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The Immigration Guy combines Kyle Farmer's expertise and innovation on all topics regarding immigration with his quick wit and sense of humor. The podcast will feature guests in the agriculture, construction, and political realm. You can tune in every other Wednesday!
The Immigration Guy
StoryBrand Framework to Achieve Business Growth Ft. Angie Schultz & Greg Schonefeld
Kyle sits down with Greg Schonefeld of Ag Installers and Angie Schultz, a StoryBrand guide, the duo discussed the power and potential of using StoryBrand marketing techniques to foster business growth. Schonefeld shared his experiences in implementing these practices in his company, Ag Installers, highlighting how the clear, customer-focused messaging helped in enhancing brand recognition and customer engagement. On the other hand, Schultz provided her expert insights on the StoryBrand framework, emphasizing its ability to simplify complex ideas and create compelling narratives that resonate with customers.
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Produced & Edited By: Drew Tattam
Welcome back to the Immigration Guy. Today, we're sitting down with Greg Schoenfeld, CEO of Ag Installers and Angie Schultz, Certified StoryBrand Guide. You met Greg in our previous podcast episode on entrepreneurial operating systems. Angie was in the first class to become a Certified Copywriter and Guide of StoryBrand, a marketing framework that helps businesses achieve growth.
Welcome, Greg and Angie. Thank you for making time to join us today. How are y'all doing?
Good. Thanks for having us.
So, Angie, I think if I remember, so Greg's talked about you a lot, both off of the podcast. I also think that he might have mentioned you on the podcast, but I did indirectly at least. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he might not have mentioned you by name, but he he definitely you got him really excited. He's Yeah That's right, loved working with Greg. He's been a great client of mine and we've been working hard in the StoryBrand Framework for, gosh, I don't know, the last, it's been over the course of the last eight months or so, hasn't it, Greg, that we've been working together on some projects.
most of that, you know, we were probably a little slow on our getting her everything we needed, but, um, no, this is coming with great timing. Cause we did actually just complete our, our websites published as of a week ago. So, um, and. Yeah. And, and I guess, you know, my, my experience was, uh, you know, maybe I'm jumping ahead here, but you know, I read the book, uh, StoryBrand and loved it.
And, uh, went online because you know, actually having that EOS experience, you know, off another book I loved then with EOS, you can find an implementer that shows you, tells you, coaches you how to do it. So, when I love StoryBrand and found out they had certified guides, I was like, I'm not wasting any time trying to do this myself.
I'm going to go find one. So, love StoryBrand, you know, looking for a guide landed on Angie's page. And it literally says, you love the book StoryBrand, but implement it yourself. And I was like, yes, you're talking exactly to me. Which is what the marketing tells you to do, make people feel like you're talking to them.
So, it was just like kind of a, I don't know, I actually, and you could click a button, get in her calendar. I did it, hers was the first page I landed on, click the button, got in her calendar. You know, I did a little after that research after that, just to see what else is out there. But like we had the call, I think the next day and I agreed on the spot.
Yes. Let's. Let's go, because it just, everything felt easy and right, and, and that's how it went from start to finish.
That's awesome, yeah that Angie I don't know if you know this about Greg, but Greg is one of the best people to talk to because it allows you to bypass reading anything Because he will read it And he will tell you about it and it works great. He's like a human cliff note. He has a library in his house.
He's the only person to run out of memory on a Kindle. Is that what they're called?
Yes, if only I had you in college, Greg.
I'm like, oh, it's great. Oh, yeah. And then the other great thing, which we'll get to the story.
I'm like a human chat GPT, you know.
You, you are, and you, except for the difference between you and chat GPT is you give all the good information you're like, you're like, hey, I read this 400 page book and most of its crap, but these three points are really important.
I'm like, tooth crank. You just saved me 400 pages of having to read something. That is so awesome. Uh, but yeah, so tell us Angie, tell us what, just for people that don't know, what is StoryBrand and, uh, tell us. Why does it matter to business owners?
