The Story Advantage for Better Clarity and Positioning - The Business of Story

Welcome to An Agency Story podcast, where owners and experts share the real journey, the early struggles, the breakthrough moments, and everything in between. I'm your host, Russel Dubree, former eight-figure agency owner turned business coach, who sold my agency and now helps agency leaders create their ideal business. Every agency has a story, and this is your front row seat. This is An Agency Story.

Welcome to the show today, everyone. I have Park Howell with us here with The Business of Story. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Park. Russel, thanks for having me.

Great to be here. Well, glad to have you. And if you don't mind, just kick us off right out of the gate. Tell us what The Business of Story does and who you do it for.

Yeah. We are a consultancy all around brand and leadership storytelling. I started it really in 2016 after 20 years of running my own ad agency, and now I consult, teach, coach, and speak on the power of story to help leaders and their people excel through the stories they tell. And if that sounds like a tagline, it is.

Um, and I get to work with really a lot of great brands like Dell Technology, Walmart, Walmart Canada, US Air Force. Um, and it's just been kind of, I guess, the final chapter in my overall brand agency career. Instead of running a whole bunch of campaigns, now what I really do is just help people understand how to use some specific story narrative frameworks to make their messages land right the first time every time. And it's- All right just a blast.

Well, I really can't wait to dive into what that looks like and your journey and how you got to there. I mean, right, we're on a podcast called An Agency Story. What I tell folks is stories, tales old as time, connecting through that is so powerful. So l- looking forward to this.

But before we get in all the good, juicy stuff, I'd love to just hear about young Park, how he came up in the world. Yeah. What, what was he doing, thinking, seeing? Oh gosh, you, uh, your timing is great.

I had on my show yesterday, I run the Business, uh, of Story podcast. I've done it for 12 years. On every Monday, a new guest. And I have Elizabeth Brett, who's coming on, uh, will be on Monday.

And her show will drop on Monday. She asked me that same question, and she was digging deep into what my million-dollar story was, and it pretty much always goes back to when we were kids. Yeah. And it was the first time, Russel, I had actually told this story.

It was the first time she bubbled it up in me, and it's, was this. So why did I get in the advertising, branding, marketing world? Well, I think it goes way back when I was a little kid growing up in Seattle. I was one of seven kids.

My mom and dad got married late, you know, in life, as in 28, 29, which was late, you know, for the Depression-era kids. And so they had seven kids in nine years. So they, we had - I was a part of a brood. I was number five.

I was the one that really always was kind of approaching art and music. I started taking piano lessons when I was three. I wore these crazy hats, and my siblings would always look at me like, "What the hell's wrong with Park? He's the weirdest one of all of us."

And they all went on and had regular jobs, and I, of course, went in, uh, first studied communications, advertising, marketing, and I got a degree in music composition and theory. And they're like, "What are you ever gonna do with that? Why would you waste your time?" And I realized that is why I do what I do today, because so many of us have amazing stories to tell, and we have these amazing offerings, but we are completely misunderstood.

And that is typically our fault, because we are not telling our story well enough. And so, like I said, I studied music composition and theory, and now fast-forward 45 years, and here I am teaching story composition and theory to help brands be understood and appreciated for their unique contributions to the world and to their customers. And I'm telling you, Russel, that was a major aha moment yesterday purely by interviewing Elizabeth Brett, who pulled that out of me. Isn't that a fascinating what just a, a well-timed or good question can make you reflect on and think about in your own story?

Yeah. Yeah, because that's what, you know, it's, it's why do you do what you do, right? The whole Simon Sinek thing. Well, it's always based on a moment or moments in time that something that happened to you that was probably kind of surprising and maybe- piqued a curiosity or triggered a passion in you that you didn't realize you had, or a talent until you started pursuing that, and then 30 years later, you find yourself doing that very thing, and you can go back and point at two or three or four different moments in your life that has informed who you are today.

I think it's really fascinating. It is the most fascinating, and, and it really piques too. I'm a history major as well, and I, uh, I don't... You know, I had this narrative for so long that, uh, well, that was a really dumb major to have because I really wasn't planning on doing anything with a history major.

But where I find so much more value in it now is, yes, I loved history, but the value of better understanding where we've been so we can better understand why the now and where we are going forward. I imagine That plays into the work you do with agencies in consulting because you look at the history of a specific agency you might be working with, or, you know, looking at the history of the advertising industry in general so that it's informing you on the kinda decisions that you can help your agency customers make to be prepared for what's happening in the future, especially during this most disruptive time we've ever lived in, I think, as agency principals.

