What is the Epiphany Bridge and How Do I Use It? – SCCMH [Podcast 30]

Don’t want to miss any episodes? Subscribe to “Sales Copywriting & Content Marketing Hacks” YouTube Channel Here for more information about creating successful sales copy to sell ANYTHING:

---

The Transcript…

Jim Edwards: Hey guys, Jim Edwards here and welcome back to Sales Copywriting And Content Marketing Hacks Podcast!

You guys need to tell your friends about us because we turned 30 today!

So…

Stew Smith: 30!

Jim Edwards: I’m just saying, if you like the content, you need to tell it…

Like tell a friend, remember that old Prell commercial back from the 70s when it was like,

“They told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends and all of a sudden”

Do you remember that or no…

Stew Smith: Oh yeah… Prell… Man that burns your eyeballs, that hurts…

Jim Edwards: It was cheap, though…

So anyway, today we’re going to be talking about your epiphany bridge story because there seems to be some confusion…

We got a question in from somebody that this was like a frickin, I don’t know, something from Encyclopedia Britannica that just…

Round and round and round and round and basically wanting to it…

Stew Smith: Yeah, basically wanting to know where to use it…

When do you use it…

How often do you use it…

How how long should it be…

It was a question with multiple questions

Jim Edwards: To say the least…

Stew Smith: Yes…

Jim Edwards: So what’s the first question is do

Stew Smith: Well, let’s just say what is it and how do we, how do we use it

Jim Edwards: So what is an epiphany bridge story or an origin story

You’ll hear those used interchangeably…

An epiphany bridge story typically is where you, something happened and you had an epiphany, and then that changed everything moving forward.

It was one of those things that six degrees of separation thing where it’s one of those moments in your life where you have an epiphany…

I can tell you one that I had…

I had an epiphany driving down route 60 in Williamsburg, Virginia, with my wife…

She was driving her little geo tracker, which was a little jeep looking thing…

And it was 1997, and I looked at her, and I said, you know, if we’re ever going to get rich, it’s going to happen because of this internet thing…

I don’t know how…

I don’t know when it’s gonna happen…

I don’t know how I’m going to make it happen…

But I know that if we are ever going to get rich, it’s going to happen because of the Internet…

And that was an epiphany that I had and everything that I’ve done since then, I can trace back to that conversation with my wife when I had that epiphany.

And that’s a mini epiphany bridge story right there.

And origin story is more about where someone or something came from.

So let me tell you the story of when I wrote my first book and the four years that it took…

And then when I got rejected by 40 different publishers…

See the slight difference?

One was an epiphany…

I had an idea…

It was like both…

Yeah…

And the heavens parted, and the wisdom of the Universe was bestowed upon me as opposed to an origin story, which is where you explain where everybody came from…

So if you’re a big star wars fan, the fourth Star Wars movie, which was allegedly the first Star Wars movie…

Which was the first in a long line of three Star Wars movies… That sucked!

That was basically an origin story of Anikin Skywalker and who eventually became Darth Vader.

Stew Smith: Right.

Jim Edwards: That was an origin story…

An epiphany story might be when Luke decided that he needed to go and learn the force and he’s sitting there and talking to Obi-Wan, and he comes back, and his family is all burned up, and he tells Obiwan,

“Teach me how to use the force, I have nothing left for me here.”

Then they take off in the speeder.

That then became an epiphany.

He had an epiphany.

That’s the difference.

So what’s the next question

Oh! How do you use them?

Sorry, I was just, I mean that’s an example of an epiphany story…

So how do you use them?

Typically you can use them a whole bunch of different ways.

You can use it as content…

Where you just do a Facebook live…

You use it on a Webinar…

You use it to illustrate a point to fill in the background…

To draw yourself and your audience closer together and to fill in the blanks.

You also use it to answer the question…

“Why?”

Because that’s a question that people ask a lot.

“Why you?”

“Why this?”

“Why now?”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Why are you qualified to teach me?”

All these things that build the foundation, that you can do everything going forward from there because you’ve filled in all the blanks…

And now you’re explaining to people how to move forward with your product, your service, your coaching, your whatever it is.

And so that’s basically how you use it.

You can use it like any Lego block of sales copy or content creation…

As a standalone story,

As part of a Webinar,

As part of a teleseminar,

Whatever.

Stew Smith: Yeah, I think the biggest point of the epiphany bridge, as well as the origin story, is that it humanizes you.

Jim Edwards: Yeah, yeah…

Stew Smith: To your audience, to your market.

It says, “Oh, he’s just like I was.”

Jim Edwards: Yeah.

Stew Smith: Right? And now he can do this.

So it kind of lays the journey for people to follow in your footsteps.

Jim Edwards: That’s a great point! And it also not only humanizes you, but it also gives them hope and a proxy to see,

“Okay, somebody like me can do it, then I can do it.”

Stew Smith: Absolutely!

Jim Edwards: It literally lays that bridge not only between where you were…

Where you are now…

And the solution that you’re offering going forward…

But it builds a mental bridge that they can cross because you crossed it too.

Stew Smith: Yep… There’s a great say in as you have to see it to believe it.

Sometimes it helps to have somebody in your life that has done something.

Whether that person is a personal friend or a family member or it’s someone that you see on Facebook live or a somebody has a commercial business.

Somebody who is guiding people through a series of processes to get them to where they want to be.

That is where it really comes in handy.

Jim Edwards: Yup, I agree. Okay, What next?

What was next?

Stew Smith: How long should they be?

Jim Edwards: Okay, That’s a great question…

Long enough.

(Smile)

Can I get by with that or should I say more?

And I’m just kidding?

Stew Smith: Well, you just gave a great one with your epiphany bridge that was less than a minute long.

So it can be part elevator speech, but it can also be a big 20 minutes story on Facebook Live where you really get into the emotion of your journey.

Jim Edwards: Right.

Stew Smith: And that is where it can really pull people in.

You might get them hooked with the elevator version, but then you really tell the full story and pull some emotion into the discussion.

Jim Edwards: Exactly. Really it just depends on the context of where you’re using it.

If you’re wanting to use it as part of an introduction to something else, like a Facebook Live video, you could tell your origin story in 30 seconds or less.

I could say my origin story…

“I started out selling on the Internet. I sold a book that took me four years to write.

I figured out how to do SEO.

I figured out how to write sales letters.

I figured out how to how to sell and take credit cards back in the 90s when it was really tough to be able to do it.

People started asking me,

“Hey, how did you do all this? I see you selling these ebooks, and that is why I wrote “Seven-Day Ebook.”

It was because all these people were asking how were you able to sell these ebooks on the Internet.

And then I got written up in the New York Times, Entrepreneur magazine and here we are today.”

So I mean that was probably 45 seconds, but that in effect was my origin story.

Now I can spin that into a two-hour fricking talk on a boat.

Stew Smith: Absolutely…

Jim Edwards: If I want to…

You need to come on The Jim Boat, by the way, Stew…

And everyone else listening.

So it just depends, it really depends.

And what I would recommend that you do…

…Especially if there’s an epiphany story that is integral to your whole business…

is that you create a version that has as much detail as possible, first.

And I mean really get into it…

How did you feel?

Who did you see?

Who did you talk to?

What happened?

What’d your family do?

What did your coworkers do?

I mean all this stuff, it might end up being five or six pages long and might be 30 minutes.

And then you just whittle it down until it’s tight.

I mean, it’s like a movie plot.

And then from there, it’s like an accordion.

You can expand and contract it based on your needs…

But you don’t want…

You want to have it down, and you want to know all the details…

Mainly so that it’s consistent all the time.

What you don’t want to do is kind of tell it one way and kinda tell it another way.

Because people are listening, they’re paying attention.

And if they spot an inconsistency, they will think that you’re lying.

Even though you’re not doing it on purpose, they will think you’re lying because it’s an inconsistent story.

So I would recommend that you really codify it and get it down…

So that you could tell it in any length when called upon at any time.

Stew Smith: So how about this?

How often should they be used?

With your content creation.

Jim Edwards: Okay, so here’s the thing.

An epiphany bridge, especially an epiphany story…

A lot of people think you only have one epiphany story.

You only have one origin story, and that’s not true.

Every product you make, every situation…

Can have an Epiphany Bridge story can have an origin story.

I can tell the origin story of how I created a product to sell off my house.

I can tell an origin story about when I met Stew and started working out.

I can tell…

I mean you have an unlimited supply of them…

Because every event, every interaction…

All that stuff can have one of those.

So what we’re really talking about here is using a structure…

When you are creating the content.

And we’ve talked about this, I think it was episode five…

We talked about the hero’s journey, I think it was episode five of the podcast.

And I encourage you to go back and watch that because we, we spent a lot of time on it.

It was a very good episode.

Doesn’t have nearly as many views as it should to go back and watch it.

Stew Smith: Hahaha!

Jim Edwards: So what you need to understand more is it’s a style of storytelling that hooks people in…

And then gives you a way to launch them to the next step when you’re ready.

So when people have heard,

“All of your content, all your Facebook lives should be an epiphany bridge.”

And they think…

“Well, if I keep telling that same story over and over and over, it’s not that you only have one epiphany bridge story.”

You can tell an epiphany bridge or an origin story for pretty much anything.

I can tell the epiphany bridge story about when I decided to do the very first Jim Boat.

I remember exactly where I was…

I was riding my red four-wheeler down the driveway at the property that I’m on right now, but we had a double-wide trailer on there right then.

And I said,

You know what? I love to cruise, and I bet you I could find 15 people that would want to go on a cruise with me, and I can teach them stuff about ebooks. And I can charge each of them like 3000 bucks, and it’ll work.”

And I sat there on the four-wheeler, and I said,

“It’ll work.”

And I told my neighbor what I was going to do and he said,

“Damn, that’s a cool idea.”

And so I went in, and I wrote up the sales letter, and I put it out, and I had 12 people sign up within a week.

And then we got a couple more…

And we went and did a cruise, and it was amazing…

And we had a great time.

And I made friends that are friends of mine to this day…

But if I had never had that thought in the middle of my driveway on a red four-wheeler, it never would have happened.

Now literally, I did that off the top of my head.

Just kinda knowing the framework.

Now, could I have thrown in some other details in there about how was really, actually a total pain in the ass to do the first one cause we had no idea what we were doing.

And then when we did the actual thing because our group was so small, they put us in this karaoke bar with all these mirrors that look like they should have been on the ceiling of a whorehouse.

And we were trying to film it, so my mom ran down and found the room steward…

Got him to give us a bunch of sheets and we literally were using gaffer tape to put up these sheets over these mirrors so that we can have a background that we can film against.

Then the ship came in and started yelling at us because we were using our own wireless microphone system…

And it was interfering with their onboard system.

Stew Smith: Some lessons learned!

Jim Edwards: It was something!

And then I finally got going, and this lady sat down and knocked my laptop with her knee because I had to set it on this little cocktail table…

And I overreacted, and I pissed her and her husband off, and they never came back.

And just all the crap that happened and it was still an amazing experience!

So you can see what I mean about adding and subtracting.

You figured out what the conclusion is that you want people to have as a result of telling the story.

And when you know the framework, and you know your intention…

Then you can craft the story in such a way that it automatically leads people to whatever the intention is that you have for that.

So when we say that you should do an epiphany bridge story every time…

Or people have heard that said…

What’s being said actually is use the story formula for your content consistently.

And it creates content that really engages people.

Stew Smith: Right. And it kind of tells people this is the product or the service or the idea behind why I came up with this…

This is why I’m selling this product or service or idea…

Jim Edwards: So yeah, product service, idea, course of action…

Stew Smith: Yeah.

Jim Edwards: Whatever it is.

So it doesn’t have to be a pitch every single time.

In fact, it probably shouldn’t be just ’cause people get a little stinky after a while.

Stew Smith: In fact, a fun thing to do is…

My first time I ever heard of the epiphany bridge, I was like,

“Do I have one of those?”

And then I went around, and I was like,

“Oh, I kind of have one here, let me fine-tune this a little bit.”

And then I started noticing them in other people’s marketing.

And there’s a lot of them out there.

So it’s not like it’s some new concept.

Go and just Google it and check it out.

And you’ll see a ton of great videos.

You’ll see some good sales copy of people riding it as an article…

To get people like just a little more information about who is behind the products and services they’re selling.

Jim Edwards: Yeah, definitely go back and review episode five…

Stew Smith: Yes, that’s a good one because we both did one in that one.

That, that was fun…

Jim Edwards: Yeah, In fact, I did Stews better than he did.

Stew Smith: Yes, you did. It was good.

Jim Edwards: All right, cool…

Any other questions about the epiphany bridge

Stew Smith: No, that was it.

So now the question is, can you put it into some of your own sales copy?

I challenge the listeners to do that.

Jim Edwards: Sure.

Stew Smith: Let’s do it.

Jim Edwards: Let me ask you a question, Stew.

When do you remember if you had an epiphany or anything with our interaction and tell people about the epiphany that you had about the covers of your books?

Stew Smith: Oh yeah, I mean, I have one several times a year.

I have an epiphany of some sorts…

Whether it’s a new product…

I come up with a new market I’m going to try to hit…

Where the new a product or service a new way to say something build a whole new webpage…

So all these little things come up that,

“That’s my idea! I’m going to do it.”

