Storytelling: The Secret to Attracting Your Dream Clients, with Susanne Rieker and Kris Jones

Don't we all hope that people who find us, who come upon our homepage, and they're our dream clients, that they see what we do and immediately go, oh yeah, she's the one to help me.  Big thing to help with that is storytelling. More precisely, telling your story. And this is what we're covering in this episode.

I'm talking to Kris Jones, a story brand guide and founder of Red Door Designs, mentored by the author of Building a Story brand, Donald Miller himself, and with over 20 years of experience and clients like Nike and Adidas under her belt, I'm She is extremely passionate about helping coaches and service providers replace all of their marketing with a single story so they can multiply their revenue and focus on what they do best. 

Welcome to the Blissful Biz Podcast, the show where we explore how to build an online business that's simple, sustainable, and profitable without the hustle and no matter your age. I'm your host, Susanne Reiker, and my mission is to help you package your expertise and create a blissful, highly profitable online business that aligns with your passions and values.

In this podcast, I share practical, actionable advice, as well as insights from my own business journey and the valuable lessons I've learned building my online business. If you're ready to build a business that brings you both bliss and success, you are in the right place.  Hey, Chris, welcome to the Blissful Biz Podcast.

Ah, thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here, Susan.  So, why don't we dive in on you. Tell us a little bit more about who you are, what you do,  your journey.  I have been an entrepreneur for over 20 years. It's just in my, in my blood. And what I do is I help entrepreneurs tell a story that really attracts the right clients.

So a lot of, a lot of my clients feel stuck or ashamed of their website and I help them really get clear on the story first. And once we get clear on the story, then we can apply that to the website and all other areas of their marketing. And so it allows my clients to really do the work that they love because their story is the one that's doing the heavy lifting of selling for them. 

I love that so much because I 100 percent agree that when it comes to your website and I design websites too, I love beautiful websites, but the words on it, they are what really matters.  They really are. I mean, even, even if you think about, you know, shopping on Amazon,  You go to a product and you might look at a picture of the product, but you don't decide to buy that product until you actually read the comments that people have said and the reviews that people said, and it's, it's really the words that are the thing that get us to the point of enough trust and confidence to move forward and make a purchase. 

So how did you  end up with that niche? What was your journey there? Well, I, I started out in branding and advertising and early in my career, I got to work at Nike and got to just really get experienced in visuals and visual storytelling. And I always felt like, you know, I'm a visual person that, that creativity has always come naturally to me, but fast forward, you know, 10 ish years, a lot of my clients were asking me to, I was at that point no longer at Nike and working in my own boutique design firm.

And I was doing a lot of website work and I was really focused on the design of things and I would tell my client like, okay, your copy, you need to write the copy for your website, it's due on this date. And I had one client in particular, her name was Elise and she had a background in publishing and she had a new.

Course that she wanted to sell. And so she's like, Oh, no problem. I got this. I'll I'll write the website. I have a background in publishing. And so her copy was due to me on like April 3rd. And then I was going to take the next few weeks and really design the site. And she called me on that morning and she was just, just frazzled, just  really frustrated, defeated.

And she was like, I don't know what is going on, but I cannot write  these words. Like everything I write, I'm second guessing it. It doesn't feel right. I've hired multiple copywriters to help me and do it for me. And that didn't feel right either. And she was just completely and totally stuck. And. The reality was like, she was so close to her own business that she couldn't get the clarity and perspective she needed to, to write about it clearly.

It's not really a writing problem. It's a perspective problem. And, and then when she tried to outsource it, you can't outsource your own voice when you are the face of your business, you are the business,  your voice can never be outsourced, it will never feel quite right. And so  it, a lot of my clients were in this pickle of like, they couldn't write it themselves, but they couldn't, it didn't feel right to outsource it.

And so I just made it my mission. Like, and the truth is like, she was not the only client that I was working with that was struggling with this. So I just made it my mission. I said, I am not letting this happen again. So I am, I'm going to figure out how to solve this problem. And I just took the next.

year or more just to delve deep into storytelling, storytelling, digital storytelling, brand storytelling, like how to really tell a story that feels authentic, but also does really hard work. You know, so much of the copy on websites these days. There's copy there, but it's not actually working for you to really get you new clients.

