In today's video, I'm going to cover three storytelling mistakes that are ruining your ability to tell stories, especially if you're telling stories in your marketing, in sales, in speeches, in your books, what have you. By the way, click that subscribe button. So you don't miss any of my new videos.
All right. So why do we tell stories? We tell stories to be persuasive in our marketing, in our emails, in our YouTube videos, in our books. If you're an author on stage, in Facebook or YouTube ads, whatever it is, storytelling is the ultimate form of persuasion because when somebody hears a story and they come to a conclusion at the end of that story, that's much more powerful if they come to a conclusion, then if you simply tell them what conclusion to come to. So, for instance, if I didn't want you to do drugs, I wouldn't say drugs are bad. Okay? Instead, I will tell you a story of somebody that did drugs and wound up dead. You know, on the floor, passed out like fricking foam coming out of their mouth, and then you'd be like, Whoa, okay. I probably don't want that to happen. But if I just say drugs bad, well, then you probably won't listen.
All right. So storytelling mistake, number one, you're telling a synopsis instead of a story. This happens all the time. A synopsis is just sort of like a general overview. Like if you would look at a movie on IMDV, you'll see, they're not going to tell you the story of the movie. They're gonna tell you a synopsis. And so, because you live the story, you're sort of just telling what the story is about rather than telling the story. Oh, so I went into the military, and that's where my Drill Sergeant was kind of mean, and it made me realize that I really had to toughen up. Versus, it was my first day of Bootcamp, and I could literally feel my chest just tightening 'cause I was so nervous. And then the drill Sergeant came out and said, Ahhhhh! Or something like that. The point is that you need to actually tell a story rather than tell a synopsis of the story.
By the way, I've never been in the military. I was just telling that as a story, just to be clear. I think I was thinking of Full Metal Jacket because I just saw that movie. This is my laptop. There are many like it, but this one is mine. (Video Guy: I'm so confused.) Cause you... Okay. My video guy doesn't even know what we just did here because he's never seen full metal Jack give because that movie is more than 20 years old. I know. I'm sorry. There was a world before 1990. I know it's hard to, it's hard to understand.
So the second mistake is reflecting rather than narrating. This is very similar to the first mistake, but there is a minor nuance that makes it different. And that is when you think back to the story, you've already lived it. So you're reflecting, you're thinking about different things that are interesting to you to reflect on, but in reality, you live the story. So you don't need to know each and every pillar of what makes the story make sense 'cause you lived that. And so you're reflecting on it rather than narrating it. Remember, when you tell a story, you need to narrate it so that it makes sense to the person listening. And when we reflect rather than narrate, we often leave out very important plot points or keys to make the story make sense. It makes sense to us because we've lived it, but it doesn't make sense to the person who is listening.
And the third mistake is you don't have a moral in mind. If you've ever heard of the old saying, that's the moral of the story or the moral of the story is that means there's a point. There is a point you're trying to make. So when people tell stories, sometimes they just randomly tell a story, or they don't really think about how to tell the story in a way that gets the point across. So, try to understand that you are not telling a story, just to tell a story to sound cool. You're trying to make a point. That point must be illustrated by the story.
And so for instance, if I was trying to tell the story of why you shouldn't be cheap in business, meaning if you need help, if you need services, you should pay for a premium service rather than cheap service. I might tell the story of how I paid way more in taxes for a long time 'cause I went with a cheap accountant and CPA versus when I hired a super bougie high price accountant, they saved me way more money. And that actually is a true story. At one point, I was in the 20th percentile in taxes. I should have been in the 40 or 50th percent, but I paid somebody who was a friend of mine. They charged a low amount, and they saved me about 200 grand in taxes. But then I hired a super bougie CPA who charges me like $60,000 crazy amount of at least I thought it was crazy at the time, but then she saved me 2.2 million and basically got me a yacht for free through a loophole in the tax code. So trust me, I would rather pay 60 grand and save 2.2 million than pay like five or ten grand and save 200,000. And so when I tell that story, people go, Oh, that makes sense. The more you put in, the more you get out, and that's the point of that story.
So I really hope these three tips helped you because if you're watching my channel, you are likely an entrepreneur of some sort, or you're thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, or you're somebody who wants to start or grow their business in order to do that. One of the fundamental ways to sell, persuade, grow your brand, and spread your message is effective storytelling. It's something that we help our clients with all the time. And it's something that has helped grow my company, getclients.com, to a $20 million business. In fact, the crux of our advertising marketing, email, follow-up, and strategy is all storytelling.
And by the way, if you're interested, learn how to grow your business, you can go to get clients.com. There's a lot of free resources there, including my book, Digital Millionaire Secrets, which is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. You can get that for free just pay for shipping. There's also an amazing one-hour training there that I give absolutely free on how to grow your business and, as well, there's a ton of free blog posts and podcasts and things like that. And if you want to become a client, you can check that out as well, all on getclients.com. By the way, if you want more videos like this, or you have an idea for a video for me, leave me a comment, let me know what you want me to do, and I'll do it. And I might even do it naked. No, I won't. I was just trying to think of something to say to make the video and really nice. And then I said naked, and then I realized you can't be naked on YouTube. No naked Dan. All right. Subscribe to the channel. Love you guys. See you in the next one.