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FLETCHER: And so I’ve got a story here, it was actually an article within one of the trade magazines for insurance sales. And Bo Eason is being interviewed and Bo Eason was a former NFL quarterback for the Houston [34:02 oilers] got hurt, jumped out of the NFL pretty early, didn’t have a lot of accomplishments. If you are not familiar with who he is it doesn’t surprise me. But the name of the article is telling no story, no glory. It takes a tough guy to get tender with a personal story and a former NFL player Bo Eason is just the man to do it.

But he goes on to say, “The greatest story never told for most advisers, for most real estate agents, for most business professionals is their own. We tend to take or stories for granted, “Oh, I’m just Ryan what really do I have to offer? I just grew up in this little town of Vancouver Washington, it’s not like it’s New York or San Francisco. It’s not San Diego, it rains here 9 months out of the year. I’ve got a family just like everybody else and a brother, sister. Yeah, I’ve got this is a company, it’s not on the Inc. 500 list, it’s not a Fortune 500, I am not the CEO, I am not…” And we tend to undercut ourselves. But it’s the story that is always been used to lead nations, to move armies, to connect with others, nothing is more powerful than story because it engages people, it brings them into a word that you can create.

The other and the flip side of this is this is what people remember. So there is a saying I have it here, “if you teach me something I will forget it in 24 hours. If you tell me a story I will hold you in my heart forever.” So your authentic personal story, this is what makes people fall in love with you. And it drives me nuts that the guru party, that they don’t preach this. So if I go to almost every real estate agent website right now and I go to the, “About me” link, “Oh, Ryan Fletcher was a long time Vancouver resident who grew up here, went to high school in Vancouver blah blah blah.” There is no story, there is no character development, there is no personal narrative. If I pulled that bio, could we create a movie around it? Could I write a screenplay with that character? The answer is no, I couldn’t.

And so one of the 1st things that you should always look at is when you go out into the marketplace, how are you being perceived? And you have the ability if you think of yourself as a character that’s going to be developed in your own screenplay to script that movie however it is that is going to be most magnetic to the people that you want to attract.

And so in this article Bo Eason he goes, “Once Bo hooks you in…” And this is the writer talking, “Once Bo hooks you in, he takes you on an emotional ride that ends with you running with him onto the field under the roar of the crowd ready for battle. You are there with him because it’s how he tells his story.” Again, it goes back to engaging people.

Now I’ve always said I don’t sell, I just tell stories. And so those closest to me, I repeat this all the time. I never sell I just tell stories. I don’t ever do one-to-one presentations, I just write something in story format, I put it out to the marketplace, they read it and the response is, “I hate this guy,” which is fine or, “I love this guy. I like how this guy thinks. He thinks like I think. He believes what I believe. He’s overcome the same obstacle that I have had to overcome. He’s faced with the same challenge that I’ve faced. He’s achieved what I want to achieve.”

And so about 4 years ago… And see when I 1st got into copywriting I would buy all sorts of products and services for people and I would read the sales letter. Now I don’t give 2 shits about the sales letter. I just want to understand if I connect with the person. I don’t care what is promised in the sales letter because I pretty much assume it’s all bullshit. So I looked down at the beliefs, “Who is this person?” Who is his authentic self? What are the stories that he tells?” Don’t promise me another 30 listings, I want to know who you are as a person. Don’t promise me a seven-figure business with a 7th level team, anybody can do that. Tell me what you believe. And that only happens through a story.

It goes on to say, “Out of the 7 billion people on this planet the one thing that differentiates you is you, is your story.” And so when you start to think about this and if you go back to the protector video series again home of the protector.com, you will find a number of these types of stories which are called defining moments or turning point stories. And so most people will have 10 or 20 or 30 experiences or stories within their life that have changed the course of the decision-making process.

