At the beginning of a new year, we tend to do the same thing. We set goals. We make plans. We talk about growth, improvement, and momentum.

But before any of that matters, there is a more important place to start. It starts with mindset.

That idea came into sharp focus during a recent conversation on the Rock Solid Round Rock podcast with Felicia Reed. She is known as a portrait photographer, but what she really works with is identity. She helps people see themselves clearly, often for the first time in years.

And that matters far more than most of us realize.

I have spent decades helping businesses improve performance by changing how they communicate. Over and over again, I have seen the same truth show up in different forms. The stories we tell ourselves shape the results we get. The words we use become the lens through which we see our value.

You Are Not Your Numbers

We live in a world that measures everything. Revenue. Conversion rates. Followers. Engagement. Growth curves.

Those numbers are useful, but they are not a measure of worth.

Felicia talked about how many women walk into her studio already apologizing for themselves. They talk about age, weight, scars, illness, or time that has passed. What they are really revealing are the beliefs they have been carrying.

Those beliefs did not start in the studio. They started years earlier, reinforced by language they repeated without questioning it.

When someone believes they are falling short, they show up smaller. They price themselves lower. They hesitate. They second guess. That pattern shows up in business just as much as it does in life.

You are not your revenue. You are not your role. You are not the last result you produced.

Mindset Is the Operating System

Mindset is not motivation. It is not positive thinking. It is the system that runs quietly underneath every decision.

Felicia shared how her own business changed when she stopped questioning the value of what she offered. She did not raise her prices because the market told her to. She raised them because she finally understood the depth of transformation she was providing.

That shift changed everything. It gave her the space to deliver more care, more attention, and more meaning. It also attracted clients who were ready to receive it.

This is something I see repeatedly with entrepreneurs. You cannot outwork a mindset that undervalues itself. Strategy struggles when identity is misaligned.

The Words That Run in the Background

One of the most powerful moments in the conversation was simple. Before a photo is ever taken, Felicia asks her clients how they want to feel when they see themselves in the image.

Not how they want to look. Not what they want to fix.

How they want to feel.

That question forces a shift from appearance to identity. It also exposes how much of our inner language is inherited rather than chosen.

Most of us are still operating with words that were handed to us by family, culture, experience, or fear. Those words shape how we act, how we price, how we lead, and how we grow.

Words create direction. Direction creates behavior.

A Better Year Starts with a Better Story

As this year begins, before chasing new tactics or bigger goals, it is worth pausing to examine the language you are using with yourself.

What are you saying about your value?

What assumptions are you reinforcing without realizing it?

What story are you living inside?

The words we choose are not neutral. They either expand what we believe is possible or quietly limit it.

Maybe the most important reset this year is not a new plan. Maybe it is a new story.

Start there. Everything else builds on top of it.

The post You’re Worth More Than You Think appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

The most overlooked growth lever in your business isn’t your product. It’s how you frame what it means.

Most product narratives follow a tired script:

“It’s faster. It’s smarter. It’s better. It does more.”

That’s not a story. That’s a product brochure!

What’s missing?

• Emotional tension
• A transformation
• A belief to rally behind
• A reason for your audience to say, “This is for me.”

It becomes a story about the company, not a story for the customer. The brands that break through don’t just talk about features. They build stories around belief and transformation. The product becomes proof.

Dyson

They didn’t just build a better vacuum. Dyson tells the story of a man obsessed with solving a problem everyone else ignored. Thousands of prototypes. Years of failure. The message? A relentless pursuit in service of a better way.

Slack

They didn’t sell “team communication software.” Slack tells the story of work buried in email and broken by silos. A company drowning in internal noise built the tool they wished existed. The message was about reclaiming clarity, focus, and time.

Basecamp

They didn’t just build project management software. Basecamp rejected the chaos of always-on hustle culture. Fewer meetings. Less stress. More meaningful work. Basecamp is  a manifesto for calm.

Poo~Pourri

They didn’t sell odor control. Poo~Pourri broke a taboo, made people laugh, and turned shame into shared humanity. It was a cultural wink.

Lifespring Chiropractic’s TriChord Method

They didn’t pitch a gentler form of chiropractic. Lifespring Chiropractic shares a belief: “You are not a machine to fix. You’re a system that can heal.” That single idea reframes the entire experience.

Here’s the difference between forgettable and unforgettable product stories:

If your product story isn’t converting, the problem may not be the product. It’s likely the narrative that surrounds it.

Start with better questions:

• What belief does this product prove right?
• What truth does it make visible?
• What transformation does it allow?

