S07.E13 - Why Story Still Wins in Brand Building with Park Howell

Speaker A: Numbers mean nothing to our brain unless they're put in the context of a story so that our brain can picture it, can feel it, can understand it, and then it uses those logic driven numbers to be able to support the story that we're trying to tell. I like to say that stories are important to our survival, as oxygen is to our lungs. The only podcast dedicated to helping physical designers and entrepreneurs grow brands. Here are your hosts, Jacob Kass and Matt Davies.

Speaker B: Before we get into today's episode, I, uh, want to invite you to something special. I'm Jacob KASS and this September 8 to 11, I'd love for you to join me, Matt Davies, and more than 40, yes, 40 of the world's leading brand strategists, designers and marketers at the free Brand builders Summit. Across four epic days, you'll get inspiring keynotes, live Q&As, workshops and panels designed to help you build better brands and a stronger creative business. Reserve your free ticket at Brand Builders summit dot com. That's Brand Builders summit dot com. Now let's get into today's episode.

Speaker C: Hello everybody, and welcome to the latest episode of Just Branding. We're going to be tucking into storytelling, selling, and particularly thinking about why story still wins in brand building. So we're going to ask this question basically at the outset. Why does story still win? And as brand builders, we spend a huge amount of time talking about positioning, competitors, messaging, visual identities, etc. But we know behind every great brand is a story and a narrative that consumers can choose to be part of and manage well. That is where the meaning and the value of a brand truly lies. So story is so important for us to wrap our arms around and get to grips with as we manage brands. And today we have the perfect gentleman to, uh, tuck into this beautiful subject with us. We're joined by the one and only Park Howell to help us explore this. Uh, for those of you that don't know park, he is known mysteriously as the world's most industrious storyteller. He's the founder of an amazing podcast where I first came across park the Business of Story, an Emmy Award winning brand strategist and, um, host of one of the world's leading podcasts on storytelling, which I think is also called the Business of Story. Parker shared the stage, apparently with Robert Redford, uh, coached leaders on Necker island, trained with the US Air Force for many years, and so we're in very good hands throughout his 40 plus year career. You don't look like you've had a 40 plus year career. Just putting out.

Speaker A: Glad to hear that.

Speaker C: But throughout that career, he's helped organizations harness the power of story to build stronger brands, win more business and create deeper connections with their audiences. And he has also been exploring, and hopefully we'll tuck into this how AI can amplify rather than replace the strategic role of storytelling. Park, welcome to our show.

Speaker B: Matt.

Speaker A: Ah, thank you so much. Jacob. Great to see you. I appreciate being on your program.

Speaker C: All right, so I wonder if for those that perhaps haven't come across you, park, you could just give us a little sense of. Why don't we start with like, you know, the story of how you got into storytelling.

Speaker A: Oh, gosh, you know, I got into the advertising, branding, marketing world. Yes. Well over 40 years ago and I ran my own ad agency in Phoenix, Arizona called Park and, and I ran that for 20 years. And one of the things we were always really good at was taking complex messages and making them simple and interesting and compelling to consumers. And I think probably my core strength, I come at it from a writer, strategist standpoint, but I'm really a brander. I mean, people would always come to me and say, look, I got this big idea and I got this company, but nobody knows what we do and how can we do. And then I say, okay, pump the brakes, take a breath, give me your intel. Let's figure out what is that core brand narrative. And that's really what I've done for the 40 years of my advertising career. And um, about 10 years ago now, I weaved away from being an ad agency owner and totally into the business of story, where I now consult, teach, coach and speak on the power of story to leaders around the world. And it could be like you said, one star to four star generals and their staff at the US Air Force to help them be able to communicate their complex messages to Walmart Canada. I do a whole ton of internal training with them to still building brand stories for major companies. And yeah, that's kind of how my life has evolved.

Speaker C: So pop, like, you've obviously had a great career, etc, why do you keep doing what you're doing? Like what gets you out of bed in the morning?

Speaker A: Everybody asked me that, are you retired yet? And I'm like, well, define retirement for me because I've not worked for anybody else but myself for 35 years. So if I was to retire, I'd be retiring from myself and what? I can only play so much golf and build so many birdhouses now. I'm still really fascinated by the world of Communication and storytelling and how we Homo sapiens, we storytelling apes, make meaning out of the madness of being human beings. And then how folks like you and the clients that you work with and your listeners and viewers here, how when you become an intentional storyteller, the impact you can have on a person, on a team, on a society, is really quite remarkable. And so that's what keeps me going. I'm just, I still love dabbling in this storytelling world.

Speaker C: Nice. So, question, let's tuck into this, this subject a little bit, uh, a little bit more. You mentioned there, obviously, like, uh, stories help to create meaning, etc. So why is it, why is that the case? Like, why does a story, for example, move another Homo sapien right? Beyond, beyond, say, like, uh, I don't know, some facts and some figures or some data.

Speaker A: Well, let's go way back. Let's go like 70,000 years back and let's go find a cave on the savannah somewhere. And let's picture a cave mate there again, let's call him Larry. He's fairly ratan. He's hanging out, looking kind of lazy by the fire, warming his hands. And he looks up and in walks his other cavemate, Thog. Thog has got a broken fishing pole and he looks pretty disheveled, just for less.

Speaker C: Sure, Just a picture that yourself on

Speaker B: that Jacob, madam, me hanging out in the savannah.

Speaker A: So Larry, we'll call him Jacob, actually looks up at Matt who's just walked in the door. And Jacob says, matt, where have you been? And Matt says, well, uh, I was down at river fishing for cyber tooth tiger for dinner. Jacob goes, huh, Uh-huh.

Speaker C: Do you know what? It sounds exactly like, Jacob,

Speaker A: the first couple minutes here, I picked it up,

Speaker C: you know, keep going, keep going.

Speaker B: Oh.

