#12: What Your Business Can Learn From Breaking Bad. And It's Not How To Make Meth.
In this episode of Make It Bankable, I share the lessons your business can learn from Breaking Bad and no, it’s not how to make meth.
And in case you’re thinking Breaking Bad isn’t relevant anymore, trust me when I say, Hollywood studies Breaking Bad like Harvard studies Taylor Swift.
I discuss:
The difference between selling and making your audience salivate for everything you offer
How entertaining content trumps education content
The three components every piece of content should have to stop the scroll
How to hook readers in from the very first line
And more!
Show Notes
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About The Show
In her podcast Make It Bankable, Elizabeth McKenzie offers advice on how to get seen, get heard, and most importantly, get paid.
From marketing to selling, launching to evergreen, and everything in between, Make It Bankable will show you exactly how to sell from the page.
Are you ready to make bank?
Transcript
What your business can learn from Breaking Bad. And it's not how to make meth.
What does every single human crave? What does every single person talk about after the weather?
Netflix. Movies. Game of Thrones. Breaking Bad. The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel.
The entertainment industry knows how to hook people in + get them to take inspired action.
You want people to buy from you?
Don't just sell to them. Make them salivate.
When you entertain the pants off your audience, they can’t help but binge read your content and sell themselves into every single thing you offer.
When you become the Super Bowl instead of the 30 second sales pitch at half time and you’ll never have to hard sell again.
The 3 Rules Of Entertaining Content
RULE #1: THE BIG BOND
Every single James Bond movie starts with an action scene. Then, the credit’s role and we’re listening to someone croon about how amazing James Bond is. Why do they do this?
It hooks the viewer in.
So start with a bang.
The first sentence (and paragraph) has one job… to get people to read the next one.
If it’s boring, it’s a fail.
You must start strong.
Chop the first sentence. Or, if you're brave, chop the entire first paragraph.
RULE #2: SHOW. DON’T TELL.
The writer, Anton Chekhov, defined Show Don’t Tell like this:
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on the broken glass.
As a messenger, your goal is to provoke a reaction in your readers. To get them to feel.
Showing paints a picture the reader can see in her mind’s eye. It’s rich. It’s detailed. It connects you.
Telling is a fact. It’s a statement.
There is zero connection.
Rather than telling that you understand your client by saying: “you’re angry”, show it by describing how they feel like the vein is about to pop on their forehead as their voice rises.
RULE #3: OH, SNAP
The last line needs to absolutely slay.
It needs to take you right back to where you started. There’s that moment of OH SNAP. And it all makes sense.
A strong finish is always tied to the beginning.
Let’s take a look at one of my articles, Speaking your truth isn’t enough anymore.
The opening:
Have you noticed how the internet continues to lose its shit about speaking your truth? I have.
Every day someone is coming out with their signature business strategy summed up as:
Get aligned and speak your truth.
Oh, your list isn’t responding? Time to start speaking your truth.
Oh, you’re not getting any sales? Time to start speaking your truth.
Oh, your business isn’t working? Time to start speaking your truth.
It’s not enough to speak your truth anymore.
You need to learn how to wrap that truth up, with personality-filled wrapping paper, and a big bow of your opinion, to slice through the noise of every other truth out there, and into the minds of your audience.
The closing:
And as much as you’ve got higher truths to share unless you can swallow that truth – your business will only remain a side gig.