Marketing With Empathy:

Make Real Customer Connections with Storytelling

Marketing With Empathy: Connecting with Customers

In today’s fast-paced digital marketing landscape, connecting with your audience on a human level is more important than ever. One effective way to achieve this is through empathetic storytelling. In this episode of the Endless Coffee Cup Podcast, Matt welcomes Sarah Panus to talk about the role of empathy in marketing, the importance of storytelling, and the elements that shape successful marketing careers.

Understanding Empathy in Marketing

Empathy in marketing involves understanding and addressing your audience’s needs, concerns, and emotions. If your product or service can genuinely solve a problem for your customers, it’s crucial to communicate this effectively. This empathetic approach not only helps you connect with your audience but also allows you to identify and attract the right people for your brand.

The Journey of a Marketing Professional

Sarah Panus’s career journey is a testament to the diverse experiences that can shape a successful marketing professional. Starting in PR and moving through corporate, agency, and entrepreneurial roles, Sarah’s path illustrates the broad spectrum of skills and insights one can gain in the marketing field.

Corporate Experience: Working in a corporate environment can provide stability and a deep understanding of brand development and internal communications.
Agency Life: Agencies offer a fast-paced, diverse experience with multiple clients, teaching time management, and stakeholder interaction under pressure.
Entrepreneurship: Running your own business demands a high level of responsibility and time management but offers the freedom to implement your vision and strategies.

Storytelling as a Marketing Tool

Storytelling is a powerful tool in marketing, capable of creating a connection between a brand and its audience. Sarah emphasizes the importance of positioning your customer as the hero and your brand as the guide, a concept derived from Donald Miller’s StoryBrand framework.

The StoryBrand Framework

Character: Identify your customer and their problem.
Guide: Position your brand as the guide with a plan to solve their problem.
Call to Action: Encourage the customer to take action.
Success and Failure: Highlight the potential success from using your product or service and the failure they can avoid by choosing your brand.

The FED Method: Focus, Empathy, and Data

Sarah Panus developed the FED Method to help brands create empathetic and effective content.

Focus: Establish three storytelling pillars that align with your brand’s mission and values. This helps avoid spreading your efforts too thin and maintains consistency.
Empathy: Use empathy filters to understand and address your audience’s feelings and needs. This includes data-informed empathy (customer demographics and behaviors), SEO-informed empathy (popular search queries), human-informed empathy (common experiences and emotions), and nostalgia-informed empathy (shared past experiences).
Data: Leverage various data sources like SEO tools, social listening, and customer feedback to inform your content strategy. Tools like AnswerThePublic can provide valuable insights into what your audience is searching for and interested in.

Marketing with Empathy: Show Transcript

Sarah Panus: If you actually have a product or service that is going to help your customers solve this problem, help them be successful and avoid failure by not working with you, that’s a service we need to help. Communicate that and it helps do it really quickly so that your audience will know are you or aren’t you for them and then they can move on so you can find the right people by being able to hook them quicker by talking about, that person’s problem first.

Matt Bailey: Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the Endless Coffee Cup Podcast. As always, I’m your host, Matt Bailey, bringing you guests from around the world of digital [00:01:00] marketing. And today I have got a fellow MPN Podcast host, Sarah Panus. How are you doing today?

Sarah Panus: Hey, good morning. Happy to be here.

Matt Bailey: Hey, thank you so much for coming on, Sarah.

I have been wanting to talk with you for a while. You’ve got your own Podcast on the marketing podcast network. That’s how we met. but also you specialize in storytelling. And I thought that would be just a great thing to talk about today for, those learning about writing persuasion, writing ad copy.

How do we tell stories for our clients or for ourselves? So, Sarah if you could give me a little bit of background, what got you into storytelling as a specialty. Okay?

Sarah Panus: Yeah, so it’s like 20 some years, experience doing this and when I first started, like, when I look back, I always wanted to do something with communications and I remember, kind of exploring that path and being like, do I want to be, a news [00:02:00] journalist and like, or beyond, TV, or do I want to be behind the scenes and things like that?

So, I had like that whole questions with myself and I want to do behind the scenes. So I actually started my career in PR -Public Relations and I wanted to like help represent. And I was able to help work with a lot of great brands. I actually, like my career has been corporate to agency to back to corporate.

And then now I run my own business. So I’ve had my foot in, all of the doors in terms of as you’re thinking about what the heck you do with your career and, communications, communications and content and storytelling has been a thread throughout all of them. So, after college, I, worked in my first corporate gig was with a wedding gown designer in New York City.

And so I was their communications manager, which was incredible experience. I was able to, travel almost every single weekend to all these different bridal shops around the United States. And I actually felt like it was a lot like international business for me, because even though it was the U S.

There’s so many differences in states of whether you’re working with like, a [00:03:00] store in Manhattan versus something in outside of a suburb outside of Nashville versus Tacoma, Washington versus Minnesota, right? It’s very different. So it was an incredible experience. It almost was like an agency like experience for me because I got to interact with so many different people and personalities.

And, totally put my foot in my mouth a few times and my boss needed to be like coaching me through some kind of difficult conversations because when you’re new, you don’t always know. And so that was such a blessing. I was like, you just got to keep leaning in and keep not being afraid to ask questions and figure things out.

I did PR there and then I ran, managed about 70 different, retail, partnerships that our gowns were sold in. And I got to do the media side with all the fashion magazines and, bridal week and things like that. Then after, I kind of was like, Oh, I don’t think I want to stay in like the fashion industry forever and high end fashion, it just started to get a little superficial for me.

Like I loved it, but I was like, I don’t think I can work in this industry forever. And so, I wasn’t sure. What industry I wanted to go into next. So then that’s when I made the jump to [00:04:00] agency because then I knew, I could get exposed to a lot of different variety of industries and clients and work with a lot more people.

so I moved to Boston and then I worked for a midsize agency. I had about a hundred people called Cone and, it was a fantastic experience, did a lot of, PR and started the influencer marketing group with them and worked with some great clients like American Heart Association and Nestle Waters and, Lint chocolates and Game Crazy and like all sorts of, different brands, lots in the food and beverage space for sure.

So that was a great experience. And then, went back to corporate, moved to Minnesota, which is where I’m from originally. So my, met my husband out East. We moved back to the Midwest. just a timing thing. He was going for his PhD and he got into the University of Minnesota. So I was like, okay, we’re going to look for Minnesota.

And so I looked for Companies here. And I was open at that point, agency or corporate. but I had kind of learned through my experiences that I really loved the home space at that point in time. And so got a job with sleep number, a sleep wellness company. They have the [00:05:00] 360 smart beds, billion dollar retailer that was headquartered.