Speaker A: So Jacob goes, huh? Uh-huh. And then, you know, Matt says, but saber tooth tigers show up. Jacob goes, oh, what do you do? And Matt finally says, well, I give salmon to tiger. It likes salmon better than Matt. Therefore, I'm back here at fire safe with you. And Jacob goes, aha. Uh-huh. So now let's look at the three grunts that Jacob gave to that little story, huh? Uh-huh. Oh, aha. Uh-huh. Three act story structure set up problem resolution. Now, stories serve the same purpose today that they did 70,000 years ago between Jacob and Matt in that cave as a learning tool, a meaning making tool. So now that Jacob knows, if he ever finds himself down at the river and he's got himself salmon, uh, and that saber tooth tiger shows up, he knows what to do for survival. Now it's just kind of a fun way to say storytelling is so powerful even a caveman or woman can do it. And they really did to evolve as the most invasive species we've ever known. Well, it's the same thing that we use today in branding and advertising to make sense. Let me ask you this, what's the first syllable on the word numbers? Numb. Um, numb. Numbers mean nothing to our brain unless they're put in the context of a story. So that our brain can picture it, can feel it, can understand it, and then it use the uses those logic driven numbers to be able to support the story that we're trying to tell. So it hasn't changed. I like to say that stories are important to our survival as oxygen is to our lungs. It's where we make meaning out of the madness of being human beings.

Speaker B: So Park, I had a follow up question on that because storytelling has been used incredibly much more in the past decade than all the previous years. So why all of a sudden in the past decade has storytelling become this big buzzword?

Speaker A: You know, Jacob, that's a hell of a good question. I first started hearing about story when I was running my agency in 2003. And why I remember that date, uh, or that year, I have no idea other than people started really talking about story in our line of work and advertising, marketing, branding, whatever. And I was talking to our creative director at the time, Luis Medina, and he and I were talking about, I go, well, duh, I mean don't we all do story? And we just had never talked about it. And then I looked at a campaign that we had run that year. It was TV campaign. There were two 30 second commercials. The first one polled unbelievably well. I mean it was, it increased same store sales by 42% the very next month. The second spot in that campaign did not pull at all. I mean nothing even so much so that the client made us pull it said just run the first one all the time and I'm sorry we had to spend all that money on the second one. And I looked at it and I did not know why that second one didn't pull. And until I started studying story and story structure, I realized that first one was intuitively a, ah, very well structured story. The second one was not. There was no story structure at all. It was just us being these creative, wonderful brand guys and we loved it. We were going to win awards with it. But it meant nothing to the people that watched it. After I started studying and learning about story, I realized, oh, we all fall into this trap of being intuitive storytellers as we all homo sapien storytelling apes are. We're intuitive, but if we leave it to our intuition, we end up winging it more than winning with it. If we become an intentional storyteller. And you do that by truly understanding story frameworks. And I've got three that I work with the and but therefore this three word structure that'll blow your mind how powerful it is. The five primal elements of a short story. A story you can tell in under one minute. An anecdotal story that shows or makes your business point for you. And then finally my larger 10 step story cycle system that we use for brand story development, strategy development and long form communication.

Speaker B: Amazing, right?

Speaker C: Let's tuck into those, let's tuck into those briefly. Come on now. You can't just drop that and then just move on. We've got to, we've got to. We're going to pause there and put.

Speaker A: Where do you want to start?

Speaker C: Well, well, let's start with that, that, that three step one that you mentioned.

Speaker A: Like I was hoping you'd say that.

Speaker C: Give us a flavor. Give us a flavor.

Speaker A: Here's what we're it. Let's show it in action. All right, and I'm going to have, I'm going to work with you guys creating an and but therefore I'll first explain what it is and then we are going to build an anbut therefore live for your audience on your uh, and it'll be about your just branding podcast. All right, let's go and, but therefore, real quick, let me give you the real quick theory. It uses the three forces of story of agreement, contradiction and consequence that our pattern seeking, problem solving, decision making, buying, limbic brain loves because it hand delivers meaning to it without it having to work for it. Set up problem, resolution and but therefore agreement, contradiction, consequence. So for branders out there, here's how you start. And I'm looking for a piece of paper because I'm going to write on the back of this as we go through it. Here's the first question. Story truth number one, you are not the center of your story. Your audience always is. So I want you guys, Matt and Jacob, tell me as specifically as possible who is the audience for this show?

Speaker C: I would say brand builders seeking to get more strategic.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty good. I was going to go with brand builders as well, but you have to unpack that sometimes. Like what is a brand builder? But depends how deep you want to

Speaker A: Go, PA. All right, well, let's just start with that for right now, then we can come back to it. So I wrote down brand builders seeking to get more strategic. To be more strategic. All right, Now I'm going to ask you, and why is that important to them? What's in it for them to become more strategic as a brand builder?

Speaker B: To become more valuable and move up the value chain?

Speaker A: To whom?

Speaker B: To them. To. It's more valuable.

Speaker A: Yeah, but whose value chain will they be moving up if they become more valuable? If they're more strategic, then who's value?

Speaker B: Whoever they're working with.

Speaker A: Okay, the clients.

Speaker C: Yeah, it could be internal. If, if they work for a company, it could be internal clients. It could be. If they're, they're, they're freelance or they're working in agency, it could be external clients. So. Yeah, so I would always say that they're seeking to be valuable for people. They're seeking to be of service, basically.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, great. And I just wrote down then, uh, become more valuable to their clients and colleagues.

Speaker C: Perfect.

Speaker A: Just clients and. Or colleagues. We'll just, we're going to go high level at this point. That's our. And statement of agreement. We've introduced our audience. You are a brand builder who seeks to become more strategic. And if you do, then you will become way more valuable to the clients and the customers or the clients and the colleagues that you serve.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: Is that fair enough?

Speaker C: Everybody listening in is nodding along and applauding with excitement.

Speaker A: That's why we call it a statement of agreement. You don't start off with the problem. You start off with what the shared vision is for the future. And in doing so, you are hopefully demonstrating to your audience that you understand them and you appreciate what they want and why it's important to them. All right, now let's pull the rug out from underneath them. But what problem do they currently have and how does that problem make them feel that is keeping them from becoming more strategic?

Speaker B: They don't have clarity on how to do that or the approach.

Speaker C: Yeah, they might feel a bit lost and confused. Perhaps they are, uh, they're not sure who or what to listen to. And, you know, there's a lot of noise out there. Um, one other thing to throw into the mix. I think people are a little worried that AI is going to come and eat their breakfast. So they're kind of, that's what I hear a lot of anyway. You know, they're worried that, ah, that's a thing. So I don't know if that Is helpful. Park for where we're going.

Speaker A: Yeah. No, I can't. This is like. You guys know this because you work with clients all the time. It's just downloading, just throwing it out there now. I'm just taking some. I'm just taking it in. Okay. All right. And I'm just.

