Transcription
Why is it that most people struggle to make money from YouTube videos, even though they do everything you're taught, like making funnels and using ads, whilst other people like Dan Co, Brian Johnson, and myself can generate millions from the platform?
Well, it's because they ignore the most powerful tool on the planet for views and sales and leads, where all you need to do is just tell three different types of stories, and you'll turn viewers into buyers like nothing else you've seen.
So, in this video, I'm going to give you the exact storytelling system I've used on multiple channels for years that turns viewers into buyers really fast. In fact, this thing is so powerful, I used to use it to sell out a $5,000 program every time with no sales calls, no email nurture, no ads, no webinar, no real funnel at all, other than doing what I'm about to show you, which is almost unheard of.
All right. So, for this storytelling system to work, you have to understand first why telling stories is so powerful. Or, what I'm going to do is deliver the same information now in two different ways, and then you can make your own mind up about if you bother watching the rest of the video based on it.
Okay, so I've used this first story before in a video. You might have heard it. If you have, just stick with it, and I'll explain all the power behind it later.
Okay, so option number one. I discovered this YouTube hack about 20 years ago when I had a lawn care business, and I just spilled some fertilizer that stains really badly. Now, I cleaned it up as fast as I could, got rid of the stain, but the client started souring at me, saying she just spent £50,000 on the drive and the stain was still there, and that if I couldn't fix it, I was going to have to pay for it, and I was only 18. I didn't have any money. The thing is, the stain had gone, but she insisted it was there, and that I was going to have to pay to fix it. And I was getting really angry because she was just lying. So, I left.
Two weeks later, I was working on a neighbor's lawn, and she came over, and she said, "Oh, Ed, the stain's gone. And look, sorry I was so hotheaded the other day. My son died in a car crash that morning." And my anger towards this woman just vanished in an instant. And that is when I realized that sometimes people lash out just because they're having a bad day. So don't fight the people who troll you in the comments, because you just don't know what they might be going through in their own life.
All right, so that was option number one. Now, option number two. I'm going to make my point like this. Okay, so this next YouTube hack is to not respond to the trolls in the comments, 'cause they could be having a bad day. So, just move on.
Can you feel the difference between the two? Yes, version one was longer. But version two, that's not going to make you go, "You know, it's right. Maybe I should let go." Because you can feel my old client's pain when I tell that story, and you just empathize with her so much. And I can pretty much guarantee that story will stick with you because of that, especially the next time you read a nasty comment.
So the reason storytelling is so powerful is because people don't remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel. So if we look at people like Brian Johnson, for example, the man who's trying to inch backwards, he really stirs up a lot of feelings in people. Now, some hate him for what he's trying to do, defying death, and others love him for it, but you cannot deny he makes people feel something, and it's a big, big reason for his traction.
But you're probably not looking to go front page of the global press with your business. So just consider this: If your content bores people, they remember that. But if you can give them some kind of emotional reaction, they're going to connect it to your channel and your business. And this is how you build lifelong fans that come back and buy your stuff without the need for really complex marketing.
But that's not all telling stories is going to do for your sales and your business and your channel. There's a few more reasons it's going to generate you sales.
Okay, so the first one is this. And if you ever want to land a dream client, I highly recommend doing this. So check this out. In this video, I told a story about how I'd gotten really ill, and I was fed up, and I thought, "I'm going to retire. Can't do this anymore." And then I started planning my retirement and realized that I basically had nothing else to do. And retirement is a miserable existence. So I planned out what my dream life would look like, and it basically looked like making YouTubes and helping people grow businesses. So I realized, "Well, you're basically retired now then. So if money doesn't matter to you anymore, get rid of everything you hate doing and just do what you love instead."
Now, that's in terms of stories, a pretty unrelatable problem for a lot of you. But I got emails and WhatsApps from very big influencers going, "Ed, this is exactly what I'm going through. Can we have a chat because it sounds like you figured out the answer to my biggest problem right now?"
And then this video from a few years ago I made about how I deleted all of my old videos on my channel because I thought they were bringing in the wrong audience and it was holding my channel back. And I made this video about it, and you wouldn't believe it, but all the calls that got booked in after making that were from people who had been wondering the exact same thing.
And then I made this video here where I talk about niching down and quitting my old channel. And guess what? The business that comes in is from people who are thinking about doing the same thing.
So, the next reason stories are just so powerful for your business is because they, firstly, they raise your credibility a lot by showing people you've solved the problem they have, like in that moment right now. But secondly, they're highly relatable and relevant because anyone going through what your story proves you've solved is going to go, "Oh, wait. This is happening to me." And that's going to hook them like nothing else and make them more likely to want to work with you when they see the story you tell about how you solved it.
On top of this, stories get people lining up to work with you because they simplify complex ideas and they make it very easy for people to learn, meaning they have those light bulb moments which blow up your sales. And then there's the fact that by telling stories about the problem viewers have, you inspire them to take action. So just think about how powerful a viewer who finally believes in themselves is versus an uninspired one for yourselves.
And then this is probably my favorite thing about stories. So if I were to say to you, "You can have a Rolex or you can have a fake Rolex. Which one do you want?" YouTube is this big game of copy what works. So what you see all the time is this. Now, I'm not having a go at these people. Please don't go commenting on their videos. They're doing what you're taught: kind of copy what works. But if you want to be the Rolex in your niche, you don't do it copying other people in such an exact way like this. Instead, what you want to do is become Cartier. So you take what works, then make it your own. So it doesn't look like a copy, but a slightly different version. Because at the end of the day, Cartier and Rolex, they make the same thing, but it still feels very different the way they do it, right?
So, because there's already so much information online, it's very unlikely that everything you say will be unique to your channel. So, the way you get around this, because sometimes we just copy by mistake, is by using unique stories that make your point. And you will have hundreds of them from your entire life. I mean, I just pulled a story out from 20 years ago when I stained someone's drive. But I'm telling you now, you're going to remember that one.
All right. So now you know why you must not sleep on them. If you want to make easier sales and you want to build viewership, let me show you how to easily get into storytelling without it taking up all your time.
So what most people think is storytelling is all about making a video like this with a big epic story from start to finish, and it's got music, it's got B-roll, it's got tons going on. Now, those are great, and I used to spend weeks working on them, but it's not really sustainable to spend weeks full-time on YouTube videos and trying to run a business. And the sustainability and the consistency is how you're going to grow the business.
So, all I do now is tell short stories in my videos to help make a point, like I've already done a few times in this video. So, what you want to do is start small. And I actually don't think you ever have to go much further than what I've been doing. And that's kind of it.
So, before I break down the three formats that can make you millions, and all of the biggest personal brands out there, they swear by these things, you need to understand the things that you have to include to turn your story into an unforgettable piece of content that grows your business. And that's the thing that makes this tricky, because people always think telling a story is what's powerful. It's not. Telling a good one is, and that is the difference between Green Lantern and Iron Man.
Okay. So, the best way to explain what makes a story that will create fans and return viewers and buyers is like this circle. You have the beginning at the top here, and you have the end down here. Now, all you need to do is ask yourself, what's the problem the hero wants to solve at the start, and then what happens here at the end?
So, in the best movie of all time, Wicked, that I've not seen three times in the theater and multiple times on TV, and never cried when Defying Gravity kicks in, Alphaba starts off where everyone kind of doesn't like her 'cause she's green and she's misunderstood, and she's dreaming of the wizard. And then the movie ends where she realizes, "Oh, she's actually okay with being hated by everyone so long as she stays true to her values," and she's now anti-wizard 'cause it turns out he was a bit of a dick all along.
Or you got Rocky, which starts here with the belief that everyone thinks he's a bum, and he's got really low self-esteem. But at the end, even though he loses, he proves his worth to himself and he gains the respect of lots of other people.
So, if we relate this to more everyday lessons, not like an epic musical that you really need to watch, your story could start with the problem that you're working, say, 12 hours a day, and you're feeling like growth requires burnout, and you have this belief that more effort equals more results. Then, in the end of your story, you're working less, you're earning more, and you're finally feeling free. And your new belief is focus, systems, and leverage equals more impact with less time. So you now only work 4 hours a day.
So a great story is just about making sure your ending puts the person it's about in a very different position to where they started. It doesn't actually matter if you succeed or you fail in this quest you go on. You just need to show some sort of lesson or transformation.
So, my story about the drive started with the problem me potentially getting sued with a very angry client that I was kind of deep down hating for the lies she was spreading about me, and it ended with me feeling the utmost empathy for her and kind of feeling bad about myself because I'd not taken the time to consider the real reason for her stress. So, my transformation here is from rage to empathy, and that's what makes that one a good story, despite the topic of it and how sad it is.
So, the next thing that makes a story really flipping powerful and really memorable, it's not that easy to find, but it's why everyone remembers The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, The Prestige, because they just totally blindside you with an epic twist at the end that you didn't expect. And that's what makes my driveway story powerful. Again, unless you've heard me tell it in my email or my older videos, there's no possible way you could have called that ending.