And so, I worked with them actually for 12 years. I started social media for them. I kind of merged away from PR cause social was just starting. So this was back in 2008 and, within the organization, they were like, who wants to kind of tackle this? And thankfully my boss at that time was forward thinking and said, raised her hand and said, we don’t know what this is, but we’ll try it, And so that opened so many doors cause obviously social, is a big thing. But at the time it was. nobody knew what the heck was going on. I feel like a lot of parallels with AI right now, Ooh, what’s going on? so, moved away from PR and said, I’m going to focus solely on social.

So I raised my hand there, seeing the growth in the digital space. And I did, I did. And, and kind of took on a little bit of SEO. but really learned through all of that and kept doing influencer marketing. Was the whole storytelling and the content and the communications and how we need to engage our audiences.

Then after about nine years of leading the social team group from nothing into a 9 million budget, and we had [00:06:00] seven people on our team, which was so fun. But after nine years, I got really burnt out from that. I was like, I can’t be on 24 seven all the time. It was, it was very demanding. And so, was able to change my role at sleep number to start a new function for content marketing strategy.

Think through the narrative storytelling and, and how we can better engage our audiences to attract both new customers, but also re engage existing customers of ours through things like the blog and email and the website and, video content and things like that. So that’s where, how I, I ended with them.

And then a little over four years ago, right before COVID, I started my own consulting business. So now I help companies clarify their marketing and sales messages. Focus and think through like, what the heck should we talk about ultimately? And, and how do we talk about it in a way that’s better going to engage our customers?

So that’s what, brands will come to me. Now. I serve like the B2C and the B2C B2B space have a podcast, as you mentioned, cause I love to talk. So I was like, man, I run my own business. Now I’m working out of my house. I [00:07:00] don’t have like a big team around me. I still want to have these interactions with people.

And so, my podcast is called marketing with. Empathy where we focus on, spread and storytelling and how do we do that in a better way to actually create content that our customers want to consume? So that’s kind of a long, like nutshell of, of my career so far, but I’ve always loved the power of how stories and that content can really connect heart to heart and mind to mind with our customers, which is why I’ve just gravitated towards that.

It’s such a very. It’s just a real human way to engage with people, and so many companies struggle with it. And now just defer to going to like the boring, cold, cut and dry, emotionless kind of way of talking. And there’s a place for all of it in the funnel. But I just get really passionate about like the human element and that connection that we have the opportunity to bring to our customers.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. I love how you’re bringing that together. I just want to focus on your career path for a little bit because, going from [00:08:00] corporate to agency to corporate, and now you’re an entrepreneur. So, so many people ask, where should I start? Where should I get my beginning?

What was the advantage? of the corporate experience? What was the advantage? What did the agency experience do in helping you prepare for what you’re doing right now?

Sarah Panus: Yeah. I mean, for me, I never, I didn’t know enough in the beginning to ever start my own business. So, I don’t recommend anyone starts their own business right away. So, if you’re brand new in this thing, get experience under your belt, make your mistakes with other coaches and mentors and bosses and teammates that can give you feedback because that will help you be so much better when, and if you ever decide to start your own business later on.

So that’s my first thing I would say is. Don’t I mean, because I’ve heard it too. Like some folks that just want to start their own business right out of college and it can work for some people. I’d say it’s the, it’s a minority and especially in this marketing space, and digital marketing.

You just, you just need to get some experience first. You don’t [00:09:00] know what you don’t know. So that’d be my first thing. agency and corporate. Okay. So. Ultimately, there are different personalities that can work well for both. and my learning is that there are a lot of corporate environments that act like an agency.

so you can still feel like you’re very busy and that’s really the tone. The tone is like the busyness, the variety of projects, the number of people and stakeholders you have to work with that is agency. Like with agency life, when I was there, I would have like four clients, that I was focused on, on any given day I’m tracking my time.

doing different things for each of them, different personalities, but you had to be get really, really good with time management. So that was an incredible experience for me to help me learn a lot quickly. So I do think agencies are an incredible culture and environment to help people who are starting out or switching their careers, to learn a lot really quickly.

So that’s, that’s definitely an advantage.

Matt Bailey: I, I feel the same way with the agencies that, and one of the things that I think the intangible is it teaches you to [00:10:00] deal with so many different personalities under pressure. you’re going to deal with that if you do that on your own, but when you are in that environment, you learn about how the different businesses work.

You learn, it’s not all the same but also, you’re dealing with personalities and you’ve got to play that political game to keep people happy, but also you’re learning that social aspect of working in a business and working with clients, not just what goes into the hard skills.

Sarah Panus: Yeah, it’s a hundred percent. Gosh, I remember cause I mean, I started at entry level when I was an agency, even though I came from corporate and had some experience, I took a step back actually to just start at the bottom, but I made it up really quickly. Cause if you lean in and you’re good and you show an interest and you can contribute, that’s a nice thing with most agencies is you can get promoted pretty quickly and advance up the ladder.

But I just remember being on early on. I remember being on a lot of client calls. This is before we ever did zoom. There was never a.

Matt Bailey: [00:11:00] Oh, yeah. Right.

Right. It was audio, but I remember being on so many conference calls with clients and clients would ask something or say something and it was like maybe a little tense or you weren’t sure how to answer, you put that phone on mute and you look at everyone around the table and be like, how do I answer that?

Sarah Panus: I remember having those moments. And then, you fast forward to when you’re the leader on the team and your team’s looking at you being like, Like with the face of like, I don’t know how to answer that. Right. And then you’re the one answering it. So, it’s just that it is, it’s such a, it’s a great environment to learn.

Okay.

Matt Bailey: about that. I forgot about the days of the mute button. You can’t do that on zoom now,

Sarah Panus: I know.

Matt Bailey: that was such a, it was like the go to, you’ve got the, the, I forget what a polycom or something, and yet that big mute button, it was there specifically, I think for meetings.

So you could, what do we say?

Sarah Panus: All the time. Like mute. Or like you all like regroup really quickly. Like, like you take 15 seconds and you’re like talking about something on mute and then you come back and be like, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. [00:12:00] Like, so it was just a way to get a line. It was so great. I love that.

I love the creativity and just bouncing ideas off of people. So then when I worked on corporate, like when I was in back and sleep number, so my first job, like in the bridal industry, that corporate, super small, Like super small team, just a few people. Most of the people were making all the dresses and then the designer themselves that I worked for.

So I had a very small team. didn’t even have a team. Like it was me and then another woman. And then like our boss, essentially that sleep number though, corporate acted very much like an agency, huge billion-dollar retailer. You are marketing team just as its whole had about a hundred people. Like when I was running social, I had a seven-person team.

but You had a lot more support and you’re working on a lot of different projects. You have a ton, like for me, my clients were like internal stakeholders, like the leaders of the different functions and teams, the email leader and the website leader and all that. So like I would go around and be helping all of them.

So, it felt like agency because the pace was still really fast. There’s some corporate [00:13:00] environments that are slower paced and so you’re going to feel that out as you get into those for sure. But at the end of the day. I always just love working and knowing that I can, I’m helping solve someone’s problems.