Speaker C: This is what live storytelling looks like, folks, you know?

Speaker A: Yes, but you know what?

Speaker C: They tuned in. They didn't realize this was going to happen. Like, uh, you know, now they're on the edge of their seats.

Speaker A: We're going to do this in under five minutes. All right, so here we go. So we've got the. And we've got the. And statement of agreement. We got the. But statement of contradiction. That's like act two. That's the problem. If there's no conflict, you have no story that you have just identified with the conflict. Now let's talk about the therefore, what's the way forward? So, therefore, what is your solution? Which I believe your solution is Listen to just branding. Right?

Speaker C: 100%.

Speaker A: Okay. And why listen to just branding?

Speaker C: You're going to hear from awesome people like Park Howe, basically. Um, that's. That's where we're going with that. But no, you're going to listen to. You're going to hear insights from knowledgeable experts from across the world.

Speaker A: Well, I can't even write that fast. All right, and how is that going to make them feel, Jacob, what do you reckon?

Speaker C: Ecstatic, clearly.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker C: Do we make people feel ecstatic, Jacob? I think we'd like to think they would. I think I, I genuinely listening to, uh, you know, having what, Reading some of the feedback. I think people feel that, that we equip them with interesting insights, you know, access to new perspectives. Yeah, new perspectives. I like that. Tools and um, practical examples as well. I think for them to, to use in their work.

Speaker A: Uh, all right, so I got everything I need here now. Couple things there. I asked you first what the problem was and then how it made them feel. When you write these, I want you to flip it. I want you to make them communicate how they feel first and then the problem. So, but you feel confused, frustrated, anxious, whatever it might be. You use the conjunction word because to set up the problem that's making you feel that way. And Harvard did this amazing study back in 1978 about the power of the word, because to get people to do things, and the belief is it uses this cause and effect meaning making apparatus in our survival limbic brain. Remember Jacob and Matt at the door, you know, but uh, I'm back here because I gave salmon to Tiger. And therefore. And anyways, it's a way to speak to that meaning making machine. So I want a negative emotion right after the but because of this problem. Now you're really raising the stakes. It's called find the hurt. You know, because you're frustrated. Amplify the pain because of this problem, therefore heal the wound. And so then after the therefore, I want you to lead with the positive emotion because in storytelling you want to, you want to have as much conflict or contradiction. Contrast is the word I'm looking for throughout this abt. So that and statement of agreement is here's the perfect world. This is what I really want. The but statement is the exact contrast to that. But you don't have it because of this problem. And then the therefore is imagine how you're going to feel when you get it. So with all that in mind, let's just read through real quick what I have. And you're going to, um, speak directly to your audience. So you're going to do the pronoun shift. You're not going to just generally say brand builders. You're going to say you are a committed brand builder seeking to get more strategic in all you do. And if you could find the insights and the people that have been there before, then you can grow and become more valuable in your brand building with the clients and the colleagues that you serve, which also leads to even more respect for your profession. And you. But you feel lost, you're confused because you don't have the clarity on how to build your strategic skills. And you know what? AI is making it even worse. Raise the stakes, right? Therefore become ecstatic over the insights and the expertise and the tools you are going to learn when you listen to just the Just Branding podcast, the only podcast over the past nine years that have brought you brand story leaders from around the world who generously share their insights so that you can have the same success that they do. Welcome to the show.

Speaker C: Wowzers. I want to listen to this show.

Speaker B: Uh, we're going to use that as a new intro. Park.

Speaker C: That's it, that's it, that's it. We're made now. Thank you. Wow, that was so impressive. So impressive.

Speaker A: I want everybody. Well, thank you. And I've been doing that a long time, but everybody can do it. It just takes practice. And here's the thing, people are going to go, well, geez, park, it's only and, but therefore. How hard can it be? And I've got an and, but Therefore, for you, ABT is short and sweet, but tricky. Therefore, practice, practice, practice. But when you do it in that order, audience or they want relativity or offering, and why is that important to them, but negative emotion, because of what problem? Why don't they currently have what they want that you're going to fix for them? Therefore, positive emotion Picture. When you get all this by doing this with us, uh, your call to action does not come in until the second clause of the third statement. That therefore statement of agreement. That way you keep it all about your audience and what's in it for them.

Speaker C: I love that. I love that.

Speaker B: Let's take a little break from today's conversation. If you are enjoying this episode, I think you're going to love the Brand Builder Summit. You can join me, Jacob Kass, Matt Davies, and more than 40 leading brand experts from September 8 to 11 for four days of free talks, live Q&As, workshops and panels. You can reserve your free ticket at brand builders summit.com. now back to the episode.

Speaker C: I particularly agree, I think brand narrative, the hero is always the customer of the brand. Oh, yeah, people get that so wrong. I guess you always probably come across this, but I do as well, where people talk about brand narrative or brand story, and it's all about the history of the company, and you're like, yawn, like, no, no one cares. When you were founded, you know, it's called chest pounding.

Speaker A: Listen to me, I've got all the answers by now.

Speaker C: Put the customer at the heart of everything. That's like the number one rule. So it was great to hear you kind of set that out at the start as well as a kind of overlying. Overlying foundational principle.

Speaker A: Well, the other thing I'd add to that, Matt, is you're exactly right. Customers the center of the story. And number two, your story is not about what you make, but what you make happen for your customers, because they don't really give a crap about your SaaS product or whatever you've made. I just want to know, what does it actually make happen for me?

Speaker B: I love that.

Speaker C: Right, we're going to go way over time on this podcast. Perhaps not in such detail, um, but maybe just. Just give us a sense of the other two frameworks that you use, because I know one of them is, well, I think both of them.

Speaker A: All right, so, um, the second one is, uh, the five Primal Elements of a Short Story for Big Impact. And I learned this framework from a company out of Melbourn, actually called Anecdote. And they teach leaders how to tell an anecdote. And there's five beats to that anecdote. And in fact, I used it on you when I was telling you the facetious story Larry and thog that became Jacob and Matt. I started with a location stamp to Savannah. I gave you a timestamp. I said, 70,000 years ago, I introduced Larry to you. He's the central character in this story. Thog just plays a, uh, kind of a bit role, actually. A story is always about one and something happening to them, even with other people in their supporting cast. Then action and surprise. The action is, oh, my God, what are you doing here in this doorway with a crumpled up, uh, fishing pole? You look terrible, thog. Well, and then now it goes deeper to the action. I'm fishing. The saber tooth tiger shows up. And the surprise learning moment is, I give salmon to tiger. It likes salmon better than thog, Matt. And therefore, I'm safely back here with you.

