Securing Success Through Storytelling With Bill Blankschaen

 

There is no better way to capture the attention of book publishers than a uniquely interesting and deeply moving story. Mitch Russo is joined by Bill Blankschaen, Founder and Chief Story Architect of StoryBuilders, to discuss the secrets of incredible storytelling success. From identifying the central tone of your story to determining your target audience, Bill breaks down the essential steps to developing, writing, and ultimately publishing your book. He also explains the right way to leverage your book to successfully brand and scale your business through the right monetization strategies. Get started with writing your very own story and bring your message out there!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Securing Success Through Storytelling With Bill Blankschaen

Welcome to this episode of the show. We have an exciting guest. Before I introduce you, I want to tell you a little bit about something I have been working on that I hope might be of interest to you. We have a coaching platform called ClickCoach.io. This platform has helped hundreds of coaches scale their coaching business and make more money, save time, and get better testimonials. If you need something like that, boy, do we have a tool for you. Head over to ClickCoach.io and check it out. It is very inexpensive, it has a lot of power, and it is always improving.

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Bill, so nice to finally get you on the show. I am going to be talking to Bill Blankschaen, and he is the founder and chief story architect of StoryBuilders. Those of you who do not know, the few of you out there who may not know what StoryBuilders is, Bill is going to tell us. First, Bill, welcome to the show.

Mitch, what a pleasure to be here. I’m so excited to spend some time with you talking about storytelling and the advantage that it gives everyone when they lean into it.

Looking Back To Bill’s Career Journey

How did you get started, Bill? You did not always have your company, and you must have done something that initiated this entrepreneurial fit that caused you to start a company.

There was a day when I had actually helped start a private school and was leading that and doing good work. I was getting hugs from kindergartners every morning, helping teenagers navigate life, and helping families. Burning within me, there was this sense of a calling to be a writer and a storyteller. Even from a young age, I had always thought of myself as a writer, but I was not actually writing.

I eventually reached the place where I realized, “If I do not do something with this message burning inside me, I am going to regret it later.” I decided to step away from the school and step out into the unknown. I had six kids, in a year with no income, diving in, figuring this out. Really following the path of doing what I loved to do. In that year, I will tell you, Mitch, I never worked harder in my life.

I would work, talk with every publisher I could find, everybody in the storytelling space I could find. Created a book proposal, shopped it to publishers, dealt with that. I became a student of the science and art of storytelling in that process. It was not easy by any means. I remember one day in particular, I was sitting out in the backyard with a notebook and a pen and paper, trying to work out a book idea at the time.

On the outside, I was in Northeast Ohio at the time, it was springtime, and it was a beautiful sunny day. The birds are singing, and the wind is just drifting through the trees. It is just so pleasant on the outside, but on the inside, I got to tell you, I was wrestling with every fear you can imagine. Are we going to be six kids in a cardboard box under a freeway bridge somewhere? Is this going to turn out? I do not know if we are going to pull this off. What if I fail?

All those things. I kept going, and I kept writing, and I kept bleeding into that. One day at a time. As it turned out, the very book that I was working on that day ended up being picked up by a publisher. I wrote the book, and realized I am actually really good at this. People began asking me, “Can you help me with my book?” I began to help them, and out of that came story builders and the vision for that. Since then, we have worked with names like Lewis Howes and John Maxwell, Dean Graziosi, Michael Hyatt, all sorts of folks along that space, and lots of people you have not heard of yet.

In that process, what I realized was that my big takeaway. My breakthrough began when I dared to start with my story. That is true for everybody. Your breakthrough begins when you dare to lean in and start with your story, with who you are and what you uniquely bring to the world. That is what fuels me. That is why I love talking about stories so much, because I believe every story matters.

I agree. What is interesting to me, though, is that you, what you took from that was that I need to hone my skills in telling stories. Other people take from those same experiences, I need to figure out how to write better proposals to try and get, you know what I am saying? It is a different perspective entirely, obviously one very unique to you and very important at this point to have become your formative career path, if you will.