And so  one of the things that I did, I flew across the country, I took workshops, I became a story brand guide.  Even before the book, Building a Story Brand came out, I was, I was one of the very first guides and I started to apply  storytelling.  Methodologies and frameworks to my own business and also to my clients, because once you know how to tell a story, you can't not do it.

You know, I just like literally every project I've ever worked on since then, that's what I do. And it was shocking to me what was happening in my own business. I was having people. Look at my website, call me and say, I'm taking the train into Portland. We, I want, I want to meet you. I want to work with you.

And that happened multiple times. I was getting booked out.  My sales calls were not even sales calls anymore. They were just really talking with potential clients that were already sold on working with me. And,  and the same thing was happening for my clients where they were one in particular, he was able to charge six times more for the exact same service.

And that's just because  we gave him the words that he needed to communicate his value and attract the right higher paying client that appreciated the The work that he could do people, clients were calling me and saying, like, I've got a record number of lead calls booked this month. I'm like making tens of thousands of dollars more each month than I was before.

It was just like  almost hard to believe, really, but, but that's the power of story. And it's, The thing that's so great about story when you do it right is it's timeless, like as humans we're wired for story. And so it never goes in and out of like fashion because it's inherent in who we are as humans.

It's about creating connection and story is just, what was the other point I was going to make? It's timeless. And I forgot my second point. It'll come back to me. Yeah. I had a question here.  Actually, just to clarify for people, you know, who are not familiar with  Storybrand and what Story is, what part, because it's not like, you know, writing the copy for the website.

Right, right, right, right. So I did remember my point. The thing I love about Story is that it's really all about psychology. It's about tapping into our brain, our like different parts of our brain that make decisions. And so I love the power of it in that way. Right. And when I talk about story,  I'm really talking about crafting a narrative.

What I like to do for my clients is create one signature story for the business. And when I talk about signature story, I'm not talking about your founders, the founders history. I'm talking about a signature story where your client plays the hero in the story and you play the guide in the story. It's really a narrative where your clients can envision themselves working with you and what that would be like.

And it's a completely different way to, it's a completely different from the way most people are doing stories online. But it's definitely not like a new invention. It's the same, it's the same formula or it's the same framework that every book, every movie, every story you've ever heard follows the same kind of fundamental flow.

And so when you take that and apply it to your website or you apply it. To a video script that you write, or I apply my signature story in my sales calls. I, I infuse it into everything that I do. It's, it's the same story in my social media and my LinkedIn, in my conversations. It's always the same story.

Can you share that as an example? So it's a little bit more real.  So when I, when I talk about story, I'm saying. Every story begins with a hero that has a problem they don't know how to solve. That hero is your client. They have a problem they don't know how to solve. So they're out and about trying to, on the internet, usually trying to solve this problem.

They're looking for a guide, which is you as the business owner. You are the guide. They're looking for a guide who can solve the problem for them. Popular guides would be like a Mr. Miyagi in.  a Karate Kid or Yoda in Star Wars or Hamitch in Hunger Games.  They're looking for a guide who's been there, done that, knows how to solve the problem.

That is you. And the guide's job is to really show them what's possible for them, show them what success can look like, and then guide them to achieve that.  So that is really the framework of story. And when I, when I create stories for my clients, it's really following that framework. It's like honing in on who's the hero of this story.

What are the struggles that they have? How do you, as the guide, how can you show up with empathy and authority to really  let them know that they can trust you? And that you've, you've got them and that they are the most important thing. So many times online, when we go to a website,  whoever that person's website, it is wants to talk a lot about themselves and  what we really want to do differently there is really show the hero that they're first and foremost, that we care about their struggles and we care about their success more than we care about ourselves and our fancy way of solving their problem. 

Yes, I love that. I mean, it's like what most people learn to do on sales pages, but not anywhere else really, right? So what I meant really was like an example, like really the words that you are using, for example, on your website.  Oh, well, I mean, how does it basically manifest or? Yeah, I mean, the short version of it, so your story should really work like an accordion.

It's how you have short versions of it and you have lengthier versions of it. And so the shorter version of, of the story, I call a one liner. It's actually two sentences, but it's really the fundamentals of what you do, the problem you solve, who you help and the success that you provide. So mine, mine would be something like.

Many, many entrepreneurs feel stuck with a website they're embarrassed about. I helped them tell a story that truly connects with their ideal clients so they can increase revenue, work less and love their job again. Something like that. Like that's an example. Notice I started that with the hero and the problem that they had.