I love helping solve customer problems and internal colleagues or clients problems. That feels good. Cause then, like what you’re doing matters and it’s not just, you’re not just going through the motion for going through the motion. And that’s kind of a, what I would say would be pros from my experience of, each of those environments.

So, yeah, Yeah,

Matt Bailey: don’t have to be completely honest, what are the cons? You don’t have to go to detail, but you know, what should people look out for? If you decide to go one or the other, we talked about how great it is. There’s a little bit of a downside, on some, but I think a lot of it is, you’re going to discover very quickly about yourself.

What do you like? What do you not like? it isn’t so much your choice. It’s more what works for you. So, I’d love to hear your opinion on that. [00:14:00]

Sarah Panus: long term, but I have some really good friends that I met when I worked agency in Boston and their agency lifers, they love it. So, the con for me would be the…

And the demand, on the agency side, because You need to be available for your clients. So, I would say, make sure you find an agency environment that will allow you to have obviously your own personal time and where there can be like good boundaries and team support. I mean, that was really what it amounts to do.

Like if you aren’t available, who else in the team could be available to help in certain situations? If you, so that you can actually take a vacation and, and not have to worry about being asked questions all the time. So that’s a con. but for me at the time, this was like. Right before I got married, I had no kids.

Like it was perfect. I leaned in and just worked, and I think that’s what people should do. You work, work, work, work, work. I mean, I didn’t get to where I am today [00:15:00] because I eased into things and just kind of let things go. things come to me, I had to lean in and work hard and put in the extra hours to get the experience and build that trust with people.

corporate con, the only con I actually really loved corporate. So corporate was a nice fit for me. If you find an industry that you really like, and you can find a team that you like working with, it’s great. And so, I guess that would be the con is, just the wrong industry fit and the wrong team and people to be around, that can make or Job, obviously there’s the people that you work with, and then being, being an entrepreneur, I mean, the con is I have to do everything myself now.

So now I kind of was like, I put it all back on myself again. I’m like, what am I doing? That’s why I say it’s not for the faint of heart. you, it’s not something you want to do right out of school necessarily, because you have to be really good at time management and people interactions and setting your boundaries is a huge one.

So, I’ve, I’ve gotten really good at my boundaries right now. Like if I’m not available, I’m not available. And I communicate [00:16:00] that and my clients, everyone knows, and it’s fine, but you have to get good at that or it will completely suck you in. I, I mean, I’ve just learned over my career that. work will take as much from you as you give it.

Matt Bailey: Yeah. Oh.

Sarah Panus: it, ended up printing it and putting it right on my computer monitor.

Cause I was like, okay, Sarah, you need boundaries here, girl. So, that would save. The con of being completely sucked in. So, you just need to know when to say no.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. Actually, just in the past, I’d say month, two months, I’ve probably had three or four different conversations with people who are entrepreneurs, but it’s about how do I write this contract? How do I, how do I stipulate what what’s delivered? What’s not? How do I price myself?

And that’s the biggest thing I tell them is you need to be very [00:17:00] clear about what you’re delivering, what you’re doing. Because if you don’t, there’s going to be an ask and you may just do it maybe because you like them, maybe because, it won’t take any time, but every time there is something like that, it never goes the other way, never goes.

And so, it’s just funny. I’ve been talking with more of, other agency people who are doing their own thing about how to write that contract, how to protect yourself on some of those areas. because not that. Clients will take advantage of you. I don’t think they have that intention, but there are demands that come up.

They don’t know how to do it. You do. And there we go.

Sarah Panus: yeah, a hundred percent. And I think that’s something you just have to navigate all the time because you never, unless it’s a long term client and you know exactly how the give and take goes in the interaction is. I think every potential new relationship at work is the potential for that because you just don’t know.[00:18:00]

And some people ask for a lot because they don’t understand and appreciate how much work it takes to do that. Do it. And so then it’s your job as the professional to be able to communicate that and say, okay, great, but it’s going to take this much time, this much budget, this is what’s involved, but this is going to be the outcome and how it will help, but you have to communicate that’s really common, like, Oh, okay.

Is it hard to just whip this content strategy up? Could you just like work on that and get it to me, really soon. So it’s like, people just don’t know what they don’t know.

Matt Bailey: No, not at all. Well, on that note, let’s talk about the difference between, know, you had mentioned copy that’s dry. That’s cold. What makes it dry and cold and what makes content connect with humans?

Sarah Panus: Has something that kind of can evoke a little bit, stir a little bit of emotion or thought or [00:19:00] feeling in you. That’s going to be the, that’s where you’ve added some empathy.

So, the easiest thing in that example is, okay, you can talk about your product or services and the facts and the details, but Okay. Pricing. Here’s what it includes. Blah, blah, blah. Versus Hey, are you struggling with X these products and services will help you blah, blah, blah, so that you can be successful and avoid this failure.

It’s the same way. So, you’re going to still keep talking about the features and the benefits and things, but you’re framing it up instead with a hook that is like talking and thinking about your customer’s problems first. So. The biggest mistake that I see is that a lot of brands will, talk all about themselves and not enough about their customers.

And I hear like, well, well, yeah, it’s about us. So, we want to sell the product. I’m like, yes, but you need to hook your customer first. So I’m certified, I’m certified in the store. Story brand, framework. So anyone who’s familiar with story brand, this is, I’ll be giving some examples if you’re familiar, you’ll be like, [00:20:00] yes, but story brand is so smart at this, which is why I got certified in it and use it with all of my clients too, because it’s a way to position your customer as the hero and you as the guy.

It’s just a flip of how you may be used to talking about yourself instead of talking all about the company or all about the people behind the brand. You needed us first to think of what is my customer’s problem or problems? Like, what are they struggling with? Because as consumers, none of us buy anything unless it’s going to solve something for us.

I mean, just even food, like we’re hungry, right? We’re going to get some food or we’re thirsty. I mean, every single thing we buy, there’s some reason. Behind it. And so that’s all I’m saying is as a brand, as a, as a, whether you’re running your own business or agency or corporate, any of these environments, whoever you’re trying to sell to, you need to talk to them first.

And so that is the easiest way. And so, I call it, an empathy filter, which is why do, are they going to care? Like what is going on in their world? How do we frame [00:21:00] this to talk to them? a great example. When I worked at sleep number, we would do these like monthly kind of themes for the bedding team.

Cause sleep never has these great beds, but that’s a phenomenal bedding. And the bedding team had came to me and said, Oh, we’re going to be launching, this whole new sheet line, that was temperature balancing. And so they had all these facts and details about this incredible product, and how it helps balance temperature while you’re sleeping.

So, you take that information, and you could just go out with the facts of temperature balancing, but like That’s like a whole, I was like, Oh yes, wonderful. How many people sleep hot or sleep too cold? Like how this can help. So let’s lean into that whole story. Gosh, do you sleep? Are you waking up sweating?