Great products don’t sell themselves, great stories do. The right story doesn’t just help you sell more. The right story helps your customers believe something new about themselves.

The post Why Stories, Not Features, Drive Growth appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

His workshop was full. His head was fuller. Like a browser with 47 tabs open, one of them playing music he couldn’t find.

“I don’t understand,” he told the mentor. “I keep improving everything. More features. More control. Smarter tech. But every time, people hesitate. They walk away.”

The mentor didn’t answer. He handed the inventor a cinder block.

“Hold this.”

The inventor gripped it. His arms dipped.

“Strong?” the mentor asked.

“Yes. And heavy.”

“It used to weigh a hundred pounds,” the mentor said. “Solid concrete. Too heavy to lift. Too much effort to work with. It sat there. Impressive, but unusable.”

He ran his hand along the block’s hollow core.

“Then someone got smarter. They carved out space. Brought it down to thirty pounds. Still strong, just usable.”

He paused for a moment.

“It didn’t become valuable by getting heavier. It became valuable by getting lighter.”

Then the mentor pulled an old BlackBerry from a drawer. Buttons everywhere. Menus inside of menus. Alerts that needed a manual to manage.

“Brilliant device. If you were willing to fight with it.”

He placed a modern smartphone next to it. One screen. No instructions.

“This one didn’t win because it was smarter,” he said. “It won because it removed friction. It didn’t give people more to figure out. It gave them less to think about.”

The inventor stared at the two devices. Then at the block.

“So… I don’t need a better system,” he said.

The mentor shook his head.

“You need a lighter one.”

He leaned in slightly.

“If your thing only works when you’re fully rested, laser-focused, and double-caffeinated… it’s not ready. It’s fragile.”

The inventor looked around. At the clutter. The complexity. The brilliant-but-burdensome things he’d built.

He walked to the whiteboard. Crossed off a project.

Then another.

And another.

“You’re not giving up,” the mentor said. “You’re hollowing out the block.”

That night, the inventor went home early.

No urgent emails. No spirals of guilt.

He sat on the floor. His kid handed him a toy they made together. It wasn’t complicated. It didn’t do much.

But it worked.

And in that moment, the inventor saw what he had missed for years.

It’s not how much you carry that makes you strong.

It’s how much you don’t have to.

The post The Weight of Smart appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

Let’s be honest. People don’t buy because of your data, even in the most technical of sales. They buy because your story reshapes the one they’re already telling themselves. 

Here are the three biggest storytelling mistakes I see every day:

1. Selling Features Instead of Beliefs

You’re not selling “software with seven integrations.” You’re selling the belief that this software will finally make the chaos go away. Your customers aren’t buying what your product does. They’re buying what they believe about themselves once they have it.

2. Starting in the Wrong Place: You Instead of Them

If your pitch starts with “We are,” you’ve already lost. People are tuned into WIIFM, the signal that says “What’s In It For Me?” Great storytelling begins where your buyer is now.

Not with your timeline. With their tension. Not with your product. With their pain. And if you’re selling into a complex environment, remember this: you’re not telling one story. You’re stepping into a room full of them.

Multiple buyers. Conflicting priorities. Old beliefs that no longer serve the organization, but still anchor decision-making. The sale isn’t just about persuading. It’s about aligning. Helping people with different goals agree on a shared future they haven’t seen yet.

That doesn’t happen with bullet points. It happens with stories.

3. Telling Stories Without Structure

Too many sales stories sound like this:

“We talked to the prospect, and then we showed them the demo, and then we sent the proposal.” That’s not a story. That’s a checklist.

When you stack “and then” on top of “and then,” the brain tunes out. There’s no tension. No curiosity. No movement. Great stories use “but” and “therefore.”

“But” creates friction. “Therefore” creates momentum.

Try this instead:

“They were growing fast, but their onboarding was a mess. Therefore, they were losing customers they hadn’t even won yet.”

Now the story moves. Now it matters. And most importantly, it mirrors how your customer actually experiences pain, not as a list of tasks, but as a conflict that demands change. If your story doesn’t move, your deal won’t either.

The best salespeople aren’t great talkers. They’re great storytellers. And the best enablement teams?

They don’t just hand out battle cards. They teach reps how to change beliefs, create alignment, and help buyers navigate the unseen friction that kills deals before they start. If you want to change outcomes, you have to change the story. That includes the one you’re telling your customers, and the one they’re telling themselves.

Time to rewrite the stories you sell.

