Why Storytelling Will Outlast the Algorithms | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, Matt Zaun sits down with Luke Frazier, Head of Revenue at Good Agency, to explore how powerful storytelling can transform not only business results but also the human experience behind the brand. 

Luke challenges business leaders to go beyond tactics and marketing hacks, and instead ask: “What impact are we really making?”

In addition, they talk about:

✅ Why brand clarity is both a strategy and a calling

✅ How storytelling builds trust and drives performance

✅ The difference between being persuasive vs. performative
…and much more!

⸻

BIOS:

Luke Frazier is a seasoned brand strategist, certified StoryBrand Guide, and the Head of Revenue at Good Agency, a Texas-based creative firm helping purpose-driven organizations create cultural impact. With a background in nonprofit leadership and a passion for assisting leaders to find their voice, Luke’s mission is to help brands lead with clarity, connection, and conscience.

Matt Zaun is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who shows business leaders how to inspire action and drive results through the power of strategic storytelling. With a track record of catalyzing significant sales growth for over 300 organizations, Matt’s approach blends performance, persuasion, and purpose.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

My guest today, Luke Frazier, has spent the last decade in the worlds of marketing, psychology, and brand strategy.

He has a history of founding nonprofits and profits, all centered around clarifying business stories to help people grow. As a certified story brand guide, he has worked with businesses all over the world to clarify their message and build better cultures.

Luke is a proud father, husband, and friend to those in need. He aims to see everyone live out their best God-given story.

Welcome to the show, Luke.

 

Luke Frazier

Thanks so much for having me, Excited to jam.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, appreciate your time. I know you're incredibly busy, so I really appreciate you spending time with us today. I love what you do.

I've seen a lot of messages you put out in the world, specifically on LinkedIn, so I want to unpack elements of story strategy with you, as well as...

As where we're going as a culture, as it pertains, especially to the psychology of marketing, I think that that's really important.

And so before we dive into that, can you just give my audience a little bit more about yourself, what you do from an agency perspective, the companies that you support and help?

 

Luke Frazier

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As you mentioned, I am a proud husband and father. got two little ones, two-year-old and five-month little hold at home.

And so I joke that I'm always sprinting right now. I'm just in a season of sprinting. But that being said, I am a deep man of faith and try to bring all of that stuff into my work and the things that I do.

And we'll talk about this a little bit later because I think it relates to people and story. Practically, on the business side of things, I am head of revenue at an agency called Good Agency just outside of Austin, Texas.

We work nationally, sometimes globally with brands that are trying to impact the world for good. And oftentimes we work with small to midsize companies, one to $100 million in revenue.

And oftentimes they're people with solid values and morals that are, you know, they could be a lawyer or wealth manager.

They could be, we've got a huge paving company that we worked with. I mean, they're people that are doing really good work and trying to clarify messaging, clarify who they are, clarify their stories in many ways.

And so I've often joked over the years that I've become a brand therapist for people in the marketing and strategy space.

But that is where we lie practically right now. I love that brand therapist.

 

Matt Zaun 

Good stuff. So you said work for good. So do you look specifically for organizations that have corporate social responsibility arms?

And if so, is there specific organizations that they're supporting that you will? Yeah, that's a good question.

 

Luke Frazier

Coming from somewhat of a psychology background, I've done lot of study of CSR over the years, and I think those campaigns are phenomenal.

They're really good. They're generally backed by great intentions, and they also make companies look great. We as an agency aren't necessarily, from a sales perspective, I'm not necessarily seeking out organizations that would deem themselves corporately social, responsible, or have some sort of CSR initiative.

When we say that, we're more like as we engage in a sales process or a vetting process or I'm doing any kind of cold outreach.

Oftentimes, what I'm looking for is entrepreneurs, founders, small businesses that don't just want their work to be the end goal.

Oftentimes, we're looking for... Founders and entrepreneurs and businesses, chief marketing officers that not only enjoy their work, but they're trying to influence their team better.

They're trying to influence people around them better. Oftentimes, what that ends up looking like is not necessarily CSR, but people who, if you've ever heard of people who are running EOS operational strategies, entrepreneur operating system.

We run that within our company, and the one reason why we like it is it asks businesses like, hey, where do you want this to be in 10 years?

And then what kind of culture are you trying to create? We find that businesses that are trying to create good culture are oftentimes businesses that are trying to impact the world for good.

