even for the first time, it's filled with so much extra stuff because I'm excited about all of it or this part of it. And so I think the research piece for me, is a crucial piece, and the hardest part for me then, is refining the story to the point at which I've got rid of the stuff that most people don't care about and really focused on. The pieces that move the story forward, align with the audience's perspective, and really do capture their attention so that they can transform their perspective in a meaningful way.
Jay Acunzo [00:44:58]:
How do you figure out which pieces need to be in the story and which pieces don't?
Andrew Davis [00:45:01]:
I don't have a foolproof formula. The only way is to tell the story. So I'll call you Jay and I'll tell you the story, and I'll listen to what you react to or latch onto, or you'll even say like, that. I don't know why you told me that fact. It's irrelevant. I'll do the same with other speaker friends or great storytelling friends. And then as soon as you're telling it on stage, I'll actually, I record the audience a lot. I will watch the audience as I tell a story.
Andrew Davis [00:45:27]:
And you can see. See when you're losing their interest or they don't care, or sometimes it's just watching one person who you know is skeptical about your presentation. I can see them as soon as I spout out some fact, like pull up their phone, like, cool. And I know they're not taking notes about the presentation. And it makes me question, like, did that need to be in there? Should I change that or cut it? Or am I so in love with it that I just want to keep it so I don't have, like an easy way to do it? I don't follow some story arc and and I have been surprised at what the audience finds interesting and I've leaned into it to have a better story.
Jay Acunzo [00:46:04]:
If you think and explore like an author, you develop bits, stories and content like a comedian.
Andrew Davis [00:46:09]:
That's exactly right.
Jay Acunzo [00:46:20]:
How Stories Happen was created by me, Jacob Kunzo, and is produced by Share Your Genius cover art by Blake, Inc. Learn more about these kind, creative humans who helped me make the show and how they can help you by checking the links in your show notes. And while you're there, please explore my sponsor link as well so I can keep this show going and growing big thanks to everyone supporting the show as a listener, sponsor, or partner. For more ideas and stories from me, visit Jaconzo when you're there, explore my free newsletter, my books, and my consulting for experts and entrepreneurs. I help you develop an original premise for your work and your signature stories and projects to grow your audience. You are smart enough, you are expert enough, but if you feel that your ip isn't strong enough, let's talk. Thank you so much for listening to the show. I'm back in two weeks with another episode.
Jay Acunzo [00:47:11]:
But until then, keep making things that matter. Because when your work matters matters more. You need to hustle for attention less.
Andrew Davis [00:47:17]:
See ya.