How to Be Their Favorite with Jay Acunzo

In this episode, Jay Acunzo, a leading voice in content creation and storytelling, shares invaluable insights tailored for nonprofit fundraisers and marketers. Jay discusses how to move beyond traditional, transactional fundraising tactics to create transformational experiences that resonate deeply with donors and volunteers. He offers guidance on building a strong Brand IP for nonprofits, the power of journey-based storytelling, and how to use frustration as a catalyst for creative and impactful campaigns.

Key Topics:

• Resonating with donors and volunteers through meaningful storytelling.
• Shifting from transactional to transformational experiences in nonprofit marketing.
• Building a strong sense of community among nonprofit supporters.
• Developing a unique and compelling Brand IP for your cause.
• Addressing the unspoken needs of your supporter base.
• Overcoming learned helplessness to innovate in nonprofit storytelling.

About Jay Acunzo

Jay Acunzo is a keynote speaker, author, and a kind of executive producer or "director of differentiation" for entrepreneurs and execs with something meaningful to say. He is known for his thought leadership in content marketing and storytelling. With a focus on creating work that truly matters, Jay’s insights are particularly relevant for nonprofit professionals seeking to differentiate their messaging and build deeper, more lasting connections with their audience. His latest book, The Creator’s Compass, and podcast, How Stories Happen, explore these themes with a fresh, creative lens.

Connect with Jay on LinkedIn
Check out Jay Acunzo's Website

Is it me, or does social media feel completely overwhelming right now? Are your posts underperforming and you don’t know what to do about it? Well I’ve got you covered. Join me and Neon One for the 2024 Nonprofit Social Media Summit! Designed for the small and mid-size nonprofit, my Summit offers actionable and practical insights on how to best use social media to raise awareness and funds, even during turbulent times.Walk away feeling empowered and supported, with strategies you can implement right away. Best of all, it's free to attend live thanks to my amazing partner Neon One! Reserve your spot today at NonprofitSocialMediaSummit.com

Take my free masterclass: 3 Must-Have Elements of Social Media Content that Converts

Transcript

>> Julia Campbell: 0:00

Is it me, or does social media feel completely overwhelming right now? Are your posts underperforming and you don't know what to do about it? Well, I've got you covered. Join me and Neon one for the 2024 nonprofit Social Media Summit. Specifically designed for the small and mid sized nonprofit, this summit offers actionable and practical insights on how to best use social media to raise awareness and raise funds even during turbulent times. I want you to walk away feeling empowered and supported with strategies you can implement right away. And best of all, it's free to attend live. Thanks to my amazing partner, Neon one. So reserve your spot today@nonprofitsocialmediasummit.com. now on to the show. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, then and you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello. Hi, everyone. this is Nonprofit Nation. I'm Julia Campbell, and thank you so much for listening. Whether you're a long time listener or new listener, today I have a very special treat. You know that well, I'm a fan girl of a lot of things, but I'm not a fan girl of a lot of content creators because a lot of the stuff out there tends to be very similar and very cookie cutter. But that is not the case. Today I have one of my favorite podcasters, favorite authors. Jaycanzo. Jay is a keynote speaker, author, and a kind of executive producer or director of differentiation for entrepreneurs and execs with something meaningful to say. He's known for his thought leadership in content marketing and storytelling with a focus on creating work that truly matters. Jay's insights are particularly relevant for nonprofit professionals seeking to differentiate their messaging and build deeper, more or less in connections with their audience. And his latest book, the Creator's Compass and podcast, how stories happen, explore these themes with a fresh creative lens, and I am a huge, huge, huge fan. So, Jay, thank you so much for being here today.

>> Jay Acunzo: 2:58

Julia, thank you. That was incredible. I really appreciate that.

>> Julia Campbell: 3:02

Yay. And we're both a big fan of Myrtle the turtle at the Boston Aquarium.

>> Jay Acunzo: 3:06

Oh, yeah. Myrtle's found her way both into my keynote and into my heart.

>> Julia Campbell: 3:11

Oh, I love that. I need her to find a way into my keynote. I know that my. I was asking my son the other day, I said, what's the turtle that loves the lettuce? He's like, Myrtle. I love Myrtle so much. So I want to just kind of jump right in. You know, I usually start with the journey, but I have a feeling that this question is going to lead into sort of your journey, of how you got to where you are. But your tagline is, don't be the best. Be their favorite. So tell me about this and what it means and how you came to this tagline.

>> Jay Acunzo: 3:44

I just think we run around trying to project to others that were, like, some objective or academically correct or top choice for things, which is just not how people make choices. Like, one of the best realizations I had is I was talking to some, work friends about, like, the best Disney film, and we all had radically different.

>> Julia Campbell: 4:02

It's a Scooby Doo thing.

>> Jay Acunzo: 4:03

A Scooby Doo thing.

>> Julia Campbell: 4:05

Don't you love a Scooby Doo movie?

>> Jay Acunzo: 4:06

Oh, no. A goofy.

>> Julia Campbell: 4:06

Oh, no. Goofy.

