Mellissa Tong DuckPunk Transcript

Royce Hall

Hey, this is Royce Hall, your host of Coffee Dreamin, Salesforce Consultant by Day, Podcaster by Night, and I'm joined today by Mellissa Tong. Mellissa is the chief story seller at DuckPunk Productions, and we talk about how to build your own story, how that story helps you sell and market it more effectively, and how you can learn to build your own story that sells. I hope you enjoy.

I'm joined by Mellissa Tong today, and Mellissa is the Chief Story Seller at DuckPunk Productions. Great to have you, Mellissa.

Mellissa Tong

Thanks so much for having me.

Royce Hall

Yeah, well, it's wonderful to have you, and I'd love to hear about what you're doing, and your profile is very intriguing because you talk about coming out of news casting and being in media productions and marketing now. So I'd love to hear about that story.

Mellissa Tong

My past life, I would call it, you know, I was a music composition major and a comparative literature minor, and there was no, I never thought, number one, I never thought I would be on camera, okay? Number two, I never thought I would be doing storytelling as a living. So, yeah, I thought I would be a composer, I would be working in music, but the universe said, okay, you got to get over here.

So this is how it got started. Growing up, I grew up in a household where emotions were not encouraged or shown. So the only emotion I knew at the time was, you know, my mom was always angry.

Yeah, so I mean, not to say that my parents didn't love me, okay? They just didn't know how to show it, okay? So they didn't know how to show affection, and on top of that, you know, the only emotion I knew was, you know, for my mother being angry.

So I grew up, you know, although I grew up having friends, but I didn't know how to connect. I always felt like there was a barrier I didn't quite know how to cross, and I didn't realize it was connection. You know, I thought, okay, well, friends, friends, and I just didn't know, like, what's beyond, right?

I didn't know how to really make friendships. You know, like I said, I have friends, but I didn't know how to, you know, I didn't really know how to talk to people. I didn't know how to, like, really establish, like, a deeper connection, right?

And that went on until, you know, after grad school. So I finished school. I came out.

I thought, okay, I'm just going to, you know, look for, you know, jobs, you know, working as a composer. And then I realized that I also had to be a steering engineer in order to become a composer. It's sort of like you're engineered by day and then composer by night, kind of, right?

So I needed, you know, I realized that I would need another degree in, you know, sign engineering, which was fine. I wasn't scared of patching cables, okay? So a lot of times people are like, oh, okay.

You know, you may not go to patching cables, but actually I was very good at patching cables. I mean, you know, like, I surprised a few people because I was able to, like, patch everything correctly. But anyway, so I thought, okay, well, I'm not sure whether I want to go back to school quite yet.

So I thought, okay, well, why don't I maybe just work a year or two, right? And then, and then decide, right? Okay.

If I want to go back and I could do it again, but let's just take a little break. So during my break, I was kind of just looking for any jobs. And because of my bilingual skills, I got hired as a TV newscaster.

So they said, okay, well, we're not going to just hire you to do news. We're going to send you out to cover stories. But since you're new and you didn't come from a generalism background, we're not going to send you out to cover any hot news in case you mess up.

So we, but we're going to, we're going to send you to cover, to cover any, you know, to cover all the soft news, basically, you know, like human future stories, right? So I say, okay, great. So I was on the job for four years.

I did everything from health, beauty, technology, science, red carpet events, movie premieres, start your convention. I mean, you name it, all the fun stuff. So I, you know, so at the time I didn't realize it, but looking back, those four years gave me the best training ground anybody could have asked for, you know, in terms of training me as a storyteller, right?

But like I said, at the time I didn't, I didn't quite know it, but looking back, you know, it taught me, it taught me how to connect. I was forced to talk to people on a daily basis, but not just talking to people, but to really, you know, finding a way to connect and extracting information from people in a very short period of time. And then taking all those story elements to craft a story.

I had a five minute human interest segment. I had to feel no matter what. Afterwards, I did the math and I realized that I have crafted over 1200 on air stories.

