The Secret To Connecting To Your Audience With Nick Nanton [Episode 51]

At some point or another, we all struggle to connect to our audience or customers.

Nick Nanton is an Emmy winning director and master storyteller. Nick believes that there is a secret to help businesses relate to customers better and he's here to share that with us…

Subscribe now on your favourite podcast player:

What is the secret to connecting to your audience?

• The secret is absolutely story.
• The left side of the brain is the logical side and the right is the random creative side. When you ask people which side they think that stories will appeal to. Most people would say the right side but it’s the left side. Stories help the brain understand things.
• The best way to win an argument is to tell a story, get everyone to agree with you along the way about these things that happened and here’s the outcome.

Does the story have to be an overt story on the page or can it be a subtext?

• The more you can tell the story outright but leave moments for people to decide what it means to them, that’s the real win.
• It’s all about using hooks to draw you in.
• The 7 plots for stories are overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, tragedy.

You’re a filmmaker it’s very easy to think of these as a video. Stories don’t just have to be videos, do they?

• No there is plenty of great storytelling in podcasts, books and sales letters.
• The best sales letter I ever read was a hundred-page sales letter.

For our listeners who think “oh I suck at telling stories, I’m good at marketing” who are not the best storytellers, what resources should they be looking to learn from?

• If I were doing it in the marketing world I would look at people who are having success in the fields that I respect.
• The people who are having the success, I would bet they have some sort of narrative or story.
• Look at what other people are doing well and try to make it your own.

You could tell the whole story in that one document or post, or you could make it like a soap opera where they put the bits together over time. Is that effective? Or do you think the whole story needs to be there?

• No there is definitely different formats that can work.
• A story can never be too boring, just too long.
• The easiest way to start is to look at what is working for someone you respect.

How does the story of our previous customers fit into this?

• I think what you have to look at is trying to find who is the audience you are trying to reach and tell one or two stories to those people.
• It’s trying to relate to your audience to those customers.

A book that you would recommend…
Davinci And The 40 Answers by Mark Fox
The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield

What is your top success habit?
I try not to schedule myself too tightly.

Who do you look up to?
Russell Brunson and Jay Abraham

What are your favourite apps right now?
Voxer, and I use a white noise app to sleep.

Here’s the big one… who do you like more, Rob or Kennedy?
Rob!

Finally, where can folks go to find out more about you?
www.nicknanton.com