StoryBrand is a marketing framework. And so, it, um, really I think about it as just building blocks to how do you tell your story as a company in a way that connects with your audience and marketing of past would say that. If we say enough good things about our company, we say enough good things about ourselves, then people are just naturally going to be attracted to us.
So that's why you see websites that say lots and lots of things about we were founded in this time. And our founder was this and, um, and have these long, robust stories about the company and the audience just. I can't filter that information. We process about 3, 000 commercial messages every day. And so, our brain is filtering for what is going to help us survive and thrive.
And the StoryBrand Framework takes that marketing approach and spins it on its head to say, let's make this a story about our customer. So, who are we talking to? They become the main character of our story. We identify the problem that they're facing, and if we can give really good voice to that problem, then we can hook them into the story, showcase how we're going to help them overcome that problem and survive and thrive, and then stick with us to hear how we can help them solve the problem.
Yeah, you know, one thing that kind of stood out to me whenever Greg was telling me about StoryBrand is it's really cool because it seems like what a lot of business owners do is they try to, uh, they have a particular thing that they want to sell. And their focus is on what they want to sell, not what their customer wants to buy, where it's like, so it's like the exact opposite.
It's like, hey, let me tell you how I can add value to you. It's not instead of what it probably should be is tell me how I can add value to you, and I'll do that thing. And it seems like StoryBrand does a good job of, uh, kind of owning that.
Yeah, StoryBrand gets down to a little bit deeper level. So, there's this It's obvious problem that we're fixing. Like if I need a vacuum cleaner, okay, great. I'm shopping for a vacuum cleaner. You can solve that problem for me, but it gets down to the level of the internal, what Sori Ren calls the internal problem, which is why do I want that vacuum cleaner?
Well, because I'm embarrassed when people are coming to my house and it's dirty, or I start to feel inadequate as a spouse or as a parent. And so. StoryBrand just goes past the surface. And if you can connect on that human level, then people are more likely to stick around and listen because that's, what's connected back to the surviving and thriving.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of goes, it kind of goes back to, you know, why, what motivates you. and a lot of times in, in our work, it's, you're gonna run into people that are motivated by time. They want to save time. You're gonna find plenty of people that are motivated by their reputation. They're afraid that their reputation is just going to fall apart if they can't get people something like that.
And then the other one would be money. How much money are they losing by not being able to realize certain opportunities? Or how much money are they losing by getting people that just don't want their job? They're not getting people at all. So, it's kind of a And it's cool that y'all are able to put that into a relevant framework for people that's specific to their particular business.
Cause that's not always going to be the same.
Yeah. Yeah. You're so right.
I'll add a couple things that I really love about StoryBrand and, and, and, and one is exactly what Angie just said, the internal problems, because I think the natural is to be like, you know, okay, so we install equipment and, and we're going to say, you know what, we're, we're, uh, you know, we're on time, we're quality and, and we're going to go install your equipment, like you're just like
Oh, Greg.
Oh, you know,
I forgot to ask you early on, just so anyone that didn't hear what y'all do to begin with, do you mind kind of telling everyone, what, what does Ag Installers do?
We do professional cage free equipment installation for the egg industry.
Wow, that's crisp. Did that, that must have?
that came from StoryBrand dude. It came from StoryBrand. So, and actually, so that's the other thing is the focus. And so, the, so the internal messaging, like, like Angie talked about, like, or kind of like, man, okay, I'm, I'm buying an install, but what am I really buying?
Um, I want like, I've had all these headaches with other installers or like, man, am I going to meet my birth date? Am I going to maintain my sanity? Those are Angie's words. Um, and so you're meeting these, um, you know, this, this internal like struggle, like if, if some of these, you know, buyers of our services, you know, they haven't built before or they haven't built in years.
Like you're an egg farmer. And you got to manage this construction project. Like, man, that's a huge undertaking. Um, you know, like how does the person feel when they're going to go do that? And how can we help them feel comfortable and, and not only help them feel comfortable, but really deliver in a way that, you know, then we've got to back that up where we deliver in a way that.
