By Ade Asefeso MCIPS MBA

Copyright 2014 by Ade Asefeso MCIPS MBA

All rights reserved.

First Edition

ISBN-13: 978-1500790066

ISBN-10: 1500790060

Publisher: AA Global Sourcing Ltd

Website: http://www.aaglobalsourcing.com

Disclaimer

This publication is designed to provide competent and reliable information regarding the subject matter covered. However, it is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering professional advice. The authors and publishers specifically disclaim any liability that is incurred from the use or application of contents of this book.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In this case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

Dedication

To my family and friends who seems to have been sent here to teach me something about who I am supposed to be. They have nurtured me, challenged me, and even opposed me…. But at every juncture has taught me!

This book is dedicated to my lovely boys, Thomas, Michael and Karl. Teaching them to manage their finance will give them the lives they deserve. They have taught me more about life, presence, and energy management than anything I have done in my life.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Why Storytelling?

Storytelling is a hot topic in the presentation world but business managers are often discouraged to find few examples of storytelling in business presentations. Instead, they find examples of using stories for booming keynote addresses or rousing motivational speeches. But lessons from Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs don't translate easily to boardroom presentations; however we will use one of Steve Job's stories later on in this book.

This book will explore storytelling for business managers and consultants presenting in the boardroom; what are stories, why are they so powerful, and how can you sprinkle some of that storytelling magic into your boardroom PowerPoint presentations?

What is corporate storytelling?

Corporate storytelling is how the most successful companies use marketing and communications to move their businesses ahead.

Corporate storytelling is about winning...

It's about getting to the core of an organization's value proposition, and developing narratives that simply and compellingly relate "the story" to customers, prospects, investors, media, employees and others in a way that motivates them to think or act favourably and it's about developing focused, cost-effective programs that enable companies to reinforce the story (and differentiate themselves) through every communication they produce and action they take.

Corporate storytelling relies on facts, never fiction, and is grounded in meticulous competitive and market research.

The what, why and when of corporate storytelling

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me begin…

In an age when digital communication has made any business message accessible in an instant, those messages are now more important than ever. The instinctive reaction is to play it safe and stay with same old ‘market leading’ ‘global’ ‘solutions’ adopted by the competition, but if you want to make a lasting connection and be taken seriously by your customers, investors and staff, storytelling is the ultimate tool.

When we talk about storytelling for businesses I find it best to explain it in terms of the What We Do page on your company website. There is a very high chance that, like millions of other businesses, you have a page that explains your global footprint, turnover and service offering. In essence, you are doing what the page sets out to do and explaining the ‘What’ of your business. But I am guessing there is nowhere on your website that explains the ‘Why’ of your business?

If you want to tell the story of your business, and make it compelling, what you really need is a Why We Do What We Do page. The ‘Why’ is what resonates most with audiences and storytelling does that job best; it gives you the chance to explain why your business, above all others, is important and why people should care.

Why you need to become a storyteller

Your business is made of people. Your investors, customers and employees are all people too. Stories connect with people and can help bring an unnecessarily faceless corporation into the world of human beings.

That is why you need to be a storyteller to move your audiences and help them understand that you are more than just a collection of services and products. You are people, working for people and we are not just talking about the touchy-feely stuff here. Storytelling extends to the financials too, allowing you to show the value of the business and how that value translates to the wider world.

Chapter 2: Why a Story is Like a Cup

Why do audiences respond so well to stories? The answer, according to brain science, is that our brains need information to be packaged as stories. Here is a parable about this idea.

In a faraway land, a boy went to learn at the feet of a wise man day after day. The wise man always instructed the boy through stories. One day, the boy asked “Master, why do you always teach through stories? Would it not be faster to teach me directly?” To this, the wise man answered “Please bring me some tea.” The boy rose and prepared a cup of tea in a white china cup. The wise man took the cup from the boy and sipped it, then asked “Why did you bring me a cup when I only asked for the tea?”

A story is like a cup; it's the brain's natural container for holding knowledge. Brain scientists believe we are highly skilled at converting stories into meaning. All experiences in life are experienced as a sequence of events. I pet the strange dog at the park; he bites me; I run away. I wear my lucky tie to school; I get an A+ on my math test. We store our life experiences as stories so that we can recall and use the experiences later. If I see a dog tied up outside a drug store, I remember my last dog experience and what happened; stories keep us safe.

Brain scientists speculate there are many ways to "package" a message. At one extreme, we can package information as logic, including data, lists and analysis. Our brains process logic with the left brain, testing the arguments carefully and finally arriving at a reasoned acceptance or rejection of the message. At the other extreme are stories, which are processed in the right brain, the domain of visualization and emotion.

In short, storytelling is needed throughout the entire corporate communications spectrum. Once a central story is produced to spark a conversation it should spread to all areas of the communications strategy, from investor relations to employee engagement.

With a beautifully crafted narrative woven around every aspect of your business, you will find that people will relate your story to their own personal stories and values, expanding on it and weaving it in to their own experiences.

So, instead of standing in the background, pushing out the same formal PR messaging and hoping that commentators are kind, start telling your story, make real connections and foster lasting relationships with your audiences…you might be pleasantly surprised.

Corporate Storytelling Message enable the followings:

1. Decision Making

What do you want your audience to do when you get done talking to them? Are you going to be asking for a decision such as a purchase, to support your idea, or to change a behaviour? What do they need to know in order to make that decision?

Too many communications are blasts of PowerPoint information rather than well articulated messages. Decision makers are often overwhelmed with information and thus have a difficult time making choices. This can lead to the dreaded "no decision".

Corporate Storytellers design a better message aimed at getting a decision. They consider the decision first, and then advocate the idea so that the audience will take the action you are looking for. We call this Outcome Driven Messaging.

2. Differentiation

How are these two computers different? They look similar, but if I was forced to choose one computer over the other I would have to know how they are different in order to make the decision?

If you want your audience to make a decision, you are going to have to show them how your idea is different than the alternative. For a salesperson, it might be showing how your idea is different than the competition. For a project manager or leader it might be showing how your idea is different than the old way of doing things.

Corporate Storytellers know how to differentiate their ideas from the alternatives.

3. Memorable

Can you memorize everything you see? Essentially, this is what you are asking from your audience in a typical presentation. Most people overload the audience and expect them to remember all the different, unconnected ideas.

You have key points that you would like to make. You want those key points to stick with the audience after they leave the room. To do so, you are going to have to work on creating memorable messages. You should make your message all about your key points, and make sure those ideas are clearly articulated. Forget about everything else because it is just going to be forgotten.

4. Emotional

How does picture make you feel? It seems like such an odd question! After all, Corporate Storytelling is about business not the touchy-feely world of emotions. There are no feelings in business. Everything is perfectly logical, right? It would be nice if every decision was purely a calculation, but it is not.

In an ideal world people would make logical decisions, but research has found that the brain uses both logic and emotions to make decisions. Most messages and presentations are designed to support the logical decision. What about the emotional part of the equation?

Corporate Storytellers create messages that support both the logical and emotional decision. That leads people to action faster.

5. Interesting

Is this person ready to listen? Have you ever had someone fall asleep in YOUR presentation? Maybe they are often checking email on their phone during your meeting? If a person is not mentally engaged in your message, they will not hear your key points. You can't expect an audience that isn't paying attention to give you the outcome you are looking for.

Most presentations are just plain boring. The sad thing is in business this seems to be accepted. Most communicators put the burden on the audience to be very active listeners. The problem is the audience's attention span is growing ever smaller, while at the same time the content is getting more complex.

Corporate Storytellers deliver interesting messages. They realize that people are overwhelmed with information. In order to help the audience take action, Corporate Storytellers create messages that engage the audience.

Corporate Storytellers follow a Process

Most people already have a process to create messages for their audience. It typically goes something like this:

Open the folder on your computer that contains past presentations.

Pick slides that have been effective in the past.

Add new slides from the corporate overview presentation.

Change the background and logos so the slides look similar.

Present.

This "build the deck" approach is a fundamentally flawed process! Where is the audience in this process? What if the right slide for this unique audience doesn't exist? What if the slides you do pick are boring (most are)? There are numerous issues with this approach. Why do you need slides at all? This is common practice in business that leads to predictably poor results.