During the news job, I fell in love with producing. So I thought, okay, well, I want to become a producer. So I went over to the fiction side.

I worked on a prime time CBS scripted show called the martial law. And then I started. Yeah.

And then I started my company in 2000. And at the beginning, my goal was to produce independent movies and documentaries. And I did.

And then in 2003, I had a chance to get into producing TV commercials. And my first TV commercial was for Toyota. So after I did that, I was like, wow, I could actually make a better living producing TV commercials and independent movies because the fun this is the funny part.

So the money I got producing an independent feature film was actually less than the money I got producing a TV commercial. And the TV commercial was 30 seconds. That's why the movie was two hours.

Royce Hall

Wow.

Mellissa Tong

Yeah. And then as an independent movie producer, you get paid last. You don't get paid while you were developing the project.

You don't get paid producing, you know, you get paid last. And I mean, all also like the budget for independent film. I mean, it was not a studio picture.

Right. So you got a lot less and then you kind of have to watch how you spend your money very, very carefully. So and then I realized, wow, I could I could make a pretty decent living producing TV commercials.

And then in between producing TV commercials, I could do my movies. Right. So that's how I got started.

And so we went on, you know, and produced many award-winning campaigns for Nissan, Rice and Wells Fargo, Old Navy, McDonald's. And every time we shoot, you know, TV commercial, oftentimes we do it in multiple languages. So we do it in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Vietnamese.

So that makes us unique because not a lot of production companies could handle, you know, up to six languages. In 2007 or so, I remember I was like, OK, I'm on a roll. I wanted to take my business to the next level.

And so I thought, OK, I'll sign up for a few business development programs to kind of like help me get to the next level. And then I signed up for one and was like, OK, all right, this is not this is not it. So for another one, OK, this is not it.

And I signed up for another one. OK, well, this is not it. Right.

And but I didn't realize that years later, I realized that my business was missing me. So in 2013, I went to I went into, you know, personal development. I learned, you know, a lot about spiritual laws.

I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual. So I learned a lot about spiritual laws. And then, you know, I came out, I came out realizing that for years, I thought my superpower was being a producer and director.

And then I came out, you know, after my spiritual, you know, personal development program, a spiritual program that I realized that my my my special sauce is actually I'm a storyteller. Before I looked at myself as, oh, I'm a producer, I'm a director. But, you know, when when I finally realized, wow, it doesn't matter whether it's a movie or it's a TV commercial, I can tell a story and craft very engaging, impactful story regardless of the delivery format.

That's how I started to open up basically a whole new different business model where now I work with small midsize as well as large corporations and focusing on telling their story. So like I said, sometimes it could still be a TV commercial. Sometimes it could be an elevator pitch that people take to conferences to pitch the business.

And sometimes it's a presentation deck. So we've done decks for businesses to try to raise, you know, you know, round one, round two, round three, you know, seed fundings, right? Or they just want a deck that can truly, you know, that can truly make them shine when they talk to clients, right?

Or we have craft, you know, we have crafted elevator. I mean, we have crafted keynote speeches, you know, and, you know, talks for people who said, okay, well, you know, I I'm not a speaker or I'm a speaker. I want to have more impact, you know, with my talk.

So we've done that. Yeah. So, you know, so now it's basically across all delivery mediums, you know, so to me, the opportunities are endless.

But at the same time, it all comes back to telling a story. So that's why my title is chief story seller, because I'm really using authentic stories to help you sell through your story.

Royce Hall

That's awesome. And that's a great story, you know, where you come from as well. Like, you know, you're talking about your own background of being in a family that didn't show emotion other than anger.

And I just think of like, okay, you know, from your music to, you know, being on air camera person, I happen to build immediate rapport with with people to telling stories that, you know, like, hey, we save 15% over here. Don't you want to do the 15% as well? Like, that's not compelling.

Like, how do you actually tie into somebody's emotional drive? Like, everything that you described is like so, you know, emotional. I think that's one of the things that I've learned over my years is like, I went through a career transition years and years ago, and like just realizing it's not about the facts.

