Melody Owen | The Power of Storytelling In Business

In this episode, I interview Melody Owen about storytelling and its power. Melody is an entrepreneur and founder of Author Nation. She helps authors, entrepreneurs and businesses tell their story better that will capture their audience. She is also the author of a memoir, The Devil’s Daughter. We talk about editing, writing, and journaling among other things.

Melody wears many hats. She is a performer, writer, coach and consultant at her core.  Melody believes we all have stories and when we dig into them, we not only discover ourselves but an entire community of people who have made us who we are today.

Show notes:

For Entrepreneurs

https://nutritioustruth.com/

For Authors

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_SQx8tBlcAN-JVMIF53s3A

https://authornationtube.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/authornation

https://www.instagram.com/authornationtube/

For Storytellers and writing coaching

https://www.melodyannowen.com/

https://www.instagram.com/omelodyann/

https://www.facebook.com/melodyowen

Transcription of Interview

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by ghostwriters and CO. Earn more money by publishing better content and learn how do we increase your thought leadership so you can build your brand head over to ghostwritersandco.com for more information that’s ghostwritersandco.com. And now your host, Joel Mark Harris

Joel: Hello and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. This episode is brought to you by LeapZone Strategies and their program built to rock. so this program Built to Rock amazing program that helps you increase revenue, become a powerhouse entrepreneur and master your branding and business.

And I’m taking the course right now. And what is unique about this course is it’s not just a bunch of modules that you go through. It’s not a bunch of videos, but they, the real power in my, my understanding and my belief is that. It is ha they have weekly coaching calls where you get together as a group and you really hash out the problems you’re having in your own business.

And this is I think a really unique, way of doing a course because yeah, like I said, it’s not just a bunch of videos, which you can find easily on YouTube and Isabel mercy who is the CEO co-founder of Leap Zone Strategies has such amazing content. She really is very knowledgeable about her craft.

So check it out, Leapzonestrategies.com that’s leapzonestrategies.com and the fine they’re built to rock program. I will send a link in the description below. All right. So this week we are interviewing Melody Owen who is a content strategy, storyteller, and storytelling teacher. So what is that you may ask?

Well, we find out in this episode, we talk about how storytelling is super useful and it is almost imperative that you use storytelling in your brand message in your marketing today with so much competition out there, you really need to hook your audience in with a good story and melody talks about the basics and how you can do that.

If you are writing a book, if you’re a company looking at adding storytelling to your marketing, to your content, your blogs, what have you, Melody’s super knowledgeable. She has three different businesses, that serves three different clientele and I know that you’re going to enjoy this episode.

So without further ado here is Melody. Thank you so much for being on the show. How are you today?

Melody: Well, thank you, Joel. How you doing?

Joel: I’m good. We were just saying what a beautiful day was out there. So yeah, it’s going to be sunny in Vancouver for sure. I want to talk because you’re obviously very passionate about storytelling. So what is storytelling and why is it important?

Melody: It’s essentially exchanging or, or storytelling is sharing our experiences with others. And why is it important? So we’ve been storytelling since the beginning of time, right? As soon as you know, not long after humans had words, we were telling stories.

We would draw stories on cave walls about the hunt and things that happened stars in the sky and so we’ve been doing for a long time and why do we do it? We want to understand the world around us. We want to share our experiences with others in order to connect. We are looking for sameness.

We are looking for our, our group, our tribe, our cohort. We do it to warn others what to stay away from or what berries not to eat. You know, a long time ago, we do it to learn. We do it to heal. We share experiences. Help each other understand that, Oh, that happened to somebody else. And this is how they dealt with it.

This is how they healed. And so there are so many reasons we tell stories. If you look at children and children’s play when they’re playing, what are they doing? They’re telling these stories about this world they’re making up, but what they’re really doing is learning and they’re sorting out and categorizing their world and figuring out where to put things and how to maneuver through the world.

Storytelling dreams. We are trying to sort out what happened in the day or there are lots of theories about why we dream, but what is that we’re sorting out what’s happening in the day. And neuroscientists, interestingly enough, have done some research and they’ve hooked people up.

And when we are watching a movie or we’re engaged in storytelling in some way, what’s happening to the main character. Is happening to us as well. We experience it a really good story, holds us into the story and we experience it. So, you know, people say, why do people watch horror movies while they’re there kind of practicing in case something crazy happens to them, how they’ll get out of it or, you know, things like that.

Or we’re trying to understand why people act in certain ways that that’s just so desperately different than how we are. Does that make sense?

Joel: Well, for me, storytelling as well as you know, when you’re presented information, let’s say like in a lecture and you’re saying like this, and this is. I think a lot of people, you don’t really remember it, but when you say like when you present the information as story with characters and plot and beginnings, and then you’re like, hold on, I can remember that better. So I think that is an important aspect of storytelling as well.

Melody: Yes. Absolutely. In fact, there was a study at Stanford and the result was that we remember stories 22 times better than we remember facts and stats. There you go. It’s part of our learning. Absolutely.

Joel: Yeah. Yeah. So if storytelling and we know storytelling is important. How do you become better at it? And how do you use that as a communication tool?