Chapter 3: Using Storytelling for Cohesion and Persuasion

Some authors believe you can structure a presentation along a timeline with a beginning, middle and end. But in my experience, a true three-act play structure only works when you are trying to introduce a vision for the future. Most boardroom presentations are not so impressive; status updates, financial reports, marketing plan reviews and collaborative decision-making meetings and the presenter is not always in a position to be making visionary recommendations for the future.

These daily presentations do not bend easily to visionary story outlines, but you can still lift some of the elements of storytelling to make your entire presentation more cohesive and persuasive.

The Classic Three Act Play Structure

The three act play structure is a classic structure used by motivational speakers to introduce change in an organization or a nation. You start by talking about how things were in the past, then move to how things are today, then paint a picture of a glorious future.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech follows this classic structure. He starts by talking about promises that were made to African-Americans when slavery was ended. He then moves to today (the day of the speech); "But one hundred

years later, the Negro is still not free." and outlines a number of promises that are still unfulfilled. Finally, he moves into the most famous part of his speech, imagining a glorious future: "I say to you today, my friends, I still have a dream."

This structure, talking about your past and your current situation, then painting a vision for the future is appropriate when you are trying to introduce change. But it does not fit the everyday world of status updates, project plans and financial reports.

A Case Study

There are times you can bend a presentation to fit a storyline if you think in terms of a case study. Who is the case about?, what is the problem?, what is the solution? For instance, if you want to present the new features of your product to the sales team; rather than presenting bullet points and product photos, you can create an imaginary character and walk her through a day, running into problems solved by the new product features.

For instance, a friend of mine once conducted research to learn how university students choose a certain type of medical device. She realized their brand loyalty starts young and deepens over time. In her final presentation, she created a prototypical student, complete with a name and photo, and talked about how the decisions she made in high school influenced the decisions she made in university and then into her professional life. She supported the storyline with data but always referred back to the prototypical student, and transitioned through the presentation by aging the student.

If possible, give main characters a name and picture, to make them real to the audience. Enliven them with characteristics that are similar to the audience, such as their birthplace or favourite hobbies, to make it easier for the audience to relate to the characters.

The Above-water Argument

Even if a pure case study doesn't work, you may still be able to hold a presentation together by presenting information in a cause and effect order (the basic skeleton of the story format). Here is how.

Then, say something specific about each category. What about competitors? What about the customer? What about the channel? Make a specific statement about each category. These statements make up your "above-water argument" because you surface them early in the presentation and leave the details under water until they are needed.

For instance, say you can break your presentation into these three categories and above-water arguments.

1. Competition: We are losing share to small, web-savvy start-ups that compete on price and a slick user interface.

2. Customers: Our customers are looking for lower-cost medical device alternatives available on the internet.

3. Channel: More and more, customers are purchasing directly from the online vendors and bypassing intermediaries completely.

Now, is there a cause-effect relationship to be found here? Perhaps you think customers looking for lower-cost alternatives are causing them to shop online, creating market demand for web-savvy start-ups. You could organize the deck as Customers - Channel - Competitors. Your overall narrative might sound like this.

“We have always focused on the most profitable customers while price-sensitive customers either went without or purchased less than they needed. Now, rather than calling our channel partners, these price-sensitive customers are using search engines and going direct to the competition. This is attracting web-savvy competitors who are winning these forgotten customers with lower prices and an attractive online shopping experience.”

Note that once you get this far, you may want to consider turning this into a case study approach with a hypothetical customer and talk about how her choices and shopping habits have changed over the past five years.

A Theme or Extended Metaphor

When you open the presentation with a metaphor, or an inciting incident, you introduce a theme. This theme or metaphor could be revisited throughout your presentation as a thread that holds it all together.

For instance you could shows a presentation that opens with the Inciting Incident; "We are facing an environment of unprecedented change" and uses a metaphor of a ship sailing through rocky waters. Even if you cannot adopt a story structure, you could continue that metaphor throughout your presentation, comparing the different challenges to pirates and sharks and hidden coral reefs. Different options could be compared to islands in the distance. Resources could be compared to the unpredictable wind and so on.

Not all business presentations fit a storytelling format. For instance, in developing a marketing strategy, you may identify three trends you need to address to increase sales next year: new competitors, legislative changes and not enough sales reps. But it's difficult and perhaps unnecessary, to bend these trends to fit into a storytelling format.

Business meetings are often focused around metrics; sales, awareness, perceptions, revenue mix, adoption and website visitors. Trying to direct the presentation away from these metrics may be more of a distraction than a help; however, even in these cases, you can use storytelling to enliven key pieces of data.

If you need to make an argument about an issue about which you feel very strongly, don’t use rhetoric. Tell a story instead.

For a recent example, think of how US House of Representative Member Keith Ellison spoke to the press before hearings convened by Representative

Peter King to investigate the radicalization of American Muslims in the United States. After making his case about why Muslims were being unjustly singled out by the hearings, Ellison closed his statement with a story about Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a paramedic who perished on 9/11 while trying to rescue those trapped in the Twin Towers. Ellison described how some sought to tarnish Hamdani’s sacrifice by calling attention to his Islamic faith. The story, and Ellison’s emotional delivery, helped make his message powerful.

Effective storytelling can serve anyone in leadership who seeks to persuade others to his or her point of view. Opinion-based rhetoric is often more polarizing than persuasive, while statistics are often go in one ear and out the other. But a careful blending of rhetoric and facts, woven into the right story, can change minds.

Shaping an effective story with a point of view is a learned skill. Here are some suggestions. Know your message. When it comes to persuasion we resist being

told what to think but we are open to why we must think it. Savvy preachers use this technique on Sundays. Good stories have more than a point of view; they have a message. As such they are tools of persuasion. You consider what you want others to do and why you want them to do it. That is your message.

Find the right example. Look for what people around you are doing that relates to your point of view. If you want to persuade people to adopt safety standards, tell the story of what happened when someone did not follow protocol. If you want to demonstrate the benefits of a new process, use a story to explain how an individual would benefit.

Weave your narrative. It is best to use real-life examples, as Ellison did. Therefore, talk about what an employee did to ensure safety or how a team adopted a new process and achieved improved results. Tie to a narrative by following strong story structure. Describe the situation. Talk about what happened. Close with the benefits pitch.

Convey passion. You don’t need to go overboard, but you do need to demonstrate your conviction. Do this through your choice of words; ones that draw pictures and do it through your delivery raising your voice on a key point, pausing for emphasis and following through with well-paced flow.

Support with facts. Using a narrative approach doesn’t mean you can’t use facts. Weave them into your narrative, or begin or end your story with them. For example, one in four children is falling behind in math by the third grade. So if you are trying to convince people this is a problem worth addressing, you might say, “Let me tell you the story of Karl, a fourth grader at Stamford Elementary…” Then you sketch the story and perhaps after telling Karl’s story, you close with a few more facts about the need for remedial math schooling.

As powerful as storytelling can be, it may not be appropriate for every occasion. Sometimes you need to get to the point and the best way to relate your point of view, especially with a business case, is to do it quickly and concisely. In these situations, facts and figures are a story in themselves.

Storytelling need not be reserved for formal occasions. I recall an executive telling me that he had a boss, one who mentored him, who had a story for every situation. Most especially this boss told stories as a form of coaching. He would relate whatever the situation called for an admonishment, a pat on the back, or a challenge to a story. As a result, the lessons stuck. The executive who told me the story could recite verbatim stories his old boss had told him twenty years ago. What is more this executive had integrated the technique (and some of the same stories) into his own leadership style.

Stories are powerful when put in the hands of leaders who know how to use them.

Chapter 4: Three Secrets of Effective Storytelling

Arranging your PowerPoint deck into a cause and effect chain is more of a story skeleton than a true story that can inspire a story listening trance. When you are crafting a story, there are three main secrets of effective storytelling; have a relatable hero, identify conflict and use pictures and words to generate mental images.

1. Find a Hero the audience can relate to.

All stories need someone the audience can relate to; a hero. Just adding a human element to your story moves it further away from logic alone and further toward storytelling. When you find yourself talking about something, like market segments or international markets, instead, try talking about someone, like students, medical professionals, or medical device designer in United Kingdom.

Finding the hero is perhaps the hardest part of using storytelling in boardroom presentations, where discussions focus on issues and abstractions like "strategies", "market segments", "competitive threats", "business metrics" and "financial performance." Many of these presentations simply do not have a hero and cannot be told as a story. Still, start by trying to identify the hero by asking "who" you are talking about, rather than "what" you are talking about. Finding the hero is the anchor point for moving from a logical argument to a storyteller’s approach.

