building a community

Andrew is the Aussie bloke living in the U.S., Heather is the American gal living in Australia; together they travel the world sharing strategies on how to put your business on Autopilot. Doing business online is no longer about having a website. To get more clients and take care of the ones you have, you’ll need a map. They’ve got it. So, sit back and relax, and welcome aboard. This flight is bound to Autopilot Your Business.

Andrew McCauley: For today’s podcast, we are talking about building a community through your story.

MC: Have you picked up our online survival guide yet? Get prepped for the future of online marketing by going to www.aybguide.com.

Andrew McCauley: Hey everybody! It’s Andrew McCauley. Welcome to Podcast #60! The big six-zero and today we’re talking about story-telling, building a community. How do you build a community these days? There is so much content out there. How do you stand up and out above from the rest of the herd? And how do you create that story? What are the important factors about doing that? And one of the best story-tellers in the whole entire world lives in Sydney happens to be on the other end of this phone call. Hello, Heather Porter!

Heather Porter: Hello, Andrew! I wish I was one of the best story-tellers but I certainly do have a good story.

Andrew McCauley: Yes, you do!

Heather Porter: As do you.

Andrew McCauley: So, yes, today I thought we’d have a chat about story-telling and why that’s so important. You know, there’s some epic story-tellers that have come through the in past history of humans and why do we remember those people? I mean, the story that they tell is the same story other people tell, but they tell it in a different way and, you know, that’s what’s happening today. I think it’s important that brands that are out there, there’s so many businesses out there these days, they need to be telling stories. Why is that important? So, that’s what I thought we’d have a bit of a chat about and how you can build that community and make it stand out so that you’ve got some engaged people, engaged tribe members.

Heather Porter: Exactly. Stories are important because they are the component that allow us to emotionally relate to somebody. Like, “Oh, yeah, I feel the pain,” or, “I’ve been there; I’ve experienced that.” It’s that personable piece of the puzzle and we always think of Steve Jobs and the whole Apple story-telling and the thing that I always think of as well though is the years and years being on the road with multiple speakers. It was the moments that they told stories that people all leaned forward in their seats and connected the most.

Andrew McCauley: Yes, and just before you reveal that little piece, I want to ask you what you learnt this week.

Heather Porter: Oh, no.

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Andrew McCauley: See?

Heather Porter: That was a good one, actually.

Andrew McCauley: That’s exactly how they do it.

Heather Porter: Speaking of stories…

Andrew McCauley: That’s right! They get you engaged and they just leave you hanging and go to a different point.

Heather Porter: Well done on that one. That’s a trick, yeah.

Andrew McCauley: It was all planned, it was all planned.

Heather Porter: What I learned is that people still don’t quite get it when they are communicating using social media.

Andrew McCauley: Or email.

Heather Porter: Andrew, have you been getting the things lately where somebody will just, out of the blue, you know, send you a LinkedIn spam or Facebook message and they’re like, “Hey! Do you want to promote my thing?” and you’re thinking, “Who are you? I don’t even have a relationship with you in the first place.”

Andrew McCauley: I’m looking at it actually. You know, I’ve got my email opened right here and I’m checking it and I think I can see three sitting in my inbox from today, just the exact same thing. It’s like, “I’m wanting to know if you had bought your ticket for this event.” The event’s in frickin’ Japan. “No, dude, I haven’t. What makes you think I’m even going to Japan?”

Heather Porter: Or I like the ones where it’s like, “Hey! Help me promote so and so,” and you’re thinking, “This is the first time I’ve even heard from you. What part of not understanding human relationships do you get?”

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. So, I’m a little bit concerned if you’ve just discovered this today.

Heather Porter: No, no, no. So, what I’ve discovered is that the social media tool, specifically LinkedIn is the one that I’ve learned about, are getting savvier to allow the users to block these sorts of communications. So, in LinkedIn, you can go in and change and block these emails that you get from people if they’re starting to annoy you.

Andrew McCauley: So, you can block whole entire users from your feed as well, right?

Heather Porter: Yeah, exactly.





Andrew McCauley: Oh, that’s great.