>> Jay Acunzo: 4:07

So I was defending a goofy movie, which, if, you know, you know. Cause powerline, who's the pop star in the film? Powerline is, like, legit, great music, and I still want the album. But anyways, I was defending this very random, often forgotten film, and, you know, what do you get when you have these debates? You get Moana Lion King, deservedly so. A lot of these amazing films, and it's just like, you step out of that and you realize everything we choose to enroll into our lives, to refer to our friends, to refer to our colleagues, we are making from a place of subjectivity and emotion based decision making and then rationalizing what we did after. So, with the Disney film thing as the example, there is no objective or academic correct answer to what's the best Disney film, right? Because if there was, we'd all agree it's that one. It'd be like asking who has hit the most three pointers in NBA history? And everyone goes, Steph Curry. It's objective. It's academically correct. So I think we need to rewire how we go to market where we're not often. We're trying as experts in our field, either in our day to day work, like we're experts in marketing and we are marketers or in the industry we occupy or niche or whatever, we're trying to project something that is not fundamentally speaking to what other people need to hear like they need to hear and see themselves in the work. They need your thinking to look more like IP. Have a distinct premise, your perspective turned into your positioning. Tell stronger stories, be an effective storyteller. Teach people and connect with them on a human level, not just the basic tips and tricks and how tos of the content that we were taught to create in 2012 as marketers or leaders trying to show up on the Internet. So at the end of the day, we all think that we have a reach problem. I believe we have a resonance problem. I believe what we know matters, but what we say does not ensure that they care at the moment. And we have to fix that problem, because if they don't care, they don't act. So that's why I like to say, don't be the best, be their favorite, because that's how people make choices, they play favorites. And the real question we have to ask is, are you one of them?

>> Julia Campbell: 6:12

This reminds me of a keynote talk I saw from Mark Phillips, who is a fundraising expert, and he said, they are not your donors, you are one of their charities. And how can we become their favorite charity? And so much of what you said really resonated with me. We're so focused on being the best. We have these charity rating sites that I completely disagree with, by the way. I don't like being rated on overhead or I don't know, efficiency, because that says, oh, this is the best. This is the logical, like you said, academic rating. But we want to be their favorite. So how can we work towards this when we've always had the mindset of being the best?

>> Jay Acunzo: 6:57

I talk a lot about, because this is what the client work that I do looks like is developing IP, right? Develop your perspective, because perspectives are felt. We all have.

>> Julia Campbell: 7:07

IP is intellectual property.

>> Jay Acunzo: 7:08

Yeah, IP is intellectual property. We've all understood for many years on every topic that we have a perspective, either as an individual or a team. And it's sort of sensed and felt. It's discovered. If I spend a lot of time with you, well, how do you make it apparent and readily? So you have to develop that perspective. You have to actually put language to it. You have to do the work that looks more like being an author or a speaker or a show host. All the stuff that I've spent many years doing, like professionally, they all have that grouping of people, unfair advantages when they show up and communicate. Like all the stuff you heard me rattle off to. Respond to your first question, that's part of my ip. And I've either practiced it or I've arrived to it today. On the back of deeply thinking and working and reworking on my premise, my perspective turned into language. And so the first and most important thing I think we all need is. Is a premise. Like, a really easy example here is, I worked with a woman named Michelle Warner, who is a business strategist and business model, designer for entrepreneurs and small businesses. And I'm like, okay, get in line, right? If you're hunting for a, service provider like that, you put her on my.

>> Julia Campbell: 8:18

She was on your podcast.

>> Jay Acunzo: 8:19

She was on my podcast, yeah, but you can put her on a spreadsheet and put her price and the fancy names she's worked with and then do the same for 17 others and then pick one. We have to get off the spreadsheet. We have to stop acting like commodities that I can sort of find anywhere, which is how most of us show up in the world. And so Michelle has a distinct premise that she calls sequence over strategy. Her assertion. So, this is what a premise is. It's an assertion you make, pulled from your perspective, that informs your choices and your reputation. So her assertion she makes is sequence over strategy. She says, you don't need a blueprint. You don't need a playbook. You don't need a strategy. What you need to do is figure out what is the next right action to take to build your business so that over time, you develop the right strategy for you. Sequence over strategy, that's incredibly valuable to others to hear it is incredibly personal to Michelle. So she can own that premise publicly, and then she can use it to inform everything she does. Her public positioning, her appearances on podcasts or boot camps or roundtables where she teaches. It's the name of her show. Her podcast is called sequence over strategy. Her daily content, her weekly newsletter, all of it is informed by that premise. It's an idea she can own. And it's not just a tagline, right? It is actually how she sees this work in this world. Now I should step out of this. You can disagree. You can be like, that's the height of insanity. Knowing what to do next is more important than knowing all the moves to do. No, you need to know all the moves so that the one move you make today is in line with that. Michelle would defend against that, right? She has a distinct perspective. She's put language to it by actively developing her ideas. Even though she's a consultant and a strategist, she's done so the way an author might, the way a public speaker might the way front facing media talent might. Right? And as a result, even though she sells services, she has the communication like unfair advantages of those deep thinkers. So this all begins to me with recognizing that if you want to resonate deeper with other people, you need to turn your perspective into a premise first, which puts you on the path of developing IP, that stronger thinking that you really own and become known for.

