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Future better states for your customers and clients
In the early 1980s, a young story analyst at Disney named Christopher Vogler wrote a 7-page memo to a handful of folks where he worked and immediately it spread like wildfire through Hollywood (no pun intended).
It was a practical guide to Joseph Campbell’s hero's journey.
This is the same mythic structure behind some of your favorite movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, et al…
Eventually, this memo became an entire book called The Writer's Journey, and it’s one of the most widely read screenwriting books of all time. But before all that happened, a film critic published an article in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner attacking Vogler and his ideas.
He accused Vogler of destroying creativity.
Of shoving formulas down writers' throats. Of being responsible for terrible films like Willow and Back to the Future. (I kinda like Back to the Future… don’t you?)… and this is the kind of thing that would make most people furious.
But since Vogler was a devout student of Campbell’s work, he noticed a similarity between the Los Angeles evangelist and a very specific archetype called “The Threshold Guardian”.
These are the characters who stand at the gate, blocking the way for the hero in the next stage of their journey.
They test the hero and challenge them.
At first they might often seem like enemies, but if you’ve ever seen Star Wars (and I know you have) think about every scene where Luke Skywalker hits a wall. The cantina bouncer who almost gets him killed. The imperial checkpoints. Ben Kenobi, at first glance, is just some weird hermit in the desert trying to convince him to risk his life.
They’re everywhere.
But the hero’s job, according to Campbell, isn’t to destroy these guardians, it’s to outwit them.
Often, to join forces. Which is exactly what Vogler did. Instead of firing back at the critic, he invited him to attend the very presentation where he planned to defend his ideas for a lively public debate. And by all accounts, Vogler, the event, and his ideas were all the better for it.
All to say…
I’m reading this book called Gap Selling by a guy named Keenan, and in it he makes a point that’s fairly simple, but almost universally ignored.
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“Sales happen when the future state is a better state.”
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Your prospects have to see a clear gap between where they are now and where they want to go.
But not only that, it has to be worth the cost of the change.
Will they win an edge over the competition?
Will they break into markets they couldn’t reach before?
Will they stop hemorrhaging time on things that don’t move their business forward?
If there's no gap, there's no sale. And what most people get wrong is they try to open that gap by alienating the very people they're trying to help by telling them that everything they're doing is wrong before building up enough trust with them to accept the correction.
The smarter play, Vogler figured, is to meet people where they are.
Validate their current state. Honor it, even. Then paint the future state so vividly, and specifically, that they start walking toward it on their own. Not because you told them they were broken. But because you showed them where they were already headed, and offered to walk there with them.
That's how you close the gap.
By joining forces with the threshold guardians, not battling them.
Speaking of which, if you want to join forces with me inside the Nature of Marketing community, and be ina room full of people who are already headed where you’re headed, now is a good time to mosey on over and check things out.
Here’s the link:
Your pal,
Kevin Hood