I think you're so dead right that, uh, I always kinda said, you know, I, I think sometimes successful people can have a hard time really breaking down where their success did and didn't come from, and I like to think I've spent a lot of extra time, given my history background, to really understand that, and I know I don't still get it right, but that history helps me a little do that a little further. Um- Yeah. All right, man. Well, this is - I'm already fascinated, but I'm gonna check my curiosity just for a little bit longer here.

And- All right I wanna hear a little bit more about just your agency life, how you got into your agency business, and how that road went for you. Well, I got into the advertising marketing world in 1985, way, way, way back when in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was just a struggling ad guy. I mean, I was trying to find a job as a writer and/or an account executive or a me- I was doing whatever I could to get a job, and I did land a job. And, and they were small agencies, so I got to do a lot of everything, writing, producing.

I produced a whole lot of TV or radio commercials, which I just absolutely love the theater of the mind. Um, and then account service work and that kind of thing, which really poised me to be perfectly positioned to start my own agency a decade later. And I was always just like, "Oh, get me out of this. I just wanna do my own thing.

Want to do my own thing." And I realized it took me a little bit while to build my chops, so I really knew what the hell I was doing, and then I did. Started Park Co., my agency in Phoenix, Arizona, in, uh, 1995, and it was a one-man band, you know.

And I had this really nice major client called Forever Living Products International, and at the time they were a billion-dollar client, and they had a small marketing team, but they needed a lot of help. And so I came in, and then they just kept throwing more and more work on me, and so I hired a writer to come in and help me. And then we got another big account, Sky Harbor Air- International Airport, which we represented for 10 years. And again, I was like a two-man band now.

And then things just started rolling and, uh, grew. It got up to 25 people my first 10 years. I didn't want it to become this big, gigantic agency. I wanted us to stay really focused on what we did best.

And that was back in the days, Russel, of traditional advertising and marketing, and by traditional I mean TV, radio, print, direct mail, outdoor, public relations, events, and no Yelp, right? Ah. And so- I don't even know what this is, man. I'm a digital first guy.

No, just kidding. And it was back then when I would tell our clients, as we were seeing the transition to the digital world, I said, "Look it, you as a customer buying media used to own the influence of mass media, but now the masses are becoming the media, And they are owning your brand's story So I went and I realized at that point, and now we're talking early 2000s, that the way we were approaching traditional advertising was no longer as effective as it used to be because of the advent of digital media.

So I went looking for an answer. And I was lucky, our middle son, our child, Parker, uh, was going to film school at Chapman University in Orange, California, spent 12 years in Hollywood, doing a lot of motion design, motion graphics for movies and TV shows and that kind of thing, and then has since moved to Austin, Texas, where he's running a - his own company in virtual reality, mixed reality filmmaking. Anyway, so he was all in. I mean, he's all about filmmaking.

So while he was there, I said, "Parker, send me your books and your recorded lectures since I'm paying for them, because I wanna know what does Hollywood know about storytelling?" And of course, I found the hero's journey, and that hit me immediately as, well, that's a customer journey. That's a colleague's journey. That's my journey.

You know, why don't they teach this in the advertising marketing world? And I studied all, you know, the Pixar way and Blake Snyder's 15 Beats of Story, blah, blah, blah. And I decided to do an experiment, Russel. I took the hero's journey, and I mapped it to business and the business mind, and I created my 10-step story cycle system.

This is back in 2008. And I took my very first client through it, and we went through, we redesigned, remapped their entire story and gave them a whole new approach to providing sustainable storytelling. And the end of this is, after several years, they had grown by 600%. And Aveene would come back to me and say, "The who-whole reason we grew like this is we totally got our story together, you know, with your help."

That's when I really knew I was onto something and really started pushing the story cycle system, working with a lot of clients who would then invite me to come in and teach their people about storytelling and the story cycle system and frameworks. And then Arizona State University came calling and said, "We'd like you to teach a master's course on what you've developed around the story cycle, Gene." And Russel, that all led to my off-ramp out of the ad agency world in 2016 into what I do today.

So, um- Wow. And then again, it comes full circle because instead of music composition and theory, I'm now teaching story composition and theory to agency principals, leaders, their people, sales and marketing teams, and that sort of thing. Yeah. Well, it's funny, I love it, and it's just a really another powerful testament to the, look, there's no tried and true path to this.