Here are a few ways to create your hero

Make it easy for the audience to relate to the hero and project themselves into the story and see the world through the hero's eyes. Mention values, personal traits or demographics that are similar to the audience.

You (the speaker) may be the hero, if you tell your audience about a customer you met or bad product experience you had. In that case, don't just tell the audience what happened, but re-experience the event including the feelings. Transport yourself back in time and you will transport the audience with you, where they can see the world through your eyes.

You may decide to make the audience the hero in your presentation. In that case, you will be trying to build a vision of what the world could look like. This approach fits best for motivational speeches or visionary speeches by the company leaders, but may work less well if the audience is more pragmatic and wants to review current status and discuss short-term plans.

2. Identify Conflict

A hero needs a goal and when the hero faces challenges reaching their goal, it's called "conflict". Stories where everything goes according to plan are boring. Stories where the hero has to climb mountains, fight dragons and face his childhood enemy to rescue the princess are interesting. So when you tell stories, enliven them by saying what the hero is trying to achieve and what is standing in the way.

Here are some more ideas on using conflict.

Be explicit not only about what the hero is trying to accomplish, but why. This internal motivation; love, greed, fear, revenge makes the hero easier to relate to because the audience has had similar motivations, or admires people with those motivations.

The best way to increase interest in your story is to focus on increasing the conflict. A story about a smart person getting his Ph.D. is not interesting because the hero faces no hurdles; but a story about a homeless man with a heroin addiction pursuing a Ph.D. is interesting. He faces many challenges to completing his goal.

Even better, your heroes should face some risk in pursuing the goal; that is, they stand to lose something if they fail. Perhaps the homeless man is hiding from the mafia. To pursue his Ph.D. he must come out of hiding and risk his life to pursue his goal.

Boardroom meetings are often about goals and challenges, so they are a natural fit for storytelling. But make sure to highlight the conflicts and risks for your hero if you want the audience to be a bit more attentive, and sprinkle conflict and motivation into all the stories you tell in your presentation.

3. Use Pictures and Words

Most importantly, use pictures or picture words to help the audience visualize the setting and become immersed in the story. People become transported into the idea through the hero's eyes. When people experience the story internally, it becomes theirs and change happens effortlessly.

In one landmark study of the story listening trance, researchers visited storytelling festivals and interviewed people in the audience who appeared to be (and later confirmed they were) in a story listening trance. The most effective technique used to create a trance in the audience, was to help them generate mental images, and so immerse them in an imaginary world.

Here are some techniques to help your audience generate mental images.

Provide specific dates and locations, if possible, to help create an internal context. Did this story happen in 2010 or 1867? In downtown New York or rural China?

Use picture words, like "students" instead of "customers", "computer" instead of "PC", "men and women" instead of "voters".

Use action words like "jump", "chase", and "run". Action words generate mental images.

Encourage your audience to become immersed by saying things like "just imagine" and "let me paint you a picture". Consider using pictures on your PowerPoint slides, or use actual props, if the concept is too unfamiliar for the audience to imagine.

If you use pictures on your PowerPoint slides, choose images that immerse the audience into the scene rather than images that put the audience outside looking into the scene. For instance, if you talk about football, show a picture from the viewpoint of the player on the field facing an opposing player or inside the huddle rather than a picture taken from the stands.

Add irrelevant details to your descriptions. For instance, instead of saying "mobile phone" say "pink mobile phone". It may not be relevant, but adding irrelevant detail makes the story more realistic. One 1974 study by R. C. Anderson, found people remember 50 percent more when unnecessary details are added to a sentence.

Chapter 5: Steps of Story Structure

What do the Star Wars, Jason Bourne, James Bond, Shrek and the Matrix movies all have in common? Story structure. They are all the same story told in a different way. Practically every movie you’ve ever seen follows a similar pattern or story structure.

Basically, you have got a lead character, male or female, that sets out on a journey to accomplish something. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a love story, a thriller or an action adventure flick; the story structure is the same. The lead character has a goal or task to accomplish. He or she sets out to accomplish it, meets interesting characters along the way, and encounters a number of obstacles that have to be overcome. In the end, there is a resolution that either makes us feel good, bad, or just plain confused, depending on the skill of the director.

In other words, you have got a knight in shining armour, a fair maiden in distress, and a dragon. The knight has to slay the dragon in order to rescue the fair maiden. Consider Angelina Jolie, in the movie Salt. She’s been framed to be a bad guy and has to prove her innocence. She is the knight in shining armour; the people who frame her are the dragon; and her good name and reputation is the fair damsel in distress.

While the situations and characters change, it’s all the same story. When you understand this classical story structure, you can use it to your advantage when crafting your stories for a business audience.

Steps of Story Structure

1. Set the Scene

Go back in time and create the context within which this event takes place. Consider…

Time: year, month, day, time, season, holiday…

Place: city, state, country, home, school, office, bedroom, market, beach…

Atmosphere: sunny, rainy, gloomy, tense, joyous, comfortable, uncomfortable…

Event: board meeting, wedding, vacation, dinner, football game, seminar, movie…

Relationship: sister, boss, spouse, son, supervisor, teacher, friend, tour guide…

Data/Statistics: relevant trends and facts…

2. Introduce the Characters

Describe the main characters visually. Start with physical characteristics, age and clothing. Next, describe their personality and style. Describe anything pertinent about your relationship with that person. Introduce characters in the natural sequence that they arrive in your story.

Maureen was a middle-aged woman with long black hair that she wore pulled back in a braid. She always wore fashionable clothes-the latest styles and fancy shoes.

She had a habit of always being late for meetings. She also had a tendency to apologize for things, even when she wasn’t responsible for the situation. I think she had a lack of self-esteem, and maybe that is why she wore fancy clothes-to make up for it.

3. Begin the Journey

The journey is the task, objective or activity to be accomplished. It is what you are attempting to do before something goes wrong or you encounter an obstacle.

Example: Going on vacation to Spain; waiting in line for tickets; meeting a friend for lunch; negotiating a contract; planning the annual meeting; riding a bicycle.

4. Encounter the Obstacle

The obstacle is the challenge. It is a problem, dilemma or question. It may be a person, something to be overcome, or something to be learned. It’s who or what gets in the way of achieving your goals.

Define the obstacle in your story.

Example: A flat tire, a delayed flight, an abusive boss, a lack of self-esteem, a misunderstanding…

5. Overcome the Obstacle: Using Step Five to Teach

This is the “how-to” step in the Steps of Story Structure. It is the most critical step because it teaches the lesson on a subliminal level. Write it out. You may choose to perform parts of this step as an IN moment such as talking to yourself (self talk) as you consider your options and come to a conclusion or new awareness.

Two Options:

Overcome the obstacle correctly, thereby teaching the correct behaviour.

Overcome the obstacle incorrectly. Make mistakes. Show people through your thoughts and behaviour what you don’t want them to do. Then, use the story as a spring board to discuss the correct or desired behaviour.

Describe, in a linear sequence, each step in overcoming the obstacle. Think incrementally in little steps, not broad strokes. What came first; a thought or an emotion? Then what? Did you go into avoidance mode or take immediate action? Tell the truth. The magic is in the details.

6. Resolve the Story

This step is relatively easy. Go back through your story script and look for details that need to be resolved. Ask yourself, “What will my audience be wondering about if I don’t tell them? How did things work out in the end?”

7. Make the Point

A. Bridge Statement leading into the Point. After resolving the story, say, “What I learned from that experience was…” or” What that experience taught me was…”

B. Make the Point. What is the ONE point that your story makes above all other points?

8. Ask “The Question”

The question formally transfers the learning point to each audience member. It asks them to take personal accountability in relation to a specific question. It is a you question that forces them to consider how the lesson of the story applies to them.

Example: “How about you? What do you need to do to lead by example?”

9. Repeat the Point / The Phrase That Pays

Re-state or repeat the point verbatim. Use the exact same words you used the first time you made the point. Memorize the sentence or Phrase That Pays.

Crafting your story using all the steps in this chapter will give you the foundational architecture of a great story. Your audience will be better able to follow the sequence of your story and remember your profound

message! With the steps in this chapter as your “bones”, you can now flesh out your story with acting and comedic techniques to make it amazing.

