Tweet

Stories to Tell

Guest post by: Kerri Salls

Article Overview: Stories are a powerful way to communicate. As little children we eagerly hopped into bed in anticipation of a great bedtime story. As school age children we would compete to see how many novels we could read in one summer away from school and homework. Then as we became adults, we dropped those habits and lost the pleasure the stories gave us.

Stories to Tell

Stories are a powerful way to communicate. As little children we eagerly hopped into bed in anticipation of a great bedtime story. As school age children we would compete to see how many novels we could read in one summer away from school and homework. Then as we became adults, we dropped those habits and lost the pleasure the stories gave us.

Stories capture our imagination and can take us away to another place and time or immerse us in a new persona. Stories stay with us because they strike an emotional cord inside. They become compelling. Look at the world-wide anticipation and addiction to each volume of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.

Think of the most memorable teachers and professors you ever had. Were they stiff, distant, boring? Or were they the ones who brought the class material down to earth with real world applications and examples – like the economics professor who pulled our homework examples from today’s financial pages of the Boston Globe or the Wall Street Journal, or the French professor who made Jean-Jacques Rousseau relevant to yuppie college kids.

What does this have to do with your business? One of the best ways to talk about your business; to engage prospects and clients and make your product/service memorable, is to wrap your message in a story.

Every trainer today knows that for each lesson you want clients and customers to master, you need to put it in context and anchor it with a story. One of my favorite coaches, Chris Barrow from England, does this with humor and outrageous examples to drive home each point. Not everyone can pull that off.

Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind says: “in the Conceptual Age (21st Century), minimizing the importance of story, places you in professional and personal peril. . .Story exists where high concept and high touch intersect. . .Story means big money.”

Organizational storytelling is a nascent movement. Pink gives the example of Big Tattoo Red Winery who put the story of their vineyard on each bottle of wine they sell. They pay homage to their mother who died of cancer and explain that they contribute 50 cents for the sale of each bottle to a hospice and various cancer funds in their mother’s name – all on each bottle of wine they sell!

I remember more from the work of great authors and speakers like Stephen Covey, Zig Ziglar, Jack Canfield, Jim Collins, John Maxwell, and Eckart Tolle because of the stories they use to bring each point home, and so many of their stories are very personal.

What if you shared the challenges of building your business, or the vision of where your business is going with your clients and prospects? What could that do for you?

• Make you more memorable
• Distinguish your products and services in a crowded marketplace
• Make you vulnerable – very appealing
• Make you real – being human makes you extremely relatable
• Give people your history, expertise, purpose and vision – in a more engaging way
• Create an emotional link – which draws them in to engage with you more
• Show off your sincerity, spirit and authenticity
• Inspire people to take the next step to work with you/purchase from you
• Set a more positive tone and warmer approach to doing business with you
• Add meaning and context to your business for your clients

By being more open and transparent as a business owner – you cultivate your own personal growth and let your integrity shine through

I like Andrea Lee'squestion on this subject: “How can you more clearly, evocatively and effectively tell the story of your business?”

As you tell the story, don’t make it all about you. Turn the focus on your client’s outcome, feelings, solutions and benefits.

If you already have a story, how can you refine it, to make it richer for the telling? Is it buried on the last page of your website and should move to the homepage? Is it abbreviated to two sentences in the resource box at the end of your articles? Instead, could it be the lead in to your next sales letter or poster size in your next expo booth or maybe the story itself could be a feature article in a journal or newspaper? Is it currently used as an introduction to a program or training or a book – after purchase? Maybe it could be repositioned to help close the sale instead?

As you head to the beach or the couch with your shoebox of great novels you’ve been saving all year to savor – consider the story of your business – and the possible impact of retelling it as a powerful and compelling marketing tool.

Related Articles
  Evaluate Traders by Their Stories
  The Power of PR Make Yourself Newsworthy
  Presentation Secret: Tell a story
  Selling With Stories
  An interview with a newspaper journalist
  Create a Powerful Marketing Story in Three Steps
  PR Brainstorming Tips
  The Awesome Power of Story
  Success Stories Boost Branding
  The Double Whammy Create a Personal Brand Together with Your Business Brand
  Global Branding Starts Here
  How To Use the Random Image Module Within Your Joomla Content Management System
  What are the elements of a good sales letter?
  The 15 Most Important PR Questions
  How To Make A Fortune With A Love Story
  A South African’s Homemade Paraglider
  Keep Your Message Focused to Get More Clients
  Digg-You Might Want to Digg a Little Deeper
  5 Lessons from a Master Storyteller
  Staying on Target

Article Tags: marketing, sales, stories, story telling, training



Related Forum Posts
Re: Join an inventor's group - This is a great list of inventors groups. Are online inventors meetings. We all try to protect our ideas and therefore are reluctant to talk about about ideas in the development phase in public. I'm interested in inventors Success Stories.
Book: Comeback Moms - Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years Monica Samuels and J. C. Conklin 2006 Jacket: Millions of educated, professional women are quitting their jobs to stay home and raise their children. That would never be you, right? You worked hard for your degree and even harder to get to this point in your career. Quitting now, even for a few years, would kill your career, right? That's what Monica Samuels thought when she found out she was pregnant... Over 60 percent of professional women who leave work to raise children want to get back into the workforce someday. If you even think you might want to go back to work, be it in one year or twenty, you need to lay the groundwork now for a successful reentry or your options will be limited. 1. Quitting: When is the best time to cut the cord 2. Feathering the nest: How to financially prepare before you quit 3. Departure strategies: leaving the office 4. Money and Power: Constructing a new life on the home front 5. Backlash: handling family, friends and angry strangers 6. One foot in, one foot out: How can they miss you if you don't really go away? 7. Part time: It ain't perfect, but it's doable 8. Going back: the when and how of returning to work full time 9. Career counseling: When you need a change 10. Entrepreneurs: True Stories Resources Index


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

THE “SECRET RECIPES” OF LEADERSHIP

Stay Employed In A Down Economy

Too Many Sales Reps Are Wimps

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.