In fact, there's even value in kind of having a little bit more of a wayward path and, and the patterns I imagine you're able to connect to that experience that, um, yeah, didn't seem like where you're at is anywhere where you were ever headed initially, but yet here you are. Well, yeah. I knew there was something out there. I just didn't know what the exact path was.

And I love your term of the wayward path, 'cause I know my six siblings look at me like, "Holy cow, he pulled that off," because we had no idea where he was going. Talking about a wayward dude his whole life, but nah, he's built something pretty substantial. And it's, I think, follow your dreams. Follow the universe.

As woo-woo as that sounds, I really believe it gives you clues on what you are supposed to be doing. When you ignore those clues, it usually bites you in the ass. Yeah. When you pay attention to them and have the courage to maybe take on a couple things that you wouldn't normally have done before, to me, I think that's where careers and agencies really, you know, expand, explode in all the best ways.

Yeah. Have you read the book Range by chance? No, I haven't. Range.

Okay. Uh, for, for- I gotta write that down. Yeah. It, I, I highly recommend it and for all you folks that feel like you've been wayward walkers as well, it does a really good job of breaking the myth of early and too focused specialization, and the more diverse path and why that is valuable and how that shows up in the world.

And so it's just a great validation probably to all us wayward walkers on- um, maybe, maybe it's not the actual wayward path. Maybe it's the path, and it's everyone else that's, maybe more the, the wayward path, if you will. That's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. But, okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense. We, we know how we got to here today.

And I want to talk briefly before we even kind of get into too deep of how that applies to agencies, like, in the work you do, why is it seem like it's a hard thing to tell your story? Well, I think it's- Well, I think- and I Have the same experience too, is we are not intentional about it. Because you and I and everybody watching and listening to this show, we are all innate storytellers. We are the only organism that we know that thinks, plans, organizes, and acts in story, right?

Because if you're selling anything, if you're pitching your agency, you are essentially telling and sharing a fiction that you are trying to get your audience to buy into, and then once they say you're hired, that now has become nonfiction, and you have to deliver on all those promises you made in your story. So- We are intuitively innate storytellers, but it leads us to winging it instead of winning it when you really understand how story works and why it works in our limbic pattern-seeking, problem-solving, decision-making, buying brain.

Um, and I'll give you a real quick example. And this was back in 2003, uh, running my agency Park Co. We just landed a very nice client, Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona, and they had a lot of 24 stores at the time, and we were launching with a TV campaign. So we produced two spots, two 30-second spots.

One of them pulled unbelievably well. I mean, same-store sales increased by an average of 42% the next month, and people were coming in and talking about that TV commercial. The other commercial, which we loved just as much as the first one, didn't pull at all. I mean nothing.

Bupkis. So much so that we pulled it after, you know, the second month, and the client came to us and said, "Well, why isn't this one working?" And I didn't have an answer. I didn't know.

I just - I go, "I just don't know." And so when I started studying story a year or two later, I looked back at those two ads, and I realized that first one was in perfect story structure. We intuitively wrote a very clever 30-second commercial that was a setup problem, resolution, and Goodwill is your answer. The other one, Russel, I hate to say, was creative masturbation.

I mean, we were like, "We're so creative. We're the great eight. We're gonna build," you know, thing, and it didn't work. It's like, "Okay, that's cute.

What is it?" Type thing, because it wasn't speaking to that problem-solving limbic brain, and that's when I had my major aha moment. And one of my big missions now in the world is to move people from being intuitive storytellers to intentional storytellers by using the frameworks of the And But Therefore, the five primal elements of a short story for big impact, and my 10-step story cycle system. And that's why people aren't as effective as they could be telling stories in the ad world, the leadership world, in the sales and marketing world, simply because they are not approaching it with intentionality, understanding how it works, and then putting it to work for them.

Hmm. Okay. I mean, I imagine you could probably say that's the source of a lot of challenges and problems is certain level of intentionality behind solving them. Yeah and I wonder, and, and I'm just literally here sitting here thinking of myself, and I would probably be admit and honest that I'm probably really bad at telling my story, as well.

And I don't know. I'm, I'm just sitting here trying to think of what my hesitancies are. One, probably intentionality Is certainly a fair one, but I don't know. It seems like there's some psychological barriers to even wanting to be intentional about it perhaps for some folks.

Well, do you want, you wanna do an experiment real quick with you? Oh, yes. I would love to. I'm gonna walk you through an exercise that all of your listeners and viewers can do for themselves.