Heather Porter: It is great, it is, because it’s just going to tighten up people’s etiquette online and how, you know, you’re not trying to flog stuff to everybody. Social media is not a place for flogging your stuff. It’s a place for building relationships.

Andrew McCauley: You know, I’m so glad they bought that. In Facebook, they’ve had it in there for a while and, you know, there’s only so many inspirational quotes posted in the back of flowers that I can handle and it gets to a point where I’m like, “You know what? I don’t need to see the same quote with just different flower backgrounds,” so I started blocking people doing that because I just didn’t want to see it anymore. It was becoming prolific.

Heather Porter: I think the key thing to keep in mind with that is that it’s important to control your space online and control the noise. And, by these filters coming out, it’s going to be more important as a user as well – as a business, as a marketer – to work out how to communicate, that’s why we’re talking about stories! How exciting!

So, anyway, Andrew, what did you learn?

Andrew McCauley: I learned that Facebook is killing their email service now. Did you even know that Facebook had an email service?

Heather Porter: I did, actually.

Andrew McCauley: So, I knew you would know, but a lot of people didn’t know.

Heather Porter: Yeah.

Andrew McCauley: With your Facebook account, everyone had an email account – email address. So, you can actually email people, if you had their Facebook, and it was public – you go to somebody’s profile and Facebook would show you the email address. It would be a whole series of numbers and your name, possibly, @facebook.com. And, when you sent somebody a message, it would go to their message box on their Facebook account.

When they created that in 2010, Mark Zuckerbeg came out and said, “Oh, I don’t think this is going to be an email killer,” and he was certainly right. Facebook decided to kill it themselves and get rid of it. So, now, when somebody sends you an email or a message, it’s going to reroute to your personal email address that you’ve got associated with your Facebook. They won’t get to see what the email address is. They’ll just go automatically to your standard email address.

So, they have killed off their Facebook emailing system.

Heather Porter: I’m not surprised.





Andrew McCauley: No. So, that’s what I learned this week – that that’s over and done. And I don’t think anyone really raised too many eyebrows about that, to be honest with you.

Heather Porter: No.

Andrew McCauley: I know it’s not a big learning, but it’s something that’s just interesting to see that, even the big boys, they would have spent millions of dollars creating that thing and there it goes down the drain.

Heather Porter: I think it is a big thing. You know why? Because themes. When you pay attention to the themes that are going on then you’re always, you know, one step ahead, so to speak, and the two things that we talked about right now are definitely themes of what’s to come, what’s happening.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. Well, there you go. That’s a good point. Very good point.

So, today, we’re going to talk about story and, you know, you were about to say something about, you know, you and I have been on the road together for, you know, a long time with various speakers around the world, too. And then, now, over the last three years, you and I are speaking regularly. In fact, I’m about to shoot off to another speaking gig tonight and, you know, story is a big part of what we do in speaking, but it’s not just speaking that needs to have a story. In fact, every brand these days has to have a story around it.

You know, we look at why is that so important these days? And, I guess, the fact is that brands are delivering content. You and I have spoken about content on this podcast for the last couple of years and we knew that it was going this direction. Content is coming out in a bucket load of amount right now. Everyone is creating content. You’ve got to create something different – something that’s going to stand out from other people – and you want to be able to create a story around your brand and what you sell and what your service is so that people can congregate around what you’re doing because they know that they believe in what your passion is and what your story is.

Heather Porter: It’s a connection point. It’s the most powerful way of connecting with people and also almost pre-qualifying the people that are hanging out with you because those that connect with your story relate to you, have a similar story or background, and then, therefore, are much easier to, you know, relate to, communicate with, even create products for, because you understand them. So, story, to me, is almost like a filtration system and also an excellent way of just being more human and evoking the emotions around your brand.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. Well, you know, what I’d like to do and I don’t think we’ve actually done this on this podcast even in all sixty episodes – I don’t know if we’ve really dug into this – but what’s your story? Give us a rundown. What are you doing here? What the hell are you doing on my program? Like, what’s the story around Heather Porter that gets you to this specific place and time right now?

Heather Porter: That’s so good. I love it.