The post The 3 Storytelling Mistakes That Are Silently Killing Your Sales appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

Every town has its storytellers. Round Rock has its own rhythm and its own voice. If you have been paying attention, it also has real momentum. It is not just growing, it is booming.

In six years, Williamson County’s total appraised value jumped from $89.1 billion to $184.4 billion. During that same period, 12,558 new small businesses opened. And those numbers do not yet reflect the full impact of Samsung.

With growth like that, the question becomes simple. 

What actually sticks?

What cuts through the noise?

What turns into a story people remember and repeat?

The answer is not louder marketing. It is meaningful stories shared the right way. That realization is what led to the Stubborn Sticky Story Giveaway.

From Best of Round Rock to a Bigger Purpose

This year, my wife and I were honored when our home care agency, A Place At Home – North Austin, earned Best of Round Rock 2025, following the same recognition in 2024.

We were grateful. Proud. Appreciative. But we also knew this was bigger than a trophy or a title. It was a moment to connect, to say thank you, and to invite others into the story we are building.

So instead of just posting the win and moving on, we asked a better question.

“How do we make this moment stick?”

That question led us to Sticker Mule’s new giveaway platform.

A Giveaway Without the Friction

If you have ever run a giveaway, you know most of them are harder than they should be. Too many steps. Too much setup. Too much energy spent on tools instead of people.

Sticker Mule removed the friction.

Here is exactly what I did:

• Uploaded our custom t-shirt design
  
  
• Chose how many we wanted to give away
  
  
• Received a simple link to promote
  
  
• Shared it with our community
  
  
• Downloaded a clean CSV of every entrant
  
  

They handled fulfillment, shipping, and logistics. I handled the story.

It worked so smoothly that I immediately planned the next round. This time it will feature a custom-labeled hot sauce, because in Central Texas, flavor matters. Still, this was never about the merchandise.

Why This Became a Sticky Story

The t-shirt was not the real value. The hot sauce is not the point. The value was in what the giveaway created. It created conversations. It created connection. It gave people something tangible to associate with a meaningful moment.

When someone wears a shirt or wins a giveaway, they are not just receiving an item. They are joining a story.

That story quietly says: This business cares. This community matters. You belong here. That is what makes a story stubborn. That is what makes it sticky.

The Stories Behind the Growth

Nearly 40% of this year’s Best of Round Rock winners are Round Rock Chamber members, and many of them are the very people driving this growth.

I have been fortunate to interview many of these leaders on my podcast, Rock Solid Round Rock. These are small business owners, builders, and community champions who are shaping what Round Rock is becoming.

And there are more stories waiting to be told.

If you are building something meaningful here and we have not connected yet, I would love to change that. The giveaway is the front door. The podcast is where we sit down and talk. The community is where these stories live and grow.

Why Giveaways Still Work When Done Right

If you are a business owner wondering whether giveaways are worth the effort, here is what I have seen firsthand.

Done well, giveaways:

• Create emotional equity, not just impressions
  
  
• Give people a reason to share your story
  
  
• Turn recognition into relationships
  
  
• Extend your reach without feeling transactional
  
  

Sticker Mule’s platform makes this easy. You bring the meaning. They handle the mechanics. That simplicity is powerful.

The Sticky Lesson

We did not run this giveaway because it was trendy. We ran it because it aligned with who we are and how we want to show up in this community.

We wanted a story that would not fade after a single post. And it worked.

If you are growing a business in Round Rock or anywhere else, you do not need a massive budget or a viral moment. You need a reason to connect and a simple way to invite people in.

A small gift. A simple way to grab attention. A real story. A moment worth sharing. That is what the Stubborn Sticky Story Giveaway is really about.

And we are just getting started. You can check out our giveaway here. 

The post The Stubborn Sticky Story Giveaway appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

It wasn’t the idea. It wasn’t the effort. It was the excess.

Too many words. Too much complexity. Not enough clarity.

We live in a world saturated with information and starving for meaning. In this kind of environment, simplicity isn’t a luxury. It’s survival. It’s not just a design principle. It’s not about using fewer words for the sake of brevity. It’s a psychological advantage.

The science is clear and has been for decades. But you didn’t need a study to know it. You’ve felt it in your gut. You’ve lived it when you read something and thought, “Ah, I get it.” That moment of ease is persuasion in action.

Let’s peel this back.

Back in the late ’90s, researchers Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman uncovered something subtle but powerful. When something is easier to process mentally, it feels more true. Not because it is more true, but because our brains are wired to equate ease with honesty. They called this processing fluency.

