Jeff Ross (00:16.15)
All right. looks like we're live. Cool. Cool. All right. We're just about to do a live podcast episode here. And I thought we'd just do it live in the group here. Do a bit of a quick coaching episode around storytelling. So let me just make sure the tech's working here. Fine. We can do a bit of a Q and A as well. So this is an impromptu, not planned, not scripted conversation, just some thoughts off the top of my head here. And so every week I'm going to be jumping in here Monday or Tuesday.
doing a quick coaching episode here. And this is gonna be hosted on our Laptop Lifestyle Dad's podcast. So let me just set up the framework to make sure everything's working cool and let's get started. And I'll just do a bit of a pause here for the editing purposes. And hey, if you're watching the replay, if you're joining us live, let us know where you're tuning in from. Let's get this party started. Well, good day guys. It's Jeff Ross here from the Laptop Lifestyle Dad Show. Just jumping into this week's quick coaching.
episode. And today we're going to be talking about the power of storytelling, know, crafting your irresistible invite to come check out your amazing opportunity, your amazing product, your amazing blah, blah, blah. You know, so today we're talking about how to frame a story that basically takes people through your sucksville to awesome town journey, your before state to the after
because hey, we're all selling one form or another of transformation. And so how do we express our amazing products and amazing opportunities in a story format? And this is one of those key things that have helped me with my, my, you know, attraction marketing journey, you know, leading with the power of story to people to see them. Me too. Yes, that is me. Yes. I can relate to that pain. Yes. I can relate to that challenge.
I would love to know how you got to the other side of that. What are the answers? So story does matter. Story is a powerful, powerful tool. so learning how to craft a story to be able to invite people into the next stage of your customer value journey is a very powerful asset. So I wanted to break down the framework of story. And there's all different stories that we can use in this space, but I wanted to just spend some time
Jeff Ross (02:43.256)
the framework that I've come to realize that is a very powerful tool in itself to help you to craft your irresistible invite and turn you into a magician when it comes to storytelling. But let me just give you a couple of quick examples around that and just share a couple of stories and then we'll break them down and we'll unpack them stage by stage. So, are the two stories that I wanna share with you that I find myself sharing.
time and time again, depending on what it is and who it is I'm talking to. So getting clarity on your audience and their needs, know, niching down is very important to understanding how to craft a story. Cause if you don't know your audience intimately, how can you craft a story that's going to take them from Sucksville to Awesome Town, the before state versus the after state, unless you know the journey.
that they need to take, right? This is the hero's journey type story. I'm not going to go into the framework of a hero's journey. That's a whole nother conversation for another day, but I just want to keep simplified, right? So keep it simple. Superstar is definitely the, the, principle here to be able to help you to be able to craft an amazing story. So two examples, right? Let's just talk about our little online church that Sarah and I has started and basically the story that I use to help invite people.
to come check this out. And so you'll see the framework here for a story. What it does is it allows you to invite people to the next stage. So you share a story, invite, share a story, invite, share a story, invite to the next stage of the customer value journey, whether that be the awareness, the engagement, the community building stage, the list building stage, the tripwire offer, the core offer, whatever it is.
You can use these stories throughout to help your people navigate through your customer, through your proven predictable pipeline to be able to help grow a maze in the community and monetize that off the back of your personal brand, right? So Sarah and I, started an online church there four months ago. And there's an amazing story that I just want to share with you here to basically how we've been able to get this online church in eight different countries.