They don't just want their team to stand still. And so, you know, although I love the world of CSR, it often doesn't look that way or play out that way or wasn't really a strategy.

you. Thank you. Maybe in that sense, was more of like someone who started a business or a leadership team said, hey, we really care about our people and we want to speak life into them.

We want to give them a path of growth. And then whether it's our industrial clients or more B2C clients or B2B clients or SaaS clients, they're just trying to do something with their organizations that will better the world.

There are plenty of industries we won't work with that just are out there making more money. We're not going to work with gambling companies or people that are just trying to make another quick buck from another consumer.

We want to work with brands and initiatives that are really impacting the world from nonprofit all the way to for profit.

So, yeah, to kind of couple it all together for you, it's really I try to vet leaders that are that are thinking about their people and thinking about the stories within their company and the stories of their customers.

Those are the kind of people we want to work with.

 

Matt Zaun 

It's amazing to me that at the top of every survey, as it pertains to millennials, especially in decision-maker seats, they say the thing that they want the most is to have an impact and fulfillment, right?

And you have this wave of millennials going in a C-suite across the country, and it really speaks to what you're saying, that more and more generations are saying, we don't just want to work for a company that sells widgets.

We want to work for a company that sells widgets, but we want to have a bigger impact.

 

Luke Frazier

We want to make sure that something else is going on to add to the community.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I think that's really important. So you did mention 10 years, obviously futuristic thinking as it pertains to your agency.

So let's talk a little bit about the future because I feel that AI is on everyone's mind.

 

Luke Frazier

I personally, and I don't know if you'll agree with this, but personally, I think AI is going to be one of the biggest double-edged swords that our society has ever seen.

 

Matt Zaun 

I think there's going to a ton of good, a ton of negative consequences as well. So we need to kind of piece it together.

So from. from. A, let's talk about the positive perspective. Where do you see what you do from a psychology perspective as it pertains to marketing?

Where do you see that going as it pertains to AI technology? How do you, and obviously we can't predict the next year, let alone 10 years as it pertains to AI, but where would you anticipate it going based on what you're witnessing and seeing now?

 

Luke Frazier

Yeah, it's a great thing to consider. And I honestly wish that more people would stop to consider before we dive into it.

You know, I do think it's, you're right, it's a top everybody's mind. If you're a leader in a business, in a C-suite, you are considering how is this impacting my business?

And so you should be thinking about it. But as I look at like the 10 years, especially next 10 years, especially in the marketing or sales or just revenue channel space, things are moving faster and it's actually cheaper now, more now than ever.

To create great content that would make you findable for the people that might buy from you. However, what's already beginning to happen is that's saturating the market.

And I'm not just talking about getting AI to write blog posts or social media posts. I mean, it goes deeper than that.

But as I think about that and look at it, what really strikes – what's going to set growing businesses, any industry apart while utilizing AI is not the scalability of which you can create, but the scalability of which you can do deep and intelligent research so that when you get face-to-face with a potential prospect, you know more going into it, and they hopefully know more about you so that truthfully we can get all of those things out of the way.

And Matt, if it's you and me, you and I get to build a relationship. We get to build – and so as I look at it, I am coming at it from a perspective of I can do way more to figure out more of what's going on in the culture, the economy, in your business, in my business, through the power of AI, through the power of multi-channel analytics and revenue channels before I even come to the table so that I'm well-prepped to build a relationship with you.

And I'm not talking about manipulation. I'm not talking about finding out dirty secrets or things that you don't think I should know.

I'm just talking about general human understanding and preparation before you meet someone where they're at. And truthfully, we're in the business of marketing and sales.

We're in the business of helping people grow their business. And when I think about that as it relates to AI, what we need to not scale is the reverse side of this.

I know you wanted to start with the positive, but the reverse side is like mass outbound, automating everything. There are great things we should automate, but thousands and thousands of messages or emails and all written by AI, some of the things are great, but I think what great businesses are going to do over the next 10 years is they're going to be able to use AI to scale their level of intentionality, not their level of outbound.

And I think that's going to matter most, and it's going to set more people, whether you're marketing, selling, or anywhere in between trying to grow revenue, I think that's going to be the thing that I'm focused on.

It's the thing that I think is setting other businesses apart today, too.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, appreciate you mentioning that. I haven't really thought about that before, about getting to the relationship building quicker. You brought up the negative element.