Chapter 6: Pitch an Idea with a Great Story

One of the best examples of storytelling in front of a sceptical business audience came in 2002 in a business school lecture hall at the University of Chicago. It was an MBA class on entrepreneurship and each group of 3-5 students pitched their business idea to a panel of cool venture capitalists. Their approach tended to follow this logical path; the market size is X, if we can get 5% of that market our revenue will look like this in 2 years.

Then a long-time veteran of the venture capital world, stood up to model the correct way to pitch a new business idea. He stood in front of the audience in silence for about ten seconds, while the audience squirmed, waiting for him to begin his business pitch. Then, he began to tell a story.

"In 1998, the Vice President of a global technology firm was side-swiped on the highway by a semi-truck, sending him into a concrete bridge piling at 70 miles per hour. His car was destroyed, his wife died instantly, but he miraculously survived. Paramedics pulled him from the twisted metal of his shattered car and rushed him to the nearest hospital, bleeding profusely. The doctors and nurses raced him into surgery. But it was too late. They could not stop the bleeding and this wealthy business executive died." then he paused and looked around the room, which was hushed. Then he continued.

"If the hospital had our product, that man might still be alive today."

He went on to describe the product, the patents, the several hospitals where the product was in use, the inventor's credentials and so on. Everyone in that classroom felt humbled. They had focused on impressing the investors with the market size. He used a story not only to help the potential investors understand the product, but to turn them into humbled admirers before he even talked about the revenue potential.

I will never forget how powerful that example was, and it illustrates the incredible magic of a story to help an audience see the world through the hero's eyes.

Three Ways to Begin Your Presentation with a Story

Even in a boardroom presentation, you need to start by grabbing the audience's attention and getting them on your side. While your presentation may not lend itself to such a powerful and tragic story as above, there are three storytelling techniques you can use to grab and hold your audience’s attention; a springboard story, an analogy, or a metaphor.

1. Use a Springboard Story

The example discussed above is an example of a springboard story.

Customer case studies are an excellent source of springboard stories. A friend of mine conduct market research for a living, including interviewing customers, potential customers and channel partners, to learn how they make technology purchasing decisions. She is always on the lookout for good customer stories of the challenges they face and how they are solving those problems. When she present the final results to clients, she will often begin by using a customer story to illustrate the problem and the solution. Talk to your sales people; they are a great source of customer stories.

It's best to include both the problem and the solution in the springboard story. Problems make listeners sour, but solutions keep people positive and their confidence in you high.

2. Use an Analogy

An analogy is a similarity between two different things, like the similarities between a bird and a plane. This is how human beings learn; we make generalizations from one thing and apply them to other things. This happens naturally and automatically.

We not only see similarities; sometimes we actually transfer traits from one thing to another. For instance, we compare a sports car to a first kiss and automatically transfer the excitement and newness of a kiss to a car, even though the similarities are not real.

Analogies work. For instance, in a 2009 study at the University of British Columbia, researchers showed advertisements for sports cars, massage chairs and mountain vacations. Some ads contained straightforward features and benefits. Other ads used analogies, comparing the sports car to a first kiss and the massage chair to a hot tub after a hard day of skiing. The result; audiences were about 50% more interested in products when the ads used analogies, because they generated positive memories and emotions that transferred onto the advertised product. In a 2004 study at Northwestern University, people falsely believed facts were true of one story when they read them in a similar, analogous story.

A great example of analogy is how Microsoft describes the importance of cloud computing. For those who don't know, cloud computing means using software (like PowerPoint) through a web browser instead of as an application on your computer. To explain the importance of cloud computing, Microsoft begins with an analogy of how the first automobile was introduced in the early 1900's and no-one could see its potential to change the world. Cloud computing is like that; we can't quite see how it will change the world, but it's inevitable.

When to Use an Analogy

Consider using an analogy when opening your presentation with the following.

Complex or new ideas: Familiar analogies help audiences understand difficult-to-imagine ideas. For instance, to explain cloud computing to an audience, you could use the analogy of how we used to send physical mail to our loved ones. Now, we send email. We don't need the physical paper and ink anymore; the same thing with software. We don't need to load a physical CD into our computer; we can just log into software through the internet.

Controversial ideas: Some ideas go down easier after hearing an analogy. For instance, perhaps you feel your business is being threatened by internet competitors. Rather than argue and defend this claim, you could start out by talking about the decline of telephone books, maps, newspapers and TV Guide. Then, when the analogy has been made, you talk about how your business is being caught in the same trend.

A problem at a decision-making meeting: Analogies can help people see a problem in a new way and generate creative new solutions. For instance, if your company is losing sales to a competitor who tells lies about your product; does that remind you of anything? How would you deal with a schoolyard bully? Or a computer hacker? Or a slanderous news reporter? By recasting the problem in the form of an analogy, you can brainstorm solutions you may not have thought of.

The analogy should be a true story, not a fable or fabrication. A study at the National University of Singapore found story ads were more persuasive than logical ads. But when the audience thought harder about the story ads, only the stories that seemed true were still persuasive.

You can find analogies by reading the news, history books, or just paying attention to common situations around you. Sometimes, analogies suddenly hit you like a bolt of lightning when you have been thinking about it long enough. When you have a complex or controversial idea, ask yourself "what does this remind me of?" Then brainstorm as many ideas as you can; both good and bad ideas.

3 Use an Image as a Metaphor

A metaphor is not a story, but like an analogy it can activate stories from our memory and just like analogies, metaphors make us see the new situation as similar to the metaphor, including the emotions and other characteristics of that metaphor.

As an example, I once attended a business presentation to learn about different licensing programs. Licensing is usually a very dry subject, riddled with legal rules and conditions; but this presenter, rather than show a table comparing the different licensing programs, showed three 7-11 soda cups; small, medium and the Big Gulp. We now had a familiar metaphor to use as a placeholder while the speaker explained the three licensing choices.

You can also invent a metaphor, such as describing how a new technology is frightening to customers. Cloud computing is a new concept among technology leaders, and they have concerns about what happens when someone else is in charge of their company's private data. To communicate this fear to an audience, you might create a picture of customers standing at the edge of a cliff and being invited to step out onto a fluffy cloud. This metaphorical image conveys, in ways words cannot, what a big step it is to step off solid ground and into the unknown. The audience creates their own internal story, aided by the hero (customer looking over the edge), conflict (uncertainty of stepping onto a cloud) and imagery.

Chapter 7: Sell Your Story With Credibility

Just about every company has at least one that golden satisfied customer. You think, if only the rest of the world knew what this customer knows.

To build your company’s credibility, capture and share the details of customer successes with all your audiences, from prospects to the media to potential investors.

But showcasing your customer successes goes beyond circulating a press release and adding the happy customer’s name to a list on your Web site. You must show others that you have customers who are not only satisfied with their experiences, but who are doing business better, faster or cheaper as a result.

Most of the nation’s top companies, like Microsoft, HP, Accenture and Oracle, highlight their star customers to build confidence in their product or service with their many different audiences.

They do this through customer case studies and success stories on how a particular customer is benefiting from their product or service. It’s the proof to back up the promises in their marketing messaging.

Here are some of the reasons why customer success stories are a critical component in sales, marketing, PR and brand building in today’s businesses, no matter size of the organization.

1. Credibility: People don’t believe everything they read, especially in marketing and advertising; however, there is tremendous value in the own, true words of your satisfied customers.

When they are willing to talk about their first-hand experiences with your company, product or service, and share the value they have seen, their words carry a lot more weight than any capabilities brochure ever can.

2. Feeding prospects’ need for information: Before others invest in your company, they do their homework to assess the potential return on investment even more so when budgets are tight and, the more costly the investment in terms of price and the role the product or service will play in the company, the more information and credibility they demand before making their decisions.

3. Mileage: Your success stories offer exceptional marketing, PR and sales mileage. Companies can use their case studies in a number of ways, depending on their marketing goals.

Some print them for sales calls and trade shows. Others make them available to analysts, potential partners and investors. Nearly all publish them on their Web sites. Some use them to pitch unique PR angles to the trade press.

One Bay Area software company continuously earns ink in the trade press by pitching its case studies to editors. The company also landed a spot in a major analyst’s top 10 list of best CRM implementations based on a case study.

