- Many years ago I was speaking at
an internet marketing conference.
And it was a two-day conference.
We had a group of amazing speakers
and I was actually the first speaker.
I was first speaker in day one.
And after my presentation, I sat down,
front-row seat, kind of VIP, sitting at the front,
and I would just pay attention and take notes.
And the second speaker came up on stage
and about halfway through his presentation,
I stood up and walked towards the very back of the room.
And people thought, is Dan leaving?
Is he going back to his hotel room? Which could be the case,
'cause I spent a lot of energy in the first segment, right,
during my speech.
But that was not the case, I was actually walking towards
the back to sign-up for the speaker's education,
because he had an offer that he was talking about.
Now, no one moved, I was the first one to move.
And the staff was asking me, well,
"Dan, you don't know what the offer is yet," right?
I said, "It doesn't matter, here's my credit card,
"put it on my credit."
He said, "But you don't even know how much it is yet."
"You don't know is it a workshop,
"is it a group of DVDs, what kind of package,
"is it a book, you don't know what it is."
I said, "It doesn't matter, just put it on my credit card."
And he did.
After I finish filling the form, and everything, right?
I walk back, sat down, front-row seat,
taking notes again.
And I did the same thing for the third speaker,
fourth speaker, and the rest of the speakers that day,
I bought everybody's education.
And at the end the staff,
one of the staff couldn't help it, he said,
"Dan, I don't understand, like
"why are you investing and buying all these courses?"
"Like don't you teach internet marketing?"
"I mean, you're an expert on this subject."
"I mean, look, I saw your presentation,
"I saw your screenshot, I mean,
"you make millions of dollars online.
"Why are you buying all these courses?"
I looked at him and as I reply, I said, "You know,
"duh, how do you think I get to be successful?"
"Because I invest in myself," right?
I'm always investing in myself,
I'm always looking for that edge.
So how do you tell good story?
There is a story.
Let me give you three secrets today.
When it comes to storytelling,
one of the best way to draw people in
is not just telling them, hey, you should do this,
you should do that, and you should listen to me,
and this is what you must do.
A much more powerful way, more persuasive way
to do it is to share the same lesson, but in a story.
So three keys, first secret is, time and location.
With any good story, you'll notice a lot
of fairytale starts off with what,
once upon a time, once upon a time.
So if you can take the viewer, you can take your audience
to a place, a time and place when this happens,
and you wanna be very specific.
You don't just be like, okay,
that kinda happened so many years ago.
No, you wanna kinda take them to that place.
You wanna set the tone, and set that stage.
So in the beginning of my story I share with you,
many years ago, I was speaking
at an internet marketing conference.
So I wanna create that mental image,
oh, you can visualize, imagine me on stage,
and speaking to a large group of people, right?
That's setting the stage, time and location.
Number two is you want to be very specific in your story.
I like to use dialogs, because dialogs are so powerful
in storytelling, it pulls the readers,
you put the
the listener, the reader,
right into the middle of the scenario.
Put in the comment, how many of you could see,
visualize me talking to someone in the back
of the room about the incident,
about what happens, right?
He was asking me question.
So dialogs immediately puts your listener right
in the middle of the action, very powerful thing to do.
And number three, just with any good story, right?
Secret number three is what's the moral of the story?
What's the transformation?
What's the one take-away that you want the listener to have?
In my case, is invest in yourself.
And it's invest yourself when you don't even have to.
That's the key, that's what makes people,
that's the difference between someone
who is unsuccessful and some who is successful, right?
Over the years, I've learned,
people who need information don't seem to be seeking it.
Guess who are the ones who don't invest in information?
The ones who are struggling financially.
The ones who are successful,
we're always investing in ourselves.
So that's the moral of the story.
So three secrets to brilliant storytelling.
So comment below, tell me how you're gonna apply this.
Next time maybe you are closing,
maybe you're righting a piece of copy,
maybe you are doing a speech,
how could you apply these three simple secrets
in your next communication, your next message,
your next speech, your next communication piece,
let me know.