So, in the interest of time, I’m going to make this a shorter story. So, growing up, I was always, like, painfully shy and, like many actors and actresses and speakers even, a lot of them have issues with or have had past issues being shy. And, for me, of course, I was bitten by the acting bug. In my early teens, I auditioned in front of – do you remember Punky Brewster? The actress? That show?

Andrew McCauley: I do.

Heather Porter: Yes, I made my mom drive me to Hollywood, to Beverly Hills area, and I auditioned in front of Punky Brewster and another sort of celebrity panel to get into this school, acting school, and it was such a horrifying moment of my life when I stood out on that stage and I had to say a few things about myself. But I was accepted. And then, that sort of started my journey, I suppose, of just being fascinated by people and, more importantly, powerful people because, being in that industry, there’s a lot of fakeness that happens.

And so, I guess, the journey from there really went into events. It kind of took me into events. I did that acting thing. I realized it wasn’t for me and I did events then in Southern California and art, fashion, and music parades, or fashion parades and music shows and things like that, night clubs and promotions. And I ultimately started working with Tony Robbins and, again, running events. And, my whole life, I kept being attracted to big brands, big personalities, lots of tribes, lots of followers, and started to really, I guess, dive into understanding what that is all about, but also getting irked in the process by people that are not transparent, people that don’t walk their talk, and bullshit artists, essentially.

So, I’m here because all that understanding on these very seemingly glamorous industries have brought me to a point where I just want to be able to make things really simple for people and to be able to grow a business, share a brand, without the bullshit, you know? Just ultimately being themselves and being okay with that and being able to talk about it and I think online marketing is the easiest, more powerful way in front of all us right now to do that.

Andrew McCauley: So, that isn’t the end of your story.

Heather Porter: God, no.

Andrew McCauley: Were you planning to finish just then or did I just cut you off?

Heather Porter: The story from…? (00:11:48 unclear)

Andrew McCauley: No, I’m just thinking because, now, I mean, we’re on our podcast and we’re talking about online marketing. I mean, what brings you to online marketing? Why have you fallen down into that sort of part of it as well? And you and I both got a business together which we’ve had for three years. So, you know, just give them a little bit of background about how that all sort of came about and what we’re doing there, too.





Heather Porter: Because I’m attracted, I think, now where the stage in my life is all about uncovering falsities and being honest and I think that, being in the speaking industry for so long, I saw so many “internet marketers” get up on stage and say, “Push this easy button and you’ll make a lot of money overnight,” and I think that more people that are honest in this world need to take a stand and actually show how things are done and it’s not a get-rich-quick overnight scheme. And that’s honestly why I was attracted to it because I thought this is a vehicle for people to build a business, but built it, you know, anyone could build a business through using this if they just know the way, but the real way, not the gimmicky ways.

Andrew McCauley: The bright shiny object way.


Andrew McCauley: Yeah, really, okay.

Heather Porter: Got it. And what about you? I mean, obviously, there’s so many different parts. We could go on for a day talking about our stories. But why? Why are you here right now and with online marketing?

Andrew McCauley: Well, you know, I guess, when I was a real young kid, I was introduced to the very first electronic tic-tac-toe machine in our house – sorry, in Australia. My dad was into technology, he was into that sort of stuff, he brought it home and here I am, looking at this thing as a kid. I was a five-year-old kid in the mid70s that was looking at this electronic tic-tac-toe machine, this massive thing, this massive piece of machinery, and all it could do was calculate whether three crosses were in a row or three o’s were in a row, and I was, like, fascinated, thinking, “Wow! This is cool!” You know, I’ve got a two-year-old kid now who can turn on an iPhone, navigate to the right app, and then turn it up and turn it down and play the game, and he’s two! But, you know, back then, a five-year-old, I was a leading technological five-year-old back then because no other kid had seen this sort of technology.

Heather Porter: Love it.