Speaker B: Aha.

Speaker A: Uh-huh. The aha moment. The learning the moral of the story. So let me just try this on you guys, and either one of you here, or both of you, but one at a time, I want you. So we just wrote an abt for your show about why people should listen. So now it's one thing for us to say that, um, Jacob, I'm going to start with you, and then I'm going to let Matt tell a story. Jacob, take me to a moment in time that you maybe heard from a listener or a viewer or maybe one of your customers really learned something from the show, or maybe you learned something from the show as a co host that then you applied to a customer. But I need you to take me to a moment in time that illustrates that you are a go to podcast for branding.

Speaker B: Oh, one that came to mind. It was like, it's a negative that turned into a positive. Can we do that?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B: All right, so I got an Instagram dm. Um, someone said that I put the wrong cover graphic on one of our podcast episodes. So that was a couple of weeks ago on Instagram.

Speaker C: Idiot.

Speaker B: Yes. Who it was? It was, uh, someone I had never met before. They just sent me a dm. They'd been. They loved the show. They just want to let us know about it. The name was Jude. And the action I took was quickly fixed up the podcast cover graphic. And then I said, can I be a little bit cheeky here and ask for a review? You sound like you've been enjoying the pod. And he said, yeah, sure. No worries. And he sent the review In So that was the five primal elements, if I got it correct.

Speaker A: Awesome. Okay, so let me add one more thing to that. I love it. So I want you to set that up. What is the moral of that story? Tell me, what is the moral? What did you learn from that little interaction?

Speaker B: Moral is that you can tap into your big fans to. I don't know if that's the moral, but it's like, I'm not sure what the moral is there.

Speaker A: What I read into the moral, Jacob, was in branding, um, some of your most powerful moments come at the worst times. And so you might say that, you know, one thing I've learned in just branding is some of the most powerful moments for brand building is comes at the brand's worst times. Let me give you an example. Two weeks ago, I'm on Instagram and this guy by the name of Jude, who, I don't know, uh, did tell me that they were active listeners and loved the show, but that we had blown it. Notice the word blow or but in there to get to you. But we had blown it. We put up the wrong graphic for that current particular episode. And I was very appreciative that Jude would actually take the time to do, you know, do that. And I said, thank you very much, Jude. Obviously you are a committed listener. Could I mind maybe be a little cheeky and ask for a review from you? And Jude says, sure, of course. And that's what happened. That's where not a great moment in the Just Branding podcast life because we all make mistakes. You've probably been there yourself. But instead of apologizing and being embarrassed about it, I said, thank you very much. You must be a committed listener. And now I probably have an even stronger listener who gave us a review.

Speaker B: There you go. Yeah, well said. Fair. Listen that.

Speaker C: Well done, Jacob. Great work. Great work. Yeah, loving it.

Speaker A: Anybody could listen in and say, I've had that happen to me. And yeah, I know that, you know, Jacob's right about that. That must be a good show that that guy would actually take time to comment it on it to, you know, Jacob. So now you're making a business point through a story, a true story that nobody can argue with. They can argue with your opinions and your assertions and your expertise. They'll argue with that all day long. But they can't argue with a true story. Well told. That makes that business point for you.

Speaker B: Thank you. Well said.

Speaker A: Matt, how about you? Do you have one?

Speaker C: This has got hard. So. So what do you need? What do we want? What do we need, I need a

Speaker A: moment in your life. Recent. It could be whatever. Actually, it could be 10 years ago, something that was kind of an aha moment for you. And we're talking about just branding podcast. Because sharing that ABT is not enough. You know, I mean, it sets you up what the podcast is now you gotta show, you gotta prove that premise of what you made in the abt, that this is one of the go to, you know, podcasts in the world on branding. And just a little anecdote like Jacob just shared says, oh, man, this thing must be legit if he's got people, you know, taking the time to reach out to him. Do you have something similar? It could be a negative, a positive, something in between.

Speaker C: Well, I don't know. Okay, I'm gonna throw one out there and see, See how it, See how it, See how it lands. So, um, we had a gentleman on, called Rory Sutherland, um,

Speaker A: famous UK marketer.

Speaker C: Right. And, uh, I think he's, uh. Yeah. Oh, he's, he's fantastic. And he shared some, some, some ideas around problem framing with us and how, like, the immediate problem that you're presented with may not actually be the, uh, problem that you need to solve. In fact, sometimes it's helpful to rethink the way that we're thinking about a problem, if that makes sense. So reframing the problem. So I had a client, and I'm working with this client, and they are trying to work through a problem. So I had a client. So let's give it a timestamp. It was about, I don't know, three weeks ago, something like that. And they're trying to work through a problem in, as a strategy team around the way that they were positioning a solution. This is in a building industry for fire doors.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And the way that they were thinking about it was, I'm not going to get all into the technical thing, but they were thinking about the actual door frame. And it turns out that when we reframed the problem, the issue actually was the level of the floor. Right. So that's, that's kind of, uh, where we went with it. I don't know if that's getting into too much detail.

Speaker A: No, that's okay.

Speaker C: The point was, if I hadn't had Rory's thinking around problem framing, then, excuse the pun, we may not have been thinking about the frame. Uh, we may have been continuing to think about the frame rather than the floor. Right. So that was. And, uh, then that kind of put a, uh, put us in a completely new strategy in terms of how that we would sell their. Their solution that they were offering the market. So I don't know if that makes any sense whatsoever. But the point here is, is Rory's ideas from the Just Branding podcast helped me put a workshop exercise together for them that helped them rethink the problem that they were taking to market and solving for. And, uh, they then have done that, and they're now working through that solution. So there we are.

Speaker A: That is awesome. So what is the moral of that story? What's the aha moment for you or for your listeners really? I want you to be thinking about, because you're going to be sharing this with potential prospective viewers and listeners.

Speaker C: Okay, so the aha moment would be that we don't always have to take what is presented to us as the initial, uh, challenge. We can interrogate that the moral of the story is not to accept things on face value.

Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so I'm going to take it even deeper. Don't accept things on face value is a generalized, uh, moral. Which is fine, it's a good moral. But I want it to be very specific to your viewers and your listeners as to why should I spend any time on just branding podcasts? Why should I invest when I going to learn? I would follow something along the lines of, you said you've been doing the show about nine years. You know, one of the great things about doing the Just Branding podcast for nine years is all the stuff that Jacob and I get to learn. Right. For instance, don't take things at face value. We had Rory Sutherland on, and it was about reframing of a problem. And he did it in a way that I had never considered before. And so three weeks ago, I found myself in a situation where I could use that reframing problem immediately in my job. We did this, this, this, this, this, and this was the happy outcome. That's why I love. And this is why we do this show, you know, tirelessly, for nine years, because we get to speak and bring you experts like Rory Sutherland that we can all learn from. So thanks for listening.

Speaker C: It sounds amazing. This is one small correction. I do get pretty tired of Jacob. So that's phenomenal. That's absolutely phenomenal. So that, that. So they're the. So the. How did you. How did. What did you sort of frame that as the five.

Speaker A: Yeah, so the five primal elements of a short story. And here's how and why they work. I like to start with a timestamp, because a timestamp triggers the limbic brain, and it Says, oh, something must have happened to these guys or to the storyteller that I. Because they're giving me a, uh, point in time when things start. Stories are always temporal. I better pay attention. So I know what to do if whatever happened to the storyteller happens to me. That's a long way of saying that's how you hook him, give him a time stamp. Then I like to give a location stamp because it fires up the theater of the mind. Were you in London? Was it downtown London? Was it in a high rise? Was it as a beat up old fire station somewhere? Where were you? You know, and you could even say, and it was a hot, it was freaking hot day in downtown London, blah, blah, blah. You don't have to go into great detail, but all you're doing now is trying to fire up the theater of the mind. So they start picturing it and they go, I've been in London, I've been in a place like that. I know what he's talking about. And then you introduce the single character in this, in this case is really you are the character in it. And I know a lot of people will go, well, this sort of belies what you were saying earlier about you are never the center of your story. Well, a lot of your stories are about you, about ourselves, but in the telling, you make it about your audience. So they live vicariously through you. They can picture themselves and what happened to you so that the aha moment, the moral of the story is as powerful for them as it is as it was for you of what you experienced in that. So then that central character, then the surprise, the aha, uh, what went down? How did you reframe it? And everyone goes, oh, wow, that's amazing. It's like you magically came up with a new way to look at this problem, and that's way better than what we had before. Therefore, leads to the final solution is don't take things at face value. If you really want to understand how to reframe problems, listen to our conversation with Rory Sutherland.

Speaker C: Nice. Nice. Love it.

Speaker B: So park this, the framework there. It's like, it's like all children's books. I read a lot of children's books, got four kids at home, so at the start, and he wants to read

Speaker C: some because he really enjoys them. Just put it out there.

Speaker B: Yes, that too. But like the framework that you said there is like once upon a time. So it's like set in the location. What did you say, Matt? I totally didn't hear that.

Speaker C: I'm Just saying you quite like the level of like age 6. That's kind of where your standard.

Speaker B: Yes. Anyway, just ignore me as usual. As usual. All right. Yeah, but books, they start like once upon a time in a land far, far away. There is. Yeah. So this is literally that order. So it's uh, never really considered that. But it's. It sounds logical to set that time location. Here's the character and let's get into who they are.

Speaker A: It's the tripartite structure to story. You've got to know where is the story based? Who is this story about that you, you know, would care about? And what is it that they really wanted in life. Once upon a time.

Speaker B: Time.

Speaker A: But all this horrible stuff happens and it goes on for hours and hours and hours. Therefore at the end, uh, they bring it in it all, you know, they live happily ever after. I heard one guy once saying, I love these three words. Once upon a time, suddenly, luckily is the same sort of three part structure. And it's same m. Three part structure. The abt or brand building, you know.

Speaker C: Yeah. When I looked at it a while back, Aristotle had like a three part structure, didn't he? I. In the. In the ancient Greeks, he sort of talked about that. That sort of side, at least that.

Speaker A: That framed things, you know, his was as simple as a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. And everyone goes, well, duh. You say that though, right?

Speaker C: Like in. In, you know, I think, um, there's. Is it Japanese culture, they. They kind of don't end stuff. And then like, everyone's just like, goes wild because like no one knows what's gonna happen. It's so unsatisfying, you know, because they don't close the loop. But. And maybe that's um, maybe that's wrong. So, you know, forgive me, all Japanese.

Speaker A: Well, we want to close the loop because in the closing is where our call to action is.

Speaker C: Right. And then that's where we want to get emotion m and get kind of motion going.

Speaker B: So I've been writing a, uh, children's book park. And I've had to go through this whole scenario of like the story and the ups and downs and the. Even the page turns to make sure the flow works with the illustration and everything. So it's really fascinating to hear how you approach it, but in the context of brand. But it really does apply to the story of a children's book as well.

Speaker A: Oh yeah. Well, it all leads up to the biggest story structure of them all. And that's the hero's Journey, Adam, uh, from Joseph Campbell, right? 12 steps or the 17, depending on how nuanced you want to get with it. And I learned about that, uh, first back in the early 2000s when our son was going to film school at Chapman University in Orange County, California. Um, timestamp, early 2000s, Chapman University, Orange, California. Uh, a very prominent. I mean, it's now ranked among the top five film schools in the world. And while he was going to school there, I said I was trying to still figure out the story thing. I said, you know, send me your books and your recorded lectures when you have them, since I'm paying for them, because I want to know, what does Hollywood know? And then the first thing he said is, dad, read Joseph Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces. And here's some videos to watch too, of, uh, which I did. And I go, oh, my God, this is a customer journey. This is an agency owner's journey. This is every journey that we're all on. Why don't they teach this stuff in advertising and marketing schools? Because this, to me seems like the roadmap, the blueprint for every communication you ever want to build. And the hero's journey is simply a very large expanded and. But therefore, the first part of it is the and section. You're setting the stage, the big long middle part where the audience or the protagonist goes into that weird world to figure out life and they got all these trials and tribulations. That's the but. And then the therefore is that very short third act that is the closing that brings it all together and we learn something in the process. And it was when I saw that that I said, well, this would be amazing in brand building, but I'm afraid that a lot of business people might think it's too Hollywood. Woo.

