Your Story Isn't Fluff, It's A Proven Way To Connect With Your Audience

Jeffro (00:01.382)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Today, I’m excited to be joined by Edgar Li. Edgar is the founder of Prescart, and he is very experienced at helping entrepreneurs and brands build credibility and authority online through the power of storytelling. We’re going to explore how crafting the right narrative and building a loyal audience can elevate your brand and set you up for long-term success. So whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your approach, you’re going to want to pay attention to this episode. So welcome to the show, Edgar.

Edgar (00:28.553)
Thanks, Jeff. Great to be here.

Jeffro (00:31.503)
Yeah, know, Edgar, you have an interesting background. You went to school for politics. You taught yourself to code and then dropped out to become an entrepreneur. You started several businesses before realizing the most important thing is the story that we’re telling. So can you give us the 60 second version of how you came to that realization?

Edgar (00:49.294)
Yeah, totally. mean, when I went to school, I was super interested to see kind of how countries operate on scale, kind of what kind of affects cultures and governance. All that was super interesting to me. then, you know, figured out I didn’t want to get into politics. I want to build things. So I dropped out of school, became a contractor, built web apps and websites for people. And then it was always this kind of this the same thing kind of over and over again, which is like, What is the most important thing that we’re doing here? What are we launching a product? What are we a new law? It comes down to the story. What are we telling people about our product, about the new tax we’re putting on groceries or whatever it is? That is most important thing. And that would affect the launch, how successful your laws are. So yeah, and that’s what brought me to finally come around and building PressCard.

Jeffro (01:49.293)
That’s awesome, because it is such a core part of so many aspects of what we do. When you’re working on a project and you’re thinking about the storytelling, do you follow any storytelling frameworks such as Storybrand, or do you kind of have your own way to do it?

Edgar (02:03.756)
Yeah, mean, Storybrand, that’s a great one. I read that, I think, probably sometime last year, really. But in terms of frameworks, I read quite a bit of, I think, writing books, which is like Elements of Style on writing by Sol Stein. And I think it’s funny because I think with Press Card, we write very specific articles, which is kind of like personal narratives mixed with thought leadership. So we kind of create, we want to create like a background about someone. We want to establish the context of who they are, their business exists, and then present them as kind of the expert in that story. So I think elements of each of these frameworks into our own kind of custom one. But I really like kind of StoryBrand and how it kind of takes movies and films that you’re very familiar with, that the audience is familiar with. have your hero, they challenge, they meet a guide and then that guide helps them kind of achieve a result right and that’s that’s a very good way to kind of think about you as the kind of the storyteller in terms of how you should present your characters or how you should present your business right your your business is the guide it’s not the hero so yeah

Jeffro (03:22.072)
Right, but even to know how to go through that framework, you first need to know who your audience is, right? So how do you start there and kind of connect the audience to the story that you’re telling?

Edgar (03:33.87)
Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, that the word is research. And, you know, I think if there’s three questions we were to ask our clients to provide us in terms of the info we need to create a good story, it’s it’s it’s it’s their goals. It’s it’s their their background and their history. And then it’s it’s the audience. Right. And then, you know, think the audience being a huge pillar, we have to know who we’re talking to, what their problems are, what are they hoping to achieve? you know, bringing it back to the StoryBrand framework again, you know, your audience is the hero in the story, right? And to really understand them, the best way is to, if you could, is to talk to them. And obviously that may not always, you we may not always have the time to do that, but that’s why the best storytellers are the ones who are talking to their audience all the time. They know their experience, they live that experience, right? So it’s And then, you know, there’s I think there’s rare examples where you have really gifted people who can kind of just place themselves in different worlds or different people, backgrounds and understand without having kind of spoken to them or lived in that experience. But I think for the most part, got to you got to do your work in terms of, you know, hitting the ground, having conversations, booking meetings and just understanding your audience directly.

Jeffro (04:57.977)
It’s that part that everybody wants to skip, but you can’t skip if you’re going to have a story that resonates with the audience, right? No shortcuts there. So there’s obviously the storytelling, right? Everybody wants to tell a good story, but if nobody reads that story, it doesn’t do you any good. And if the wrong people are reading it, it’s not going to resonate with them. So can you talk for a minute about how do you balance the storytelling with the practical elements of audience building? Where should you tell a story? How often do you tell it?

Edgar (05:04.236)
Yeah, exactly.

Jeffro (05:27.203)
How do you make sure they’re obliged to take action afterwards? All that good stuff.

