The Grit Blueprint

Unleash Your Brand's Story: Marketing for Building Industry Success with Beth Carr

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Stefanie and branding expert Beth Carr explore how storytelling transforms marketing in traditionally "boring" industries like construction and building materials. They uncover the psychology behind why humans connect with stories over facts and provide actionable strategies for businesses to craft compelling brand narratives.

• Stories are hardwired into human psychology and create stronger connections than facts or figures
• Effective brand storytelling positions the customer as the hero and your business as the guide
• Even "boring" businesses like lumberyards can tell powerful stories about the legacies their products help create
• Your website is a 24/7 salesperson—invest in making it effective with clear calls to action
• Common mistakes include talking too much about your company instead of addressing customer problems
• Start with a simple elevator pitch: state the problem, present your solution, and show what success looks like
• Use your smartphone to capture authentic behind-the-scenes content—perfection isn't necessary
• Personal branding helps individual team members showcase expertise and connect with potential customers
• The StoryBrand framework provides a proven structure for crafting compelling business narratives
• Focus on the transformation your business enables rather than just the products or services you sell


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Beth Carr:

Don't cut corners when it comes to the user experience on your website and have a website right. So your website is a 24-7 cash machine. It is your salesperson. They are the cheapest salesperson you're going to have, but you need to invest. You, the business owner, you are the guide and your audience are the heroes. You're helping them find what they need to be able to be successful and avoid failure.

Stefanie Couch:

If you look at great companies that do this so well, they hardly ever show product. It's not about the product, it's about the story and the person they're telling the story about.

Beth Carr:

This is a gift to the lumber company that's listening right now, right.

Stefanie Couch:

Welcome to the Grit Blueprint Podcast, the show for bold builders, brand leaders and legacy makers in the construction and building industry. I'm your host, stephanie Couch, and I've been in this industry my entire life. Whether we're breaking down what's working in sales and marketing, new advances in AI and automation, or interviewing top industry leaders, you're going to get real-world strategies to grow your business, build your brand and lead your team. Let's get to work. Welcome to the Grit Blueprint. Today we are diving into one of my favorite topics. I love to talk about stories and we are going to talk about storytelling in marketing and in branding, especially in boring industries, which can be like my home industry of the construction and building industry. I have my guest on today, beth Carr, who is an amazing branding and storytelling expert. Welcome to the show, beth.

Beth Carr:

Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Stefanie Couch:

I am really excited to talk about this because I know we both are passionate about this and whether you're building a company brand or your own personal brand, the right story and how you actually show up can really set you apart. It can build trust and it can be the driver of your success. So today we're going to talk about this and you're a specialist in branding, a story brand guide through Donald Miller, who I know we both love and his stuff is amazing to help people do this and the founder of Fortified Branding, so you really help businesses and individuals clarify their messaging and create their brand stories that are compelling and connect with other people that they want to connect with. You have worked with startups, fortune 500s and personal brands and you love helping people stand out in crowded markets. So thank you for joining me today and I'm really excited to jump in to why this matters.

Beth Carr:

So am I especially. I love that you said boring businesses. There's fun in there.

Stefanie Couch:

That's for sure, and I see some of the most inventive and creative things coming from people like that, maybe because it's unexpected, but also because there's just so much thing, so many things that you can do with those stories right. So we're going to break down why they matter and how businesses can really use them effectively, and then maybe you can give us some of the biggest mistakes you see people make when they're telling their brand stories. But I really want to kick it off with just a really general question of what actually makes storytelling so powerful in marketing and why do you think that people actually connect with stories way more than facts or figures? I actually say this a lot when I'm speaking is I'll tell a story and then a few minutes later, I'll tell a fact or figure or three, and then no one remembers the facts. They only remember the alligator story I told at the beginning or whatever it was. So why do people do this and why does it matter so much?

Beth Carr:

Yeah Well, we are wired, you know, way back when, right, Centuries and centuries, thousands and thousands of years. We are wired to tell stories. Stories are what have passed down culture, legends, fables, morals, values in cultures all our lives and so people. We're naturally wired to hang on to words and visualize a journey. Stories are transformative. They really take you on a train and they take you someplace, and so facts and figures are really great.

