Leveraging the flip side of an elevator pitch

Leveraging the flip side of an elevator pitch

Apr 24, 2017 | Branding, Communication, Small business

Honing an elevator pitch is something we all should do, and many spend hours writing and practising a pitch, following one of the many templates around, most of which are similar.

Grab attention.

Describe the product.

Articulate the benefit.

All in 30 seconds.

We fantasise about catching that mystical perfect customer alone in an elevator, enthusing him/her to such as extent that they rush out and buy.

Rarely happens.

More often, you get the opportunity to deliver your pitch at a networking meeting, or some semi social gathering.

Still rarely happens that your perfect customer is there, listening, but we are happy to be delivering a pitch perfectly in that hope.

However, most people, somewhere in their networks, will know someone who will be the perfect customer.

The question then becomes how do make the pitch sufficiently memorable, that they are able to recite it back to their networks.

Do this successfully, and you will have  a host of sales people out there pitching for you, and we all know  the most effective marketing is still person to person, word of mouth endorsement.

It comes down to being able to articulate your differentiator and value proposition, in one sentence, in simple words.

It must be memorable, simple, and describe why they should be interested beyond any apparent alternative.

In the early days of Uber, founder Travis Kalanick described Uber as “Push a button and in 5 minutes a Mercedes picks you up and takes you where you want to go”

Nothing about platforms, technology, marketplaces, or any of the other buzzwords we slip into so easily, just the benefit. More recently it has been further simplified into ‘Push a button, get a ride‘

One of my clients in Sydney, Planet Press  that I met after I was ‘constructively rude’ about a botched elevator pitch delivery has a rare differentiator. It is a medium sized printing business with a highly experienced and skilled design function, combined with digital and offset printing, a wide range of die cutting, perforating and assembly options, along with a slick distribution service, all under the one roof. How do you make that lot sufficiently memorable that someone hearing the pitch will be able to relate it to their networks?

‘Quality printed communication from under one roof’?

Perhaps not quite there yet, but closer.

 

 

4 foundation principles for brand building

4 foundation principles for brand building

Apr 18, 2017 | Branding, Marketing

Albert Einstein was a great thinker, he changed the world, but he is not much associated with marketing & business. However, when you read through his various musings, he should be up there in the pantheon of great marketing thinkers like David Ogilvy, Seth Godin, and Goofy.

One of the things that Einstein said which really resonates is ‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, no simpler’

There is a serious point to my inclusion of ‘Goofy’. Think about it, Goofy is a brand. Say the word, and it conjures up a mental picture of the simple friendly dog, Micky’s mate who gets in the way, tripping over himself all the time. That one word conjured up all those images, at least with some of you. Goofy is a brand, built over 75 years, made up of a few simple elements, tied together in a unique way, as Einstein told us they should be.

This always applies to the manner in which we go about building brands.

However, one thing is absolutely clear, and absolutely simple:

A brand is the ultimate sales tool.

If you did not want to sell something, a brand would not be needed. It is a sales tool.

A brand in its role as a sales tool, fills a small number of functions:

  • It is a filter that makes customer choice easier by providing customers with a sorting mechanism.
  • It is a symbol representing something of meaning, offering reasons why you should engage. Ie buy, contribute, attend, whatever it is.
  • It is a commercial vehicle for the brand owner.

World vision is a brand, they want us to buy peace of mind, assuage our comfortable middle class guilt by contributing money

Coca Cola is a brand, they want us to buy a lifestyle

Pewdipie is a brand, they want us to participate. Never heard of pewdipie? I will come back to it.

I think the word ‘building’ in the title of this post is vitally important.

As with any building, you have to get the foundations right, before you do anything else. Whatever you try and build, if the foundations are dodgy, it will not last, no matter how pretty, immediately functional, or different it is, without the foundations, you will have nothing of lasting value.

Therefore, I will give you a view of the foundations of a brand, how you should approach the process of building a brand of lasting commercial value.

