Screenwriter Michael Jamin teaches you how to cast a "voice" for your brand, then how to apply that to your marketing so you're always telling one, cohesive brand story.
Your story is the ultimate way to create an emotional connection with your customers so that they not only become raving fans, they share your story with their friends.
In this episode, professional sitcom writer and showrunner Michael Jamin will teach you how to find your mission statement, create your customer avatar, cast a "voice" for your brand, then how to apply that to your marketing so you're always telling one, cohesive brand story.
You'll hear:
Michael Jamin has been a professional sitcom writer/showrunner for 25 years. His many credits include King of the Hill, Just Shoot Me, Beavis & Butthead, Rules of Engagement, Wilfred, Maron, Brickleberry and many others. By applying his knowledge of storytelling to his wife's clothing line, TwirlyGirl, they grew it into a multi-million dollar company.
Michael's branding videos were so successful on Facebook, that several companies asked him to share his marketing expertise. That's how CardboardRocketships came to be. It's a website that offers instruction on how to tell your brand story.
Kurt Elster: Hello, and welcome back to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast. I’m your host, Kurt Elster, recording from beautiful Skokie, Illinois, high atop Westfield Old Orchard Mall, and today we are going to be talking about how to tell your brand story. Okay, why, though? Why should you care? Why do you care about that? Well, the reason is because what we’ve seen in the last year, over a year, is that Facebook ads keep getting more and more expensive, and the theory is big players like Walmart and Proctor and Gamble are getting into the space, and they don’t think about customer acquisition cost the way the rest of us mere mortals do, and so they’re able to dump a lot more into these ads and drive costs up significantly. That’s not going away.
But, you have something they don’t. You can tell your story. You have a brand story. You can engage with your customers in a personal and one-to-one way that a giant global brand like Proctor and Gamble can never hope to do. So, to help you tell that story, and ideally increase your ROAS in the process, is a previous guest rejoining us, Michael Jamin. He talked to us in December of 2018, an episode in which he told us… started to talk to us about how to tell your brand story. He also easily made me laugh harder than literally any other guest has ever done on this episode with a fabulous joke, so go back and check that one out. I will link to it in the show notes.
But this man’s resume will blow your mind. I can’t do it justice. Michael, thank you for joining us, and tell us, what have you done in the last 25 years? I want the 30-second version. Just compress 25 years into 30 seconds.
Michael Jamin: I’m gonna do that. So, I’m a TV writer by trade. I’ve been working for about 25 years. I guess some of my credits are I did about five years of King of the Hill, Just Shoot Me, Beavis and Butthead, Wilfred, I was the co-showrunner of Maron, Brickleberry… I’m looking at my wall, because I got pictures on my wall. Glenn Martin, Lopez, Tacoma FD, I mean, I got… Rules of Engagement, Out of Practice, so I’m a sitcom writer, but I also own a line of girls’ clothing with my wife, called TwirlyGirl, so I do all the marketing for TwirlyGirl, and that’s how I kind of got into this side of it.
Kurt Elster: So, you’ve got the tremendous experience writing entertaining, compelling, engaging stuff, and your wife has an e-commerce store, and you’ve been able to drive a tremendous number of YouTube views that have largely driven the brand awareness for TwirlyGirl, her shop. Tell me about that.
Michael Jamin: Well, more Facebook views, actually.
Kurt Elster: Facebook views. Tell me about it.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, more Facebook. Yeah, so I started shooting these videos, and you can go on our website, we’ll have links later, and so the videos are obviously… They play, one of them’s got like 10 million views on Facebook, and as you were saying, it’s like Facebook, it’s social media, so you have to be social. If you’re just trying to put products up, you’re gonna have… People aren’t going on Facebook to shop. They’re going on to see cat photos and see what your friend ate for dessert or whatever. So, if you can be social and tell your story, that’s what engages people, and that’s how… That drives down your cost, because all those likes, comments, and shares actually drive down your cost, because Facebook realizes you’re giving content that people want to see. So, that’s what I’ve been specializing in.
Kurt Elster: And what do you think is the… Well, you’ve got this tremendous number of views and success with this. What’s different about the videos you’re producing than the rest of us? Why do you get this tremendous traction?
Michael Jamin: Well, I think it’s very… They’re all very funny. It’s all about… I mean, I’m a sitcom writer, so it’s all about making them funny, and it’s about creating a world so… and I’ll go into this in more detail, but the way I see TwirlyGirl is not as… In our minds, we’re the Willy Wonka of girls’ dresses, so it’s about creating that. We’re not ripping Willy Wonka. My wife’s not wearing a purple hat. There’s no Oompa Loompas or anything like that. But it’s about creating that kind of magical world, where Willy Wonka’s a little crazy, he’s a little… He’s very imaginative. He lives in a magical world, but to him it’s normal, and so that’s kind of what I try to do with all our videos.
