No-fluff Approach to Brand Storytelling: Deevo Tindal

Show Transcript

Devo Tindal on brand story telling

This podcast features interviews with communication experts from around the world

Devo Tindal: Being clearly able to understand who you are, how you show up in the world, what value do you bring? And then being able to craft and crystallize messaging so that that speaks to the right audience.

George Torok: Welcome to the podcast about communication in business. I'm your host, George Torok. Did you know that I'm known as the speech coach for executives? That's because I help business leaders deliver the intended message for for greater success. And we do that through one on one coaching or group training for the team. On this podcast, you will hear from communication experts from around the world. 

My guest today is Devo Tindal. Here's three facts that I think you should know about him. One, he is the founder of the brand Storyteller. He's entrepreneur, a speaker and branding coach who's helping founders, creatives and CEOs get crystal clear on who they are and how they show up in the world. Two, he's host of the Branding Laboratory podcast, which offers a blend of theory and practice, making complex branding strategies accessible and actionable. And three, he takes a no fluff approach to challenging the traditional rules of branding while showing people how to own their voice and tell their story. Devo Tyndall, welcome to your intended message.

Devo Tindal: George. Thanks for having me. You know, you're the first person since, let's say, 20 shows that has actually pronounced my last name correctly. So thank you. Thank you.

George Torok: Oh, so good. So thank you. Glad to do that. Everyone.

Devo Tindal: You are the communication linguist expert, apparently.

George Torok: Wonderful to have you on. yes, great to be talking with you.

No fluff approach is being clearly able to understand who you are

And naturally I'm curious about your no fluff approach. So first tell us, what is it that you see as fluff in the industry and how do you get around that?

Devo Tindal: Well, thank you for asking. Fluff. Where do we begin? Everybody's saying basically the same thing. Everywhere you go, I just see the same message, the same blueprint, the same template. And most of it's now being generated by AI. So it's even more synchronized than it was before. And it just sounds like a bunch of robots talking. Everyone's taking. And that's not everyone. 

When I say everyone, you know, there are obviously unique individuals who are doing distinct things on the planet. But by and large, most of the advice you read around messaging, around brand branding, around showing up in your as an entrepreneur solopreneur, it all basically sounds like the same blueprint, the same rubric. So my perspective is. And not that. Not that there isn't any value. There's always value in everything, right? It's our job to sort of Pick and choose the fruit. That works for us. Right, But a different approach, a no fluff approach, would be just sort of become you are the brand. And instead of trying to follow someone else's blueprint, how can you better undercover, a better under, better discover who you are as an individual and how you show up and what's your unique perspective on the world. 

And sometimes that means going against the grain. Sometimes that's. That's zigging instead of zagging it. So the no fluff approach is being clearly able to understand who you are and how you show up in the world. What value do you bring? And then being able to craft and, and crystallize messaging so that that speaks to the right audience.

George Torok: Is that a combination of what you stand for and what you stand against?

Devo Tindal: I don't know that I stand for or anything else per se. I think what I stand for is there's only one you, everything else, everyone else has taken. So step into your power. And I believe that everybody has an infinite gift in some way, shape or form. It's your job to uncover what that is, what's your purpose? You know, you can say your. You can say what's your why? But more importantly, what gift do you have and how can you serve other people and deliver that message?

Devo says his gift is uncovering who you are as an individual

George Torok: Well, I'm curious, Devo, tell us your gift.

Devo Tindal: My gift is uncovering the fluff and everyone else's entourage and sort of figuring out who you are as an individual. And one of the things that. And being able to tell your story. One of the things I noticed, I own a photography studio I have since 2006. And one of the things that's always separated my photography from most other photographers is that if you read any, if you get any feedback from any of my clients, they'll tell you, half the time I didn't even know you was there. It was an experience more than a photography session. And my job is to intuitively meet people where they are and then draw out their best version of themselves. So I did that in photography. I've done that in videography for many, many years. And now I do that in brand strategy and coaching and letting people sort of finding out what their magic is, what's the magic in the mess, and then being able to draw that out and helping you clearly articulate that so that you can step into your power and be your true self and genuinely show up how you were meant to show up.