How do I capture such a complex and undefined challenge in a simple way?

Has everyone done a jigsaw puzzle?

Imagine this photograph as a jigsaw. It is in fact a shot of the WSLTA clubhouse, where we use the great game of tennis as the excuse for a drink and gasbag, after some enjoyable exercise.

If it was a 20 piece puzzle, one to be done with your kids? Simple.

If it was a 10,000 piece puzzle, far more complicated.

Imagine now the added complication if you did not have the picture to hand as the end result to refer to.

Think about the process of doing that jigsaw.

Every single time, I guarantee you, that you have done a jig saw you have done the same thing, in the same sequence.

  • You put the picture next to the pieces, so you can see what you are aiming at.
  • You have organised the pieces, so they are all one side up, spread around, so you can see them all.
  • You find the 4 corners. Obvious, as they have 2 straight sides,
  • You find the sides, somewhat obvious, because there is I straight side, but harder to find than the 4 corners.
  • You start to assemble the rest into small groups by colour, and where they seem to best fit the picture of the finished article.
  • Slowly the groups of 2/3/4 pieces grow as their place in the picture becomes clearer, and slowly those groups are fitted to other groups, to make bigger groups.

This all happens while you are constantly referring back to the picture, engaging in a lot of trial and error, fitting them together. Sometimes you are tempted to force 2 pieces together, but know it just causes problems down the track.

Building a brand is the same thing.

There are the 4 foundation principals, a small number of secondary pieces of the puzzle that dictate the outline, and potentially thousands of smaller pieces that can be assembled into the completed picture.

So let’s talk about them

I would also make the point again, that without a clear picture of what you want the brand to be,  just like the jigsaw, it will be far more difficult to assemble the pieces, take a lot more time, cost a lot more money, and the chances of ending up in a total mess are very high.

So, what are the 4 corners, the first things you find, the cornerstones of your foundation building?

Customers. Who is it you are seeking to engage and sell

Value proposition What is it that you are doing for them that delivers value to them

Leverage. What enables you to leverage, ie: amplify the value proposition. This is in effect your strategic and marketing toolbox, from which you will make a lot of choices.

Business Purpose. The Why, the story of the brand. This drives everything else, which is why it is in the bottom right hand corner, I cannot get away completely from my roots  as a bean counter.

Like all foundations, the 4 are largely hidden, but this is where the thinking goes in, where the first steps in building the end design are taken, and must be solid, or the edifice built on them will not work.

First, the most important factor.

Simon Sinek articulated this better than everyone else combined a few years ago.

What, How, and Why.

 Your why is your brand story, the reason anyone should care, it is not the easy to articulate features of the product, and how it might be used, but the stuff that resonates in your guts that are often very hard to put words to, it just ‘Feels right’

Brands that try to be all things to all people, or even some to things to a few end up suffering from what we would call when seen in people as schizophrenia. Yes, It applies to brands as well as people, but instead of medicating them, or locking them up, we do the worst thing we can do to someone’s lovingly crafted, expensively built brand:

We ignore them.

The why is the bridge between what you want people to do, and what they hear, it provides the context, the cement that holds the edifice together.

To quote Sinek, ‘People don’t buy what you do, they believe what you believe’.

A simple way to start the process is to do what I call the ‘We believe’ test.

This emerged when I was rereading the text of Sineks presentation having tried unsuccessfully to articulate to a client the importance of a ‘Why;’ and how it was different to the ‘Vision, Mission, Values’  approach with which they were familiar, and seemed considerably easier.

It is simply asking what you believe, deep in your guts about what it is that you do, the value you provide to those who engage, how you change their world.

We/I believe………

Imagine I was running a book-keeping business, what do you say to apply the test:

I believe….. that by contacting out routine tasks to specialists, your most valuable asset, your time will deliver better outcomes for you.