Speaker C: Woo.

Speaker A: So I took it and I mapped it to my 10 step story cycle system. It totally inspired the system, which is all about, you know, the very first step is, what's your position in the marketplace setting the stage right. Second step, who's your hero? Who's the number one audience that makes up 80% of your sales? Then step three, what do they want? Why is it important to them? And you move on to all the antagonistic forces that are against them and even against you as the brand. How to leverage those using storytelling to be kind of a juju jitsu master, to use those negative forces and positive ways for your brand. Because again, nobody's going to buy a solution unless they have a frigging problem. So you want to really Highlight that problem, make it hurt as much as you can possibly make it hurt. And then introduce the mentor or the guide which is the brand. And then the journey begins on how you are going to help them do that. So that became the whole basis for our 10 step story cycle system. That is the overarching story framework that I use. Then the ABT and the five primal elements. Story within.

Speaker C: Amazing. Amazing.

Speaker B: I had a question about the woo woo thing because the storytelling does have that vibe. When you say storytelling it's like well you know, how does that work? It's from Hollywood. And like how do you get over that in like a boardroom or with clients? How do you get over.

Speaker A: Well number one, you never say the word story. You never gonna say let me tell you a story because their, their defense shields will immediately go up. I don't have time for a story stories bullshit, you know, but they know how manipulative in a positive and or negative way a story is. So you never ever, ever use the S word. You just simply hook them with a story. They don't even know what's going on. You just tell them a quick little story. So here's what I do. If I'm in a room and I really got to understand who my audience is. I try to think like I'm um, Spielberg and this audience is sitting in a theater. I'm going to start my presentation with an anbut there for I'm going to say it in under 15 seconds to hook them on that singular problem solution dynamic that we are going to be solving in that meeting or you're selling against in that meeting. And then I'm going to immediately follow it up with a little anecdotal story using my five primal elements of story to show them that problem solution dynamic in action right now. So in under 90 seconds I've used two story frameworks, the ABT and the five primal elements to worm hole my way into their limbic subconscious brain that says oh dang, he might be onto something here. And he just showed me the impact of what's going on. Then you start leveling up into the logic reason driven brain and go, let me now show you the numbers by why this, you know why this is so important or that is that is supporting the context of my stories that I've shared with you. So don't even tell them the magic you're doing on them. But they're are homo sapiens just like you are. It doesn't matter how smart they are. Their limbic brain runs the Exact same way. Help it make meaning first and then bring the numbers in to create the context and support around that meaning.

Speaker B: Makes sense.

Speaker C: You know, we said at the outset you're exploring AI etc and you know, we've already hinted at, you know, there's a general sort of fear factor of AI around the place and, and I know you're sort of uh, you're dabbling. So tell us a little bit about that and how you're sort of using uh, that alongside storytelling and all of the thinking that you have uh, been working on over the last few years.

Speaker A: Yeah, well let me tell you, it goes way beyond dabbling. I mean we have now almost three years been in the process and we've brought to market the story cycle Genie, which has taken our 10 step story cycle system process from my book and the work that I've done uh, with it over 20 years. And we've been able to use artificial intelligence and leveled it up to becoming artful intelligence. Because with Inside the Genie, yeah, we've got API calls going out to chat GPT and Claude, but the way we have programmed and built it and M prompt it, it's more like you are just simply sitting down with a brand consultant next to you or a colleague next to you or yourself, I mean with the genie and you collaborate with it to create what used to take us three or four months and you know, $100,000 to do, you can literally now do in a couple of hours and have the same, if not even greater impact because you are using the power of AI in a very artful way with rip the Story Cycle system to be able to create, refine and define your brand stories.

Speaker C: Well, I got to tell you um, um folks, before uh, we came on the show, um, Park a couple of days ago sent us through kindly um, the like a, like a review I guess it was like a, ah, not, we weren't working with the story cycle Gina, you kind of said look, I'll feed you it your website, feed it to your website and um, it, it kind of gives you a full comprehensive report of where we're at right now. I was super happy with mine because it said all sorts of very nice things like I'll just give everybody a flavor. Right said. So Overall brand strength, 8 out of 10. I suppose I've got some improvement to do to get to get up to scratch. But it did say some stuff like Matt Davis occupies a well defined niche at uh, the intersection of brand strategy, leadership, alignment and organizational energy meaningfully differentiated from the typical brand Consultant, so. Oh, that sounds nice. There's a ton of great stuff in here around my positioning, um, all sorts of things around audience confidence. Um, what I found really, really insightful is it had a load of stuff around um, my core differentiation and particularly, um, it came up with some, some stuff around competitive positioning. And I just thought I'd mention this park because I think it kind of, it kind of almost went deeper than just stories. So for example, it said, um, for example my services versus a big four McKinsey type firm. Matt wins on speed, leadership, proximity and direct access. Uh, that clients get to Matt. Not a junior team, no partner, bait and switch. And there's a few other things. Now that is so insightful. I don't think I've written that specifically that I can think of in my website or on my social media specifically. I've not compared myself to a big say for a big four McKinsey, uh, type firm. But it kind of picked that up. And then there's loads of stuff around opportunities for my brand story, kind of telling stuff that's high priority, medium and lower. Um, and it just goes on and on. And I mean there's 14 pages of real deep, good, gorgeous stuff with suggestions on brand narrative and all sorts. So it absolutely blew me away. Park and I just want to kind of encourage folks to kind of, you know, have a look at it. What, what can people do? Like I assume there's um, you know, that they can jump on. Can they, can they access it, you know, themselves or is there a paid for service? Like how does it work?