Melody: Yeah, I think one of the keys, Joel is empathy. I really believe that if you want to communicate with others, if you want to, why do we communicate where we want some, do we want to affect other people some way we want to change them, support them, help them entertain them. We are, we’re looking to connect in some way.

And if we want to do that, we have to understand who they are and empathy is key to that. So the first thing a really good storyteller does is they know their audience. They understand their audience and they don’t. See them where they want the audience to be. They see them where they are. They go to the storyteller, goes to the audience where they are at that moment.

And they use the story to bring the audience to where the audience wants to be or where the storyteller wants them to be. Think about you’re trying to support someone and there you are standing at the finish line. It’s a marathon and you’re screaming. Go, go, go. But they can’t hear you.

They’re so far behind they’re at the starting line. And so as storytellers, the number one thing you need to do is go find your people where they are. And carve them a path with the story to where they want to be and you know, where you want them to be. And so part of that is realizing as a storyteller, the story isn’t about you.

That’s one of the biggest messages I give an all of my work. People are always kind of, you know, cause w. We are the center of our own universe. And so sometimes it’s hard to realize that it’s not about us, it’s about our audience. And so turn it around, look at them. and then once you understand that, you know, that a story is about a character, who’s in a context and then something happens.

There’s some catalyst and then either pushes them or pulls them into this new set of challenges. And as humans, when we are challenged, we change in some way. And once we change, that’s our growth. and then there’s a consequence of that. So we think of a story as a character. In a context with a catalyst that’s pushing or pulling us into the story.

We meet challenges, which change us, that lead to a consequence. And those are the seeds of storytelling as I, as I teach them.

Joel: That’s I think that’s amazing advice. I especially like the fact that yes, it’s the story, storytelling. We, a lot of storytellers, it’s always about like what I did or you know, my day, but it really isn’t. You’re I think you’re bang on that. It’s about the listener or the audience. So how do you find the people who are going to be impacted by your story?

Melody: Such a good question. That’s a marketing question. Isn’t it. As a marketing question, that’s a marketing question. And so, there are, and there are lots of ways of marketing, right?

Public speaking, Google ads, there are so many ways to market and promote yourself. when it comes to storytelling, what you want to do is you want to look at what marketing strategies am I going to using? Am I public speaking? Am I, do I have a blog? Am I using Facebook ads? How do I integrate story into that so that instead of giving them those facts and those stats, which I think are so important, I’m actually connecting with them on an emotional level.

And I’m telling a story that they can see themselves in and I’m giving it an ending that they want. Therefore, they’re going to come to me. Right? So we’re not talking about outbound marketing, where we are interrupting their day, going, Hey, look at us, look at us. We’re talking about inbound marketing, where we are creating a story that they want to take part in, and they’re attracted to that. And they come to us. And so that that’s, I hope that answers your question.

Joel: Yeah, no, definitely. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about, because I don’t know you have three brands and each brand is a little bit different. How would you categorize, would you say you’re like a storytelling coach, a book coach.

Or what’s. I mean, you’ve, you created this niche for yourself, which is amazing, and it’s very unique, but so how would you categorize yourself?

Melody: All right. So I call myself a content strategist and storyteller story teacher. I think that’s the simplest way to put it. and I have brands because earlier I said meet people where they are and talk to your audience.

I do the same thing, but I do it for different audiences. And so nutritious truth, that brand that’s a, that’s a little bit more edgy brand. I’m talking to social entrepreneurs, I’m talking to change-makers, entrepreneurs who work because that is their passion. And so that, that brand kind of helps that business audience.

And then I have Author Nation. And that’s very obviously towards authors, I work with nonfiction authors, including memoir. I don’t do any fiction at all. I know my niche, I know my audience, I don’t stray from that. And then I have a personal website, Melanie and Owen, and I do that, my storytelling through there.

So if you’re looking for one-on-one coaching or a storytelling workshop, that is my personal brand. If you look at the branding and the images and the colours between the three, you’ll see that they have very different messages. All of them are part of me and who I am, but they all work on like different parts of who I am and who I want to serve, you know, who I want to serve and how we want to serve them, And can you talk a little bit about your journey and starting these companies and where you want to take the companies as well? Sure.

Melody: It’s interesting cause they don’t when we talk about journey, a lot of people go back and they give their kind of whole life story. Right. And I tend to be the person who says, let’s talk about the pieces that actually really matter.

But today I’m going to go back just a little bit more than that, to tell you a little bit about my story and how that kind of really underneath connects with everything else. I come from a family where my father was an alcoholic. He was abusive. He was associate path. He was a criminal and terrible man.

And there’s this story always being told to me about who I was and how I was and the failure I was going to live out in life. Right. This whole, you know, you’re not good enough. You’re not good enough messaging. And this is, so I grew up with a story about myself that certainly didn’t serve me. and so at one point I started fighting back, right?

As a teenager, you start rebelling and you start fighting back. And at some point I realized that wasn’t working. and what I needed to do was sit back and think about who am I really. What is my story. And so that, and I wrote a, I wrote my memoir, but I didn’t write it for anyone else. I wrote it. I rewrote that story, not from my father’s perspective or my mother’s perspective or the teacher’s perspective or anyone else’s perspective, from my perspective.