I believe…… that giving you back time will improve your life

I piloted this test a few years ago with a book-keeper I know, who was having trouble drumming up business. He had a pretty but pointless website, had tried flyers, and letterbox drops, advertising in the local papers, cold calling, and going to network groups telling them of all his qualifications. Pretty much flogging a dead horse, and he only got work when he discounted heavily, or was given the hack overload work by a local accounting firm that then billed their clients at 3 times what they paid him.

We had a cup of coffee, and I worked him through the ‘I believe” exercise, and it came out that what he was really doing was giving back clients time to spend on things they enjoyed, and wanted to do more of.

Next time I saw him at a network meeting, instead of his usual opening, he said: ‘I believe my job is to help people get more sex’, after that, the laughter drowned out the rest, but he did explain that the time he gave back by doing their bookkeeping gave them the opportunity to do other things that were important to them, perhaps even getting laid more often.

He never had the bottle to put it on his website, but he now employs several people in his office, and is doing quite well.

If you can articulate the why, the rest becomes much easier, and you will save a lot of time and money.

However, articulating your why is really, really, really hard.

For the supplier, a brand is a commercial vehicle, a way to deliver leverage by way of price, distribution, and the many factors that contribute to commercial success.

For the customer it is a way of making the decision easier, offering reassurance of performance, certainty, it is both a filter and a trusted friend.

It is a double sided coin, with the sweet spot, the Value to that customer captured in the overlap.

To buyers, a brand can be a person, a friend, something that if it is your brand, you have some emotional investment in it, some connection with it.

When asked to describe a brand, consumers always use human terms. Friendly, remote, about 50, a successful woman, and so on.

It is really easy for marketers to go off the rails here, to see a picture of an emotional attachment that simply does not exist, They see it through their eyes, not those of the consumer. The truth is that consumers see brands as things/people that solve problems for them, they have preferences, sometimes very strong and exclusive ones, but in the end, it is rarely a life defining choice, most brands are  not in a position to change the world.

Note that having a useful Value Proposition depends on knowing your customer very well, which is the next foundation principal. It does not matter if you have a great value proposition for a new tractor if the person seeing the ad is a 20 something lady living in the inner metropolitan area.

Ask yourself two questions:

  • What value does my brand generate for my ideal customer?
  • Why should they buy mine, and not somebody elses?

Failure to answer either is a fail. However, it does lead to a bunch of other highly relevant questions you should ask yourself.

This process is always iterative, it never just happens at once, nicely sequenced, it is a messy, emotional, and challenging process with lots of traps along the way.

Who is your ideal Customer?

Where will you find them?

What are their behaviours?

Why should they buy from you?

Developing a persona of your ideal customer requires that you make choices, often difficult and confronting ones, but the more choices you make  the better, the more focused and therefore compelling you can make the communication of the value proposition to those chosen.

Making these choices is more about what you will not do, than it is what you will do.

One of my marketing mantras is ‘choose a niche and own it’

These days, the more choices you make, the deeper and darker the niche to which you market becomes, the more likely you will be left alone to do business with those who truly value what you have to offer.

Digital enables some scarily accurate targeting, and it is getting better at it every day.

It is very hard for an SME not to chase every so called opportunity as it emerges, but when you are small, focus is essential, as you have less resources to expend.

You cannot be all things to all people. Way better to be a necessity to a small number of people.

Making the choices about the niches you chase is a core part of the brand building exercise.

Years ago I took over the marketing for the general products division of Dairy Farmers, which included Ski yoghurt. Ski had been around for a while, had been market leader, but had recently seen, this was the early eighties, Yoplait launch, and decimate their share in a market that had huge growth as a result of  the activity. Being a new marketing manager, I did some research, first thing, and it was a revelation. Sitting behind the glass I watched as yogurt consumers described Yoplait as a young, educated, hip and successful young woman, and Ski as an old reliable farmer in wellies. Very human descriptions, and my marketing challenge was clear. 10 years later, Ski was the market leader, with Yoplait a close second, each with about 35% share of a market that had continued to  double every couple of years. The research exercise was a stark reminder of how consumers saw, and related to brands

I am currently working with a client who is embarking on this path, and we have developed a Value Proposition that has 3 elements, and are now defining his ideal customer with an evolving rating system that demands that they meet a number of criteria, related to the value proposition.