And I'm partway through the story. I say, I helped them tell a great story that truly connects. That's, that's me introducing myself as the guide with my solution. And then I get right back to the hero and, and communicate what their success is. So if that is like the nugget of my story, and then if you go to my website, it's  an expansion of that as if you're thinking about an accordion, it, the story doesn't change.

I just go deeper into each of those sections. Yeah, I think that's the challenge because it's easy. I think for people to get, they get that concept and then they start and just sound like everybody else, like, yeah, as a business coach, I help you get to six figures, boring.  Yeah.  So I guess that's where your work comes in and your support.

So where do you start? What's like you, like the framework, how people get started on their journey?  Well, I have a freebie that will help you get started. You can go to reddoordesigns. com. And there's a freebie there called how to write compelling copy in five minutes flat. It comes with a five minute video and a worksheet and essentially you could just keep duplicating that worksheet for any time you need to write anything for your business or just go back to that one worksheet because the groundwork that you do there.

Is always going to be the foundation of your story, but essentially to get started, you'd want to do something like that, or you'd want to just grab a piece of paper or open up a document and identify who are you working with? Who are these people? Are they? People over 40 that are, you know,  struggling with their health or  so you want to do it.

The first two things you want to do is who are you working with and what are they struggling with? Those, that's the two, that's the most important thing that you can possibly do. Because when you can articulate their struggle. They feel seen, they feel heard, but most importantly, they feel like you're the best one to solve this problem for them.

So, there's so much power in just articulating their struggle and taking the time to do that. It's not being negative, it's really just letting them know they're in the right place. And then,  your job is to really  briefly communicate how do you solve that problem. I, for, in my example, like, I help people tell a story.

Online that makes them feel more confident, or you can go about it any number of ways. But the thing I want you to remember is it doesn't need to be very long or complicated. We get very excited about the way we solve our clients problems, but I want everyone to kind of like simmer down and just make it simple.

I help them tell a story that sells. That's what mine could be. Yeah. And that's what also have your, on your website is how to tell it in a video, right?  Yeah. Is this something that you recommend, like that people have like a video on their home page, I don't get, I've always planned to do it. I tell my clients to do it. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, coming and going back to that accordion, your video is so incredibly important on your homepage because people are wanting to get a sense of who you are and still photography just doesn't communicate your tone, your energy, your overall vibe. The way that video does, like when I get on the phone with potential clients, they feel that they already know me, and that's really a wonderful place to be in because you get to jump over that initial like, let me tell you all about myself and let's get to know each other.

They, they're already there because they've watched several videos of me before they've even gotten on a phone call, so. The video is, I can't remember the exact number, but it's something like conversion rates go up like 22,  22 times or 22%, something like that. It's kind of ridiculous how, what a difference video can make on your homepage.

And it does so much of that work for you. And you're not reinventing a new story. We're just repurposing your story in a, in more of a spoken, casual way. In your video script with my clients. I always write their video script every time. Okay, let's make this actionable. Help me create the video script for me, for my business.

Oh my gosh, well, it's a little, it's a little, it's not  that simple. Yeah, of course not. It's not that simple. It'd be just like an overview, basically, for me. Yeah, I mean, it really, like, I'm gonna keep beating the same drum. It goes back to storytelling. There's no new or different way of telling a story.

Every story begins with a hero that has a problem. They don't know how to solve. So they are out and about looking for a guide who can give them a clear plan. That's going to allow them to not only be successful, but also avoid failure. And so if you just take those components and write your script.

About that, it's going to work really well,  like it would take me time to really work with you on, we can't just write it here on the podcast, but it really, your video script would start with your potential, with your clients, like what are they struggling with?  I always like to start my video scripts with like an aspirational identity.

Like who do they want to become? And that's where we start. I know you want to become an entrepreneur who is, you know, free and,  you know,  entrepreneur as successful entrepreneur, who's not limited by geography or whatever they're looking for. So you want to start with their aspirational identity.  And then we want to get into,  but the, the, in order to do that, in order to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to, what, what is it that you help your clients do?

Like insert that there. And then, and then we introduced the problem. The problem is most entrepreneurs feel like whatever they're, they don't, they feel like they don't have the freedom that they want, or most entrepreneurs Don't have the confidence to,  you know, dive into the digital nomad lifestyle. And then you move into introducing yourself as the guide.

