We recently connected with Susan Young and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Susan, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

More than 90% of my clients insist they don’t have a story to tell. The ones who do have a good story are typically telling the wrong one.

I’ve been a professional storyteller for 35 years, including 10 years as an on-air radio news reporter. I’ve interviewed everyone from homeless people to presidents.

I’m an “emotional archaelogist” who uses my invisible shovel to uncover clients’ stories, which are typically right under their nose. My process brings lasting transformation.

Heidi Armstrong, a coach in Austin, Texas, says I was the “catalyst for a revolution in her professional and personal life.” Within three weeks of working together, she found her voice.

Heidi landed two major market media interviews, embraced her voice and story and became a trusted speaker at huge medical conferences, online and in-person.

Heidi’s business exploded during the Pandemic.

Other clients consistently get similar results: A Return on Investment from our coaching of 400-700%. People are closing $60,000 contracts, raising their rates and filling all of their coaching spots. Most tell me they have wait lists and no time to follow-up with prospects.

Countless clients have told me the past 22 years that I have changed their lives. Mission accomplished!

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?

I didn’t speak until I was 4-years-old.

My parents thought I was deaf, but the doctor said I was fine. I just didn’t “need” to talk. If I was hungry, I banged on the refrigerator.

Instead of talking, I listened and watched. I was curious.

I went to college, and ironically, I majored in Mass Communication. I found the campus radio station and was smitten.

I graduated in 1984, and was on the radio every day for 10 years. I was an on-air news reporter in the New Jersey/New York media market, the most competitive in the U.S.

I’ve interviewed everyone from homeless people to presidents.

I’ve won awards.

I was paid to be curious, ask good questions, and tell other people’s stories.

But there was a price to pay. I am an “old-school” trained journalist, trained that my voice didn’t matter in a story. I was paid to tell both sides of a story and allow the audience to think for themselves. Remember, this was in the 1980s and 90s, long before the 24/7 news cycle.

Along the way, I lost myself. I started to believe deeply that my voice didn’t matter.

I took my storytelling and news expertise to the state capitol in New Jersey. I ran the Governor’s Office of Radio and TV. Then, I was a PR director at a statewide nonprofit.

In 2000, the entrepreneurial bug bit. I opened my PR company and began embracing MY story.

I connected the dots between storytelling, curiosity, and publicity.

I grew to multiple 6 figures without technology, a budget, or a team.

Today, I teach entrepreneurs, coaches, and business leaders how to boldly share their story, so they have more clients, visibility, and impact. People work with me 1:1, with a VIP Day, or they can join group coaching programs.

Topics range from becoming a paid speaker, podcast guesting and hosting, and media interviews to self-confidence, messaging, and online visibility. It’s all about storytelling–especially the stories that we tell ourselves.

If you’re looking for a lead magnet, look in the mirror!😍😍
You are the message.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I created the organic Story Funnel System when I started my business in 2000. I grew to multiple 6-figures without technology, a budget, or team.

This 5-step system is timeless and works beautifully online. Clients from all different niches are amazed at how storytelling can be used in business.

When you pour into your story and know how to show up and speak up, you’ll get noticed–and hired.

There’s no need for awkward sales pitches; entrepreneurs, coaches, and business leaders are using their voice and story to have easy conversations so that dream clients want to buy.

A recent example from my business: Within six months of joining Clubhouse, I closed $18,000 in new clients.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This is about self-love. I finally “felt” it last year. I was 59 years old.

When our daughter Stephanie was 15 years-old, we had a major family crisis that turned us inside out and upside down. It lasted 10 agonizing years. I’m happy to say we have all made it through together, healthy and whole.

In 2010, Stephanie went to a year-long residential treatment program–clear across the country in Salt Lake City. They didn’t accept health insurance. Hubs had lost his corporate job in the 2008 economic downturn and was out of work for 2 years (we also have a younger son).

During a parents weekend at Stephanie’s program, I was in a group therapy workshop with the other moms and their teenaged daughters. The girls were all so beautiful on the outside and so broken on the inside.

The counselor suggested to us moms that we teach our daughters self-love. I gently raised my hand and asked, “How can you teach what you never learned?”

One of the other moms ran out of the room in tears.

You see, I never learned self-love. And I don’t blame my mother, who is now 87 years old. I know that my parents taught me everything they know. Things like don’t go out in the snow barefoot, always bring a small gift when you’re invited somewhere, offer your seat to a pregnant woman. You get the picture.

But me and my sisters were never taught about self-love because my mother never learned it. And neither did hers. There is no blame here because you can’t teach what you don’t know.

With therapy at different points in my life, deep introspection, Neurolinguistic Programmming, EMDR/tapping and energetics work, I have learned only recently how to heal my inner child. I learned that there is nothing wrong with me, and there never was.

Stephanie is my hero, for many reasons. She’s 29 now, and has broken our family’s generational curse around self-love. She graduated from college, has a corporate job, and has repaired relationships. The clincher: She is engaged to a lovely guy!

My lesson: Stephanie forced me to be resilient in ways I never could have imagined.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sueyoungmedia.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sueyoungmedia/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sueyoungmedia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susyoungmedia/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sueyoungmedia
• Other: Facebook group: Communication Nation https://www.facebook.com/groups/communicationnation FB business page https://www.facebook.com/GetInFrontCommunications/