>> Julia Campbell: 10:35

I first really fell in love with your teaching when I heard you say the importance of resonance overreach. Because I, in my work, I teach nonprofits about social media, which now, in 2024, I'm really rethinking it. I'm having kind of an existential crisis around it. But I started out teaching nonprofits about digital marketing. And really, I always felt the same way, though. And I thought everything we're getting taught all the snake oil and, like, all of this spammy salesmanship, like, we're all getting sold a bill of goods around reach, reach and numbers and likes and followers and fans and all of this. And if it's not going to actually turn or like, you know, push the needle at the end of the day or help change behaviors, or help create a better world or help drive donations, whatever you want it to do, it's not going to be worth your time. So talk more about resonance overreach. And how can we resonate in this world where there's sort of, like, so much competition out there for residents?

>> Jay Acunzo: 11:48

Yeah, I mean, everyone looks and sounds the same. Everyone is being incentivized to create a certain way to communicate a certain way. Because the distribution channels where we show up have agendas. They're businesses, they're private entities, these social networks in particular. And they subtly and sometimes not so subtly, urge us to create or cultivate in us the need to create a certain type of content a certain way. Now, on the one hand, people go, yeah, but that's what works. Like, here's an easy example. Ever notice how, like, business advice, content is getting really almost pushy? It's like, what are you. You're trying to help serve me. You're trying to, like, give advice. So why are you doing this in this so, like, bombastic fashion, right? Like, either posing at the extreme, posing in front of a Lamborghini, and, like, you can too, or just, like, subtle little bits of copy that seem really aggressive. Like, 99% of people do this wrong. Let me show you how to do it right. Why?

>> Julia Campbell: 12:44

Ten x your business in five years.

>> Jay Acunzo: 12:46

Ten x your business. Yeah. email is dead. Right? You see that? That's a longstanding marketer trope. Why? So the question is why? Well, this involves eating a serious piece of humble pie. Consider perhaps that it's because underlying that sensationalism is just basic advice or generalized expertise, which perhaps useful, perhaps not. But let's say it is useful I can find from a million other sources. So why you? If you're a commodity, you're on the hamster wheel, forced to compete against 8000 other little hamsters furiously pumping on the same wheel, and you're now trying to like out shout out hype, out rank out viral those same people. So the real reason we're seeing this sort of grimy version or aggressive shouty version or pushy version of what should be helpful advice to grow our businesses or leave our legacies or promote our causes is because the underlying ideas lack any real insight or personal perspective. In other words, like, they're not. I had this interaction with a marketer the other day. He was like, I think social media is stonewalling me. And I was like, my friend, I'm here with a hard message, but I think you might need to hear it. Maybe it's not. Social media is not stonewalling you. Maybe your ideas are not strong enough to ensure people care because, oh, wait.

>> Julia Campbell: 14:04

I need to hear that again.

>> Jay Acunzo: 14:05

Maybe people, aren't stonewalling you. Maybe your ideas aren't strong enough to make people care.

>> Julia Campbell: 14:10

Stop blaming the platforms.

>> Jay Acunzo: 14:12

I mean, you can't generalize expertise, how to's, tips and tricks, getting in front of people, not the work. The work is to make sure they care. This is a craft. This is something people invest their entire lives learning how to do. But the only thing we're taught is how to take a message or content that doesn't seem differentiated and isn't built to grow or to resonate and lace that with tactics or optimization tricks to try and promote it. I'm like, this is like duct taping together spare parts from your garage and trying to make it fly like a well built plane is easier to get off the ground. So this is a difficult message, right? This is not for somebody who's like a low maturity kind of thinker who just believes in magic and simple secrets. You really have to eat some humble pie to realize ideas can be developed, our message, our stories, our content, right down to the little nooks and crannies of, when I say anything as a storyteller, am I saying it with much power, or am I forced to play the game that is volume, which I think is a race to the bottom, I completely agree.

>> Julia Campbell: 15:15

And so much of what I teach and try to tell nonprofits is, is this something happening to you, or is this. Are these the results of what you did? So, yes, there are forces beyond our control with the algorithms, but there are certainly things we can control, like you just said, and you've written that momentum in content creation is generated by the power of ideas, rather than just the volume of content, which is exactly what you just said. I just think it's so important for nonprofits especially to understand, but marketers, fundraisers. So for those in the audience who face this pressure to constantly, constantly produce, how can we. I would say I'm in that group. How can we focus on developing and sharing more powerful and impactful ideas?