Beth Carr:

It backs up stories. Sometimes people will remember figures, like when you open up maybe with like a number, right, people will lean in. For example, you know three best ways to market for construction, right, people will be like, oh, what are the three best ways? But backing that up then with a story, people will then associate the number of what you've done with how to actually apply it. Stories are a way of teaching people how to do things, how to act, how to proceed, how to be in community, how to do business. And so when we lean into storytelling especially when it comes to acquiring new sales and new clients right, because that's ultimately what I do as a job is, you know, growth? Um, it all comes back down to how do are those stories connecting with? Uh, where people are sitting in their minds. Um, and how are they doing it so that they can thrive and survive? Cause that's also part of our wiring. We're always in that fight or flight mode.

Stefanie Couch:

It is really interesting when you think about you know, growing up I loved to read and be read to. I think a lot of kids did and those stories that you remember from your childhood like maybe you don't even remember what book it's from, but you remember that it was a crazy cool story. I have a Nancy Drew book that was like the bell tower or something, and I remember that book and I read it in fourth grade I think, and for some reason that story stuck with me. And you think about movies also a lot of times the actual story is very similar to other movies that you've seen, yet You're still so drawn to it and the character development and all of that really just makes you. It resonates with you. I think about Taylor Sheridan, who's Yellowstone and now has Landman.

Stefanie Couch:

My husband and I just recently watched Landman. I don't know if you've watched it, but crazy character development. This guy is epic at that. I don't know if he does all of it by himself or what, but his mind, the way he's developing these characters you just feel so deeply like you know them. And when you know people, whether they're crazy character like Beth Dutton or the new wife in the Landman, or it's someone that you're like wow, I want to be like that person. It resonates deeply with us.

Stefanie Couch:

And so I think, as a company, sometimes we lose the idea that a person could care about a CEO or an executive or you know any person that works in a company, or even the company itself. And if you look at great companies that do this so well like Nike is a good example of that they hardly ever show product. I mean, they show it, you're wearing it, you're running in the shoes, you're doing whatever, but it's not about the product, it's about the story and the person they're telling the story about. So how can boring businesses do this? I mean, if you're a plumbing company or a lumberyard, how do you tell a story in a way that's not like here's this stick of wood that we cut down out of the forest, maybe that is the story that you know. Here's the life cycle of that. How do you do that?

Beth Carr:

Yeah, so, first of all, you just touched on so many like my brain was bursting. There's so many things and just the nuggets you just said. So Taylor Sheridan has been a brilliant writer. It's amazing how he's dominating so many different shows right now, because he is delving into what drives people Right. And and then when you talked about Nike, it really also the stories that are happening is really about status. Right, because I have these shoes, I'm going to be a stronger athlete, warrior, olympian, right, like I'm doing it. Right, the just do it slogan.

Beth Carr:

And so, with your question, how do companies that appear to be boring or like midstream, especially in home services, home building, construction, which seems pretty straightforward why do you need stories and why is it important? It's because, even then, when we think about who are you serving. So let's use a lumber yard. I happen to be married to a craftsman. He's a furniture maker, woodworker, cabinet maker, makes vaulted ceilings, libraries, tiki bars and then a kitchen.

Beth Carr:

When you think about that industry, what is that owner, the woodworker, experiencing in their lives as they're then going to the lumberyard, right, and so the lumberyard has a really great opportunity to really delve into who are they serving, why are all the different types of people coming to the lumberyard. Are they a weekend warrior, where they're dreaming up something and they're going to like, do their weekend warrior, I'm going to make a coffee table, right, yeah? Or or is it this? You know professional crafts person that you know has a 30 year veteran, like my husband, who really wants to, has been hired to make a one ofof-a-kind dining room table because their client is imagining the legacy they're going to leave and the memories they're going to create around the table, right? So now the lumberyard has this opportunity to talk about hey, craftsperson, we're going to help you create that legacy so that every piece of wood that we have selected and cut, we know and believe that we are creating materials for you to then build and leave a legacy right.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, now there's a story. It's really about all of the beautiful products that they create too. I'm sure your husband has created things that are just really beautiful to look at. And then there's the story that goes with that. I see a lot of my clients and a lot of their clients that buy from them. They don't have pictures, they don't have videos which help tell the story.

Stefanie Couch:

Because you know, you can aesthetically show a story, just like you can do it with words, and then if you combine both, it's even more powerful usually. And so how do you get those those things that aren't really being seen? They're done, they're beautiful, they're amazing projects, but we're just not getting the end product because they're up the channel, right. So like your husband could take pictures with his phone, but what about the person who sold him the lumber and the person that sold that company the lumber? And up the channel three or four, it's hard to get that. So I think it's about finding creative ways to connect all the way up and down the channel to figure out how does that story and those pictures and videos translate for every single person involved, all the way down to that end user who is having that Thanksgiving dinner with the six grandkids and the four generations for 10 years, 20, 30 years to come, at that table he's building.

