Feat. Kris Jones from Red Door Designs
THE EMAIL GROWTH SHOW EPISODE 212
If your content feels chaotic, your funnel’s disjointed, or you’re constantly second-guessing what to say, this episode is a breath of fresh, story-driven air.
Kris Jones is a messaging strategist who helps entrepreneurs craft the one story that anchors everything – your sales page, your email welcome sequence, your podcast intro, your Instagram bio. All of it.
We talk about how to simplify your message using her signature “One Story” method and why it’s the key to selling more by saying less.
Listen to this episode here:
** Read time: 5 – 6 mins | Listen time: 22 mins **
TL:DR:
What you’ll learn in this episode:
– Why storytelling is your most underrated (and underused) conversion tool
– The “One Story” framework that simplifies every piece of your marketing
– How to write a brand story that sells, without sounding salesy
– The mindset shift that makes your client the hero (and you the guide)
– Why one story is better than 17 different taglines (and how to find yours)
The power of one story…
Here’s what most online business owners do:
- Write one story for their website
- Another for their launch emails
- Something completely different for guest interviews
- And end up confusing themselves and their audience
Kris’s approach is different.
She teaches how to create a clear, emotionally resonant story that shows your ideal client what’s possible – by walking them through a relatable transformation.
Your story becomes the foundation.
Everything else flows from there.
What makes a good story?
According to Kris, a powerful brand story isn’t about making yourself look impressive – it’s about helping your ideal client see themselves in the transformation.
Your story should position them as the hero (with you as the guide), highlight both the emotional and tangible shifts they can expect, and paint a clear before-and-after journey.
The more specific the details, the more relatable and effective it becomes. And when done right? That one story can anchor your entire marketing strategy, no need to rewrite it 50 different ways for every platform.
Where to use your story (hint: everywhere!)
You don’t need to overthink this.
Once you’ve nailed your One Story, it becomes the through line for your entire brand – the foundation you can keep coming back to instead of reinventing the wheel every time you write or speak.
You can weave it into your website copy (especially your About page, homepage, and services page), bake it into your welcome sequence and nurture emails, and use it to create stronger hooks for podcast episodes, intros, and guest pitches.
It becomes the heartbeat of your interviews, the backbone of your sales pages, and the emotional anchor for your launch content. When your story is solid, you stop second-guessing what to say and start creating real resonance, the kind that builds connection, trust, and conversions.
A quick story audit you can do right now
If you’re listening and thinking, “I don’t even know what my story is anymore…”
Here’s what you can ask:
- What transformation do I help people create?
- What version of themselves are they becoming through my work?
- What did I have to overcome to now guide others through this?
- What details and emotions would make this story more relatable?
When you answer those questions, the clarity comes rushing in.
Your next step:
If reading this has you realising your brand story is murky, missing, or misaligned – don’t panic. You don’t need to burn everything down or start from scratch. You just need one clear, powerful story that positions your client as the hero and shows them what’s possible.
And I can help you uncover it.
Book a $44 Business Breakthrough Session – I’ll review your messaging, offers, and email flow, then give you a personalised action plan to clarify your story and amplify your impact.
Remember: you don’t need more content.
You need clearer connection.
Guest Spotlight: Kris Jones
Hand-selected as a mentee by StoryBrand’s Donald Miller, Kris Jones has cracked the code on turning expertise into sales. After 20 years of crafting stories for giants like Nike and Adidas, she discovered something shocking: a single, well-told story can replace all your marketing and double your revenue.
Today, she helps coaches and consultants scale from 30K to 300K months using her Signature Story-Selling SystemTM – proving that you don’t need endless content or complicated funnels to attract premium clients. Just one story, told
well.
Website: https://www.reddoordesigns.com
Free Resource: How to Write Compelling Copy in 5 Minutes Flat
Book a Money-Making Messaging Call with Kris: https://krisjones.co/money-making-messaging-call
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Full Transcript:
Kris Jones [00:00:00]:
As business owners, we are the guide character. We are not the hero character. And that’s like the number one takeaway. I want everyone to understand you are not the hero of your own story. Your clients are the hero of your story. And your job is to inspire and ignite action in them and help them find success, help them overcome their problem.