How do you build trust with your clients before a photo shoot

George Torok: Devo, I wonder, as

00:05:00

George Torok: a photographer, do you see people differently than someone who is not a, professional photographer? Someone who just, you know, snaps a, selfie kind of thing. What do you see when you are taking their photos?

Devo Tindal: It's a good question. I can't answer what other people see. I, I, I can only sort of approach it, how I view it. I think that if you genuinely show up to a session and you're present and minute and truly in that space with the client and being alert and intuitive and self aware and observational and watching people and sort of understanding how they're going to show up in a situation, you tend to. And again, and let me back up. I think everything starts in all my client situations. Everything starts in the first interaction. 

So that's the first phone call, that's the first meeting, that's the first candid one to one. And in that space I think that's where the trust begins. And having worked with other photographers and this is not a denigration, I can tell you that nobody has the process in my experience so far that I have, that I put my clients through, it's basically just show up, we're going to be here at 3 o', clock, come with this outfit and we're going to do some photography. But my process is completely different. I reverse engineer that. I meet with my clients beforehand, we have a lot of conversation. I like to understand what it is they want out of this experience as it pertains to photography, as it pertains to business, as it pertains to branding. And once you have an understanding of what their perspective is on it, you're able to craft something that matches their disposition. 

Does that make sense? So instead of telling you, George, hey, we're going to photograph today in the park. I'll see you there at one o' clock and then we're going to spend 60 minutes and we're going to photograph for 60 minutes and I'm just going to like make it up on the fly. You and I have crafted what we're going to do. Well before you even show up, there's a storyboard involved, there's multiple conversations involved. I talk with you about your wardrobes. If it's business and branding stuff, everything is done sort of ahead of time so that we have built trust and rapport so that when you do show up, it's me listening, it's me observing, it's me watching, asking questions and, and interacting with you so that you can show up in your most candid and natural and raw self.

George Torok: How do you build trust? How do you convey trust with your photographs?

Devo Tindal: Well, the trust starts with the engagement with the client. So rather than just taking a photograph, I'm creating an experience. And in the process of giving people an experience, an experience that was crafted for them. Because, remember, we did a lot of advanced recon ahead of time and we don't just randomly pick locations. 

So, for example, I'm doing a photo shoot tomorrow night. I shoot for a local magazine. It's going to be the COVID photograph. And, you know, instead of just saying, hey, I'll meet you at such and such a place, we actually went online. We did, pulled up some Pinterest boards, we walked through some outfits. We sort of started to design what we want the COVID to look like. Very informational. We have candid conversations. It's just me being me and allowing you to be you. And so when you show up in that space, a, you're already confident that your photographer knows what they're doing. They've already planned out what you're going to be supposed to be doing for them. 

But because you've already spent this time engaging with me, you already have this rapport. And through the process of creating an experience for people through the photo shoot itself, it just relaxes everybody. It, allows people to sort of pull their guard down and not feel like it's a photo shoot. It allows people to just show up and be themselves. Does that make sense?

George Torok: Yeah. And I'm curious. They, they say that the, they say that the camera doesn't lie. So how do you make people feel more comfortable with exposing themselves as they are?

Devo Tindal: Well, that's funny. So I want to make clear, photography is a very small part of what we do, but content creation is one element of it. A lot of what we do centers around these pre photo shoot, pre content strategy sessions. And in terms of making people show up authentically, it really just centers around the trust piece I spent for many, many years. I did boudoir photography. 

I don't know if you know what boudoir photography is, but it's photographing half naked for, for a variety of areas. And so if you want to talk about vulnerability and exposure, no pun intended, you have to have trust. If you're going to get someone to a. Being a man, photographing women, you have to have some sort of rapport with them. And again, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but going back to how the process works, it's a very organic process in understanding who you are as an individual. What do you want out of this experience? What are the things that really motivate you what are the things that you don't like about photography? 