Edgar (05:32.261)
Yeah, I think for me, I really kind of look at storytelling in two parts. You know, there’s a story, which is the creation, the production, and then there’s the telling, which is distribution, you know, speaking to your audience. And today in 2025, there’s, as we all know, there’s quite a variety of ways to do that. There’s so many ways where it’s kind of, you have to kind of be on all channels at the same time. But obviously when you’re starting out, you want to pick one for me personally, would say LinkedIn, social media, like that’s a really, really good bet today in 2025. And then you wanna kind of mix in different channels. They kind of just have a holistic view where you don’t appear as someone who’s just speaking in one place, who’s siloed in one place. You wanna come across as someone who’s kind of almost everywhere, right? But yeah, social media, because you can have that direct… relationship with your audience, you know, bringing back to kind of knowing who your audience is. That’s how you are able to kind of build that relationship. That’s how you kind of understand who you’re speaking to, what they want and what they need. And it’s super important. You know, the best storytellers that I see right now are the ones who are in the comments, like speaking to their audience, asking them questions like, what should I make next? What should I do here? What do you want? Right. So, yeah, that’s what I’d say.

Jeffro (06:58.316)
Yeah, you gotta be engaged. can’t just sit back and guess or, you know, the best thing to do when you get testimonials too, like just take chunks of the phrases that they’re using and then work that into your messaging. Cause now if they’re in your target audience, they’re going to resonate with that. So I’ve found that to be effective. Can.

Edgar (07:14.862)
Yep. Yeah. And then one more thing I’d add is, know, podcasts, I think like this, are huge in 2025. I mean, you see it in politics, regardless of your stance in politics, it’s an effective method of being able to showcase, okay, what is this person kind of authentically about, right? What are good or bad? It’s very easy to kind of manufacture an image.

When it’s kind of like pre-written, pre-content edited, scripted, but on podcasts over an hour, it’s kind of very hard for people to fake it. And that’s why it’s such an effective channel. When people are, when you’re telling, you when you’re talking about yourself on a podcast, people really get a good sense of who you are and what you’re about.

Jeffro (08:07.435)
Yeah, and you’ve got a captive audience and the reach of some of the top podcasts now is larger than many of the broadcast media networks. People just aren’t watching the news anymore. They’re listening to podcasts, they’re getting their news from social media and things like that. So that’s where you should be, be in front of people where they are, not just because people all used to do it on the news. Like, okay, it’s great if you get up there for credibility to say, I was on CNN or whatever. But if you want to get your message to more people, podcasts are a great way to do that. I fully agree. Edgar, can you share an example of one, maybe one of your clients where coming in and helping them with their storytelling really paid off kind of what they had before and how you helped them make it awesome.

Edgar (08:50.988)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a question. So just for a little bit more context, it’s like what you mentioned before, right? We have the social media storytelling, podcast storytelling, and then you have like CNN. We kind of fall in that latter category where we’re here kind of working with more traditional media channels, getting our clients published long form in publications like, you know, USA Today or Men’s Journal, TechCrunch, places like that. And so in terms of I guess, like a great client success story. It’s interesting because like I said, we do both the story and the telling part. And the story part is kind of where I think it gets overlooked a little bit in terms of where clients first come in. They just think like, hey, like I want my story in this place or that place, right? Which is a lot of what I think PR initially comes off across. But so much of it is also crafting the story, right? Crafting a narrative and how you want to be presented. And so we have a lot of clients who have a lot of difficulty telling their story, what they’re about, why they’re doing what they’re doing, what their company does. We had a client recently that sent us like 30 pages of super technical documentation of what their company does. And it’s an AI like compliance tool for like really high risk workforces like the military or healthcare. And, you she’s a brilliant person. She has a PhD. But, you know, we received this doc and then, you know, our writers would sit there and be like, holy crap, like, we’re really going to look through like 30 pages and try to understand like how to this person’s story. you know, anytime we try to, I guess, like, hey, like, you know, can you give us like a a like a one liner or?

The of us, like even in a paragraph to tell us what you do or why it’s important. Very hard to kind of get that out. And you know, we had very difficult, we had a lot of difficulty in kind of producing the story that way. So, you know, we, think it kind of came to me that the best way to kind of just clear this up is to kind of hop on a conversation with her. We sat down, took an hour, just went through everything. Kind of just, I think, very much in the story brand framework, trying to understand, breaking it down to the foundations of the story, who are the characters, what are the problems we’re solving, what are the pain points, why did you need to do this, what motivated you? And from that, was able to extract the more, I think, the very easily understandable information that we needed from her mouth.

