We love telling stories here at The Marketing Gateway!
How is story telling a marketing tool? Find out that, and more, in today’s interview with Tom Ruwitch!
About Tom:
Tom Ruwitch is a business advisor, storytelling standout, and content marketing pioneer who helps business leaders create, deliver, and track client-attracting content and cure tech headaches. In 2001, Tom founded the email marketing software and services company MarketVolt. This was before most business people had even heard of email marketing, much less tried it. MarketVolt licensed its groundbreaking software to businesses around the globe, and it operated as a full-service agency – helping businesses of all sizes attract prospects and land clients with online and offline marketing strategies and tactics. After selling MarketVolt in 2019, Tom founded Story Power Marketing. Authors, coaches, and other experts hire Tom to transform their content from boring to brilliant – without writer’s block – so prospects tune in, turn on and buy. In 2021, Tom launched Implementum — an all-in-one marketing, operations, and analytics platform that includes customized, done-for-you campaigns, strategy, and hands-on-training. Implementum helps business leaders build automated marketing machines so they can grow and profit without tech headaches.
Tom’s Plugs:
https://yourgiftfromtom.com/
Home
https://implementum.net/
Contact Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomruwitch/
The Marketing Gateway is a weekly podcast hosted by Sean in St. Louis (Sean J. Jordan, President of https://www.researchplan.com/) and featuring guests from the St. Louis area and beyond.
Every week, Sean shares insights about the world of marketing and speaks to people who are working in various marketing roles – creative agencies, brand managers, MarCom professionals, PR pros, business owners, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers and more!
The goal of The Marketing Gateway is simple – we want to build a connection between all of our marketing mentors in the Midwest and learn from one another! And the best way to learn is to listen.
And the next best way is to share!
For more episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMarketingGateway
Copyright 2025, The Research & Planning Group, Inc.
TRANSCRIPT:
Sean Jordan (00:07)
Hey everyone, it’s Sean and St. Louis and welcome to the Marketing Gateway. I want to begin today with a story. Okay, so this is a story about how a lunch meeting turned into today’s interview, but not with the person that I’m interviewing. Okay, so let’s back up a little bit. So you might remember an earlier guest we had on was Steve Turner, who’s talking about his book, PR That Works.
And Steven, had lunch, we’d never met before. He was trying to figure out some ways that he might be able to get that book into classrooms. And since I teach, I talked to him a little bit and we hit it off. We had a great conversation. And over that conversation, I started telling him about the marketing gateway and what we’re trying to accomplish this connecting people here in St. Louis together who are marketers. And he said, you know, somebody that you need to talk to is my friend, Tom Ruich, because Tom.
has a podcast where he talks about storytelling and, you know, with your background, Sean, storytelling is something that you definitely would love to talk about. And I would be willing to bet that he would be a great guest on the Marketing Gateway. And I said, awesome. So I contacted Tom with Steve’s introduction and Tom was nice enough to have me on his show before I came or he came on this show. we’ve gotten a chance to know each other from two different ways where I’ve got to tell my stories.
and now he’s gonna get to tell his and you’re gonna love it because let me tell you something. Tom knows his stuff and he’s gonna give you a framework for storytelling and he’s also gonna talk to you about how you can go beyond just making a pitch and really engage people and tell them why what you’re offering is valuable in a way that they wanna hear. And I love that. Personally, like this kind of stuff to me is some of the most valuable advice that you can possibly get from a marketer.
Tom is not just some guy who just all of sudden decided to start talking about storytelling. He’s been doing the marketing side of business for a long time. He founded an email marketing software and services company in 2001 called Market Vault, ran that for almost two decades, ⁓ transitioned into his new business, which is now StoryPower Marketing. And he actually goes out and coaches people on how to be better storytellers. And that’s what he talks about in his show. That’s what I talked about on his show.
and it’s what he’s going to talk about today. So you’re going to love this. And this is something that he’s fairly recently been doing the last few years. And guess what? One more thing at the end. He’s going to give you an offer for something incredibly valuable and incredibly free. So you’re going to love it. I am so delighted to introduce Tom Rewich.
Sean Jordan (02:50)
Well, hey, welcome back to the Marketing Gateway. I’m Sean in St. Louis and I have with me today Tom Ruich. And Tom, you are one of those people that has been doing podcasting for a long time. So I should probably let you ask the questions, except I already did that because it was on your podcast recently. thanks for having me on and thanks for being on the Marketing Gateway. I really appreciate you.
Tom Ruwitch (03:04)
Yes you were, yeah.
I’m really happy to be here.
Sean Jordan (03:11)
Well, I always begin by asking guests to tell me something surprising that I don’t know. Anything you’d like to share, so go ahead, surprise me.