Andrew McCauley: So, I got really interested in that. I wrote my first computer program in 1979. Funnily enough, how to bet on some horses because that’s what you do in Australia – we gamble and drink, apparently. So, I wrote my first computer program. I got really involved with that. But then, after I got into school, I sort of lost interest in computers. I didn’t disappear. I wasn’t programming or anything like that. And then, I got into hospitality and, hospitality, I wanted to get in there for three months as a summer job – it was a winter job, actually. I wanted to get some money because I was short on money as you are when you’re in university. And, for three months, I thought, “Yeah, I’ll stay there and get some money.” Seventeen years later, I finally got out of pubs. But, you know, (00:14:38 unclear) I love to do is social but it was also such a learning experience for business as far as business goes. You know, I was responsible for all sorts of aspects. In fact, not all sorts, every aspect of hotel management whether it was marketing, whether it was running pubs, dealing with staff, whether it was dealing with bikey gangs and underbelly figures that all of those underbelly shows that you’ve seen on TV – I knew some of those people. So, you had to deal with all sorts of aspects.





But one of the things I really liked about pubs was marketing and how marketing was very quickly evaluated. If you had an open restaurant and no one was sitting on there, you knew that your marketing wasn’t working, right? If you had a night club and the door’s open and no one came to your night club, your marketing sucked. So, very quickly, you had a response on how good your marketing was and I loved it. I loved working out how to make, you know, how to fill, how to put bums on seats.

And then, by 2006, I’d had enough of working hotels and I started my own business. So, one of my first. My own business was a business consulting sort of thing and one of the people that I actually started working for as a client, he said, “Hey, how do you use this Facebook for business? I hear someone’s using Facebook for business,” so I’m like, “What’s Facebook? Never heard of it before.” So, I went and had a look and I was fascinated with this method of getting people to the business. Like, it was a new concept. The marketing concept wasn’t new but the platform was new and that began a love affair of how Facebook worked then Twitter came along and YouTube. And I’m like, “Wow! All these tools driving people to a business! This is fascinating!” I loved it. So, I really began studying how marketing worked online.

And, as you said, you come across a lot of people who are selling shiny objects. They were selling hope and dreams, “Hey, all you need to do is push this button,” and I would go and buy those things. You know, I bought and I bought every product I could find. But there was always a gap somewhere. There was always some gap in the knowledge that this button didn’t work like it said it was going to and the underlying fact was that there was information that you had to know and understand and, if you weren’t educated, that button would never work. And I was really getting peeved off, pissed off with people, because I’m like, “There is a gap!” You know, I’m ending up paying money for this guy to coach me. It cost me $200 an hour and I had one hour and I asked him, I said, “Look, I’m trying to get this thing to work from here to here,” and he said, “That’s not the right question you should be asking me. You should be asking me some more about strategy.” I’m like, “I don’t need strategy. I just need to know how this thing works like you said it was going to,” and he wouldn’t answer the question.

Heather Porter: He didn’t know.

Andrew McCauley: It was at that point I thought, “This is all a con. There’s got to be real people out there who are doing it and there’s all these people out there who are selling stuff to hope-chasers and they’ll never make it because no one’s telling them the truth,” and that began my education. Now, I educate people. I want to tell it as it is. I want to say, “Here it is. This is what you need. Don’t worry about the shiny objects. Sometimes, it’s going to be hard work. Yes, it is, but there really is no bright shiny objects, one push-button mechanism that’s going to get you a million dollars.”

Heather Porter: No.

Andrew McCauley: And, my education, the way I like to teach is tell them how it is. And, if you don’t need Facebook, then you don’t need it. I’m not going to try and sell you on it and I don’t want to sell things to people that don’t need it. I want to make





sure that the things that we offer is education that gives people the realness of what they need to do.

So, you know, you and I got together in 2010 because we saw we both had a common underlying principle about giving education to people that was real. We started Autopilot Your Business and, from there, we’ve been able to not only educate a lot of people around the world through our podcast and magazines and speaking gigs and that sort of stuff but we’ve got a long list of clients that we actually do a lot of this work for. So, the other thing that I really do like is that you and I are both doing what we’re talking about. We’re teaching this – not only teaching this but we’re doing it for our clients. So, we’re always working it. A lot of these speakers out there will get out there and they’ll just say, “Oh, this is what you do,” and we’ll ask them, “Have you ever done it?” and they’ll say, “Oh, yeah, I did it once for my stuff,” and did they really do it or not? But we’re doing this all the time. We’re always testing and measuring with our clients and making sure that what we teach is what we’re doing for our clients as well.

Heather Porter: Yeah, we’re actually installing WordPress, and we’re dealing with code at some points, you know, and we’re placing ads and designing graphics.

Andrew McCauley: You know what’s funny? So, we get clients. We get a lot of clients coming from our speaking gigs and I don’t know if you’ve experienced this but I have where it’s so (00:19:30 unclear) now that the speaker on stage is the guru of the business and it’s very unlikely that they’ll do any of the work if they offer a service. And yet, when I’ll go and do something for somebody and I’ll show them what to do, they’re actually taken back, thinking…

Heather Porter: “How do you know that?”

Andrew McCauley: “How do you know that? Haven’t you got a team who does this?” and be like, “Yeah, I do, but I need to know this stuff, too, so I can make sure the team are doing the right thing,” and not because I know everything because I certainly don’t. You know, if I’ve got WordPress issues, I’m going to go to… I mean, the general WordPress issues I can fix but, you know, I’m going to go to other members of our team to fix that. But I know a lot of this stuff because we’re doing it all the time and I think that’s important. To me, that’s important that, if I’m teaching it, I need to know how to do it.

Heather Porter: No, I agree. And, I think, talking about stories, here’s how we’ve started to weave our story together into our business and, you know, into what else we’re doing. So, we have these events we throw that are called the AYB Fireside Chats and, as you can tell, theming in back into the story, when we just want to have a chat and tell it as it is, the best way we could think of doing that is developing almost like sitting around a campfire and we have these events where you come in and, you know, at the end, we have a beer together and we sit there and we have the fireplace going, a fake fire, and we have a chat. And that’s because that is our story. That’s our brand. And, even if you guys have ever been to our AutopilotYourBusiness.com/podcast site, you will see both Andrew and I, first of all – our graphics for our podcast are quite funny – and a funny video of us poking fun because we are and we’re cool to poke fun at ourselves. We’re not that typical, I





think, ego-type or we don’t want to be that type of person. We’re cool to be funny and quirky and, you know, just casual. So, we’re bringing this throughout all of our brands and we’re actually in the middle of a rebrand as well for our main sort of AYB brand. You’ll see stuff rolling out around that and a lot of that you’ll see is approachable, it’s funky, it’s a little different, and that’s how the story starts to go into everything that we have as a business.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s great. So, you know, I guess one of the real inspirations for me around stories – and I think you touched on this at the start – was, you know, Steve Jobs. I read a book – I think it was called The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs – and that got me onto a few Steve Job tracks. And I saw a video of a guy called Simon Sinek and, if you’ve ever seen that, he talks about how Steve Jobs, he didn’t sell a phone. When the iPhone came out or the iPod came out, he wasn’t selling a technical device. He was selling a belief. He was selling the story of Apple, you know? When it was an iPod, he didn’t come out and he didn’t say, “Hey, if you click on the round wheel and do three clicks here and then look at the screen because it’s got colored and it’s got this button here,” he didn’t say any of that. He basically came out and he said – I think he said one sentence – he said, “Your entire music library in your pocket.” There’s a story. That is a story that has a connection – an emotional connection. It tells people what they’ve going to get and it gives it a – what’s the word I’m looking for? – a point of difference that doesn’t say how to do it. People don’t care how, if they have to click three buttons or it has a spinny wheel on it. That’s all nice but it doesn’t do anything. But when it says there’s an entire music library in your pocket then people go, “Wow! I want that. I want that!”

Heather Porter: Yeah, it’s a bigger picture thing than just saying, “Here’s the product,” or, “Here’s the features or the benefits.” It’s a bigger (00:23:19 unclear).