Particularly in the pressure cooker of six kids and a wife waiting for somebody to make a dollar to pay the bills. I get that too. We all have origin stories. What I think fascinated me most about what you said is the fact that you decided that storytelling was the key takeaway from all that you learned, as opposed to how to publish a book or maybe how to get clients or any of those other things. What that tells me is you have a very beautiful, creative spirit.

I knew that from when we first spoke. Clearly, that is what has been driving you. That is a perfect driver for a business. Let us go back again to those early years. You got your book published. Now people came to you and said, “Can you help me publish my book?” Did you, at that point, have it all figured out, and you had a price list and a program and a pathway and a course? Tell me about the startup, the messy startup.

As with any startup of anything, as you said, it was messy. No, I did not have any of those things. What I had was a passion for helping people. What I had was understanding that there are a lot of people who are just like me who said, “I have got this message, I got this, something I want to get out to.” This story, when I talk about story, Mitch, I do not just mean what has happened to you. That is an important part of that.

I mean, almost the body of wisdom that you have accumulated through those experiences, the lessons you have learned from the failures, the successes, the credentials, all those kinds of things. Many people are walking around with that within them. It is like gold that they have not tapped into yet. I just feel really passionate, became passionate about helping people mine that gold, get it out, share it with the world. It opens the doors for so many things. In answer to your question, no, I did not have it all figured out. I still do not have it all figured out.

People need to remember that we are all on a journey and wherever we are now, it is not the end of the story. I like to say this a lot. The story is not over yet. Wherever you are right now, no matter how defeated you may feel, no matter how victorious you may feel, the story is not over yet. It is going to keep going. It is important at the beginning of anything to recognize where you are in that process and to see, “This is part of my story that I am sharing.”

Part of the value that I think people will get from hearing us talk is that they are not alone in the way they think about where they are at. All of us live in our heads, and when we sit here after six months or, in my case, a year. Trying to get my book, Sacred Crossroads, published. I did not even get a response from an agent or from a publisher. I joined programs, I learned to write queries, and how to trim my blurb to 221 words.

Choosing One Message Or Feeling For Your Book

It is all a load of crap when it comes down to it. For me, I made the decision to self-publish because I knew I had a powerful story I wanted to tell. For people who are sitting at home and hearing us speak, after all these years, and the books you have published and the people you have helped, you have a story. What is the first step? What do I do now?

The first step is to get clear on what I call your meaningful message. To really get crystal clear on what my message is, because a lot of people do not know or they keep throwing out different messages, which creates confusion for everybody, including themselves. What was the name of the book that you mentioned, Sacred Crossroads? To get to that point, you had to get clear. You had to get clear on what this book is really about. What is that message?

Getting clear on that meaningful message, which becomes the tip of the arrow of a book. One of the first questions I ask anybody when we are developing a book, whatever its name is, is this, “Where do we start?” The question is, I call it the story focus question. The question is this. Let us look forward a little bit. If someone were to read your book and finish the last page, close it, put it down, walk away, and forget 99% of what they just read.

What would you want that one thing to be that they would remember? What is the one thing that, if they forget all of it, do not forget this? I have found that it is such a clarifying question for people because often when they think of it in that way, something comes to the surface pretty immediately. There is an expression that sums that up, which becomes the guiding principle for the book.

Let me repeat that. If someone were to read your book and walk away, what would be the one thing they would remember?

Let us say if someone were to read your book and forget everything they read, but they remember only one thing. What would you want that one thing to be? What would crystallize that? It cannot be everything. A book about everything is a book about nothing. That is the internet. We already have that book. Sits down and starts turning pages randomly on the internet, just hoping to get something. I do not know. We are at least looking for cat videos or something.

A book about everything is a book about nothing. Share on X

My whole day, that is what I have been doing.