Jeff Ross (05:00.558)
75 people in the Facebook group now we've got three small groups. We've got our first online baptism happening very shortly. You know, that's some amazing impact and some amazing results off the back of story of just sharing some amazing stories with people just like we are with you now. And the framework essentially is let's look back, let's get clear of the transitional point, let's look forward and then the invitation. So, you know, here's my story. So,
Basically 10 years ago, I was an atheist and I got to a point in my life where it was just depressed, very dark. And I got to the point where I was actually almost suicidal. I did actually try to commit suicide and you know, my marriage was on the breakdown. We were on the verge of divorce. I was so angry. I was verbally abusive to my wife day in, day out. Not proud of that fact, but life was just really, really hard,
And I got to the point thinking in my life that my family and my loved ones would be better off without me. So I actually did. I got to a point where about 10 years ago I had the bottle of Jemisin's in one hand, I had the bottle of opioids and the heavy painkiller drugs that I was on at 2 a in the morning, about to just finish it off. And my two -year -old son at the time, Harrison, he walked in and he looked up with these big brown eyes and he said, Dad, what are you doing?
And that stopped me in my tracks in that very moment. And I basically fell to my knees and I just gave, you know, gave him such a great big hug and, you know, and just cried. It's two o 'clock till six o 'clock in the morning, just crying and sobbing my eyes out. You know, and my beautiful wife at the time walked in and she just, you know, saw Harrison cry, basically asleep on my shoulder whilst I was just crying my eyes out and,
I couldn't tell her what happened at that stage and what was going on. just couldn't stop crying. Anyway, two weeks later, I mentioned this story to my business coach at the time and she said, right, well, you've got to come introduce you to my mate Tim because I believe that he can help you. Tim was a senior pastor of the church at the time. And I grew up in an atheistic family. So I didn't know anything about this spiritual side of this conversation.
Jeff Ross (07:21.046)
the, the, what I thought at the time, the religious side of this conversation, I was actually very repellent against it. You know, so much so my wife, you know, you know, with her background and her story, you know, she tried to take me to a Catholic church two weeks prior to this whole episode, because she was trying to bring God into my life. Cause she knew that's what I needed, but didn't know how to go about it. And, know, I actually, you know, I chucked a little two year old, three year old, hissy spit in the middle of mass. And you know, the top of my lungs screamed
I don't want any of this God stuff in my life ever again. you know, tried this, done this is not for me. And we're never going back to church ever again. It's funny, you know, that how, know, as I mentioned this story to my good friend and business coach at the time, how, you know, God uses people in our lives to be able to just get through the cracks, to get into the love and, you know, just to help transform us from the inside
And so I got mentioned to Tim and I said to Tim, said, man, I don't know anything about this God stuff or this, this, this fella by name of Jesus, but I've tried everything the world has to offer. And I'm open to learning more and exploring this, you know, what have I got to lose? You know, I basically got to the point that, you know, trying to keep up with the Joneses and, the other tall poppy syndrome and everything else, try to do it on my own steam. And it's
been failure after failure after failure. So I've got to try something different, right? So I went on a journey with Tim and he started discipling me. We went through Bible discovery and, you know, I learnt very early on what it was like to be in relationship with Jesus. Not just the religion side of thing, but deep, meaningful, impactful relationship and learning how to read the Bible in a way that I could see the lessons that it was there for us in an intimate way. So through that, you know,
understanding how to read the Bible and through that discipleship journey with my good mentor and friend Tim, I decided, you know, six weeks into that journey, I've got nothing else to lose. I've tried it the world's way. Why not, you know, go all in? So I gave my life to Jesus and one of the best decisions I ever made, because now looking at back, you know, on this 10 year journey before my life with Jesus, it was dark, it was depressive. It was, you know, I got to the point where I did try to kill myself.
Jeff Ross (09:42.798)
I found Jesus through relationship and through discipleship and understanding how to apply his ways to his lives, to my life, to be able to restore my heart and renew my mind. Now on the other side of this coin, life is full of joy, it's full of peace, it's full of so much purpose. And I'm just on fire now that my wife and I just want to be able to help people learn how to love themselves like I learned to love myself.
learn how to find out what their strengths and their self -identity in that space and the way that God has created them, just like I did. Now to be able to help learn people to learn how to love God in that process and how to love our fellow friends and neighbors as well. So much so that Sarah and I just can't help, but you know, go share this with the world that we started an online church called Today's Discipleship Community. And we only just started that three months ago.
And we have loved for you, Dave, to see if this is a good fit for you. If we could show you a way to be able to help you to transform your life through Jesus's love by learning how to love yourself, learning how to love others, would you be open to learning more? And so that's about a pretty powerful story, right? And so I've gone through my dark days of my journey. So the before state.
I've talked about the transitional points and how I was able to come to that point of the cross, to speak, and transition and cross over to now the awesome town state and the after effect. then basically, you know, summarize that with an invite. You know, if I could show you a way to learn how to love yourself and to learn how to love your neighbors and learn how to love God, would you be open to learning more? See, that's the framework
any powerful story, right? So let's read, reframe that story. You know, let's talk about something that's a little bit more about making money online and, and, you know, helping you to build your business. And it's the same framework, right? So I doubt 18 months ago, I came across the AI and you know, I basically threw myself into learning how to use chat GPT. Now I have a background of digital marketing for the last, you know, 14 years. And I thought to myself,
Jeff Ross (11:58.594)
You know, I'm pretty good at this stuff. I built funnels and I've built websites and you know, I've managed millions of dollars in ads and Facebook ads and turn that into, you know, millions of dollars of revenue. and so I know a thing or two about marketing and I'll throw myself into this world of AI and, and see how I can really leverage it myself. And because some of the challenges that I faced, even, even with all of the know -how around marketing, I still faced, you
inconsistency problem with my content, overwhelmed problems with my content and writer's block, left, right and center. So I could see people using AI as a way to tool to be able to help solve that challenge. And look, when I threw myself into AI and not knowing how to really do it, not being taught, just threw myself into the deep end. And I got in there and I started, you know, crafting out these little prompts with ChatGPT. And I thought, yes, I've found a tool that's going to help me solve these problems.
And I was sorely disappointed, you know, like the, basically, the content that chat GPT gave me was, was pretty woeful. It's like, can write better than this. It's pretty, pretty robotic. And, know, and I actually got on, you know, off of that conversation, with chat GPT got on YouTube and I, and I created a video saying, stay away from AI. It's going to ruin your business. It's not going to support you in any way. It's, it's, it's, it's a replacement, not a tool. And it doesn't have heart and it doesn't have your tone.
Anyway, so I saw other people talking about how they could use AI to make them sound like them, speak like them and be a tool, be an asset. And I thought, hang on, what have I missed? You know, so I swallowed some humble pie and I went into a deep dive and came across a couple of coaches in this space. And I learnt the whole impact of AI to be able to use it as an asset, not as a replacement, to be able to enhance us, to be able to support
you need to put great stuff in, not, you know, and so you get great stuff out. If you just put garbage in, you don't give it the foundation that it needs, then how can it support you? You know, we had to learn how to use AI as a tool and we had to educate it like a kindergarten child. And as we did, you know, it started to mature and it started to become more supportive in that space. And I started to create an amazing content that positioned me as an expert copywriter, that positioned me
Jeff Ross (14:21.326)
as an expert attraction marketer because I understood my audience intimately and I was able to work out how I could serve them, not just tell them, how I was able to show them what to be able to do in that space. And off the back of that journey, I started the five day AI social selling and mastery bootcamp, so social selling and AI mastery bootcamp. And fast forward to today, 11 months into that journey, I've now written a book in this space.
focusing on serving attraction marketing for social selling, social selling attraction marketing for affiliate and network marketers. You know, so much so now I've got clarity on my message. I've got clarity on my purpose. I've just launched a podcast. We've launched a book where we just come off the back of our 11th bootcamp. I've got my own signature program starting to be recognized as emerging thought leader in this space. And it all come off the back
you know, learning how to master AI. So that's what I'm on fire for now. And I just love to be able to help others do the same thing as the whole learn, do teach model and not the positioning of that. I'm now in the space where I can teach you how to master social selling and AI and these amazing tools. So, you know, if I could show you a way to help you
you know, create a personal brand to help you to nail your niche and master your message, to help you to grow an amazing community and ways to strategies on how to monetize that community. Would you be open to learning more? See, I've just gone through my own story there around the AI journey. And then I basically wrapped it up with an invite again, right? So, you know, it's the basically it's the before state where people can relate to the pain and the challenges that you have to go through.