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. So, then what he would do is he’d go in and he would say, because it wasn’t just that, that wasn’t his presentation – he’d come out and say one sentence and get off stage. He would say, “It’s an entire music collection in your pocket because, here at Apple, we believe that everybody should have access to music that they like. We believe that you should,” and he went on and on about the beliefs that Apple had and what he was doing was emotionally connecting people and because he knew that the people that would like this product would have the same beliefs as what Apple would. So, he said, “We believe this, we believe that,” and people are nodding their heads going, “We believe that, too! Yes, we believe that, too!” and he was using the story about what they believe as an emotional bridge to connect them to his product. And, all of a sudden, people are lining up in the snow for four hours to go and buy the latest product every time Apple releases it because they have these product evangelists out there. Where else do you have that? There’s a number of products out there, but one of the other biggest products I know that has evangelistic behavior like that is, what do you think it is? Throwing you under the bus here. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. It’s Harley-Davidson, motorbiker, right?

Heather Porter: Oh, right. Yeah, of course.

Andrew McCauley: Because people tattoo that brand on their body!






Andrew McCauley: I mean, you’ve all seen Harley-Davidson tattoos, right? People tattoo a brand on their body. That is awesome evangelistic behavior from their brand. So, I just sort of love that because they’re relating to the story of Harley-Davidson. What is the story behind Harley-Davidson? I couldn’t… I’m not going to tell you what it is. Go and have a look at it for yourself. But people relate to the story around that brand.

Heather Porter: I think, when people start wearing merchandise, that right there says that that brand has gotten the story right.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. Nike do it. You know, there’s a lot of brands out there that do it. When they tattoo on it, that’s permanent. That’s not take the shirt off and change brands tomorrow. It’s there – forever.

Heather Porter: So, there’s something about a story that I just wanted to bring up because I think that some people are listening, thinking, “Well, how do I tell my story? How do I bring it into my business?” and I just thought we’d throw out a couple of examples of just what we’re thinking around that question. You know, a lot of times you’ll see brands or entrepreneurs bring in their family into what they do. So, they’ll have photos on their social media, family holidays, they’ll bring in their kids, they’ll have stories about their children, and that is their story. So, they’re connecting their business with other sort of family-centric people and businesses, and that becomes part of their whole sort of posse and their whole tribe and, you know, the kids are brought in. And then, you’ll have other brands where, you know, it’s much more about glamour. It’s lots of sort of glamour photos and beautiful people in boats and things like that. And, obviously, if you’re really doing that and that’s not using stock photos and this is your lifestyle and your travel and you bring that in, you’re going to be attracting people that want to have a part of that, you know, and be around that. So, those are a couple of things that I see floating around quite a bit.

But there’s also a warning caution about stories. When you tell parts of your story that don’t make any sense to your business and why you’re there. I’ve seen story-telling done where people talk about, you know, traveling around. They’re in a corporate job doing something like, I don’t know, psychology or whatever – middle management – and then they go and travel the world for a couple of years to find themselves and then they come and now suddenly they’re like a graphic artist, for example. Those types of stories, while, you know, each piece is amazing, it’s disjointed if you tell it like that because, suddenly, you’re actually creating doubt. “How could you go from Point A to Point B and suddenly I can trust you as a graphic artist when you’re from corporate land?” for example.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, right, yeah.

Heather Porter: So, when you’re creating your story of your journey of your life and how you got to be where you are in your business, remove the parts that don’t make sense for where you are now. But keep the parts in that validate and give credibility to why you know what you know. Like, Andrew, you were saying, you know, you learned marketing very quickly, very easily, by, if the pub was empty, it wasn’t working.





Andrew McCauley: Right.

Heather Porter: Just from your story, you’ve already illustrated to me that you know how to manage teams, you know how to create systems, you know how to implement systems, because you’d have to just as a result of doing what you did for work.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, definitely.

Heather Porter: So, that story makes sense to me.

Andrew McCauley: It’s the underlying other aspects that people read into your story and you want to make sure that those ones that they’re reading into are the good ones that they’re reading into. They’re not reading into your story negative aspects. It’s other aspects. How can you create it so that they’re reading into more than you’re saying? You know, there’s more to the story than meets the eye sort of thing. Yes, there is more to the story, but it’s the good stuff. It’s more good stuff that they only think, “Wow! If they did this then that means they could have done this as well,” which is good.

Heather Porter: Exactly. And, if you want your family in your story, then you bring them in your story. And, if you don’t, then you don’t. So, you just filter what makes sense to your business and your brand and, I guess, the emotions that you want people to connect with you. Are you brave and daring? So, therefore, you talk about how you jump off buildings. You know?

