Unfettered Growth

A blog by Jerry Murphey

A story people want to hear
A story people want to hear 150 150 Jerry Murphey

You wonder when your business stopped growing.    You remember a time when talking about features and benefits was enough, and when demonstrating your vast knowledge and mastery got people’s attention.    That was when you could count on your clients to translate what you do into how it solves their problem.   Now there…

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The problem could be there isn’t a problem
The problem could be there isn’t a problem 150 150 Jerry Murphey

The tendency, when something is not working, is to do more, work harder, and go faster. But the best thing to do is slow down, take a step back to see the problem as it is. This is especially true in marketing where the smallest detail can make the difference between failure and success.  …

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Euphemisms
Euphemisms 150 150 Jerry Murphey

“Euphemisms, such as journey, separate the mind from the unpleasant realities around it, and, like the genteelisms we use when we toilet-train children, they have a place in polite society. But the protagonist of a well-told story is not a passive passenger; she struggles dynamically through time and space to fulfill her desire.” Excerpt FromStorynomicsRobert…

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Overcoming skepticism
Overcoming skepticism 150 150 Jerry Murphey

Skepticism is a natural product of human nature. In traditional marketing, if 5 details about the features of a service are good, 20 are better, and a repetitive and amplified claim about what a product can do is met with doubt and disbelief in its promise.   A story has the power to wrap your…

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Emotional Communication
Emotional Communication 150 150 Jerry Murphey

Emotional communication taps into human nature, and touches our instincts to survive, be admired, succeed and to protect those we love. At its root, there are only two basic emotions—pleasure and pain. These come in many varieties but at the sensory level, either something feels good or bad.   Good storytelling exists between these two…

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The power of a problem
The power of a problem 150 150 Jerry Murphey

We are drawn into a story when something goes wrong. This is the moment we pay attention, because we are hard-wired to notice problems, so we can learn and know what to do to survive in the future. 

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Four quotes storytelling
Four quotes storytelling 150 150 Jerry Murphey

“The deepest audience pleasure is learning with out doing any work.”   “Story is evolutionary adaption to consciousness.”   “All people seek a positive glow somewhere in a story’s world.”   “Emotion is the side effect of change.”  — Robert McKee, Storynomics  

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Heaven and hell
Heaven and hell 150 150 Jerry Murphey

John Milton said something like, “the mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.”     The story we tell ourselves about something can be either positive or negative, and that story can create a heaven or hell if we let it.     It’s not hard to make what’s different about…

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Finding meaning
Finding meaning 150 150 Jerry Murphey

Move your marketing message from a static description of what you do to a dynamic story about your clients’ values and desires, because values and desires always reflect each other and together, like a compass, point us in the direction of what is meaningful in life.

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The Protagonist as Underdog
The Protagonist as Underdog 150 150 Jerry Murphey

The protagonist is the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text. In your marketing message, the protagonist is your client. In most great stories there is an event that makes the main character the underdog, just like the problem your brand solves makes your client…

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