>> Jay Acunzo: 16:08

Yeah, I think let's step out of the terminology I've used so far, IP premise, et cetera. Let's start with a very fun prompt, which is, give me the two drink minimum version of you. Give me the end of the day. Had a long, stressful time of it, and I want to confide in my closest work, peer, about all the problems that we see in our space. Right. So you are in the business of starting from a place of brutal honesty. If you are to be a more effective storyteller, that's not what you share publicly, but we first have to actually identify our perspective. Like, I remember before I wrote my first book, Break the wheel, which is a book about questioning best practices. If people couldn't pick up on the fact that. I love doing that already, right? I wrote a book about it. I remember the moment with a friend and mentor of mine, a guy by the name of Andrew Davis, where he was like, jay, what are you trying to say? And I said something about the mediocrity of content that marketers create. He said, yeah, but what do you really mean by that? How do you really feel about that? And he kind of annoyed me enough with these, like, why? Why? Why follow ups that I was like, how do I really feel? I'll tell you how I feel. And I went on this ridiculous, ranty explanation of why we're missing the point. And it's bad for business. It's bad for audiences. It was three or four paragraphs of messy, ranty writing or communication. It was raw clay. And he's like, okay, great. Somewhere in there is your message, right? Put it on the page, and then you can do the easy part, which is to wordsmith. So I think in most of our attempts at positioning our organizations, attempts at creating content, finding and telling great stories, we're not starting where effective storytellers really begin, which is from a place of brutal honesty, of how they really feel about what's going on in the world or in their space. It's kind of this paradox where to connect deeper externally, you have to turn deeper internally. So the very first step here is not just what is our tagline or what types of content do we need? What questions do people have? It's to first sense your own feelings about your space, to identify your perspective. What's broken? What would be better? Why do you see it this way? Why you make a mess first? Because you can always wordsmith and evolve that into something productive later. And this is vulnerable work. This is not something you're going to get from a growth guru teaching a course that churns out sameness. This is going to have to come from you, because we're living in this era where if I can get expertise and advice, if I can get content services everywhere, a million different sources, then the who behind it, the place, the source, the organization matters the most. Right? Perspective is the one true advantage that we have. So you got to turn inward first to identify that. Wow.

>> Julia Campbell: 18:55

I'm just trying to process everything. I love it so much. I love what you said about the mediocrity of marketing, and Andrew Davis made you question that because that's just a symptom. That's not what's. That's a result of the problem that you see the mediocrity in marketing. That's not the problem. It's the result of the actual problem, which is that we. How, we believe in what we think and what we've been taught, and we have to unlearn so many things.

>> Jay Acunzo: 19:22

Right. And you can put form to this. I don't want to just rant and hopefully have people feel inspired, like there's real craft behind this. Like, think of if I asked you a question, which would be rude to say to somebody, a person or an organization, but we're all thinking it all the time. The question is, why should I care about you? Or even maybe what do you do? Which is, that's such a common early question that we have peer to peer. The way we respond. Like, the ordering of things matters. Like, I learned this as a keynote speaker. You're the change, how you think speaker. So you can't start the speech by going, stop doing it the way you've done it for years and do it this way. All right, that's my time. You have to take them on a journey where they're enrolled in that journey. They see themselves. They know you have your best interests in mind, or their best interests in mind, and you hit all the beats they need to hear to get to where you already are. That's the hard part, is we're already at the conclusion and they're at the start. So you can kind of structure your explanation of yourself with, like, four beats, which are align, agitate, assert, invite. So, like, a line is you going, you're this type of person. You're this way. You have this goal.

>> Julia Campbell: 20:33

I understand you. I see you.

>> Jay Acunzo: 20:34

I get you. I'm with you. I know you. Right? And that's it. It's just a period of, like, cool. That is my goal, who I am, what I'm going through, what I'm struggling with. Yes. We don't do that when we do anything communicatively. If I pitch you a creative idea, I pitch you the idea instead of making the case for why the idea should exist. That's a mistake, I should say. Hey, Julia, you know how, as a podcaster, you told me last week you have this goal? Then I can keep going. What do you do, Jay? Well, you know how a lot of experts are creating content, and they all kind of sound the same, or there's a lot of hype on the Internet with no real expertise behind it? Yeah, okay. I haven't told you what I do yet, but I've aligned with you.

>> Julia Campbell: 21:15

But I piqued your interest and your curiosity.

>> Jay Acunzo: 21:18

We stopped the conversation before it begins. What do you do? I'm a marketer. Yeah.

>> Julia Campbell: 21:23

Oh, God. No one wants to speak to you. They leave. They walk away at a dinner party. Yeah.

>> Jay Acunzo: 21:28

so a, line agitate. Now it's like you start to bring out tension, which is the calling card of a great storyteller. You know, like, making matters worse, you're starting to blame yourself, and there's these social networks out there. Here's the big question. Here's the problem. Here's the result of your current attempts, which aren't so great. Right. The problems with the status quo start to emerge. People go, oh, my gosh, what do I do? I know you have my best interest in mind. You address the fact that you know me and you know my goals, and here's how I'm coming at those goals now. And then you clearly put your finger on the bunch of the problems, maybe diagnose the illness under the symptoms, like, yeah, that is painful. No, I don't want that to persist. All right, here's the assertion. I would make, align, agitate, assert. You should care more about resonance than reach. Don't be the best. Be their favorite. Think sequence over strategy if you're Michelle Warner, because knowing the next right step matters more than knowing all the steps. What's that now? Perspective. You can give them third because they're ready for it. And then you invite them to whatever project or platform you're building. And so we come forth like, the thing we want from you is action. That's fourth. We first have to learn how to instill in you the urge to act. And I like those three beats first, which is align, agitate, and then assert before the invite, before the call to action. And as marketers, we leap to the fourth part way too soon.