We’re not saying… There’s no wonder. When my wife’s the star of it, there’s no wonder about TwirlyGirl. Oh, this is normal. We have floors that open up that have magic doors in them, and we have a rejuvenation helmet, and a time machine, but this is all very normal. This is what we do around here. So, that’s kind of what… That’s the vibe, and people just love it, and so people are… Yeah, they get crazy amount of engagement and shares, and so we do one pretty much every six months, because people have kind of grown to expect it and they want more, so that’s fine. We have fun with it.
Kurt Elster: So, you’re creating these commercials that customers love, and they’re funny, and that drives it. What happens if I’m not funny? I think every guy thinks like, “Yeah, I’m funny.” Most people really aren’t.
Michael Jamin: Well, yeah. If you’re not funny, then don’t do it, because that’ll just lay there like a log. You know, that’s not… But what you can do is tell your own brand story, your own personal story, because everyone has… You know, if you’re in business for yourself, you’ve had obstacles along the way, and you’ve had struggles, and as long as you’re open and honest about sharing that, and it doesn’t have to be in a video. It could be in a post. It could be in an email. It could be just a post on your Facebook page. As long as you share your story, and you’re authentic, then people are gonna root for you.
If you try to be… Like you said in your intro, that’s an advantage that small business owners have over these giant brands, that they’re trying to become… They’re trying to seem more personal. That’s why Progressive hires Flo, and why Nike uses Colin Kaepernick as a spokesperson. They want to put a face to their brand, and they want to put a personality to their brand, but you already have. If you’re a small business owner, you already have your face, and you already have your personality, so now it’s about putting it into your marketing.
Kurt Elster: I think this is-
Michael Jamin: So, I remember… Go ahead?
Kurt Elster: Well, I think you touched on, possibly unintentionally, one of the most common but biggest mistakes I see people make, especially early in their journey, is they attempt to mimic the big brands, and it’s like it’s one person working out of their house, and that is 100% normal and fine. But, and so they’ve got like a stock photo of an operator with a headset, and everything’s like, “Here at Acme Corp, we believe in…” They’re trying to make you think they’re this big brand, when they shouldn’t, and they’re putting themselves at a disadvantage. One, for misrepresenting it, and two, for making themselves look just like those big brands, and then three, for getting rid of their own story.
So, it sounds like you want to embrace it and share that story.
Michael Jamin: I did this with TwirlyGirl in the beginning. I was insecure about having people thinking that we were this tiny little company, and so yeah, I tried to… All our marketing was wrong in the beginning. I was about making us look big until I realized, “What am I doing? The big brands are successful and they’re trying to look small, so why am I trying to reinvent the wheel?”
So, you’re absolutely right, and I’m guilty of it.
Kurt Elster: So, we always hear, “Fake it till you make it.” I think what we’re hearing here is don’t fake it.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Be authentic.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so what’s step one? How do I be authentic?
Michael Jamin: I guess for me, the most important thing I ever did for TwirlyGirl was figuring out what our mission statement was, and it’s very easy to skip this, because it’s a step that… It seems kind of squishy, and so a lot of business owners don’t want to go there, but your mission statement is worth spending several days on, and it’s basically your company’s values. What you stand for, what you hope to achieve, it’s forward-thinking, and it’s idealistic, and it’s two to three sentences that should incorporate your unique value proposition, what your company does, why it does it, and what you can offer that your competition can’t.
And so, I recommend writing it down, bounce it off your coworkers, find a writer who can help you craft it. Remove extraneous thoughts and words. And so, when I did this for TwirlyGirl, and it was a process that took a week or so, and here’s ours in two or three sentences, and hopefully it’ll inspire your listeners to craft their own.
So, by the way, so TwirlyGirl makes… We make high-quality reversible dresses for girls. We make them here in America, so it’s about creating a really nice dress, so here’s ours: “We believe every woman remembers her favorite childhood dress. She loved how it felt and how it made her feel. At TwirlyGirl, we create dresses that girls will remember forever.” So, when you read this over and over again, you realize, so we’re not selling dresses. We’re selling happy childhood memories.
So, this is where being a screenwriter kind of really helped me with my business, because I’m about… As a screenwriter, I create a world, and I create characters and voices, and so that’s the same kind of thing when you have a brand. You’re just creating, you’re honing in on what your voice is, and what you’re really selling. So, I know you’re big on cars, so like Goodyear, they don’t sell tires. What do they sell?
Kurt Elster: Peace of mind. Confidence.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, and safety. Right?
Kurt Elster: Safety.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Protecting your kids when the roads are wet. So, if you watch their commercials, that’s what it is. There’s always like a mom and a dad in the front seat, and two kids in the back, and they’re playing their video games, and then there’s all… You know, a tree will fall over, and he’ll slam the brakes on and then stop in time. I mean, so they’re selling safety.
So, it’s the same thing for whatever your tiny brand is. You gotta figure out what it is you’re selling, and this is something I got from being a screenwriter, as well. You know, when you tell a story, you have a plot, but then you also have a deeper story, like what’s it about and what’s it really about? You know? And so, you’re always digging deeper about what you’re really trying to sell, so it’s emotional. That’s where your mission statement is super important.
And then once you have your mission statement, it’ll dictate all your business opportunities. So, for us it’s like creating a happy childhood memory, so if I’m faced with an opportunity about getting in a larger store, and it’s gonna hurt the quality of my dresses, I think, “Well, is this gonna make my dresses more memorable or less memorable?” And if it’s less memorable, now it’s easy to pass on that business opportunity, because it’s not within our core values.
And it’s the same thing with my employees, so if they’re on the phone with a customer, and rather than bother me by saying, “Hey, should I do this or that?” Read the mission statement. If your decision is consistent with our mission statement, you can make the decision on your own. And so, it empowers them, and then once you have this mission statement about… For example, ours is about selling happy childhood memories, now it’s about figuring out how to put it in all your marketing. You’re telling one story, but you’re telling it over and over again. So, there’s a theory about when you have a… It takes someone like seven times of seeing something before it truly resonates, so if there’s a new movie out, they have to see the poster once, they have to hear a friend talk about it once, they have to see a TV commercial, and after seven times, they say to themselves, “Oh yeah, yeah, I gotta go see this movie.” So, it’s the same thing with your branding. You have to figure out a way to tell your story. In our case, it’s happy childhood memories. How to put it all over your website, your emails, your marketing, your videos, so that you’re telling one story in different ways so that it finally resonates with people and they go, “Oh, yeah, yeah, happy childhood memories.”
And we see that in the comments on our Facebook page. “Oh yeah, I’m so happy to get my daughter this happy childhood memory.” So, they’re parroting it back to me, because it’s finally resonating after hearing it so many times.
Kurt Elster: So, our goal is to ultimately, with the mission statement, once we commit to it, we develop it, and then we apply it, our goal here is to find, write, and share our brand story. And it starts with we’ve got really a mission statement, we can then boil that down to a positioning statement. We got one sentence that tells us what we’re doing and why. We can shorten that to a tagline. We’ve got three to five words that tells what we do and why. I always use the phrase positioning statement, like a short, a one or two-sentence version of a mission statement, and I tell people, “Look, you gotta figure that out first.”
And it can evolve over time. It will be way harder to write than you ever imagined, but that will become the cornerstone of all your marketing. And to your point, once you know that one simple thing, that took days, weeks, or like months of revising over and over to get right, that then guides everything else you do, because it creates a frame, a mental framework in which you know what does and doesn’t fit the brand. And that makes everything so much more cohesive.
Michael Jamin: But you hit on something, as well. You’re right. You have to deliver on that promise. You can’t just say it, and then not show it or do it. You have to deliver. So, if you’re… Well, for example, in children’s apparel, which I know a lot about, a lot of brands will talk about, “Oh, we’re all about empowering kids to be super creative.” But then you look at their marketing, or their website, and it’s so boring, and flat, and so you’re like, “You’re telling me you’re selling creativity, but you’re not. You’re not showing me.”
So, I was actually on a call yesterday with someone I was consulting, and we’re on a big, a huge brand, that sells beachy apparel, and we went through the about us page, and they were talking about basically the lifestyle they’re trying to sell, and how it’s about relaxing, and getting away, and fantasy, but none of that was reflected anywhere else on their website, or in any of their marketing, so it was just… And the guy I was talking to was like, “Yeah, it just feels like BS, because these are just words.” Right. You can’t just have words. You have to actually put it into your branding, or else it’s nothing. It’s meaningless.
Kurt Elster: So, give me the example. I need an example of this done right, a brand that really nails this, and an example of this concept falling on its face. Can we illustrate it?
Michael Jamin: Well, yeah, so here’s some… I pulled some really good mission statements that I found on the web. I don’t know if they’re still valid or not, but I think they are, so here’s Patagonia. They make the activewear for people who like to hike and climb mountains and stuff. And so, theirs is, “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” And as far as I know, Patagonia does exactly that. They’re always giving money back to environmental causes. If you have a jacket that’s 30 years old and is in tatters now, they’ll take it back and give you a new one, because they don’t want it winding up in a landfill. They’ll fix it.
I mean, they go… It really is about making responsible, just a responsible product, and they totally back it up, so I believe that’s accurate.
Here’s another mission statement I thought was really interesting. It’s Uber, and theirs is, “We ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion.” And so, when you hear that, we ignite opportunity, like who are they marketing to?
Kurt Elster: The drivers.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. The drivers. Right. They’re not marketing to the people like me and you, who use Uber. So, that’s their business. We need to find drivers. Here’s their opportunity. So, that’s their business. You know, I just love that.