Are you shivering in the middle of the night? Cause it helps balancing. So that was the lead in instead of, new temperature balancing sheets. It was like, Oh, let’s hit on this problem first to help solve it. And it’s not negative marketing. It’s not negative by saying we’re focusing on the problem, because I’m not saying you just focus on the negative and never get off of [00:22:00] it.

If you actually have a product or service that is going to help your customers solve this problem, help them be successful and avoid failure by not working with you, that’s a service we need to help. Communicate that and it helps do it really quickly so that your audience will know are you or aren’t you for them and then they can move on so you can find the right people by being able to hook them quicker by talking about that person’s problem first.

Matt Bailey: Well, yeah, and it’s, I don’t see it as being negative, not at all, especially in the example that you gave there, it’s a real problem. But the, the, the thing is, especially with that, it can be a humorous problem. It can be something that people laugh about, that they know this is an issue. And when you recognize that, let’s be honest about it.

So, that, that humanization of, yeah, this, it’ll do all this stuff. No, let’s talk about the reality. Let’s talk about what you’re going through. And so positioning that towards. That end [00:23:00] consumer, that, that empathy is everything because it can lead into some very creative methods then of marketing of storytelling of here’s the angle we’re going to take on this because it does create such a, an emotion or a reaction when we bring this up, when, when people talk about it, the sleeping cold and hot, I’m sure everyone has a story about that as well.

Sarah Panus: Yeah, obviously. And no surprise there. The product was, is a very big seller, for them because a lot of people do have that issue. And by talking about that first in a way that your customer is going to get, is going to attract them. And so, when I think about empathy with storytelling, then like I, I kind of pair two different methods.

One I created myself, and one is the story. Storybrand framework. Can I just give a little bit about the story brand just to kind of fill in the rest of it for people? Cause there’s a great book for anyone listening. Donald Miller started story brand. It’s called building a story brand. It’s. Sold over a million copies.

so that’s a great, inexpensive way to get really familiar with StoryBrand. and you can actually like [00:24:00] this framework, I’m going to walk through. There’s a free site, called mystorybrand. com that you can just create a free account on and kind of play around with to make your own, outline and kind of see what I’m going to say right now.

So, I’ll just share those links now as free resources for people, but. The story brand framework is like the seven-part framework, like I mentioned. And so you always start with your character, like every great story has a character. So, in this case, it’s the customer. Like, who are you trying to sell to?

Who’s going to buy from you? So, every character has a problem. And like I was saying, like no story starts until you have a problem because it’s like, you’ve got to be curious of how the story is going to end. And there has to be some kind of conflict a little bit in the story. And that is what’s going to hook people.

it’s why like. As we go into, like, imagine you go into a Starbucks, our brains want to survive and thrive. So, what our brains do from a psychology perspective and just neuro neurological perspective actually, is we pay attention to the things that help us survive and thrive. So when we walk into a Starbucks, we don’t notice how many [00:25:00] tiles are on the floor or how many exact number of chairs are around the tables.

But if I asked you, “Hey, Where is the, where’s the counter to pay? Where’s the exit and where’s the bathroom?” Like we’ll be able to kind of like point those out. Cause those are key to our survival. We know in that environment. So that’s the deal with as, as come as brands, when we’re talking and doing content, we need to focus on what are those key things, And so that’s why it’s really important to hone in on that problem. And they can have multiple problems. You just don’t talk about all of them at the same time. You’re going to talk about them in different pieces of content. So you don’t like throw up on them and overwhelm them with that one piece of content.

So the character has a problem. Then they meet a guide. The guide is, you, the company that can help guide them. You’re, you’re one, at least one step ahead of them. You’ve been in their shoes before; you know how to help them. You offer a solution.

Matt Bailey: The wise mentor. Bye

Sarah Panus: Exactly. And if you watch any movies, this is really based around like the movie, like structure too.

Like there’s always like the hero who’s all weak and [00:26:00] battered. And then the guide is like, Obi Wan Kenobi who can like help give the advice to stage wisdom and things like that. So, they meet a guide and then that guide gives them a plan, which is a very simple, like one, two, three. Here’s like what we can, you can do, to help with your problem. And then step five is you, that you call them to action. So at this point, usually it’s like, if they’re still with you, it’s like, okay, they are your audience. They have the problem. They’re curious, but, and they kind of, they know, they’ve seen, they see the three steps of what, what they could do, but they may not do anything yet because there’s a risk involved at this point, they could waste money, waste time, make a wrong decision, look bad. Like, there’s all sorts of things that go on in our head, depending on what we’re might be, considering buying or signing up for. So, it’s really important to give them that call to action. And with this one, there’s actually two different calls to action.

So, there’s a really obvious one that everyone usually always gets, which is obviously, [00:27:00] buy now schedule a call, take this free quiz, like whatever the thing is that you want them to do as a first step. But the one that people miss is a transitional call to action. And the transitional call to action is different from your, your main call to action, main call to actions, like the buy you’re asking them to purchase and do this thing.

Transitional is not everyone’s ready to do that. Right away with you, they might be ready six months from now, three months from now, two weeks from now, but you don’t, so you don’t want to lose them in that moment. And so a transitional call to action is where a freebie is a great example of some kind. So quiz is a great take this quiz, download my PDF to help, help give you three initial ideas that will solve your problem now.

What it is, is it’s a way to capture the email so that you can communicate to them. In the future, then you’ll be in their inbox later on top of mine. So, we’re not going to forget about you. it gives them you a chance to show your authority and demonstrate that you actually know what you’re talking about giving them something of value right away that [00:28:00] is going to help with that problem. It’s not going to solve it completely. Cause obviously they got to work with you or buy your thing, to solve it completely. But how can you give them a taste to say, okay, yeah, I really. I’m going to try them out.

I think this could be really good. Look what they already gave me. This is so wonderful. So that would be a big thing I would say for people is thinking through those opportunities to capture that email lead by value, by giving them some valuable content in exchange that’s going to help them. And then step six and seven of the framework are, by doing all those things, it’s going to result in success.

So, you’re going to demonstrate how you’re going to help them be successful and, get rid of this problem or, and avoid failure, right? So, if you do work with me, if you don’t work with me, if you do buy from me, et cetera. So, you give them the scenarios and you help paint that through your words in the story that helps them see, Oh, the happy ending essentially, in this, in this story.

So, that’s a big piece of it. So, like when you’re thinking through is to think about that. And I would say if nothing else, everyone [00:29:00] will go leaps and bounds. If they just start to think about what their customers’ problems are and make sure you’re talking about that and hooking them with it first, then I get into deeper empathy, okay?

So is it okay if I just go into my fed method a

Matt Bailey: I love it. Just so I just want to jump in real quick before you do that because I’m, I’m, looking at this, I always laugh because so much of this, I went through sales training back Years ago, and in sales training, one of the things we learned is, there’s three possible answers.