>> Julia Campbell: 22:51

I agree. We focus way too much on, the call to action. I think we put the cart before the horse. I mean, it's saying that people have said forever, but exactly that. We don't focus more on the background information, the audience, and what their needs are and their, you know, you talk about, you know, differentiation starts by addressing unspoken needs and frustrations. I wonder how nonprofits can best do this with their donors. Like, what are some of your ideas?

>> Jay Acunzo: 23:20

Give me an example. What's a nonprofit we can use as, like, a. Either a theoretical or real example?

>> Julia Campbell: 23:26

I'm going to use one of my favorite clients, Rosie's place in Boston that you might be familiar with. They are a woman's lunch place. They serve lunch. They provide a multitude of services for women that are experiencing homelessness or experiencing crisis.

>> Jay Acunzo: 23:44

Right. So I'm going to their website, and I'm hunting for threads now. This is where I begin the process with clients. This is where I begin the process with the projects of mine. It's usually not above the fold on the homepage. It's usually somewhere hidden below the fold on the about or mission page. Maybe it's some, interview or speech from an executive publicly, away from the website. We're trying to over position something and be too many things to too many people or commodify ourselves. And I see that that's what Rosie's place is kind of doing here. More than a shelter, a second chance. That's fine. That's a nice sounding tagline. But if I'm trying to appeal to a donor, how do I do that? There are some people that are so ready to donate, they're close to the conversion, the action you want that simply you getting in front of them matters. That's not the vast majority of people. Right. So I think about I don't know. My colleagues in building my membership, both my co founder, Melanie Diesel, and some of our members who might be women or might identify as feminists, myself included. How do you resonate with someone like that using the structure I gave you? Well, I would start by saying, here's what you already care about. You might not be wandering the earth thinking about a shelter, but maybe you're thinking about the patriarchy. Maybe you're thinking about women's rights in general or systemic oppression, things like that. Systemic, yeah. All these things might be the stuff you're thinking about. So you go out and you m meet people where they're at first, right? Here's what you already care about. Here's the stuff you see flying on social media that you dislike, messages you dislike. Here's what you care about. And you support and all those things, right? And then agitate. Well, we're kind of experts in this area, and what we've seen is underneath. Here's what's really causing that. All these other things are happening, right? You start to get. You're like a doctor diagnosing the illness, right? Maybe you care about this symptom or that symptom or this cause or that cause or this sound bite or that sound bite. Maybe you care about the macro environment. We are in the thick of it as Rosie's place, and here's all the things that we see going on. So what's the assertion? Well, if you truly believe in all the stuff we talked about in the alignment phase of our message, and you're sick of or want to overcome all the pain and problems in the agitate phase, we believe that it starts with something like our shelter, right? Because if you can help people find a home, help people get on their feet, whatever, right.

>> Julia Campbell: 26:06

You have to place no judgment and you can go there as many times as you want and whatever.

>> Jay Acunzo: 26:12

And I'm like, I'm missing having a safe.

>> Julia Campbell: 26:14

Yeah. Welcoming place. I see what you're saying.

>> Jay Acunzo: 26:16

I'm missing a lot of context. But what I'm trying to get to, the sort of core of this is place into their existing life or context. What you see as the solution, right? Like, for me, it's. So if you want a passionate audience, if you want a growing Internet audience full of prospects and donors and partners and evangelists, then you should care about effective storytelling and developing IP and developing a premise, right? If you care about all these things out there, then you should care about Rosie's place or other similar services to it, because we believe that's the root of it, right. If you can address it here, then the rest of the stuff gets better. So that's what I don't see from nonprofits enough, is I see them because it's a compelling story. Often nonprofits benefit from tension because they're cause based.

>> Julia Campbell: 27:10

Right.

>> Jay Acunzo: 27:11

They're trying to change something positive. So what I would try to do, and this is a little bit harsh to say, is, hey, listen, if you identify as a feminist in Boston, you can't not care about us because the root of it is right here or because this is a pillar of it. I would try to place into the context of what folks already care about my organization or what my organization offers to make it irresistible and inescapable that, oh, my gosh, of course I should donate to Rosie's place. I'll take it to a domain I know. Let's look at any writing service, any creativity based nonprofit. If I am wandering the earth trying to help professionals, as Jay, my services are for professionals. Unleash their creativity, be more effective storytellers, really get in touch with their perspective, and use it for their causes. Right. If that's what I say I'm about, could a nonprofit that promotes literacy in children or writing programs among the underprivileged help me see why I should volunteer my time or donate? Probably right. If they met me where I was at and said, well, if that's you, Jay, then logically, this is the root of it. It starts when you're a kid, Jay. You're privileged. You're white, straight, cisgendered male with two great parents and great teachers your whole life. Like, a lot of these people aren't. So a lot of what you're able to do is not possible for other people. So I'm sort of talking myself into doing this now in my area.