I think on the flip side, one of the dangers that I'm seeing, and then you could speak to this, is one of the dangers that I'm seeing is because of that great content piece.

I'm seeing more and more leaders rely on AI for, you mentioned blogs. For emails, for memos, and I'll get, I'll receive these messages from people, and I'll think to myself, wow, they're awesome communicators, and then I'll meet them, whether it's in person or on a virtual platform, and they don't know how to connect.

So there's a fraying of trust when that happens. So to your point, I'll echo your point. Yes, the deep research, could position someone to be well-equipped to enter into the relationship building sooner, but there is something to be said of being a better storyteller, being a better communicator verbally from the human element, so that when we do get in situations like that, we still know how to connect.

 

Luke Frazier

Yes, yes, and there's this beautiful level, Matt, too, of, you and I know this from, you know, being in the speaking, storytelling space, you know, I remember years and years and years ago, I got into something called Toastmasters.

This is a phenomenal public speaking organization. It was sort of the first, it was one of the first real organizations that I got into that helped.

Me try to figure out how do I articulate something of value, right? Phenomenal resource and course. And if you're ever scared about public speaking, I highly recommend doing something like it.

But I recall it because as I think about how the world is changing, to your point, we're losing the sense of being able to connect face to face.

You and I are watching a younger generation have such a hard time being able to do this. I mean, shoot, you and I met moments ago and we're able to have this intentional conversation, right?

Because of a mutual understanding and mutual place and respect and also just tactics and tools in our own brain to be able to piece things together.

Those things need to be taught now more than ever because all of the tactical things, the coding, development, growing of businesses, operationalizing things, systemizing things, all of those will become redundant and we'll be able to grow through AI.

And advancement in technology. That's always been the case. The thing that will always stand the test of time is story.

And it's the power of story of telling. And the reason that is so valuable is because, Matt, it's how you and I connect.

It's how you're invited in. It's how I can get passionate and get super excited about something. And when I'm sitting with a prospect or, hey, you know, if you're an executive person and you're in a leadership seat and you're sitting with potential clients or future clients or future employees and you cannot be emotive, then you're going to lose people.

You know, people want to, if you think about your own self, I think about my own self, I want to sit with people who help me progress to the next thing, whatever that may be in my personal or professional or spiritual development.

And so I think actually more leaders are going to start having those thoughts and conversations, no matter the industry.

And I've seen it. We've seen it with our own clients from industrial paving to lawyers to our SaaS clients.

Every single one of them, every single leader, I had this. Same conversation, Matt. And I think it's the thing that is stirring and moving the hearts.

And I think our next generation, which by the way, for you and I in the next 10 years, those are the kids we're hiring.

They need this now more than ever. And so I think we really need to set up those soft skill parameters as a way of educating that next generation because they're in the conversation of what's happening in the next 10 years of business.

It's, well, your children, Matt, are in the next 10 years of business. How we're equipping them is a part of this conversation.

And I don't mean to go on a tangent about that. I just, it needs to be talked about. It needs to be discussed.

It needs to be, and we need to figure out as business leaders how we're equipping them.

 

Matt Zaun 

Well said. And there's, there's real world consequences to individuals not knowing how to properly communicate. I mean, potentially catastrophic consequences.

And I think people, individuals that rely too heavily on AI to craft those. Toastmasters, anyone listening that wants to get better at public speaking, highly recommend that organization.

I was a part of that organization many, many moons ago. I believe, now, don't quote me on this. This was a long time ago, but it used to be the second largest nonprofit in the world right under Rotary Club.

They have a ton of members all over the world. any major city, yeah, international, any major city, you can look.

 

Luke Frazier

There's an organization.

 

Matt Zaun 

I also recommend improv comedy for people, even if they don't feel that they're funny themselves. There's improv comedy groups all over, especially in the U.S.

that some of them have corporate arms where they will come out and they will train people. There's story slams that take place all over the country where people can get up and they get a theme, a topic, and they can speak for five minutes.

That's also a really good place to turn to. So I really do echo those points. I do want to backtrack for a moment.

We're talking about story, right? I want to talk a little bit more about your story.

 

Luke Frazier

I want to backtrack, and then we'll come back to present day.

 

Matt Zaun 

But I want to talk about a teen Luke, right?

 

Luke Frazier

So if you were to think of yourself as a teenager, what did you want to do?