4. The Mirror Effect: Potential customers want to see themselves and their concerns in your marketing. With case studies, you have the opportunity to show exactly how your product or service filled a need and solved a problem and offered a return on their investment.

For this reason, it makes sense to have cases that reflect all the different industries you are targeting. Show manufacturing prospects how other manufacturing customers benefited. Illustrate to a financial services prospect the ways in which your financial customers get value from your product or service.

So, when are case studies right in your marketing mix? Case studies are most appropriate if your product or service involves a significant investment by the client in terms of dollar value and time to implement and train (i.e. learning curve). They are also key when you are trying to build credibility with any new audience or vertical market.

All you need are happy customers who don’t mind talking about their experiences. Start-ups can feature their beta customers. More established companies should use their most satisfied, biggest name customers, if they agree to be featured.

When your customers have agreed to a case study, create interview questions that will hit on your key marketing messages. Develop the case study in a format that will attractively highlight your strengths and finally, get the client’s sign off to use the story publicly.

For maximum mileage, use the customer’s voice in every place that you can. With sceptical prospective customers, a little name dropping goes a long way.

Chapter 8: Use Inciting Incident to Heighten Conflict

In this chapter we will emphasizes the importance of conflict to create interest. In particular, we will talk about the Inciting Incident; the thing that puts the hero's world out of balance and starts the hero on the story's path; life was good, then the enemy attacked, now we are at war.

What is the Inciting Incident: why is this presentation necessary, what is at stake if we don't address it? Without the Inciting Incident, there’s little urgency for the audience to act. If you feel the presentation lacks urgency, focus on strengthening the Inciting Incident. The bigger the conflict, the hungrier the audience is to hear your recommendation. If your story lacks urgency, the number one thing you can do to improve it is to heighten the conflict.

How to Frame the Inciting Incident

1. In Moving Mountains: Or the Art and Craft of Letting Others See Things Your Way.

2. Nostalgia: Tell a story about the past and appeal to the audience’s pride for a glorious future.

“Seven years ago, the Jones brothers opened their first mobile phone manufacturing plant in Little Rock, Arkansas. Since then we have been selling mobile phones and have succeeded because of superior handset design. Now it’s time to write the next chapter of our company’s history.”

3. Gathering Storm: Recite a list of bad news items and bring them together, like gathering storm clouds, to create a sense of anxiety and impending doom.

“Sales are flat or declining in all regions, competitors are coming out with new handsets every month, our margins are being flattened by powerful channel partners. We need to do something different.”

4. Unpleasant Future: Talk with certainty about an unpleasant future if nothing is done.

“One thing is certain; we will continue to see steady and accelerating market share losses for the next five years unless we invest in breaking open new markets.”

5. Crossroads: Argue that you have reached a fork in the road and you must make a decision. This works best if you can refer to a real transition that is happening.

“We just acquired Cosmic Mobile and our newly merged company must decide how to make the most of our combined strengths. We have two choices…”

6. Failure: Refer to decisions in the past that haven’t worked out. Avoid blaming anyone in the room because people have a way of rejecting ideas that threaten their egos.

“We invested in a new line of handsets last year but sales have not taken off the way we expected. We need to learn from our mistakes and try something new.”

7. New Development: Talk about how something in the environment has changed which creates an opportunity that wasn’t possible in the past.

“Most phones have 3G wireless access, which wasn’t available even three years ago! We’ve always been a handset company. But why can’t our handsets come with access to online software downloads like games, ring tones and business applications?”

8. Evolution: Talk about how the world is changing and you must keep up.

“Five years ago we had three competitors. Today, we have nine. Five years ago email on the phone was a novelty. Today’s it’s a commodity. The industry has changed and so we must also change to stay ahead.”

9. Dare: Appeal to people’s pride by challenging them to meet a difficult-to-attain goal. You could include a competitor’s taunt or a comparison to a company’s past achievements.

“Our competitors say we are behind the times. Are we going to let them steal our share? Or are we going to fight?"

10. Pay Your Dues: Show how some rule has been broken and now you are obligated to make amends.

“Handset sales are flat or declining in all regions and our shareholders are rightly upset. Their expectation is steady growth. We need to present them with a new plan that will achieve what we promised them.”

11. Adventure: Create a desire to take on a risky new strategy by talking about the potential treasures, and also the dangers, versus the status quo.

“The mobile handset market is mature. We can settle in for steady three percent growth per year. Or, we can break out of the pack and invest in handsets with a completely new form factor. It’s tough to predict what form factors will catch on so we will have to be willing to experiment and have more failures than successes, but if we get it right, it will mean strong and steady growth and pulling ahead of the competition.”

12. The Great Dream: Paint a picture of a utopian future that is bold and visionary and builds a strong desire to get there by any means possible! This works best when expressed by a high-ranking officer and appeals to basic human emotions. Martin Luther King Jr.’s "I Have a Dream" speech is an example.

“I imagine a future where our handsets stand for pride of workmanship and rewards for a job well done. I imagine college graduates, filled with hopes and dreams and ambition, picking our phone because it says I have arrived. I have worked hard, I have overcome every challenge, and I have arrived.”

13. New Information: You tell people that what they thought was true, is not true, or you just learned some new information that changes everything.

“We’ve believed that a good price, good form factor and widespread distribution are all that is needed to be successful. Well, we were wrong. Every mobile handset maker has that. We need something more.”

This is not an exhaustive list, but a useful starting point as you think about how to approach your Inciting Incident. There are many ways to introduce an Inciting Incident and you should pay attention to other speakers to learn their methods for introducing a problem that makes the audience starved for the answer.

Chapter 9: Use Storytelling Throughout Your Presentation

The following techniques will help you breathe life into your presentations, make your presentations unpredictable and give each presentation a unique and compelling character.

Turn Facts into Quotes

Let's say you want to make a point on your slide that customer loyalty is low and there are a lot of customers thinking about switching to the competitor. Rather than make that a bullet point, put a picture or silhouette of your prototypical customer with a speech balloon that says "I like your company, but the other company is offering me a discount to give them a try. I am probably going to call them next time I have a problem." I have seen this technique used very effectively. In one example, a presenter was showing us the three benefits of cloud computing. But rather than just listing the benefits as text, she showed three photographs of customers with each talking about the benefit. I use this technique all the time.

3 benefits of cloud computing

1. Use Statistics You Audience Can Visualize

Most business slides are filled with charts and graphs. But data lacks the ability to create mental images, which is critical for the story listening effect. People can relate to things if they can imagine what they look like.

For instance, a scientists who had computed some mathematical formula so accurately, it was as accurate as "throwing a rock from the sun to the earth and getting within one-third mile of the target every time". Does this statistic stick? Can you realistically visualize throwing a rock from the sun to the earth? Can you visualize how close one-third mile is? Are you impressed by this level of accuracy?

But how about something more concrete: “It’s as accurate as hitting a golf ball the length of a football field and getting a hole-in-one every time.”

Both of these statistics state the same level of accuracy. But you can visualize one while you cannot visualize the other. It’s the same thing with your statistics. If you say “25% of our customers are dissatisfied” that’s just a statistic. It’s hard to visualize all of your customers and then divide them into two faceless groups. But it’s more compelling to explain your graph using language that’s easy to visualize, like “The average sales rep has 20 customers. This graph indicates that five of those customers can’t wait to do business with another company.”

2. Use Customer Anecdotes and Quotes

A friend of mine conduct market research for a living and talk to customers about what they like, what they don't like and how they make decisions. So she is full of customer quotes and stories when she finish a project and sit down to write the final report.

Consider using customer quotes and anecdotes to make your points come to life. You can argue with a fact but you can't argue when you hear it in the customer's own voice.

3. Add Pictures of People

We relate to people. Some brain scientists argue that there are actually three parts of the brain; the part that recognizes text, the part that recognizes pictures and the part that recognizes people. Eye-tracking studies show that when we look at a picture, we are drawn to pictures of faces. In fact, our gaze is momentarily frozen on the eyes of people in pictures.

That is why, whenever your slides talk about people, think about adding pictures of those people to the slide. I like to add silhouettes to represent the heroes in my presentations, rather than photos. It's easy to find photos on the internet but they are often copyright-protected. But you can easily make silhouettes by finding a photo online and then tracing it with PowerPoint's drawing tool. Then you can add interesting gradient fills, drop shadows and other finishing touches. You can re-use this image on other slides to remind the audience you are talking about the hero, not something abstract.