Like, you got to have the facts. But the facts are just like artifacts. Like, they're just, you know, window dressing.

But that's not the story. And you're tapping into that. And it's awesome that you're helping people do that.

Mellissa Tong

Yeah, because I always say this, you know, in, you know, your biggest pain can become your biggest gain. My biggest pain growing up was not knowing how to connect, right? I felt so awkward and I felt like I suck at it.

But the universe said, hey, okay, well, you suck at this, so I'm going to give you the opportunity to get good at this, right? So really, it's like a 180. And once I learned that, I was like, wow, you can actually connect with people in a very short period of time.

And when you do it correctly, you can actually, you know, you can actually sell your service of products without being selsey. Because a lot of times, you know, especially women, you know, a lot of women business owners struggle because they feel like, oh, I don't want to be selsey. I don't want to sell.

Somehow, selling has sort of like a negative, you know, right?

Royce Hall

Well, I'm a salesman, I get that.

Mellissa Tong

Yeah, so people, you know, I don't want to sell. And I mean, I cannot tell you how many business owners, right? They say, oh, yeah, we love doing what we do, but we hate selling.

So I kind of want to also change people's concept about selling. So I think we have this old, you know, snake oil salesman knocking on your door, pushing you all by despite that, right? I think that's a very old way of selling.

And I don't think, I mean, in today's day and age, you know, if you do that, you're really outdated. And I don't think you can get very far if you sell in that sort of outdated way, right? I think the new way of selling is really connecting because I've seen it time and time and time again, right?

If you cannot connect in like, let's say, the first 10, 20, 30 seconds with somebody, they're not going to give you the time to listen to you. I mean, you know, I go test it, right? Go to a networking event and see if you can connect.

If you can't, the rest of the conversation is kind of like, it doesn't go anywhere, right? But somehow, if you can find a way to connect, then they are more willing to listen to you. They're more willing to hear what you have to say.

Otherwise, it's one year in, one year out. You don't remember anything about that, right? How many business cards have you thrown into the trash can?

I have thrown away a lot of cards because I have no idea who they are, right? Because it's like, okay, you meet all these people, but like, who are they? There's no connection.

But for the people I'm able to connect to network, they remember me. They may not remember my name, right? They may not remember my name.

They may not remember what I do, but they remember my story. And I can give you, you know, a pretty good story to illustrate that. So we once worked with a CPA firm.

And this guy, he's a partner. And he said, we go to networking events quite a bit. But every time when I say, hey, I'm a CPA, I love numbers and I help people save money from Uncle Sam, he said people were not interested in talking with him.

He said people slowly like walking away and not wanting to take his card. And he said, well, you know, we have a pretty decent pool of clients, but you never know which one is going to drop. So I want to kind of, you know, make sure that I still, you know, I'm being active in the community.

I want to get out there. You know, I want to like, you know, like, you know, just build more brand awareness, right? I said, okay, that's great.

But don't you think every CPA may say the same thing? He said, yeah, you've got a point. I said, you can't say that because there's no, like, you're not connecting with people, you know, you basically trying to say, hey, by me, I'm CPA.

I don't care. I already help my CPA, right? So I said, that's not going to work.

So I said, okay, let's work on your story. Let's see what we can use. So I started asking all these questions.

And he said, no, you know, I already told you why I started my business. You know, I love numbers, and I like helping people save money. I said, no, that's not your why.

He said, no, that's my why. I said, no, I guarantee you, that's not it, right? Who's arguing me is like, no, that's not it.

And I say, okay, why don't you share some stories with me, you know, working with your clients? He said, oh, no, I have a kind confidentiality. I can't share anything.

I said, okay, fine. So why don't you share, you know, you know, the time before you started your business, right? No, you know, I've always, you know, even, even I started my business, I was always in accounting, blah, blah, blah, you know, don't really have much to share.

Okay, what about college, right? No, I lived, I lived in a dorm and I, I, you know, I never really, I was a pretty good student. I never really spent too much late nights out.