>> Julia Campbell: 28:35

But, like, yes, now, I think that's a great idea.

>> Jay Acunzo: 28:38

That's the message here is we're really, really strong at what we do. We're really, really good at saying why the people really close to acting should care. We're not great at taking others on our journey from where they're at to where we want them to be.

>> Julia Campbell: 28:51

I just wrote down a quote, put it in the context of what they care about. This is so important. We cannot force someone to care about something. We can put it in front of them. We can give it attention. We can put it in the news, but we cannot force them to care about this issue, no matter what it is. So putting our issue in front of people that are inclined or, aligned. You said alignment.

>> Jay Acunzo: 29:23

Yep.

>> Julia Campbell: 29:24

In the context of things they already care about. And this is what, I'm sure you get a lot of pitches for your podcast. I'm sure you get a lot of pitches for partnerships and a lot of pitches or promoting things, and they are not in any way aligned with anything that you care about. And I get that correct so frequently.

>> Jay Acunzo: 29:43

Oh, my goodness.

>> Julia Campbell: 29:44

And I think if you just did a little bit of that research, a little bit of that framework that you talked about, you wouldn't be wasting your time, and you wouldn't be wasting my time.

>> Jay Acunzo: 29:52

And pitching a podcast is so breathtakingly easy compared to what we were just trying to do for Rosie's place, because the podcast itself should have a premise. Or you could follow the host of the podcast around their platform.

>> Julia Campbell: 30:02

This is how you fit into the premise.

>> Jay Acunzo: 30:03

Right. This is how, instead of, I get this all the time, because I host business shows, which is like, Jay, this is a successful client of my PR firm. Would you consider putting them on your show? They have 25 years in SEO, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The same pitch applies all the time, which is, here's this person. They are awesome. They are an expert. Will you interview?

>> Julia Campbell: 30:21

Yes. I get them all the time, too.

>> Jay Acunzo: 30:23

you're a commodity. If they said, Jay, I know your show seeks to equip people with expertise, people building, to help their audience with the tools necessary to be more effective storytellers. I know that's why you build how stories happen. Spoiler alert. You can listen to 30 seconds of an episode when I introduce the premise every episode, to learn that you don't have to listen to hours of tape. Jay, I know that's what the show is about. I've seen you interview for the past ten episodes like, these types of people, and you haven't yet interviewed somebody like this. What if you talk to Julia, who specializes in storytelling in a domain you haven't featured, nonprofit, and in this way, and maybe this would be like an interesting wrinkle on similar themes. What do you think? Now, at least we're having the conversation about why this matters to me, and that's the hardest part, is people. I think this is a great gift, but also kind of a curse of humanity, is we feel good doing good things. So people are like, can you really be selfless? I don't know. Can you really be generous? I don't know. Because you're doing it because it makes you feel good. That's a dumb debate. Celebrate the fact that we are wired to feel good when we do good, that's great, right? But you have responsibilities, you have kids, work, life, financial strains, fears, hopes, dreams, etcetera. And what I see in a lot, too many organizations, and it's not limited to nonprofits. It's just very visible with nonprofits. What I see those people do is too much, is say, hey, we do really good things over here. You should care about that.

>> Julia Campbell: 32:03

Yep, yep.

>> Jay Acunzo: 32:03

And that does not absolve you from doing what storytellers do, which is you have to show them why they'd care, which means placing in the context of what they already care about, not show them more behind the scenes of what you do.

>> Julia Campbell: 32:15

I run, a, nonprofit Facebook group with 15,000 people in it. And the amount of nonprofits that are posting their fundraising ask in there. And I usually, if it's a person, I will message them and say, what makes you think that people in this group are going to resonate with this message? Like, you can post this message as many places as you want, but it's just like you keep talking about Jay, resonance, overreach. You know, you could buy 10,000 Facebook ads, but if it's not resonating, and if you're not getting in front of the right people, and if it's just sort of spaghetti thrown up on the wall, you might as well just be buying a bunch of billboards and calling it a day. So that's the marketing that I don't like, where people are in the numbers game. And you talk about this a lot, but I do. I want to talk about another concept that I really was interested in, and I think really applies to the nonprofit sector, the concept of learned helplessness. So, for people who feel stuck in traditional methods, like, this is the status quo. This is the way things always have always been done. This is what my board director is telling me. Like, how can we break free from this mindset and really, like, innovate what we do?

>> Jay Acunzo: 33:32

Okay, so, to understand this, we first have to think about some fish, specifically a pike, which is a predatory fish, and minnows. So there's an old experiment that leads us to this idea. There is. Imagine, like, if you picture a tank full of water, and in that tank are a bunch of minnows, these tiny, little, helpless fish, and then you drop a pike in, it'll eat the minnows right away. But what scientists uncovered is if you put some glass between the pike and the minnows, the pike could see the prey and just start smashing up against that pane. Of glass over and over again.

>> Julia Campbell: 34:03

It's like betta fish. If you put betta fish.