Andrew McCauley: Right, exactly.

Heather Porter: (00:28:42 unclear). Or are you caring and loving as a brand? So, therefore, you talk about the birthday parties that you put together for your family. So, it’s looking at the angle that you want in your story. And then, that alone, in telling those pieces, are going to come into your brand and connect with the market you want to connect with.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, very good, very good. You know, I could talk about story for a long time because it’s certainly something that’s going to pop up. We haven’t even mentioned the C word – “community” – at the moment. I know we’re coming into our half hour limit already on our podcast, but what essentially a good story does is starts to get people connected to you. And, as people get connected to you from your story, you’ll find that they have like-minded interests and they’ll start connecting to other people in your community as well and you begin to build a tribe of people that not only hang on to what you say and your information, but they also look for solace in each other and learn from each other as well, and that’s when you start building that connection.

I know I’m an Apple user. You’re an Apple user. And, if we’re sitting in a room of people with laptops open, we all know who the Apple users are pretty quick. And, if there’s any jokes going on, and someone cracks a joke about Microsoft, the Apple users will turn to each other and smile and chuckle and think, “Hey, we’re part of the





good community,” sort of thing, you know? It’s building community! Like, they may have never met each other before, but that community now has been built because of that product or that service and that business that, you know, was created a while ago through Steve Jobs and his team.

So, you know, as I said, we could go on for a long time about community and I think we may have to come back and revisit story-telling part two down the track, too, because I think there’s some more stuff that I’d love to explore before we wrap it up.

Is there anything else you want to add before we do wrap it up?

Heather Porter: Yeah. I guess that you will have a community if you have a good story, and you’re able to express that and share that in everything that you do, and don’t be scared to share your story.

Andrew McCauley: But don’t make it up. But don’t make it up. Make it real.

Heather Porter: Don’t make it up. Please, don’t make it up. Yeah, it’s got to be from you. We all have a really amazing story to tell. Sometimes, you just need extra help, you know, people to pull that out of you. And, if that’s the case, you don’t feel comfortable talking about it, get some help – get somebody to help you out.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Hey, where can people find out more and how can they do reviews for us, too, if they want to do a review on our podcast?

Heather Porter: We would love that, you guys. That would be an amazing little thing that you could do for us. If you feel up to that, you can pop on into iTunes and you can do a review for us directly inside iTunes. There’s a little star box, a little comment box in there. We’d love to hear from you that way but also on our website, too. So, AutopilotYourBusiness.com/podcast and all of our episodes are in there. You can play them, download them from there, you can look at the show notes, resources, and stay connected with us and write comments in there and even record a little voice message for us and, if you do that, we might just pop it into our episodes.

Andrew McCauley: Yay! So, I’m about to duck off and do a workshop on content marketing tonight.

Heather Porter: Great.

Andrew McCauley: I’m looking forward to doing that. It’s a bunch of new business owners that are coming along to the workshop so I’m about to do that. What’s on for your next couple of days? Have you got anything exciting planned?

Heather Porter: Exciting? Launching a couple of different exciting brands right now with our client base which is cool and a lot of it involves – what do you know – content marketing podcast, videos, and all that good stuff.





Andrew McCauley: And story-telling, I’m sure.

Heather Porter: And plenty of that.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. All right, H. Well, great having a conversation about stories. I’ll talk to you on the next podcast.

Heather Porter: You, too! Thanks, guys!

MC: Make sure to grab out free business automation guide now and get access to other special bonuses. Head on over to aybpodcast.com.

All passengers and cabin crew should now be seated with their seatbelt securely fastened. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first officer speaking. On behalf of your captains, Andrew McCauley and Heather Porter, we would like to thank you for taking the journey with us to Autopilot Your Business. You are now closer to putting your own business on autopilot using the Internet.

Of course, if you would like to rack up some frequent flyer points, visit our website www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com or check us out on Facebook at Facebook.com/AutopilotYourBusiness. These frequent flyer points are totally useless but the information is gold.

Until we fly again, happy travels!





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