And I made myself the hero. And when these things happen to me as a child, instead of saying, Oh, it happened to me because I was bad. I said, look, it happened to me. And the way I reacted. Bonded at that time was, the most appropriate thing I could have done. And I was looking after myself. I was protecting myself at the time.

I couldn’t grow during that time because I needed to protect myself. and then, and then after that, I, I turned it into a show. Right. and so, but, but back way back when I realized about that story, then I realized, Oh, wait a minute. I can help other people, whether you’re an entrepreneur or an author or a storyteller, whoever a researcher performer, I can help other people kind of capture that personal story and say, look, these other stories, actually, don’t.

They don’t jive with, with what I believe about myself and I can help people shift stories. And that’s how all of these businesses were actually born. That’s kind of the behind the, behind the scenes story. and then at one point I went and did some work at narrative practice, which is a practice. it’s a therapeutic practice.

I’m not a therapist. But I studied it because it’s, that’s exactly what it does. It helps people take a story that no longer serves them, or they’re telling them, you know, the wrong story to the wrong people at the wrong time or whatnot. And it helps them frame a story in a better way that is more helpful rather than being harmful.

and so that’s really how I was born as a person who considers content to be essential. And who thinks storytelling is a matter of, of, of it’s life-giving

Joel:  So you wrote your memoir and it’s called devil’s daughter, correct? Yeah. All right. so what did you learn from. That experience from the actual physical writing of that book?

Melody: Yeah. I learned, About myself. I learned that I can really spout out words. I can just sit down and spout out words. It’s crazy how I can do that. I would, every day I would just pick a, I have, I’ve listed out a whole bunch of kind of stories. I just had a few words for each and each day I’d pick whatever kind of stuff.

Stood out to me at that moment. And I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, and I, I can’t remember how many words I wrote every day, but I read a lot of words every day for, for many, many, many, many days. and I, and I think it was, I think it was that process because I’m an editor, right. And I help people edit books too, but I think it was that process that made me really, really understand that there’s a difference between writing for self writing for publication and, I think it served my clients in the best way, because now when people come to me and they give me a manuscript, I can look at it and I can say, okay, this story here has been written to help this person heal.

And then I can approach the person and say, you, do you, do you want help shaping the story to make it more powerful for yourself? Are we looking at the, you know, w are we going to take some narrative practice principles and apply it to this to kind of help you through that healing process to shape this story?

So it fully empowers you, or do you want to publish it? Because if you want to publish it, then we need to take you out of the equation. And say, you know, right now we’re not talking about you and your healing. We’re talking about the audience and what they’re going to get out of it. And looking at that manuscript, we need to make a choice between the two, because they’re different.

And being, and I I’ve become a much, a much better editor when I’m dealing with people who are writing memoirs and I’m helping with some, a developmental editor. I get those big ideas out. Right. I’m much better at helping them figure out. what, what they need to do to finish off that healing piece so that if they want to publish, they can leave that behind and not feel so sensitive about it and move into a space where, where they’re not taking the feedback personally, but they’re looking at the feedback from a perspective of a reader audience that they want to attract later on in a published book. Yeah, that was my biggest lesson in doing my own memoir.

Joel: Awesome. And I, so I want to ask a question. This may lead nowhere, but it strikes me that that process is very similar to journaling. Right. And just getting words on the page, getting your thoughts in order and, and figuring out. What you believe about yourself, about the world around you?

Are you a big proponent of journaling and how is that different from writing a book? Say.

Melody: Yeah. So, journaling, if, if you are working, I journal when I’m working through something all the time. If I’m frustrated or I have a lot of emotion, I journal things out. I think things through, through my hand, and that’s a really valuable way to do it.

The thing is that is good source material. If you want to write a book later, but it’s not a book. And so when I did this process of writing out all of these stories, When I was finished with it, it didn’t just sit like that. I then took it and I spread it out on this huge timeline. I figured out where everything fit.

I started thinking, what should, you know, if I’m publishing for an audience, what should fit in? What should I take out? And then I put it into a manuscript, which I gave to an editor and the editor turned around and said, Melanie, have you considered topping all of this out, starting here and writing an extra, you know, one third on the end, on this piece of your life.

I think that’s what an audience really wants. And I thought, wow, that’s really good advice. And I turned around and did that, but the journals I’d had throughout my life and that process of just kind of getting everything out that was brilliant source material for me to put together a manuscript that, that an editor can give me really good advice on so that I can go back and edit it for an audience who would, who would want to read it. It’s not just self-serving for me, but it’s serving the audience that wants to read it.

Joel: So you mentioned that you journal to figure out a problem. Is there any other reasons to journal and what would you recommend the audience do with journaling?

Melody: so I recommend the audience journal, whatever suits them, right? Like whatever, whatever works best for you. That’s what you should do. I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way to journal. and you’ve, you’ve probably read the artist’s way, you know, morning pages. That’s where every morning you sit down and you write out you just stream of consciousness, writing for three pages to get out, whatever crap you need to get out so that you can go on with your day. So that’s a great way of journal.

Billing is at the end of the day to journal what happened or things that are difficult or challenging and, and work them through another great way to journalists, to, to select go and dream. What, just imagine what my life would be like in 10 years, if. Right. And, and, and journal that out. I journal for my work as well.