Kurt Elster: And that was what they got sued in California over the fact that the drivers are contractors and not employees, and one of their arguments in the court case… I don’t recall what happened with that. I think they lost, but-
Michael Jamin: They lost. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: They did?
Michael Jamin: I think so.
Kurt Elster: One of their arguments was the drivers are the customers, so how can they be employees?
Michael Jamin: Oh, that’s so interesting. And I was surprised they lost that, too, because you’re a driver and you can set your own hours. It sounds like you are a contractor. But I don’t know. California’s a very labor-friendly state.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Yeah. It probably wouldn’t have worked in New York, but California, it worked.
Michael Jamin: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Anyway, all right, back on track.
Michael Jamin: Here’s another one from Whole Foods. So, “Quality is a state of mind at Whole Foods. At Whole Foods, if you want to know where the ketchup…” Sorry, I skipped it. So, “Quality’s a state of mind at Whole Foods.” And to me, when you go to Whole Foods, I don’t know if you’ve ever, if you shop it where you are. If you want to know where the ketchup is or whatever, and you ask someone who’s working there, they don’t point. They don’t say, “Aisle 10.” They take you there. They walk you to there.
And it was funny, because I went to a lower-end grocery store a couple weeks ago, and I had another question. The guy goes, “Yeah, go that way.” Wow. The experience is so different. It’s just… You know, that’s why you pay more at Whole Foods, because they will walk you and pick up, and take the ketchup off the wall for you.
And then like you’re saying, it’s important not to confuse your mission statement with your tagline, because your tagline is just kind of a shorter, catchier, maybe rhymier phrase that’s consistent with your mission statement, but it’s not the same thing. What else was I gonna say about that? Oh, I also think it’s important when you craft it that you don’t be generic. Don’t say, “We’re about providing the best quality at the lowest prices.” I mean, first of all, everyone’s about that. What business is about providing the lowest quality at the highest prices? No one’s gonna say that.
So, don’t give something that’s generic, that speaks to every brand, that you could be selling hammers for that mission statement. Have it specific. Have it talk exactly to what you sell. And it’s okay if you feel like you’re not talking to every… if you’re going to exclude some people. Because I find when you have a product, you have to know who you’re marketing to. You have to make a customer avatar, exactly who you… The age of your client or customer, where they live, what their income is, what their favorite song is. You want to build that character, and it’s okay if you feel like you’re excluding some people, because for a brand to succeed, you have to talk to someone. If you don’t talk to anyone, then you’re talking to no one. If you’re not specific, you’re talking to no one.
So, I’d rather rule some people out than not have anybody.
Kurt Elster: Active disqualification I think it was what they call that, and I do this.
Michael Jamin: Oh, that’s a good word.
Kurt Elster: If you look on… There’s like a sales letter I use on our homepage and a couple other places, like a Shopify experts thing, and I flat out say, “We may be a good fit if,” and then it’s like five qualifying statements with active disqualification, and because I’m a consultant, you gotta work one-on-one with me, one of them is literally we like each other.
Michael Jamin: Interesting.
Kurt Elster: We have to get along on a personal level is one of them, but I say like your brand is or will be on Shopify. I’m actively disqualifying everyone who isn’t on Shopify with that statement.
Michael Jamin: And why do you do that? So, what happens to BigCommerce people?
Kurt Elster: They have to go away. By having this, by knowing who I do my best work with, that’s what I’m putting out there. I’ve always, over the last 10 years, have just been slowly evolving. This is where we do our best work. And it went from the web in general, to e-commerce, to Shopify, to people like myself that are bootstrappers. We want those… I want those sole proprietors. I want those smaller brands that have a great story to tell, or like direct-to-consumer brands. But I don’t want… It’s like big, international conglomerate who also has a brand. Yeah, we’ll work with them, and we could cash the check, but I’m never going to do as good of a job in my head as if it was working with a small sole proprietor. I want to work with entrepreneurs.
Michael Jamin: I think that’s perfect what you… Yeah. You’re the living example of that, so you’re not… You’re ruling some people out, but your market that you serve is plenty big, and you’re just narrowing it down, and you’re doing great, because you’re not trying to be everything to everyone. If you try to be everything to everyone, you’re gonna fail.
Kurt Elster: Yes. It’s niching down. It’s having that laser focus. All right, so I get the importance and the practicality of a mission statement. How do I do it? How do I write a mission statement?
Michael Jamin: Well-
Kurt Elster: This is hard. Way harder than you think.
Michael Jamin: No, it’s totally hard, but it’s like, so like I said, it’s forward thinking. It’s what your values are. And try to think about what you’re really selling. That’s super important to put in your mission statement, so like I said, if you’re selling tires, you’re selling safety. Try to really think about that, and then add that one extra thought that separates you from all your competition, and then that’s your mission statement.
Kurt Elster: You want-
Michael Jamin: And then you can-
Kurt Elster: You want mine?
Michael Jamin: Yeah, what is it? Yeah.
Kurt Elster: All right, so I do two sentences. One is just identify the outcome that you provide to who, so I say, “I help Shopify merchants uncover hidden profits in their store.” So, this is a clever way of rolling up strategy, business strategy, to conversion rate optimization and marketing. Everything we do into one simple sentence. And then the second sentence is our competitive advantage. I say, “Unlike other consultants, we’re solely concerned with return on investment.” I don’t want to do work if it isn’t going to generate more value than I’m taking.
Michael Jamin: What I also like about your statement there is your sentence about finding hidden profits, because that says to me that you’re not about changing people’s business and starting from scratch. You’re not about tearing it down. You’re saying, “It’s already there, I’m just helping you find it.”
Kurt Elster: Yes. It’s a process of evolution.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, so I think… Yeah, that’s a great mission statement.
Kurt Elster: But here’s the thing. I didn’t start with this mission statement. This is a thing that took years to come to. They’re so hard to write.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. But as you build your business, then it kind of comes to you, right?
Kurt Elster: Yes.
Michael Jamin: You know, the same thing with TwirlyGirl, like I didn’t realize it was happy childhood memories until we started selling and talking to the customers, and they would say, “Oh, yeah, I remember my old, my favorite dress.” These were grandmas saying that and you’re like, “Oh, okay, maybe that’s what I’m selling. Memories.” Yeah. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: So, how do… Is there a book I could read? Is there a guide? A resource? How do I do it? It’s so hard!
Michael Jamin: Well, I do have a… After getting all these people contacting me, I built a website where I have a course, where I kind of walk you through a lot of these steps, and that’s called… That’s at cardboardrocketships.com, and that was inspired by… Basically, we built, for TwirlyGirl, we built a cardboard rocketship, put it in our ads, and then our sales went to the moon, because we were just having fun, and being authentic, and telling our story. So, you can go there, and I have a course, and you can sign up for that, and yeah, I have other offerings as well.
For people who a little more handholding, I have coaching. But it’s really about how to tell your story, how to get your story out and tell it, and put it in everywhere. So even, like for example, you have to take your branding and put it everywhere, so even on my email template, my email signature block, when I write a customer back or whatever, my title… I could say, “Michael Jamin, owner.” I could say, “Michael Jamin, President. CEO.” But, like who’s that impressing? No one’s impressed by that.
So, my title is Director of Granting Wishes. Okay, and because if you have a problem, great. I always say, “Wish granted. Done. I’ll fix it.” And people remember that. People come, “Oh my God, you’re the director of granting wishes.” So, that’s just an example of applying your branding everywhere, so you should put on your hang tags, your packaging, your marketing, your emails, everywhere. It has to be everywhere. I’m constantly talking to people in the voice, basically, of Willy Wonka. So, that’s just an example of where to put it.
Yeah, and I go into all this on Cardboard Rocketships. You can learn a little more about how I do it and how you can do it yourself.
Kurt Elster: All right, Dr. Wonka. Let’s say I’ve got… I assume he has a PhD. He’s very successful. Well, once I’ve got the mission statement, and file away in the back of your head, a mission statement is a work in progress. Now, I heard you say, “We didn’t figure out that we were creating childhood memories until we talked to our customers.” Oh, okay. I’m assuming step two here is talk to your customers.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, but also… I mean, sometimes it was talking to them on Facebook. You know, they just leave a comment. Sometimes it’s on the phone. Sometimes it’s on one of my ads. So, yeah, don’t ignore. I don’t ignore anybody on Facebook. If you have a comment, I write back.
Kurt Elster: What about people who are shitty?
Michael Jamin: Yeah. They’re out there. Grandma, most of my customers are grandma, and grandma can be just as mean as anybody else on Facebook, so I encourage people, as well. I have a block, several paragraphs explaining… Because some people think, “Your prices are crazy!” And you know, when you’re made in America, your label costs are higher, and the dresses are more expensive, because they require a lot of labor and fabric, and so I have a whole block that I wrote down, and then I just cut and paste, and explaining why it costs what it was, and thank you for reading it, and I don’t expect you to change your mind, but it’s for anybody else who’s reading this comment, maybe it’ll change their mind.
Kurt Elster: Clever.
Michael Jamin: And so, I hate those people, but I’m not… When I put these comments, I’m not talking to them. I’m talking to the other person who’s reading it. Because they might be nice.
Kurt Elster: That’s smart.
Michael Jamin: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: I like that. I’ve just been blocking people. Liberally.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Well, I’m sure… Yeah. There’s haters out there, you know? Yeah. But you gotta just have that paragraph that you cut and paste.