Beth Carr:

It's beautiful really when you think about it like that you just opened up an incredible story loop, right? Maybe this is a gift to the lumber company that's listening right now, right? So imagine if you are doing exactly what you're guiding your clients to do which is brilliant, stephanie is what happens when the lumber company actually takes a photo of the person who cut down the tree the machinist that actually made the slabs of wood, right? The trucker that actually brought the lumber to the lumber yard, the people in the lumber yard that have all the knowledge of all the different types of wood and what it does and what it's great for, even the lumberyard owner. You take photos of that, and then there's a campaign around that which is telling the story of there are a lot of people who have touched what has been created as a legacy, and that we're all connected in giving you that legacy. Right Now, you've really drawn in the people who are coming to buy in a way that makes the lumberyard stand out differently, because they are creating their own voice and their own way of telling the story of, let's just say, connectedness, right From the tree to the dining room table right, you have there's a lineage of people who have crafted this experience for you, right, absolutely, and so we're more than just a lumberyard. We serve up incredible opportunities to create memories. Right Now, you have this full story loop.

Beth Carr:

It's really cool that would make a lumberyard completely different.

Stefanie Couch:

It is, and it's more than just a place that sells products, and often lumberyards are considered a commodity product, especially not specialty, like woods that somebody like a craftsman would make a dining room table out of. But sometimes you're just framing a wall in a house. That's a normal house. It's not some super custom house on a mountain somewhere that is going to be $12 million. Maybe it's just a place that that first time homeowner is going to bring their first child home in. Now, a starter home is not like $200,000. It's like $800,000. But it's depending on where you live. Where you live, you probably couldn't even get a house for $800,000 on a starter home, but it's like wow, this is not something crazy that we have to show a perfect story about, and I think that's one thing I want to touch on a little bit is I believe that one of the reasons people don't get into these types of marketing, especially people who have not traditionally done this so, nike, they've been doing it for years. They have just been doing it for years. They have just been doing it for years. They know what they're doing. They're spending millions and millions of dollars on campaigns and they are used to thinking this way.

Stefanie Couch:

But someone. That's a business who's been doing a lot of word of mouth, marketing, referrals, that's how they're getting their clients. They probably have never thought about this. So then the idea of doing that campaign, we just kind of mapped out on a cocktail napkin. They're like, well, we don't know how to do the video and we don't have this and we don't know where we would post it, and it's very overwhelming for people.

Stefanie Couch:

So for a business that is starting, one way that I actually like to tell people is don't, don't try to go crazy. Just post on your personal LinkedIn like your story or someone's story that you can post a customer or whatever, but just one person, one picture, one thing. How can someone who maybe isn't the CEO that could just post whatever they want? How do you find something valuable to post online that would be good for your customer base or good for your, maybe even other people that want to work at your company, to see what it's like to work there? How would you see personal branding being a way that people can tell their own story without maybe feeling like they're they're not perfect and they don't. They aren't a marketing person, so they don't know what to do.

Beth Carr:

Here's the reframe on marketing, right? Marketing is, you know, maybe there's this analogy the it's, it's beautiful, it's in a big white tent and the horses are, you know, in this beautiful red regalia. And you know, everyone, all the performers have these beautiful costumes full of feathers and bling. That's brand. But how do you let people know? The circus is there. That's marketing, right? It's the posters, it's the amplification, it's the person handing out flyers on the corner. It's, you know, it could even be Google ads now in the modern day, Right? And so, ultimately, all of us are natural marketers. If you're not letting people know, hey, yeah, I have, you know, I, um, I have a construction company, I'm a GC, um, I'm a cabinet maker. If people don maker, if you're not telling people that, then they don't know what you do. So you're already marketing, and even the smallest things letting someone know what you do and where you're located is a form of marketing. So I want to kind of first just also take off the any kind of myth that we think like, oh, I'm not a marketer. Actually, we're all very natural marketers. If you're not marketing, you're not selling. And if you're not selling, then maybe you don't own a business, you're working for someone else, right. So that's one. And then the second is in building your personal brand. It's about consistency and showing up about your beliefs. So if you're a passionate, let's just say you're a passionate general contractor. So if you're a passionate, let's just say you're a passionate general contractor and you are doing commercial spaces right. There's a certain quality that you have to have to be a good GC. There's a lot of moving parts on a construction site. There's even matters of safety, right. So, as a GC, you show up with your phone which phones are brilliant. Now you don't need fancy video equipment, you just point, shoot, press play. It does not have to be scripted or perfect, but you could be like hi, y'all, here I am, you know, we're on site. This is like the first time we're doing a site visit and we can already point out what we know from a GC's perspective what needs to happen to make this site safe for all the crews, the kind of paperwork we need, blah, blah, blah, blah. So even that is a form of marketing. It's building up your intellectual property, your knowledge of what you do in your industry, and you're sharing it with the world. That's a form of marketing and it's building a personal brand.