Tom Ruwitch (03:18)
Well, I’ll share the fact that for many, many years I was a ⁓ sort of a amateur concert promoter here in St. Louis, Missouri. I ran a thing called warehouse concerts and we would bring in bands and singer songwriters from around the country. A lot of people from Nashville. like folk, I like Americana, ⁓ some versions of country music. And we had a place in Maryland Heights that was ⁓ kind of a black
box space that was carved out of a warehouse. We turned it into a giant living room with sofas and comfy chairs. And so it had the vibe of a house concert. We would do potluck dinners, but we were packing 100 people, sometimes 125 people into the room, which meant a great payday for the bands and the artists that we would bring in. Did that for several years and then COVID kind of stopped us. And then the space where I was doing it was sold.
Warehouse Concerts is on ⁓ hiatus now.
Sean Jordan (04:18)
Well, if it ever comes back, that sounds awesome. And I’d love to love to go to one of those some time. So, well, that’s really cool. I didn’t even know such a thing existed here in St. Louis. And, that’s the thing is there’s so many things going on around town that you only learn about by talking to people. And on this series in the marketing gateway, we’re kind of focused on the St. Louis area. You’re here in the area as well. So tell me how you came to live and work here.
Tom Ruwitch (04:20)
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, you know, I was born and raised here. born here, grew up in Olivet, went to high school here, went to college in on the East Coast. But after after a few years away, breaking into my professional life, I began to date somebody who also grew up in St. Louis, whose family has a beautiful place in the country in Crawford County, a couple hours away from here. And we just
decided when we were getting to that point where ⁓ getting together, making a family, all that fun stuff was ⁓ on the agenda. We decided we wanted to do it in St. Louis because St. Louis is just such a great place to raise a family. Missouri is so underrated when it comes to how beautiful and special it is. So we live in St. Louis. We spent a lot of time in Crawford County on Housa Creek and we just love being here.
Sean Jordan (05:37)
That’s fantastic. And you know, I live on the Illinois side and I swore I was going to move away when I graduated from high school and wound up moving 15 minutes away from my parents a couple of years later. And you know, here I still am. So ⁓ it’s a nice place to be. And raising a family in particular is one of the things that I think a lot of folks love about this area. There’s just so many cool things to do and see and places to go.
Tom Ruwitch (05:44)
Yes.
Yep.
Yeah, it’s interesting today. We’re recording this episode. It is the trade deadline day for the National Hockey League. I’m a big fan of the St. Louis Blues and a couple days ago, one of the Blues star players was ⁓ traded, but he invoked a clause in his contract to block the trade. And there was a lot of comments about how much these Canadian hockey players who come to St. Louis love St. Louis and they don’t want to leave. They
They retire here when they’re players. They don’t want to be traded elsewhere. You know, I it was a good trade. I wish I wish he had accepted it, but I appreciate the fact that he loves Saint Louis and wanted to stay.
Sean Jordan (06:41)
And they’ve got great fans here too, so it really rewards them. ⁓ Well, what’s something about the St. Louis area that you wish other people knew?
Tom Ruwitch (06:43)
They do. Yeah, exactly.
Well, ⁓ I alluded to it earlier that, ⁓ you know, people don’t think of the fact that St. Louis is on the, just on the very edge of one of the most beautiful areas on the planet. The Ozarks is just an absolute paradise if you like hiking, if you like paddling. And so St. Louis has that, you know, big city thing going on, theater, sports, so forth.
But if you want to get out to the woods, a lot of people don’t realize how beautiful, especially southern Missouri is and how close we are to really some great wilderness paradise. Yes.
Sean Jordan (07:34)
You’re not kidding. you know, my son’s a scout
and we go hiking and camping all the time. And Southern Missouri is definitely worth the trip. Although you got to watch out during tick season.
Tom Ruwitch (07:44)
You do.
Yeah, yeah, we laugh that the place where we have our country place, if it was not for ticks and jiggers, it would be a very crowded and very popular, ⁓ very popular tourist location.
Sean Jordan (07:58)
I that at least keeps the tourists away so you can enjoy it yourself. Well, fantastic. Well, one of the things that you are really well known for, and you have a podcast about it even, is power storytelling. And this is something that you are passionate about. And one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on is because I love storytelling too. ⁓ many business people say that they don’t have an interesting story to tell. I’m skeptical personally. think
Tom Ruwitch (08:01)
Indeed.
Sean Jordan (08:25)
People always have a great story to tell. you need to have a drink in your hand before you can tell it, but how do you respond when you hear that?
