I interviewed the owner and instructor of a martial arts academy last week. As a huge fan of kung fu movies myself, I couldn’t help but wonder if these movies where the martial arts are on full display have an impact on the number of people coming in to actually learn martial arts. The guest told me that the impact is huge. He gave an example of one guy that came in and said I want to be like John Wick, after the John Wick movies had come out. We’ve been telling stories since the beginning of our time. Hans Zimmer says in his master class more or less: when all the highest skyrises have been built and there’s nothing else to make, there will still be a story that needs to be told. The mistake most businesses make is that they talk about themselves in their story. The story isn’t about you, its about the customer. You have to invite them into the story and play the role of the guide. A common term in marketing is the call to action. You need to have something that tells your customer what action you want them to take. In the hero’s journey, at the beginning of the story the hero gets a call to action. At first the hero ignore it, but after some more prodding the hero finally accepts the call to action and embarks on a journey to change himself, and then therefore change his world.