I do a weekly journal and a monthly journal. I look at, what my challenges were each week where I’m successful each week where I need help. And I journal that out. And then at the end of the month, I look at that and I look, what have I learned this month? What, you know, what’s making me a better professional.

What makes me a better editor? What makes me better storyteller story teacher? And then I can, I, I become conscious of my, of my struggles and my successes, and I get to integrate my successes intentionally into my world. And that’s just a process of growth, right. And so I think there’s so many ways to journal.

It’s about figuring out what’s going to work for you and what’s going to empower you and heal you, help you grow as a human, whatever it connects, you, connect you to your inner self, whatever, whatever it is that you’re looking for.

Joel: That’s a great advice by the way. I think that’s amazing. and yeah, I’ll be, I love journaling. I’m a big proponent of it.  And whatever, as you said, in whatever way, suits you, I think that’s a great idea. You mentioned in your book that you wrote, you turned it into a show. What, what was the reason behind that?

Melody: Oh, so I was, Well, I was working with my, voice and performance coach and I was doing, I was doing it for work, right.

I have a YouTube channel and I’ve done public speaking and I believe that we should grow and learn and get better and better at what we do. So I was working with a performance coach, voice coach who was also a director. She’s a masters in acting and she’s a director as well.

And I was using pieces from the pieces from the writing I had done to kind of using them when I was working on my voice. And when I was working on, my public speaking, because they were things that, that really deeply TAC tap into deeply, they were very personal. They were very vulnerable. They were very emotional.

And so they were a really good place to, you know, find that, find that voice that I could carry on in podcasts and onstage and on my, on my YouTube channel. And while we were going through that one day, she said, have you ever thought of doing this as a show? And I said, God, no, no. Are you kidding? I can’t act.

I’m not, you know, But we kept going and we kept going in and other people who sometimes came to open, Mike said, have you, yeah, no, really have you considered it? And so finally I said, okay, I’ll consider it. And I did. And I thought, you know, you live once and, life is meant to be lived. And I love going on adventures, whether they’re adventures in the mountains or taking on projects I’ve never done before.

I said, yes, let’s do it. And we applied. For a festival and we got in theater and we got fair to space. And so we produced it together. I wrote it, I performed it. I had some fabulous help along the way. There was a team. It wasn’t just me, there was a team involved, but it was, it was, so it was so much fun and terrifying. Yeah, huge growth potential. and, and I’m actually considering doing another show at some now, cause it was so much fun.

Joel: How is the play different from the book?

Melody: Oh, well, so the play was only 55 minutes long. so it had to be, it really had to be at like a chunk. We had to figure out what was the most important pieces and pull them out.

And how do we intertwine those into a story that is complete? And that leaves the audience hopeful. In the end. Because I, one thing I believe with stories is you do not devastate your audience and walk away. It’s not even, even in a tragedy like even in Romeo and Juliet, which is a tragedy and it’s devastating, the audience doesn’t walk away wanting to fling themselves off a bridge.

Right. Because they’re so devastated. There’s something. There’s something in it for the audience that gives them some sort of look to the future or hope or lesson or something. and so I wanted to make sure that my show ended on, on that level of hopeful note, if that makes sense. Okay.

Joel: Oh yeah, for sure. So you talked about taking pieces from your book and intertwining them. I think now’s a great time to talk about editing. So what goes into a great editor?

Melody:  I am an editor and I only edit non-fiction books, including memoir. I tend to focus on books that entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants are writing to fit into their business memoirs of people who have been through, a huge. Event in their life of some sort and then working through it. And, I tend to do some health and wellness editing as well.

So, doctors, I’ve worked with doctors because I am, for some reason I’m able to take that language and bring it, bring it to bring it to people in a way that, it’s understandable because medical you’re going from a medical textbook to. a book for the general public is a challenge and I tend to be pretty good at that.

And so that’s what I do. So, if you’re looking for an editor, my advice is find an editor who edits what you do. There are so many editors who say, well, I edit everything. I had an academic and I edit this and I edit that night at this. Well, every genre has its own same. So when I’m editing for an entrepreneur, we not only talk about the book, but we talked about how does this book fit into your business?

How does this book serve? You? How does this book serve your business? How does this book serve your audience? What do we need to put in the beginning? And, you know, before we even start the book, what do you know, what does that what’s in the front matter, that’s going to help you connect with people. It’s really important that, And the editor understands what genre.

I wouldn’t edit a mystery. I love reading mysteries. And I guess if I worked out it, I could edit them, but I I’m not familiar enough with the tropes and the, the expectations of a mystery audience to give really good advice to a brand new mystery author. On how to write a mystery book, but it’s going to wow.

A mystery readers. And so that’s what I would suggest talk to, editors, find editors who really understand your niche. They can do so much more for you if they’re not trying to be everything to everyone and then figure out what type of editing you need. So when I needed an editor, I was looking for a developmental editor at first

Someone who could take that whole story and say, look, you’ve, you know, why don’t you move this here, move this here and start here and finish there and add this. That’s a developmental editor and that’s the type of editing I do. And then, I’m working on the stylistic section. I’m doing stylistic edit on my book right now.