Okay. And this is specifically an answer to your question, like, "I'm not even sure I'm really telling my story right." I am going to take you through the And-But-Therefore narrative framework that will help you completely focus your story. Anybody else watching this, uh, you do the same thing.

Pull out a pen and paper. Just answer the questions that I am going to ask Russel right now. This is like the And-But-Therefore is this really powerful narrative framework that uses the three forces of story of agreement, contradiction, consequence, that again, our pattern-seeking, problem-solving, decision-making limbic brain loves, and it's essentially set up problem resolution. All right.

But you gotta be very intentional about it. So- Here we go let's talk about either your business or your podcast. Do you have one or the other you wanna focus on for this? Well, since we're on the podcast, let's talk about the podcast.

All right. So let me ask you this. We are gonna focus on your audience first and foremost. I want you and your brain to not think this is a story about you.

This is a story for them from their point of view. So tell me who your number one audience is that watches this show or listens to you, because it's the whole Pareto principle. 80% of our income, 80% of our viewership comes from 1%, from one personality archetype, from one customer archetype. How would you describe them?

Very good question. I would probably go an agency owner and more maybe one level deeper is just that they're curious about others' journeys so that they can relate or gain some perspective on their own. Okay. Curious about others' journeys.

So what do they want? And you may have just answered this. What do they want- Well- relative to your offering? And they may not even know what your offering is yet.

Maybe they're a first-time viewer. But what do they want? And you're kinda gonna foreshadow how you're gonna help them get what they want. So you're a curious agency owner, always trying to understand how other people have found success with their agency.

And so what do they want because of that interest? The easy answer is probably to grow their business in some capacity, but I always feel like that is a too easy of a default when we're talking about business-related content. Let's just go ahead and put that down. Okay.

Because I don't wanna overcomplicate this at all. We are using a story structure that's gonna speak directly to them. And then tell me, and why is that important to them to grow their business? So one of the things I've found in talking with, the clients I work with and folks on the podcast and just many, many conversations is ultimately it seems like every agency owner, the one fundamental thing they wanna get to is to wake up and choose.

Whatever choosing is for them can be very, very different, but that seems to be the ultimate goal for so many folks I talk to. So wake up and choose what? Choose their business? Choose the direction of their, their agency?

I'm very intentional about that blank, after choose because I think choose can be, for some, they wanna be the thought leader in their business and they wanna go around and do speaking and, write content and things like that. Some wanna go to the beach and collect mailbox money. Some wanna spend more time with their kids and family. Travel is usually one that shows up.

So that blank, like I said, can be very diverse, but at the end of the day, they have that ability, whatever that choosing is going to be for that even particular day. That's awesome. Okay, great. Now let's move on to the but statement.

This is the problem that you help them solve. So they want to be able to have choice in their careers, their business life, but they don't because of what problem? What's keeping them from having choice? Well, we don't have seven hours to, go down all of that.

But, um- um, you know, I think just honestly, and I felt this when I had my own agency, and I think I feel it all the more now, just all the work I do, an agency is an extremely complicated business. There is so much noise, there's so much disruption, as, as you were sharing and we all know earlier, and it's just a constantly changing environment that I think there's just so much noise Awesome. And then how does that make them feel in general? What's the negative emotion they are experiencing?

Because they want choice, they don't have choice because it's so complicated. Yeah. I think it can manifest itself different ways in terms of, this is the quintessential it depends. But, ultimately, it's analysis paralysis, it's afraid to take any action because you're not sure what path is some, are gonna be wrong, or it's maybe sometimes, either aggressively or, hesitantly, running in the wrong direction because it's almost like anything that's not here will be better, but sometimes that's a problem in and of itself.

Yeah. Okay. So the- now let's move to the therefore statement of consequence. What are they going to feel like positively when they get this figured out and they can start making choices for themselves?

Yes. Well, I always love the statement, I don't know where it originated, but success is the ability to match effort and reward. So what might feel like just slogging through or getting through, certain aspects of their journey, to have more, going back to your word intentionality, to have more confidence in action, output, reward, is just a amazingly compounding fortuitous cycle to be in, Mm-hmm and ultimately, by showing up, listening, being an audience of An Agency Story, you introduce them to people in their sim-similar situations who have maybe broken through that barrier, and now they can learn how to make these same choices for themselves.

