Storyhouse Lindsay Hotmire

Overview: Listening well is super hard in today's culture, so how do we do it better? Tune in to this week's episode to hear what the leading researcher on listening tells us and to discover a few ways to think differently about how you're showing up as a listener.

Ever wonder why you can use and reuse storytelling frameworks like Donald Miller's StoryBrand, but you still can't seem to tell stories that are connecting with your audience or your team?

Listen in to this episode as I think out loud WHY that might be and point you to something else that needs to come before those frameworks. . . The Storytelling Habits.

Either/or is a choice for a narrow range of categories, and the rest of life generally fits into the wild, tangly box of both/and.

You can chase your theater dreams AND be a story coach.

You can keep your foot in the corporate world AND build your consulting business.

You can position yourself in marketing AND deliver transformative, life-changing impact.

But I think that maybe the linear promises of frameworks and 7-Figure Clubs have robbed us of the freedom to see the world through the lens of both/and – because, well, if there’s more than one way, then the power of the expert gets smaller and smaller.

And that would suck for the experts.

We might treat the big moments like signposts, but let’s not be fooled or pretentious. It’s the tiny stories that keep us connected. Join Lindsay Hotmire for this solocast where she defines what a tiny story is and give you two easy ways to start using them in your life, your business, and with your team.

If you want to see what relationship-first marketing looks like, spend a few weeks inside Stephen Woessner’s How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline facebook group. It’s free, and he legitimately gives away every ounce of what he’s got.

He never holds back, and he never stops giving more.

It’s humbling, really, to watch from the outside. He’s the embodiment of generosity and the living example of what happens when you lead with your values.

For over 25 years, Stephen Woessner has been in the trenches of agency new business strategy, consulting with hundreds of agencies, business coaches, and consultants — and teaching them how to plant their flag of authority, grow their audience, and fill their sales pipelines with a steady stream of right-fit clients. Stephen founded Predictive ROI in 2009 and remains its CEO and co-owner, working alongside his business partner, Erik Jensen. Stephen hosts the "Onward Nation" and "Sell with Authority" podcasts with listeners in over 140 countries and over 1,000 episodes. His marketing insights have been featured in major media and he’s the bestselling author of five books, including his latest entitled, “Sell With Authority."

Eric White is the co founder of Ponder, a customer insight studio that delivers insight experiences to help growth stage companies increase win rates and explore new segments. Eric will tell you that one of his biggest beefs with data is that most market research companies just email you reports and give presentations and you're left thinking, "wow, that was really cool and that was really interesting, but what the heck do I do now?"

At Ponder, Eric and his, his teammates produce immersive experiences to help your team immerse into customer needs and allow you to take actual action so that you can achieve your growth objectives.

What does all that really mean? It means that Eric is an incredible observer. Actually he's a Jedi level listener and I know this because I've seen him at ground level in the work. He asks the types of questions that pull golden insights out of your audiences so that you can grow intelligently and confidently.

In this episode, you're going to hear us talk about how small business owners can gather data without feeling overloaded on time or money. We dig into things like why is empathy not always a good thing? And we talk about what does it mean for research and insights to truly be actionable.