Beth Carr:

Where I also believe that companies can really lean in and retain and attract new talent is you also ask your employees to empower themselves to talk about their experience, right? So let's go back to this example I'm using with the GC on a construction site. The GC then says, you know, and here's my crew, and everyone's like, hey, we're the crew, right, like he's. For you know, put the video to the crew. The crew then can go off and be like, yeah, here I am, you know. You just, you know, I work for so-and-such GC and here we are on site and my job on the crew is to, you know, part of the demo, right? And there is a certain safe way of doing demos. So watch what we do when we're, like you know, using the sledgehammer, right?

Stefanie Couch:

Everybody loves a demo day, like if you watch HGTV. There's nothing better than watching people tear some things up, right.

Beth Carr:

I mean, that's why we have smash rooms. There's a reason, right? People love seeing things brought down to be recreated, right? So there's an opportunity there in building your personal brand, and it might be on LinkedIn, it might be on Instagram, right? You also have to understand where are the people that you serve living online. They might be on Facebook, they might be on Twitter, right, like it really depends, and that's where, then, you want to start posting and building your personal brand.

Stefanie Couch:

It's crazy to me how many people think like Facebook's dead, but from an ads perspective and just in general, like Facebook is still alive and well. So it is. If you look at some of these Facebook groups, they have like a hundred thousand people that are roofers or whatever, and they're very active. So I think, like you said, finding where your audience is and that might be a little testing process, but the biggest thing I would say to people is don't think that your story doesn't matter or you're not high up enough, or you're not experienced enough, or you don't have something practiced to say. Like you said, just sharing what you're doing in your behind the scenes content or as you're documenting your life, you're just showing what you're doing. People are so intrigued by that and I see videos on Instagram especially, or TikTok, that have, you know, hundreds of thousands of likes and a lot of comments that are literally something that you're like how did that get so many likes? It's just a video of someone with like a drill, drilling in you know a big, long screw into a jack set or something. Seventy seven thousand likes because people are curious and they want to know how things work and our brains need to. I call it like solving the loop or solving the problem loop. If your brain starts to watch a video like that, it needs to see what happens at the end, and so I think it's about figuring out. What do you do that would be interesting to other people, that they don't understand or they don't know, and just video it and talk about it.

Stefanie Couch:

Like you said, you're the expert in something, and even if you're not the world renowned expert you're not the smartest or the longest you know you've been in this 46 years that doesn't matter. You just got to show up, and so I think that's. And phones, like you said, you don't need a $7,000 camera, you don't need a camera person. You have your hand and a phone hit, play or record and that's it. So I think just starting is the biggest thing for people. It's very scary to start, though, especially on video. It's exposed, right? You're exposing who you are, and what if people don't like it? I think that's the biggest thing is people aren't going to like it sometimes, and you got to just keep showing up because you are who you are and not everyone's going to like us. There are probably people that are like God. I hate that girl in the hat.

Beth Carr:

She's so obnoxious you know, and we're not for everyone, and I always am encouraging clients. You know, when they're showing up and they're like, oh, it feels so vulnerable and I'm like what will help you get out of your own way is to realize that there is a reason why you were put here to do this vocation. For now, yeah, and that if you think of being of service, that there is someone else out there who's waiting just for you.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah.

Beth Carr:

Whether it's the drill in the wall or behind the scenes, people are waiting for you to give them the excuse to be free of their own limiting beliefs. Right, Because they're seeing you represent something that they identify with.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I love that.

Beth Carr:

So when you can get out of your own way, then it's not a big deal to get on camera and briefly talk about like this is the way we go about making a piece of furniture or how we go about creating an incredible construction company.

Stefanie Couch:

Right, you should get your husband to do some content. Does he ever film or show what he does?

Beth Carr:

You and I are going to talk later offline.

Stefanie Couch:

We want you to stay married and happy. So let's just move to the next question. It's real easy to give this advice. It's harder to do it and have your people you love and know do it. Well, I do want to talk about framework. So I know I've read a lot of Donna Miller stuff and you are a certified story brand and you have a framework that is the StoryBrand framework that really helps people figure out how to basically do a step-by-step guide. Tell me a little bit about what the StoryBrand framework is and how you use it in your day-to-day work.