Absolutely. Yeah. That would be the goal and takeaway. If you're listening closely enough, that would be the goal, yeah.

Great. And I guess I'm an example of that too, because I started in the agency world, and I felt all the exact same things you're talking about, and halfway through, I felt like my choices were limited. And then I made some major choices. And, I didn't sell my agency.

I just transitioned away from it and into the business of story. And I have three other brothers that all had their own companies in different industries, and they all sold their companies, and they looked at me like I had three heads. Like, "What the hell, dude? When were you to sell it?"

And because I didn't wanna be, you know, stuck to whoever bought it for another five years. Yeah. But it was about choice. So if you were to, with everything you just told me, if you were to sum it up with one story theme word, with one word, what would that be?

Oh. Can I get like two or three, or do I have to, do I have to- Go ahead and throw them out there, and I bet we can arrive at one. Yeah. Give me a couple, three words.

Yeah. I, I think it's reduction of noise. Okay. So reduction of noise.

So what would be the positive side of a reduction of noise? Quiet? Clarity? Yeah, I think clarity is one.

I- I'm trying not to use overly used words, but, clarity is absolutely one, and I, I think that's the... of the billion options you can choose or do in the world to feel confident about one or f- few options, how powerful that could be. Okay. And I'm not gonna use clarity 'cause I hear you.

But I'm gonna use one that I think leads to clarity, and it's something you said earlier. I wanna go back to that word choice, because choice means freedom. Choice means agency, and that you have agency over your agency, right? I think that's an interesting thing to think about too.

And then what I would do is do what I call a conversational ABT, where it's so basic, it's so simple, it's vacuous. But if you were to stand in front of a room of 5,000 agency owners and they have no idea who you are, if you got up and said this one line, everybody in the room would be on the same page relative to your one-hour coming presentation. It gets you super focused on a singular problem-solution dynamic. So it might be something like this, is, as an agency owner, you want choice because choice equals freedom.

But right now you're stuck because of the complexity of running an agency and you don't have all the answers. Therefore, imagine having that freedom by giving you agency over your agency to make the choices that will best fulfill your career and your life. Listen to An Agency Story where every week I bring you agency owners from around the world who were found in the exact same place you find yourself now, and how they got their own freedom by being able to make the changes they need to make so they had choice and clarity on what they wanted to do with their career, their agency, and their life.

All right. So I would go back. You want choice. You don't have choice.

Therefore, I'm gonna give you choice by listening to An Agency Story for, you know, people that have overcome this. I like this. I need Park to walk around with me and, and tell that story. So I would even take it then one step further, and I would call out that agency, that person, you know, that audience member, say, "As a curious, industrious ad agency owner, you want to be able to make the choices that provide the freedom in your life, in your career.

And if you could hear from others in your world and how they overcame this, then you can realize that success way faster. But-" You're exhausted, overwhelmed, maybe even frustrated because running an ad agency is extraordinarily complicated. Where do you turn? What do you do first, and how do you make sure you don't create more problems for yourself than what you're trying to solve?

Therefore, or now, you don't have to use therefore. Now, imagine in six months making the right choices that have brought this clarity and this freedom to your world so that you have true agency over your agency. Listen every week to "An Agency Story" and I will bring you professionals from around the world that have accomplished this very thing so that you can do it faster. So that would be a little bit more cleaner version of it, but I was pulling out things you said.

A curious, industrious agency owner, they want choice, they want freedom, they want clarity, and I just sprinkled that in. That's how you start building your story. Yeah. I love that, and I love being a guinea pig, and, it makes me think of, right, watching the...

people love stopping in at shops when owners are, are, they're making some food right there in the window, and so we're getting to see this real time, and, very fascinating. And it, it just makes me probably feel good and even listening to that is the podcast and its alignment with even what I do for my coaching practice, that it's, I was answering from the same lens and angle. So that makes me happy- Mm-hmm to know always when there's some story or alignment there. So I appreciate you walking that through with me.

Yeah. Can I share one more tip off of that for you? So now- Yeah. Go ahead you've got basically the structure of the and/but/therefore for your brand story, and then I would challenge you, Russel, to go away and think of three moments in your life where you experienced this exact same thing that your audience is experiencing, so that you can share those moments and those stories with your audience so that they can say, "Hey, Russel's just like me.

He's been there. He knows it." But get me a timestamp, a location stamp. When did this moment actually happen?