We have to figure out what that is, and then that becomes the guiding principle. If it does not support that message, it does not make it into the book. That becomes the editing filter if creating a book is what you are doing with your story.

Does that same question apply to a fiction versus a non-fiction book?

There needs to be an overarching message in a fiction book, yes. The same thing is true. I have studied a lot of the masters over the centuries in this fiction space as well. There are always key themes that surface, and almost in a hierarchical way. It is super helpful to have that. With fiction, one thing you might want to consider is that sometimes the most important thing is not the message, but the feeling or emotion that is conveyed by it.

Think of Edgar Allan Poe. He used to be a master at this. His intent in his short stories was to create an effect in the reader, to make a change within them of some sort, especially emotionally. Sometimes with fiction, that is the play. This is the one feeling that after they put down, I just read a novel this past weekend, just like a popular thriller type of book. There is a whole series of these books. As I thought about it, I thought, “That is the feeling I get from reading them every single time.” There is consistency with that. Sometimes it is not a message like I want to change your life in this way. It is more, “I want to entertain you and cause you to feel a certain thing.”

I could have used you when I wrote this book, Sacred Crossroads, because here is why. When I had what I will call my transformational experience that led me to write this book, I approached it just like the other six books I have already published, which is as a nonfiction book. I just kept using the same basic blueprint for all the other books I have written. They have all been relatively successful for their purpose, meaning to get out there to show my expertise, to get me clients.

This was going to be different. I took that approach, and about halfway through, I realized it was completely the wrong approach. I had to start over completely from scratch. I did not know what the right approach was. That is why I said I could have used your help. It basically struck me that what I needed to write was nothing like anything I knew how to write. I had to study the model first. I had to learn to write a parable. I reread books.

As the Alchemist, for example, or the Celestine Prophecies. That is where I became truly inspired to write Sacred Crossroads. I love the idea that you want people to focus on the one thing or the message of the book itself. What you are describing, that feeling you get when you read those same, whatever they are, war stories, James Patterson books, whatever they are, I crave those feelings when I select books too. If it is Philip K. Dick, you are reading his beautiful old science fiction stuff. It is the comfort of knowing the author.

What you get in those series, I am looking at one on my shelf right now, what you get is consistency. This is why a story is so important, whether it is you are telling your brand story, whether you are building as an entrepreneur, a business professional, or a thought leader building something out, consistency is key. That is why I encourage people to lean into their story, get clear on their story, again, that body of wisdom, and then learn how to tell that story consistently over time.

When writing fiction, the most important thing is not always the message. Sometimes, you have to establish the feeling you want to convey. Share on X

As you tell it, people begin to grow in their understanding of you. They can trust you faster. It facilitates all those kinds of things, positions you to really put some monetization around it. That is all I call your story advantage. That is why I wrote my book, Your Story Advantage: A Proven Path to Maximize Your Impact, Influence, & Income. To build your story ecosystem is what I describe. You can build that out from getting clear on your message, then multiplying your message, then monetizing your message.

Book Starter Questions You Need To Answer

Let us go back to square one, when we are talking to somebody who either has a book almost done or a book idea or just knows that they have to do this, but they do not even know where to start. You gave us some good guidance on getting a little bit more focused on exactly what the key element of the book would be. Do you have a formula that you take people through? Do you have a process that you could describe to help someone get through this piece?

I can. We have got the whole chapters four and five in my book that walk people through that process, actually. Let me share some additional questions. I call them the book starter questions. That will be helpful here. What I shared with you right there, the story focus question, that is the first one. That is the first book starter question. I think you have to start there. A lot of this is the crazy thing, Mitch. A lot of people do not.

They just think I want to write a book, and they randomly start writing here, writing there, writing this, and then they end up with something, a collection of words that just misses the mark. That is the first question. The second question, I call it the needle mover question. How do you want the world to change as a result of your message or your book being put out in the world? What kind of change do you want to see in the world as a result of that?