Tom Ruwitch (08:32)
Yeah, I hear it all the time. I don’t know. I’m not a storyteller. I don’t have interesting stories to tell. And the reality is that we’re surrounded by great stories. And one of the things that, that becomes a challenge for people, all this buzz around storytelling and marketing is that a lot of people will teach and a lot of business people will think that storytelling is about talking about yourself. Tell me stories about yourself and
The reality is that the stories you tell about yourself, which are valid to tell, are only valuable and interesting in a marketing perspective if those stories reflect and resonate with the experience of the prospects you’re trying to reach. so we teach, don’t get too hung up first on, know, tell us your origin story. Tell us that interesting thing about yourself.
We say focus first on your prospects emotional journeys. Where are your prospects? What are they feeling? What are they experiencing? Where are they stuck? What’s their starting point? And then if they were to work with you, what is the aspiration you can fulfill? What’s the other side? The after to their before. And by its very nature, if you have characters, a business, a struggling business owner,
who has a before state and they through some means achieve a more desirable after state, that is a story. ⁓ That’s a transformation. That’s a movement from before to after. is, ⁓ are human characters in that story and there are countless ways that that story could be told. It could be a story about,
a real prospect, could be a story about somebody you read about, somebody who’s complaining about something on a discussion forum. And then there are all sorts of ways that you can deliver stories as sort of metaphors or parables that also evoke the before to after journey that you’re trying to evoke.
Sean Jordan (10:49)
You’re so right. I worked in the comic book world back in my 20s. And one of the things I learned in the comic book world was origin stories always sell really well because people think having a number one issue is going to be valuable one day. But what allows those stories to continue is their relevance to the audience. And origin stories are actually not the part people come for. They want to see, well, where’s it going to go from here? And I often tell people the same thing that you tell, which is that if you have a personal story, it’s
Tom Ruwitch (11:02)
Right.
Sean Jordan (11:16)
it’s useful if it can relate to what you’re doing, but what really matters is does it connect to your audience in a way that they’re gonna see what it is that you’re ultimately trying to get them to understand? And if it’s just a personal story, that’s all they might remember. And yeah.
Tom Ruwitch (11:27)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ll give you an example, Sean. I
worked with an executive coach who works with CEOs and high level business leaders. And one of the things among many that she teaches and consults with them about is delegation. And she had fallen into what we call the information trap. If you are an expert, if you’re a thought leader, if you’re being hired for what you know,
So many have the tendency to think that if they dish out little nuggets of what they know, that people will fall at their feet and hire them. And that’s what this coach had done. She wrote a post, are five tips to delegate more effectively. Tip one, tip two, tip three, tip four. Nobody read the post. Nobody ⁓ clicked the link to schedule an appointment at the bottom of the post. It was boring. And the reason it was boring is that it didn’t evoke that emotional journey.
that her prospects wish to take. We sat down with her and we said, well, why is delegation so important? What’s the promise that you’re really making to the executives who you work with? Whom you work with? And she said, well, it’s really all about escaping the hamster wheel. It’s about no longer having all that stress and weight on your shoulders and being able to.
to spread the work, spend less time in the office and all of that. Now we’re getting somewhere. Now there’s a before and an after. On the hamster wheel, off the hamster wheel, stressed, relieved, stock free. That’s a transformation ⁓ journey. And I said, well, can you tell me a story of, it might be a story from your own life, discovering the power of delegation. It might be a story from a client. It might be a story.
from a movie, who knows, or a book. She said, I have a great story. I have a client. She said her eyes lit up, you know, and she got energetic. said, I have a business owner who never went on a vacation longer than a long weekend for 20 years of running this business. And finally he hired me, and among the things we focused on is getting better at delegation.
And after we had done that and he’d begun to delegate effectively, he was able to take a two week vacation and he was nervous when he left, but when he returned, everything was going great. Morale was up over time. The profit and productivity in his company rose. And then he began to spend less and less time in the office from 60 hours to 50 hours to 40 hours to less than 40 hours a week.
was no longer spending Saturdays and Sundays in the office and was taking regular one and two week vacations. Wow, that’s a great story. That’s awesome. Let’s tell it. And the subject line of that story was how a stressed out owner let go and got away. Now, I love that subject line because that is an example of how you can tell a story or at least hint at the heart of a story.
in just 10 words or how many words that subject line is. That in of itself is evoking a story. If I’m a stressed out owner, if I’m feeling stuck in the office, if I’m working long hours, that subject line is speaking to me and already I’m leaning in thinking, I’m stressed out. I’d like to get away. I’m going to read on. And then it opens with
an entertaining and memorable story where she literally says what I just shared. I know a business owner who never went on vacation 20 years of owning a business and he was worried that people would freak out if he left and that he’d get phone calls while he was on vacation and so on and so forth. But then finally he was able to go on vacation before after. What had changed? He learned to delegate.