You know, you at the center of the story, as you're telling that, it's really your audience living vicariously through you. So you're telling that story about what happened to you, but it's really from their point of view, their perspective. And then how'd you overcome it? What were the little things that you found that really worked for you?

And for anybody, listening in, watching, this is a great way. Start with your ABT and then back it up with three moments. I, I like to say, Russel, look for your scenes, these moments, and your story will find you. Yeah.

You cobble those scenes together and all of a sudden you've got a pretty epic story. I am a believer, and not to say I wasn't a believer before we walked in, but again, yeah, great exercise. I'm gonna take some time to think about those scenes, and probably not too hard of an exercise even on that front. Which I, I think honestly is a good segue to, another part of our conversation of I'll be honest, and there's a scene right when our business was not performing well, and probably just, as I tell folks, this close to going out of business.

And we were just all over the place, talk about complexity, talk about noise. I think we were at 100,000 decibels, in that sense. But one of the first things that we probably knuckled down and established was positioning. And it's not an uncommon topic in the agency space, but a lot of times it's limited to pick a specific service and pick a vertical in a particular industry or, or type of business.

And I've got some different thoughts on, that it's more nuanced than that certainly. Um, but as I'm sitting here thinking, you know, either a supporter of that or even a triad to that thought process is the power of story. I don't even know how to form that into a question of just talking to the idea of how story relates to agencies' positioning and how to weave that in there. Yeah.

It's, it's a really great question, Russel, and I, I like to think of what, uh, Jeff Bezos said. Once upon a time, he said, "You know, a brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room." And I would revise that just a little bit, and I would say your brand is the story people tell about you when you're not in the room. So you wanna make sure that they are telling the proper story.

Now, our brains are absolutely inundated with content and brands and positions and just overwhelmed with information. And yet you and I and everybody else watching this are still walking around with this very ancient primal limbic brain that has not changed appreciably since our ancestors navigated and survived the savanna. It's the same limbic brain we're trying to use to navigate this onslaught of communication, and the only way you do that is clarity of purpose and of mission, so people's, that brain, in its landscape of all this noise, can place your brand, your position somewhere where it makes sense.

And that's where story comes in. That's where the and, but, therefore, the, you know, story elements to get that position down so that they know exactly what it is you do and why you are the differentiated most important place to go. When you're positioned well, it takes the effort out of organizations and peoples and customers to try to understand who you are, what you do, what you stand for, 'cause it just becomes blatantly obvious. And then, of course, it becomes your compass that drives your business.

This is what we're about, so you know what to say no to and what, to embrace that it really Supports that niche where you are working. Um, story, it's the way we homo sapiens make sense out of the madness of being human beings. You know- It's just that simple I mean, oh gosh, I'm nerding out on this conversation overall. But, the idea that, one, it's not what I always tend to lead with in conversations around positioning, but it's gonna come, for folks that work with me, it's gonna come one way or another, is, is the power of purpose.

And that really is, the DNA through line that is important to have in business, and it's just making me sit here thinking. And I, I see a lot of purposes that need some polishing because they, they don't have that story element. They, they sound more business-oriented than they are, like a kind of a true passion, purpose DNA construct. And that's why I'm a big fan of Simon Sinek and Start with Why and his work of, your purpose should be agnostic of the business that you chose to be in because y- and now this makes a lot more sense combining it with your idea of story.

It's your story and your purpose, and yeah, you just happen to be in the business you're in, but that's not the purpose of the business inherently. Yeah. Right. Right.

And it all comes down to, like I had mentioned early on with that story that Elizabeth Brett pulled out of me, is to be understood. So if you have a good focus and really understand and appreciate your own position in the world, you really need to use story to be able to communicate that so everybody else around you, and I'm talking colleagues, customers, the communities you serve, that they all have a complete understanding for who you are, what you stand for, and an appreciation for why that's important.

And that's ultimately branding is really what it comes down to. It also, when done right, it introduces the three forces of trust building, and that is understanding, because you're starting with your audience, you're showing that you understand them. Appreciation, you appreciate what they want and why that's important to them. And then empathy in that but statement of contradiction.

But you're frustrated, you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed because running an ad agency is complicated. So they're going like, "Dude, you get me. Wow. Yeah.

Exactly. What?" That builds the trust then for your therefore statement of consequence. Yeah.

The, it's agency stories, and he shares stories so that I can write and produce a better story for myself in my own agency. Yeah. It's so powerful and, and right. It's the reason why we can all remember movie quotes and we can remember, you know- it seems like an infinite amount of scenes from movies.

