Stories work in business because they make you human. It’s hard to imagine a more powerful bit of magic in a world of wary consumers, endless advertising, and ubiquitous AirPods.
A good story, told well, cuts through the noise and builds an immediate emotional bond with people who matter most to your success. In just a few engaging moments, a story can illuminate your worth, reveal your motivations, and differentiate you from the competition.
The best stories are grounded in authenticity; things that are true and that only you can tell. If your business has survived and thrived over years, you are undoubtedly sitting on a rich vein of irresistible stories. But they don’t just pop out of the ground.
To help you discover stories that make a difference, start by asking these questions:
1) How did the business begin?
Every business can trace its existence to a unique moment of truth. Two oddballs meet and dream up the crazy idea of a personal computer, and Apple is born. A man gets tired of paying for fancy razors, makes a viral video, and starts Dollar Shave Club. A door-to-door fax machine salesperson decides that nobody makes the right kind of clothes for active women, borrows $5,000, and founds Spanx. In each case, small, personal moments of inspiration sparked industry-changing innovations.
To build your business’s origin story, look to what motivated your founders to start the venture in the first place. If they’re still around, record their personal accounts. Ask them to recall the world as it used to be and why they wanted to change it. If they’re gone, draw on institutional memories and historical moments. In any case, the goal is to recreate the defining moments—the epiphanies, the lightning strikes—when brave people with ideas, dreams, and doubts decided to take the plunge.
2) When did we make somebody’s life better?
People pay money for what your business offers for just one reason: It makes them feel better. Somehow, some way, they part with their hard-earned cash because they decide that what you provide them is worth it, even it’s just a roll of toilet paper. Your job as a storyteller is to understand that equation at an emotional level. Become intimately aware of the customer’s problems, values, and desires. Then you’ll see how you make a difference.
This is about more than explaining how a practical need is met. The idea is to recognize how your business matters to what’s meaningful in the lives of customers—their relationships, their identities, their passions and dreams. There’s usually some pain that begs for relief, some struggle or yearning that your product, your service, or your people make better.
If you’re stuck: ask your customer. Engage with them to find the moments that matter to their hearts—and why. The reason that hot dog is important might not be because it’s delicious (it’s not) but because it’s central to a father and daughter post-game ritual. That new oven might be cherished only because it roasts the holiday bird just like Mom used to. Even lowly bathroom products can be prized for the ways they confer feelings of caring, luxury, even dignity.
5) What do we truly stand for?
A lot of companies go to the trouble of writing up a “values statement” – a list of beliefs and virtues that supposedly drive the business. More times than not, it’s hogwash. People don’t put stock in words on a poster. They believe what they see.
The values that define a business are found in the actions of the people at the top. It’s good and fine to have a value on “customer service,” but what happens when an associate holds up sales so that everyone can look for a lost wedding ring? If management does anything less than celebrate the deed, it’s being disingenuous.
To find true “values” stories, look at the actions that are rewarded by leadership. A word of warning: If they’re not in line with your stated “values,” you have bigger problems than finding good stories. But if they are aligned, it’s evidence that leaders are operating with integrity, in which case you’ve got plenty of great stories that are just waiting to be told.
