What do you do when you feel like marketing isn’t your strength?

Even though you may not feel as though marketing is your greatest strength, there is one simple step that you can take to make it WAY easier than you may have imagined.

One of the best ways, possibly the world’s greatest way, to market your business, is by selling through stories.

Share the stories of your clients

When you and I become focused on helping our clients get results, that helps us to craft better stories.

This is not necessarily about marketing you. Share the stories and the transformations that your clients are experiencing as a result of the product or service you are providing.

I like to think of it as celebrating your customers and your audience. Celebrate the transformation that they are experiencing and the results that they are getting.

   

Better results = Better stories to tell

Better stories = Easier Marketing

 

If our clients get better results, then we have better stories to tell. And, that helps us with our marketing efforts.

Let me show you what I mean…

I’d like to introduce you to Patty Palmer.

While working as an art teacher, Patty started her own blog. She wanted a place to showcase the work of her students for their parents.

Over time, art teachers began to find her blog and they had TONS of questions for Patty.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘Can I have it?’

So, she started to sell one-off lessons to teachers all over the country.

This only resulted in even more questions.

‘Which product do I buy?’

‘What do I do first?’

‘Is there a course?’

Then Patty considered starting an online membership to help other art teachers.

“I started to understand what a membership model not only could do for me, but how it could help all of my readers and customers.” ~Patty Palmer

 

Fast forward just one year and Patty had a thriving community of over 900 members.

Today, that number continues to grow as Patty helps teachers, all over the world, create an art program for their needs.

Do you see how that story might make someone want to start a membership site of their own?

It’s not just the story, but the way the story is told as well. There are a couple of things to note about selling through stories. Notice, that neither my name or TRIBE are even mentioned in this story of Patty Palmer.

There’s a clear distinction between a testimonial and a case study.

 

The first thing that is important to know is that a testimonial and a case study are two separate and distinctly different things.

A testimonial would say something like, “Stu is amazing. Stu is awesome!” or “TRIBE is amazing. TRIBE is awesome!”  (Which, by the way, it is.)

That’s a testimonial, right?

A testimonial will praise you and your product or service.

A case study, however, is about the person you are featuring.

It’s not about you. It’s about them.

Now, will they mention you and will they mention your product?

Sure, but it is a totally different thing.

 

It’s about them. It’s about their story and about their transformation.

 

That’s a really important distinction to make. When it comes to selling through stories, people are far less likely to share a testimonial.

However, people love to share a good story. And, if you make it easy for them to share through social media, it is even more likely that they will share it.

Most importantly, your clients and potential customers will resonate more with a great case study story.

 

People will resonate more with case studies.

 

You will notice that case studies are positioned differently.

They are positioned to sell the benefit of whatever we are selling, but it’s not positioned to sell the actual product or even to sell me as the creator.

It’s all about the client’s story. It’s all about creating connection points throughout that story that your audience would be able to relate to.

That is the most important thing when you’re selling through stories.

The fact is, when your clients get results, they have a better story to tell. And, better stories make it WAY easier for you to market and grow your business.

So, at the end of the day, if you want to market yourself and your products easily, celebrate the success of your customers.

You and I want to be focused on helping our clients get results.

If we do that, we’ve got better stories to tell. And if we’ve got better stories to tell about our clients, our marketing becomes a whole lot easier.

Check out Patty’s Case study to see this in action. I hope it gives you lots of ideas on how you can share the success stories of your clients.