Kurt Elster: I have a few, like those objection busters. Okay. I like that idea. That’s a good, quick tactic. How does this… So, I talk to my customers, and when we say talk to, this could be any number of ways, like it could be a post-purchase survey, that’s my favorite. The post-purchase survey. But there’s also like just read through your own reviews. Oftentimes, I’ll go through, if I’ve got a client who sells on Amazon, I love that. I go read through all the reviews. I get tremendous info and insight over why people are buying, what they’re getting out of it, how they see themselves.
How do I turn talking to customers through these channels into a customer avatar?
Michael Jamin: Yeah, so that also… In the beginning, I was wrong about that, as well. I assumed we were selling to moms, because moms buy daughter… You know, clothes for their kids. But it turned out, after just getting a lot of orders, and talking to people on the phone, and Facebook, I realized it was a lot of grandmothers, so that changed my avatar. So, now I aged up my average customer by several years. And then when you talk to them, what I do, because like I said, I think people latch on to the kind of marketing I do, because I’m not in sales, I don’t have a background in advertising, and it’s as a screenwriter. So, it’s everything comes from that point of view.
So, to me, it was about casting who I wanted the spokesperson of our company to be, and that could be anyone living, dead, or fictional. I just picked out… And so, like I said, for us, it was Willy Wonka. And so, we don’t literally… I don’t parody Willy Wonka. We don’t have any… No one’s wearing a hat. There are no Oompa Loompas. I mean, I’m not stealing or anything. I’m just drawing inspiration from that one character, and that character’s the voice of the brand. And so, it’s a little crazy, it’s a little off, and it’s a little… How come you don’t see the magic? That kind of thing.
Kurt Elster: I like that.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, and so I would encourage anybody, for whoever their brand is, find out, well, who do you want your… If you could have anybody, who would that spokesperson be? And like I said, you’re not stealing, you’re not using their image or likeness, you’re just drawing inspiration from the way they talk, the language they use, and you know, how they see the world.
Kurt Elster: Can you… Do you have any… Well, because you do this as part of consulting.
Michael Jamin: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Do you have any examples? Willy Wonka’s very, that’s a very good one, and I like the illustration of like… Well, it’s not Willy Wonka himself. It’s these traits about that character.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Right. I think another one is for another brand I’m working with, they have a kind of a laid back vibe, so I’m like, “Well, dude, it’s Matthew McConaughey. That’s your spokesperson.” Because he’s kind of got that laid back vibe, but you gotta nail on well, which Matthew McConaughey is it? Is it Dude, Where’s My Car? Or is it the one from Interstellar? Because they’re different. But once you nail down, okay, you can get closer, then you watch that movie, or whatever, the show, or whatever it was, and you go, “Okay, how does this guy talk? What are the words he uses? What are the rhythms in his speech?” And then you go, “Okay, Matthew McConaughey, you’re hired.”
But like I said, I’m not using, you’re not using his image, or likeness, you’re just drawing inspiration from it.
Kurt Elster: You know who mine is?
Michael Jamin: Who?
Kurt Elster: Jon Taffer from Bar Rescue.
Michael Jamin: I don’t… Who is that? I don’t know that. What’s that reference? I’m older than you.
Kurt Elster: Well, Bar Rescue is on… It was a Spike TV reality show that was very much not reality, but it was a restaurant, a bar owner consultant, business manager, would show up to your flailing bar, and they would like overnight remake it into a potentially successful bar concept.
Michael Jamin: And so, how do you incorporate his voice into your brand.
Kurt Elster: When we were writing this book, E-Commerce Bootcamp, that was like what helped get this business going, helped get the career started, was we put in a ton of advice into this, and it came out of a blog post and newsletter that was… really resonated people, had more success than anything else we’d done, in which we talked about these are the lessons we learned watching Bar Rescue. My business partner wrote this. This is what we learned watching Bar Rescue, and how those concepts apply to your site.
And then we started… That kept evolving into we essentially wrote E-commerce Bootcamp as if Jon Taffer had to come in and kick your ass about your Shopify store, this is what it would look like.
Michael Jamin: And that’s perfect. I love that. It’s perfect. That’s a great example. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, so you walk the walk.
Kurt Elster: I did not realize it, but yeah, I’ve been following the Michael Jamin rules of success for many years now.
Michael Jamin: Good. Right.
Kurt Elster: That’s how you create the spokesperson for yourself. So, for you, the customer avatar, for TwirlyGirl, is you’re picturing that grandma.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And then for you, the voice, you’re doing an impression of this Willy Wonka type talking to that grandmother. So, you’ve got like this one-on-one convo in your head going.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, and if you go to our website, you go to TwirlyGirl shop, or if you go to Cardboard Rocketships, you’ll see the videos that I have, that we’ve made, where you say, “Oh, yeah, yeah.” And actually, someone even posted the other day just like, “You’re the Willy Wonka of girls’ dresses.” I was like, “All right, you got it.”