That it all feels great and, and easy and we're their guide, you know, and, and by the end they've got, they've got what they need to be the cage free, you know, operation that they, they dreamed of. And, um, and the other thing I really love about StoryBrand is the focus. So. Um, so that was all, you know, everything I just said was directed towards kind of like solving these internal problems.
The focus is the other one and, and it is, you know, like the Donald Miller, that's his name, right? The author of StoryBrand. Yep. He, he says like, you know, most people ask, hey, what do you do? And well, you know, we started our business eight years ago and we have, you know, 80 people and, um, you know, our revenue is growing and, and you're like, what, what?
I work in agriculture, uh, we do, and like, you just talk like that. And, and, and I think that's like very natural. I think the first, you know, almost everyone's like, we've been eight years in business. That's like the first thing you say, well, you know, now it's like crisp. We do professional cage, reinstallation for the egg industry.
And the other thing, it's like, it is like very focused because you want whoever's going to your website to feel like they offer exactly what I'm looking for. Like if, if we're, you know, which actually makes us not only focus on our messaging but focus as a business. I mean, we've had kind of different ideas of maybe different lines of services we could offer and those kinds of things.
But like. Today, I'm like, we are extremely focused as a company. And part of that was inspired by StoryBrand because I don't want to be like, oh, we do labor for agriculture. Well now someone comes to our site, uh, and, and they want an install and, oh, they do labor. Yeah. Install is part of it. I wonder, you know, is there install piece their strength or, or what?
Well now, I mean, it's clear install is what we do. So that's the other thing I love.
yeah, yeah, no, I, I love that. I think that you're also exactly right, is that most people, whenever they ask what you do, A lot of times people go on and on about these things that no one cares about. It's like, you're, I've already stopped paying attention by the time you actually get to the point of where you add value to people and, and you're the, the tagline that you had, that was really crisp.
And by the way, I know most people can't see this. Greg looked at Angie, like you are about to be so proud of me, whatever he delivered that tagline, but it was great. Like it's a great, he nailed it. It was a great tagline. It was like, it was crisp. It was clear. It's a showed your value and it was all in a sentence.
Like that was, that was really good.
Um, with, you know, we're, we're Angie, I mean, she interviewed us and she really, yeah, she really, she was our guide through all that.
what is a, that's Angie, tell us what a brand script is and kind of how you take people through this process.
Yeah. So, a StoryBrand brand script is the tool that you use to develop your StoryBrand message. So how do you actually. Use this concept that we've been talking about, putting your customer first in the stories, you start with a brand script. So, and a brand script is again, just those building blocks. So, we literally break down the components of a story and apply them to your messaging, apply them to your audience.
So, who's your character is the first component. So, defining our target audience. What do they want as it relates to what you offer? What problem is keeping them from what they want? How does that make them feel? Then we get to the part of that's all been focused on the client and the solution, and then we get to transition and I'm sorry, the client and the problem, then we get to transition into the solution.
The solution is how do we position your company as the solution to that problem? Position you as a guide. Um, so the person or the company coming alongside the person, the character to help them overcome their problem and achieve the success that they want. And so, as a guide, we have to position ourselves with both empathy and authority.
The first empathy is being, we can relate to your struggle. Either we've lived it ourselves, or we have worked with hundreds or thousands of people who have felt it before. And authority, we're competent enough to be in this space. So, we back up our messaging with testimonies and. Number of clients serves years of experience, certifications, awards to showcase.
We know what we're doing in this space. We go on then to a plan where we talk about, this is what it looks like to work with us. So, at this point, the audience is interested. They believe that you can help them solve their problems, but they may be. Hesitant to take that first step. Donald Miller author of StoryBrand talks about it like a raging stream.
So, there's this stream. You may be nervous about taking. A step into that stream until you can see the steppingstones to get across. So, in order to get from where you are to where you want to be, you've got to see the stepping stones to get there. So, the plan helps us do that. Uh, it takes out all the confusion or objections that they might have about doing business with you and, and really, uh, positions it in a way that they think, oh, that sounds easy.
I can do that. And we call them to action. And then finally we paint a picture of success and failure, failure. What's at stake if they don't do business with you. success, what's possible if they do. And you can see this once you, once you've identified the StoryBrand framework and you understand it, you'll see it everywhere.
It's in every movie. It follows the same trajectory. Every book follows this format. And, um, it's what helps our audience think about when, like when you're reading a book or you're watching a movie. It's one of those few times that your brain probably quiets everything else out. You can really like focus in and zero in, and it's even stronger when you can relate to that story.
The same thing is happening here. We start to quiet the noise, help them focus on a story that follows a pattern that we're similar or that we're familiar with. Um, and so how do we get there? Uh, you can write a brand script on your own. You can read the StoryBrand book. It's called building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.
Um, if you're like Greg and want some help to, uh, to have someone to walk you through it, then someone like me, a StoryBrand certified guide can help you develop that story and not only develop the brand script, but then help you apply it on your website and other marketing materials.
Uh, yeah.
A button on Angie's website and three 90-minute meetings and you got it.
Bob, you're done. Yeah, it is, uh, that actually brings up a good point, Angie. We heard Greg's tagline. Let's hear yours.
Help people, I help people who love StoryBrand use it.
So good. That is so good. Look at that. It's like seven words.
Yeah. Well, that's all. I'm not like Greg. I can't remember all the things, so I have to keep it as short as possible.
Yeah, yeah, well Greg got his tattooed on him so you should probably try that.
There you go.
Uh, it is it so one of my old employees brought He kind of he said this and what after he said I’m like dang. That's exactly right. He said One thing that you'll notice with a lot of marketing uh a lot of marketing firms is they Sell you, uh, things that make you look good. They're, they're, they're more focused on things that make you look good.
So really what they're doing is they're like selling to the ego of a business owner. And what I love that y'all do is it is exactly, is exactly opposite. It is like, we're not selling to you. Like, we're, we're selling to your customers. That's what it's supposed to be. We're selling you to your customers.
What do your customers care about? And I think that that's really cool. And I would, I would love to hear from you, Greg, kind of. What that process was like, because I'm sure I think that the natural tendency is the first one, like most business owners, I think, are probably, uh, I think that is probably the pervasive or that the common way of doing marketing, because it works, it works to sell the business owners, it works to sell to the things that they like, the things that they want to, that they want people to hear about them, where y'all are doing the exact opposite, and I'd be curious, Greg, if you ever went through kind of like a transition phase to being like, These marketing people were, were focused on the things that I like these people, but Angie's focused on the things my customers like, if there was any kind of transition there for you,
Yeah, the I mean the thing I really like about StoryBrand is it provides kind of like a strategy framework and and I think um You know, like, like, I guess the way I would look at marketing firms now is that there's a lot of kind of aspects to marketing. There's that strategy framework, there's messaging, uh, there's imagery, you know, kind of aesthetics.
Like, uh, there, there's a lot of these pieces and, and like some of the aesthetics, like, you know, if someone's going to go shoot a video or shoot photography. Photography for you. Photography. That's a hard work. Um, it though.
third time. Uh, you know, there, there's, it's kind of it can be kind of hard to, you know, maybe value that, but it is very, it is important.
The imagery part I think is important. And, and I think a lot of marketing firms’ kind of like hone in on that, but it's kind of hard to measure too. And, and, and they're kind of hitting you with these feelings. Anyway, I'm like, uh, the thing I love about the StoryBrand is, is strategy kind of framework.
It's like a messaging-based thing and, and you, and you can kind of put like, you know, the right kind of imagery on top of it. But that's the thing I really love is it really lays out that framework and, and then the thing I loved about, you know, like working with Angie, you know, first of all, I said, I felt.
She was speaking directly to me when I got there, uh, you know, on her website. Um, it was another thing that was really awesome is like, there's a one, two, three on our website, like one schedule, a non-sales sales call, or that's what it was at the time. I don't know if that's changed now. And, uh, you know, to have a conversation, three, basically sign up and she's going to take care of it.
And it's like, wow. And, and she was very transparent. I'm four to six weeks out right now. And I'm like, well, okay. And then we're going to do weekly 90-minute meetings. I'm like, okay, in eight weeks, I'm going to have a StoryBrand brand script. And it was like, so crystal clear on the front end, what you're getting and when.
And, uh, and the pricing was crystal clear too. Um, and, and all that, and just kind of very obvious what you're going to get for what you're investing.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, no, I think that that's great. Uh, Angie, if you were to challenge our listeners or business owners to one thing today, what would it be?
StoryBrand has something called the Grunt Test, which is meant to take a look at the header section of your site. So, the very top of your website before you scroll and try to answer three questions really quickly. And really clearly the reason they call it a grunt test is because it ought to be so clear to answer these questions that a caveman could grunt it back to you in a few seconds. So those three like me and Kyle's conversations.
so those three questions are, what is it that you offer? How does it add value to my life and how do I get it? So is there clear and direct call to action and that, that stops that, um, what stops your brain, your brain, that's filtering all those messages. How is it going to help me survive and thrive? If I can quickly see that, oh, this is something that's going to help me thrive, then it will do that.
So, two, three seconds, three questions. What is it that you offer? How does it make my customer's life better? And how do I get it? So that would be your button, your call to action, like buy now or schedule a call. Um, so that if someone's ready to take action, they know from the very start, this is what I do.
That's cool. What's the biggest mistake you see business owners make?
Great question. That probably what I said before is positioning everything about them. So, telling their whole story, putting too much content, um, up at the top of a page. So as your audience is scrolling there, getting more invested in the story, so if you go content heavy at the top paragraph after paragraph, like you look at it, and it looks like you're reading a book, the brain is going to say, no way I'm not filtering through this.
I've got too many other things. And so, we're naturally going to bounce from that. And so short, concise sentences that achieve these points we talked about problem solution. Um, positioning yourself as the guy, then as you get lower in the page, and I like long form homepages, so as you scroll a little bit more, you get a little bit more.
So, you'll see a longer plan section. Like I talked about, you might see some at the bottom where you can go really into detail. Um, Don Miller talks about an explanatory paragraph at the bottom of your website, uh, where you can reinforce that full story. So, you might see three or four paragraphs down there at the very bottom of some of my websites.
Um, but that's because your audience is ready for it. So too much content, too high in the pages, you'll lose your, your audience every time.
Yeah, I generally hate seeing a lot of content on homepages anyways. Like I, I like homepages that are just simple, uh, like me. That's all I need is homepages that, that, well, I guess if it was like me, the homepage would actually probably say a lot. So maybe that's not true. Uh, then that.
Let's say it so well.
When you were going through this process that stands out in your mind, it's like, well, I had that backwards or like, man, I was doing that exact, I was doing that exactly wrong or man, everyone else I talked to was doing was said the exact opposite.
Yeah. I think, um, maybe, uh, you know, maybe, maybe in the, in the process, not so much change, but in like in reading the book. Yeah. And then, yeah. And that's what I mean through the having seen it and having seen it and being aware of it. It is like kind of obvious like now I don't if I go to a website and I'm like It's not clear what they do and where I go I’m like very kind of turn like turned off to it like I’m I’m moving I’m moving on because I’m kind of like This is like This company probably doesn't have it together if they can't kind of produce this and that's probably the biggest thing I've learned and because that's another thing I love like so the messaging is crystal clear but there's also a call to action book button in the in the top right like most people have like learn more and And you're still not really sure what they do or like, okay, where do I even click to talk to somebody or whatever?
There's You know, it calls for a, a call-to-action button, like where you're, you're in con you're somehow in contact with someone, or maybe even you're buying on the spot. I mean, in our, in our kind of process, I mean, you know, with, with all the document, you know, the bid documents we need, like the certain things we need, like our first step is a conversation to really, really get clear on what the customer is looking for.
Yeah. Yeah. I really like your, uh, your new website, by the way. And it looks really good. And I do like, one thing that I completely agree, I mean, I agree with everything you just said, but, uh, one thing I think that's particularly important that a lot of websites don't have is making it easy to contact the person.
And yours, you can't scroll You can't scroll one page down without having a let's talk button. And it's clear what you mean by that. It's like, that's going to take me to contact page. We're we're good to go. So, I, I do like that a lot.
Don Miller talks about that as the cash register. Like if you're in a store shopping, and if, let's say I have my clothes, I'm ready to go, ready to buy, but I cannot find the cash register, then I'm just going to give up. I'm going to walk out. And so, the same thing is true no matter where your audience is on their site.
They have to have eyes on the cash register to be able to take that action.
Yeah, I wonder if that's why all the stores in the mall have cash registers in the most random places. It's like, all right, you're not, you're not getting out of this section without a cash register. That's interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. I know.
That's great. How many, how many, uh, businesses would you say you help a month or a year, Angie?
Um, gosh, I've been doing this full time for the last five years and we're right under 500, uh, businesses and nonprofits. That we've worked with. Yeah. Uh, so it's been, uh,
450 of them wrote testimonials for, like, there are a lot of, there are a lot of testimonials on the site. Um, so, yeah, it's been, it's been a wild ride. And like I said, we work for profit nonprofit and the connecting dots is that. If you love StoryBrand and really, I have a heart to serve. So, if your goal is to serve people, no matter if you are selling chicken install, or if you're installing chicken cage free chicken equipment, or you're, um, selling tacos or anything between, then if you are there to make someone's life better and solve a problem, then it's been really cooled to come alongside some businesses who are doing that.
Did you know They Greg at one point wanted to start a taco stand or a taco. What would you call it? Greg?
I wanted to call it tacos tacos, and it was just going to be breakfast tacos.
Sounds like our next project.
Thought I thought it.
I missed the boat. Yeah.
I think you can still do it. Greg. It's a great thing for retirement You can, you can.
Could see that. I could see that. I could be, Paco.
Yeah. Love that. Cool. Well, what's the best way to contact you, Angie?
Uh, I just launched. I was just telling Greg before the call, I launched my new website, which has been in progress for the last six months between other clients. And, um, it's live now, Angie at Angie Schultz. com. There's a C in Schultz, S C H U L T Z. Or I'm sorry, that's my email address. You can email me, Angie, Angie Schultz.com or my new website is Angie Schultz. com. And, uh. As Greg said, there's a button right there that says, let's talk StoryBrand.
Yeah. Right. So, the calendar, right. So, the calendar invites and easy.
Yeah, it does say let's talk StoryBrand. I'm on both of y'all's websites and they, they both look great. Uh, what about you, Greg? What's the best way to contact you?
Yeah. Just go to our brand-new website, ag installers. com ag installers. com.
And then they'll be.
And you'll, you'll naturally. It'll naturally tell you where you need to go from there.
That's right. That's right. There's not gonna be any searching. That's for sure. Now, now Greg's the ultimate website snob. He's going on other people's websites like, uh, have you ever read StoryBrand?
It's hard not to.
I love it. I love it. Awesome.
is great too, Kyle.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. I think that our, our designers must have, uh, read StoryBrand.
I, I think, yeah, no, you definitely have elements of it.
Yeah, I would, I was comparing mine to y'all's and I was like, you know what, it probably would have been better if Angie did it, but you know, that's all right. And it gets it, it gets the point across.
Yes.
Uh, well, thank you guys for joining. Uh, we'll, we'll talk to you soon. We really appreciate it.
Yeah.