And here are five tips to delegate more effectively. Now, all of a sudden that boring blah, blah, blah. Here’s some tips about how to delegate has become not just a boring set of tips, but actually the ticket, the answer to their question. Whoa, I want to let go and get away. How did he do it? I want to know how he did it so I can do it also. Well, the way he did it is I, the executive coach.
taught him how to delegate. Here are five tips to delegate more effectively. So you can actually take my expertise and run with it. But if you really want to dive deep and let go and get away, call me. We’ll have a consultation. That is a perfect example of transforming content from information only boring, blah, blah, blah content to story powered content that
gets people to pick up the phone, call you, and ultimately hire you.
Sean Jordan (16:42)
It’s fantastic. I had a writing coach tell me one time that the ⁓ premise behind any story is somebody wants something, how are they going to get it? And that subject line alone tells that story. And I love that because it’s gripping just from the get-go. And yeah, right.
Tom Ruwitch (16:54)
Yeah. ⁓
Well, it doesn’t answer the story. How are they going to get it? But
it certainly makes clear that if you open this email and read it, you’ll learn how. Yeah. Yeah.
Sean Jordan (17:08)
Totally, totally. And that’s
what’s gonna get you to click. Well, I know ⁓ that there are these marketing strategies that we’re supposed to implement, right? I mean, you hear about them all the time. You go to conferences, everyone’s talking about, you need to do this, you need to do that, LinkedIn, you need to do this, you need to do that. But technology becomes a problem. And especially now that we have all these AI tools that are changing so rapidly, it just seems like technology could be a problem. So…
Tom Ruwitch (17:11)
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (17:36)
How do we turn technology from a headache into a breeze?
Tom Ruwitch (17:39)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you for asking that. And this speaks directly to an experience that I had in my business. I ran a technology company for 19 years. I started an email marketing software company in 2001. That’s before most people had heard of email marketing, much less tried it. And I ran that software company and the agency around it for 19 years.
After I sold it, that’s when I began to do or I had already in those 19 years spent a lot of time helping my clients create the kind of content that I’m talking about story power content. And I launched story power marketing in late 2019, early 2020, right before the pandemic. And that’s when I was doing the kind of work I described with that executive coach. But here’s what I noticed. I noticed a lot of my clients drafting better emails.
drafting better video scripts, drafting better presentation decks, drafting better social posts, but they were having trouble implementing. And the reason they were having trouble implementing is tech was getting in the way. They might have MailChimp or Constant Contact or some other email system over here, and then a WordPress or a Wix or whatever, a Squarespace website over here, and then…
Callanly for booking and then they might know about a thing called Zapier that you know, let’s connect all the dots and you know, juggling bowling balls and it just feels hard and you know, the promise of tech is that it’s supposed to be a tailwind. It’s supposed to help you move faster and more efficiently. But for so many business owners, it feels like a headwind. It feels like something they are constantly wrestling and having to
to figure out. So what we did for our clients is we simplified the process by bringing to them an all-in-one technology platform that does it all in one place. You don’t have to have multiple subscriptions. You don’t have to figure out how to connect this piece to that piece. It’s all interconnected. you know, there are
There are other ways to do it, but that interconnectedness of the technology platform can be a real time saver and a real ⁓ burden buster. And so we brought that to our clients and we named it Implementum. Think the word implement and momentum, just mush them together, add ⁓ to the end of implement and you’ve got Implementum and. ⁓
⁓ And that really helped our clients break free and and simplify the tech journey Cure the tech headache and all of a sudden those things that were drafts doing them No good. We’re now getting out the door getting to the right people at the right time things were being automated Appointments were being booked follow-up emails were being sent all in a much easier way than than before
Sean Jordan (20:50)
I love that. I mean, that’s the dream, right? We all wish that we could get these things out of our head and to the people that will actually see them and want to call us as a result of it. And I do agree with you. Every platform you just named and then some I have used and I have struggled with sometimes because in my role as a small business owner, I have to wear every hat, you know, and I’m not an IT person. I know a lot about computers, but I’m not an IT person. I’m not a specialist in digital marketing. I’m not a specialist in content creation.
I’m a researcher, that’s my job. And so I still have to do all those things. Right.
Tom Ruwitch (21:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you don’t have to do all those things.
There are ways to get out from under it, but so many business owners feel like they have to do those things and they resent it. They want to be serving clients to the extent that they’re involved in marketing and sales, and they should be. They want to be spending their time closing sales, having that conversation with the warm prospect.
and turning dials and building funnels and adjusting workflows and all that kind of jazz, and then trying to connect the dots between all these applications. That’s the last thing most business owners want to do. So if there are ways to simplify it, go and find them business owners. there are ways is the short answer.
Sean Jordan (22:09)
You’re completely right. And we’ve had to find them. And I’m glad that you have them as well. ⁓ we’ll definitely have, by the way, information about what Tom has to offer in the show notes. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit too. I have heard you say that storytelling does not have to be so complex, which I love. So what do you mean by that?