I worked with a poet because poets are phenomenal editors. so, but, she also, the poet I worked with was also an editor of memoir, which is important to me cause she knew exactly what was, what, what to look for and the kind of suggestions to make. yeah. So I just find the editor who understands you.

Find the editor who knows your genre, find the editor. Who’s worked with people like you before finding an editor you’re comfortable with, and please, whatever you do, find it after who’s willing to speak to you. I’ve had these, I’ve had people come to me and say, I gave this editor. You know my book and they kind of sent me an email with this, that, and the other, but I never got to talk to them.

I never got to ask them questions or, you know, they were, I remember when one woman she’s like, apparently they were on some beach somewhere living, you know, the, the digital nomad life, which is awesome.  I’m not suggesting don’t do that, but. If this is book as your baby, if this means everything to you and you’ve taken, you know, a year to birth it, find someone who cares enough about your success, that they will be there for you and talk to you and be on zoom with you and, and give you advice and hold your hand when you need it and kick you in the butt when you need it. And all of that stuff, right?

Joel: Yeah. Awesome. So you mentioned the development editor and it occurs to me that not everybody knows the different types of editing. So can you explain what those are and what stage each is useful in?

Melody: So a developmental editor is really awesome to have as soon as possible, they help you structure the entire book, make sure that the right content is in there in the right order.

They make sure that everything is going to flow nicely. So that’s not like the big picture ending. And then stylistic editing is about voice and tone and flow. So when I’m doing stylistic editing, sometimes I notice a writer will use the same sentence structure over and over and over again. So my job is to say, look, let’s, let’s vary the sentence structure.

Let’s have some short sentences and long sentences. we use short sentences for very specific reasons. If you have a bunch of short sentences, it makes your writing very topping, but if you have a long flowing piece and then you want to, really kind of wake up the reader, a shift in emotion, a short sentence can be very powerful to do that.

And so stylistic editor understands all of that. A copy editor, they know their grammar and their spelling and their punctuation. They know all of those pieces inside, out and backwards, and they make sure that you have not made any of those little mistakes along the way. And then there’s a proofreader who just goes over at the end to make sure that everyone else has done their job properly, essentially.

So there are four, four stages and you’ll find different names. I think the developmental letter can be structural editor, you’ll find different names. but those are the four stages.

Joel: And do you recommend that authors find a different person for each of those stages?

Melody: When I’m working with an author, I will do both developmental and stylistic together. I don’t do any copy editing. And if I did, I would not under any circumstances do developmental then stylistic thing, copy editing. Because now I have a degree in linguistics, literature, professional writing. I know my grammar, I know my punctuation, but once you’ve worked with a book so much, once I’ve, you know, move things around and really worked on it and worked on the style, a lot of the times I no longer see it in the same way.

And so a fresh pair of eyes is not accustomed to it. And so mistakes are more likely to jump out to them than they are somebody who’s worked at over and over and over again, same reason why I have an editor. I’m a professional writer. I’m perfectly capable of writing, but I look at something so much sometimes that I miss very simple things.

And so if I send my work to an editor. They catch them. And I come across with the professional piece of writing, which is what I want to do.

Joel:  Do you believe everybody has a book in them?

Melody: I think, yeah. Why not? I think anyone who writes it, who wants to write a book, has a book. I think I there’s this quote.

I wish I could remember who said it.  I’ll see if I can dig it up for you. Somebody said something along the line of everyone who has survived. Childhood has a book in them.

Joel: I actually really like that because I think that is really true. I’ve never heard that quote before, but that really rings true to me for sharing.

Melody: I wish I could figure out who to give credit because it’s not mine. It’s somebody else’s but yeah, whoever’s survived childhood. We all have, we all have books in us. Should we all write them? If you want to? Yes. Should we all publish them? That depends on how much you’re willing to write, rewrite the book for an audience and put in the time in an effort to make a professional book for a specific audience that you’re going to change in a certain way. So yeah, everyone should write a book. Should everyone publish a book? Maybe not.

Joel: So for people who are out there who have been wanting to write a book for a long time and they listened to this podcast and like, yes. Okay. Now’s the time? What are some first steps somebody can do to start writing their book?

Melody: I sound like a broken record. Get to know your audience. That’s number one. You know, whenever, whenever I work with anyone entrepreneur doing content or an author writing a book. Who you’re writing for understand who you’re writing for and how you want to change them, how you serve them.

Number one, the other thing that is packaged with that is how do you want this book to serve you and your business? And there’s no reason to put in however many hours, it takes to write a book and publish a book and edit a book the time and the resources, the energy, the money. There’s no point in giving all of that to a book.

If it doesn’t serve you, it doesn’t serve your business and it doesn’t serve your audience. So answering those three questions, those are the first things you want to, to answer. And once you figure out how you want to serve people, you can figure out where they are now, where they want to be. And when you start listing out exactly where they are, who they are, where they are, what they fear, what they believe, what skills they have, which knowledge they have, how they feel now and how they want to be, what skills they want to have, what knowledge they want to have, how they want to feel who they want to be.

You know, all of this stuff, you’ll start realizing that you’re kind of, you’ve made this, this Canyon and there’s this gap. And you can say, well, these are the skills they have, or these are the skills they lack. This is the skill they need. Obviously, I need to talk about that skill in my book, and you can start filling in those holes.