And was great because, you know, she had difficulty telling the story. We had difficulty understanding the story. And then through that process, I think we all helped each other to kind of really kind of nail down, okay, even for herself, like, okay, what am I doing this for? And what is my purpose of this? And, you know, it’s cool. And then we have a lot of experiences like that. And it’s super cool at the end of the day when our clients are like, well, you know, I took what you wrote and I put it on my site. And or I took what you wrote made it turn to LinkedIn posts because you told my story better than I could tell it myself. And that’s always cool for us. So, yeah.

Jeffro (12:22.079)
Yeah, I think for a lot of founders and people with cool ideas, know, they get so bogged down in the details of it, technical way that it works because they love it and it’s cool to them. But most people in their target audience don’t necessarily care. Like they want to know why it benefits them. And so you got to get to that outcome and make sure that comes through. Then maybe there’s a place for talking about a couple of the details, the key elements, but you don’t want to, you know, people’s eyes will glaze over if you start just going through all that. So, nice job. And that’s what we do with our website clients too. When we first start to do a redesign project, I give them a questionnaire where I have a long deep dive meeting where I’m asking them the questions so I can understand their business, who their audience is, et cetera. Because otherwise I can’t write the messaging. If I don’t understand that stuff myself, it’s got to start from us before we can put any words on the website. Otherwise, there’s no point. So that kind of leads into the next question, right? What are some mistakes that entrepreneurs make when they’re trying to

Edgar (13:10.296)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffro (13:19.39)
tell their own story. Let’s say they didn’t hire you, but then you come in, you see what they’ve done before, right? Either they’ve written it themselves or they’ve just used AI and slapped it up there. What are the mistakes people are making?

Edgar (13:30.254)
I mean, the number one thing, even for, especially for me, it’s just not devoting the time and attention and priority to it, right? It’s like I mentioned before, in my experience prior to this, was always, let’s build this thing, let’s throw it out there, and then kind of just expect people are just gonna look at this thing and be like, yeah, that’s for me, right? Especially this day and age, it’s so much about personal story now. Like, you know, I think you can get decently far with branded marketing copy and all that stuff. But we’re in an age where AI can generate that in like 10 seconds. So if anyone can use those tools to generate this type of copy, then everyone is, and that becomes the floor. So what kind of separates you out is your personal story, is your personal why in being authentic. And that’s where a lot of people, I think, will be like, well, that’s not important. What I care about is product dev, building partnerships, business, right? And of course, super important. At the same time, you have to be able to tell that story, why you’re doing it, what you’re building, who you’re creating it for. And it’s tough as an entrepreneur, because you have all these things you’re juggling that feel more important than sitting down and writing out your story. But, you know, in this age, I think it’s essential. And if you’re not doing that as part of business building, you’re going to fall behind because there’s some really great story, like entrepreneurs out there that are great storytellers and they’re just running circles around everybody. So.

Jeffro (15:11.4)
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, you know, because when we say the word storytelling, I think for a lot of people, it brings to mind fantasy or made up stories, and that’s what we’re thinking about. And so maybe that’s why as a business owner, like, this seems like fluffy. Why do I need to do that? This is business, right? But even in the business context, obviously your story should be true. But I think there’s a tendency for some people to write a lot of marketing hype, so then people don’t believe it. So how do you make sure and how do you help someone with a brand or company make sure that their stories feel genuine while remaining true and authentic?

Edgar (15:46.454)
Yeah, no, I mean, like I said, I think it really comes down to kind of personal context, right? I mean, you don’t in the same way why podcasts are so like, effective is because you have no choice to be authentic, right? You can’t script your conversation with someone over an hour. And so you have to, know, you’re gonna you’re gonna make kind of mistakes, there’s gonna be filler words, there’s gonna be, you know, you’re gonna probably gonna make drop like some award that you wouldn’t want typically say in a business setting. But that kind of all adds up to making it feel really authentic and real, right? And that’s what people are looking for now. I think is, keep mentioning, but as AI keeps getting better and better, like people are really looking for, okay, what’s real, right? So it’s almost like you’re looking for messier kind of messaging in a sense. yeah, storytelling, like you said, oftentimes kind of gets mixed in with more like maybe like fictional elements or ideas or entertainment people might think. And that’s why there’s words or phrases that are coined like personal branding or brand building. But it’s all the same thing at the end of the day. It’s how do you present yourself? What’s your messaging and who your target audience and what do you want them to know about you? Right. And really, you know, it’s hopefully the truth. So, but you know, obviously that’s, that’s, doesn’t mean like, Hey, like tell them about that time. You kind of absolutely screwed up all your clients orders in one false swoop. But it’s more so kind of just sharing that in kind of the, in an honest way, maybe not everything, but as honest as you can. So yeah.