Speaker A: Yeah. So what I sent you was the beginning of the building of the brand brain as if you were a user of it. People watching this and listening to this right now can do is you can get a free brand story grade. Just go over to StoryCycleGenie AI, click on the red button. It's gonna ask for your name, your email address and the URL. Whatever brand it is that you want to run through, it could be yours, it could be a competitor's, it could be a prospects or whatever. And in about two minutes it's going to run a complete assessment for you and it's going to give you a grade from A plus to F minus on how well you're showing up in the world. It will validate what you're doing well, it will reveal the gaps and that you could quickly fix and even inspire you with new ways to think about telling your brand story. And that is all delivered to you through a 14 point storytelling assessment, totally free. No credit cards, no nothing. Just go check it out. What I sent to Matt, uh, is I took it to the next step, say so I just asked the genie, and I didn't know anything about Matt's brand at all. So I didn't iterate or do anything. I just went into the genie, I said, here's the URL. I want you to now create a deep dive assessment. It goes deeper than what freemium does. Give me an assessment, and then write up a complete narrative strategy of how he is currently appearing in the market. So what I like to have you think of it, man, is like mirror, mirror on the wall. How is my brand showing up for all? And that's what that document is doing for you. So you said you were pleased. You know, 8 out of 10 is not too bad. You're probably some room for improvement, but you're doing pretty good. It is parroting back to you some of the things that you wrote in there, but. But it's also revealing some other gaps in there and how you could fix it. And then when I ran the brand narrative strategy, it made the assumption that its assessment was at least 90% accurate. And it said, all right, here's my recommendation on how you are showing up in the market and maybe some different things that you could do as a user. Then you would just be sitting and working with it. Say, oh, I like that. I don't like that. I want to change this audience to that. Not sure where you got that. You know, if they, if it gave you some bad information, it means there's intel on your website that's not serving you, uh, because it's pulling it right from your website. So that's when the beginning of building your brand brain. And over the course of a couple of hours, it builds your foundational brand narrative. It then writes the version of it for your three audiences that it identified. You can even add more audiences to it. But we, you know, start with default to 3, because we don't want you to get too far flung with your audiences. And then it brings it all together in a content playbook. Once that's done, you use it for all of your strategy. Uh, building your campaign creation, your. Your blog post, writing all your content creation. And it's always going to be on brand because that's what the genie was designed to do. No generic AI not out there flattening your brand story. It's learning with every iteration you make with the genie about you, your brand story, and how to precisely tell that in the market. We call it Story sovereignty. Finding the story that only your brand can tell and then owning it now, uh, that's.

Speaker C: It's. It's. It's truly mind blowing. Jacob, I know park sent you one as well. Have you got any sort of.

Speaker B: I got 8.4. Just to rub that.

Speaker C: No, that's gonna be wrong.

Speaker B: But yeah, just to expand on what you guys have already mentioned, there's other things in there as well. Like I was reading, there's some ABT statements as well that come through as well. Unpacking the audience in greater detail. UVP gets into brand personality traits I'm looking at. And it actually picked up quite a few. Few of them like flair. Use the flamingo. And the Flamingo. The, the promise there. And also things like the emotional promise. The, like the brand archetype it gets into.

Speaker C: What archetype were you, Jacob?

Speaker B: It was three actually. It was creator. Surprise, surprise.

Speaker A: That's number one. Right, so that's your primary archetype. 65% is the creator.

Speaker B: 100%. Yep. Bit rebellious and a bit magical. So, uh, 22% rebel. 13 magician. Uh, brand purpose statement, brand narrative. It gets into.

Speaker A: Why don't you read your purpose statement to us, Jacob? What does it say your purpose is? And this is what you stand for beyond making money.

Speaker B: Yes. Okay, so the brand purpose statement declares what just creative does beyond making money. That elevates the lives of everyone it touches. Focus on people and human transformation, not organizational achievement. So that's the premise here. Just Creative exists to enthrall people by enabling them to live into and prosper from their motivation. Most powerful brand stories. So, and then it has a whole other. A larger paragraph, but it goes into my. Our key tagline of stand the flock out. Which combines with our Flamingo.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it breaks that down even further. But there's quite a lot of text there.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And the idea is this is what builds out the brand brain. And then the one part in there that you didn't mention that I like to talk about real quick because it's. People don't know of it. The ooh exercise. O o O. And those are nine one word descriptors in three categories. O o O Organization offering an outcome. So three one word descriptors for your organization. They are what, Jacob?

Speaker B: Courageous, authentic, meticulous.

Speaker A: And you use these as story prompts. So for instance, Jacob, I would say it's one thing to say you're courageous. Show me you're courageous and then tell me a quick little anecdote about how courage shows up with your customers or your clients or any campaign you did and so forth.

Speaker B: Yeah, it pulls out me being a digital nomad traveling across 88 countries. And the brand exists as proof of that courage, not conformity. M. And then for an authenticity, uh, uh, it talks about the um, organizing principle of stand in the flock out as a methodology and that insists that genuine distinction requires exavrating what is genuinely true about a brand before ever designing its expression, which absolutely. And then meticulous. It goes into logo design awards, industry coverage and clients like Disney, Nike, San Francisco and years of experience. Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so then for the offering, this is what people actually experience when working with you. Jacob, what are the three it came up with for you there?

Speaker B: It's come up with transformative, distinctive and strategic. Transformative, sorry, Transformative.

Speaker A: And then outcome.

Speaker B: What do they get is freedom, authority and flair.

Speaker A: All right, so. And of course if you were working inside the genie, you could change any one of those you like. Yeah, you could say I like transformative of. But I'm looking for a different word that's more like this or whatever. And you would work in it, uh, to find those nine one word descriptors there. Think of them as character traits. But more importantly they are story themes that you are going to now go out and tell true stories about each one of those themes and that becomes your story marketing. And they go on your website and your content and your, in your social posts or whatever. But they are now triggers to have you go and find stories so that you're not just selling features and benefits, you're selling impact. Here is how you have actually touched the people in the world that you worked with.

Speaker C: So good. So good. Uh, brilliant. Well, park, you know, we, I just want to be. I think we had a plan, folks like to go through it. It's just completely been blown out the water because we've just been there. Uh, we've been storying. We've been storying. What can I say? Say, um, I was just going to kind of say just, just kind of circle back almost like close the loop and then I want to do a quick fire round with you and then we'll finish. But I just want to close the loop on our uh, sort of discussions that we, we started the episode with. And that was mainly around like the relevance of storytelling today.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Like particularly in today's world of, of AI and all this stuff. So you've shown how it can kind of help frame things. But where, where do you see the real value? Do you see, do you see storytelling you know, and the way that we see the world changing ever, like, like, give us a sense of, um, why storytelling is so, uh, powerful and so needed in today's world.

Speaker A: Well, storytelling hasn't changed, but the storyteller is going through an immense evolution with AI. And I think the biggest challenge and opportunity for agencies out there right now is this concept around operationalizing a brand story. So this is why it goes back to meaning. We've got AI that is taking all the stuff you've got out there in the world, and it's probably somewhat fragmented because everybody's telling your story a little bit differently. And what is it doing? It's making your story more impotent. It's flattening it. You're starting to sound like everybody else out there. So we are looking at this thing called story ops. You know, big, large enterprises, companies have marketing ops, they have sales ops, HR ops, finops, supply chain ops, but nobody has storyops. Someone whose full position is to make sure that not only is that story defined, but it is automatically implemented across the enterprise through tools your audience or your colleagues are already using. So why is that so important? Because we are completely being bombarded with AI slop with just unbelievable amounts of information that our brain was never built to equip or equipped to be able to make sense of. So what does it do? It bats all that stuff away. And if you are the signal in that noise, starting with things like the and. But therefore a crystal clear brand story that's been completely operationalized through the enterprise, you are not going to get drowned out. We call it narrative entropy. When you don't control it, AI bots are going to control it and they're going to destroy that story. It's going to go into complete narrative entropy. The only way to stop that is through to story ops. Because storytelling is not going to change from THOG and Larry, Jacob and Matt back in the Savannah to where we are today. It's still the fundamental tool that we Homo sapiens storytelling apes use to make meaning out of the madness of being human beings.

Speaker C: Boom.

Speaker A: Boom.

Speaker C: Right, final, final quick fire round. I'm gonna start, then I'm gonna go to Jacob. So you ready for this part?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Things up. Right. So, number one, best brand story ever told.

Speaker A: Patagonias. Just go and look. In fact, I'm coming out with an article on that very thing. They do a brilliant job in storytelling.

Speaker B: Amazing. One brand that understands storytelling better than anyone else.

Speaker A: Virgin Sir Richard Branson. His whole life is one big, unbelievable narrative. Very well Told he plays that over into everything he does at Virgin.

Speaker C: Slight aside, did you get to meet him when you went to.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I worked with him. Yeah. I got to spend a week on, uh, Necker island, and they had a whole bunch of automotive dealers in from around the country, and I did a whole storytelling program with them on how to use stories for, you know, their industry. So a great guy.

Speaker C: So jealous. If he ever wants to get on a podcast, just mention us. Right. One storytelling myth you'd love to kill,

Speaker A: that you think you're telling a story and you never get out of. And. And. And. And. And you are. And. And. And. Ing your world to death. You get one and insert the but. And then resolve the pain with a therefore.

Speaker B: All right. And a book every brand better should read. Besides your own, of course.

Speaker A: Um, uh, Christopher Vogler's the Writer's Journey. Now, it's written for screenwriters. It's in its fifth edition, but it is one of the most marvelous explorations of the hero's journey and how it works in our life and how you and, um. He doesn't talk specifically to branders, but it doesn't. It's not a leap for you as a brander to be able to take everything Hollywood knows and start applying it in your world.

Speaker C: All right, so next one. AI Friend or foe to storytellers?

Speaker A: Friend. Don't approach it as artificial intelligence. Approach it as artful intelligence, and it is going to scale your storytelling abilities way beyond where you currently are. It's not going to do it for you. It's going to do it with you.

Speaker B: Amazing. One word that defines a great brand story.

Speaker A: Uh, that's great, you know, Enthrallment. Enthral. It was used in your own brand positioning right there. You know the word, the term enthrallment, and I use it a lot with the story cycle. Genie means capturing the fascinated attention on something. That's the term. That's the. For, you know, the. The. What am I trying to say? That the definition of enthrallment. Well, isn't that what every brand wants to do is capture the fascinated attention of their core audience on what they can do in their life?

Speaker C: That's the word of today. Enthralment. Etch that in your brains, folks. Learn it, digest it. Right? I'm going to move us on. We're going to have two more. So if every brand did one thing differently tomorrow, what would it be in your. If you want, you know, if you could make them all do something different

Speaker A: tomorrow, what Would it be, assemble all of your leaders in the room. That could be two. It could be 20. Ask them each to write an and. But therefore, about your brand story. Compare the notes. You're going to find 1 in 5 actually know your brand story. And then start fixing that.

Speaker C: Nice. Jacob, do you want to end and the quick fire?

Speaker B: Yes. Last piece of advice for brand builders who want to become better storytellers.

Speaker A: Oh, man. A study what Hollywood knows. I mean, you know, read that book. Go get Christopher, uh, Vogler's book, the Writer's Journey. That's the first place to start.

Speaker B: Start.

Speaker A: Really understand that story is all about setup, problem resolution. Just like Aristotle said, a beginning, a middle, and an end. And don't be fearful of including that middle, because that's where all the grimy, disgusting conflict is. And if you don't have a conflict, you don't have a story. If you don't have a problem, they don't need your solution. Find out how to communicate that problem. And I, a customer once tell me, he said, park Sales is nothing more than find the hurt, amplify the pain, heal the wound. That is storytelling in a nutshell.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker C: And final thing as we wrap them, park, first of all, thanks for coming on and sharing all your knowledge and being so generous. But, um, if folks want to kind of follow up with you, like, how do they. How do they follow you? I know you've got a great podcast. You want to just kind of give folks, uh, a sense of, of things.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I mean, hit my contact form@businessostory.com and let me know that you heard me on, uh, on Jacob and massive excellent show. Or jump over to LinkedIn. I'm there a lot, too. I think I'm the only Park Howell on LinkedIn. Uh, reach out through there and connect. And again, let me know that you heard me here. Um, and then I will give you all kinds of content. And I just started the new newsletter on LinkedIn brands, story ops for agencies, and it's only three weeks in. I've already got over 1200 subscribers, so I think I've hit a nerve.

Speaker B: Well, good for you.

Speaker C: Good for you. I'm sure you have. Thanks so much, Park. That was Park Howell, everybody. What an awesome episode that was. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody's comments, uh, and hopefully, uh, feedback and, um, reviews. Just to tap into what Jacob said earlier. We are always keen on good reviews, so please do that. It helps us kind of keep the show humming along nicely. And finally, if you do find this particular episode useful and you use anything that Parker's has sort of shared. Please do tag me, Jacob, or park in anything that you use. We always love to hear, uh, how we're having an impact in the real world. So thanks for tuning in, folks. It's been a pleasure. Take care. Uh, see you next time.

Speaker B: Bye.

Speaker C: Bye.

Speaker A: Thanks, guys.