THE REINVENTION OF STORY TELLING

This past Saturday I received a phone call from a fellow who called me 13 years ago (William Baruh)! He told me my marketing methods reminded him of Dan Kennedy's--who at the time I hadn't heard of (though I did find I owned a book by him, The Ultimate Sales Letter). I asked him if he could tell me in what way that was and he included: opinionated (I do a lot of research too, just like Dan does, mountains of reading); not afraid to say what is what (especially if it goes again traditional apathy); I tell stories (I have a huge supply of real ones); and my writing is hypnotic (I know what he means, compelling, but were it actually true, I would own the chess sales world!)

I wanted someone else to tell me what readers see because I have never (rarely) been the guy in the snapshots. He recommends that I ask all of you who read my stuff or come to my events to write testimonials which I can use to tell the rest of the world what a great deal of interest/product/information can be had by doing business with me. I like that idea of his (though I have asked for testimonials before and do so again in issue #117 of tomorrow's Chess Reports) and I hope you will do that rather than just being a voyeur.

The reason, the other reason, for this post is to tell you about an event which is going on starting today about storytelling in a "virtual way." Anthony Marquez brought it up to me last week. It's called the Reinvention Summit (http://www.reinventionsummit.com) There will be 25 audio presented speakers from across the spectrum of everything. It does cost something for those 30+ hours ($11.11). And if you can't sit and listen to everything all at once (!!), you can get playback. What's it about? Content and Social Networking, which has become big. Even formerly slothful large corporations are interested. Why? Simple, and I mean simple (I've been doing this for years): It's necessary to engage people to create relationships, to tell them a story which has components of interest, facts, reasons, relevance, and a good use of your time as opposed to texting or being on the phone too frequently. In other words, a land of when you were younger and you could read, or dream about the unreachable or make a difference. And it could better be done through a story.

A good storyteller can captivate like no other. He/she makes you want to believe in their message. One of the reasons I have seen so many chess books fail or limp along on the road of mediocrity is that they are boring (as my 6 year old grandson said about a movie we saw at the iMax last night--BTW, initially I was afraid to ask him because I thought the same thing)--they do not tell stories to wrap around the "other" conversation--moves, variations, the reason for the game, etc. We have become accustomed to, over the years, that this is the way it is to be (forever). It's not true. People really want relationships, friends, like kin, and instead many are resorting to texting just to "keep alive" the semblance that someone is out there who hopefully thinks they matter. But if they want to BOOST their "texting" message they will need to start elevating the CONTENT and not just talk to be talking.

Otherwise, Boring.

Send me a testimonial if you find, to your satisfaction, that I do my best to avoid boring you.

Look into the Reinvention Summit and tell me what you think. I'll be doing that too and trying to sharpen my storytelling skills.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com