I  like, I believe, what do you believe that they deserve? I believe every entrepreneur deserves to feel free freedom, geographic freedom and abundance, no matter what stage of business they're in. And then you move into, you know, that's why I've made it my mission to do the work that I do. So you can success, whatever that success is.

So it's truly just following the story framework. Over and over and over again.  How long should it be? Do you have some like best practices there to share? Yeah. One minute to one and a half minutes at the most.  It's. Interestingly enough, it's like, it's less, it's, let me put it this way. It's important what you say, but the, what the video really does is show them that you care about them more than you care about yourself.

And it also gives them a sense of your energy and your vibe.  And those two things are really, really important.  And it's pretty incredible that that can come across authentically on a website.  Yes. And I mean, it's great that we have, that the technology makes it so easy these days to do that. And I think it's weird to expect people to buy from us, like sign up for coaching or whatever, when they've never seen you on a video. 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that, that's why it increases conversions at such a high rate is because. It's almost like you're having a bit of a sales call with them where you're getting to know each other, but it's just working for you on autopilot. That video is just  really doing the heavy lifting for you.

And that's what my mission is just like, how can we put simple tools in place that are uncomplicated to do all the heavy lifting of selling so you can just do the work that you love to do. And not feel like you have to constantly sell like no, nobody, none of us want to be in that position. That's the worst part of being an entrepreneur.

I know it's like the hardest part. Everybody's like happy creating offers or trainings or you're like, of course, serving your clients. But then selling yourself,  I think what people sometimes need to embrace a little bit more that it's a skill that you can learn that you are, that most people are not born being naturally good sellers.

It's not like, and to be a little bit more mindful of that negative self talk.  That's happening there. Well, the beautiful thing about story is that when you have your signature story dialed in, you don't have to sell. It does that for you. So you don't even have to learn that skill. All you have to do is Know that you have a story, feel confident in that story, have the right words that you know that feel aligned with you and resonate with you.

It's not selling anymore, you're just letting them know, like, hey, this is who I work with, I, I understand your struggle, here's what's possible for you. And here's how I solve the problem. It's, it's like, you actually get to remove all the selling. The selling part. You're still the marketing. You want people to see that message.

That's still, yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. You still need to market. A lot of people are really uncomfortable on camera, right? So like they're filming themselves and they're nervous. And then, and then when they read from the script, you see it, you hear it. Do you have some tips for there? How people can improve?

I do, I do. Yeah. There's a, there's a company called BigView, B I G V U, online. I, I don't know if they have any free accounts, but I, I think they might have a free account if you're okay with a watermark. But you can upload a script to them,  and they have a teleprompter app inside their software, their program, and so they'll record your video and play the, the teleprompter, and then you can click on a feature.

This is a paid feature, but you click on this. thing called eye contact, and it moves your eye  so it's looking right at the camera. And just that, like, makes such a huge difference. Like, it's, when you're watching somebody read a script and you can watch their eyes going left and right, it just doesn't feel good.

Yeah, and it takes practice. Even using a Tinder prompter, it takes a lot of practice. To do that naturally. Yeah. I know I used Descript for recording my trainings and podcasts. They have that feature too now. They do. With the audio movements, but yeah, it's still like looking like at your phone or something in your hand.

It's still not going to work. Dude, does Descript have the teleprompter inside of it? No, I don't think they have that feature. I don't know. I've never looked for it. So, yeah, I don't think they do. I don't think, I don't think they do, but I, I have definitely downloaded my big view  recordings and then uploaded them to Descript.

I love Descript for editing. I think it's just, yes, it's amazing. And then you can just delete like single words or the filler words and phrases. And yeah, yeah. That's really, yeah. I think between those two tools, that's really all you need. To create a video that's just feels good. No one's looking for  really high production level in your video.

I think like, they want to be able to hear the words that's really important. But as far as like lighting goes and like, it does not need to feel professionally filmed at all. You could go into zoom and just hit record and that would be just fine production values. So I just want to take the pressure off of everybody because.

There's already enough pressure to like do the video, just don't worry about it being super high quality. People just want to get a sense of like your, your voice. Yes. And it's just like, get started, put it out there. Not going to be on your website forever. And it's like, you get better with practice. Yes.