Tom Ruwitch (22:10)
Yep.
Yeah. Yep.
I am going to answer that question, Sean, with a story. All right. So I had a guy come to me several years ago and he had read one of the big books that was out there about storytelling. There are a lot of them, Storytelling for Business. And this book that he read was all about, you know, hey, storytelling for business is kind of like writing a screenplay.
Sean Jordan (22:33)
All right.
Tom Ruwitch (22:52)
And it and and within the screenplay, the formula is the hero’s journey. And you have, you know, the protagonist and the guide and the pivot points of of conflict and resolution and and discovery and you know, the 12 step thing.
guy said
my head was spinning every time I would sit down to write an email. I’m trying to do do I have step five in here? Do I have step seven in here? You know, I Oh, wait, there’s a comp. He said, Tom, I just want to write a friggin email. And I don’t want to get stuck in trying to understand some 12 step process. Every single time I just want to put some content out there. And so
We had already developed some frameworks that were far more simple than that. And then we really began to lead into this because we were hearing over and over and over again from our prospects and from our clients. Why does this have to be so complicated? I sit in front of the screen and I feel stuck and I feel lost and this should be fun. This should feel easy. And so I’m going to back up now and
break down that email that I shared with you about the ⁓ business owner. There were four elements to that email and those four elements are what we call the plan framework. So not 12 steps, not the hero’s journey, know, fry tags pyramid or you know, there are all sorts of crazy, giant, complex storytelling frameworks, which are great if you want to write a Hollywood blip.
Sean Jordan (24:38)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Ruwitch (24:41)
Blockbuster by the way, but not so great if you just want to get an email out the door and build your business. What are those four elements planned? P for promise. Okay, that email evoked a promise. Stress to relief, let go, get away or stuck, get away. Clear, explicit promise. second thing, if you evoke a promise,
Sean Jordan (24:43)
Right.
Tom Ruwitch (25:10)
that is meaningful to your prospect, they’re gonna lean in, they’re gonna be fired up, their emotions are gonna be, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they’re gonna be thinking, well, how do I get that? How could I let go and get away? Okay, that’s where the lesson comes in. Promise lesson. The lesson in this case is delegate, here are five tips to do it. Really powerful lesson. And so different.
than just an email, here are five steps to delegate. A lesson without a promise is just a boring lecture. And no, why are you telling me this? I don’t care. I didn’t wake up this morning thinking I really, really, really want to learn how to delegate. People tune out. But if you have a promise, let go, get away.
Tell me how they’re leaning in. And now when you’re sharing delegation tips, that’s a valuable lesson that they in effect have emotionally asked you to share. A stands for anecdote. Wrap the promise and the lesson inside of a memorable story. Stories stick, our brains remember stories. You could…
write an email that says, you know, if you want to let go and get away and reduce stress and spend less time in the, in the office, here are five tips to do so delegation better than nothing, but it’s still a little bit boring and it’s kind of a lecture. But when you wrap it in a story, people can relate to the human characters. People tune in, people are fired up.
⁓ And they remember it so a very easy to tell anecdote It doesn’t have you know 15 plot points. You’re not gonna make a screenplay out of it. It’s not you know It’s not the hero’s journey. It’s just a simple Story before-and-after not on vacation on vacation stressed out relieved and then finally and and stands for next step I want to spend a minute on this one
Most business people fall for this really pervasive myth that so many coaches put out there, which is, ⁓ you should have like 80 % of your content should be valuable and only 20 % of your content should promote something or have any kind of ⁓ call to action to buy a product or sign up for something or register for an event or something, because you don’t want to be too pitchy.
Well, if I am a business owner and I’m fired up because I want to let go and get away, I want to spend less time in the office and you’ve shared with me a valuable lesson and you shared with me next, you shared with me ⁓ ways to achieve that promise. I’m not going to be offended if you say, you know, and if you really want to take this to the next level, book an appointment with me or
buy my book or sign up for my coaching program. Okay. If you don’t have a next step, you’re leaving opportunity on the table. And so we don’t say 80 % is valuable and 20 % is promotion. That sets up in the reader’s minds that you’re, anytime you’re promoting something, sign up for my event, download my book, hire me, schedule a consultation.