Simple fonts. High contrast. Short, familiar words. These weren’t just aesthetic choices; they were credibility cues. Your brain reads ease as safety.

So, when your customer reads your message and glides through it without effort, a silent switch flips. They don’t just understand. They trust.

Now take that further. Oppenheimer and Alter showed that when a message is easy to digest, we don’t just like it more; we rate the person who wrote it as more intelligent. That’s the kicker.

Complexity isn’t impressive. It’s suspicious.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that bigger words equal bigger brains. But research tells a different story. The more effort it takes to parse your language, the less competent you seem. Not because the reader lacks intelligence, but because they feel you do.

So, let’s connect the dots. Simplicity boosts credibility, likability, and perceived intelligence.

Now imagine what happens when your message isn’t simple.

Kahneman explained it in terms of what he called cognitive strain. The moment your message forces someone to slow down, to decipher, to decode, they shift from intuition to skepticism. They don’t lean in. They pull back.

Friction replaces flow. Doubt takes over trust.

This is where most messaging falls apart. Not because the idea was bad, but because the experience of consuming it was challenging.

We’ve all fallen into the trap of the Curse of Knowledge. The more expertise you gain, the harder it becomes to see how confusing you’ve become. What feels “simple” to you is often overwhelming to your audience. You’re not trying to be complicated. You just don’t realize you are.

That’s why clarity is never accidental. It’s engineered.

This is where the story enters. Story is the ultimate simplifier. It packages complexity into meaning. It creates emotional velocity. It doesn’t just tell you what to think. It helps you feel it. And as we said in I Think I Swallowed an Elephant, stories are how we remember. Facts fade. Stories stick.

And the best stories? They’re simple.

Not simplistic, simple. They honor the reader’s intelligence by making it easier to believe, remember, and act.

The science keeps reinforcing the same message.

Too many options? People freeze. Lyengar and Lepper proved that in the Paradox of Choice. Fewer decisions create more action.

Too many steps? People quit. The UK Behavioural Insights Team built the EAST model for behavior change. Easy comes first, and for good reason. It works.

Too much detail? People forget. Miller’s Law tells us that our working memory has a capacity of 7 items. Later research says it’s closer to four. That’s not a lot of space to earn a place.

And when Stanford’s BJ Fogg created his model for behavior change, he made it painfully clear. Ability, meaning simplicity, is non-negotiable. If something is hard, you need tons of motivation. If it’s simple, even a little motivation is enough to spark action.

This is why the simplest messages don’t just convert. They scale.

Think about your own experiences. When someone explained a complex idea in a way that just clicked, you didn’t admire their intelligence. You felt your own rise.

That’s the gift of clarity. That’s the mark of a master communicator. Not someone who dazzles with big words, but someone who uses precise ones.

And today, when the marketplace is crowded, skeptical, and moving at the speed of a swipe, you can’t afford to be fuzzy.

Your message has to be simple enough that someone’s brain says:

“Ah, I get it.”

Because when the brain nods, the heart follows. And action becomes possible.

Simplicity isn’t just elegant. It’s effective. It’s faster, clearer, and more persuasive. It’s how you move people and markets.

Mastery doesn’t mean knowing more. It means saying less, better.

Make it simple. Or risk being ignored. If you need help making your complex sale simple, let’s discuss it. 

The post Simplicity Is Mastery: Why Clear Messages Win Minds, Hearts, and Markets appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

They sold you the dream.

Big Tech promised that if you could track it, you could control it. That with enough dashboards, pixels, retargeting, and funnels, you could build something that lasts.

But what they never told you is this:

Funnels don’t build brands. They only extract value from them. Many of you don’t have a brand. You have a set of automations wrapped around a discount code. And here’s the part no one wants to hear. The funnel is dying. Not because it stopped working. But because your customer stopped caring.

We Traded Connection for Control

We measured everything. Clicks. Bounce rates. Conversions. Cost per acquisition. ROAS. LTV. We became obsessed with numbers, seduced by the idea that if we could just optimize every step, we could engineer growth like a science.

But in our rush to calculate, we forgot how to connect. We minimized the value of offline signals we couldn’t track so closely.

We built systems that tracked behavior, but never earned belief. We automated follow-ups, but never followed through. We scaled reach, but lost resonance. In the middle of all this, we stopped building brands.

Google Said the Quiet Part Out Loud

Now, after years of pushing performance, even Google is saying we need to focus on brand.

Why?

Because they already own and have access to the signals. They’ve been watching everything. They know how long people stay on your site, what they search for after leaving, what they buy days later, and who they trust more than you. They don’t just track behavior. They decode intent. And they’ve figured out what many brands still ignore.