But yeah, you’ll definitely get that when you go to our site. You know, so even on our order confirmation page, we have… It’s not like, “Hey, here’s your order.” It’s about, “We just threw a party for your dress. It was a going away party. We cried. We had cake. Anyways, it’s on their way.” You know, so it’s like that’s how I talk to the customer, is about… And no one’s like… People enjoy it. They’re not thinking this guy’s out of… that I’m crazy.
I think the people who send standard form letter emails, like you’re just missing an opportunity to connect with your customer in a way that’s deeper than just, “Hey, here comes the junk you ordered.”
Kurt Elster: So, all of these are opportunities to create that brand connection, make it very personalized.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Right.
Kurt Elster: You’re looking for every one of those touch points, and then you’re like, “All right, how do I plus it?”
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Exactly.
Kurt Elster: Okay.
Michael Jamin: And that goes on the wrapping and everything. Even on the return labels. Everywhere. It goes everywhere.
Kurt Elster: All right, so I got my step one, let’s recap here, is create my mission statement, my work in progress that number one, defines what the benefit… It’s not like I sell widgets. What do the widgets do for someone? How do they make their life better?
Michael Jamin: Exactly.
Kurt Elster: It’s that childhood memory, or it’s creating freedom, a lifestyle of entrepreneurial freedom for me. It’s like what’s that end outcome? Who is that target market? In your case, it’s grandmothers, right?
Michael Jamin: Right, and like I said, we do sell to moms, but it’s okay. I’m speaking to grandmas. It’s okay, moms will also… They’ll jump in.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, it’ll work, too. My wife does this, too. Her goal is… She’s putting on her mom hat, she’s writing as a mom, and she’s writing for mom. She’s like, “My audience is moms.” She runs this Disney planning website, and there’s a whole community of Disney psychos on the internet, and she’s like, “I don’t care one iota about them. None. Because that’s not my audience. I don’t want to impress the fanatics. I want the moms who just want to have an amazing vacation with their kids. They want to have great family vacations.” That’s who she’s talking to.
Michael Jamin: Right.
Kurt Elster: You’re right, like she could very easily produce all kinds of content, and go in all kinds of wrong directions, but having that clear customer avatar, you picture that one person. That’s what helps you really nail this down. All right, so I’ve got, that’s step two.
Now, step three, you need to mentally… You mentally cast this spokesperson to be the brand voice.
Michael Jamin: Right.
Kurt Elster: And that’s, we got Mr. Wonka, and it’s these like traits about them, and you develop that over time, but it is so helpful to start with that one voice. Now, all right, so these are the tools in my toolbox. Now, how does this actually get applied to everything? You mentioned like look for all of these touch points. Walt Disney would say plus it. How do you plus it? How do you make it more than it is? And so, you’d say, “Well, we don’t just want to send an order confirmation. It’s this whole crazy going away party letter.” That’s brilliant. How else? How do I apply all this to my branding?
Michael Jamin: It should be even on the key to the men’s room, if you have a store or whatever. You should have… You should be speaking to whoever is near you in that voice, so yeah, it could go there. The way you answer your phone. Your title, like I was saying. It needs to be in your… If you have product descriptions on your website, why are you just putting boring, bland stuff? Talk to them in a different way.
A great example is a website, J. Peterman, and they were made famous kind of from Seinfeld.
Kurt Elster: Oh, J. Peterman.
Michael Jamin: Right?
Kurt Elster: Brilliant product descriptions.
Michael Jamin: Right? I mean, you know those guys from Seinfeld. Yeah. Go to their website and just see how they do it, and it’s all nonsense. “This is the jacket you’ll be wearing when you’re hunting tigers in the safari.” You know, it’s like no one’s hunting tigers, but they talk to you in that way, and it’s engaging, and you go, “Oh, okay. I like the guy who’s talking to me.”
Kurt Elster: Yeah, I used to use J. Peterman a lot as inspiration for product descriptions. Because it’s so off the wall.
Michael Jamin: Right. So, I do the same thing as well for TwirlyGirl. Every story. Every dress has an origin story, how the dress came to be. It’s all nonsense, but people read it, and they laugh, and they like it. And then they’ll go check out other products just to read the stories, and that’s also good for my SEO, because they’re on the site longer, and they’re checking out other products, and maybe they’re buying stuff that they wouldn’t even have thought of, just to read the story that goes with it.
And then I include those stories. We have little cards. They don’t cost much to print up. Almost like baseball-sized cards, and it comes with the dress, so now you got the dress and you got the backstory that goes with that dress, and that’s part of the memory. That’s part of just… You know, how it comes to you.
Kurt Elster: You know, the other thing you could do is in Klaviyo, you set up… I don’t know what you use for email marketing. I like Klaviyo.
Michael Jamin: Yeah, Klaviyo.
Kurt Elster: You do a post-purchase sequence, where they bought the item, and then in between the time that they ordered it and the time they receive it, you send them an email, or you can send them like care instructions, you know, like the typical stuff to make it better. Hey, if it doesn’t fit, don’t worry. Here’s what you do. You preempt all that.