Anytime you’re doing that, that’s somehow unvaluable. That’s somehow the price that your subscriber has to pay to get the valuable stuff. That is business crushing. But if you make very clear from the beginning that, ⁓ I’m gonna share with you a whole lot of valuable stuff, stories and lessons that are going to help you.
but I’m also gonna give you opportunities always to take some next step with me. No one is going to be offended. In fact, you’re going to make it very, very clear to people that I’m here for you and I’m ready to help if you’re ready to help. We’re not just pitching until people, they’re not just ⁓ haphazard in your face pitches. We’re always packaging them as part of a promise, a lesson.
an anecdote, next step. Jay Abraham, one of the great, great direct response marketers on the planet has said that if you have a product or a service that is of value to someone and you are in conversation with that person, either in a one-to-many email marketing environment or in a one-to-one conversation, not only is it okay to say,
Here is the product or service. But J. Abraham would tell you that you have a kind of a moral obligation because if you know they could be helped by this, then to withhold it because you’re afraid of being too pitchy is actually doing them a disservice. ⁓ So let me recap. Promise, lesson, anecdote, next step. It’s a very simple framework.
And every social post, every email, every video can have all four elements without you going crazy and thinking this is so darn complex.
Sean Jordan (30:52)
And you know, as a storyteller myself, like structure is important. A lot of people think, ⁓ I don’t need structure. That makes things too formulaic. And any professional screenwriter or novelist or storyteller is going to tell you, no, we use structure all the time because that’s what enables us to tell the story and to know it’s going to connect with the audience. Right. And the plan structure is the same way. I mean, I had somebody send me an email trying to pitch me an email service or something, and they gave me a one line pitch. And then they said, if you don’t want this, please tell me to pound sand.
Tom Ruwitch (31:12)
Yeah.
Sean Jordan (31:22)
And then that was it. And I was like, what? did. I wrote them back and I said, this is a terrible approach. Please don’t write me again. But I couldn’t believe that they thought that was a pitch. It didn’t tell me anything about them other than the fact that they thought they were going to be told to pound sand and they were.
Tom Ruwitch (31:26)
Yeah. See ya.
Yeah.
Yeah,
they didn’t tell you anything about themselves and they didn’t give you any sense of why you should be paying attention to them and what is the promise. Back to this idea of structure, ⁓ there’s a great, great copywriter, guy named Eugene Schwartz, ⁓ made a gazillion dollars for his clients and for himself and was ⁓ one of the great, great copywriters of the late 20th century.
Eugene Schwartz claims, and I believe him, that he never, ever suffered from writer’s block. And one of the reasons that so many people do suffer from writer’s block, and this is before AI, we could go down the rabbit hole of the pros and cons of using AI. And I’m a big believer that if you just lean on the easy button without understanding the frameworks that work and the ones that don’t, you’re setting yourself up for a massive failure. AI will get you content.
Sean Jordan (32:33)
dream.
Tom Ruwitch (32:35)
AI will get you content, but ⁓ it won’t necessarily be content that’s structured properly to attract leads. So you’re getting it faster, but all you’re doing is failing faster. Okay, that tangent aside, writer’s block. So many people suffer from writer’s block because they look at the blank screen and they’re waiting for the creative well to…
simmer and you know they’re waiting for the muse to strike literally a you know a Greek god to come down and you know sit on your shoulder and inspire you and that mindset sets most people up for failure because they begin to think well I’m not a creative person I’m not a storyteller I don’t have stories this is an art this is magic I don’t have the magic but the importance of
frameworks and structure is that it reminds you that no, no, no, this is not a magic art back to Eugene Schwartz. He said Copy is not written copy is assembled and that’s such a liberating idea for anyone who has ever felt stuck and this is where the plan framework comes in if you understand
that, okay, I just need to think about what are the building blocks here? What promise do I wish to evoke? And look, if you’re running a business and you don’t know what promises you wish to evoke, you have some work to do. I can help you with that, but I’m operating under the assumption that most business people understand the promise that they’re trying to evoke or could go through a fairly simple process to get there. We can teach you how to do that.
What’s the promise? What’s a how, a lesson to help you get to the promise? Find a story. And again, once you sort of have clarity on here’s the promise and here’s the lesson, finding the story. When I said to the executive coach, well, okay, so you help people escape the hamster wheel by teaching them to delegate. Do you have a story you could tell?
And she was like, yeah, easy. I’ve got a great story. And she had 10 more where that came from. Stories about herself, stories about other clients. Find that story and there’s an endless supply of them. And then share the next step. Four building blocks that you can assemble. And then if you assemble them, now you can ask AI to help you polish it or help you wordsmith it or even help you draft it. But
understanding the framework and taking the building blocks and assembling them into the structure. Well that’s a whole whole whole lot simpler than sitting in front of a blank screen and wondering whether you have the gift waiting for the muse to strike. So ⁓
Sean Jordan (35:33)
It’s so true.
It’s so true. And I’ve been learning how to draw recently. because I always wanted to, my daughter loves to draw. Guess what? The first thing they teach you in drawing is how to look at things and find the shapes in them, draw the shapes first, and then put the extra elements in them. Yeah. Right. It’s the same thing. Drawing is not just where you just pick up a pencil and start drawing. It is where you find the structure and you build on that structure, the same way storytelling works. Well.