And then when you have those holes filled in, you can look at your blogs, your journals, all of your resource material, and start pulling things in, start organizing it in a way that is going to make sense. And then you can start writing your book. I’m sure I’ve missed something there, but I think that’s a good start at anyways.

Joel: I think it sounds like you come from a very marketing first approach, which I think is great because that’s the approach that I also take having a marketing background, a lot of people, they just start writing. They don’t have any sort of. I need to sort of plan and or thought about, they haven’t thought about the audience.

They haven’t thought about what they want to try to do, even, which seems kind of crazy, but I think that’s the case. I love other times. So would you say that marketing, thinking about your marketing first before you actually start writing is a good way of going about it?

Melody: We can also. Okay. If you’re a pastor and you’re not a planner. So there are planners and pastors, right. People who fly by the seat of their pants and people who plan. If you’re a pants to go ahead, be pantsed or don’t plan just right. But the truth is, and some plan, some, some pastors they’re super successful. For whatever reason, because they have a plan in their head.

They’re not telling us, I’m not sure, but most, most pantsers in the end. Don’t write that phenomenal book that becomes a best seller on its own gets the New York times. I mean, you can force it to be a bestseller on Amazon, buy, promote, promote, promote, get all your friends to buy it. But if you truly want something that’s going to live on and.

Serve the right people you do at some point, want to sit down and plan. So with my memoir, the first time I wrote it, I wrote it for me. There was no plan. There was no audience, it was all about me. It was me, me, me, me, me, and I wrote it. Just doing that. When I turned around to write it for an audience, I rewrote the entire book for that audience using what I’d done as source material.

So you can think about I was a pastor at first, but when I wanted to serve an audience, then I really had to start doing being a planner. Right and so yeah if you want to fly by the seat of pants, go for it. But I guarantee it won’t be the book that it could be.

Joel: You talked on your website about story-based marketing. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and why entrepreneurs use that technique?

Melody: Yes, absolutely. So, one thing I noticed when I’m out at networking events, which we don’t currently do very often, but it’s still online. Sometimes everyone gets their 30 seconds. Right. And a lot of people stand up and say, I help people do X because I love doing X and, and that’s really their story.

And so story-based marketing is about figuring out what stories. Exist in a business and what those stories are and when to use them. So I teach the customer story, customer story. We write a customer story, we write a brand story, we read a product or service story. We write an entrepreneur’s story. And when you have your stories down and you understand what your, what they, that there are different stories.

It’s not just your story all the time. Then, you know, when you go into a networking event, you’re talking about your customer story, because there are a hundred people in the room and you want. Those people are, whoever your people are recognize themselves in the story they tell. And when you’re telling a story about yourself, they don’t recognize themselves.

But if you tell the customer story, that’s when they recognize themselves. And so story-based marketing is about understanding the different stories that exist already exist, bringing those to the forefront, creating them intentionally, and that understanding where and when to use each of them to maximize your marketing.

Joel: When you work with entrepreneurs, with the change agents that you mentioned earlier, where’s like you start at these stories, I’m assuming, and figuring out what those stories are. What is the next step in terms of figuring out what to do on the website and how to position themselves through social media.

Melody: So I actually don’t always start with story. I always start where the entrepreneur is. So sometimes people come to me and say, I need a new website. I need new content help me and other people come to me and say, I’m trying to figure out a blog and other people come to me and say, I don’t want to hear you teach story-based marketing.

I want to, I need to get better at marketing. some people come and say you do content. Well, I don’t know what I’m doing in content. I need help. So wherever they happen to be wherever their start line is. That’s where I meet them. And so I have programs and courses and one-on-one work depending on who the, who, the particular entrepreneurials and what their need is, where they are and where they want to be.

So I don’t necessarily start in a specific place with everyone. once somebody’s taken let’s just say somebody comes in and they do a content marketing workshop with me and they learn about this new creating a content strategy and then the content marketing cycle. And they go through a cycle when they’re done that they go off and do that.

And they’re like, now I’m, now I can do that. I can do it on my own. I’m great off they go. They often come back and say, you know, I know I wanted to understand story better. So, because now that I’ve understand content marketing in the cycle, and I’m actually producing content, I’m looking for story to integrate into that content to make it even better.

And so then they’ll come and do the story Mark. It came with me. So it kind of depends on you’re at right. Like I always meet people at the start line. I’m never waiting at the finish line for them. Right. You always need them at the start line. Carved them a path through it, hold their hand. If they need it to get them to the finish line they want to be up.

Joel: So how do you look at a content marketing strategy?

Melody: so are you, do you mean, what is it like?

Joel: Yeah. Like what, cause I think you have a very unique take on story or you obviously have a unique take on storytelling. And how does that translate? Maybe a better question is how does that translate into the actual, tactics of content marketing.

Melody: Yeah. No great question. So when a co strategy is essentially, so I think of content has two parts, right? There’s the strategy knowing who you’re serving, knowing who you are knowing, how you’re trying to change people. Understanding the buyer journey, you know, how they get to know about you, how they get to know, you know, no, like trust let’s, that’s a very common term.