4. Use Immersive Pictures to Put Your Audience inside the Action

When you use pictures, try to find pictures that put your audience right inside the action. For instance, if you are showing a picture of a business meeting, show it from the point of view of one of the participants, rather than someone watching from the back of the room. Help your audience see the world through the hero's eyes.

5. Use Real Examples

One of the best presentations I ever saw involved someone who evaluated our product website by showing actual screenshots and demonstrating what the customer experience was like. It wasn't pretty. They started by saying "Okay, I am looking for an answer to a licensing question". Then they showed us how they selected links to click on, which lead to another page loaded with links. After five or six clicks, they were back at the page they started. The message was clear: our website was a disaster.

Rather than simply summarizing the main points, consider having the audience experience a situation with you and then sum up the points. For instance, if you want to illustrate how slick a competitor's mobile phone is, or how terrible your customer service is, don't just list the details in bullet points but show a picture or play the customer service recording.

6. Use Video and Audio

Some of the most memorable presentations I have seen have included video, especially of customers speaking. Executives love to hear things directly in the customer's own words. Now that mobile phones have built-in cameras, and camcorders are affordable, you should think about capturing more video for your presentations.

For instance, if you are going to a trade show, bring a camcorder to capture the competitor's booth. Going on a customer visit? Ask if you can interview the customer on film. Or, record customers shopping in your store to illustrate how they make decisions. I try to capture customer comments on video.

You can also capture customer’s thoughts as audio and insert it into your presentation. The one tip to keep in mind when you play audio or video; tell the audience what to pay attention to. For instance, point to the person at the end of the table and say "notice how this man keeps interrupting to disagree when the speaker complains about our product."

I'm not a believer in giving "formulas" for writing presentations as stories. The last thing we want is to attend presentations that are predictable and look like carbon copies of each other. Still, stories are powerful and you will want to develop your own style. I personally find that business presentations do not bend easily to fit a storytelling structure. But hopefully, this book will give you some practical storytelling techniques you can experiment with.

Chapter 10: Simple Science of Good Storytelling

Listening to a compelling story activates different parts of the brain, and luckily putting together a good tale isn't always that difficult.

A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting only the deeply personal and familiar.

People have always been fascinated by stories. While sitting around a fire, stories were the first and only way to share information, dreams, to entertain, inspire, and connect with others long before humans had any other forms of communication.

Not only is it commonly accepted that good storytelling beats other forms of communication hands down, there is scientific evidence that backs this up. When we receive information from a presentation on power point the language parts of our brain that decodes words into meaning becomes activated; however, when we listen to a story a lot more happens. Not only does the language processing part become activated, but other parts are used to process the experience of the story for ourselves. For example, descriptions for foods would activate our sensory cortex. Hearing a story puts much more of our brain to work than simply listening to a presentation. Not only can we stimulate various areas of the brain, but if the listener relates to a story, their brain’s can become synchronized with the storyteller’s. Emotions that the storyteller is experiencing can be shared with the listener.

Knowing the influence that telling a good story can elicit, an effective leader can use storytelling to not only share information, but connect with the people around him. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Keep it simple

"Less is more" is a basic rule of good storytelling. Avoid the complex, details as well as the use of adjectives and complicated nouns. Using simple language is the best way to activate regions of the brain that help us relate to the events in a story. Remember that you are not trying to impress, but to share an experience.

Always keep the audience in mind

To be effective, the audience must be able to relate to the story. Talking about an experience on a yacht would not be a good way for the CEO of an organization to connect with front line workers. This would likely have the opposite effect and distance his audience from him or her. Telling a heart-felt story about going fishing with a family member or a grandchild would be much more effective as this would be something many in the audience could identify with.

Use it as an opportunity to share something of yourself

Talking too much about ourselves directly can be viewed by others as being self-serving and turn others off. Skilful storytellers can weave information about themselves they want the audience to know, without appearing to be pretentious. Past stories of struggles, failures and overcoming barriers the storyteller has experienced are excellent sources that help the teller connect with the audience as everyone has experienced these in life. This will compel the teller to appear more human, more like one of them.

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Audiences love speakers who are able to laugh at themselves. Let yourself be vulnerable. Everyone has done something downright embarrassing and silly. Sharing these moments will resonate strongly with the audience.

Share sincerely felt emotions

I have attended numerous seminars from an individual that I have grown to admire and respect. At some point in the workshop, he always shares the story about how his brother and he almost lost their company. At a certain point he tears up as he shares his experience. You can feel the connection with the audience.

Even though I have heard the story a number of times I know he is sincere when he is sharing this and my respect for him increases. If you have strong feelings that come up when telling a story don’t try to suppress them. Of course you would need to manage your emotions as an uncontrolled display of crying or laughing would not create the desired result; however, showing some emotion increases trust and forms a bond between the speaker and the audience.

Chapter 11: Storytelling As a Communication Tool

Friday night’s opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics was simply stunning. The brains behind the vision was Danny Boyle, and he brought to life the story of Great Britain and Northern Ireland through costume, music, drama…. and parachuting James Bond and The Queen into the stadium. What a storyteller he is!

Storytelling has been around for thousands of years and we can probably all remember being captivated by stories in our childhood. Where the characters come to life and you ‘see’ the rich visual images that your imagination has fabricated. As we get immersed into a story, we begin to become part of it, our hearts are touched and we can ‘feel’ what the characters are ‘feeling’.

Crucial communication strategy

Storytelling is a crucial communication strategy and a powerful method for anyone to use. It is especially useful for leaders, for example when leading people into the future, taking them through change, influencing, unifying people towards a common purpose, transmitting values, motivating and inspiring. Incorporating stories into your messages help to develop a shared sense of identity.

Create a story and you are doing more than just ‘telling them’. You can listen to someone tell you to ‘to change’ but it becomes much more powerful if you listen to a story of someone who has gone through change. It creates an empathetic understanding, which enables you to learn and figure out the lesson yourself.

Storytelling brings hard data, facts and figures to life. It is difficult to connect, inspire and get people to act on just logic and reason alone. An emotional engagement results in greater buy-in. You cannot achieve that with a mere PowerPoint. Can you imagine any of the following being delivered in this way?

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends…. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up…” (Martin Luther King Jr)

“….and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (Abraham Lincoln)

“We shall go on to the end….we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields…”(Winston Churchill)

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” (John F Kennedy)

How do you make your story compelling? Here are 10 tips for telling a good tale.

Know your audience; what are their needs and interests, what issues matter to them? If you work in an organisation, listen, ask questions, collect evidence, engage with differing perspectives beforehand.

Connect by adding a human element to your story…connect the abstract, numbers, data to someone.

Keep it short, simple and relevant to the context.

Appeal to shared values and beliefs.

Be authentic and speak from the heart; your passion and sincerity will shine through.

Be inclusive and use ‘we’ and not ‘I’ , ‘they’, ‘them’.

Engross your audience with the use of metaphors, analogies and make use of specific details.

Bring your characters to life; appearance, occupation, department they work in …

Base your story on reality…otherwise you will get found out eventually.

Make use of repetition; memorable phrases or sound bites.

Language is a powerful tool through which leaders can influence. Armed with a good story you can inspire, encourage and energise.

Chapter 12: Communicating Through Storytelling

Storytelling is the most compelling way to communicate an event and specifically its results or impact. Whenever I conduct presentations or workshops, I always use storytelling as a way to get my point across and inevitably the moment I begin a story, you can hear a pin drop in the room. It's a sure way to get and keep people's attention rather than citing a multitude of facts, figures and details. Think of the people you listen to more readily; are they able to capture your undivided attention due to the storytelling nature of their communications?

Whether you are a leader trying to inspire and motivate others or a professional at any level aspiring to pursue your goals within or outside of your organization, the best way to influence others and talk about your accomplishments is through storytelling. The key is in capturing the essence of any event and turning it into a story. We may think of it as an art but in reality, there are three easy steps in crafting and communicating your story.

Three Easy Steps of Storytelling

1. Describe the situation: Set the stage by identifying the issue at hand.

2. Actions taken: Outline the specific actions you took to address the issue.

3. Results: Explain the ultimate impact and outcomes achieved.

We all want to make a difference and not only communicate more effectively but to be able to influence others in a way that yields results. Practicing the art of storytelling builds leadership capabilities by emphasizing your value-add while engaging others to follow your lead.