Yes, no, and maybe, and a no is just as good as a yes, because now I know where you’re at. I don’t have to waste any more time. This isn’t for you. But what are you doing with the maybe? Now, what are we doing? What’s your follow up? How are you progressing them into the next stages? And what’s identified? How will you do that?

So, I love how we’ve transitioned some of these, these offline sales techniques into our [00:30:00] online content marketing, because I call it the progression, the progression factor. If you’re not ready to buy today, what can I give you now? That will bring you on that journey and do that follow up because I think too many times it’s like a black or white.

It’s it’s you ready? Okay, let’s do it. And then everyone else is left behind.

Sarah Panus: Yep. Yep. And it’s such a missed opportunity. And to your point, I agree with you completely, right? Like the yeses and nos, it’s these that, that, that those lead generators, that transitional call to action is such a great way to qualify your audience too, because let’s say you decide like if you’re in the realty world and you want to attract first time home buyers, well, then you could create.

Yep. Yep. A freebie of some kind that’s geared towards first time home buyers versus if you had a product that was for people who are downsizing at the end of, lifespan and they, they don’t want to have a big house and they’re empty nesters and, you’re going to have a different freebie for that.

Well, when you get people to sign up for those, you’re also building [00:31:00] very segmented, Lead list, right? Like so smart because then you’re like, awesome. I know I have this number of people who are my first time buyers versus my downsizing empty nest or people. So, it’s just such a great way to help you market to them and then give them good content again.

That will actually resonate with them and make them more likely to want to work with you down the road. Yeah.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. And I love that, segmented, doing that, with a couple of our clients, you find out who’s more of, especially in travel, who’s looking more for budget, who’s looking more for active travel, who’s looking for leisure travel, when based on what they look at, what they download helps you right away, figure out how do I follow up with these people.

Based on what they’re doing. So yeah, in, in that content piece, it’s a great way to start segmenting and learning about your different audiences. as always like to remind people, and yeah, better follow them up with them that way. Don’t, don’t do the same email. [00:32:00] If you’ve got it segmented, segment your marketing.

That’s one of the things I think people forget.

Sarah Panus: totally. And Matt, that’s the perfect, that’s a perfect example of empathy and action. Empathy is all about trying, there’s different definitions of empathy. I talk about cognitive empathy, which is like trying to understand what someone else is thinking or feeling. Well, we can use these cues, like that’s a data input right there, like for like what people are signing up for.

You can follow and look at those cues to give us these empathy filters of like, Oh, okay. I know they’re in this space right now. Well, how, what else do I know about people who are in, in looking for this type of thing? How are they feeling? What are they doing? What questions are they looking for online?

So, all those things give us those insights to then. infused into our storytelling content to actually answer their questions, to help them, to entertain them in ways that are going to make sense. Yeah.

[00:33:00] So let’s talk a little bit more about that empathy,

Sarah Panus: [00:34:00] Yeah. So yeah, perfect segue then. So, so then the FED method F E D. So, this is one that I’ve just created through my years of experience. And there’s like three really key areas that help you identify and look for, Empathy, ways to better, which is look for ways to better connect with your audience and help you get more focused in your content.

So, I always love using that story brand framework. I walked through for as like the first tier, because it gets you all very focused on like those seven areas. And then once you know those, then you’re like, okay, well, now what do we talk about the rest of the year? Like we were really hot, focused in here.

We know who we’re talking to, we know what their problems are, et cetera. So the FED method helps do that because it stands for focus, empathy. and data. So with focus, the biggest thing is you want to avoid like the plague, trying to talk about everything and everything. And you, depending on what work environment you’re in, if you have a lot of coworkers and teams that you’re supporting, you may get a lot of ideas coming at you.

That’s like when I was in [00:35:00] sleep number corporate like that. I mean, there were so many people all the time. Hey, could we do something like this or this, or, Oh, I saw someone else did something like you’re going to get a lot of ideas. some better than others. So, you have to ask like someone who’s leading content, or if you’re part of a team that’s leading content, get focused.

And so, I recommend having three storytelling pillars for your company. And imagine it like your brand, your company is a magazine. And if you think of like a print magazine and you’re like, oh, if a magazine was out there and you see a magazine and someone’s they’re talking to someone, Oh yeah, well, our magazine is about X, Y, and Z.

That’s what we cover. Okay. X, Y, and Z. So that’s what I want brands to get focused on is like, well, what are your X, Y, and Z’s? And so as you think about those pillars, it’s like overarching umbrellas of like, here’s, themes of what we talk about for the whole year. Generally, your pillars should last at least a couple of years, unless there’s big changes within your company.

And then you think about this, this umbrella, this overarching theme, [00:36:00] and then you can identify, okay, well, maybe like what are. I don’t know, five, six different types of content. Like just list out like bullet under it. Like what could be different things of content that would fit under that theme.

Then you go to the second one, you do the same thing. And so, when we do this exercise, we always have way more than three in the beginning. We’re just listing out what’s everything you’re talking about right now. And then you’re looking, I, that’s how I like to start it. And I think, okay. and you can see if there’s ways to condense any of those.

but you’d never decide them until you get into the rest of the, the, the empathy and the data piece, because otherwise you’re just still working off of your own information and you need to look outside of yourself too, before you can finalize what it is you should talk about. So, like with my company.

My three pillars, because I do content strategy consulting for companies. my first one, my first bucket is content strategy. So that’s like a home run on the nose to make total sense of like, things that I talk about under that bucket. my second one is consumer behavior, because I’m big around, like, we need to understand like why [00:37:00] people are feeling or thinking the way they do so that can help support and give us some data and insights.

I share it. Information and third-party research and really smart experts. I have on my podcast. I talk about like how our brains work and why we buy and things like that. So that’s consumer behavior. And then for the third pillar, I always recommend if possible, to make it a little bit of a wild card, something that’s specific to your company, that is, is diff it makes you different because we’re not all cookie cutters of everybody else.

We have differentiators. and so, this one could be, it doesn’t have to be about your, your Like on the nose at all. So, like my third one has nothing to do with content. My third pillar is child trafficking because that’s a cause that I care about very dearly. And I donate a portion of all of my profits every year to this great nonprofit called International Justice Mission to help fund these child trafficking rescue missions.

And so it’s a big thing for me is like awareness and how we as parents can, just be smarter around, Protecting our kids and online child exploitation, [00:38:00] all the things I’m actually creating a second podcast, a little sneak peek. It’s a trailer just up right now called keep kids safe. So that’s actually going to be focused specifically on, on that.

I’m so passionate about it. Well, that is, that’s a, that’s like not part of my business. No one’s hiring me to do anything around that, but it is something I talk about. So, it’s a smaller percentage, obviously of the content I share every month, but it is a percentage. So it’s kind of just thinking through like, what is that little thing that makes you, you and that infuses some personality into your content and makes you different than like a competitor.