But you tell them this story of how it came to be. And a great example of this is Jake Starr from Recycled Firefighter, who takes old… buys decommissioned fire hose and turns it into stuff, chiefly like wallets. And so, he’ll send you… Before you get the item, you’ll get an email from him in which he tells you the story about how he came up with the idea, what goes into the construction, et cetera, so you know that whole thing. That’s in your head. Really ups the value of what’s an inexpensive product, and then one someone asks, “Oh, that’s a cool wallet.” You go, “Oh yeah, let me tell you about it.” That’s now in your head.
Michael Jamin: That’s great. Yeah, and it builds anticipation for the product. But yeah, it’s exactly right. It’s so much better than just saying, “Hey, your order’s on the way.”
Kurt Elster: You want to do everything you can to not be a vending machine. Like if you are just, you take the order, you fulfill the order, take the order, fulfill the order. You’re a vending machine. And there’s really no reason for me to purchase from you over Amazon, or Walmart, or whoever else, versus if I’ve got this story and this personal connection that all started with the mission statement. That’s what’s gonna keep people coming back and drive that return customer rate up.
Michael Jamin: You know, I agree 100%. There’s a quote from Seth Godin, he’s this marketing guy, and he says the reason it seems prices is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about. And so-
Kurt Elster: That’s very good.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. That’s great. So, if you give them a story, or you give them something personal, then you don’t have to compete on price. If all you’re doing is competing… And if you compete on price, then that’s a race to the bottom, and you don’t want to win that race, and your competitor… There’s always gonna be someone who’s gonna figure out how to sell it cheaper than you. And why would you want to do that? Why would you want to discount your products, or lower the prices? You want to keep them as high as you can, because you’re in business to make money.
So, give them something else other than price.
Kurt Elster: So, the outcome of this episode is you will write your story, you will apply that story to all of your touch points, and then you won’t have to compete on price.
Michael Jamin: Right. Hopefully. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: I love it.
Michael Jamin: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: I think that might be the title now. How to use your story to not compete on price or stop competing on price. I’ll tweak it, but I think that’s cool.
Michael Jamin: Right.
Kurt Elster: Okay, what else? Well, okay, here’s one takeaway. The things you said, like hey, this needs to go into your hang tags. It should go on your bathroom. It goes on everything that people interact with. To do that, you need to ignore the competition and not feel like, “Well, I can’t do that, because it’s not expected.” I think it is your business, and you should do whatever the heck you want with it. That’s one of my takeaways here.
Michael Jamin: I think hopefully another one, I think I touched on this, was that you want to tell one story. And a lot of people think, “Well, I have so many interesting stories about my brand, and there’s so much I want to say.” Well, figure out just one. Just do one at a time. Figure out one, the one that you think is the most emotional, and it’s gonna resonate most with your customers, and just tell that one over and over again.
And so, like I said, for us it’s happy childhood memories. There’s other aspects about our brand that we’re proud about, but that’s the one I hammer home over and over again. So, pick one and stick with it, and try to put it everywhere. And another thing is I think people often mistake branding with just like the colors of your logo, and all that stuff, right? That’s important stuff, like whatever, red means angry or whatever, but I don’t know, that’s all subtle to me. I think branding really should be about getting your story, telling your story.
Kurt Elster: Absolutely. Okay.
Michael Jamin: You could spend a lot of time on a logo, and just put it up there already.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, that’s-
Michael Jamin: Pull the trigger.
Kurt Elster: The things that feel important when you start, like the logo and the colors, really are like so much less important than the copywriting, than the story, than the positioning statement, mission statement.
Michael Jamin: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: All right. If I want to learn more about this, I want to learn more about Michael Jamin, where do I go?
Michael Jamin: So, yeah, that’s cardboardrocketships.com, and then you may want to go just to check out… There’s a page on creative, and you can see all the kind of commercials we make, and I think that’s fun, and hopefully be inspiring, and then there’s another page about the course, where you can learn exactly how to tell your brand story, how to tell a story in a compelling way, and from the point of view of a screenwriter. A working screenwriter.
And so, I think that course is very helpful, as well, to people.
Kurt Elster: And I have included all of that in the show notes. Michael, this has been fantastic.
Michael Jamin: Thank you. Thank you. I enjoyed it. I learned about you. I learned about you in this, too.
Kurt Elster: Well, I try to share a little. And we’re friends on Facebook. I always enjoy. I always look out for your Facebook posts, because you live what you preach. It’s clear, even in your Facebook updates to friends, like you turn it into storytelling. It’s a lot of fun.
Michael Jamin: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I realize… Well, I should be giving more of that stuff away, just kind of tell a fun story for somebody.
Kurt Elster: Okay. We’ll wrap it up there. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
Michael Jamin: Thank you, Kurt. Pleasure. Yeah.