And what we're just really remembering is a part of a story or the story, and, so how can we leverage that in our business? And, and you've already given us a number of great examples of that. There was something else completely fascinating that I wanted to go down and talk about, but now I can't remember, so, um- My apologies. Well, I can always come back at some time.

Yes, yes. Uh, we'll, we'll let that be, and there's another topic we wanted to get to anyway, so we'll move on to that. But you've been in this game for a long time, and we've kind of loosely talked about it already of just disruption. Sounds like you're building a lot of AI into your work.

Obviously, AI is a very very hot topic right now, to say the least, in the agency space. Just talk about how- Yeah you're leveraging AI and, and the power of story together. Yeah, and I - what I love, and since this is an agency show, artificial intelligence, that term alone is like the worst branding term you could ever possibly give this most amazing technology that is consuming us, right? I like to think of it as artful intelligence if you use it as an agency owner correctly.

So three years ago now, we started work with ChatGPT and Claude and built our own gigantic agentic artful intelligent system. We built it on our own proprietary platform called Brighte.ai, which is a fortress for all your information, and it's a place where agencies now can use our Story Cycle System and the And, But, Therefore, which are all embedded into our Story Cycle Genie to be able to create everything from brand narrative strategies. In fact, I did one for you, when you were kind enough to invite me on your show.

I ran your website through the Story Cycle Genie. It gave me an assessment in two minutes on how your story's showing up in the world. It's a little bit like, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, how's my brand showing up for all?" And then based off of that assessment, it gave you a 13-page narrative strategy that follows our Story Cycle System, and so we've got over three dozen agentic agents inside the Story Cycle Genie for every possible use case you could imagine, from brand story development to marketing strategy, content calendars, customer journeys, and then creating all of your content always on brand, because this brand brain knows you.

It amplifies And augments your own intelligence by simply collaborating with it. All you do is talk to it like you're talking to me or your, your pal sitting next to you or whatever, and it collaborates with you. Amazing. I mean, it's fascinating more and more every day hearing all the work people are using with AI in their business.

Actually just got back yesterday from an AI conference for agencies and, had no shortage of fascinating conversations on that front, seeing where, just probably the best thing to see was, yeah, just the democracy, I guess is be the word to use- Mm-hmm of, of the accessibility now for technology and ideas to come to light. And if we're playing with the idea of wording of AI, I like a word you even said there, augmented intelligence. It's not the intelligence, but it enhances or can better bring to light what businesses and agencies intelligence is, but fascinating, let me go back to the idea that, cause I think you said you've been working on this a couple years, like, what, what was so important to you to leverage AI into this whole framework and concept and methodology around storytelling in the first place?

Well, it was actually a client, um, Sean Schroeder, who came to me. He and his business partner, Matt Levine, Matt's a hardcore developer. They built together this experience management platform, kind of a content management platform called Mira, and they did this back in 2000 oughts. And then they had a digital ad agency called Blue River in Sacramento, and Sean reached out to me one day.

He'd been following my work and whatever, and this is around 2017, and he said, "Dude, we've been trying to rebrand our agency in our Mira platform, so they're two separate brands, but they work together, and we can't do it. And we actually worked with another agency. They can't do it. We're not even sure you can do it, but we would like to hire you to do it."

So Sean and I sat down, we went through the Story Cycle Genie, took us about two and a half months, and we came up with a marvelous position for them, and it worked for both, the platform and the agency. They had great success with it, and within two years sold both the platform and the agency. And then COVID hits, and right after COVID, Sean calls me up and he goes, "You know, I've been using your Story Cycle system with some friends' businesses, and I love it." He goes, "It's just too hard and takes too long.

I think we can create AI in our new Britesy platform, content management experience platform, um, and build it so that people could do what would normally take two to three months, they can do in two to three hours using all of my IP." That's where it all came about. And I wasn't really into AI back then. I didn't really know it.

Um, and I go, "Well- Can you give me a proof of concept to see if it's gonna be worth all of us, investing in making this happen? And in about six months, he came back with a really amazing proof of concept. It blew my mind. Mm-hmm.

And I'm like, "Wow! Okay, let's go." So then we spent the next year and a half to essentially create a branding content agency in a bottle, not to replace agencies, but to amplify agencies' work. They can white label it.