Here, I really suggest people tap into the emotions behind it. Why does that matter to you to see that happen? Because, as you well know, when you have done six or seven books now, there is a time when you hit that messy middle and you wonder, do I want to keep going with this or not? It can be a challenging process at times, even if you have help and collaboration and so forth, it is not an easy lift for most people.

Having that really drives you forward. That is the needle mover question. It is important for sustainability. The third question is the ideal audience question. This is one many people miss, and that is, who is your book for, really? About the ideal audience in three different ways. One is the general audience. I think of that like your city. I live in Orlando, so the greater Orlando area is the general audience for my book.

There is a secondary audience and a core audience. The core audience is where you have to start, and really clearly define who that core audience is. Once you think about it in terms of this way, if nobody else gets this book, those people need to get it. Those people need to understand. They need to connect with it. I am writing it for them. If nobody else, they are the ones I am focused on. There is always a secondary audience.

There are always people who are in the vicinity. They are not my next-door neighbors, but they live in the neighborhood. They are closer than just the general city, but they are not the people that I have in mind at the core. You can even go further than that and picture one of those core people, visualize them, and write as if you are writing to them. It gets you super focused. Now, that does not mean the book is only for them.

You can write it in a way that it is open for your secondary audience, open for a general audience. If you aim at everybody, you will hit nobody in that focus. That is one of the values of the ideal audience question. The fourth question is the story strategy question. How does this book fit into what you are trying to build for your business, for your brand, for your future? What role does that play? A lot of people often jump into creating a book without having a plan for what is next.

They think, “I am just going to write a book and the world is going to flock to my doorstep and want to read it.” A publisher is going to get it. Thinking through the strategy, because sometimes people come to us and say, “Can you help me with the book?” We ask that question, and maybe they are like, “I am not really clear on that.” “Let us get clear on that.” Stephen Covey famously said, “Begin with the end in mind.”

Give-Step Process In Creating Your Storytelling Structure

What is the end that you have, and will this book actually help you get there? Is the book you have in mind taking you a different direction? We aim to help people realize that before they get the book done and then realize that they were writing the wrong book. There is a whole process that can go into that. The other question that we often ask is how will you structure the book? This is the story structure question. How will you structure the book for the best reader experience?

Give me an example of that. What does that mean for the best reader experience? Go deeper into that.

With a non-fiction book, especially storytelling, there is an art and science of storytelling, and we created what I call the storytelling structure. That really simplifies it into a five-step process, which you can make any message matter by putting it into this storytelling structure process. We use that process to actually structure the flow of the book. You can use that process then to actually structure each chapter and use it as guidelines to build out the components of it.

The key to writing a book is to break it down into small enough pieces that can be managed. Do not try to sit down and write it all on the weekend. It will be done, but to componentize it, if you will. When you think about that structure, it typically begins with the opening chapter introduction. You want to get their attention. The first step in that storytelling process is the attention portion, tapping into what they want.

We use the storytelling structure to actually build out a chapter one. Keep in mind, what I am not saying is to use this every single time you have to do the same process. These are guidelines. These are guidelines that you do not have to follow, but you probably need a reason why you did not follow them. That can be just as healthy, “I thought about that, and I have decided I want to tweak it or go a different direction here. Here is why. I have a reason for that.”

It begins with attention. The second step is tension. Let us consider this as maybe a chapter two. This is about amplifying the tension, amplifying the problem that stands between what the reader wants and where they are now. What is the pain of not changing, the pain of not doing what I am suggesting to them, and really amplifying that? The third step is connection.

The connection is where you deepen your connection with the reader, often sharing deeper into your personal experience around whatever the topic might be, and setting up what I call step four, the solution. The solution section often is the body of the core body of the book. Depending on what it is, maybe it is a John Maxwell, 5 Levels of Leadership. There you go. That is your solution. Five levels, let us work our way through them, or whatever the case may be.