So, the ultimate story is when the ending has the most unexpected outcome, too. I mean, you're not sitting there going, "Oh my gosh, Ed, you spilled fertilizer. Are you okay?" You're going, "That poor woman." And you remember that lesson as a result.
And then after that, you just need to tick off a few more things which I've kind of simplified down to the very foundations. So the first works like this: Let's say you're teaching people how to make money by streaming music on Spotify. And to make your point, you tell the story of how Elon Musk makes decisions to run his 700 companies. That point might be relevant, but what you want to do is ask yourself, is Musk really that relatable to my viewers who are probably struggling to get one business off the ground?
So although inspiring and maybe interesting, I think you want to make sure your story is incredibly relatable to your viewers' own situation where they are now. So if you started with the problem your viewers have now about how you kept trying different ways to make money on Spotify by posting your music in random forums, and at the end you realize you only need to do one simple, unexpected thing that was a lot simpler to get results, you would have told a relatable story that went from where the viewer is now, confused and struggling, to thriving, and they dig that way more. Dig that 1970s here.
Also, remember what I said about how you don't want to be a fake Rolex. Well, anyone can tell the Musk story. So, to differentiate you, you're just better off using your own unique stories all of the time.
Now, the next thing that makes a great story that turns viewers into buyers is to embrace how much you sucked by telling stories that focus on your pain and problems. Never worry that you are openly saying you sucked at the thing your video is teaching, because people just gravitate to those who show vulnerability, as well as people who are relatable. But also, nobody likes the story of the rich person who had the easiest life where everything was amazing and just kept getting richer. There's no lesson. There's no transformation. It's not relatable.
So, this isn't about showing off. In fact, I'm kind of at this weird point where when something really bad happens in my business, I'm like, "Yes! This disgusting pain that's keeping me up at night will eventually turn into a fantastic story when I can fix it."
And the final thing from the foundations that's critical you do not blow. I learned this when I was making this video about split-testing thumbnails. So I basically did a challenge where I updated lots of old videos, and I learned like a hundred different things. I was really excited to like make this deep-dive story all about it. I had data on click rates and thumbnail psychology. And I was writing this and realized, "Wait a second, this is such a bad story. It's so complex. It's interesting to me at my level, but to most people, this is going to zone out." So I stripped it back to just one lesson I learned and built the entire story around that.
So the key to storytelling is to keep things simple. And that brings us on to the middle of this circle, where all you do to make your story really slap, which is a good thing apparently, is show the conflict you came up against whilst trying to get from here to here.
So our demo channel might have tried all kinds of productivity hacks and kept piling on more work and was getting really fed up. So they eventually decided to stop doing any of them and to strip it back to just one hack they mastered, and that's what worked.
So really, your circle just looks like this: Start with a problem and the relatable pain your viewers have too. Show the struggle and how you went on to solve it. End on the transformation, and then summarize the lesson. That's it. That's not too hard, right?
And here's one really important mistake you need to avoid when it does come to writing or telling this. You need to avoid saying things like this: "I was drinking a cup of tea on a Wednesday afternoon with Jeremy, who then left and plays no part in the rest of the story." If you have a line in your story and you can delete it and it doesn't impact the end, you must get rid of it. Otherwise, your viewers are going to be like, "Get to the point." So, you would delete the fact that you were drinking a cup of tea on a Wednesday afternoon with Jeremy.
So, now you know why story matters, the foundations, and how to plan one. I'm going to give you the three frameworks I've used for years now that blew up my business, built up my sales, and I'm confident they will do too for you if you get it right. And I want you to imagine these three stories are told at three different acts in your own journey.
So, act one, this separates you from everyone else in your niche. It builds credibility. It generates sales. Makes you more unique. Act two will take that to the next level, and you'll see your sales just massively increase if you use this well. And then act three is, I'd say maybe the most powerful, as you don't just separate yourself from the niche, you lead it in a way where everyone who discovers you goes, "This person is on a different level to everyone else." And that's my own personal goal with this channel, and I'm going to show you my plan to do that as well to help you work out your own.
All right. So let's start with the act one storytelling. And without this, generating sales and leads is just not going to happen. And if you don't have many clients yet, or you're newer to your niche or business, then it will pretty much be the main thing you have to rely on to get any traction at all. And it works like this.