What are the things you don't like about showing up? What are you uncomfortable with about your sk skin or your body or whatever it is? And in the process of having these raw, organic conversations, people start to kind of have verbal cues around this dude actually cares about what this is going to look like. And, and then because my personality, I'm just sort of like, no filter, no fluff, I'm just going to call like, I see it. And so that's very disarming for people. It's like it allows them to be like, wait, if he's going to show up like this, I can show up like this. Does that make sense? And so, and that's how those connections are made. This is just, that's just how I approach it. I've always sort of looked at, why do we have to be artificial versions of our themselves Just

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Devo Tindal: show up as who you are. You're good enough already. And if you can, if you can make people feel that they're good enough the way they are, then they're going to be more inclined to actually show up the way you need them to show up for a photo shoot.

George Torok: And they probably come away saying, you know what, I have two good sides. He made both sides look good on me.

If you show up authentically, then the camera captures them authentically

Devo Tindal: Yeah, I guess we'll just stick with the photography topic. One of the reasons I got into photography many, many years ago, and I started when I was like 12 years old taking photographs, is I was blown away by the magical element of being able to freeze a moment and forever. Right. And just if you pick up a photograph and with thousands of photographs now on our phone, that's a moment that will never, ever exist again. 

Right. And so having the, having the ability to take that moment and freeze that for them and show people how, somebody else might see them and if they're able to show up authentically, then the camera captures them authentically. It's not like a postured photo. Right. So yes, the camera doesn't lie, but you can, you can positively impact how the camera tells your truth. If you are genuinely and organically showing up in front of the camera. Does that make sense? They're not fake photos. They're not you contriving something, you're, you're literally showing up as your true soul self.

Devo got into branding through photography

George Torok: All right, now I'm curious, how does that approach, or do you use that approach when you help people with their brand story?

Devo Tindal: Yeah, they're two completely different things. I got into branding through photography. It was accidental. I was helping because I have a very large social media following and I was taking photo, I was shooting weddings all over the world. I started getting asked by a lot of photographers how I was doing this, how I was doing that. So I started putting on these workshops for photographers. 

And in the process of doing workshops, what I realized most importantly is that these young photographers, or even experienced photographers, while they were amazing at doing their craft, they didn't know how to build a business and they didn't know how to tell their story, and they were basically following what everybody else was doing. And so that's how I kind of got got into this branding space. I started to realize, wow, I'm actually pretty good at doing these types of things and telling people stories. And so branding is the ability to tell your story, whether you're Coca Cola and you're a multibillion dollar corporation or you're a small entrepreneur. 

Everything centers around you connecting emotionally with your ideal audience. Right? And one of the best ways to do that is to learn how you show up, where are your gaps, where do you want to be? And then being able to articulate your story so that everybody else understands why or why not they might buy from you. And all that doesn't happen with you per se. It doesn't happen with your product per se. It all centers around that emotional connection you can create with your story. And so storytelling still plays a center part of that. But it's a strategic storytelling process that I take my clients through. And that's what I call the brand blueprint. And in that brand blueprint, because I have a psychology background and spent copious amounts of years uncovering my own shadows and my own work through my own businesses, I sort of understand and have built this blueprint on how do you unpack who you are as an individual? Right? 

Because who you are as an individual is going to be the impetus for how you show up as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. Right? Think about it. So everything that you believe, your philosophies, your beliefs, your values, all of those things are going to be imbued in your podcast, are going to be imbued in your business. How do you show up for your customers? How do you show up for your products? All of those things. And so what I've done is I've reverse engineered this idea of business first, and I do person first. So we craft a disposition of who you are as an individual. And once we understand what that looks like, then we are more readily equipped to start building what the business is so that it matches that vibe.

George Torok: And Devo, I like that concept of person first because that means that one. One will be more natural and they'll come across real and more consistent. They don't have to put on a show. It's kind of like, I. I remember the old advice, be careful about when you tell lies. Unless you have a really good memory.