I remember his book, The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization. Leading up, leading down, others. That becomes the core of the book. That is also where your core intellectual property gets created. You can then often turn and monetize in a lot of neat ways. The final step is the action. The action portion is what do you want people to do with this? Give them the next step.

Give them a where do I go from here now that I have read this, now that I have experienced this, and so forth. That is the story strategy, our story structure, super high level. Keep in mind, it can be modified, it can be adapted, and almost any book I can show you that I have worked on, it never comes out exactly like that, but you can often see the pattern, you can see the flow that goes through that, and then it gets adjusted.

For a fable-type book, you still want to pay attention to the flow of the story and have those elements in it, but it is going to be a lot more story-driven. You have to decide, do I want to do some explanation afterwards? Do I want to explain some things, or do I just want the fable to stand on its own? You have been down this road. Anyways, those are some of the basic questions we go through when we are laying out the foundation of really any book.

Choosing Your Publishing And Marketing Strategies

I love how you broke it down. These are important questions. For anybody who just happens to tune in, you may be in the car, tuning in, you can go to YourFirstThousandClients.com, and you will be able to see every single thing that Bill and I spoke about today, word for word, including all his very powerful questions that you could then apply to your own project. Bill, I want to switch gears for a minute. We completed the book. Let us say we work together, you and I, we built the book, we love it, it is out there, it is done. What do we do with it now?

You said it is out there. The first thing you have to do is what you have done recently, which is figure out your best publishing path. Figure that out, whether it is traditional, whether it is self-publishing, whether it is a hybrid space. We work with people in all of those spaces, by the way. Work with traditional publishing houses, creating manuscripts for them. We have our own hybrid publishing imprint. Work with other hybrid publishers.

We have ourselves professionally self-publishing, whatever. We can help with all that. What I would say about all those is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Anybody who is pushing you into saying, “This is the way you have to go,” or something like that, run. You really have to diagnose each situation because there is not a, it depends on what you want to do. One gentleman we have worked with for ten years now, we are working on his third book now, and we have done a lot of other monetization with him.

He has sold just a ton of copies of his books, but his aim was never to get a traditional publisher, never to make a bestseller list. It was about building his business, and it had been very successful at doing that. That was his aim. He chose a path. It was a professionally self-published path that really fit what he was doing. It really does depend. First thing is to figure out the publishing path.

That is critical. It really is about engaging in the process of getting the word out about your book and about your message. This is where a lot of people fail to see. Again, going back to what I said before, they feel like there must be an easy button somewhere. Seth Godin, many years ago, I went to an event of his back in 2012, I think it was, and he was around this theme of pick yourself. What he said was, “The days are long gone when the publisher will come in and say, I pick you and you are elevated status and you sell lots of books.”

 

He said, “The truth is that it’s never how it happened anyway. Just this perception of it.” There is no shortcut to that. It would take a lot of effort, strategy, diligence, and consistency on an author’s part. There is no shortcut to that, but when you engage that and build it and grow it and pursue it, a lot of great things can happen. How to go about that depends on your situation and your goals, and we help people navigate that all the time as well.

For me, it was the audience. I had built a moderate list, nothing super big, but I had a list. I also had already engaged in several very specific processes that I would use as the basis of a consulting contract, for example, like the book you see on my screen, Power Tribes – How Certification Can Explode Your Business. It is all about building certification programs.

I built a dozen of them, and they are super powerful, and probably of all the books I have written, this is the one that has made me the most money because people read the book, they say, “This really makes sense, but it is hard. I need some help.” That is when I get that first phone call. If you are going to self-publish, and I think you will agree with this, you have to have some way to distribute this book. You’ve got to have an audience. You have to have a stage. You have to have a way to get, as you said, get the word out.

That is true about every publishing path. It is not just self-publishing. Any publishing path. I would encourage people to realize that I hear this at every level of publishing, “Do not expect publishers to do anything. If they do, it is a bonus. That is great.” We are actively striving to do things differently at Story Builders Press because I have been on the receiving end of that so many times and heard from it so many times. If we can just support our authors as they continue to walk this journey in powerful ways, that is a game-changer for people.