Beth Carr:

Yeah, so the StoryBrand framework was brilliantly created by Donald Miller as a way of using what he learned in writing books and movie scripts and how you can apply it to business. So the framework, really, it focuses on the different structures that stories have in general, right, so there's always a hero of a story have in general, right so there's always a hero of a story, there's a guide, there's a villain, and then there is success and failure. Right, so let's use a story we might all identify with. Let's use Star Wars, which you know it's mega, right, A lot of people. I'm always shocked if there are people who don't know. So if you don't know, go watch it.

Stefanie Couch:

It's an incredible epic. It's full of our. If you haven't seen Star Wars, we're about to ruin it for you, right?

Beth Carr:

What normally happens when the story opens we always we meet the hero, right. And you know comic books like the Superman, batman stories. We think, oh, hero, the cape, they're big. They're large, but mostly when you look at like construction of a story in a movie. Or we can even take Jason Bourne, for example. When the movie opens, the hero is lost. They don't know what's going on. They're having some kind of crisis, right? So we take Luke Skywalker he's like who am I, where am I? Right? Jason Bourne he has no more memory, right?

Stefanie Couch:

He's just like where am I Right, and he looks like a normal person. I think it's also interesting, Like a lot of times. Like you said, it's not the cape and it's Clark Kent. It's not Superman at the beginning.

Beth Carr:

That's right. And so heroes actually are the weak character, normally at the beginning of a story. The reason why we're drawn into story is that hero, by the end of the story, has gone through an arc, right, they've become who they are and then wear the cape, right. But we're watching that journey. We're watching behind the scenes the drill, right. We're watching the donuts being made, right. So we're already intrigued. Well, along the way the hero is lost, they meet a guide, right.

Beth Carr:

So again, star Wars, it was Yoda, right. Or Obi-Wan Kenobi, right. Jason Bourne, it's the FBI people, the CIA people, right? Or like well, we should probably tell you who you are at some point, right, and maybe memories will come back. They are the guide. They're the ones who are saying listen, if you do this plan, which is normally three steps, you are going to avoid this type of failure. For Star Wars, it's like well, then, you know, the evil people, right, will not take over the planet, right. Or for Jason Bourne, you're going to save the world, right, you're going to, you know, stop the threat, right, and then success is the final outcome, right. So how you apply that to business is when you're focusing on you, the business owner, you are the guide and your audience are the heroes. You're helping them find what they need to be able to be successful and avoid failure, which I think going back to that fear actually helps people get over the fact that they don't have to be this big, shiny hero.

Stefanie Couch:

They just need to help other people win, which does help. Most people say, okay, if I'm helping others, I can hit, play on the record of this video or I can post this this thing, or go do this extra work to showcase this project that we're doing, that. You know I don't really have time to take all these pictures, but because I want people to see what we're doing, I'm going to do that. So it does take a little bit of the pressure off, because I think sometimes people do think they have to be this shiny, perfect thing, the hero, and they don't.

Beth Carr:

Right, and so I use that framework with also other frameworks that I've developed proprietarily over my 18 years of building brands in corporate and then taking that into this consultancy fortified that I run in helping small to medium-sized businesses be able to really acquire new business through stories and growth. Right, and so those frameworks are a way of like digging into juicy insights about who your audience is right and then what are the visual and verbal stories that are going to attract your ideal audience, where you're again positioned as like, come to, let's go back to the lumberyard. Come to the lumberyard, we're going to guide you on what are the best materials for the project that you have in hand, and or we are going to be the guide as your partner, where we're always going to be there helping you find the best materials for your construction company, for your plumbing, et cetera.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, it's really cool. I have a customer right now I'm working on a project with that works with an artist slash architect who's a town planner and he has developed this line with my client of custom millwork and doors and moldings and all these really cool things. It's like watching Walt Disney work for doors and buildings and all these things, and so he sketches these amazing things and part of the problem that they were helping him solve is that he had a lot of really custom, amazing projects and could not find the materials that he wanted to represent the styles like Hollywood, regency or Greek Revival or classic, whatever he's trying to do so they actually came up with the solution for him. That then was a solution for the homeowners that wanted this style home, and so they're really solving problems. So he's the hero of the homeowner's story, giving them their dream home or a community. Sometimes he's drawing entire plans for like 1,200 homes and then that customer of mine is helping him solve the problem and it's really about showing all of that and then also hopefully showing that end product where homeowner is in said dream home and these beautiful things are surrounding them in the molding and the doors and all those things that we help design.

Stefanie Couch:

It's really fun to be a part of projects like that and to watch people especially small businesses win in a way that they didn't just didn't think of before, and sometimes they're grinding so hard. You know, entrepreneurship is tough, especially when you're starting out and you're doing everything and you sometimes forget to share those stories or take those pictures, and so if you're reframing that as like, hey, this could really help drive revenue. It's not just about documenting the journey. This could help you. It can be a big difference in their business, because people need to show what they're doing. What are some of the common mistakes that you see your clients or just people in general, when they're telling their story or working on trying to build this brand? What do you see them do that you would say like, hey, maybe top three things not to do or to try to avoid, yeah, one is making assumptions about who you're serving versus actually who you're serving.

Beth Carr:

So I highly recommend especially if you're a small business and you're trying to scale and maybe you don't have the budget yet to invest in someone like you, stephanie, or someone like me or our agencies is to start talking to your current clients, clients that have been with you for, like, maybe the past three months, right. So you, because you want their, the client's memories to be pretty fresh, sure, I would start asking them questions like what made you come to us? How has the experience been? What are the positives that you've? You know that you got from, like, interacting with us. What are the things that you see that we should improve on or things that we're lacking right Now? Some of your clients might totally ghost you and not respond, but even if you can speak to just a small handful, even two or three, you're going to get an idea of what is driving them, what was keeping them up at night, what were some of the things that they were trying to overcome before finding you and your service. And then what is? What is the outcome been since finding your service, right? So, mistake number one we make assumptions without any kind of research, right, market research on what, what is, who are really your client base. Another and this might be harder, but the other part of your client base where also you can get really juicy insights are when you start to delve into clients that have left, people who have bought. So, let's say again, lumberyard. It's very transactional. I would follow up with people who have bought from the Lumberyard in the past three months. How was that exchange? Did you find what you needed? Was there quality of materials? What brought you here Right? So that's going to give you a really good idea.

Beth Carr:

Second mistake that I see is that the business will talk too much about themselves, right? Quite honestly, when I am looking for a plumber, I don't honestly care that you are the fourth generation and that you've been around since 1960, whatever, whatever. What I need to hear is we are 24-7. You have an emergency. We are there, we're going to fix it. We're not going to, you know, overcharge you and gouge you in prices. We're very fair. We guarantee and warranty our work. That's what I need to hear, but I need to also hear it wrapped in why are people calling the 24-7 emergency plumber? Well, there is a major crisis in my house, so I need you to talk about my crisis, not about that. You've been around since 1962.

Stefanie Couch:

Okay, yeah, 100%. And also that you've probably solved the horrible problem that I now have going on in my house and it was no big deal to you, because you do that 100 times a month Exactly.

Beth Carr:

Yeah Right, Highly experienced right. We can do it with our eyes closed for you.

Stefanie Couch:

And that story of the, that could be a brutal story to tell, like a customer testimonial, talking about that in the middle of the night. Right, you feel that deeply if it's happening at your house right now.

Beth Carr:

Can you imagine the testimonial being something like oh my gosh, you know my three-year-old. We had no idea that they flushed down the fire truck down the toilet and so we're standing here knee deep in water. Yeah, hopefully hopefully it's water but acme plumbing came to save us at three in the morning. Yeah, right now, that's the story.

Stefanie Couch:

I'm gonna be like 1-800-ACME-PLUMBER right and the cute kid standing there with his fire truck. You know, it's like that sells.

Beth Carr:

Right, oh, I love it. And then I would say that the third mistake that I see a lot and you probably see this all the time too, stephanie is don't cut corners when it comes to the user experience on your website and have a website right. So your website is a 24-7 cash machine. It is your salesperson right. They are the cheapest salesperson you're going to have. But you need to invest and there are ways to do it very inexpensively when you're first starting out. But there's also a flex point. When you hit, your business hits, let's just say, a high six figure, seven figure revenue.

Beth Carr:

I'd highly recommend invest in your visual and verbal stories in your brand so that you are really coming off very professional in your website and there's a certain psychology behind it and a formula and a framework that we use. I know you use a very powerful framework too, stephanie, where it's really like what is your website saying visually and verbally? How do I get ahold of you? Is it easy for me to contact you? Are there big buttons telling me what you need me to do? A lot of times when clients come to us, they're like we don't know why we're not making any sales. And we look at their website and we're like I don't know why we're not making any sales. And we look at their website and we're like I don't know where to buy from you. I don't know how to talk to you. There's no big button telling me what you want me to do next. So that's the next thing, people don't.

Stefanie Couch:

They don't signpost and they think we don't need to have an arrow pointing to this thing. No, you actually do literally have that arrow sometimes Because we, as humans if you think about signs on road signs it directionally tells you exactly how fast to go, where the turns are coming up, what to stop and go like. Colors mean things. Why would a website or anything in your other parts of your decision making be different than that? If you have to have it to drive a road that maybe you've driven before or not, maybe no one's ever seen your product, maybe it's totally new, it might be a road they've never driven before. One thing I will say about the website, because I love that one. In my industry specifically, that is a big one because it's not something most people think is important right now.

Stefanie Couch:

Now, home service businesses are a little different, but a lot of times, people selling products, what I hear a lot of is well, we're not selling the line, we're not going to sell e-commerce. So my first thing to that would be well, you probably should start thinking about that, because in the building materials industry, specifically since 2021, it is three X and that was after COVID and the pandemic type shutdown couldn't buy stuff in person. So it's continued to really skyrocket. It's only going to exponentially grow. Our generation of millennials and Gen Z want to do research and probably purchase online. That's just how we do things. It's how we were raised. We were raised to buy it on Amazon and it comes the next day, maybe the same day, and we want that. So my first rebuttal of that would be you should think about e-commerce. But even if you don't have e-commerce right now and you're not going to put it in still doesn't mean people aren't researching before they come to that lumberyard or call and email their order in. They need to be able to also show homeowners a lot of times the products and the more information you have on there that I can now educate myself up front on my time. It also saves your salespeople time. So it's a win-win for everyone. And even if you go with a very expensive website and not something that's just a you know templated website, if you spent 20, 30, $40,000 on your website, if you sell one house full of $200,000 window package which those go out all the time, you've made that money back pretty fast, right. And if those windows weren't on there before, maybe that homeowner or contractor didn't even know you really offered them, or they couldn't make a good enough decision based on what they're seeing.

Stefanie Couch:

So I think that it's more important than especially certain people that aren't selling online believe and there are a lot of e-commerce businesses where they're making all their money on their website. I understand why they know it's important, but even those can still be optimized. So I mean, I think it's that's probably the biggest one I see right now in my industry is like well, we've got this website that we made in 2003 that still has pictures on it that have the date when the picture was taken in yellow from their camera, like physical film camera. We took it on and going back to the beautiful imagery, you know, if you're showing projects, people can envision themselves doing the thing when they see it, touch it or feel it, and that's a big deal For someone starting out. That's a new company, or maybe this is a new initiative to them, maybe the personal branding thing, or they're posting online for the first time. What would you give as a first step to take a brand and build a strong story around it?

Beth Carr:

I want you to focus on your elevator pitch, and it's a very simple formula. I can share that with the audience.

Stefanie Couch:

I can drop a link. Yeah, that would be awesome.

Beth Carr:

I'd love to hear it Because it's a worksheet, right, yeah, but it really helps you start to think In your elevator pitch, as you start to build your brand because you want to be able to. Like I said, you are a natural marketer, so going out there and starting to tell people what you do, you're going to have different variations. You're going to talk very differently to person who is like your ideal customer, versus your grandma, versus your children, okay, but so you're going to have different variations when somebody. But when somebody says what do you do? This is your opportunity to market. And, by the way, don't override your grandma. Your grandma, you know for a fact, she's going to be talking about you proudfully with all her friends. Oh, do you know what my grandson does? Well, he does your best.

Stefanie Couch:

Salesperson for your best salesperson, right.

Beth Carr:

So you want to be able to pitch really well. And the pitch, the formula is you start, you open up with the problem that you see your clients facing, right, um. So let's go back to plumbing, right Um, there's nothing worse than a plumbing emergency at three in the morning. There, you've just opened up with a story loop and you've given me a problem. Why are we opening up with a problem? It's because, again, as humans, not only do we want to know how to thrive and survive, but we also are problem solvers, and so that's why the news is filled with all the bad news, right, people glom onto that.

Beth Carr:

But as soon as you get to like the good news moment, you notice those segments are like less than a second and they're very quick. Why? Because people, that's not sticky, what's sticky are problems, right. So you've opened up with a problem and then you say you know nothing worse than 3 am emergency. Well, that's why Acme Plumbing, we are 24-7 on call and we will, and, after serving thousands of customers, we will be able to fix it within hours so that you can go back to sleep and have a next best day. Yeah, that's your full pitch. You've just told me the problem. You've told me what you've done. You've given me a little visual story of what success could look like, which is you get to go on with your life uninterrupted. You can show up at your job, you can bring the kids to childcare. Like no one will even know, you had a plumbing emergency at three in the morning.

Stefanie Couch:

Yeah, I love it. It's such a great thing also for people Like if you're going to a networking event and you don't have that 30 to 60 second spilled down pat of who you are, what you do, how you do it, all those things that we just you just talked about, you're going to be the one that, when you start to introduce yourself, people's eyes glaze over and they're like, get me out of this room. And you don't want to be that person. You want to be the one that they're, like, intrigued at what you do. Maybe they have no reason to be interested in that service or thing that you're selling, but they at least understand it, hopefully. And if they are interested, then they say something like well, tell me more about that, or they ask you a question about it.

Stefanie Couch:

But most of the time people ramble on for so long it kills me and you see them dying inside while they're doing it because they don't know what to say and they're very nervous. And having that practiced, as for a company or for your personal brand, is really important and you know you can make it fun or you can make it more professional, depending on the setting and your personality. You know, when I introduced myself. It's a little bit more probably peppy than it was when I was working for a big corporation, because I can kind of say what I want, because I'm doing my own thing now, right. So it depends on the atmosphere as well. If I'm speaking to a room full of executives, I might be a little different than if I'm speaking to a room full of. I'm speaking to teenage girls.

Stefanie Couch:

In March at a young women's conference and so I'm going to probably be a little different than if I was speaking to a bunch of buttoned up CEOs. So I think it's it's have a variety of elevator pitch, uh tones. Maybe your message doesn't change, but your delivery might, Right. Such a good tip for a first step. Well, tell me a little more about how people can find you. If they're interested in talking to you about branding and stories, how can they find you?

Beth Carr:

Our website is fortifiedbrandingcom. There'll be a link, probably below, and you hit the button saying let's talk and we will hop on a phone and figure out what is going on for you and your business where we can help you grow by acquiring more sales and customers. Grow by acquiring more sales and customers. Also, probably Stephanie is a really great resource as a partner where you never know, she and I might be working together.

Stefanie Couch:

It could be Absolutely, and you also are on LinkedIn. I see you there all the time. You post and talk about how you can do this on LinkedIn, and I love that's actually how we connected. So I will say just to end this if you aren't telling your story on LinkedIn and you're a B2B person in most industries, try it out, because I think people still think that LinkedIn is for resumes, and when you need a job and even if you do need a job, don't wait until you need it to post you can make amazing connections on LinkedIn. This is one of mine that I've made over the last two years since I've been posting, and I'm really grateful for you being on the show today. So thank you so much. You are a great storyteller and I do want to ask you one closing question what is your favorite story or brand that tells stories right now, today? What?

Beth Carr:

sticks out to you. It's really interesting that you asked that, because you know Nike is one of my faves. Yeah, but I want to. I'm trying to come up with another one. I think another one, since we're kind of thinking about like athletic wear. Kuma does a really good job of that. The way they tell stories, the way they illustrate what success looks like by wearing their gear, the way they're involved in community, the way they support teams right, it's an overall great feeling to be connected to.

Stefanie Couch:

I love it.

Stefanie Couch:

I will say that for me it is the Olympics this year had a female rugby player athlete I'm probably going to butcher the name I think it's Ilma, I think it's how you say her name, but I'm not sure and she ended up going on Dancing with the Stars and she's, like, done all this amazing stuff with her social media and she really just took that to like a whole nother level and created this thing out of a sport that was probably not very publicized with her brand and she's funny, witty.

Stefanie Couch:

She's just exactly who she is and I love when people show up that way and I always want to try to show up as exactly who I am, so I'll just leave the audience with. If you aren't like everyone else, great, that's an awesome way to share your story. Don't try to be someone else because you are unique for a reason and it's so stinking boring to show up like everyone else thinks you should. So be you and embrace your uniqueness, and the story that you come out with will be a lot more memorable and probably a lot more fun for you to tell than if you try to be super corporate and buttoned up.

Beth Carr:

Amen.

Stefanie Couch:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Beth, for spending time on the Grit Blueprint, and we will catch all of you listeners on the next episode. Thank you, that's it for this episode of the Grit Blueprint podcast. For more tools, training and industry content, make sure to subscribe here and follow me on LinkedIn and other social media platforms To find out more about how Grit Blueprint can help you grow your business. Check us out at our website, gritblueprintcom.

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