Tom Ruwitch (35:37)
nice. Yeah.
Yeah. Little pieces together. Yeah. Yeah.
I love it. Yeah. I love
it.
Sean Jordan (36:00)
What is the most important skill or quality that you need to be an effective business storyteller?
Tom Ruwitch (36:05)
I think the most important skill is the ability to listen and look and to be curious. Because if you go back to that first principle of keep the focus on your prospects emotional journeys, this is not about looking inward and talking about you and talking about your stuff. It’s about putting your ear to the ground and really understanding and paying attention to what makes your prospects tick. Where are they? It requires empathy.
It requires listening. It requires looking. And so if you have those skills, then getting the building blocks that you need to assemble great content will follow.
Sean Jordan (36:48)
So true. we talked a little bit about writer’s block and how you can overcome that, but where do come up with ideas? you know, just knowing your promise is helpful, but you need to figure out where those anecdotes fit in. You need to figure out where those ⁓ different lessons that you want to teach come from. So where do those ideas come from?
Tom Ruwitch (37:08)
Yeah, you know, I have a set of places that I will often go and I’ll share with you a couple of examples of this. So, number one is one of the promises that we teach, it goes straight to what I was just talking about, is if you want prospects to really tune in and say, yeah, I like you, I respect you, I want to work with you.
then the lesson is you never want to just come straight at them and say, oh, I’ve got just the ticket for you, you know, I, and just start pitching your product. Here’s my product. It’s great for these 17 reasons. Well, if you just lead with the pitch without understanding whether the prospect is in a before state that your product or service can address.
to get them to an after state that they desire, well, then you’re just gonna come off as a pitchy pest. Okay, so that’s me lecturing a lesson at you, right? Okay, but the promise is how do you get prospects to really tune in to what you’re saying, connect with and be begging you to say, yeah, I wanna know about your products and services. So how do you do that? How do you get from stuck with prospects tuning out?
to fire it up with prospects tuning in. Well, I shared the lesson a moment ago, don’t pitch first, understand their journey.
One time I was going through cable television, ⁓ just channel surfing, and up comes the movie Groundhog Day. I love Groundhog Day. And that scene in Groundhog Day, and I say scene, but the scenes all repeat themselves in different ways, so if you know the movie. ⁓ And there’s a character in Groundhog Day called Ned Ryerson.
Okay, and Ned Ryerson went to high school with Phil Connors, the character played by ⁓ Bill Murray, the weatherman, and Phil is in Paxitani for Groundhog Day, and Ned Ryerson finds him on the street and a costume. Hey, Phil, great to see you. We were in high school together, and hey, I have just the ticket for you. Okay, and.
Single life premium blah blah blah and that of course just or excuse me Phil brushes him off is completely annoyed everybody is cringing and Ned is just the perfect avatar for the pitchy pest and I’m watching that movie and I’d seen that scene a million times and I I’m watching that movie and I think to myself I’m gonna write an email about this tomorrow Okay, why am I gonna write an email about this tomorrow? Well that
anecdote. Remember that movie Groundhog Day and that character Ned Ryerson and this is what he does? That anecdote is the perfect vehicle for me to deliver the lesson don’t be a pitchy pest. First, no. Does Phil have a family? Does Phil have debt? Does Phil have a need for single life premium blah blah blah? Okay and unless you listen and learn about your prospects before you pitch
and unless you lead with promise, they’re gonna just treat you as a pitchy pest. So I share that. That’s a great example of once you go through the process of understanding the notion of the plan framework, promise, lesson, anecdote, next step, and once you have some clarity about what your promises and lessons are, stories begin to find you. You’re watching TV, you’re reading a book, you see an article.
and you say, that’s a great little anecdote that would tell a story about such and such. I will go to various sources. I’ll go look at weird news stories. I’ll go look at marketing forums or business owner forums in places like Reddit. And I’m searching for stories and characters who are going to be good vehicles for
delivering the story. In other cases, I know precisely what promise and what lesson I want to evoke. Okay, I wasn’t watching Groundhog Day thinking, tomorrow I want to write an email about this promise and this lesson and I’m going to watch this movie and see whether I can find a good anecdote. Now, that, the story found me.
But the story I told you earlier about the executive coach, we said, okay, we have this great promise about escaping the hamster wheel. We have this great lesson. Can you find me an anecdote that would help deliver that promise and that lesson? And when I say she had so many more where that came from, later I said, how about a story yourself? Have you ever been the victim and employee in a company where they didn’t delegate effectively? Tell me that story.