Very quickly, the sales have gone up, because the sales people were forced to say ‘No’ very early to the price driven casual tyre kicker who was comparing prices and did not fit the profile. This has left them more time to sell to current and more appropriate potential customers, the communication is way better targeted, and margins have quickly improved.

Leverage.

We all understand the concept of leverage, doing more with less.

In brand building, you have to use the available tools to give you leverage, but you also have to have something worth leveraging.

You have to be remarkable.

By definition, remarkable means that it is worth telling someone.

It must be an example of Seth Godins Purple Cow

The tools give you the leverage to make use of remarkable. Always have. TV is a tool for leverage, just as is Facebook, but neither work in the face of ‘unremarkable’.

All marketing activity, no matter what it is, is seeking to apply leverage to something.

Let’s consider that best of marketing tools ever: personal recommendation.

It delivers a lot of credibility and brand building power, but low leverage, as it is one person at a time, although getting a few to become apostles delivers huge depth of leverage. It can be enormously valuable over time.

Personal recommendations can be used digitally when you think hard about it, so put some on your website.

The tools of digital have made it easier, but the competition for attention is intense.

When I was young, there were a few TV stations, newspapers, radio stations, and magazines, that was all. Now, everybody is a publisher, there are literally millions of channels of communication, thousands of hours of video gets posted to YouTube every minute.

Attention is the new gold standard, and people are very adept at filtering out stuff of no interest, and they make choices that exclude most of the noise.

Again, it does not matter how well you use the tools, if the product is not remarkable, the tools will not do you much good.

The reverse is also true, if the product is remarkable, but you do not use the tools, or use them poorly, or use the wrong ones, progress will at best be slow.

Back to the jigsaw analogy, there are many pieces, the question is how they best fit together.

Scott Brinker every year puts together a Martech Landscape. This is the one from March 2016, with 3,800 branded tools in the box.  2017 when it comes out, very soon, will be well up on that score.

The remarkable purple cow speaks for itself.

As the old saying goes, when you have a nail to drive, you need a hammer.

Now however, you have a million different nails, each requiring a specialised hammer.

Have you picked the problem with the Jigsaw metaphor?

A jig saw only fits together one way, there are no alternative solutions involved at all.

When building a brand, there are no right answers, there is no one way, unlike the jigsaw.  There are multitudes of ways you can fit the pieces together, and decide which pieces you want to use, you can experiment and play until the mix is optimised for your situation.

There are no silver bullets or easy answers, no templates, and a thousand experts who will charge you for their particular (Branded) truth, so beware.

Many here would be thinking ‘facebook’, a number of you have experimented with it, which is great. Experiment away.

However, if you think facebook is the answer, you have asked the wrong question. It may be a tiny part of the answer, but only a tiny part.

Having a picture of the end result is however, essential. In that, the jigsaw analogy works perfectly.

An obvious question after all this effort, is how do we value a brand?

As some know I am a recovered accountant, however, part of my DNA is still looking for things I can count that mean something, that give me information I can use.

Therefore I look for useful metrics that give some idea of the value of a brand.

It is reasonable when you invest all this time and effort into brand building, to expect a return.

It seems to me that youtube subscribers would be a good measure, after all, when you sign up to the channel, you have explicitly said you want more from them, more information, promotions, so it seems like a good measure of engagement.

I referred at the beginning to several brands, so lets look at their value.

The Coke brand worth is said to be worth $US80 billion, one of several estimates by reputable companies, and one of the top 3 or 4 brands in the world, according to these lists, Interbrand, being one. Pewdipie does not feature on any list I can find.