Devo Tindal: That's right, Yeah. I mean, and we live in a world where you have the ability to market to what 8 billion people on the planet is that what roughly is through your phone, Right. So you have the opportunity to tell your story to roughly, let's say there's 7 billion people that actually have phones. You have your opportunity to tell your story to 7 billion people. And what's going to make that connection more plausible is your ability to be transparent and vulnerable. Vulnerable and honest, so that people can see a part of themselves in what you're sharing with them. 

And that, that really just centers around being able to tell your story and being able to articulate it and very clearly being able to understand how you show up in the world. Who are you as an individual? And not to get all philosophical, but we do have to ask ourselves the question, who. Who am I? And when you start to better understand who you are, with your gaps and your weaknesses and your strengths and all your. The things that you love doing, the things that you don't love doing, you're better able to clearly articulate where you fit into the system and where the system can apply,

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Devo Tindal: be applied for your zone of genius.

George Torok: It sounds like a painful process to go through.

Devo Tindal: It's not. It can be a bit. It can be a bit emotional. Absolutely. But it's just like a good therapy session. Lay down on the sofa. Good therapist asks you very pertinent and, and very, very specific types of questions so they can better understand where the problems exist and how they can better help you. Right. And so if you spend some time being able to be very honest with yourself and you start to understand who you are as an individual, then you're going to be more equipped, better equipped to be honest with the people you're trying to sell your product to. And if you're able to do that clearly and articulately, then you're able to sort of fulfill those promises that you stepped into in the first place, rather than trying to. Like you just said, I got to remember the story I told, so I'm not telling a lie anymore. Right. So it's, it's. I wouldn't say It's a painful process for me. It's more of a cathartic process. It's been an eye opening process for me to sort of like take the time to really clearly understand who I am as an individual. And how does that be? How can you imbue that into your business and sell something that solves someone else's unique problems?

You mentioned a blueprint. What are some of the critical elements of a valid, successful story

George Torok: You mentioned a blueprint. What are some of the critical elements of, a valid, successful story?

Devo Tindal: I think your values are probably a very critical piece, understanding what you believe in. Because ultimately what we're selling is we're trying to sell our version of the world to somebody else so that they can buy it. Whether you're a coach or whether you're a photographer or you have a product that you're selling, you're trying to sell to them what it is you're building because you're passionate about it, you love it, whatever it is, it solves a problem for you. So I think values are a big part of it. I think you need to be very, very clear on what problems you're solving for your intended buyer and not just look at it from the perspective of what, what am I good at, what do I love? But how can I take what I love and what I'm good at and create some sort of a solution using my zone of genius that somebody else actually needs? 

And so it's really important to clearly be able to understand exactly what problem is my really cool idea or my really cool product or my really cool blueprint, what is it actually solving for somebody else? And then you start, you need to start speaking to that, that approach when you're talking to your buyer, instead of just saying, hey, I'm a great podcaster, you're going to talk about my PODC should be listened to, because during this 30 minute sessions with George, we're going to learn this. And when somebody hears that, I'm going to learn how to do what, okay, I'm going to listen to that podcast instead of coming at it from like, I'm George, I'm the best. I got a great voice. I've been doing this for years. Nobody cares, man, nobody cares. You're just a wind bag. But if you can come in and say, during my podcast, I'm going to be interviewing people and they're going to share their zone of genius on how they built this. And in the process of learning about that, you're literally going to walk away today with three things that you can implement into your business that will change the paradigm of your your existence. And so you see how you reverse that around now you're speaking to your customer who is now listening because you're doing something for them, not just for yourself. That makes sense.

George Torok: Yeah. And, and devil, that, what you just said there, I think that's worth writing down, transcribing, writing down and, and blasting out to a lot of people to pay attention and listen up, folks.