Kylie Kelly [00:00:26]:
Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don’t involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to the Email Growth Show. I’m your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from zero to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than two years. And the same is possible for you, too. Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let’s head into today’s episode.
Kylie Kelly [00:00:58]:
Chris, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.
Kris Jones [00:01:02]:
Oh, Kylie, I am thrilled to be here.
Kylie Kelly [00:01:04]:
For everyone listening. We’ve tried to get this to work, but we’ve had floods, we’ve had sick kids, we’ve had so much going on, and we’re on the other sides of the world to each other. So it’s really great to actually make this happen.
Kris Jones [00:01:15]:
It really is. I love it. Such a. Such a global industry, right? We can chat from the other side of the planet. I love it.
Kylie Kelly [00:01:24]:
I know, I know.
Kylie Kelly [00:01:25]:
Okay, so for anyone that is tuning in, let’s introduce you. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do, who you are?
Kris Jones [00:01:31]:
Yeah. My name is Chris. I have been in marketing in the marketing industry for 23 years. My specialty is all about storytelling. How to help you, as a business owner, tell a story, a compelling story that will get you clients. And once you craft this story that I help my clients craft, that’s all you need. You need one compelling story for your entire business, and you can use that everywhere because your story works like an accordion. It stretches out wide and you can shorten it and it can be medium length.
Kris Jones [00:02:12]:
Depending on where it lives, Your story will stretch and grow with you. It can make your life way easier because you’re not constantly having to come up with ideas around content and reinvent the wheel. So a little bit about myself. Like I said, I’ve been doing this work a very long time. I started out as a visual storyteller. I worked with big companies in branding and design, and I knew really, really well how to tell a visual story. But fast forward several years, I started my own business and I started working with People like me, solopreneurs, small business own. And I was, at that point, I was doing a lot of brand work, and I was also designing websites.
Kris Jones [00:03:07]:
And this is kind of back in the day when a beautiful website was really all you needed. You kind of like, no one really thought about messaging. It was kind of like, you know, my clients would write their own website copy and give it to me. And I have to tell you, like, this happened time and time again. My clients, I would say, okay, give me your copy by this date. And they would call me and be like, I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t write my own website copy. This is so hard.
Kris Jones [00:03:39]:
It’s terrible. And the harder I work at it, the worse it gets. And it’s causing a lot of stress for my clients. And I just reached a point where I was. I was just. I had an aha moment, essentially with this one particular client named Elise. And she was just. She was a great writer.
Kris Jones [00:04:01]:
Like, she had a background as a professional writer, but when it came to her own website, it was like she was in the bottle trying to read the label of the bottle, but she was stuck inside the bottle. She, like, couldn’t get out of the bottle. And what I tell my clients with, because all of them come to me with this problem, they’re like, I’m just so close to my own business, I can’t write about it clearly. And I tell them, like, it’s hard for everybody. And it’s hard because you’re in the bottle trying to read that label that can only be read from inside. And I tell them, like, yes, this is a copy problem or this is a messaging problem, but more than anything, it’s a perspective problem. And what I do with my clients is I come in, look at the business with fresh eyes, and I can very quickly. You know, we go deep together, right? It’s a collaborative process, but I can quickly pull out the golden thread that is their story that allows them to show up online, on their website, on social media, wherever they want to be online, in a cohesive, congruent, clear way that’s actually going to get them new clients.
Kris Jones [00:05:14]:
And not only online, but in person, too. Because once you have your story, you have the words to clearly talk about what you do. And it allows you to really show up with more confidence. Like, whether you’re on a sales call or at a networking event or on a podcast, like, you have the words to finally be able to communicate what you do, and it’s liberating. It’s. It’s really incredible. So that is the work that I do.
Kylie Kelly [00:05:42]:
My goodness, I love that so much. And you’re so right about that perspective piece, because we just don’t have it when it’s our own business. And I think that’s the best thing about working with a coach or somebody that is an expert in what they do and bringing them in. They see things differently. Right. They can actually step back and help you zoom out and figure this out. And. And yeah, the confidence.
Kylie Kelly [00:06:02]:
Like, once you have the confidence in what to say, of course it’s going to attract clients. Like, it changes everything because you’re speaking in a. In a different way. Right. So, Chris, I love that you said one story, because I. And I’m sure all of our listeners have heard how important storytelling is, and people talk about, like, having story banks and having all these things, but you made it sound so simple and. But one story. Can you dive into that a little bit more for us?
Kris Jones [00:06:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s really the truth. It sounds shocking, but this is what I do, and I watch it work every day. Story has been around for thousands of years. Like, it’s the thing that pulled us together as humans around the fireside, sharing stories from the beginning of time. So as humans, we’re really wired for stories. And the stories that I’m writing for my clients, they’re not different than the original stories that were.
Kris Jones [00:06:58]:
Were told. Every story you’ve ever heard, whether it’s a spoken story or a movie or a book that you’ve read that follows the same story formula. So it begins with a hero that has a problem they don’t know how to solve. They’re out and about looking for a guide who can help them solve the problem. The guide. Guide’s job is to break it down and give that hero a plan. A plan that feels so easy and so clear that it calls that hero to action, and it allows them to take action. If they don’t, if the hero doesn’t take action, they’re never going to overcome their struggle.
Kris Jones [00:07:37]:
They’re never going to find success. So the guide really inspires action in the hero. And what I want to share here is that as business owners, we are the guide character. We are not the hero character. And that’s like the number one takeaway. I want everyone to understand you are not the hero of your own story. Your clients are the hero of your story. And your job is like the Yoda in Star Wars.
Kris Jones [00:08:05]:
Your job is to inspire and ignite action in them. And help them find success, help them overcome their problem and not only find success, but also avoid failure. So there’s like eight different components in every single story. And I just kind of walked you through them and I will tell you that like imagine the last time you went to a movie in a movie theater. Maybe it’s been a while and we don’t go as often as we used to. But when you do go, the lights dim, the story begins, the hero has a problem they don’t know how to solve. When we begin our communication in this way, our brains cannot help but engage. And when we go to a movie, we put our phone down, we don’t look at our phone for 90 minutes.
Kris Jones [00:08:53]:
Like what has the power to capture our attention in that way? We don’t get up and go to the bathroom, we don’t get more popcorn. We are fully engrossed in that story. And so why would we not use story in our marketing messaging if it has the power to do that, to capture our attention in that way? And not only that, story is so much more memorable than just facts and figures. So it’s 22 times more memorable. So of course we want to use story in our marketing and our messaging. And back to your original question. I got like, I get so passionate about this because the same components are part of every story. They really do work like an accordion.
Kris Jones [00:09:34]:
Like I could tell you a two sentence story that begins with a hero that has a problem and position my service as the solution to that problem that ends in success and or avoids failure. Like those three components we can cover in two sentences. So when I write my clients social media profiles, they are a mini story. They’re very short, but they’re complete. And our brains cannot help but engage and we make it all about the hero. We are the strongest character in the story as the guide, but we are not the hero. We don’t want to be the hero. There’s only room for one hero in every story.
Kris Jones [00:10:14]:
So that’s how it might work like in your social media profile and then on your website it might expand a little bit longer because we have or more like this, we have more real estate. So we can delve into each of those core components of story in a deeper way. And then I always write a video script for my clients that I would say is more like in the medium length of the story and it’s still touches on all those story components. But we don’t go as deep into it because we want to keep the video to about a minute and A half.
Kylie Kelly [00:10:47]:
Know what? When you were saying at the very beginning that we are not the hero, my brain before you mentioned that I was picturing myself as the hero, right? Because I have the answer. But it makes so much sense. And I think that when we look at sales pages or copy or things, when we have tried to communicate with our ideal clients and maybe it’s fallen short, I think often it’s because we’re not focused on them, right? We’re telling them about us and why we’re great at what we do and et cetera, et cetera. But it’s when we focus on them that it does so much better. So it makes so much sense that of course, they’re the hero and I’m the guide, right?