I was, I always came back on time. And, you know, I, I was never drunk, never party too much. I, you know, I got good grades and blah, blah, blah.

And I said, okay, well, what about high school? Anything in high school? No, you know, I got pretty good parents.

Like I said, I always, I was always a good student. You know, no, I didn't, I didn't, I don't remember anything out of the ordinary. He said, okay, what about younger, right?

What about grade school? No, you know, my parents are pretty decent. I had a pretty normal childhood.

I don't, I don't have any childhood trauma. So I couldn't get anything out of this guy. I mean, obviously he's very, very guarded.

So I say, look, you know, I mean, you've lived quite some years, you know, and we're not leaving until you give me one good story. I don't care what that story is, but I'm sure you can think of one good story to tell me. Okay.

We're not leaving. I'm going to leave you alone. I'm going to give you some time.

You can think about it and let just see what, what comes up. Right. So I kind of left him alone, but I say no, no, we're not leaving.

We're not leaving until you give me one story. So after 20 minutes or so, he goes, oh, I think I have, I think I got one. I never share this with anybody else.

And in fact, if you didn't push me this hard, I have completely forgotten about this incident. But when I was nine years old, my father was audited. And I remember standing in the hallway, watching him pace back and forth, trying to get his paperwork ready.

And it was a very stressful time for all of us because I wanted to help. I didn't know how. My mom wanted to help.

She couldn't help. She didn't know how. My sister, I have an older sister.

She wanted to help, but she didn't know how. So, and, and watching him doing that was very, very painful. And I said, okay, well, don't you think, remember, I told you loving, loving liking numbers is not your why.

I said, don't you think subconsciously you already decided that you wanted to be an accountant and help people because you don't want to see other people have to go through what your father went through. I said, that is your why. Not because you love numbers.

Liking number, it's just a byproduct, right? He said, oh, I never thought about it. I say from now on, stop saying that you have CPA, stop saying that you love numbers.

Stop saying that you helping people save money from what goes down, right? Don't even say your CPA. Just share this story when people ask you what you do, right?

And see how it goes. So we had a follow up, you know, in a month or two or something. And I said, how, how's it going?

He said, oh, my God, people, some people don't remember my name. Some people would not remember what I do, but they always remember my story. Like I'm known for the guy whose father was audited.

He was nine years old. I say, well, but don't you want that? You want to be remembered, right?

You don't want your cars ended up in a trash can. And I said, well, the two, the two kind of, you know, like one, he's being remembered now, right? So so his goal is has achieved, right?

Because before nobody wanted to talk to him. Now people are curious. I want to hear him talk about his story.

And then another kind of like, you know, positive byproduct is by sharing his story, he already eliminated people who were not going to be his potential clients. Think about it this way. For the people who would never care if the paperwork is written or not, they would never, they would never, you know, have him be that CPA, right?

Because they just don't care. I have my paperwork ready. No, I don't care.

I'm just going to risk it. Right. Okay.

If I get audited, I'll put it together. Right. Right.

So those people who never be his ideal clients, I say, but by, by telling your story, like you, you're attracting your ideal clients, because for people who care, there are a lot of people who don't want to be stressed out. Right. There are people who want to be like, okay, I want to make sure all my paperwork is ready.

I want to make sure that all my receipts are kind of full. So in case I go to a call tomorrow, I can just walk in. Right.

I don't want to be stressing out, you know, and, and, and, and losing sleep over my not so organized work. Right. Those are his ideal clients.

So by sharing his story, not only that he becomes more memorable, right? He's becoming more known. He's able to build his brand, you know, brand awareness.

He narrows down his ideal clients. When you can connect, then you're not really, then you don't have to sell so hard. Like your service sells itself.

And then from there, you say, okay, yeah, I'm the guy. If you care about your paperwork, I'm your CPA. And if you don't care, by all means, I'm not the guy for you.

Go with your current CPA, whatever. Right. Because my whole thing is I want to make sure that none of my clients will have to suffer what my debt went through.

