Funny Business: Storytelling for the ‘Theatre of the Mind’

Make ‘Em Laugh

Why is it such a struggle to fold storytelling into content marketing? Is it perhaps because entrepreneurs are overwhelmed by the amount of content and the slim window of time to create it in?
Maybe it’s because the struggle to create engaging, hilarious, effective stories seems so daunting.
Enter Dick and Lisa Orkin, the father-daughter team behind Radio Ranch and the professionals behind the comedic and absurdist “theatre of the imagination.”
Dick is an award winning voice actor and commercial radio producer, and the creator of the “Chicken Man” and “Secret Adventures of the Tooth Fairy” series. Not only has he been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame (among many others), he also studied at the Yale School of Drama and has garnered high praise for his numerous radio spots.
Lisa is a creative professional in her own right, working as a professional actor and stand-up comedian. She also operates as the Creative Director at Radio Ranch after taking over for her father.
She and Dick bring their expertise to the Business of Story Podcast to ignite that spark of humor in entrepreneurs and help them craft stories that reach out to consumers and hook them with a good laugh.

In This Episode

• How to write for the theater of the mind
• How to break your content into a three-act play
• How to delineate between acts one, two, and three. Start with the problem that your customer has: the setup. Make it personal: use your own experiences to base your story upon. Then reveal the solution to the problem in a surprising way.
• How to have fun while crafting your story

Quotes From This Episode

“I suggested that all stories come from a personal experience, not an experience that you’ve heard or seen on television, or in the movies, or in a book. It must be a personal experience, something that you or a member of your family has experienced.” —@fantasticfowl
“I’m mystified at the inability of many online marketers to not do anything but just say what their product is. Storytelling is so important. If you look at some of the most amazing online marketers, they tell their story. They tell it in a really human, authentic way.” —@lisaorkin
“If you’re going to say, ‘Hey, that was a funny story that I saw on television last night. I’ll just use that,’ it doesn’t work. It needs to come from some honest, authentic place in the human psyche and the human experience. I think the better phrase for it is the human condition. Everybody has a problem. Everybody needs to solve the problem.” —@fantasticfowl
“You’re not doing the commercial for the client that hires you. You’re doing it for the people who will buy their product or service. The client, they’re not usually the consumer of their own product.” —@lisaorkin
“If people want entertainment they can go to the movies. Our job is to actually sell a product. The way we sell a product is to pull people in. We want something so compelling and so close to who they are as a person that it makes them listen to it because it’s relatable. It’s compelling because it’s about them.” —@lisaorkin

Resources

• Radio Ranch
• The Radio Ranch Facebook page
• Chicken Man
• The Secret Adventures of the Tooth Fairy
• honestlylisa.com
• Honestly Lisa, Lisa’s podcast
• Stan Freberg
• “It Only Hurts When I Laugh,” by Stan Freberg
• Bob and Ray
• Nichols and May
• Marie Forleo
• Danielle LaPorte
• Serial
• The Message
• Myths and Legends
• BusinessofStory.com
• Park@BusinessOfStory.com