Kris Jones [00:11:21]:
The guide’s really the strongest character in the story, and the hero’s the weakest character because we don’t know if they’re going to succeed or if they’re going to fail. So we don’t want to be the hero. Also, there’s only room for one hero in every story. I will tell you that 99% of the websites are on the Internet. The company or the person, the business owner, is making themselves the hero of their own story. When we do that, we kick our potential clients out of. Out of the story. We want to invite them into a narrative with us, a narrative where we’re the guide, they’re the hero, and they can really envision themselves working with us and us helping them achieve the result that they’re looking for.
Kris Jones [00:12:05]:
So when I talk about storytelling, I’m not talking about your founder’s story or your whole background of your life and where you’ve come from. I’m talking about a narrative that’s going to grow your business. A narrative that you’re an important character in that narrative, but it’s truly centered around your clients, and that’s the type of story that will actually effectively help you grow.
Kylie Kelly [00:12:32]:
I love that. So for anyone listening, Chris, let’s give them some tangible, like, steps on how to get started with this. What do you normally do first with your clients when they’re trying to figure out what this story will be?
Kris Jones [00:12:43]:
Yes. Step one of my process, I call it mining for gold. And the reason I call it that is because your story is not created or invented. It is already inside of you. It’s in your head and your heart, and it needs to be mined out. So what I do is I mine out the gold that is already within you, and then I polish it up and write your story for you and then we take that story and we integrate it into all the different areas in which you show up online. So if you’re wanting to DIY this, you can go to my website and I have a freebie that will allow you to just get started, go a little bit deeper into the things that we’ve talked about today, what it will help you do. So I have a freebie.
Kris Jones [00:13:30]:
It’s called how to write compelling copy in five minutes flat. And what it will help you do is get all those ideas out of your head and into a document. It’s a five minute training. It’s really efficient and really easy. And what I want to say is that most business owners have an abundance of ideas. I think just in general, entrepreneurial people just have a lot of ideas. Like we’re always problem solving and coming up with new language and ideas. And in the US a typical garage is like packed full of boxes that are stacked on top of each other.
Kris Jones [00:14:09]:
And when you walk out into that garage, you don’t know like, where is the treasure, where’s the gold in here and where’s the trash? Like, you can’t tell. There’s so many boxes going on. And that’s like the entrepreneurial brain. And so this process will help you, like make a pile of the donate, the donate pile versus the treasures and the keep pile. And then once you have the keep pile, like the gold in your story, then you can stitch it together and create a very clear and compelling way to talk about what you do. A really clear answer to that question, what do you do that we always kind of fumble around. So go to reddoorstories.com get that freebie and get the process going. I mean, my main goal is to help you shift the lens in which you look at your business and talk about your business and position yourself as the guide and not the hero.
Kylie Kelly [00:15:09]:
Okay, I’ll put the link in the show notes for everyone as well, so you can go and grab that straight away. What would you say to the listener? Because I’ve heard this multiple times. But if somebody’s listening and they’re like, oh, I just don’t feel like I’m exciting enough to tell a good story. I just feel like my life is boring. Like, you know, I feel like that’s a common thought.
Kris Jones [00:15:26]:
Yeah.
Kylie Kelly [00:15:27]:
What would you say to somebody that’s thinking that?
Kris Jones [00:15:29]:
I hear it all the time. My story’s boring. Like, what if I don’t have a compelling story Again, been doing this a long time. You do, you’re just Again, you’re just so close to it that you feel like you don’t recognize the beauty and the gold in your story. And then the other thing about that that will essentially let you off the hook is that your story isn’t even totally all about you. It’s about your client. I’m sure you think your clients are compelling and interesting and fascinating. I mean, this is why you’re doing the work that you do.
Kris Jones [00:16:04]:
So it’s really a beautiful dance between the hero and the guide, and it takes the pressure off of the guide having to have some really profound story. It always works together to create a compelling story because you’ve got both of those characters and you’ve got the ingredients that create a compelling story. And so that just. It works. It’s kind of like when you have a great chili recipe. It just comes together. You just follow the recipe, you’ve got the ingredients, you put them all together, poof, a beautiful pot of chili comes out. And it’s the same thing with your story.
Kris Jones [00:16:43]:
I mean, we have to do some digging. It does require some deep work. It doesn’t have to be hard.