Articulating your vision, strategy and actions by way of stories is memorable and allows your listeners to be able to truly relate to you more effectively and intimately.

Crafting your story is half the equation and the other half is delivering your story.

Do you deliver with passion, enthusiasm and expression? We have all been told the following phrase at one point or another, "it wasn't what you said but how you said it" that made all the difference and can have either negative or positive consequences.

Some of the most successful leaders have left their mark with their stories. They may have created and built successful businesses, discovered cures for diseases, led our country during difficult trials and tribulations or brought joy and happiness into the lives of others. When we remember incredible people who have influenced others and/or accomplished great things, their legacy is left through the stories told about how they did it; the situation at hand, actions they took, and results they achieved.

Every day, at work, home or play, we encounter and experience these stories. How well do we exchange these stories when we replay the events of our day to others? The truth is we don't have to wait to leave our legacy to tell great stories! Every day we have opportunities to relay our accomplishments through the art of storytelling. Practicing this skill will yield strong results in our ability to influence others and leave lasting impressions.

Anyone who has children appreciates how impactful it is when you try to make a point to your kids through your own childhood stories. We can preach the dos and don'ts of life or tell them a story about a time when we learned a lesson the hard way especially when it was through a difficult experience! The same can be said about the workplace. We will be more successful communicating with our colleagues, peers, team members and managers when we articulate our message with a clear road map via storytelling.

Most importantly, a great story is only great when it is delivered with authenticity; keep it real, be sincere and genuine in order to build and earn trust!

What are some of your favourite stories that you have heard from individuals about themselves, their organizations and/or challenges and successes OR that you have told about your own accomplishments and/or aspirations? Please be sure to share them with others. As you do so, practice the art of storytelling in

your daily communications as you carry out your role and influence people every day to achieve your goals and objectives.

Chapter 13: Enhancing Internal Communications

People like to hear and read stories. It's how we record history and also entertain audiences. It's also a bonding time. For those of us who have little kids, reading stories at night is part of our family ritual.

So with storytelling aiding in history, entertainment and engagement, then why is it often left out of internal communications?

Usually there is one simple answer. Not enough time. Or at least that is the excuse we have all used. But I would argue that if you invest just a little bit more time and creativity, the reward for that communication will far exceed the extra time spent on it.

Below are seven elements of digital storytelling

1. Point of View: What is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the author?

2. A Dramatic Question: A key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered by the end of the story.

3. Emotional Content: Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the story to the audience.

4. The Gift of Your Voice: A way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context.

5. The Power of the Soundtrack: Music or other sounds that support and embellish the storyline.

6. Economy: Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer.

7. Pacing: The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses.

These were obviously outlined without employee communication directly in mind but I do think they fit nicely. . . with a few tweaks. Let's go through these one by one.

1. Point of View

In the world of employee communications, point of view provides relevancy to the reader. We know that rarely all communications are going to engage all of the audiences. But if you can properly frame the relevancy to the audience and get to the point of the story, you are on the right path.

2. A Dramatic Question

Getting to the point is important but so is telling the entire story and it's recommended that you leave the audience wondering throughout but with confidence in knowing the answer will be revealed in the end. Your employee communications should not read like a script from Lost.

3. Emotional Content

Work is emotional for people. It's where we spend the vast majority of our time and attention. So the content you are producing should tap into your co-worker's emotional investment at work. Connecting the audience to the story can and should be accomplished through emotions.

4. The Gift of Your Voice

This is where it really starts to become fun. Your voice is what will make your internal communication different from somebody else's. Whether that is inside your company or another organization. My writing would not read or sound anything like yours and that is a great thing; but you need to make the most of your "voice" and know how to make it work best for your company and employees.

5. The Power of the Soundtrack

In my world, this soundtrack would be full of Michael Jackson's songs. But in employee communication, I look at this more from the multimedia side of things.

If you are telling a story, is it best told in the form of a video or does video complement the story. There is a ton of opportunity here to tell your story in multiple means across multiple channels to engage your audience and it's easy. So do it.

6. Economy

This is a dirty word these days thanks to politics, but this focus is on size. Bigger is not always better and it is important to find just the right amount of content. If you are producing a video, you don't want it to be too short or too long. The same goes with a newsletter story or even a podcast.

7. Pacing

This could be the most difficult element of all in my opinion. It is frustrating as a reader or audience when there are lulls in a story. We get the same in movies. If you are working on a written piece, our advice is to simply read it out loud to yourself. You will get a sense for the pace of the story. If your story is a video or audio, just sit back and listen.

I tell people to never let facts get in the way of a good story and embellishment is a key component to a phenomenal story. The fish gets bigger with each telling; but this is not an element of internal storytelling. We all know better.

Chapter 14: Using Story to Make Better Decision

A good story can make or break a presentation or conversation. But why is that? When Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich started to market his product through stories instead of benefits and bullet points, sign-ups went through the roof.

In 1748, the British politician and aristocrat John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, spent a lot of his free time playing cards. He greatly enjoyed eating a snack while still keeping one hand free for the cards. So he came up with the idea to eat beef between slices of toast, which would allow him to finally eat and play cards at the same time. Eating his newly invented "sandwich," the name for two slices of bread with meat in between, became one of the most popular meal inventions in the western world.

What is interesting about this is that you are very likely to never forget the story of who invented the sandwich ever again. Or at least, much less likely to do so, if it would have been presented to us in bullet points or other purely information-based form.

For over 27,000 years, since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods.

Here is the science around storytelling and how we can use it to make better decisions every day.

We all enjoy a good story, whether it is a novel, a movie, or simply something one of our friends is explaining to us; but why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a narrative about events?

It is in fact quite simple. If we listen to a power point presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated. Scientists call this Broca's area and Wernicke's area. Overall, it hits our language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning and that is it, nothing else happens.

When we are being told a story, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

If someone tells us about how delicious certain foods were, our sensory cortex lights up. If it's about motion, our motor cortex gets active.

Metaphors like "The singer had a velvet voice" and "He had leathery hands" roused the sensory cortex. Then, the brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like "John grasped the object" and "Pablo kicked the ball." The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which coordinates the body's movements."

A story can put your whole brain to work and yet, it gets better.

When we tell stories to others that have really helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on them too. The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize.

Anything you have experienced, you can get others to experience the same. Or at least, get their brain areas that you have activated that way, active too.

Now all this is interesting. We know that we can activate our brains better if we listen to stories. The still unanswered question is; why is that? Why does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning?

The simple answer is this: We are wired that way. A story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect and that is exactly how we think. We think in narratives all day long, no matter if it is about buying groceries, whether we think about work or our spouse at home. We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation. In fact, personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations.

Now, whenever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences. That is why metaphors work so well with us. While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, or disgust.

In a great experiment, John Bargh at Yale found the following:

Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key experimental manipulation, the coffee was either hot or iced. Subjects then read a description of some individual, and those who had held the warmer cup tended to rate the individual as having a warmer personality, with no change in ratings of other attributes.

We link up metaphors and literal happenings automatically. Everything in our brain is looking for the cause and effect relationship of something we have previously experienced.

Let's dig into some hands on tips to make use of it.

Exchange giving suggestions for telling stories

Do you know the feeling when a good friend tells you a story and then two weeks later, you mention the same story to him, as if it was your idea? This is totally normal and at the same time, one of the most powerful ways to get people on board with your ideas and thoughts. A story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

The next time you struggle with getting people on board with your projects and ideas, simply tell them a story, where the outcome is that doing what you had in mind is the best thing to do. Storytelling is the only way to plant ideas into other people's minds.

The simple story is more successful than the complicated one.

When we think of stories, it is often easy to convince ourselves that they have to be complex and detailed to be interesting. The truth is however, that the simpler a story, the more likely it will stick. Using simple language as well as low complexity is the best way to activate the brain regions that make us truly relate to the happenings of a story. This is a similar reason why multitasking is so hard for us. Try for example to reduce the number of adjectives or complicated nouns in a presentation and exchange them with more simple, yet heartfelt language.

Quick last fact: Our brain learns to ignore certain overused words and phrases that used to make stories awesome. Scientists, in the midst of researching the topic of storytelling have also discovered, that certain words and phrases have lost all storytelling power.

Some scientists have contended that figures of speech like "a rough day" are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more.

