Harry Potter isn’t a great story.
Sorry if that ruins your childhood, but it’s true.
The plots are often slow and convoluted and confusing, especially in the later books.
No one cares.
Millions devour them none the less.
Because characters make the story, and Harry Potter has the best characters.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Snape, Hagrid, the twins, Draco, and of course…He Who Shall Not Be Named.
So many memorable, lovable (or hateable) characters bursting with personality and charm.
They aren’t very nuanced and deeply realized (it’s still a children’s story), but they all have a clearly-defined role to play, a quirky, instantly-recognizable nature, and consistent, relatable struggles.
We love to root for them (or against them).
We want them to succeed (or fail) in whatever they do.
We don’t particularly care whether the task is stealing an egg from a mama dragon or winning a game of weird flying football/hockey.
We just care about them.
If you can create that same level of attachment in your clients, you’ll succeed no matter what business you are in.
How does this help me?
You may have heard the term “client avatar” or “ideal patient.”
Before you can determine your core marketing message, you have to understand the person you are trying to reach.
To do this, we create an avatar who represents the type of patient you want, then tell a story that attracts them to your business by visualizing how you help them.
The most effective of these messages take the form of a story, and the client avatar is the hero of that story.
By studying what makes Harry Potter such a popular hero character, you can use the same characteristics to make your brand attractive and your story a blockbuster hit.
If you get your hero right, your clients will be instantly hooked on your story, because they will recognize themselves—their fears and aspirations—in it.
We all want to read about ourselves (and who we want to be).
What makes Harry Potter so popular?
You don’t sell a billion books on accident.
Novelists use certain key characteristics to create compelling heroes, and Harry Potter is a perfect example.
Here are the key features of a popular hero:
- Relatable: they are someone like us What initially made Harry Potter such an incredible phenomenon is one simple bit genius trait: he goes to school. And it’s a new school, where he doesn’t know anyone, and where he’s trying to figure out who he is, what groups he should join, how he should behave. Every kid understands what that is like. And because each book in the series takes place over one year of school, kids were able to grow along with Harry and friends. You could almost imagine you were one of Harry’s friends running the halls of Hogwarts and hanging out in the Gryffindor common room (not me, though, I’m a Ravenclaw). Relatable characters draw you into the story and keep you engaged throughout. You care about them more because you see yourself in them. You empathize with their situation and you root for them to succeed. So of course you stick around to find out what happens in the end.
- Remarkable: but not exactly like us Were your parents murdered by an evil wizard? Did your school teachers regularly transform into animals during class? Have you ever had to rescue your best friend from a mermaid-infested lake? Unlikely. Heroes who are exactly like us—normal people—are boring. We don’t want to hear about normal things. We want to see the hero go through them so that we can experience it without all the danger and drama. We want to imagine ourselves in the story, wonder what we would do in their situation, and learn the lessons for our own lives. That’s why your heroes should be a little larger than life. Harry doesn’t just go to normal school; he goes to wizarding school. He isn’t just one of the kids who sits in the back of the class; he’s the Boy Who Lived and the hero of prophecy. That’s interesting. That makes us pick up the book and pay attention.
- Transformational: they show us how to learn and grow Harry isn’t the same person at the beginning of his story as he is in the end. This isn’t a sitcom. Not only is he 8 years older, but he’s wiser and more mature. That naive little kid who didn’t know a thing about magic and just wanted to escape his suffocating cupboard has become a wise young wizard who can survive on his own in the world, stand up to a Dark Lord, and sacrifice everything to fulfill his destiny. Without this growth, the story feels hollow and pointless, perhaps good for a laugh but not satisfying. You may finish feeling disappointed, and that’s not what you want in your story. Imagine if in the end (spoiler alert!) Harry just died to Voldemort. Avada Kedavra! Poof. Or what if he took the Elder Wand for himself and became another evil wizard terrorizing the world? Speaking of which, how’d you like season 8 of Game of Thrones? Transformation is what gives the story it’s heart and purpose. Without it, the story lands with a thud and calls into question everything that came before.
- Aspirational: they inspire us to be better Did you want to be like Draco Malfoy as a kid? If so, please see a therapist immediately. You’re not supposed to want to be like the antagonist. You’re supposed to admire and imitate the hero. Maybe you are naturally more like Ron or Hermione and think Harry too reckless or emotional or cocky, but you have to admire his courage, his willingness to risk himself for others, his unwavering friendship. We can aspire to many things (even bad things), so there’s not one magic trait that every hero must have. But the hero must in some way be better than us by the end of the story, with character or status or relationships or possessions or whatever else that we long to have. Otherwise, we won’t value their journey or understand it’s significance, and we won’t be willing to undergo the same kind of trials to get to the end of the journey.
Who is your Harry Potter?
Keep these 4 characteristics in mind as you think about the hero of your business story.
Think about your perfect patient, someone you would want to work with if you got to choose.
Use your real patients as reference.
But make them heroic.
Lower lows, higher highs.
Use all the characteristics above.
Because it’s not about who your patients are right now:.
It’s about who they want to become.
That’s the foundation to an unforgettable story.