Kylie Kelly [00:16:49]:
I do love a good chili. No, I love that. I love that. I would love to just hear as we kind of wrap this up, and I hope everyone’s getting excited to go and write this story where they get to be the guide. I think it’s like showing off the transformation that they do in such an engaging, beautiful way. Right. So as we. As we kind of wrap it up, what have you seen from your clients? I would love to, like, leave our listeners with some inspiration on what is possible for their business once they have this story in place.
Kylie Kelly [00:17:15]:
Can you share, like, a little bit around that?
Kris Jones [00:17:17]:
Yeah, I’ll share with you a few different things. Number, number one, the amount of discovery calls that you book will go up. Like, a lot of people are getting maybe one or two, maybe three a month, and then that’s going to immediately change, like, overnight, because people are going to come to your website, they’re going to clearly know what the next step they need to take, and they’re going to click on your call to action. That’s, like, the most immediate thing. Everything we do in your story is in service of getting that hero to click on your call to action. So that’s what somebody will notice right away. I get calls from. From my clients all the time telling me, like, amazing things.
Kris Jones [00:17:56]:
I mean, story is so powerful. I’m just so grateful I get to do this work. There was a client that I worked with named Mike, who was about to close his doors. He was attracting the wrong clients. He was overworking. People were bargaining with him on his prices. Like he was just not attracting a high level of client that he really wanted to work with. And he was so fed up and he couldn’t afford what he wanted to afford in life.
Kris Jones [00:18:25]:
And he was about to close the doors. He ended up investing with me. And I didn’t know this until after the fact when he, he shared this in his testimonial that he was like I was about to close the doors and this is like my Hail Mary, like I’m going to give it one more shot. And he called me a couple months later and he said, you won’t believe this, but I’m charging six times more for the exact same same service and my clients are happy to pay it and appreciate me and I’m actually working less. Like that was a really profound moment. I had another client named Andrea who really cool woman. She’s a coach. When she’d get on our sales calls like we went through this process and we focused on her website first and then messaging in the other areas online and.
Kris Jones [00:19:17]:
And that’s really what she wanted from me to help her with. And I did. What she didn’t realize was what we touched on before, which is just the internal change in her around confidence. And she started to show up to her discovery calls with a different energy and she also, I have a methodology around how to use story in your discovery calls. So we bring it to every area of your business business. So she started doing that and prior to working with me she was closing about 20%. So for every 10 calls she’d get get on, she’d get two clients which is not bad actually. I mean I think people would be happy with that.
Kris Jones [00:19:59]:
But after we worked together she called me and she said I am closing literally 95% of my sales calls. Every call that I get on. For every 10 calls I get on, I get nine and a half clients. And it totally like she was starting to hit consistent 50k months and she. And she’s still going strong.
Kylie Kelly [00:20:23]:
Crazy, right? Like life changing, life changing result from what comes from creating what really is a simple story. But I think as you’ve touched on so well, there’s so much that’s wrapped up in that in the way that we feel about our business and what we do and how we help and that changes everything.
Kris Jones [00:20:38]:
It really does. Yeah.
Kylie Kelly [00:20:40]:
So good. Oh my goodness. I’m so excited to dig into this myself. I’m so excited to go and get the free resource. If anyone has questions from our conversation today, what’s the best place that they should reach out to you at?
Kris Jones [00:20:51]:
Chris oh definitely go to red doorstories.com and go to my website. Get the freebie. Click on the call to action which is to book a money making messaging call with me. That’s a free call for 40 minutes. Will connect. We’ll look at your website. We’ll figure out what story you’re telling and where we can tune it up.
Kylie Kelly [00:21:12]:
Amazing. Perfect. All right, nice and easy. I’ll put the link in the show notes, but thank you so much for coming on and just sharing so much with us today.
Kris Jones [00:21:19]:
Oh, thank you for having me.
Kylie Kelly [00:21:21]:
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Email Growth Show. I hope you found valuable insights into the next steps you can take to grow your email list and boost your business without relying on social media or paid ads. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show and share it with others. Your feedback helps me reach more female entrepreneurs just like you who are ready to say goodbye to social media and leverage email marketing to grow their business and make a bigger impact. Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you in the next episode.