Coke spends around $3 bill/year on branded advertising, plus all the rest they spend.

They have a stated marketing objective of ‘engaging’ consumers with the Coke brand.

So, YouTube subscribers might be a good measure.

March 23 when I looked, Coca Cola had just short of 1.4 million subscribers, added across a number of individual Coke channels. Well up from a year ago when they had 1 channel and 763,000 subscribers. The maths, tells me the increase in subscribers last year cost them, well, a lot!!

Anyone here heard of Felix Kjellberg? Or his business Pewdipie?

A Swedish gaming satirical commentary web site, hardly even a product.

Pewdipie had well over 54.4 million subscribers, roughly 39 times Coke, is the number 1 site on YouTube by subscribers, coke is not even in the top 150

Coke has been spending billions, with a specific objective of ‘engaging consumers’ for 100 years, and Pewdipie has been around for 7 or 8 years, spent little or nothing, and just has a dodgy site with amateur videos done by his mates.

This is the value of a niche, and understanding in great detail the persona of your target audience.

So to finish, when you set about this brand building exercise, make sure you have a very clear picture of where you want to end up, as without the picture, any destination will do, but it may not suit you.

Header picture is of master brand builder Walt Disney looking on as his creation, Disneyland, emerges from its foundations. Thanks to Wikimedia.

 

 

 

 

Competition for attention creates Opportunity

Competition for attention creates Opportunity

Apr 12, 2017 | Customers, Demand chains, Marketing

The nature of competition has changed dramatically in the last decade.

We no longer live in a world where information is limited and controlled, where the old truism that information is power  gave the few power over the rest of us applies.

It is no longer a competition amongst a few cashed up suppliers to use the power of advertising in a few tightly controlled communication channels to stuff the supply chain to limit our choices.

It is no longer a supply chain controlled by a very few of those who are able to supply, it is a demand chain, under the personal control of those who have a need.

It is now a competition for our attention.

Those with the money in their pockets, or at least access to it, have all the power, as there are literally millions of channels by which we can be reached.

I love the work of Hugh McLeod, have been following him for a long time, as those regular readers of StrategyAudit will know from the numerous times I have used his images as headers. It is because he is able to do with a few squiggles, what Albert Einstein recommended when he said ‘everything should be made as simple as possible, no simpler‘.

This post, and the borrowed header,  I felt really reduced the marketing task down to its simplest form. Gain the attention of people who care, those to whom your value proposition is relevant, and you have a chance to make a difference.

 

Communication: Making it personal multiplies effectiveness.

Communication: Making it personal multiplies effectiveness.

Apr 5, 2017 | Governance, Marketing

Two weeks ago I received a piece of junk mail.

Not unusual, my letterbox seems to be the local junk repository despite a polite sign saying go away. However, as it was addressed specifically to me, with no mistakes in the spelling of my name, the  address was complete, and it was not a windowed envelope but one that was obviously not just a standard cheapie from Officeworks, so I opened it.

Open rates on old fashioned snail mail are very high, not the junk ‘To the Householder’ stuff,  the letters addressed to individuals.

By contrast, email open rates, the second best alternative for unsolicited mail vary from miniscule to around 10%, and  higher, depending on a host of factors with the common theme that the  better you know the recipient, and can direct the email to an individual, the higher the open rate.

Back to my story.

The note inside was short, printed on high quality paper,  and focussed laser-like on a specific pain point currently on my plate. The result is that they now have what their marketing person would probably call a marketing qualified hot prospect for the sales people to convert.

So what is the point of the story?

The process of building a brand, the conversion of awareness and of the value proposition of the brand takes a long time. It is a 10,000 piece jigsaw of individual actions by the marketers and reactions from those both in the target market and in the supply chain that delivers the product. At the end of it is an individual, in every case.