to the transitional point on how you discovered the solutions and even the pain inside that solution as well and the depth of that to now the Ars of Effect, the Awesome Town story and then framing all of that up in a summary in an invite. If I could show you X, Y, Z, the benefits of Awesome Town, if I could show you how I avoided, and received,
Jeff Ross (16:43.454)
X, Y, Z for the benefit. like, if I could show you the how to avoid the pain that I went through in the before state and show you the results and the impact of the awesome town staff, would you be open to learning more? If I could show you X, Y, Z, would you be open to learning more? That question is a million dollar question when you frame it up with the right story. You know, looking at the before state, looking at the transitional point.
looking at the after state, know, sucks Phil versus awesome town story. And when you can get this framework right, you can go promote ice to an Eskimo. You can go and promote just about whatever product or opportunity or whatever service it is that you want to do. You know, for example, like with our massage clinic that my beautiful wife just closed the doors on because our young son has MS and mom needed to step up
in that space and be mum more, not just massage Sarah. You know, backward, I reflect back though, the thing that made that business so successful was the story. You know, we'd moved to Launceston with no family support. You know, Sarah was a remedial massage therapist, but even still, you know, like with the family of three, no family support. One of the very first things that goes is your own wellness journey, is your own, you know, looking after your own body.
And we know as parents, it's very hard to operate out of an empty cup versus a full cup if you're not looking after yourself. you know, we thought when we started Sarah's Massage Clinic, what could we do to be able to help solve this problem? we put a kids' crèche in, you know, and so we created a massage center in Tasmania, the only massage center in Tasmania with a kids' crèche. And it was a hit. It was a huge hit because...
We understood the pain that the moms and dads faced if they couldn't look after, you know, get someone to look after their kids. So we solved that problem. So much so that solving that problem got Sarah recognized in three years in business. She was up for three major business awards with the Telstra business awards here for the state of Tasmania. She made it to the final stage. And so like, if I could show you a way to be able to help you to promote your business through the power of story, would you be open to learning more?
Jeff Ross (19:00.824)
So I've just positioned using Sarah's story as an example of how power of story has helped her and then invited you to this stage of if I could show you, so I set myself up as the authority, if I could show you X, Y, Z, would you be open to learning more? So it's pretty awesome tool guys. So I look forward to seeing what your story is, but let's start with the why. know, Simon Sinek start says start with the why because it starts to tap into our buying psychology.
around the flight or flight response. And yes, I'm here to help you and not harm you. And the way that we can do that straight away is by sharing stories that basically you show people, I've been there. I know where you are. It's the me too factor, right? And I'll, the way, I've escaped that. And through that, be starting with the why behind storytelling, it allows us to have that emotional connection.
because of that me too factor. It becomes memorable because of that me too factor. And it builds trust through this element because, you know, people go through that flight or flight response and I'm here to help you not harm you. And we trust people who have gone through similar experiences. So it's a trust building exercise to start with the before state, but start with from a why, why are you telling this story?
You know, and then we go into basically just to recap, it's the look back, it's the before state. It's the paint a picture of what your sucksville looked like. You know, describe the pain points and the challenges that you faced through that pain point, through that sucksville state. And then you got to transition now. So you just can't jump from sucksville to awesome town. You need to explain to people, what was that transition? What was that crossover point?
You know, that moment of change or discovery, you you heard about my coming to faith story was I got to a point in my life. was so low. I shared this. I shared my heart with my business coach. She introduced me to Tim. Tim started going into that journey of discipleship. Right. So it was that transitional point. It's the same with the coaching business. It was the same with Sarah's business. You know, what was that, that transitional point, that moment of change versus discovery?