Devo Tindal: This is it. Yeah, it's kind of wild. And, and I can't, I, I, I can't say that I always operated from that perspective. I used to think, especially early on in my entre a serial entrepreneur. I've been doing this since 2010 now full time. I used to think sort of like, hey, I'm really good at this. I'm just going to go out there and do that and deliver it. And that's that. And it wasn't until I started to understand the idea of, like, perception being reality, and then other people had different opinions about things than I did. Right? It's like, wait, you don't believe what I believe? 

How's that possible? Right? It's like, how could you be so crazy? But nobody believes what you believe, per se. Everybody has their own understanding, their own context, their own learn, their own learned behaviors, their own psychology, their own whatever, right? And so everybody brings that to every moment and every time. And so when you can start to understand how different people show up for different things and better understand what they actually need, you're able to craft your solution and talk about it in your messaging so that when you share that with them, they realize the eureka light goes off and they're like, that's exactly what I was looking for. And they didn't even know it. But that's exactly what I'm looking for. Right?

George Torok: If other people see the world differently than we do, believe differently than we do, how is it that that when we tell our story, it connects with them?

Devo Tindal: Because in every difference, there are also subtleties and nuances that are aligned, right? You, you have something about you that is similar to me. Maybe we both like horror movies, or maybe we both like watching baseball, or we both like podcasting whatever it is, right? Maybe we like to talk about the, the head over the head microphones, or you're looking for a new microphone. Whatever it is, it's our job as business owners to understand what our product does and what problem it solves. And once we understand what problem it solves and how we want to show up with that solution, we start to speak

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Devo Tindal: the messages that are in alignment with the very specific type of audience that we want to sell to. And that doesn't mean you're necessarily niching down per se. It just means you're starting to articulate in your messaging, in your branding. And let's be very clear about branding real quickly, if I may. Branding is literally every single touch point on your customer journey or your potential customer's journey, where they have an opportunity to learn something about you and develop a perception your brand. It's not your logo or your website or your cool colors. It's literally everything. It's everything that would give a customer a perspective or a perception about what it might look like to engage with you, be friends with you, be in business with you, have a conversation with you. And some people are going to resonate with that. Some people are going to be like, like, dude, I don't even want anything to do with this. Devo, he's loud, he's obnoxious, he talks a lot. 

That's not my kind of guy guy. I'm not trying to sell to him. I'm trying to sell to somebody else that does appreciate what I'm talking about. And so a lot of the times, especially as entrepreneurs, we get really caught up in, like, I'm just going to share this message with everybody. I just want everyone to buy from me. And I'm throwing spaghetti noodles at the wall. It's like maybe one or two sticks. Find the people that stick. Those are the people you want to connect with. And there's more people like that. And, and once you start to really clearly understand and you're able to clearly articulate that brand message, that's when people start listening. That's when the right type of people start listening.

George Torok: And Devo, I'm hearing that our story in particular, and the brand course being the. All the experiences that people have with us reveals our truth, who we are. And there's risk in that because some people won't like who we are. However, on the positive side, there are people who will like. And we need to be clear that we're. We're not for everyone.

Devo Tindal: 100. You are not selling to everybody. You are selling to a very specific person. And if you can. And I have an exercise that takes my clients through this, which is being able to identify the psychometrics and the, the psychology and the buyer patterns and all the different things of the type of person that needs your product, right? And everybody's looking for something. We're all looking for. So every single day we're waking up trying to find something to make our life better. Better soaps, better shoes, better socks, better food, you know, whatever. Better lawns, whatever it is. And so it's our job if you're. And I'm, I'm using lawns because like, we haven't had rain in like 3m weeks and my grass has started to frizzle up and die. And I see these trucks driving around spraying pesticides all over and I'm like, we don't need pesticides on our grass. We need rain. So somebody should be coming through my neighborhood with the water hose and be able to like spray down like somehow or other. I don't know what, how that's done yet, but that's not my zone of genius. But yeah, so again, it's. We're not selling to everybody. We're selling to a very, very specific type of person who needs our solution.

Coca Cola forgot who their real customer was with New Coke

We just have to figure out who that is, what they look like, what do they want, all those things.