When selling a small value consumer item, you do so to an individual who makes a selection where there is little risk so some level of ‘autopilot’ decision making takes place.  Selling a power station is entirely different.  The transaction is at the end of a long process of selling to a series of individuals and probably committees of some sort , but at the end, there will always be someone with the right of veto.

A key part of the process is the impact the marketer has on the neural systems of the intended buyer, how the branding and selling efforts impact on their senses.

Human beings evolved over millions of years depending for survival on our 5 physical senses, and the 6th one, the ‘gut’ feel that comes from the experience of the individual, and of the ‘tribes’ in which the individual lives and works.

Logically, the more of the senses you can engage in a positive way when marketing to a prospect, the better your chances.

Back again to the direct mail piece.

All my senses had been successfully engaged by this piece of direct, unsolicited mail.

It engaged my eyes, as somebody had put a lot of thought into the visual appearance of the piece. It engaged my brain, as the headline and copy were clearly directed specifically a me, and to engaged me physically, as the stock on which it was printed was, like the envelope, clearly not a standard low cost stock, it was a premium quality  parchment type stock.

In the 30 seconds it took me to open, read, and understand this piece of unsolicited direct mail, the only option for me was to believe that somebody who knew me very well had specifically sent it to me in order to ensure I did not miss this opportunity to address the current pain point.

Depth of marketing to an individual prospect, building on years of building a brand with claims to quality and integrity, which is breadth, works.

The only point left to consider before I sign up is how  the hell they got so much detail in advance of sending the mailer.

 

 

 

6 Psychology strategies used to increase sales

6 Psychology strategies used to increase sales

Mar 27, 2017 | Branding, Marketing, Sales

Success in sales is not just about getting the other person to like you, and trust you, although that helps.

It is about how you employ human psychology.

Robert Cialdini articulated 6 rules in his seminal work ‘Influence‘ in 1993, Reciprocity, Social proof, Commitment and Consistency, Liking, Authority, and Scarcity.

Imagine you gave someone $30 for completing a task, and then because it was completed satisfactorily, you gave them another $20. Compare that to someone to whom you offered $70 to complete a task with an impossible deadline, and then took $20 away because they missed the deadline, although completing the task satisfactorily in all other aspects.

Which of the two would be happier? In this case, you have framed the situation to ensure that one saw the outcome in a positive light, rather than a negative one.

This sort of basic psychology is at work every time you negotiate in any way, it just happens. Thinking about the process with a little sensitivity the basic psychology can make you considerably more successful.

Some simple examples.

Part of a group.

Humans are herd animals. We tend to do what those around us do, to follow the lead of the group. Suggesting that others with whom they relate are doing ‘A’ will increase the likelihood that they will do the same, as demonstrated in Cialdini’s research in 2008 articulating his 7th principal of influence, the Unity principal. This leads us to be influenced by others the more we relate to them. This was the subject of his famous towels in a hotel project, where he demonstrated that guests could be significantly influenced simply by the persuasive power of telling them what others were doing.

Foot in the door.

This is not the old fashioned door to door technique of not stopping until you call the police, it is far less intimidating, and is a widely used tactic in digital marketing. The offer to try a product free for a month before paying for it is a foot in the door, as is the one that offers a free book, you just pay for the freight, or the one-time .97 cent offer, to get to the first level of a normally more expensive course, or club. The psychology is that once your hand has gone in your pocket once, you have made the purchase decision the first time, the second time is way easier.

Create a decoy

Potential customers seek value, defined in all sorts of ways, but when making a choice, they always look at the options available and ascribe a value to each, then make the choice. By making your preferred item look great compared to the alternatives you offer, you can significantly influence the outcome, Again this is used extensively in digital sales. On almost every sales page for a software product, there will be lists of comparative tools you are given for different amounts per month. Usually it will be three options, as option overload leads to confusion, and potential customers walking away, choosing to buy none, but when there are three, there will be the first with a few tools available, for free, or a small price, then there will be the $29/month with an extensive list of options, and a third with the same extensive list and a few more that might be important to a few, for $59/month. The vast majority will look at the value delivered by the $29 option, and opt there, as it offers the best value, the few who opt for the expensive one, well, they are the cream, and those that take the freebie or very cheap version are ripe to be upsold at a later time.