No, like trust you and so they’re willing to work with you like that. And then there’s that core messaging. So that’s a strategy understanding, this is who I serve. This is who I am. This is the core messaging. This is the journey they take to get here. And these are the platforms I want to be on. That’s a strategy.

It’s not something that changes month to month, year to year, I’m going to be serving authors at the served authors five years ago. I’ll be serving authors in five years. Their problems don’t change that quickly. The, you know, the way we distribute books do have the way we promote promote books change, but their need to promote books doesn’t change.

So that’s, that’s the strategy. And then you have the content cycle and then the content cycle, you take all of that information. You say, okay, now I understand what are my goals for the next month or 30 days or 90 days or one quarter? I suggest people do it quarter by quarter, right? Quarter one, quarter two, quarter three.

So what am I content goals for the next quarter? I’ll figure out what they are. I’ll create a content calendar. Once I have a content calendar, I will start creating the content. I’ll publish the content on my platform, my platform, the one I own I’m not talking about social media. Once it’s on my platform.

I can promote it. Now I’m talking about social media and, you know, however else you’re going to promote your content, then I can promote it. And then after the, you know, near the end of the cycle, I’m going to sit back and I’m going to say what worked. And what didn’t work, what was popular? What led people from, you know, let’s say Facebook to my blog, posts to my product page, to buying.

What path, what content funnel worked and what content funnel didn’t work, the ones that worked. Do more of the same, the ones that didn’t work. Let’s try to figure out why that’s not working. Am I, you know, am I doing the wrong thing entirely or do I need to tweak it? Let’s not throw everything out.

And then once you figured out that we set new goals because we’ve learned something and the next time we set goals, we set better goals. We, we become more, you know, focused on what works and what doesn’t. And we go through the cycle again. And eventually my hope is that my clients go from understanding the strategy and the cycle to doing it themselves for a little bit.

And then I want them to outgrow that. And then we want them to be able to hire someone to do that for them. But they understand it. And so when somebody comes in and starts talking content marketing, and like, what are they talking about? It’s over my head. It’s no longer over their head. They get it and they can say, Nope, I want to do it this way.

And I want to do it this way. This is my strategy. I’m asking you to implement it. And they can kind of guide someone through that.

Joel: I think that feed the feedback loop that you’re talking about is super important. You know, where you create a piece of content that then you figure out how to promote it.

And then you look at the metrics and say, okay, this did this well, that, you know, we can tweak this. And the next content piece is better because you’ve learned something from it that other piece. So. You work with both like lunch.

Melody: Go ahead. I was going to say you can’t imagine how many entrepreneurs come to me and say, I’ve been doing content for like two years. I do videos that I do this and that, and I’m not getting anywhere. It’s because they don’t have the strategy behind it. They’re just kind of flailing, throwing things out there. And they’re not looking at that feedback loop to improve themselves. They’re just blinded, throwing things out. So if you know, two things you’re going to do build a strategy.

And examine what works and what doesn’t and go through the feedback loop. Sorry to interrupt your door.

Joel: No, those are great points to emphasize for sure so I know you work with larger corporations who have different goals. Then, you know, maybe solopreneurs who just want to write a memoir or like a health and wellness book. Is the marketing different or is it the same kind of principles? The same tactics? Yes.

Melody: That’s such a good question. I wish I had a good answer to it. Most of my life, I have worked with entrepreneurs, consultants, coaches, authors, like the personal brand people. last year. I started doing storytelling workshops in corporations.

And we would, you know, we’d get a cohort, we would do some storytelling workshops. We would help people come up with their stories. We’d coach them through it. I did this with a colleague and then we were putting on storytelling shows through zoo because offices, all of a sudden were scattered and people weren’t, you know, Hanging out anymore.

You know, there was no having lunch together or, you know, a cup of coffee or water cooler or whatever. And so companies, corporations were looking for ways to bring people together to connect and personal storytelling is amazing way to bring a team together. It’s a really great team building exercise. So I started doing that with a colleague last year.

But if I’m perfectly honest with you, it’s an area of marketing that I’m less familiar with and so I don’t really have it down yet to be perfectly honest with you. I don’t fully understand all the intricacies of it. And so I certainly wouldn’t teach it.

Joel: I want to dive a little bit into this because of COVID because teams are so. I think isolated right now, you know, it’s hard to do those team building events. So, I don’t know if you can speak to some of those ways where we can bring those teams together through storytelling, activities, or story workshops.

Melody: Yeah. So what, what I’ve been doing is, we’ll take a team at work or we’ll take a department or we’ll take a cohort of some sort in a corporation. They can be spread out in a city. They could be spread out in a country. They can be spread out internationally. It’s a little bit more challenging internationally, but I have had, I have done somewhere there they’re international. It just means that, you know, the person in Australia is up at an odd hour.

Right. unfortunately that’s, if you’re working remotely, this is kind of how it is. Yeah. And so what we’ve, what, I’ve, what I, what I have found that really works is I bring, let’s say 16 people together and divide them into cohorts of four. And then those four people go through the process of learning how to do storytelling and coming up with stories and polishing their stories and practicing their stories for performance together.

And then we bring the 16 together. And then we invite the rest of the company or the rest of the department of the rest of the whatever. And we put on a storytelling show and then people, we hosted it. So we would introduce the storytellers and we often would say something that we learned about them along the way that, we were impressed with or that we enjoyed, you know, about them.