It's so true. It's so true. Yeah. No, I love that. So that was really, really helpful. And then, so you use that story,  how would you use it on social media or in your content as well? Create content around it as like the foundation for everything then? It really, it really truly is. Like I know I sound like I'm beating a dead horse because I am.

You, the more you tell the same cohesive story  everywhere online, the more quickly people begin to trust you and remember what you do. People need to be exposed to information about eight times before they can commit it to memory. So that same story, that same one liner that I shared with you, I would put that on my social media profiles as my bio, and I'd put it on my LinkedIn, I would put that in my email signature below my name, so every email that goes out.

Communicates  what I'm doing, what I'm about, the problem that I solved, who I help. And so you want to just  say the same story over and over, and I know it sounds boring and redundant, but I can't tell you, like, how freeing it is when you feel like you don't have to constantly generate something new. That being said back to the, the accordion metaphor. 

That those core components of your story, the hero, the problem, the guide, the plan, and the, and the success, those core components work like an accordion. So if you're on social media and you're wanting to post something, you follow those components. You just go deeper into the hero. You go deeper into the problem and you go deeper into the, you can expand.

If it's a blog, it can be. More expansive, like an accordion, or if it's a medium sized post, it can be this long. But, depending on where the story lives, You go into more detail in each of those sections, if that makes sense. Yes, it sounds so easy, but I know it's not when you get into the details. Where are people most struggling with?

The, the, the issue is perspective. People really struggle to write their own copy because they're just so close to their own business. I call this the bottle effect. Because it's like you're inside of a bottle trying to read the label that can only be read from outside of the bottle. And so when my clients come to me and they're frustrated and they're beating themselves up for not being able to write this,  I tell them it's nothing to do with your writing capability, nothing to do at all.

It's about perspective. It's impossible to get out of the bottle when you're, you're inside it. And so that's why it's helpful to have  You know, to work with somebody like me who understands story and can come and look at your business with fresh eyes. The other thing that happens is  a lot of my clients have what I call the curse of knowledge which just means they're really into what they do.

They've been doing it for many years. And so they forget what it's like to not know what they know now. And so they tend to like speak over  their, their leads heads or use terminology that. They don't understand. And so we just want to be as simple, clear, simple, clear all the way. So I think the main thing they struggle with is just trying to do it themselves.

It's not one particular part of the story that's hard. It's all of it because your story is so close to you. It's like it's in you. And so you really need somebody to Be able to like,  to be able to ask you the right questions in order to pull that story out. That's what we need.  Yeah. I thought, I would have thought that a struggle that people have is also like  choosing a problem and not trying to solve like 10 problems at the same time or.

Choosing a group of people who are you helping and I'm for everybody doing everything for everybody.  Sometimes, I mean, I, I always encourage people to brain dump, brain dump the struggles and the problems that your clients are having. What are they complaining to you about when you get on the phone with them?

And usually when you brain dump a handful of those, there's one that kind of  bubbles up to the top. As the overarching problem  in your story, it doesn't mean that you can only address one problem. There's typically an overarching problem and then underneath the overarching problem, there's multiple bullets of nuanced variations of that, right?

So  your story doesn't have to be limiting in that way. 

Thank you. That was really, really helpful and really interesting. So where can people go to learn more about you and your process? So everything about me you can find at RedDoorDesigns.  com. That's R E D D O O R D E S I G N S dot com. And you can go to my website. I can,  I can write your signature story for you.

Feel free to book a money making messaging call with me. You can also on that website, get my freebie, which is how to write compelling copy in five minutes flat. If you are just still wanting to DIY it, that would be the best freebie that you can get. Thank you so much. I definitely add the links to the show notes.

So is there anything else you wish I would have asked you?  All that you wanted to talk about,  not that I can think of. I mean, the main thing I just want to get across is that like, it's hard to write your own copy because of the bottle effect. And so  it's almost like the, the better writer you are, the harder it is because you think you should be able to do it yourself.

And it's just.  It's really about perspective. It's not about having to muscle your way through it alone. Get help if you, if you're struggling, get help. You don't have, you know, this does not have to be hard.  But thank you. That was really, really inspiring. I definitely put it back on my to do list, filming a video, creating the script.

And also for my saves pages, because even then, yeah, yeah, yeah. It will make a difference. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It was really fun.