Sell time.

We all understand the old adage, ‘Time is money’ so saving time with a purchase, time that can be used in other ways that will benefit the purchaser, is a powerful motivator. This technique is used extensively when selling services. Most of the so called ‘Business coaches’ out there use this technique, weaving pictures of how great it would be for small business owners to have the time to play golf every day, or run their businesses from the beach between diving expeditions on the reef.

It is also used in reverse, putting a time limit on the availability of a product. ‘Available only at this price until 5 pm tomorrow’ often accompanied by a clock running in reverse is similarly a strong motivator.

Quality = Price

In a market where the knowledge of many buyers is limited, like wine, consumers have over time recognised that price is a fair indicator of quality. When you understand the perception levels of a category in a consumers mind, they can be significantly influenced in a purchase decision by the ticket price.

The foundation of all this is of course that you have a very clear picture of your ideal customer, so can anticipate which of the techniques, and they are often used in tandem, will work, in your set of circumstances.

It also remains true that people love to buy, but hate to be sold to, so selling is really the wrong word, it is more about persuasion, and we all understand that psychology plays a huge role in persuasion.

PS this post was put up yesterday with a different headline, and redefined the dead cat bounce. I thought it was better than that, so polished it up a bit, to see what happens.

 

 

Are you solving the customers real problem?

Are you solving the customers real problem?

Mar 10, 2017 | Change, Customers, Marketing

Marketers spend huge amounts of effort and money trying to define the problems they solve for their customers and potential customers. Often they fail simply because they do not understand their customers motivations sufficiently well, or they are overwhelmed by the great, world beating features the engineers have built in.

Customers do not care about your features, they only care about the outcomes for them that come with use.

There is a process that leads from the prospect being identified through to the initial transaction, then the development of a mutually beneficial relationship

At each point in that journey, in order to build the relationship, marketers have learnt that stories are by far the best way to go about it.

There appears to be three types of stories, and these are prevalent not just in marketing, but everywhere we look that stories are told. Books, movies, the theatre, and even advertisements.

External: These are the superficial obvious pieces of the narrative, but do not go to the heart of  the reasons why things are happening. The role the external story plays is that it provides the context for the real messages being delivered.

Internal: The internal parts of a story is usually all about how the protagonists feel about themselves, and those with whom they interact, how they behave under different circumstances.

Philosophical: This about the basic motivators of human behaviour, and the roles being played. Good vs Evil, Envy vs generosity,  Us vs Them, and Right Vs Wrong.

Consider the original Star Wars movie. The external story is about the development of Luke from a boy to a trainee Jedi, and the trials that are encountered as he and his acquired companions try to keep out of the clutches of the Empire.

The Internal story is about the angst and confusion felt by a boy suddenly thrust into a strange world that is trying to kill him and his companions.

The philosophical story is about the battle between good and evil, which comes to a head in the climatic fight scene.

When considering the elements that make up your brand story, remember that customers buy solutions to internal and philosophical problems, not the external ones, as they do not really matter beyond a question of price.

In other words, do not bother selling the features, sell the beneficial outcomes of use.

This works for simple products as well as it does for a complex one.

One of my clients provides a specialist engineering service to large scale manufacturing plants and infrastructure. The external story is that they do a really great job in a potentially dangerous and  highly regulated area. The internal story is about the absolute confidence that clients can have in the technical and project management skills they deliver. The philosophical story is about the need to retain some of these key skills in Australia, as once gone, like the Tassie tiger, will not come back, and the impact of that is long term and painful to us all.