I currently live in Brooklyn with my three little boys and husband. What can I say, I’m the unofficial -but official - Queen in my house. I love weird combinations of food (more on that later), going out (MOMS CAN DANCE TOO), and seeing the "A-HA" look on a founder's face when they unleash the story that has been buried in them and their business for way too long.
So I went into Monday night a storytelling company and woke up Tuesday morning a tech company.
I am kidding but Oh My Lord. I saw the best and worst of humanity on Tuesday.
I felt a kinship to the tech bros that I didn’t think possible and a part of me was like “awww it is tough on them” (that lasted for half a second.)
The backstory here.
I released a Free Storytelling Bot for you all but here’s why….
When I decided that 2024 was going to be the year where I become an ONLINE business & do less in-person brand video services, I had to understand this ecosystem (IT’S SCARY y’all 🤣).
Which brings me to LEAD MAGNETS.
This is one of those annoying marketing words you hear about, but up until about 18 months ago I didn’t even know what it was. (although I had partaken in HUNDREDS of them.)
For those of you who were me at one stage, a lead magnet means you give away a free product or service in exchange for an email or some sort of contact information.
Usually lead magnets suck.
✅ They are generic checklists we’ve all seen.
✅ Overly produced Canva workbooks that die in your Google Drive graveyard.
✅ Click bait to just get your email.
I was never into that so I didn’t have a lead magnet strategy.
But it turns out, you do need one when you want to really focus on building your business online and finding more of your ideal customers who need you.
Me to my team in January:
“I need to make a lead magnet, but I want it to be super useful and different.”
Enter Storytelling Bot Sidekick.
The purpose of it was to help you tell better stories and to inspire you to show up more fully as yourself in your content.
And then HOPEFULLY make you want to learn MORE about storytelling and maybe even go to first base with me…or would this technically be considered second:
And if an AI sidekick bot was going to give you a push in the tush to channel your inner storyteller, then so be it.
But this bot didn’t go as planned.
A LOT of you signed up for it. (more than we had anticipated.)
And a lot of you were using it all at once (you crashed it…hi I teach people how to tell better stories not build back end AI robots but here we are.)
But a lot of you are starting to get it. (it’s a bit more upfront work on your end because it’s trained to ask you questions like I would ask you in person and connective storytelling is not a hack.)
…and you’re tagging me in your beautiful stories that you told using this bot😭
Like Erin.
Who posted this heartbreakingly sad but inspiring carousel about the loss of her daughter and the inspiration behind the work she does.
This week has been a wild ride of lessons. (I may have cried… and by “may” I mean HELL YES I CRIED.)
We didn’t make this with “product” in mind but now we are rethinking our strategy.
Maybe this is what you need right now? More than I even realized? A “pocket Patrice”?!
Just like my spring launch didn’t go as planned (a product I thought was going to be gangbusters, like no one bought) and I had to step aside and RETHINK the original plan. I had to pivot.
If you work for yourself you must be open to changing directions.
✅ To pivoting.
✅ To listening.
✅ To being wrong.
To all of you who have used this Storybot and sent me feedback, I cannot thank you enough.
You will never know how happy it makes me to see so many of you showing up in REAL, authentic ways because you feel you have the tools to do that.
Showing up.
For yourself.
Your beliefs.
Your values.
Your truth.
Telling your story & putting yourself out there is one of the bravest things you can do.
It’s hard.
It’s scary.
It’s necessary.