So that’s, that’s really important. So, let’s focus. You have your three pillars. Then you get into empathy and these empathy filters, like I call them, which is helping you connect heart to heart, mind to mind your content and empathy and data, the D and fed go really well hand in hand, because all this rich data you can get, like I said, you looking for all these cues and overlaps and things you keep seeing and hearing over and over and over again, those are wonderful things to like, [00:39:00] pull out and be like, okay, I’ve seen this in like a bunch of different places now from data is telling us that our audience is different thinking this or feeling this or having these questions. It’s like, so we need to create some content to help answer this and be a resource for them. So with empathy, like there’s, a few different empathy filters, data informed, like I just mentioned. So, if you’re looking at data and oh, okay. 46 percent of our audience has high school aged kids living at home. That’s a fact like in that moment, that’s a data point. Then you get into SEO informed search engine optimization. I love looking at SEO for empathy insights because you can see what anyone’s typing into Google, right? Looking. It’s a great insight into like the

Matt Bailey: Oh, absolutely.

Sarah Panus: For people that might tell you, okay, well, we’re seeing a large number of people are searching for ways to better communicate with their teenagers. Ooh. Okay. So now we know that the kids, but now we’re getting insights into like how they were probably feeling in their home life. And then you have like empathy, like human informed empathy.

I call it, these are the [00:40:00] shared. Feelings that we can all relate to with each other. so, feeling like, oh gosh, our kids just grow up too fast. Don’t they, that’s like a human informed feeling or on tax time. Nobody really likes paying taxes. That’s a human informed thing.

Or, when I go to the grocery store, like I seem to. very often pick out the slowest checkout line, not trying to, but I always seems like I get the slowest checkout person. I’m like, why is everyone moving so much faster around me? And it’s not me. So that’s like a human moment. or, years ago, Spotify did this great content campaign around how, because they got these insights that so many people when they’re in their car.

And they hear a really good song. They sit and stay in their car until the song is done. Like they’re parked, they should be getting out of their car, but they’re not going to, because it’s so great. So, they did this great bit of like awkward situations where you really should get out of your car, but you’re like rocking out to the song in your car.

It was, it was fantastic. So, it was a great content piece, but that’s like human [00:41:00] informed, like things we can relate to. and then the last one I’ve identified is nostalgia informed and nostalgia is Really powerful for empathy. these are like those key life moments, experiences that people go through.

So maybe like, growing up in the same decade or, living in like the same place or having the same favorite toy growing up or going through a crisis together, like the pandemic, I mean, that’s. There’s, there’s a lot of things, gosh, never in a point in time. Have we all been so concerned about toilet paper?

Right. Like, I mean, there’s, there’s like so many things that can come out of that one. or like, those kind of like, Oh, I remember when, we blah, blah, blah, like those are nostalgia, really powerful. So it’s why you see, obviously with even movies, Netflix, you see all these remakes of popular shows from the past.

Cause it brings back, like, it evokes these emotions of like, oh, I used to love that now I’m going to watch it with my. Family and introduce a whole new audience to it. things like that. it’s smart. And so that is [00:42:00] empathy. And then data is the last one. And then you can ask me any questions you want to this, but data is where, I call it like being a content investigator at this point, because, and I love this part of the process, which is like sleuthing through all the data sources and, data of once you know who your person is, you can look and be able to identify things that they may be searching for things about them. So you can look in like social listening tools to see like, or even just going into gosh, groups, online to see like, what are the conversations and questions people are asking SEO, which I mentioned, I love SEO and my favorite place to look is actually this site called answerthepublic.com.

Matt Bailey: Yeah.

Sarah Panus: Super affordable. So, anyone starting out or wants to just do this on your own or add it to your company, I love answerthepublic. com for those insights. You have paid media, obviously looking at the results of your paid ads, seeing like what is or isn’t resonating with people, internal customer insights.

So, depending on the size of your company, you may have some [00:43:00] insights already from A

Matt Bailey: Talk to your ..

Sarah Panus: at insights.

Matt Bailey: I tell people talk to your salespeople, please talk, you may try to avoid them, but talk to them. They know what we’re going through.

Sarah Panus: Yes. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And also, if you have like, a customer loyalty program or if the company does like what insights do they have about their existing customers, your employees, your sales team, like you mentioned, customer service team. Like what are people calling and asking about?

I mean, I remember at one point we created a. chunk of content. Usually you think about content to make money for the company because you’re attracting people or reengaging them. You can think about content to save the company money. So, we created content that reduced call center volume because they could just see the content online.

They didn’t have to call in. So, then you don’t have to Pay, all the costs of those call center reps to answer those questions. so there’s a lot of like ways you can look at content and how it can help, website traffic, third party, if you don’t have any of that, there’s lots of third party companies that have a [00:44:00] lot of data and insights you can buy get that way, or agencies that you partner with asking them questions like, All the places that you can get it.

My whole thing is you don’t have to do all of these. It’s great if you can, but pick at least three, you don’t want to just have one data source because then you’re in, you’re in like a, a bubble. And that bubble may not be entirely accurate. If you’re just looking at one social channel, that may not be the reality of like all everyone else everywhere is what they’re thinking.

It might just be isolated to that, that channel and that. Specific age group that’s participating there. So just do at least three. So then basically you look for these trends. It’s like a puzzle you’re putting together and trying to just give those insights. It’s a content person stream because you don’t have to guess what to talk about.

Cause then you’re focused, your three pillars, you have empathy and data insights that can help then inform those pillars, be able to know what to talk about in a way that’s going to better help solve your, your customer’s problems. Ultimately. so they’re going to want to stay engaged with you and actually buy from you.

Matt Bailey: love it. I love the whole, the pathway you’re taking [00:45:00] there. where I got into the industry was SEO and, yeah, so I use a program called SE ranking and when I do my keyword research, I love it because it gives me like three groups of keywords to investigate and the third group is all questions that have been typed in.

So, right away you’re getting right to the heart of the pain points that people have and people, there’s a great book out there called everybody lies. And the conclusion of the book is people will lie to other people. They will lie to their doctors. They will lie to their families. They will lie to their lawyer.

They will lie to everybody. But the one place that they do not lie is Google because they’re typing it exactly what they want to see. And so that is probably the most honest data that you can get in understanding a pain point or what people need. So, I absolutely love your emphasis there on, on SEO because that is, that’s where I go to start.

Is what’s the problems [00:46:00] people have once we identify them. Now, how do we approach it? How do we develop it from here? And so, but I love the, the structure. It’s what I love about talking to smart people, developing little structures and mnemonics and things to, to, to help

Sarah Panus: And you know, and a new one too, that I didn’t mention, which surprise, surprise it’s AI, like, I can’t believe I forgot that one. Obviously, it was just never in my radar before, but obviously, but what I’ve been doing now is as I’m doing the research, I’ll look at all these other things first, but then I’ll use AI as kind of like an assistant on the side to be like, okay, that’s interesting.