So I feel like a lot of times when I talk to business owners, you know, regardless of the size of the business, I am, you know, I am, I am the investigator. I'm the reporter. I'm prying, you know, I'm prying to try to get all the information I need to help you craft your story.

And then in the end, it's basically a very, you know, kind of like what do you call it, a signature dish. I'm helping you cook up this signature dish where you can use to basically get your clients. Right.

You got to be known for something.

Royce Hall

Yeah. Well, I love that. I love that story about the CPA as well.

Like, you know, I'm in software development world and like I see a lot of the similar people that they're like, okay, I love working with computers. Like tell me more. You know, like, well, I've always loved working with computers and like they're convinced that they're, you know, they're about as interesting as looking cardboard, right?

Like they're convinced that that is their brand. And like, you're almost kind of going in and be like, no, no, no, no, there's like something interesting here. Exactly.

And, you know, I think a lot of times like helping people realize that about themselves is so powerful because it's like, I don't realize how great my story is. I don't realize how powerful my own story is. And having somebody like you come in and help out with that is incredible.

So, Mellissa, you've covered a lot of ground here. I wonder if you could maybe break down maybe two or three things that are like, you know, you've already thrown so many great pointers out there, but like what are two or three things that you wish somebody had maybe told you earlier and you have learned in your own career path earlier?

Mellissa Tong

If you were to just take one thing away today, right? This would be it. So, a lot of times when I ask people, what makes people buy?

People always say, oh, I know people have a want, you know, people have a need, people trust you, people like you, right? Yes, all of that. Don't get me wrong.

All of those elements are key to a buying decision. But if you take it one step further, right? You realize that people buy because they believe now, this is the important piece.

They believe your products or service can make their lives better or different afterwards. Why do they buy that piece of software? Because it's going to help them do this better.

Correct? Why did you buy that toothpaste out of dozens of brands, if not hundreds, right? Because you believe that brand can help you one in your teeth, can help you find cavities.

You like that taste, right? It doesn't matter what the facts are, but you believe that thing, whatever you're buying, can help you do something better or can help you advance, right? Your life in some way, whether it's on a personal level or business level, depending whether you're B2B or B2C, right?

And sometimes people ask me, oh, while I sell to big corporations, that doesn't, that equation doesn't work. I say no. Don't you think the contracting officer has to believe that you could deliver, that your company could deliver this contract when they give you the contract to sign, right?

There has to be a belief. If they don't believe you can do the job, they're not going to give you the job. So a belief has to come first.

Now, a belief is a feeling and a state of mind we consider true before we are able to prove it. Your customer is already giving you money to buy your product or service. If it doesn't work, yes, they may be able to return it, but you already got that money, right?

You already, they already paid for it. So that's why a buying decision is never made just based on facts. A buying decision is always made based on emotions because the belief, right, the belief is a feeling and a state of mind.

So and then, but the facts always come second because after you buy, then you're going to have to justify it, right? Why am I spending money? So now, it's time to list the facts because this software can help me do one, two, three, four, five things easier, right?

Because this toothpaste can help me do one, two, three things, right? So the facts, you do need the facts. They just don't come first.

So the facts come second. But the belief has to be there. Now, so your question might be, okay, great.

I've learned that, you know, we have to have the belief. How do we, how do we get to the belief part, right? It's the connection.

So when you're able to craft a story that you can connect, right? Let's use the CPA example, right? So his story is very relatable.

Anybody can relate, right? So now, when the story is relatable, the connection is built, right? So the connection is built so now, if your new client, after hearing your story, are you going to believe that he's the right CPA for you if you care about having your paperwork ready?

The answer is yes, right? Because that's a very personal story. He, you know, he witnessed how his father was going crazy, right?

Trying to do it himself without help. And so, but if you don't care, then obviously he's not the right person for you. But the belief is there.

Through the emotional connection, through the related ability and, you know, the, you know, that, you know, what his services can provide, right? So that's how you create the emotional connection through the story. But the belief has to be there.