Jeffro (17:37.938)
Okay, well that makes sense. And you know, there’s many different approaches to getting your story out there. We’ve touched on a few of them earlier. Can you tell us why you decided to focus on feature articles? What is it about those that you like?

Edgar (17:51.298)
Yeah, yeah, well, I’d say I think personally, I’ve always kind of enjoyed long form storytelling, like tweets and posts and social media and then video content is very powerful and some may argue kind of more powerful, but long form is where you can kind of really get into the itty gritty and the details of what you do or trying to really kind of communicate your idea or ideas to people. So yeah, long form always really spoke to me. And that’s kind of if I whenever I do writing, whether it’s personal or business, it’s always end up with 1000 words. mean, people can people will tell you like, hey, like, you know, always make your the word simpler for sure. I always think it depends on the context. But now I really like expressing things in that kind of, I think, space and then, yeah, and then with this media, it’s, you you want to tell your story on your own channels that you own, but then you also want to amplify it and build credibility with third party channels, right? It could be, like I said, USA Today, could be TechCrunch, it could be this podcast. Yeah, in 2025, know, storytelling means kind of telling your own story, telling it through other audiences and networks as many as you can to kind of just get a holistic kind of story being told about you and many different formats.

Jeffro (19:28.572)
Yeah. And I’d say also just to remind people, you’re going to have to keep telling your story, not just once or twice, but like over and over for as long as you’re in business. People forget about you and there’s just so many people to tell. It’s not like it’s a magic bullet to get published one article once and now suddenly you’re going to make millions of dollars. Like you got to be persistent with it and keep getting that story out there in new ways, new platforms, even the same way. Sometimes people just need to hear it multiple times before it sinks in or before they’re ready to take action on that thing that you’re offering.

Edgar (20:02.222)
Yeah, 100%. And it’s totally tiring. And I get that everyone, think everyone who’s first starting out, including myself, will say, I don’t have the time for this. And it’s easy for that to kind of fall behind. So that’s where it’s kind of really important to kind of create these systems so that you can be able to sort of produce great content on a very, I think, consistent basis. And it’s really kind of thinking instead of looking backwards, hey, what can I share? It’s, think, moving forward, how can I orient my business or my life around the fact that, you know, how do I create moments that can be shared? So I think that’s the major mindset shift that would help.

Jeffro (20:45.681)
Well, I think that’s a great place for us to kind of wrap this up today. I appreciate you joining me today, Edgar. Glad I got to talk with you and I think you’ve given our listeners hopefully some ideas and new ways of thinking about getting their story out there. Speaking of the listeners, if you guys need help with your PR, check out the links in the show notes. Edgar has offered 10 % off to digital dominance listeners. Just use code WELCOME10 when you sign up. Last question for you, Edgar. What’s one of the most interesting storytelling angles you’ve used when helping a client?

Edgar (21:13.582)
Interesting storytelling angles. know, interesting enough, like we had a client that was building an AI partner in terms of a romantic partner. yeah, and it really struck me as kind of an interesting idea. And then, you know, we were figuring out, okay, how do we tell this story? Because it can feel kind of, I think, interesting concept. Most people would think like,

Jeffro (21:27.769)
okay.

Edgar (21:43.404)
Obviously you can’t have romance with AI bots. But I think the angle we took was really looking at the human side with our client. Once again, what is the personal motivations? What are the more, I think, an angle that no one’s really considering, which is the fact that, OK, well, it’s not meant to replace humans. It’s meant to help people understand what a real relationship might be about, which is, feel like an angle that I personally wasn’t even considering before, but yeah, exactly, exactly. But really when it comes down to, think, to your audience, talking to your client, and then really understanding like, hey, what am I not seeing from your side? And then really kind of setting aside your own kind of personal thoughts and opinions and just being more open-minded. So I think that’s my…

Jeffro (22:19.248)
Practice.

Edgar (22:42.742)
my advice for for better storytelling angles, being very open minded.

Jeffro (22:48.911)
Awesome, well appreciate that. Thanks again for being here Edgar. Thanks to all of you guys for listening. If you thought this was valuable, please leave a review for the show on Apple or Spotify. Now get out there and go tell your story and we’ll see you back here next time. Take care.

Edgar (23:01.551)
Thanks, Jeff. Bye