What do you got on this? Like, just tell me what else people are. And sometimes it will give me some additional information. Not always, but it’s kind of like a nice gut check. I just use it as to it’s not my sole source of truth by any means. because there’s, it’s, there’s limitations to what it can search and, you don’t always know the accuracy of everything within it, but I like it as a gut check. That’s how I’ve been using AI in that process. and just to see if there’s anything else that comes up that maybe I haven’t even been, that hasn’t crossed my radar [00:47:00] yet with anything else I’ve been looking at. So, then I can dig a little further.

Matt Bailey: and even with that, same here, I’ve been checking some keyword research. I’ll have the AI even group, like 2000 keywords, group them into little groups so I can see what the consideration there is. But then I’ll ask the AI, give me three personas. That have this problem and give me a scenario and it’s really interesting.

So, it gets me about 70 percent of the persona and, but it’s really interesting to, to ask what would be a common scenario because once in a while, it’ll help me. Oh, I didn’t think of that. there, there’s certain things there that, especially if it’s way out of my realm. Oh, now I get it now. I’m understanding. So in that way, it’s, it’s kind of, as I like to say, AI is like having a million interns and one of those interns might have something to contribute.

Sarah Panus: Yeah, definitely. I mean, the, the, the thing that’s interesting with AI and content there, obviously there’s so much conversation now and fear of it taking [00:48:00] over people’s jobs and, and there are some companies who are just going to like use AI to write some things for them as is, I would not recommend that.

Yeah. Yeah. Not because I do this and it’s my livelihood at all, but it’s like, it’s not smart because it’s not going to be as good a quality. It may get you a good draft, or you may ask like already have, and then ask it to proof it. Or how can I condense this or things like that? But you need a human brain behind thinking through everything you’re doing and how it connects across your different channels and to make sure it’s really smart and strategic.

but I’m, I’m in the camp of use it as an assistant, like that’s how to your point, use it as an intern, like, think about it like that to find, places where you can save some time, cut out some of that grunt work and to gut check stuff.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. Yeah, I have heard a couple of companies have completely gone to that instead of using copywriters and to me, that’s the scariest thing I,

Sarah Panus: Yeah.

Matt Bailey: Oh, no. because I’ve not seen AI [00:49:00] do empathy well. And it’s, it’s. It’s, it is very much on the factual logical side, which is good, maybe help phrasing that, but to go 100 percent AI for creating your content, I can’t think of a worse strategy.

Mm hmm.

Sarah Panus: Rates and things are going to go down. You’re going to be wasting time on things and money. If you’re putting paid ad dollars behind it, you just want to be smart about what you’re talking about.

Obviously, I’m a big, that’s why I’m just such a big fan of focus on like your content, focus on where it’s distributed. So, you don’t waste that time and money in the wrong places. Or if you, if it is the wrong place, cause you’re trying something new and you don’t know, well, then you find out, you can find out sooner and then, pause and shift to something else as you, as you’re learning.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. And this goes back. I love the story brand step through and, and things like that. I don’t know about you, but when I was in university, I had to [00:50:00] take rhetoric and going back all the way to Aristotle of the, the logic, emotion, and credibility. And that. Yeah. That approach of you have to establish credibility, but that’s also a long-term thing.

And then yes, you can give facts, but people make decisions based on emotion. And so having to build those stories in ways that meet people where they are rather than just throwing a bunch of facts at them, which I’m seeing that more and more in Some of the AI driven content, but just you know, because you said what’s cold It doesn’t have any warmth.

It doesn’t have any connection when we just, that’s a cell sheet. That’s for B2B that does not go to the consumer.

Sarah Panus: there’s like a one, two punch way to do that, where you’re doing authority plus [00:51:00] empathy. So, when you make an empathy statement, it’s like.

That’s saying, you care, you understand, we get it. authority then is the trust builder because it’s like, you can, someone can say, oh, I totally understand what you’re going through. And it’s like, okay, thanks. But like, then what, right? Like, I don’t know if I should work with you. So, you need to demonstrate authority with it.

So, authority is like, Hey, we’ve been doing this for 20 years. We’ve helped over. 2000 people do acts like we have five-star reviews. Like those are all, we have, look at all our great testimonials. Like that’s your authority. So, then it’s like, okay, your customer is like, okay, they understand me. And they’re like someone I can trust to help me.

So that’s the one to punch you. And you don’t want to miss one or the other. Cause it’s really powerful blend together.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. And that is it. I mean, there’s got to be some tricky ways sometimes to talk about yourself or to talk about your company. And I like that format with the, the authority, but also the empathy because I, [00:52:00] and it’s a hard line to walk because it’s so easy to go in one way or the other.

What are some other. I don’t want to say traps, but situations like that where you’ve got to, you’ve got to play both sides in and, and be smart about it.

Sarah Panus: that’s a good question. I mean, I would say always start with the empathy statement followed by the authority statement. So that’s like the one, two. So, you’re hitting the emotion, but then you’re validating with why you should be the trusted person. I don’t know, trap. I’m not sure. Traps like nothing’s jumping into my mind right now in terms of, I would, cause every scenario is going to be a little different depending on how you’re having to talk about things.

But honestly, if you do the empathy followed by the authority, the, you The trap I would say that you could fall into is if you don’t. Get the empathy statement, right? If people are like, well, they’re totally clueless. Oh, sure. Brand you’re sorry, but you’re still doing all these things. You see that in crisis management, right?

Where you’re like the CEO sends out some like notes. [00:53:00] So I’m not talking about that. That’s different. That’s like crisis comes or you gotta be, there’s some different nuances there. But if, so that, that’s one thing, but I think with empathy, we can be really short. You don’t have to be, it can literally be like, we understand how it feels to blank.

We get that. It’s hard to X we, whatever, like it just, just one sentence. That’s all you need. So don’t overdo it. Don’t belabor the point necessarily. and it also depends. I mean, I, I know. I always hate saying like, it depends, but there are so many different scenarios. It depends where you’re sharing it.

Is it a place where you have a lot of space, like a blog post where you’re, it’s going to be like a whole paragraph, or is it an email or a website where it’s just two lines? Like, it kind of just depends how much space you have, but I just think that’s a big one is just always be remembering, and thinking about why is my customer going to care about this?

What is that empathy filter? And then how can we reframe this, to talk about it in a way that is, because that helped me have so much sanity when I worked corporate and with all my clients too. It’s like, okay, well, [00:54:00] all these ideas, it empowers you to be able to say no. so if an idea comes and say, well, that actually doesn’t fit into one of our three storytelling pillars, but if we framed it like this, it does, are you okay with that angle?

And then they always would say, yes, because they always just want you to talk about the thing. So, your job is to make sure it’s the right way so that you’re talking in a way that your audience is going to care, which you will know, because you’ve gone through like all the work in the beginning to develop the story.

The answers to the things I was talking about earlier, it just helps you give so much sanity in your job and not be as overwhelmed for sure.