>> Jay Acunzo: 34:05

Yeah, exactly.

>> Julia Campbell: 34:06

Together.

>> Jay Acunzo: 34:07

And then the pike would. Would eventually tire itself out, and then you, once that happened, you could remove the glass. And even when the pike regained energy, it would not chase the minnows because it learned, I guess minnows are things. I can't eat it. Learn helplessness.

>> Julia Campbell: 34:20

Wow.

>> Jay Acunzo: 34:21

So this happens all of the time in our work, but I think it's sort of groomed into us through school, because in school, we're taught, do not speak up unless you already know the answer. Your worthiness is directly tied to you already knowing I the answer. None of life's hardest challenges or problems or even smallest challenges and problems are solved by you being like, I'm already the expert in this. You have to raise your hand and go, I don't have the answers, but I'm going to figure this out. And so the switch we got to make is you bring expertise to everything you do, and expertise does matter. I don't want to belittle experts and expertise, but don't act like an expert who has all the answers. Act like an explorer who asks better questions. That's the switch. And so, like, as an author, you're trained to do that because you're writing a book to change something. You're like, this stinks. We're doing it this way. We've been doing it that way or understanding it that way for years. Why? What's better? Who's doing it better? Who's doing it poorly? What's standing in the way? Why do I see it and others don't? Do others see it? What terms do I need to go out and define these little pieces of the language that we're saying, but don't really m understand what we mean? What visual frameworks can I craft? What signature stories can I develop to illuminate to people what I'm trying to say? That's the process of building your ip, right? You're, like, starting from a place of frustration or curiosity. And so I think, like, what part of my message is trying to do for people is to reclaim what creativity actually is. It's not the constant manufacturing of brilliance. It's the consistent pursuit of curiosity. Your calling card is asking more piercing and better questions. They're not avoiding donating because you're not in front of them enough. They're avoiding any action as a marketer because they don't care enough. figure out how to make them care more. Right. Which is not more sob stories. It's not trauma porn, which is way too often what I see. It's understanding that they have a set of goals, beliefs, desires, and a source of identity that if you can attach your own message to it, they're more likely to take an action. Seth Godin says, people like us do things like this. So I am m more likely to donate time or money to a nonprofit focused on literacy. If your message is about trying to create more creatives in the world, trying to help people unleash their perspective and stories, and trying to do so from a young age, when it's easier to train that into people than when they get hardened as adults, that's part of my belief system. That's a big source of my identity. That's a nonprofit I might donate to, not the one saying it's all about just pure literacy and look at this person, and they weren't, and now they are. Or look at this group of people, and they struggle. Like that matters. Those are pieces of it, but it's not the message. So, to me, it's that simple switch where it starts, which is we're looking for answers, but really, the most important stuff happens internally, where we got to start asking better, more piercing questions. To me, that's the posture of a leader or the posture of an explorer.

>> Julia Campbell: 37:17

And for everyone out there, if you do not read J's newsletter, that was in your most recent newsletter, I believe, the shift from acting like an expert to embracing the role of an explorer, especially in content creation. And I think that's so interesting, because I always teach my clients to become the go to expert. But I think experts, a word that they understand so they know what I'm talking about when you say go to expertise. But now that I think about it, it really should be a, two way street. It should be, well, we are on the ground doing the work, and we've got the data and we've got the facts and the stories, but we're really exploring with the community and with our partners the best way to solve this problem, the best way to find a solution for this thing that we're trying to work on. So I love that concept of shifting from acting like an expert to embracing the role of an explorer. I think that's fantastic.

>> Jay Acunzo: 38:13

Again, I think these are crystallized, tangible things. While hopefully it sounds nice when I say it, I think there it's work m you can actually do. Like, another example I love to use is there's a woman named Susan Bowles that I got to work with. She's an advisor to small businesses and entrepreneurs, similar to Michelle, but she does something different. She works on their finances. She's like a finance and ops type person, coo, CFo of veteran of that role in that space. Her tagline is beautiful. Calm. C a l m. Calm is the new KPI.

>> Julia Campbell: 38:45

Like we should all, oh my gosh, I need that on a shirt.

>> Jay Acunzo: 38:49

Right?

>> Julia Campbell: 38:50

Calm is the new KPI.

>> Jay Acunzo: 38:51

And here's, I think, both the attraction to marketing for many of us professional marketers and the detriment to our success is we light up when we see something like that. But that is not the end of it. Michelle can't just say sequence over strategy. Susan can't just say comma's the new KPI and then look and act like everybody else who does what they do. So Susan has worked hard behind the scenes to figure out what do people need to hear to actually rewire their business and then see, oh, by the way, the best way to rewire your business is to start at the financials and operations. And oh, by the way, the best way to do that is to hire me. So she talks about how well a lot of entrepreneurs get into business because they want to design their lives and they want to create something that is fundamentally different than the hyper growth, stress ridden types of companies they've built or been a part of before. Then they start building and that's exactly what they built what they said they didn't want to. And her strongest sort of like rally cry is if you want your business to feel and act different, you have to solve for something different. Because whatever overriding thing you're solving for and measuring that is going to take precedent and inform your choices to the detriment of everything else. So your KPI's are the same as all these like profit obsessed companies. So you have to think, and this is the name of her whole business, you have to think beyond margins. That's the name of her company and her podcast.

