The Storytellers Network

My guest in this episode, Rand Fishkin, is the founder of SparkToro and was previously cofounder of Moz and Inbound.org. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through the Whiteboard Friday video series (which is why I asked Rand to join us), his blog, and his book, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you feed him great pasta or great whisky, he’ll give you the cheat code to rank #1 on Google.

Rand is full of insights for storytellers and start-up founders. One great tip: Be purposeful where you put your story.

"We always strove to put the content first on our own website where we could own and control the user experience. then we would stagger the distribution to social media. Own your home. Don't build your house on rented land, which is really what you're doing on YouTube or Facebook." - Rand Fishkin on content placement

In this episode, we hear from video marketing expert Rick Cesari. Rick has actually helped major brands like GoPro and George Foreman build billion dollar brands through Brand Response advertising and strategic video marketing. His book Building Billion Dollar Brands aims to put valuable knowledge of the big brands into the hands of inventors, small business owners, entrepreneurs, Amazon sellers and others to help create innovative, successful marketing campaigns. A bestselling author – Buy Now and now Building Billion Dollar Brands, speaker, consultant, and marketing & brand strategy guru, Rick is bringing his expertise to us today to talk branding, marketing and storytelling with video.

In this episode, we hear from a storyteller I’ve had the opportunity to personally work with over the years. From the newsroom to the marketing department, Bill Krupka and I have collaborated a FEW times. Bill spent 22 years at a CBS affiliate in a top 40 TV market as a photojournalist. He’s interviewed heads of state. He’s covered – and told the stories – of tragedy, triumph and everything in between. Then he came to work with me in marketing, helping hopeful home buyers navigate their experience.

Today, Bill becomes the subject, a title he’s not always willing to put on, in order to share with The Storytellers Network his storytelling craft, his experiences and tips… in other words, HIS story.

As the CEO & Co-Founder at a Boston start-up called “WePlayed,” Rob Ciampa has a vested interest in telling a great story. Using his skills, Rob convinces financial supporters, early team members and others to believe in the mission of a untested company. Where did his chops come from? Experience.

Rob has been VP of sales and then CMO of a video marketing company called Pixability – which is where we crossed paths and I got know him – as well as an advisor to a group of media, advertising and marketing technology companies. He's also co-author of YouTube Channels for Dummies. Rob definitely believes in the power of story – especially video.

"It was the 50th anniversary of the peace sign. We had everyone dressed up in 60's garb [at the conference]. We had our support staff in tye-dyes but we hired actors to come in, in various garb. We broke the rules and had live 60's music. All of a sudden everyone is coming to the booth... telling their stories of the 1960s... and we had an 8,000% improvement year over year for that show." - Rob Ciampa on the power of story

Villy Wang had a crazy dream: to create a new kind of social enterprise that helps kids who, like her, grew up in the projects. Raised by an immigrant single mother in New York City, Villy’s desire to tell her story forged a passion for using the digital media arts to capture stories untold and to create social change. That’s why she founded BAYCAT, leveraging her impressive 25-year background in education, arts programming, nonprofit business and law.

Villy received her double B.A. in Engineering and Economics from Brown University, J.D. degree from Northwestern University, and her teaching credential from San Francisco State University. Villy filmed and produced a short entitled, “Unplugged,” that was featured in the 2005 Marin Environmental Film Festival. She is also fluent in Mandarin.

This social entrepreneur believes deeply in the power of story, especially video, to help connect people.

"You want to be like everybody else because there's this sense of belonging that every single person wants. There's something about the lack of story that makes someone feel invisible. Every person's story matters." - Villy Wang on the importance of stories

Kevin Romeo leads a team of video storytellers at Rhino Media - a video storytelling company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This team of storytellers has done some amazing work. Kevin shares with The Storytellers Network his personal storytelling craft, how he manages creatives, collaboration, the evolution of video storytelling and so much more. In other words, Kevin shares HIS story.

Kevin even shares who his favorite storyteller is, and why.

Using video for a form of "edutainment," George B. Thomas helps other learn a complicated marketing and sales software, a new strategy and a fresh way of driving business growth. A recovering youth pastor and former pub bouncer, George has always helped people...it’s just been at different points of their journey.

Now George is an inbound evangelist and creates training videos for HubSpot users. But they're so much more than standard training videos... You have to see it to believe it. He’s a branding guru, a video marketing ninja, an inbound marketing Jedi (yes he’s a total nerd and that’s awesome) and a HubSpot accredited trainer. The energy he brings is infectious and the knowledge he drops is inspiring. And he doesn’t need coffee to do it all — but it does help.

You are absolutely more powerful, more smart, more anything that you think that you're not. You have the potential to be great. You just need to find 'that thing.' You need to find that passion. You need to find that consistency. The most important part of this, you need to find that belief in yourself." - George B. Thomas on motivation

He's an award winning digital media content producer, director and editor. He's also a huge supporter of the podcast community. Meet Niel Guilarte. The filmmaker specializes in high end media creation and post production. He also works with entrepreneurs and creatives and developing and bringing their visions to life, so he's also a collaborator and a coach.

The documentary he directed, The Messengers: A Podcast Documentary, is on iTunes and Amazon. That's where Niel first crossed my storytellers radar. He's also host of the All Things Post podcast and a founding member of the Florida Podcasters Association.

Niel is also a core organizer and promoter of Podfest Multimedia Expo, the second largest podcast conference for beginners and Indie podcasters in the country.

In this bonus episode and final finale, we take a detour from the “podcasts” season and hear from a writer, a speaker, a content creator… and an “igniter” with Simon Sinek’s organization. He’s a co-writer with Simon, a coach, a speaker and an evangelist of the “Start with Why” movement. After years of developing content to help Simon share his ideas, David Mead began speaking and facilitating workshops in 2012 to help shift people's perceptions about leadership and culture.

Today, David shares with The Storytellers Network his storytelling craft, his successes and stumbles, his take on story in our world today, and more.

"The thing that I love most about about stories is it gets us to feel something. That's really where connection is made, where trust is built and where the foundation of 'relationship' is. - David Mead on the power of story

In this Season 2 bonus episode, we hear from a critically-acclaimed podcast host who dives deep into the untapped wisdom of the world's top performers -- from intelligence operatives to legendary musicians, iconoclastic writers to visionary changemakers. Jordan Harbinger brings his experience and passion for story to the show to inspire and teach.

The world of podcasts and the availability of technology have crossed paths for Jordan, like many others, allowing him to make a living on the shoulders of podcasting.