The companies winning today are the ones that create emotional gravity, not just clever offers. So now they’re telling you to build a brand. But only after they mined the data from the one you never built.

Do You Have a Brand or a Funnel?

There are two types of customers.

Transactional customers want price, speed, and convenience.

They click. They buy. They leave.

Relational customers want meaning, consistency, and trust.

They remember. They return. They refer.

Funnels are built to attract the first kind. Brands are built to earn the second.

If your entire system is designed for transactions, don’t be surprised when your customers disappear the moment someone else offers 10 percent off. That’s not loyalty. That’s inertia. And the algorithms don’t reward click volume. They amplify the brands people trust and talk about.

AI Is Listening to Everything

The internet isn’t just a network of pages. It’s a system of emotional signals. Mentions. Reviews. Scroll depth. Dwell time. Referrals. Silence.

AI watches for patterns. It listens for tone. It detects hesitation. It measures the gap between what you promise and what your customer actually experiences. Your brand doesn’t live in your online ads and social posts.

It lives in the emotional aftermath. You may think you’re still in control of the funnel. But AI is already mapping the journey with more insight than you have access to.

What’s the ROI of Being Trusted?

Marketers love to ask, What’s the ROI of brand? That’s not the right question. The real question is, What’s the cost of being forgotten? What happens when a competitor tells a better story? One that’s shared, saved, and repeated. What’s the cost of being optimized for clicks, but not for conviction? That’s the kind of loss you won’t see on a dashboard, but you’ll feel it in your revenue.

Funnels Process Behavior. Stories Shape It.

Funnels convert. But stories compel.

Funnels help you close. Stories help you last.

You can test subject lines, CTA buttons, and offer sequences all day. But if the story isn’t meaningful, if the emotion isn’t present, your funnel will always underperform. You don’t need a more efficient funnel.

You need a more unforgettable story.

The Best Brands Don’t Sell Products

They sell stories and beliefs.

Harley-Davidson doesn’t sell motorcycles. It tells a story of rebellion.

LEGO doesn’t sell toys. It tells a story of creativity.

Patagonia doesn’t sell jackets. It tells a story of responsibility.

These brands don’t lead with specs or features. They lead with values. The story comes first. The product just gives it form. Because when people buy into your belief, they carry it with them and pass it on.

The Real Brand Lives Between the Metrics

Your brand doesn’t live in your subject line or social feed. It lives in the pause after someone opens the box. It lives in the way your team handles a complaint. It lives in the moment your customer tells a friend, You’ve got to try this. It lives online but also travels in offline signals. That’s the story AI picks up on. That’s the story your customer remembers.

Stop Optimizing for What’s Easy to Measure

We’ve spent years building strategies around what’s easy to track. But the things that matter most can’t be measured by a pixel. Trust. Belief. Relevance. Story. You can’t force them. You have to earn them. And once you do, they scale with you. Not through clicks. Through conversation.

What Happens Next Is Up to You

You can keep optimizing for open rates and cost-per-click. Or you can start building something that actually matters. You can automate the journey. Or you can write the story your customers want to be part of. You can shout louder. Or you can whisper the truth that cuts through the noise. In a world drowning in offers, only meaning breaks through. And only belief builds something that lasts.

Big Tech Sold You on Building a Funnel.

They told you it was the future. That if you tracked enough behavior, you could own the outcome. But they never told you that your customers weren’t looking to be tracked. They were waiting to believe. So build the brand. Tell the story. Earn the trust. Let the metrics follow the meaning. Not the other way around.

The post Big Tech Wants You To Build a Funnel; Not a Brand appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

The right message always wins.

Not the best product. Not the largest budget. The message that makes sense in the customer’s world.

However, most companies don’t have a single story. They have six.

• Sales tells one version.
• Marketing has another.
• Customer service shares something completely different.
• Leadership pitches a new vision each quarter.
• Products build what they believe the market wants.
• And operations is just trying to keep it all together.

Everyone thinks they’re right. Each department clings to its version of the truth. But the customer? They’re stuck hearing all of it.

It’s like the six blind men and the elephant, except in this case, the elephant is your customer. And they’re the one who walks away confused.

Misalignment Costs More Than You Think

We’ve worked inside companies where every department claimed to be customer-centric: the product lead, the marketing director, the sales VP, even the CFO.

But their definitions didn’t match. Their metrics clashed. And their language never lined up. That internal confusion didn’t stay internal. It showed up in the messaging. It showed up in the sales calls. It appeared in support tickets and customer reviews.

Customers didn’t understand what the brand stood for. They didn’t know what problem it solved. And they stopped caring. Because customers don’t buy your strategy, they buy the story they feel. They buy what makes emotional sense. They buy what fits into their world.

Amazon Didn’t Start With AI. They Started With Alignment.

In the early 2000s, Amazon banned PowerPoint in executive meetings.

They didn’t do this for flair. They did it because slide decks conceal genuine thought. Bullet points can’t show nuance. Pie charts don’t reveal flawed logic. But stories do.

So they replaced PowerPoint with written narratives. Six pages. Structured like a story and reviewed silently, together, at the start of each meeting. The idea was simple. If you couldn’t explain your plan clearly in writing, you didn’t understand it clearly enough to execute it.

This practice changed the way Amazon teams communicated. It built a culture that aligned around customer needs, not internal jargon. It forced clarity. It revealed gaps.

It ensured that decisions didn’t get lost in translation between departments. They didn’t need better slides. They needed shared belief.

That belief, that culture, not technology, helped Amazon scale with consistency.

The Elephant I Swallowed

Years ago, I joked that I’d swallowed an elephant. It wasn’t really a joke.

At 277 pounds, I felt heavy. Not just physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

I had helped companies grow by breaking big goals into small, consistent actions. But I wasn’t applying any of that to myself.

The problem wasn’t knowledge. It was alignment. I believed one thing, but acted in another way. Most people know what they need to do to lose weight, but their story holds them back. And that gap created friction I couldn’t ignore anymore. In my 30s, I lost over 100 pounds. 

Last July, a health scare finally made me seriously revise the story I was living. The weight was creeping back up, and my blood sugar was 3x the normal level. I thought walking 9000+ steps a day and eating a plant-based diet of mostly unprocessed foods was enough. I didn’t need another diet. I needed a system that aligned my beliefs with my behavior.

That shift changed everything. I lost 50 pounds. My energy came back. I began thinking more clearly, devising better solutions, and leading effectively. That change didn’t come from tools. It came from alignment.

AI Can’t Believe for You

AI can write clever emails. It can test headlines faster than your team can finish a meeting. It can even mimic your brand tone across platforms.

But it can’t fix a broken story.

It definitely can’t align a fractured team. It can only scale what you’ve already decided. If your internal message is a mess, AI will amplify the confusion. If your departments aren’t aligned, AI won’t fix that. It will just spread the misalignment more efficiently. Technology can assist. But belief has to lead. You need alignment around your customers’ story.

So, What Story Is the Customer Actually Buying?

It’s not the one in your brand guidelines. It’s not the one you practiced before the pitch meeting. It’s the one your customer feels when they interact with your product, your people, and your content. That story is either helping them move forward or pushing them away.

So instead of asking, “What’s our story?” Ask, “What story are we helping the customer believe?” If your team doesn’t believe it together, your customer won’t believe it either. And confused customers don’t convert.

Clarity doesn’t come from more content. It comes from a shared story. One told from the inside out. That’s what AI can’t create.

That’s what only aligned teams can build. And when they build it, legends are built. 

The post AI Can’t Fix a Broken Story (But True Leaders Can) appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

You’d hit enter and brace yourself. First, you’d scroll past ads. Then you’d land on a blog post about someone’s grandmother. You’d dodge pop-ups, wait for autoplay videos to stop, skim through 1,500 words of meandering storytelling, and eventually, if you were lucky, find the actual recipe.

That was the era of browsing.

We didn’t like it, but we played along. Publishers optimized for traffic. Google optimized for profit. And users learned to scroll, skim, and tolerate friction in exchange for answers. We had many back and forth conversations with a leader publisher in the automotive industry about where their business model was headed and what changes they would need in the future. 

That era is over now.

What Changed? Everything.

Large Language Models like ChatGPT didn’t just improve the search experience. They rewrote it.

The old marketing funnel relied on a series of steps. Someone searched, clicked, read, got retargeted, and maybe converted. Brands shaped that journey. They built drip campaigns, crafted SEO-friendly content, and hoped to capture attention long enough to make the sale.

Now people type a question and get a direct answer. No scrolling. No ads. No clicking through ten blue links.

For users, this feels like magic. For marketers, it feels like the floor just dropped out.

How Do You Get Others To Say Good Things About You

Jeff Bezos said it best:

“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

That used to be a strategic insight. Now it’s a technical reality. This is how I would describe the major shift we are seeing unfold before our eyes today. 

