St. Louis, MO – July 4, 2021 - When it comes to storytelling, the “Cardinals Way” should be everyone’s way as it is the American way.

The St. Louis Cardinals make sure they own their own story with everything they do. I’m talking about owning the intellectual property rights, as well as taking responsibility for sharing their story directly with their customers.

You should own your own story too. Copyright and all. You should also take full responsibility or ownership for sharing it. It is that simple.

While few have the potential reach or the expansive resources of the St. Louis Cardinals, we can learn a lot from them. They make sure they own their own photographs, videos, print stories, broadcasts, and everything else they do when it comes to sharing their team story.

You should do the same. I don’t care who you are. Whether you are an amateur athlete or the local plumbing company, you need to own your story and all the elements to tell it such as your URL, your photos, videos etc..

It may be hard to see your business, medical practice, non-profit, union, parents estate, brand or yourself in the same light as a wealthy Major League Baseball team, but you should.

The idea of helping people own their story is why I formed StorySMART. While the Cardinals were doing it right, I could see so many others – including most of the team’s players and others – not.

You might be surprised to learn how few athletes, entertainers or other celebrities own their stories. They are not unique. I look around the world today and see so many people not owning their story.

That is why I was happy to see the US Supreme Court’s recent decision about NCAA athletes.

Shouldn’t we all own our name, image and likeness?

It is common sense right?

Well, guess what, you should also own the rest of your story. Helping clients figure out how to best do that is why I formed my business.

StorySMART helps clients own their story with a unique service that no one else offers.

We help our clients tell their stories professionally, honestly and memorably through brand journalism by employing some of the best journalists in the business. While a trained professional TV reporter tells our client’s story for them, our clients own the work – copyright and all – forever.

Sure, our clients could pitch their story to a traditional independent media outlet, but then they wouldn’t own it. And there is a strong likelihood that they wouldn’t get what they wanted or needed in the story.

But the media outlet would get what they wanted. And they would own the story forever. Copyright and all. For what it is worth, I have no problem with this dynamic. If the New York Times publishes a story, they should own it and profit from it.

Our country needs strong independent journalism. What I’m saying in this post is that everyone has the right to own their own story and to tell it themselves. So with that disclaimer behind me…

Why does owning your story matter even more today?

Everyone expects to go directly to the source to get information. We have been conditioned by our search habits to expect the information we desire at our fingertips. We google everything these days. Or we ask Alexa or Siri.

We also expect to watch what we want to watch whenever we want on whatever device we want. Finally, more media is created by the masses today than mass media. Anyone with a website or a social media account is essentially a media outlet.

These fundamental facts are even more reason you should own your own story.

StorySMART developed our service because we recognize that communication and marketing tactics haven’t caught up with this new reality. We are living through a transition period not unlike the transition from horse and buggy to the automobile.

So as you listen to that song on your eight-track player, we want you to recognize that most PR flaks are stuck in the past with mindset that is too focused on traditional media. For them, it is all about the pitch. Getting news coverage for their clients. They have invested tons of time and energy in building relationships.

I know, because I was one of those horse and buggy drivers before I let my Clydesdale enjoy his days dining from a pasture at Grant’s Farm by taking ownership of the storytelling.

Once you get behind the wheel of driving our own storytelling, you won’t look back. You will soon realize that there is a wide-open roadway that can take you anywhere when you decide to own your story.

Take responsibility for your own destiny, control your own narrative and build your brand community by telling your own stories.

Let’s face, each of us wants to be the hero of our own story. Including your customers. American independence was rooted in this idea.

The American people were not interested in just being supporting characters in King George’s story. The wanted a nation that would allow each of them to write their own story.

Today you have even more ability to write your own story.

Modern technology and the shifting communications landscape empower you to own your story and connect in ways no one in 1776 could have imagined. That said, our founders were keenly aware of how the mass media of that time fanned the flames of the American revolution. History definitively demonstrates that our founders owned the story and shaped the narrative of a new nation.

That fundamental insight – owning your story - drove my vision as I led the Cardinals modernization efforts in building their first communications department.

During my time with the St. Louis Cardinals, my colleagues and I built a new department around the idea that we should tell our own story and connect directly with fans. With 13.7 million fans coming to the team’s website each month during the baseball season, we could and should communicate directly with them. We didn’t just have to rely on the traditional media to get our message out to fans. Our website and social media empowered us to connect directly with fans.

We invested heavily in video storytelling and built our foundation on a brand journalism. We hired journalists, bought video production equipment and started telling stories. What started with me shooting videos on my cell phone eventually led to us producing our own weekly magazine TV Show ( Cardinals Insider with Ozzie Smith ) that we distributed on 18 over the air TV stations and our regional sports network (Bally’s Sports Midwest).

While the video element was new, the brand journalism wasn’t. The team had been producing Cardinals Magazinefor years. The magazine used experienced journalists to cover the team from the unique perspective of being inside the club. That insider’s point of view was what made our reporting unique. We had access others didn’t have. We could bring our fans stories they craved and couldn’t get anywhere else.

The Cardinals reporting on Cardinals was not instead of the team working with the media. It was in addition. More often than not, we were telling stories the baseball writers were not interested in covering. They were stories our fans wanted to see. The reality is that our fans expected us to do it.

Your fans expect the same from you.

Your customers expect you to help them with useful information from your area of expertise.

You need to think like a media outlet. Focus on your audience. Tell a story that connects emotionally with your audience. Make it search responsive. Give your customers news and information that they can use that you are uniquely positioned to provide. When you do that, you build trust. Over time, you will build a deeper relationship with your customers. In the process you will build a brand community that will fuel your growth.

You get all of that by sharing your story directly through your website. Take responsibility for sharing your stories. But remember that when you hire someone to take photographs, write a blog post or shoot a video, be sure you own the intellectual property rights.

#OwnYourStory