 

Matt Zaun 

Where did your sense of the importance of story come from? Is it something in your background that positioned you to want to have this mission, this passion?

 

Luke Frazier

Yeah, were a few different moments that I kind of tracked back to connect to. One of the first ones, think it was probably my freshman year of high school, one of my sports teams got invited to help fill food baskets for families in Africa.

And I thought, you know, like, this is kind of a silly thing. We're a sports team. Why are we doing this?

Like, I had the general teenage response to it. know, I like I But I remember doing it, and one of the jobs was writing a handwritten letter to a family, and you got a picture, and you got to write it.

And I kind of was struck by this in the sense that I started to realize my life and my impact didn't just matter for me.

It had opportunity to touch other people's lives. Now, you know, making food and writing a letter, like maybe I don't know what that impact did.

Maybe it didn't do as much as like what they had told us it would do. I don't know, but I remember it striking me in the sense that it was sort of the first time that I thought, wow, what I do could change somebody for the better or worse.

And sure enough, a couple years later, I became the, in high school, became the president of our volunteer sort of good works organization within our high school and led a bunch more of those kinds.

All right. of initiatives and saw more and more impact. Hey, if we do things, people get impacted, saw people face-to-face getting impact.

But all that being said, one of the most, one of the things that, those things kicked it off, but one of the things that really struck me about being interested in story and other people was starting a podcast in college, and it did get, you know, sort of influenced by things in my senior year of high school.

But I started this podcast interviewing different entrepreneurs and creatives, and one of the people I actually interviewed was my grandfather, who was a phenomenal writer.

He's a wonderful tradesman, craftsman. He's got this amazing basement full of tools and workshop and all kinds of things and has written poetry.

And because of him, I took akin to writing and speaking. And I interviewed him on my podcast. And one of the things he said to me that stuck with me till this day was, Luke, you always have a chance to, you're always going to impact people.

your choice is whether you leave a positive or negative impact. Now, of course, you can't choose whether people receive things well or not, but you can always choose how you engage with them, what kind of smile or intentionality you leave with them.

And as I grew in my career, I've worked in the mental health space and the nonprofit space and the for-profit space, as you mentioned, I saw those things starting to come to fruition.

When I was intentional about trying to be good to somebody or trying to leave them with impact or being curious even about their lives, whether it's in business or just outside of business, you can see people start to change.

You can see their mentality change. can see they're talking more. If you ask them more open-ended questions, right? Like these started, these things started to, I started to see the fruition of impact.

And then of course, in business, if you have this skill and ability, well, you just kind of end up.

Growing more business because people like to be around you. And so it's come full circle, and especially for me in a faith journey too, I know now that my life is not about me alone.

It's about me, again, from my perspective, sharing the gospel with people, but also, even more so than that, leaving people better than I've found them.

And so that means I have to learn how to essentially will that of another in front of me. I need to care more about your will, Matt, than my own, and I don't think I'm great at that.

I don't think as a society we're great at that, where we live in a very consumeristic kind of selfish culture.

And so with a lot of great things too, I don't mean to be so negative about it. But as I look back at my sort of childhood and upbringing, I'm from a big family, but we were sort of taught to just always be around people, always be kind to people, always be looking sort of other-centric.

And so as I said. I've those moments in my life. It's impacted the way I've done business, impacted the way I've grown nonprofits, impacted the way I've engaged with people on many different fronts.

And so I think it's just really important. What we do has the chance to impact people. It's our choice whether it's going to be good or bad.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, really appreciate the conversation you mentioned with your grandfather. There was one key word that did stick out to me that I don't want people to overlook.

 

Luke Frazier

You mentioned curious.

 

Matt Zaun 

And I think that that is so important, especially with the conversation that we just had with AI, because I feel like with AI, people become very calculated.

They feed different prompts in, and they're trying to calculate, how can I position this for that? And trying to predict so strongly based on these software pieces.

But the whole point of being curious about how we could help the other person, because AI is amazing. And you and I have used it in incredible ways, but sometimes it does miss the mark because it doesn't know those personal stories.

So we absolutely need to be more curious to make sure we're helping someone the way they want to be helped.

You know, I have a really, really good friend, and this really stuck with me personally, was a really good friend.

He was going through a very difficult circumstance. So in my mind, I'm like, I got to help him. Good friend has been there for me through thick and thin.

And so I started clearing meetings off my calendar. I started figuring out how can I come to this person's aid, help them as much as possible.