When I was offered the job for example as a junior copyrighted to go study with the best copywriters in the world and work for Agoura Inc. which again if you’re not familiar with it would be the equivalent of Rolls-Royce in the newsletter publishing direct marketing world. I had a decision to make; move 3000 miles away, leave everything I’ve ever known, my family, my wife. Now my wife was going to move down 6 months later, she was a teacher at the time she had to finish out the school year but I had to gamble. I had a choice. Because they pay down there was a pittance, merely livable but I chose to move 3000 miles away. If I didn’t make that choice and I didn’t move what would have happened? I don’t know okay but it is a turning point, it is a defining moment. And everybody has those in their life. Again we tend to take them for granted but it’s of those types of moments when you capture that in a story that builds relationships.

And so everybody, the guru party they preach, “This is a relationship business, this is a relationship business.” And then they tell you to send out a one size fits all newsletter. That’s not relationship building! There is no store in there that is unique and personal to you that builds your character! How is “9 ways to winterize my pipes” possibly going to resonate with my reader? Just because you quote unquote touch them you’re not building a relationship.

My in law every once in a while comes over and he is here and I wish he would go home. Same exact thing happens with a one size fits all newsletter; why does he send me this shit? Okay how about the recipe card? How about a fridge magnet? Oh, we will build a relationship, we will send them more of it; 33 of these worthless, useless quote unquote touches no, okay when people talk about relationship here is what the relationship does, you have to extrapolate it backwards so you can get the core of engineering it. A relationship is nothing more than a series of connections. A connection is nothing more than an experience or a belief that you share with someone. And the way that you convey this experience, the motion, the drama, how you would react, how you responded, how you felt, how you thought or this belief about something, maybe it’s about politics and you have a particular stance. I hate Barack Obama, see when I say that statement there are people on this podcast going, “Ha, ha, ha, I am right there with you. I hate that guy too, I can’t stand to look at him.” That’s a belief. Sometimes it does need to be any more than that, a simple sentence. But more times than not, it’s a story.

How did you stumble upon this belief? How did you come to believe what you believe? Or this experience, how did going through this experience change your thought process to lead to the belief that you now have? And the more of the stories you tell, the more of these beliefs and experiences you convey, the more connections that you make, the stronger the relationship you foster.

And so one of these turning point stories that Bo talks about in this article, I decided at the age of 9 that it was never going to happen to me again. And now what he was talking about is when he was 9 he was cut from his little league baseball team. I didn’t even know you could be cut from a little league baseball team. In today’s day and age, not only do you not get caught but everybody gets a trophy and there is no such thing as failure or losing [43:37 inaudible]. But apparently when Bo Eason, he is 53 now, was going up, back when people were a bit tougher, not everybody was seen as a little mush cookie, they cut the little leaguers.

And so he got caught and he goes, “That day I decided   at the age of 9 that that was never going to happen to me ever again. No one was ever going to cut me from any team or anything else I had ever given, that was more than 40 years ago and my life is based on that painful moment still today. I played professional football, I played college football, I played high school football, I played in primary school, I would not let them cut me because of the pain I experienced when I was 9.”

See when you tell the story, it conveys where he gets his work ethic. He’s going to go the extra mile, he is not going to quit, he is going to sacrifice because he decided when he was 9 years old that he was never again going to experience this pain. Okay Michael Jordan, you often hear this, he always talks about the story of when he got cut from his high school basketball team twice! See, pain is one of those universal things that people can connect with okay and it’s about the journey, it’s not about the punch line.

And so he is talking in this article, “If I climbed Mount Everest I wouldn’t stop there. , “Hey, I climbed Mount Everest,” no, no, no! I would start this story at the bottom of the mountain. Why did you even want to climb Mount Everest? What’s the story behind that? When you got to base camp what was that like? When you got two thirds way up the mountain, your finger started to turn black, did you quit? You are 100 feet from the summit you can barely breathe, your legs weigh 3000 pounds, you know you could die, do you turn back? Did the shipper have to carry you? You made it to the summit, what was that like? What did you learn from that experience that you apply to your clients and their success? Okay it’s the journey, it’s not the punch line. You always want to figure out a way to bring these people on a journey with you.

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