So years ago, I was trolled a lot for talking about YouTube 'cause I had a few thousand subscribers. And I mean, that's fair. Why would you listen to someone talking about something their channel didn't look like it had done yet, right? So I was like, "Well, I need to prove I'm legit." So I told a story about how I monetized a channel in six weeks, which back then was like unheard of. And boom, millions of views. And suddenly I was less of a joke.
But this isn't about virality. What I really want to show you is just the power of dropping stories into your videos that give proof you can get a result, so that people watch it and go, "Oh, yeah, this person's legit." And that will help to turn your views into sales. So, act one storytelling is just telling stories about how you solve problems your viewers have too. And I know it sounds kind of overblown, but if you can't do that, I'm not sure how you can make it.
Now, if you're like a doctor and your channel is about fixing bad backs, and you've never had one, that's okay. You're an act two channel by default, so you don't have to worry too much about that. What you really want to do, though, is try to include one story of this nature in every video, because if someone binges five videos in a row, by the end of that session, they're going to go, "This person's clearly an expert. I'm coming back. In fact, I should be paying for this stuff. Wait, I wonder if I can pay them to help me."
And that brings us on to act two, storytelling. And again, you want to try and use this as often as you can if it is possible, because years ago, even though I was getting traction on my channel, I was making these videos that show people how I was blowing up. And I always used to get comments going, "Well, if you're so flipping good, do it to someone else's channel." And I was like, "Oh, it's a guy you got to do to impress you guys." But I took it on board, and I started making videos about how I blow up other people's channels and businesses, too. And this was massive for sales, because when you're marketing people, they go, "Yeah, it works for you, but will it work for me?"
So, if you show someone like your viewer with their problem, getting the result they want with your system, it's like, "Oh, this channel is good for me." And you go from this person learning on the go, reporting back to this person's an expert helping others. And that causes a very different reaction. So, this is why you need to use your client wins to make your point. Now, if you don't have clients, but you've helped someone else get a result and they didn't pay you, that's fine. You can say that, too.
And then we move on to act three, storytelling. This is the act which I believe we should all strive to be in. It's not going to be easy, but it's my ultimate goal. And that is to make videos where people go, "This person is on another level to everyone else in their niche." Now, if you can create this reaction, your competition doesn't exist when it comes to someone making a sales decision. Your viewers are just going to go, "I just want to work with this person over everyone else."
And this way of thinking is helping this channel make millions. And it also gets people like Dano and Brian Johnson mega fans. So, let me show you how this works.
So, if we break down what these acts really are: Act one is your past. It's how you solve the problem. Act two is the present. It's how you're solving your client's problems. Act three is how you're shaping the future.
So, what happens is as you get more and more traction with your stories, your niche is going to start to copy you, and they might even start telling their own powerful stories. But this is where you actively try to shape the entire future of your whole niche.
So, let me give you an example. So, I quit my channel with almost 400,000 subscribers because I thought there was a better way for businesses to do this. And to help me establish this new way, I built a software that tracks leads from videos. And as a result of this, my entire view of YouTube has completely shifted. Meaning I could now give content to you guys that's not on Google anywhere, because nobody else has this data. But not only that, it enabled me to build AI and new systems for my clients that you just can't find anywhere else in the world, which helps us level up as one big community.
Now, Brian Johnson, love him or hate him, he's a perfect example of the power of this, too. So, his backstory is he made millions in tech, and now he's testing all this anti-aging stuff on himself, and he's got this insane world-changing vision, which his fans are totally bought into, which means he's living in act three, and that's why he gets so much press. He's built like a cult following.
And then there's Dan Con. He's building new AI to try and change the world of being a creator, and he documents it, too. So act three is about trying to take your niche to new levels that have not been explored yet. And in an ideal world, you build something kind of publicly and then report back going, "Hey people, this is amazing, and here's the amount of proof I have that it works, and this is the better way, and it's going to change your life."
And to do that, you just tell stories of what you're doing in the same way, using the same circle framework. But like I said, this is not one for the faint-hearted, because one, you might have to go to extremes where you devote your entire life to it. So, kiss goodbye to the 4-hour work week. But also, you build in public, and things don't work out. So, you might have to one day publicly go, "Do you know what? My software didn't work. No one bought it. It was a failure." But guess what? If that happens, you just have another painful story to share. So, you can't leave.
So, if you want to start practicing storytelling, you can do it in a very simple video that keeps blowing up channels. And I've turned it into a very simple step-by-step process. Will take you 8 minutes to watch, and you can discover it in this video here. And from the people who already seen it, they've already commented saying it blew up their channels.