And I was feeling good that I had that ability, that flexibility. And for whatever reason, he was getting more and more frustrated with me.

And I felt bad. I'm thinking like, I'm giving up my time. I rearranged my calendar. What's the deal? And I didn't say it exactly in those terms to him.

I could sense he was being frustrated. And he said, you're not helping me in the way that I need to be helped.

That's why I'm frustrated. like, yes.

 

Luke Frazier

that's it. But people do that all the time.

 

Matt Zaun

I did this. And it really put me in this moment of I need to make sure that the person is going to receive the help as they are being helped, not that I feel good for helping them.

 

Luke Frazier

Matt, the thing that you just said to me, honestly, is the key to all great marketing and sales. It's the key.

It's also the key to great storytelling. It just happens to be. And this is the line that I say often.

If you can't meet people where they're at, then you're never going to sell to them. You're never going to help them.

And honestly, I think if we think about the kind of businesses that we are, that you and I interact with, they're all businesses that want to do something good in the world.

They do want to do this. They want to impact. And I think we know this. We're around those kinds of people.

But if you can't get to a place where, better yet, I'll speak. If I can't get to a place, for instance, I had a prospect call this morning.

If I was... If wasn't able to see everything from her perspective and then communicate it back to her the way that she's communicating it to me, she will never feel comfortable.

And the reason being is because when I start talking at someone because I think I know the answer to their problem, right away they lose trust in me because they don't actually feel seen, heard, and loved.

And that's at the end of the day, as human beings, if we really psychologically break it all down, you and I honestly just want to be seen, heard, and loved as we go out throughout our day.

It makes for the best marriages. It makes for the best partnerships. It makes for the best client relationships. And so I don't mean to be so fruity about it or wooey about it, but it is so radically true.

if you can understand why do people make decisions at the end of the day, they do it out of – it goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

We make decisions based on a desire to survive or thrive in our position. No more saber-toothed tigers, but I do want to grow my business, or I do want to increase X, Y, or Z, or I want to hire more people, or I want to reach more people, right?

We all want to grow and succeed, but we need partners who are willing to, you know, go back to the old adage, like take a walk in our shoes, because if they don't, then they'll never be able to understand it from our perspective, and I think your story with your friend is just powerful.

And what great feedback, honestly, for him to give to you, and for you to be humble and receive and go, oh, yes, actually, what is it you need?

Matt, all of our marriages would be 10 times better if I, I'll speak for my own marriage, it would be better if I often ask that question, and I think our businesses would be better too.

How am I meeting people where they're at?

 

Matt Zaun 

Well, Seb, thank you. I appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate this conversation. Thank you for your time. Tim, there's three things I'm going to take away from our conversation.

There were many takeaways, but three in particular. I really appreciate what you mentioned regarding... I had not thought of it in these terms.

You said AI gives us the ability to have deep research so that we're well prepped to jump right into the relationship building portion of the business.

And I think that that is fantastic. That's a really good way to look at it is how quickly can we get to the relationship building?

That's point one. The second point, I really appreciate you mentioning people want to sit with people that want them to advance to the next thing.

And you said one of the ways to do that is through storytelling. And I was envisioning a leader standing up at a staff meeting and sharing powerful stories to motivate and inspire team members so that they can move on to the next thing.

I think that's really powerful, powerful visual. And then the third and final piece that I don't want people to overlook because there's a lot of wisdom in this is you said, yes, you need to be intentional, but you also need to be curious about how you can positively impact people.

We have to be curious. I think we need to put good reporter. Ask prompting questions so that we could remain curious, not be so calculated, not go into a conversation thinking, we're going to do step A and then B and blah, blah, blah.

We need to be curious. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. If anyone wants to get more information on what you do, they want to reach out to your agency, where's the best place that they can go to get that info?

 

Luke Frazier

Yeah, if you want to connect directly, find me Luke Frazier at LinkedIn. I've currently got this little cactus by my name, so it sticks out.

But also, if you want to find out anything more about our agency and the way that we work and work with people and story, you can go to goodagency.com and honestly get to me the same way there.

 

Matt Zaun 

Good stuff. I'll include that in the show notes. People could just click and go from there.

 

Luke Frazier

Thanks again, Luke. Appreciate your time. Thanks so much, Matt. Appreciate it.

 

Matt Zaun 

Awesome, man. Thanks.