For what most people expect, do not expect anything. Even the big houses do not expect anything. You have to remember, often better than 70% of the books that are published by them, they lose money on those. They are looking for the ones that will catch fire, and then they can put more fuel on those fires. I have worked with some big names, and I have seen it true at every level. It really is. Do not expect the publishers to do anything. Authors have to own what that is.

In fact, just to break down the numbers, my understanding of the numbers, you can certainly tell me if it is close to what you have experienced. Most of the time, you are going to take a percentage of whatever the publisher pays you and give that to your literary agent, number one. Number two, the publisher is only going to pay you, possibly fifteen percent or so of the retail sale of your book. In the end, you are going to get about 10%, maybe 12% of what the book sells for, versus if you were to go to the just the other side of the stick entirely, open up your own Shopify store, you can get almost 85% of what the cover prices people pay for the book.

I would say you are talking about traditional publishers. You almost always have to have an agent to get at it. Yes, fifteen percent standard across the board. Fifteen percent is high for a traditional publisher. They can go anywhere from five to 12 to 15, like the max. If you have a really big name, you might better get a big one, so that is reality. Plus, you do give up control of some of the content in so many ways.

On the other side of that, with self-publishing, you get 100%, but then in the hybrid space, it just depends on what people need. It depends on what is the fit for them. In the hybrid space, it could be 50/50, or the share of royalties could be 70/30. You are going to plan to invest something on the front end to get it done, but then you get most of the royalties.

To me, there are pros and cons with each one, even in the self-publishing space, as you know, when you get in and learn a lot of stuff, you’ve got to figure a lot of things out, you may or may not have the time. Any particular one, there are pros and cons, it depends on what that is. People need to be thinking clearly about it. They are not just thinking, if I can just get XYZ publisher, why? All my problems will be solved.

Elevating Your Story Through Collaboration

I would also like to add a personal tip. When thinking about a book, one of the things that I start with is, what is it that I do that is really unique that people value, that people actually have paid me to help them with? I start to think, what is my unique strategy, or what is the formula that I have that is different than everybody else? From there, I could say, “If I could show people what that formula was via a book, that would help me particularly sign more clients, which is what most people want.” How important is that when you begin working with a person for the first time?

That they have that uniqueness already defined?

Exactly.

Sometimes they have it, sometimes they do not. We help them figure it out. Sometimes they will come, and they will think, “I know it is this.” We are like, “Actually, I think there is something else here you might want to take a look at. It is a little bit more unique.” It depends on the people. Often, people come to us. They have already had some success. They already have a business growing, they have got those things happening, they already had that defined.

I literally just had a call, Mitch, with an author who has a very successful business, and he is working on a book, and he just realized, “I actually want to take this book a different direction because it is going to be an even more powerful message.” What we did was say, “I hear that. If we tweaked it like this and this, it gets even more unique and more powerful.”

He was like, “That is amazing.” When we work with anybody, we are always seeking to elevate their message. It is not just tell me, “What do you think, Mitch, we will put it on paper, and you will be good to go. We are always seeking to add value to those ideas. Because I believe strongly, if you want to elevate, you must collaborate.”

If you want to elevate, you must collaborate. Work with other people to bring your work to the next level because none of us can do it all. Share on X

Work with people to take it to the next level because none of us can do it all, especially business entrepreneurs and leaders. We all think we can do many times. We think that if I can just say, “I can do it, put it on my shoulders, give me the ball, I will run with it by myself.” We forget that, no, we need to use a football analogy. We need blockers, need coaches, we need receivers, we need all that stuff on the field to win in that way.

Let us do a post-mortem on a failure. That may be fun. Think about a time when you got a client, you got an engagement, you loved the author, you thought his book would turn out great, and you worked with him, and everything went as well as you could make it go, but it failed. What went wrong?