Matt Bailey: And I think you such a great point. The freedom to say no is Completely overlooked. being able to say, no, that doesn’t fit our brand. No, that doesn’t fit our voice. It doesn’t fit our, our, as you said, our, our storytelling pillar. If it doesn’t line up, it doesn’t measure the freedom to say, no, we’re not going to do that.

We’re not going to pursue that. It really helps to keep everyone on the same path, on the [00:55:00] same mindset. Here’s how we’re going to do it. Here’s how we’re going to approach it. I’ve just learned over the years, being able to say no is actually freedom. It’s not restrictive.

Sarah Panus: percent. I’m with you. And that’s what I was talking about, like right in the beginning is you get to learn that as you go along, but like, if you’re working and you feel like there’s just too much that you’re, everyone’s trying to tackle, bring it up. So, if you’re the leader, or if you’re not the leader, you’re, bring it up to your leader to say.

How can we like focus, on, on a fewer things. I have, no joke, I had one client one time that, the beginning of us working together, they were showing me all their priorities, everything their team was being asked to create content for. And there was about, there was like 27 different priorities.

I’m like, that’s not, I mean, you can’t prioritize 27 different things at the same time. I mean, that’s not a priority. It’s just a long to do list essentially at that point. And no surprise, their team was burnt out, not happy, frazzled. The content they were pushing out wasn’t great because they were just kind of half [00:56:00] having to do it just to get it out and like, oh, that’s good enough, and just getting it out.

So, it was a fun exercise to go through narrowing that down and empowering the team with. How they can respond then when people wanted to do all these things, because they were saying yes to everything. And yeah, you’re going to, everything’s going to suffer your team, your retention, your satisfaction with your job.

but then also the results. And like I said, who wants to waste time and money? It takes a lot of time to make all this content, to think through what you’re going to do and to make it. And then money to amplify it and share it and get it out there. We don’t want to be, nobody needs, especially in this economy, we need to be really smart about what the heck we’re putting out there.

as every dollar gets paid. more.

Matt Bailey: Absolutely. Absolutely. That is, it. And that’s a whole conversation. I think that’s going to be coming up here soon. Okay. One last question, Sarah. What is the weirdest thing you’ve learned from working with different companies and brands?

Sarah Panus: Oh.

Matt Bailey: What’s the weirdest thing that you’ve learned either about people or [00:57:00] about a product? yeah, give you an example. When I was, I worked with a gambling company and they were like, we want people with, with oxygen tanks because they don’t leave. Oh, my goodness. like, Oh no.

Sarah Panus: I’m trying to think, gosh, cause every company is so different. I mean, it’s not weird. But it was unsettling is that no matter. How big or small the company is, everyone has, professional insecurities, I would say, in terms of, because you would think, and there’s so many people like, oh, you’ve worked for all these billion-dollar brands and these huge, names.

There are people internally at those that are just as clueless or feeling just as frazzled as people who are running their own show, in a, in a small, small business and starting it out that it’s surprising because there’s sort of this, like, it’s almost like the social media effect, right? Where we see everyone in social media and everyone’s doing great and happy [00:58:00] and like, that whole thing.

But it’s like behind the scenes as professionals. I’ve just learned that like everyone needs help in some way. And it’s interesting, like the people who are open to asking about it, asking for the help and not, not putting up this shield are always going to be more successful. So there was someone I knew that worked with and they had, some colleagues who within the group, that were very stubborn and it was their way and it had to be their way.

And no surprise, their metrics were all down. So they were trying to solve it, but they didn’t actually, so they tried to solve it. They brought in all these agencies, support and experts and consultants, and they didn’t listen to anybody. And as a result, they ended up keep continuing to like, Stop working with all these partners.

And it’s like, at that point, you’re like, this isn’t, this is a you problem. Like if that keeps happening, you’re like, we just, and they made the comment on one call I was on [00:59:00] to someone else. And they go, yeah, gosh, we just don’t know why none of our agency partners are working out. It’s like been really frustrating and you’re like, oh my gosh.

Like, and so I got it after being part of being part of the inner circle and like This, you guys, you got to stop. You’re never going to solve anything. If you don’t actually want to solve it and stop, just, you’ve got to let go of your pride and be open to hearing what other people are suggesting. because otherwise you’re, that, that that’s, and it’s, the solution still is not solved to this day.

I’m still observing this company and they’re still making the same mistakes.

Matt Bailey: I have seen similar, similar things. Yes, absolutely.

The, not like a weird, it’s not like a weird thing, but it may feel weird. And I’m just feeling like with your audience for all of those who maybe are starting out or shifting into different things, it’s okay to not know or not feel like, everything, nobody knows everything.

Sarah Panus: Gosh. I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been working for 20 some years in this industry. I don’t know everything and that’s okay. I mean, you actually ask questions and then you find other people who are really smart [01:00:00] in different areas and that’s how you learn. So don’t pretend like, everything, it will not end well for you.

Matt Bailey: Great. And like you said, if you get in, you’re a go getter, you want to learn, you’re asking questions, you’re going to go far. Absolutely. You’re going to go far. And, but yeah, there are people there that are absolutely afraid of losing their jobs, no matter how senior they might be. and, and they can be very interesting to work with.

Oh, Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It has been a joy to talk with you and learn about your background and what you’re doing, where can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about storytelling and, maybe implementing StoryBrand into what they’re doing.

Sarah Panus: Yeah, definitely. Well, I’d say there’s three ways. the first would be to check out my website, kindred speak. com. So it has all sorts of details there. I’m very active on LinkedIn, so you can connect with me on LinkedIn, my, under my name, Sarah Panus and then if you are interested in this course. In this storytelling space, follow my podcast Marketing with Empathy so I can help you kind of more confidently navigate this [01:01:00] whole world of brand storytelling through different examples from great brands. We have on, I just had Ari’s, divisional global VP on, I was talking about theirs, it was incredible. conversation. So those would be the three. And then I would say too, on my website, I have a ton of freebies.

So, if you just click on the freebies link, my newest one is a new quiz I just created. that will help you. You kind of think through, like if you’re ready for like a content makeover, I give you some examples of what you can do to improve your content and it’s all framed around a home makeover show.

So, it’s kind of fun. Like if your company was a home makeover show, what would it be called and how can we help it? So, that’s really fun. It takes 40 seconds, and you can get some great insights from there as well. And you’ll find that on my website at kindred speak. com and then like slash, favorites.

Matt Bailey: Fantastic. We’ll get all of those links in the show notes and thank you again, Sarah. This has been just a wonderful conversation.

Sarah Panus: Thank you. Happy to be here. It was so great. Great. Thanks Matt.

Matt Bailey: All right. And thank you to your listener. I hope you got through at least one cup of coffee [01:02:00] on this conversation. me, I went through two, so, really appreciate your time with us and I look forward to sharing with you on the next endless coffee cup podcast.