Your brand is being described by Reddit threads, Quora answers, Amazon reviews, tweets, product comparisons, Glassdoor ratings, and blog comments. You are one voice among many, and AI is listening to all of them.

And then summarizing you.

Not the way you’d write about yourself, but based on what the web believes is true. Your story is what others share about you and your industry. 

You Don’t Get to Set the Context Anymore

Before, a search led to your landing page. Your content shaped perception. You built the narrative.

Now, people arrive pre-informed. Their research was done by a bot. The story has already been told. You’re just there to confirm it.

That means every brand touchpoint matters more, not less. A mismatched headline or conflicting product description isn’t just a UX issue anymore. It’s a clarity risk. The story the AI tells might be built from your words, but it won’t ask your permission.

From SEO to AIO

Search Engine Optimization is about visibility. AI Optimization is about clarity, consistency, and context.

If you don’t communicate your brand’s story with precision, AI fills the gaps. And when it fills those gaps, it does so with whatever content is most available or most cited, not necessarily what is most accurate.

The brands succeeding in this new reality are the ones doing the invisible work. They are feeding AI the right story. They are cleaning up third-party mentions. They are building brandable chunks that customer are willing to share that are easy to retrieve and hard to forget.

They’re optimizing not for clicks, but for experience and continuity.

The Funnel Has Collapsed. The Intent Hasn’t.

In the old model, someone visited your site early in their journey. Maybe they were curious. Maybe they just needed more information. The job of the funnel was to slowly move them toward purchase.

That model is gone.

Today, the user shows up knowing exactly what they want. The AI already helped them compare features, eliminate options, and confirm pricing. They are here to validate, not explore.

If you treat them like a casual visitor, they will bounce. If you treat them like a buyer in motion, they will convert.

This isn’t a new idea. It’s just been accelerated. In Be Like Amazon, we wrote about replacing the linear funnel with a flywheel built around delivering consistent, customer-centric experiences. The brands that win are the ones that remove friction, align every promise with how they show up, and reinforce trust at every touchpoint. The flywheel doesn’t just generate momentum. It builds belief. Every positive interaction increases the likelihood of repeat engagement and word of mouth. That is how you scale a brand sustainably.

Now that AI is collapsing the middle of the funnel, the flywheel is no longer optional. It’s foundational. Because when the research happens before they ever reach you, your job is not to persuade. Your job is to confirm what they already believe and give them no reason to question it. Maybe this is why Amazon Prime customers have a rumored 72% conversion rate?

What Smart Brands Are Doing Right Now

1. Check What the AI Thinks It Knows About You

Ask tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity simple prompts:

• Who is [Your Brand]?
  
  
• What makes them different from [competitor]?
  
  
• What products or services do they offer?
  
  
• Why would someone choose them?
  
  

The results will either reassure you or reveal an urgent problem.

2. Create Clear, Repeatable Brandable Chunks

AI thrives on structure. Craft short, factual, ownable statements about your company that can be cited and shared easily. These become the building blocks of your brand’s story in the machine’s mind.

3. Align Your External Mentions

Audit how you’re represented on review platforms, partner sites, media coverage, and social posts. Are those mentions accurate? Are they recent? Are they useful? AI reads everything, not just your blog.

4. Structure Your Content for Machines and Humans

Use clean metadata, plain language, and consistent brand positioning across all assets. Eliminate contradictions. The more machine-readable your materials are, the better your story will be told, even when you’re not in the room.

This Isn’t a Threat. It’s a Reset.

The end of browsing doesn’t mean people have stopped discovering new brands. It means they’re discovering differently.

They’re skipping your funnel. They’re outsourcing research. They’re trusting machines.

You can’t out-rank this. You have to out-align and architect it.

Brands that resist will fight harder for fewer leads. Brands that adapt will close faster with better customers.

You don’t need more traffic. You need better-trained AI.

You don’t need more content. You need more clarity.

You don’t need more awareness. You need more alignment.

Because in the AI age, the best story wins. And the best story is the one that’s consistent, accessible, and told by everyone, not just by you.

The post The SEO Funnel Is Dead appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.

Not “once upon.” Not “the end.”

Two little connectors that most people overlook: ‘but’ and ‘therefore’.

Stay with me because this is the hinge between someone forgetting your message and someone retelling it a decade later.

Timelines Don’t Persuade

Most people confuse stories with timelines.

“And then this happened. And then that happened.”

That isn’t a story. That’s a diary entry. And diaries don’t sell products, inspire movements, or change behavior. As we mentioned in “I Think I Swallowed An Elephant: The Stories We Sell, The Success We Sell,” this is often how kids tell stories.

Stories do.

Our brains look for cause and effect, not chronology. Your audience isn’t asking, “What came next?” They’re asking, “Why does this matter? What happened because of it?”

That’s why you can watch a three-hour movie without glancing at your phone, but you’ll abandon a dull PowerPoint in three minutes flat.

The Hidden Rhythm of Persuasion

Every great story that sells has three ingredients: context, conflict, and consequence.

First, you set the stage. Who, where, when. This gives the listener bearings.

But then comes the heartbeat: conflict.

“He wanted to launch early, but the research revealed hesitation.”

Conflict makes us lean in. It creates tension. Without it, there’s nothing at stake.

And then comes the consequence.

“He delayed the launch; therefore, he redesigned the onboarding.”

One “but.” One “therefore.” Suddenly, random events become a chain of meaning.

Our brains love this rhythm. It creates anticipation. It builds momentum. It turns passive listeners into active participants.

Emotion Glues It All Together

But let’s not stop there.

Facts tell you what happened. Feelings let you live it.

Neuroscience proves it. Mirror neurons make your brain light up when you hear someone describe their fear, joy, or relief. You don’t just process the words, you experience a shadow of the emotion yourself.

That’s why when I tell you I felt my stomach tighten waiting for my first Amazon review, part of you feels that same twist in your gut.

It’s why Harley-Davidson doesn’t sell motorcycles. They sell the feeling of freedom. It’s why Patagonia doesn’t sell jackets. They sell the feeling of responsibility.

Emotion is the adhesive. It’s what makes stories unforgettable.

Definition of a Good Story

So let’s strip it down.

A story is something that happened to someone, in a time and place, told vividly and with emotion, where each moment flows into the next through “but” and “therefore,” not “and then.”

Simple. Sharp. Sticky.

Why Amazon Banned Bullet-Point Decks

When Jeff Bezos banned bullet-point slides in favor of written narratives at Amazon, the world thought he was eccentric. He wasn’t.

He understood this: bullet points are facts in isolation. Stories are facts in motion.

Bullets transfer information, stories transfer experience.

And when you transfer experience, you create alignment. Everyone in the room doesn’t just understand the data; they feel the decision.

That’s persuasion architecture in action.

From Stories to Sales: The Psychology of Buying

Here’s the part most marketers miss.

People don’t buy because of logic. They buy, then justify with logic later.

They buy because of stories.

A story about a product isn’t really about the product. It’s about the customer’s journey, fears, desires, and transformation.

That’s why “20% off” rarely moves hearts. But a story about how one customer finally stopped waking up with back pain after trying your mattress? That sells.

It’s not about what you sell. It’s about the story customers tell themselves after they buy.

The But/ Therefore Test for Your Marketing

Want to know if your copy has a story or just a list? Run this test.

Take your messaging and try to connect the sentences with “and then.” If it works, you don’t have a story.

Now try to connect them with “but” and “therefore.” If it flows, you’ve got momentum.

Example:

“Our software helps teams collaborate better. But remote workers still struggled with meeting overload. Therefore, we built AI summaries that cut meeting times in half.”

That’s a story. That’s persuasion.

Words That Shape Worlds

Your words don’t just describe reality. They shape it.

If you say, “Our customers are cheap,” you’ll treat them one way. If you say, “Our customers are careful decision-makers,” you’ll treat them differently.

Change the story you tell, and you change the behavior that follows.

I’ve seen companies multiply their revenue not because they changed the product, but because they changed the story they told about the product.

The story you tell isn’t just a tool. It’s your strategy.

This Matters More In an AI-Dominated World 

We live in a distracted age. Dashboards, notifications, and vanity metrics fragment our attention.

But stories cut through.

They surprise Broca’s area of the brain, the filter that tunes out noise. A good story sneaks past defenses. It makes us stop scrolling. It makes us listen.

That’s why every pitch, every presentation, every ad needs to start not with “what,” but with “who, where, when, but, therefore, and how it felt.”

That’s how you create momentum. And momentum is contagious.

Give Me Stories that Sell

Stories aren’t decoration. They aren’t fluff.

They are the engine of persuasion, the architecture of memory, the bridge between belief and behavior.

Want to inspire action? Don’t give me a timeline. Don’t give me bullets. Give me a story with people, conflict, consequence, and emotion.

Because stories don’t just tell us what happened, they tell us why it matters.

And that changes everything.

The post The Hidden Structure Behind Every Story That Sells appeared first on Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg.