We recently connected with Wade Sugiyama and have shared our conversation below.

Wade, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

While most marketing typically centers the brand as the hero of the story and, subsequently, centers marketing efforts around important moments for the brand. I challenge my clients to rethink their marketing and do the opposite. Instead, center your customer as the hero of the story and plan marketing efforts around moments that matter for your customer. Ultimately, it pushes clients out of their comfort zone, creates stronger customer connections, and helps brands to achieve breakout results.

About a year and a half ago I had, what I call, a marketing epiphany that caused me to rethink how I approached marketing, even after doing it for over 20 years. At that time, I was working for a large global agency, and I was struggling to put together a presentation. During my research phase, I found a story that became the foundation of that presentation and eventually what ignited my entire consulting practice.

The story was about a woman named Anna and her adorable dog named Gus. Quick disclaimer that the story is sad in the beginning, but I promise it gets better. The beginning started at end of Gus’s life. In addition to handling her grief, Anna had to take care of some of the logistical matters of Gus’s passing. She had some unopened bags of dog food to return to Chewy.com and contacted customer service. After explaining her situation, Chewy told her she would get a full refund, but she didn’t have to ship the food back and could donate it to a local shelter. The next day she received flowers and a handwritten note from the same customer service rep she spoke to. Anna was so moved by the gesture that she posted about it on social media and the story took off from there, getting picked up by multiple major news outlets. What was even more amazing was that there were many people that responded to Anna’s story by telling stories of their own and what Chewy did for them when their pet had passed away. It was not a one-off occurrence, it was a part of what Chewy did for their customers.

All of the emotion and inspiration that came from Anna, Gus, and Chewy’s story led to one lesson that stood out to me. The BEST way to build a connection between a brand and a customer is to do it in the same way that we do it for each other as humans. And one of the most effective ways to do that is to create moments that matter for each other. There’s a misconception that doing good for people in that way is a nice-to-have, but won’t necessarily grow your business. I believe creating moments that matter is the marketing key to doing both at the same time!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

Most marketing data will tell you that you have less than 10 seconds (in some cases much less) to catch a customer’s attention in marketing. As a result, many of my clients tell me they have a much harder time breaking through and, regardless of their effort to try new things, their results end up close to the average or below. I call this a “marketing slump,” where you’ve seen better results before, but you can’t quite figure out how to break out of your current situation. That’s usually when marketers and business owners are ready to rethink their approach, shake things up, and find a way to resonate better with customers.

That’s exactly where I come in. I am a messaging and storytelling coach (StoryBrand Certified Coach) that conducts workshops and coaches marketers on how to earn more time and attention and deliver breakout results. Here’s how I do it: 1) Identify moments that matter in your customer’s lives where you could interact with them. 2) Tell the right story using sound bits derived from the StoryBrand messaging framework. 3) Earn customer attention and create moments that matter for them.

Overall, I have over 20 years of experience in global marketing and previously spent 7 years at an agency consulting as a lead strategist with companies like Starbucks, KFC, Samsung, and AARP driving hundreds of millions of customer engagements and helping motivate customer action. Today, I run my own consulting practice, called Guide the Hero Consulting, focused specifically on helping marketers and business owners create moments that matter for their customers.

When it comes to both creating moments that matter and storytelling, the biggest mistake that marketers make is positioning themselves as hero of the story. The customer should be the hero of the story and the brand should be the guide character. Think of Moana’s grandma, Dumbledore, Yoda, or Doc Hudson from Cars. Those are all famous guide characters from some of the most famous stories we all know.

While it sounds easy, it can be extremely hard to break the habit of being the hero, even for the most seasoned marketers. The reason this is so challenging is that you, me, and your customers all wake up every day as the heroes of our own story. Call it “Main Character Energy” or “Main Character Syndrome,” but it’s real and it’s how we’re wired. As a result, it’s hard for marketers to step out of that hero seat. And in the past, that didn’t matter as much because there weren’t so many avenues for customers to receive marketing messages. With time and attention so scarce today, marketers have to be even more skilled at capturing attention and, if a brand positions themselves as the hero, they are more likely to be ignored. Heroes aren’t looking for other heroes. They are looking for a guide.

One of the first steps I take clients through is a workshop where I teach them how to Think in Moments that Matter. I call that TMTM (pronounced, “TimTim”). It’s the first phase to rethinking your marketing approach and can begin to open up opportunities to deliver a breakout result. In that exercise, we talk about the science behind why moments that matter are so powerful and your team gets involved in coming up with specific moments that matter for your customers. Next, we go through the proven StoryBrand 7-part messaging framework to make sure you position it to customers in a way makes them pay attention and so they can clearly understand how you can help make their lives better.

A recent example of the powerful combination of storytelling (customer is the hero) and moments that matter was what Starbucks did the Monday after the Super Bowl that resulted in the “most redeemed offer in the chain’s history.” (source:) . Starbucks gave away a free brewed coffee the day after the Super Bowl to help Americans that went big on Sunday, which led to a long Monday. Think of how many times Starbucks has offered free coffee. For it to be the most redeemed offer in history means there’s more to it than just a free coffee offer. Full breakdown on my YouTube channel here and after the results came out here. The great news is that you don’t have to sell coffee and you don’t have to wait until the next Super Bowl to put this into action.

I believe the world is a better place when we create moments that matter for each other. Whether that’s in our jobs or our personal lives. If I can play a small role in fostering and encouraging that in the world, then I’m all in. It’s among the most fulfilling work I’ve done in my career, and I think you might find the same when you do it.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My first job out of college was working at a game company in Bellevue, WA. I started in community management there and worked my way into brand management and marketing. One Monday morning in 2008, my manager and I had just landed back at SeaTac airport and we were totally exhausted after running a weekend-long event. Right after we picked up our luggage we got an urgent call to come into the office immediately. When we arrived, we found out that the entire company was being shut down and everyone was laid off immediately.

I had lost my job in the middle of a recession and most of my entire network (since this was my first job) was also out of a job as well. Job hunting was discouraging on a good day and insulting and demeaning on the worst days. Unemployment was not enough and there were a lot of tough days trying to figure out how I was going to make a living. There were many times the consistent feeling of defeat weighed on me a lot. When I think back to that time, I think about the old Japanese proverb, “Nanakorobi yaoki,” which translates to, “fall down seven times, stand up eight.” I don’t think I knew that phrase back then, but that’s really what it felt like. Just trying to stand up one more time than I got knocked down.

Then, something that started really small, began to gain some momentum for me, and it wasn’t anything I expected or even really intended. Before I left the office on my last day, I cleaned my desk and brought home the product I had collected over my time there. Since many of the products we sold were collectible, they had some value on eBay. While I continued my job hunt and explored grad school, I taught myself how to sell on eBay and earned a relatively small amount for it, but I remember thinking at least it was something. And, of all the things I had tried, this had provided, by far, the most forward momentum.

As I began selling my own product, former colleagues heard about it and asked me to sell theirs, and they said I could take a cut. That turned into many different referrals all over the Seattle area that had larger and larger collections for me to sell. I would empty out garages and storage units, and at one point I got a multiple pallet shipment that I had to store in a friend’s warehouse that I would go pickup product from weekly. At its peak, I was selling between 200-300 items a week and became very friendly with everyone at the post office. Eventually, I had to rent out an apartment, then a commercial space, and I hired a few people to help me list and sell to keep up with the volume.

This chapter of my life wasn’t glamorous or anything I had pictured my career to be. I always had pieces of cardboard all over me, I knew way too much about packing materials, and I was driving constantly to pick up product or drop things off at the post office. I remember at the apartment I rented, so many residents were nervous that I was doing something really shady. In the moment I didn’t feel like I was doing anything impressive. It just felt like I was doing what I needed to do and following what was working. Shout out to Jessica, Sarah, Ryan, Ramil, and Mitch for helping during that crazy time. We had some good times together there.

I share this story, not because I think everyone should find a way to sell things online, but to encourage you if you’re in that place right now where you feel like you’re getting beat down and nothing is working. “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” I know it’s really hard to stand up each time, but that’s what it takes. I would also encourage people to try a lot of things, even if you don’t see the path immediately. There will be many times where most people would totally understand if you said no, and no one would blame you for saying no to something. Do it anway. Do what others won’t and you’ll find yourself in a good place.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I firmly believe that everyone has their own way to build their reputation and leave their mark on the people they come across in their careers and in their lives. I’ve seen many mentors and colleagues do this in different ways and find success through their own unique personalities and strengths.

I believe in my soul that any good reputation I’ve built is because of the wonderful people that I’ve had the opportunity to be around and learn from, both personally and professionally. I try my best to mimic those that I admire and respect. I feel like I carry a little piece of all of them in how I approach life and the people I come across. While I couldn’t possibly live up to all of them, I want to believe that the collection of all of them inside of me is what has given me the strength and confidence to build any kind of reputation for myself.

I don’t think there’s a magic formula that I follow, nor do I think my way is the only right way. I think one the greatest gifts anyone could ever receive is someone else describing how much you mean to them with characteristics you hold in high regard and aspire to be like. Someone once told me that I “lead with humanity,” and it will forever make me work hard to live up to that statement and continuously earn those words.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.guidetheheroconsulting.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wadesugiyama/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadesugiyama/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WadeSugiyama
• Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wadesugiyama