And then, we would, you know, give the stage to the storyteller who would tell the story and then through whatever software the company used people would be, you know, typing in. Oh my God, that’s a great story. Oh, that happened to me. That happened a lot where you’ll parents would tell these stories about trying to juggle working from home and kids and you know, all of this stuff.

And then other parents would be like, Oh, that sounds exactly like my life. And all of a sudden they felt connected. They’re like, okay, all struggling with the same things. Some of us have found solutions that we’re sharing that we can try. some, you know, we’ve had some really funny stories. We had this one, the storyteller who was working from home with two kids, a partner, you know, a dog and they were doing house repairs when the, When COVID happened.

And so there they are in their living room trying to figure this thing out and they’re doing repairs and some workers done something and their chimney caves in, in the middle of a meeting.

So things like that. So there’s some stories that are just traumatic or heroic or funny, or a deep, there’s a, another story about having a baby. During COVID and not having that family support. Right. there was another story about having family member visit from overseas and all of a sudden they got sick and it’s coven and they were supposed to go home and you’re running around for visas while you’re teaching your kids and working, and you know, all of these.

Amazing crazy wonderful, frightening experiences. And there felt so isolated and all of a sudden they’re there together developing stories together, and they’re seeing the people. you know, human and, and they’re allowed to be more vulnerable than they’ve been allowed to be in these meetings.

And, and it was really great. It’s really great for the companies to human resources often sits in and listens and they’re like, okay, we’re starting to understand our people and what they’re struggling with and what they need and how we can help them. So it’s been, it’s been a wonderful experience. For me as well as, as well as the companies and it’s, it’s been connecting, it’s been really, really connecting for people/

Joel: That’s the message is connecting with people because as you were telling me the stories that I. Was thinking about my own life. And there was the time when I was on like a zoom call like this and my hallway started to fled. And then another, then when you’re talking about, the birth of the one story of the, I guess the couple who had the birth of their child and how my brother wasn’t able to be at the birth of his son because of COVID.

And so I think. Yeah, it’s weird. This and I was just noticing how I connected with each story. So I think that’s, you know, that’s the power of storytelling. So I want to leave it with there. I want to ask you one last question and this is going to be the toughest question of the afternoon, and that is going to be, what is your favorite book?

Cause I know it is everyone I have on this podcast. It’s always like, do I have to choose one? You don’t have to choose one, but if we could have just a couple that maybe you like to gift or that you like to reread, which is what, what are a couple that you would recommend to our audience?

Melody: So I am not book monogamous. I like all the books I’m currently reading Seth Goden, the practice. Okay. So it, but one of his books that if, if you were afraid to make that leap in life, he wrote a book called, it’s always your turn. What is it called? One moment. I have it on my shelf. I think it’s called as always your turn I’ll I’ll give it to you.

Joel: Yeah, I’ll put it in the show notes.

Melody: It’s an amazing book. We sit and we wait for someone to see us. We wait for someone to recognize our value. We wait for someone to tell us it’s our turn. And we’re not, you know, we’re kind of like, you’re in school and your hands up and you’re hoping the teacher will pick you up.

You know what? It’s always your turn. Go do what you love. Go do what you’re passionate about. Go leap into that water. It’s a, it’s a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. it’s really inspirational. So that is the one book. If you’re writing Bird by Anne Lamott. It’s an oldie, but a goodie.

She’s funny. if you’re writing your memoir old friend from far away by Natalie Goldberg, brilliant, brilliant book on writing. She’s brilliant on writing, read anything by Natalie Goldberg. yeah. it’s called what to do when it’s your turn and it’s always your turn by Seth Goden. That’s it? When it’s your turn and it’s always your time.

Joel: Is that a newer one? Because I haven’t heard of it before.

Melody: It’s fairly new three copies somewhere in my house. It’s it’s and it’s not something you read from cover to cover. You can open it up. It’s full of color. It’s like a, it’s like a gorgeous, the magazine. It’s beautiful.

It’s inspiring. Yes. I give it to people when they’re feeling like, you know, when I, when I work with people who are feeling that they can’t stand up and do their thing, that’s the book I give them. I’m like, look, here’s some inspiration.

Joel: Which I imagine happens quite often these days.

Melody: Yes. Yeah. Which is why I have a few copies lying around, but I don’t see people anymore. So yes, with me, you may get a book as a gift. It’s possible. You need this book read this.

Joel: There’s no such thing as too many books. Well, Melody, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much. I’ve had so much fun for people who want to reach out to you to connect with you, to hire you, where can they find you?

Melody: First off, thank you, Joel. You’ve asked some awesome questions. I’ve really enjoyed your questions. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you today, so thank you very much. So if people are looking for me, they can look on any of my websites and nutritious truth.com. I’m sorry. It’s so hard to spell. I didn’t think about that, but terrible.

And you can just find me@melodyandowen.com. As well, or if you’re interested in authorship, go to YouTube and search up author nation. I’m also on Facebook, melody, Owen, Author Nation as well. I’m on Instagram.  Hit me up on social media, send me an email and I’m happy to help you with whatever it is that you know, you’re dreaming of today.