But yeah, after talking to Jim…

And I remember it plain as day…

I’d been selling ebooks for 10 years, and then I saw Jim’s email address said, “ebook coach.”

Jim Edwards: Oh, now everybody’s going to email me…

Stew Smith: It’s all right…

Jim Edwards: Hahaha!

Stew Smith: You want people to email you, gives you content…

So I said,

“So what’s this ebook coach thing? So what do you do?”

And I didn’t know who Jim Edward was.

You know, I did not.

Right?

And then he explained it to me, and I’m like,

“Oh!”

And he goes,

“Here, in fact, try this…”

I think it was the 27 day, 27 days…

Jim Edwards: Yeah.

Stew Smith: Twenty-seven Day ebook…

And he goes,

“Try this process and tell me what you think.”

And so I did.

And I created a book in 27 days because my big question was, how do you get these things on Amazon?

Jim Edwards: Right.

Stew Smith: I’ve been selling no books on my own website for years…

I was like,

“How do you get these things on Amazon?”

And so he showed me how to do it in this 27-day program.

And there was a step in there that outsourced getting covers done for ebooks…

Which I was just making my own ebooks off of some stock footage or maybe a logo or something like that…

And they didn’t look good at all…

Jim Edwards: They sucked real bad.

Stew Smith: It’s kind of a waste of my effort… Yeah…

So anyway, I decided right then and there, after this first experience of a 27-day ebook course that I loved the process so much…

I’m going to do it with all 35 of my other ebooks.

And that was a big update cycle.

It took me about three months to do that…

And I was doing several a week.

Two or three-four weeks to get that done.

But I had almost immediate success with those changes.

I found a guy on Fiverr who did it…

Some dude from Sri Lanka and said,

“Hey, I got some books for you. If you do this one well, I’m going to give you 30 more, you know, within the next month.”

And he was like, “Okay!”

And so we became actually good friends.

And he did a great job.

And now, I think it was within a month of me starting that automatically had like a 30% increase in sales just from a prettier book cover.

I hadn’t even gotten to the updates yet of the ebooks, which I was in the process of doing, but just those covers alone changed who I thought Jim Edwards was.

Jim Edwards: That’s really cool.

Stew Smith: Immediately.

Jim Edwards: You know, it’s funny because I just thought, I know we’re wrapping this up, but I started thinking about where, where do you look for epiphany bridge stories or origin stories…

And, and as you kind of think back about stuff, think about when there’ve been changes in your life…

When something changed for the better, or for the worse.

Think about when your income went up or went down.

Think about when the relationship went good or went bad.

Think about when your weight went up or went down.

Think about when you’re just when there’s been a change.

Stew Smith: Yeah.

Jim Edwards: Because all change, good or bad, can usually be linked back to some sort of a decision that you made or an event…

Or a decision you didn’t make or an opportunity you didn’t recognize…

And then one day you realized that you had an epiphany about what was going on…

And then once you had that bit of enlightenment, you were able to make a change or start moving in a new direction…

So look for significant events, look for significant shifts, look for those kinds of things…

And that’ll help you identify where you should look to see if you did or didn’t have an epiphany.

And the cool thing is you may not have had an epiphany then, but looking back, you can have an epiphany now…

“And that’s when I realized 30 years ago I was a dick!

And I need to start being an…”

You understand what I mean?

I mean that’s the epiphany can happen anywhere, anytime…

And once you get in that habit, you can, you can make it happen.

Stew Smith: Yeah, I like that.

Finding change, finding a decision made, or not made…

Another one, especially in a business as it relates to business, is find that thing that you did or didn’t do…

Find that thing that you did that made you say,

“Man, I wish I’d had done this five years ago.”

Jim Edwards: Yeah.

Stew Smith: Those are usually really big items that moved you in the right direction.

And you sit there, and you say,

“Man, I’m trying to think about a 30% increase I’d done this five years ago.”

You just start doing the math of what you missed out on.

Jim Edwards: Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Cool…

Well, great job…

All right…

What should they do next Stew?

Stew Smith: Ah! They should go to the closed Facebook page.

Sales Copy and Content Marketing Hacks closed Facebook group, and you can ask questions…

We will get on them immediately, whether it’s by another podcast or filling in the blanks of a reply right underneath you.

Yeah, but check out the podcast as well…

It’s on youtube, where podcast played at iTunes and Google Play and Spotify.

Jim Edwards: Cool. All right, well everybody have a great day, and we will talk to you soon…

Bye, everybody…