And now I know how expensive it is and how time-consuming and exhausting it is to create brands for customers. And one of my favorite use cases of it is if you're going into a pitch, you can run that prospect's brand through it. It'll give you a brand assessment on how they're showing up. It'll give you a complete brand narrative strategy, and you can even use the other agents to do, uh, market research, competitor research, and whatever.

I think it speaks to the power of leaning into the camp that AI is going to take over agencies. But it is enhancing the m- need to focus more on outcomes, you know, get to outcomes more quickly in some cases, or pre-dependent outcomes so we can get to the real outcome, et cetera, that's very fascinating, if people wanna know more about the work you're doing, um, the power of story and all that, where can they go? All right. Well, first they can go over to storycyclegenie.

ai and test the strength of their brand story right now for free. Just go click that red button and in 60 seconds it's gonna give you a grade, A+ to F-, on how well you're showing up. You could use it for your customers. You can use it for your competitors or whatever.

It's also gonna give you a 14-point storytelling assessment that validates what you're doing well, reveals gaps you can quickly fix, and even inspire you with new ways to think about your brand's story. And then, probably the best place if you wanna get directly connected with me, hit me up on LinkedIn. I think I'm about the only Park Howell on LinkedIn, so I'm easy to find there. Or come through our contact page at thebusinessofstory.

com. You could do that too. But I would love to hear from you and let, you know, see if I can help you in any way I possibly can. There you go.

Thank you for offering that, and power of a unique name is always helpful. And, for those folks listening, you can always go to anagencystory.com, click on Podcast. I'll have the links to all the stuff that Park shared, links to his website, LinkedIn, all that stuff, so you can go there and, uh, find everything he shared on there.

Thank you so much, Park, for sharing that with us. Last question for you then, are entrepreneurs born or are they made? I think they're born. I don't think everybody has it in them to be an entrepreneur, and that's no slight against those who are not entrepreneurs.

It takes a certain amount of guts, chutzpah, blind, uh, wayfaring. I mean, a lot of people are like, "Nah, I don't wanna start my own company. Just hire me and I'll do great work for you." I think the entrepreneurial spirit is first born, and then it's nurtured.

I love that. I, I always get excited about a good born answer. Thanks for sharing that. And, and thank you overall, Park, for taking the time out of your schedule to share the amazing work, your journey, your full circle journey for that matter, the power of a wayward path, and just really just Fundamentally summing up to just the power of story and how that can be leveraged in every aspect.

And most importantly, thank you for walking me through an exercise on how even I can do that better. Really appreciate you taking the time to share all that with us today. Now I've got a challenge for you, Russel. Thank you for having me and being able to do that.

That is the most marvelous title for a book, The Power of a Wayward Path. I think you need to write that book. All right. I actually, I'll put this into the universe.

I am in the process of writing a book, but, that might be number two, so I'll put that down there. Um, but- All right yeah, thanks again, Park. Well, thank you. Thank you for listening to An Agency Story podcast, where every story helps write your own.

Subscribe, share, and join us again for more real stories, lessons learned, and breakthroughs ahead. What's next? You'll want to visit anagencystory.com/podcast and follow us on Instagram at An Agency Story for the latest updates.

Before I started my ad agency, Park Co., in 1995, I was creative director at this very large, fast-growing technology company called Quorum International. And one day, myself and another gentleman by the name of Scott, who was a product manager, were called into the VP's office, my boss's office, and I wasn't particularly enamored with this guy. I thought he was a little bit, you know, old-fashioned.

He would shoot down what I thought were some of our best ideas, and he was just kind of pissing me off. And so we go in there to reveal some layouts for some new packaging for one of the new products, and Martin, the boss, the guy I'm reporting to, we throw down the, visuals in front of him. He steps up to look over the top of these visuals. I do the exact same thing as Scott does.

And so he looks for a while and we're talking, and then he sits back down with kind of a grimace on his face. And I sit down, and next thing I know, my chair is no longer behind me. I fall right on my ass. My legs go straight up like f- like...

A- a- and Martin's head looked like a football going through goalposts. And Scott is over there holding the chair arms on his, looking at me like, "What the hell happened?" And what the hell happened was when I stood up to overlook those drawings, apparently the back of my calves hit that chair, unbeknownst to me, and tipped it over backwards. So when I went to sit down, I landed flat on my ass Uh.

Well, you can imagine my credibility completely went out of the room at that moment. Uh, humiliation set upon me, and I realized, Russel, that the universe has a really funny way of hitting us upside the head when we think our britches are a little bit too big for ourselves. Isn't that the truth?