George Torok: And, I'm, I'm, reminded of the big mistake that Coca Cola made when they came out with New Coke. They forgot who their real customer was and they got, they got misled by why Pepsi misled them.

Devo Tindal: Yeah, they had. Well, there's an interesting story about Coke, but you're absolutely right. They, they were trying to expand into a different market that really wasn't their zone of genius. And they changed the coloring. They changed the colors, the codes, they changed logos. And they have a die hard following. And people are very die hard about their sodas. I don't drink soda personally, so I don't really know what that means. So I'm not definitely going to be talking to a soda business. I'm not in that marketing space. But you're right, the absolute message of there is that they didn't take into account, they thought that they were too big and too popular to fail, for starters. And they didn't take into account the grassroots foundation of what their brand represented. And the grassroots of what their brand represented was the idea of this classic can that hasn't been changed in a hundred years. And suddenly they changed it and it just threw everybody for a tizzy. And so they didn't take that factor into account. They've since learned from it. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Good example.

George Torok: I was working with, a client recently who as part of an event they were sponsoring, were preparing to tell their own life story for why they got into this particular field in healthcare. And in that story he talks about his early Pain in life?

George Torok: Have you found that a story needs to have a pain point?

Devo Tindal: Does the story need to have a pain point? I don't know if it needs to have a story needs to have a pain point. But I will say that people like pain stories only because it shows the humanity in yourself and the same humanity that they see in themselves. And it's a good bet that nobody on this planet has ever had zero suffrage in any part of their lives, whether it's as a child, whether it's as a divorce, whatever it is. And I wouldn't say that you need to be a bleeding glass and like talk about this all the time, because then you're just a depressing cow. But being able to be

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Devo Tindal: honest about the things that shaped you and the opportunities that where you had, you had to learn something about yourself or you had to learn something about a process. Those are things that people, latch onto because they're like, holy shit. He was divorced, he's a single dad, he's raised his daughters, he plays soccer, he has a podcast. Like, these are the kind of things that I want to do, or these are the kind of things that I do. And through them it's not, I don't want to call it the sorrow, but through the reality check, if you will, in terms of like showing up genuinely. That's where people find the connection. Like, are you married? You have a partner?

George Torok: Yes.

Devo Tindal: Yeah, so think about that. Like you and your partner, I doubt you got married the first day you met. Like, right. You ended up engaging with each other, you went on dates, you told stories to each other. And in the process of telling those stories, you started to, ah, form this emotional, energetic connection with her, with him. You told stories about your childhood, you told stories about your kids, you told stories about falling off a bicycle, you told stories about the day you almost drowned in the lake. Whatever. Whatever it is, right? And so in that process of telling these stories, not only did she start to build trust and rapport with you because you were opening up and being honest with her. She's like, wow, this George has got a pretty cool story. I kind of like the fact that he did this, this. And it starts to show who you are as a human. And people don't buy products, they buy the human. They want to know, what about the Coke can? Am I so bond to do? Well, it's the fact that Coke is, a is 150 year old company. And if you go back 150 years, they have all these stories of how it was built and why they use the can and why they use the color red and why they have the squ. Squishy mark. And all those things were all part of the repetition of building up that brand legacy. And same thing when you tell stories to your partner or you tell stories to your audience, it builds this you, and we don't even know it. It's subconscious. Like, you don't even think about something you've watched recently on tv, and it made you go to tears. Like, what was it that made you go to tears? Or what was it that made you smile? Or there was something in every moment where you see something, you're like, man, that is really cool. Right? Or that is sucky. I don't want anything to do with that. But that was the bottom. At the center of all that was an emotional, unconscious heartstring that made you like or dislike something. And that's what storytelling does for you.

George Torok: Emotion sounds like emotion needs to be a big part, a, major part to your story.

Devo Tindal: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that doesn't mean you have to have some grand, crazy story to create emotion. You can create emotion by being honest and vulnerable about the things that you're going through so that other people can see that and realize that they're going through