Have you ever been the business leader where you had a breakthrough as a result of delegating? Tell me that story. Have you ever seen a movie where delegation failures are good cautionary tales? I can tell you three. And the devil wears Prada. There’s this scene. So if you have clarity about your promises and your lessons, all of a sudden,
you’re able to say, anecdotes, world events, movies, books, my own life, my clients lives, they’re all over. And so two ways that you find stories, one you go looking for them with the promise and lesson in mind. The other is the promises and lessons are in your head already. And you just stumble across a great story that happens all the time for me all the time. So
Sean Jordan (43:29)
Yeah, definitely for me too. And I’ve had similar experiences to you where I catch a movie or something like that. And all of sudden, ⁓ I have an email I need to write this week. I’m going to reference this. It’s fantastic. Well, Tom, it has been so great to have you on. And I have really enjoyed this conversation. I feel like I’ve learned some things. And I love storytelling. So thinking about this plan framework is going to be something that I’m going to try to integrate myself. So thank you so much for sharing it.
I want to encourage anyone that is interested in anything you have to say to check the show notes to find all the ways to get in touch with you. But I always give guests at the end a chance as well to plug something. And so here’s your chance. What would you like to plug?
Tom Ruwitch (44:06)
Yeah.
Well, I wrote a book and it’s called Story Power Marketing and it lays out everything that you need to ⁓ turn prospects into clients to transform your copy from prospect repelling to client attracting. And I would like to offer you a free PDF copy of that book. And you can go to this address, go to yourgiftfromtom.com slash gateway, your gift from Tom.
And you can download a free copy of my book. ⁓ Can I share my website? It’s also show
Sean Jordan (44:44)
Absolutely, we’ll put these up on the screen
as well for those that are watching the video version.
Tom Ruwitch (44:48)
Yeah, a couple of places to go story power marketing.com that has all sorts of stuff around what we’ve been discussing, including signing up for my never boring emails, ⁓ downloading some free resources and things like that. And then the tech headache, curing the tech headache, go to implementum.net and the spell the word implement tack on a U at the end, implementum.net.
and you’ll learn all about the all-in-one tech platform that we built to cure that tech headache.
Sean Jordan (45:21)
Fantastic. Tom, thank you so much for being on. Thank you for the gift of the free book to all of our listeners. I love that. And ⁓ we so enjoyed having you on.
Tom Ruwitch (45:31)
Sean, thank you.
Sean Jordan (45:33)
Wow, mean, just what a fantastic and applicable interview that was. And thank you so much, Tom, for coming on the show and talking about the things that you’re so good at doing and sharing that knowledge with us. I just want to mention this is not sponsored content. know, we are ⁓ doing what we do here every time, which is hearing from experts. But I love that he was able to come on and talk about his own work and what he’s doing in a way that’s so gripping and compelling that you just want to go check it out.
That’s good marketing. And that’s part of what we’re here to do is to hear from each other and learn from each other. So hope you take some great lessons from that. I want to mention one of the things Tom said there towards the end was you can take inspiration from things in your life. recently I was sick and I was laid up in bed and I decided to watch what I call some old man movies. Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, The Bridge Over the River Kwai. I’d never watched them. I wanted to watch them. all really long.
I decided to watch them all in a marathon and I was watching The Bridge Over the River Kwai, which is a fantastic movie and it stars Alec Guinness who plays Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars movies. But Alec Guinness in this is a British officer who has been with his troops put in a Japanese prison camp and they’re going to be forced to work on building a railroad. And there’s this Japanese lieutenant who’s in charge of the camp named Saito who
⁓ He does not understand the British people. He can speak English. He actually says at one point he went to school in London for a little while, but he does not understand the British people and they do not understand him. And a big chunk of the movie is these two guys trying to figure out how to communicate with each other so that they can actually learn how to do something productive because it turns out he’s got to get this railroad built or he’s going to be in a very serious situation where his honor demands that he gets the job done. And these British folks
have their own rules and their own ideas about the way things are supposed to go. And so the two guys have to learn to communicate. Well, guess what? I do a lot of work with health care. And in health care, doctors and people that work with doctors, like administrators or nurses or outside parties or things like that, often struggle to communicate. They have different objectives. They have different ideas of what they’re trying to accomplish. They have different training. They have different backgrounds. And so learning how to bridge that communication by recognizing that they’re coming at it not just with different
languages and ideas and training, but different goals is really valuable insight. And I was able to put that in a newsletter and send that out to some of my clients that are in the healthcare space. So you can find stories in just about anything if you’re willing to look for them. And I think having a framework in my own, like what Tom just talked about is really, really valuable. again, thank you so much, Tom Rewich for being on, please check out all of his information in the show notes. And if you’re watching the video, of course, we put the websites up on the screen as well, but I hope you enjoyed this interview.
We’ll be back for more. And as always, if you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the Marketing Gateway, please go to themarketinggateway.com and sign up to be a guest. We would love to have you. Until then, I’m Sean in St. Louis. This has been the Marketing Gateway and see you next time.
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