>> Julia Campbell: 40:10

Oh my gosh. I love that name too.

>> Jay Acunzo: 40:12

She has pristine ip. She's got a great premise, comma, is a new KPI. She knows how to defend that premise and explain it, not by shouting louder or just giving case study and example after case study an example, but by meeting you where you're at and saying the things you need to hear. So you care, right? She attacks an enemy which she calls default decision making. You default to whatever is either the best practice or whatever the business is set up to measure and solve for. She helps you rewire your business, financials and your operations to solve for something different. She's not joking when she says comm should be a new KPI. Like in my business, a uh.com KPI because I'm a content creator and storyteller is what I call, urr, unsolicited response rate. Without asking you to respond, without gaming things with a trivia question, do my ideas compel a response? That's a metric that helps me build in the way I want to build. It's designing for something different and solving for something different than other content creators who, what are they looking at? Follower count, velocity of that audience growth and all those types of things. So again, all these things. I'm saying there is real craft behind this, but it's really humbling to do this work because you got to put your ideas in front of lots of people rapidly and judge their response. And if you don't get one, don't shrug and say, I guess my perspective isn't worth a damn. I got to use those grimy tactics online. You have to just keep developing those ideas the way like a comedian does at a small club, putting it in front of people to gauge responses. Yeah, so that's what I think we need to get better at doing. It's the real craft for hopefully, as inspiring as some of our conversation was, it's a profoundly humbling experience to do this. But on the other side of that is a cohort of people that adore you and share you.

>> Julia Campbell: 41:59

I'm going to be listening to this episode like 20 times. I'm just thinking for the fundraisers out there, when you have this premise and this, you know, ip or this idea, and you can crystallize it in this way, everything becomes easier. You can start, if you want to start a podcast or if you don't, if you want to post on LinkedIn, if you want to start an email newsletter, if you want to have an event, like, everything becomes easier because you have this North Star guiding you. And I do think a lot of nonprofit fundraising and marketing plans come from the opposite direction, where they're like, oh, we need a Facebook page, we need an email newsletter, we need a blog, we need an event. But okay, what's the premise? You know what I mean? And that's why things end up being so afraid and people feel like they're on that hamster wheel because they're grasping at straws, basically.

>> Jay Acunzo: 42:58

So downstream, yeah, downstream activities are commodified. I need a blog. I need a Facebook page. I need whatever, right?

>> Julia Campbell: 43:05

Those are tactics. That's not like a strategy, right?

>> Jay Acunzo: 43:08

Like, a really, you know, again, a difficult thing to embrace is that your ideas are not powerful enough, relevant enough, articulated in the right order consistently enough to make people care. So, if I ask a simple question, which is, why should I donate to you? I'm, asking about you. Makes sense that you would then respond, because we. But you should respond back to that potential donor because you. Why should I invest my time or money in this nonprofit? Well, Jay, it's because you believe in this, or it's because you walk the earth saying that or doing this. We're so excited to talk about ourselves that we're not actually talking to the people on the receiving end of our message. So even though you might be asked, why should I donate to you? Why should I care about or take any action around you? Don't then respond with what you were prompted to respond with. It's counterintuitive. Don't respond with because we. It starts by saying, because you, okay.

>> Julia Campbell: 44:02

I have to end there. I don't even see how we could go beyond that. That was so impactful. Everyone needs to hear that. That is the message that I've been trying to convey. I think that is just absolutely what the sector needs to hear. It's not because. It's because you. I love that. So, tell us, Jay, if we want to learn more about you, your podcast. I will put all the links in the show notes, but sort of where can we connect with you?

>> Jay Acunzo: 44:30

Jaconzo.com for everything. For my coaching and consulting, for the membership group I run for business storytellers, and for my podcast, how stories happen, where every episode, an expert or entrepreneur dissects one signature story piece by piece. Because storytelling is a craft, and I want that craft to be mastered by folks who don't necessarily want to wander the earth as I do. Being front facing communicator and storyteller. No matter what you sell or what you do, you are better served by being a storyteller because you serve others better. And so I want to help people examine the craft more deeply. So that's my podcast, how stories happen.

>> Julia Campbell: 45:03

Fantastic. I do love how you're not afraid to challenge your guests about the, framing of their story or maybe some details on the front end that didn't need to be there, or maybe some details that needed to be be there. It's really fantastic, especially for anyone that has a story to tell or is framing stories or as a speaker. I think it's really helpful. So thank you but, yeah, jacunzo.com. i'll put everything in the show notes. Make sure you check out wherever you're listening to this podcast, how stories happen. And, Jay, I hope to see you at the nonprofit marketing profess in Boston.

>> Jay Acunzo: 45:38

I'll see you there.

>> Julia Campbell: 45:39

Yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app, and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review, because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to, and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then, you can find me on instagram. Uliacampbell 77 keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn.