This Story Shares How You Built Your Business (and protects it) | Ep 11

We show how a founder story becomes a trust and referral engine when it centers on one pivotal moment, a clear villain, real stakes, and a hard choice. We share the framework and prompts to help you write a story others can retell and that naturally leads to your offer.

• what a founder story is and is not
• why stories beat resumes for trust and recall
• common mistakes like vague claims and trauma dumping
• naming the villain your audience cares about
• raising stakes that show what is on the line
• making the risky choice that creates tension
• showing the messy middle with proof and lessons
• stating the outcome and mission that drive your work
• using prompts to draft and tighten your story
• tying the story cleanly to your offer

If you haven’t already, write us a review where you listen to your podcast, give us some feedback, and let me know what you need to make your story the one they remember

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Founder Stories Matter
• 1:11 What A Founder Story Is
• 2:27 Common Mistakes To Avoid
• 4:18 Introducing The SPARK Framework
• 7:12 Stakes And The Hard Choice
• 8:00 Defining The Villain
• 9:00 The Messy Middle And Proof

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

If your founder's story is nothing more than a list of important dates and accomplishments, well, that's more of a humble brag than a founder's story. Today we're going to show you how to write a founder's story that makes your story the one they remember. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world. I want to welcome you to another episode of the Story Lab. And I think this is one of the most important episodes I've done. We're going to talk today about your founder's story and a founder story that's going to get people to remember you. So we're going to jump right in and we're going to talk about what a founder's story is and what a founder's story isn't, because that's really important. A founder's story is the moment you chose the work you do. It's the values, it's your mission, it's your goals, and it's the transformation that you went through to get you to where you are now. But it is not a LinkedIn resume. It is not a job application. It is not the timeline of every job you ever had. It's a story. And you want people to be able to retell this story. So if a stranger can't retell your founder story in a few sentences, then you missed your mark and you gotta focus on getting it tighter. You want people to always remember what you're doing and how you're showing up. That's way they can actually refer you to other people. So why do founder stories matter? These stories help you build trust at speed. It builds credibility and it really does connect with the social proof aspect because it shows that you have done this and you have a reason to do this. And it's not just a claim that you're putting out there. Also, stories are more memorable and relatable. So people remember your founder's story. And then you get they can repeat that, especially if you have a clear stake and a clear villain, which we're gonna talk about the key aspects of your founder story. But if you have a story that has clear stakes and a clear villain, then your people can repeat that and that's gonna get you referrals. And that's important for a small business. It also gives you your positioning power. You are better than anybody else at your business because you are the only one that can do it. Your founder story builds a moat around you, and it protects you because nobody else can do what you do. It is your unique selling proposition. So it informs your unique selling proposition as well as many other things. Your founder story is a very powerful story in your business. So here's some things that people do in their founder stories that aren't the best. I'm getting you all the things that you shouldn't be doing, you should be doing, and then we're gonna jump into the framework for this story. So you don't want to have vague generalities. You want to re you want to have one key point, one concrete moment that changed things, and something that you can pull out of that. The other thing you don't want to do is you don't want to jump your trauma. It's not about the wound. It's never about the wound. It's about the lesson. It's about what you learned, it's about how you now operate. When I tell my founder's story, I don't live in the attack. That's not the important part of my founder's story. That happened to me and that was the spark that changed things, but I focus on what came after and how I was able to build a beautiful business that helps people tell their story because of what happened. So it's not about the trauma, it's about the things that matter and what happens after. It's the lesson. Another mistake people make every single date, important accomplishment, whatever it is, is put into that story. We don't need the full timeline. We never need the full timeline. We need just the things that matter, just the things that move us forward. Two more mistakes people make. Who's the antagonist? What's the problem? How can you focus your audience's energy on that problem? Which might be, should be, the problem that they are having that you help solve. Then the final mistake that people make is they don't have a point where a choice has to be made. You need to have the moment the choice is made and then what happened after that choice is made. What we're gonna do now is we're gonna go into the six core components of a founder's story. And I'm gonna talk about them briefly. But when you're creating your founder story, you want to make sure that you have it in this format. And this format is SPARK. What started everything? What is the moment that everything changed in your life, in your business, and what is going on? How did you end up here? What is that moment that started that? That's the spark. Now ask yourself, what happened? What did I see that I could never unsee? What did I learn that I could never unlearn? What was this pivotal moment in my business? That's your spark. Next is the villain. You need to have a villain. It's the internal or external opponent. It might be the algorithm or it might be another person in your industry. It might be perfectionism, or it might be this accepted thing that happens in your in your business that everybody just kept letting happen until you decided to change it. Think about what you were upset with. What is that thing that was really dragging you back? What was keeping you from accomplishing your your goals? That's your villain. Stakes. What would happen if nothing changed? What would you lose? Would you lose your health? Would you lose time? What about money or your reputation? What is the stake? What is the thing that was on the line? Think about what's the thing that was on the line? What mattered to me in this moment the most? That's the stake. Then the choice. This is where you have to make a choice. What did you choose? It's an uncomfortable decision. It probably felt risky. You probably felt like you were jumping off a cliff. But what was that choice? Because you need to have that choice, that turning point, to have some tension in your founder's story to get people interested. Now, next, you made this choice now. What happens in between making this choice and getting to where you are now? That's the messy middle. That's where you earned it. That's where you had failures or lessons. We call them lessons. That's where you figured out the way to fix it. Maybe you had a notebook where you were writing down all the notes and nothing was adding up. Maybe it's all those math equations that, you know, they write on the board somewhere until they find the right answer. That's your messy middle. Show the receipts. Show the mess. Show what you got out of the mess. Because that's your outcome and your mission. What did you get out of the mess? What changed and how did that lead you to where you are now? What changed after the messy middle and how does that lead you to where you are now? For me, what changed was I learned the power of stories. And that allows me to help my clients share their story and change the world. Because I changed the world with my story. I accomplish things with my story. And that matters because for me, having people share their story is one of the most important missions I can be on. So your outcome and your mission, what future do you create for your clients every single day? What is that thing? Make sure you have that. And that's how you wrap up your founder's story. So I'm gonna give you a few questions you can ask yourself. As we as we wrap up this episode, I want to give you a few questions you can ask yourself to help you really get to the main point of your founder story. Ask yourself the moment that everything changed in my world was when? When was that thing that you know everything changed? What happened? What was were you afraid to lose? As you were going through this, what was the the thing that you were most worried about losing? What did you choose to do? What was your choice between A and B? You went with B. And that led you to where you are now. And then don't forget, you've got to tie in your offer. So when you get to that point where what where you chose what you chose and how you chose it, then you offer those people that are like you that same thing. Offer them that option. All right. So that is your founder story that they're going to remember. All right. Well, that is another episode of the Story Lab. And I hope that you enjoyed this, and I hope that you take notes on this and use it whenever you can, because your founder story is the story that can change the game for you. Create a founder story that is one that people will remember so that you'll never be forgotten, so that you will be the person that everybody's talking about. All right. So if you want your founder story to become your booking engine, then do me a favor. Use this template. It's gonna help you. It's gonna change the game. So that's another episode of the Story Lab. I can't wait to see you again soon. If you haven't already, write us a review where you listen to your podcast, give us some feedback, and let me know what you need to make your story the one they remember. And I'll see you again soon. Take care.

SPEAKER_01: 8:50

Story, the one they remember, the spark in the night, the voice in the crowd. Some of the moment say the song in the spirit of the stand up.