Jeff Ross (21:23.874)
Then that's when you then introduce the solution, the product, the opportunity. Now we don't focus on the benefits and the features of the product or opportunity. What did I focus on? I focused on the impact, the outcome that those products and opportunity, those things gave us. So introduce your product and opportunity. then this is now where we dive into the future and the after result.
You know, so like the thing now we're looking at here is awesome town and we're looking at the impact and benefits of awesome town, not the features we're unpacking, not just the surface level of the benefit, but the outcome of those transformational results. know, Ryan Dice, that I learnt this from, from digitalmarketer .com, says, we're all selling one thing. We're selling transformation.
It doesn't matter whether it's promoting an online church, whether it's promoting a, a, a, a social selling coaching business, you know, a podcast, a massage center, whatever it is, we're all selling transformation. So, you know, if you can now then take this framework and you can bullet point this and then use chat CPT to, help you to establish this framework, you can now go and create an amazing story.
Now, the story is great, but unless you've got the what's next step, the invite to take people into the next stage of your journey, to get them to say, yes, me, I would love to know more about how you did that, then the story is just a story. But we want to be able to now use this as a promotional tool, as a way to empower, as a way to equip, as a way to inspire people to take action themselves.
You know, so this is communication and marketing 101. And I found that the perfect framework for an invitation, because sharing the story is great. It helps you to relate. It helps you to connect. It helps you to resonate. But it's the invite. It's the most powerful part of this. The story sets the tone. The story gets people to pay attention, you know, because we're all very distracted. So the story grabs people's attention. But then once you've got their attention and you've got that, this guy's or that
Jeff Ross (23:43.722)
solve that problem, how did they do it? Now this is the invite. We don't share the how, we basically show them the why, we show them the what's possible, the how is what they come to you for, the how comes to you via an invite. And basically keep this very simple as well, and you wanna make sure you're connecting it back to your story, but essentially the framework for the invite is, if I could show you X, Y, Z, if I could show you how to avoid
XYZ pain to get ABC benefit, you know, would you be open to learning more? You know, ask an open ended question, but tailor in a way that you're getting people to say yes. Like if you put this story and this message in front of the right person, why would they be closed to learning more? You know, people don't even the most skeptical minds out there want to don't want to admit that they're closed.
You know, don't want to admit that they're close minded. Don't want to admit that they're close hearted. They'll be open to exploring more to see if it's a fit. You know, so I've found if I could show you a way to go do X, Y, Z, would you be open to learning more? And you could back that up with say, would you be open to learning more to see if this is a good fit for you? You know, and I found that framework to a very amazing invitation is, one of the most powerful tools that you can have in this space.
So guys, use the power of transformation in your story. It's the before versus after narratives. It's not the victimhood story. It's the victor story. Use the lessons that you came out of it. Use the impact and the outcome and focus on those. Set up the story to be able to help you to set up for the invite into the next stage. know, like basically our online church, the next stage is come and join our Facebook group. You know,
the laptop lifestyle, dad's communities, join our Facebook group, listen to our podcast, come and join our five day social selling and AI master bootcamp to learn the how component, right? So focus on how the highlight, how, so how the changes highlighted throughout the journey and use examples of effective transformation throughout your stories. And that'll be able to help you to basically get people to say, yes, me, I'd love to know more. So
Jeff Ross (26:06.51)
Guys, take this framework, go run it through chat GPT, have a bit of a play with it and drop them in the comments. I'd love to be able to support you in that space because knowledge on ice is useless. I'd rather see ignorance on fire, you know, and basically that's been my whole story through the last 16 years of my entrepreneurial journey is I've learned these things and then I've gotten implemented. I've gotten taken action and applied the lessons straight away, you know, and just through that.