Let us define fail. To me, failure is maybe it did not even get done. That is a big one. A lot of entrepreneurs think, “I have heard this so many times, Mitch, from people who started a book, they worked with somebody, and it got to a place, and it just drifted into a drawer somewhere, which never happened.” Five, six years later, it is still there, but it is nagging them inside their head and their heart. “Close. I wanted to get that out.”

What I have seen, I am trying to think of two of these, and they have some similarities. One, a young entrepreneur, a great, powerful message. Really excited about it. He was building his business. He was in the hospitality space and was growing rapidly. We got the book too, “That is probably like 85%. We had cover, we had all that stuff that was written. It was ready to go.” He just got busy with his business.

He decided, “I have got to focus on this, and I have got to do this, and I have got to focus on that and build it out.” That is what is driving his money and making his money. He never got back to the book. It ended up just sitting there. Another book was similar. This one was interesting. It was a very successful husband and wife leadership team.

Each of them, in their own right, is a very successful leader, a very successful business person in a particular city. I do not want to mention their name because if I even mention the city, people might know who they are. Great people. The challenge there was that you had co-authors. There were two different perspectives, and we have worked with co-authors many times, but two different perspectives, and they could not always quite agree on things.

It happened again, business happened. We started that project about eight years ago, and we have talked a couple of times since then. They say, “Now is the time. Now we are going to finish this, let us do this,” and then nothing. Now is the time, and then nothing. I think part of it is the co-author dynamics.

Co-authors can present some challenges, as you can often end up in an impasse and not be able to move forward to get the momentum you need to get across the finish line. Frankly, other than that, we do not have too many of those, quite honestly, because when we are in on a book, we are all in on let’s get it done. Let us move you forward. If we need to kick you, let us kick you. Let us keep it moving.

Hold them accountable.

The world needs to hear what you have to say.

Do you ghostwrite for people, or do you guide someone through the process of doing their own work? How is your structure?

All the above. I prefer to use the word collaborative writing instead of ghostwriting. Simply because I think it captures more of what we do. Ghostwriting has the idea of go away and write my book, and then I will call it my own. Collaborative writing really is, it is a back and forth, we are in the mix, we are getting ideas, elevating those ideas. It is a very hands-on process. We do that. We also coach, right? We call it our story coaching service.

We can coach someone who wants to write a book. First of all, this is most important. We lay the foundation. We call it our story strategy service. This is about creating a winning blueprint for the book. Again, beginning with the end in mind. What is the framework of the book? What are the messages of the chapters? What are the stories I am using?

How is it all going to come together? Are there frameworks or tools? All that stuff comes into play. Someone can go through that story strategy service and then say, Thanks. I got it. I am going to go pursue a traditional publisher, or I am going to go write it on my own.” They can say, “Can you guys coach me through this? Let us do this. Let us bring it to life. Let us get it up and out of the world. Let us print it. Let us publish it.”

Whatever the best options are for them. That is where it begins, really, with that story strategy level, which is the first piece of any book project. For some people, it makes sense to break that off and let us just do that first. Let us get the foundation, and then they can see it more clearly, exactly what it is, exactly what it can do, and make their good decisions from that. Others we work with, it is like, “Let us all in, let us get it done, I know I want to do it.” We all start in the same place. Laying that foundation is where it begins.

I love the idea of getting the foundation in place. Of course, that means everything. Who is your ideal client specifically? What are you looking for in terms of work? Who is the person that is your dream client?

I think of them as they are entrepreneurs, business professionals, or thought leaders in general. Those can overlap in a number of different ways. They are people who have had some success to this point. They have got a message they are getting out in the world. They are building a business, something they are getting some traction with, but they feel like they could have more. Their message could be multiplied if only they could figure out a way to get that message into other people’s hands.