If the belief is not there, there's not going to be any transaction whatsoever. I mean, think back, you know, I always encourage people, think back at your past purchases, no matter how small, right? Even a grocery store.

Even you're buying something. But what makes you buy that brand versus something else? Because you believe, right?

And some people might go, oh, yeah, because it's cheaper. Yeah, it's cheaper. But still, you believe, although it's cheaper, you still believe that, you know, that brand is going to give you the same, you know, benefits, right?

It's not just some price. You believe that, okay, well, cheaper is not worse. You know, yeah, I pay less, but they still give me the same ingredients.

They still give me the same taste, right? It still give me the same thing as if I'm buying something a lot more expensive. It's still a belief.

So a belief has to happen in order, you know, for any transaction to happen. So if you were to take one thing away, it's the belief.

Royce Hall

Well, Mellissa, I appreciate you speaking with me today, and I believe that you can help a lot of people. So how do we find you? And is there anything that's upcoming?

You mentioned you did a webinar. Like, is there any seminar, webinar, anything we should be looking out for?

Mellissa Tong

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm pretty easy to find. So my hashtag is DuckPunk, you know, the name of my company and also my name.

So my name has two Ls and two Ss. So it's Mellissa Tong. And if you actually, I always offer a free e-book for people, right?

It's the three secrets of an impactful elevator pitch. So I can give you the link. You can just go to, you know, our website, Duckpunk.net, and then there's a pop-up window. And then you just say, I want to download this new e-book. Then you can download the e-book. And I don't create webinars on my own, but I do it for other organizations.

So I do a monthly webinar for SCORE. SCORE is a government funded organization that helps small business owners to help them learn different aspects to grow their business. So I do a monthly webinar for score So if you follow me on LinkedIn or social media always post, you know, my next webinar there I just did one this morning and then actually I have my own Self-learned self-paced digital course coming out called story selling in June And again, you know, it's not live yet.

But if you follow me on LinkedIn follow me on social media You you will you know see me posting about it and then you're more than welcome to check it out because my my whole goal is I truly believe that storytelling is a skill set that everybody can learn right? So think about this way You know, how did our ancestors pass down information way back in stone age? Maybe they come a few things on the stone, but still we can't take a whole whole stone wall With us, right?

No, it's verbally right? So they're passing that information from generation to generation through storytelling That's how we learn back in the day. So we have that in our DNA But because you know, we are so obsessed with our little devices that we stop using that muscle, right?

So go back to the gym like with that muscle up We all have it in us, right? Go just like lifting weights if you've never looked at weights before at the beginning is gonna feel so heavy, right? He's gonna feel like oh, I can't do it.

But the more you do it, the more it's gonna become easier So start exercising your storytelling muscle. You have it, right? Learn how to do it change your basically you just have to change the framework that you think about it So change your framework start learning, you know, and and really like look at how you can connect right by What's relatable to your target audience?

What is important for them, right? And then really craft your own authentic story it has to be authentic. It cannot be fake, right?

I don't you know endorse or ask people to like put in any fake elements because that's not gonna work because it's not real So, you know as it has to be real has to be authentic So as long as it's real is this authentic then you have I mean you have everything you need Really you have everything you need, you know, your own differentiator is the most powerful weapon that you can have It you know, you can use that and and and only you have that Right.

None of your competitors can claim that so use those things to your advantage, right? Use those things to build your brand up and use those things to sell your service and products because you know When you know your story when you can truly like tell it articulate it right in a way that is, you know digestible Then really there's no reason why you cannot get more customers That's what I believe it.

Royce Hall

I love it. And I love that Differentiators like you you've shown us how to develop those I think you know people get stuck on that of like I have no differentiator. I'm just another CPA.

No, you're not No, you're not and I thank you for walking us through that I know that I'm gonna go download your your ebook You're gonna see my email come up through immediately and I hope a lot of the people do as well so Melissa, thank you for spending time with us today and and giving us you know wisdom from from your many years and music and Broadcasting and marketing and now storytelling.

Mellissa Tong

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Royce Hall

Thank you