I've been able to learn how to file forward and file forward fast. Right. anyhow, guys, that's all I had for today's quick coaching episode. Just wanted to come in here and start to educate on the power of the framework of storytelling, because I've come to, to realize that a lot of people need to know how to craft an amazing story. So I love to know in the comments below, please let me know what was the key light bulb moment, the insight that you learned from today's quick coaching episode.
And so, but thank you very much for your time. We'll call it a wrap and I look forward to seeing you on the next Laptop Lifestyle Dad Show quick coaching episode. So we've got our interviews coming up on a Friday. So basically we've got two episodes coming out a week. We've got one, which is a quick coaching episode. We've got another one, which is an interview where I'm going out there and I'm interviewing social selling and AI mastery experts. Guys, we've got an awesome roundup of interviews coming your way.
And I can't wait for the next episodes that come out in this space. And, and, if you're an expert and you'd love to jump on our podcast, please reach out. And we'd love to interview in that space because I see that especially in the AI world. That there is this so much misinformation. There's so much overwhelming information. And the reason for this podcast and the interviews was to be able to empower, to be able to equip, to be able to help people master this AI.
an attraction marketing game and I'm just playing, stepping up and playing my part to be able to serve in that space. So thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode and bye for now. All right guys, well, thank you very much. I can see Dave and Brian that you guys joined in live. Really, really appreciate you. Anybody else who's watching this live later on, just let me know. Sorry, watching the replay. Got any questions here to support
Jeff Ross (28:28.942)
And, yeah, so once a week, we're going to be doing a little bit of a quick coaching episode like this. And, my good mate, Dave, he's going to be doing the editing and all of that sort of things to get that published on our podcast. And I thought this was just a great way to, to, sort of two birds with one stone, if you will. and just duplicate on, on leveraging the content for the, for this, not just doing it for the sake of doing it, but yeah, doing it from a teaching and coaching point of view, just little soundbites. So that was the power of story.
and how you can craft an amazing story through that framework to be able to invite people into your next opportunity. And hey guys, whilst I've got you, I've got our amazing friend, Jade Winsley stepping up to the plate here at 10 a today. She's gonna be hosting our VIP masterclass for the July bootcamp that we just hosted a couple of weeks ago. And so this VIP masterclass that she's hosting is teaching people how to create amazing funnels using system IO.
and AI to be able to now start looking at ways to turn people into leads for your email list. And really looking forward to Jade stepping up on the plate and getting on the launch pad and hosting an amazing VIP masterclass. And also coming up, we've got Dave Smith from UniPro coming in to be able to host an amazing masterclass as well, teaching us how his amazing tool
is able to help us to, you know, create amazing conversations and amazing engagement and amazing relationships with our ideal prospects and how to automate this journey. So it's not done so organically. So can't wait for Dave to come in and share his expertise now when it comes to the Facebook algorithm and learning how to, you know, really use Facebook as an amazing tool to market our businesses. He's one of my go -to guys that I learned a lot from in this space as well.
you know, and basically who's mentoring me in this space. And I can't wait to bring on Dave Smith for that masterclass. You'd like the details for that? Just put in a comment below. We'll send you out the event details. They are hosted in our Facebook group. And we've got a lot more masterclasses like this coming up throughout the next few weeks. We've got Sarah Chevrolet coming in to do a branding masterclass. I've got Austin Armstrong coming in in a couple of weeks to do a faceless video masterclass with his amazing tools.
Jeff Ross (30:50.9)
and some other experts coming up in this space as well, as well as our podcast interviews and all of that. And I've just been invited to speak on a virtual event with the LA Tribune podcast network, the Tech Week, that's coming up towards the end of August. So I'll be announcing that throughout our journey as well. So guys, this is just going next level. Our influence is growing here. We're able to get
some attention of some pretty powerful players here to be able to just add more value to this amazing community. And we're just looking for ways to go now from good to great and very excited to be on this journey with you. And I can't wait to see you on our next masterclass. All right, guys, bye for now and have a great day.