Whether maybe they are trying to get on stages, maybe they are trying to become an industry leader and an expert in a particular space. Maybe they are trying to develop their personal brand, which could then point to their business. Business professionals often look at what comes next after my corporate career and what I am looking to build there. We work with a lot of people in that space, too.

They are people who have really enjoyed success, and that is in our core audience, but they need help to break through and capture that. The secondary audience is people who, “I want to build something, I am building something, and I think a book and my message, I think I can use that to build something.” We work with a lot of people in that space, too, using their message as a door opener in order to move them forward. The general audience would be anybody who is like, “I think I have got a story to tell.”

We work with people all across the spectrum, frankly, from health coaches, life coaches, people writing memoirs, people writing comedy books, people writing political, cultural books, all that kind of message is out there. That is the general, but the core audience would be those entrepreneurs, business professionals, and thought leaders who are trying to capture that wisdom powerfully so they can break through to the next level.

Get In Touch With Bill

Audience, if that is you, I think you need to give Bill a call. Bill, this has been a terrific experience for me, really learning more about you and about your business. When we first started talking, you said you had something you would be willing to give away as a gift to our audience. What would that be?

First of all, if they want the book, Your Story Advantage, I would suggest going to YourStoryAdvantage.com, getting a copy of the book, and then we have got a bunch of bonuses, a bunch of free resources that are there, absolutely free. They can go to MyStoryBuilders.com/FreeResources. On there, they are going to find a book starter tool. They are going to find a one-page tool around the storytelling structure that I shared that would be super helpful.

An intellectual property identification tool as well. They will get all that for free. If they are like, “I want to talk. I want to tell you my story.” We can see if there is a fit, and we can help them. Go to MyStoryBuilders.com/Story and just schedule time to chat. There is no pressure. We love hearing people’s stories. If we can be of help to someone we want to be, and if not, we want to get out of their way and let them keep moving their story forward. Again, we believe every story matters.

Bill, it has been a pleasure spending time with you, learning about your business, and hanging out with a fellow writer. Glad we had time to do this. I hope you have enjoyed the show if you have been listening in. Please let me know if you like Bill, and if you like these types of guests, I would be happy to invite more. Thank you for tuning in, and Bill, we will talk again soon.

Sounds good, Mitch. Thank you. Appreciate it.

 

Important Links

• Bill Blankschaen on LinkedIn
• StoryBuilders
• Sacred Crossroads
• Your Story Advantage
• My Story Builders Free Resources
• My StoryBuilders Story
• Your Story Advantage: A Proven Path to Maximize Your Impact, Influence, & Income
• 5 Levels of Leadership
• The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization
• Power Tribes – How Certification Can Explode Your Business
• ClickCoach.io

 

About Bill Blankschaen

Bill Blankschaen is the founder and Chief Story Architect of StoryBuilders, a creative team of storytellers who share his passion for helping people live a story worth telling and serving them with excellence in genuine, high-trust relationships. StoryBuilders tells stories that make the world a better place by creating compelling books and learning experiences that turn ideas into greater impact, influence, and income. A multiple New York Times and USA Today Best Selling writer, Bill and his team work with a variety of influencers like John C. Maxwell and Maxwell Leadership, Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, Lewis Howes, Dean Graziosi, Michael Hyatt (Full Focus), Zig Ziglar and family, Jeff Allen, Jason Wilson, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, business coaches and consultants, political figures, cultural voices, athletes, comedians, fitness gurus, psychologists, and even faith leaders at some of the largest churches in America. The books, resources, and experiences they have created have already impacted millions of people—and they’re just getting started.

If someone were to read your book, forget everything but 99% of the content, and then walk away, what would be the one thing they would remember?

Needle Mover Question: How do you want the world to change as a result of your book in the world? What are the emotions behind it?

Ideal Audience Question: Who is your book for, really? First, General, Secondary, and the Core audience. Start there. Define who that is.  Visualise the ideal reader and write for them.

them.

Story Strategy Question – How does this fit into what I am trying to build? “Begin with the end in mind.”