This means, that the frontal cortex; the area of your brain responsible to experience emotions can't be activated with these phrases. It is something that might be worth remembering when crafting your next story.

Chapter 15: Storytelling As a Leadership Tool

I recently spoke to a good friend of mine, who is a consumer research executive, keynote speaker and corporate trainers. As Director of Consumer and Communications Research at a Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Andy has spent a career observing and researching what it takes to connect with, inspire, and motivate a change in human behaviour. Whether it’s the CEO’s speech to the board of directors, or the hallway conversation with your boss, his conclusion is this; the difference is storytelling.

In this interview, Andy talks about how to use storytelling as a leadership tool, ways that storytelling can make leaders more effective, why storytelling is important, and more.

How do companies make storytelling part of their leadership practices?

Some of the most successful companies in the world use storytelling very intentionally as a leadership tool. Organizations like Microsoft, Motorola, Berkshire Hathaway, Saatchi & Saatchi, Procter & Gamble, NASA, and the World Bank are among them. They do this in several ways.

Some have a high level corporate storyteller whose job it is to capture and share their most important stories. At Nike, in fact, all the senior executives are designated corporate storytellers.

Other companies teach storytelling skills to their executives (because they certainly aren’t learning it in business school). Kimberly-Clark, for example, provides two-day seminars to teach its 13-step program for crafting stories and giving presentations with them. 3M banned bullet points and replaced them with a process of writing “strategic narratives.” P&G has hired Hollywood movie directors to teach its senior executives how to lead better with storytelling and some of the storytellers at Motorola belong to outside improvisational or theatre groups to hone their story skills.

In what ways can storytelling help leaders be more effective?

The short answer is that storytelling is useful in far more situations than most leaders realize. The five most commonly used are probably these; inspiring the organization, setting a vision, teaching important lessons, defining culture and values, and explaining who you are and what you believe.

There are so many more. In my research for this book, I interviewed over 50 CEOs and executives at dozens of companies around the world and found them using stories in a much wider range of leadership challenges than I ever expected. For example, storytelling is useful when heavy influence is required like leading change, or making recommendations to the boss. But it’s also good for delicate issues like managing diversity and inclusion, or giving people coaching and feedback in a way that will be received as a welcome gift. It can help bring out more of people’s creativity, or help them rekindle the passion for their work. In all, I identified 21 common leadership challenges where storytelling can help.

So you don’t think I am naïve or overzealous about the topic, I am not suggesting storytelling should be used in every situation. For example, if you are trying to decide what your five-year strategy should be, what you need is a good strategist. Or if you are trying to decide how much money to pay to acquire your biggest competitor, what you need is a good financial advisor.

Once you have decided what your five-year strategy is going to be, and you need the 15,000 people that work at your company to line up behind it and deliver it, now you need a good story. Or once you have acquired your biggest competitor, and you need the 5,000 people that work there to stay, and not quit, now you need a good story. In short, storytelling isn’t always the right tool to help you manage things; but it’s exceptional at helping you lead people.

Why is the art of storytelling so important to business leaders?

You can’t just order people to “be more creative” or to “get motivated” or to “start loving your job.” The human brain doesn’t work that way; but you can lead them there with a good story. You can’t even successfully order people to “follow the rules” because nobody reads the rulebook; but people will read a good story about a guy who broke the rules and got fired, or a woman who followed the rules and got a raise and that would be more effective than reading the rulebook anyway.

For leaders that are having difficulty with storytelling, what would you recommend for them?

First, the biggest barrier to telling stories at work is not having any stories to tell therefore you have to start collecting your own stories. So pay attention. When something teachable and memorable happens to you, write it down. A great story is about to be born.

Second, there are seven elements I advocate to turn a good story into a great story.

1. Start with the context. Ever heard someone excitedly launch into a story and soon the listeners are scratching their heads? The teller stops and says something like, “Oh, wait, I guess I should back up a bit and explain why all this happened. You see, my boss had just gotten fired, and so . . .” . That is the sign that the storyteller skipped the context. If they are lucky, the confused look on their audience’s faces will remind them to go back and tell the context. If they are not lucky enough to notice, their story is doomed to mediocrity.

2. Use metaphors and analogies. A well-chosen metaphor can add to the impact of a story, or replace a story entirely, because there are already entire stories attached to those few words in your audience’s brain, waiting for you to tap into.

3. Appeal to emotion. Studies show people make decisions largely based on emotional reasons, and then rationalize them afterwards so they feel logical. Great leaders know this intuitively, and aren’t afraid to lead with both sides of their brain.

4. Keep it tangible and concrete. Avoid mind-numbing vague generalities and weasel words typical of management speak today. Keep stories specific and concrete and they will be more engaging and memorable.

5. Include a surprise. Surprises not only get your audience to sit up and pay attention, they make your story more memorable. Studies show surprise triggers the release of adrenaline in the brain that heightens memory formation.

6. Use a narrative style appropriate for business. Be concise and to the point. Business narratives should be 3-5 minutes long. Leave the long soliloquy for your first screenplay.

7. Move beyond telling your audience a story to creating a scene or event for them to participate in. While a good story is a close second, experience has always been the best teacher. If you can turn your story into an event that your audience takes part in, it will be even more effective. Don’t just tell them about when you found out by accident that your competitor’s product worked better than yours. Stage an impromptu situation for them to discover the same thing.

Does storytelling start at the top or from the ground up and why?

Everyone, of course, tells stories. The stories that get retold over and over become a part of an organization’s culture and heritage; can come from the CEO or a new hire, or anyone in between. If the stories being told by the junior employees are good ones, that is great. If they are not, however, you have a problem. You can’t just issue a company policy for employees to stop sharing stories and expect that to take care of it. You have to replace those bad stories with good ones.

People will tell stories about you and your company whether you want them to or not. Fortunately, you can help choose which ones they tell. The way you do that. You tell them first!

Chapter 16: Why Leadership Storytelling is Important

Storytelling is a key leadership technique because it’s quick, powerful, free, natural, refreshing, energizing, collaborative, persuasive, holistic, entertaining, moving, memorable and authentic. Stories help us make sense of organizations.

Storytelling is more than an essential set of tools to get things done; it is a way for leaders; wherever they may sit to embody the change they seek. Rather than merely advocating and counter-advocating propositional arguments, which lead to more arguments, leaders establish credibility and authenticity through telling the stories that they are living. When they believe deeply in them, their stories resonate, generating creativity, interaction and transformation.

Storytelling is often the best way for leaders to communicate with people they are leading. Why? It is inherently well adapted to handling the most intractable leadership challenges of today; sparking change, communicating who you are, enhancing the brand, transmitting values, creating high-performance teams, sharing knowledge, taming the grapevine, leading people in to the future.

Storytelling translates dry and abstract numbers into compelling pictures of a leader’s goals. Although good business cases are developed through the use of numbers, they are typically approved on the basis of a story that is, a narrative that links a set of events in some kind of causal sequence.

Storytelling is a crucial tool for management and leadership, because often, nothing else works. Charts leave listeners bemused. Prose remains unread. Dialogue is just too laborious and slow. Time after time, when faced with the task of persuading a group of managers or front-line staff in a large organization to get enthusiastic about a major change, storytelling is the only thing that works.

Storytelling can inspire people to act in unfamiliar, and often unwelcome, ways. Mind-numbing cascades of numbers or daze-inducing PowerPoint slides won’t achieve this goal. Even logical arguments for making the needed changes usually won’t do the trick; but effective storytelling often does.

Storytelling works better than the “Just tell ‘em” approach in most leadership situations. Management fads may come and go, but storytelling is a phenomenon that is fundamental to all nations, societies and cultures, and has been so since time immemorial.

Narrative is the instrument of continuing creativity, a power that inexorably propels us forward into the future, the unknown, building new worlds and structures.

Storytelling is part of the creative struggle to generate a new future, as opposed to conventional management approaches that search for virtual certainties anchored in the illusive security of yesterday.

Narrative can help transform even big organizations through the unanticipated power of the imagination. It has the capacity to change tangible, hard realities through no more than airy nothings, mere gauzy thoughts.

Narrative champions freedom, interaction, and organic growth. It operates beyond the scope of simple, linear logic. It is as interested in the unknown as in the known.

Narrative is a key tool for leadership, because it helps us deal with organizations as living organisms that need to be tended, nurtured and encouraged to grow. It thrives on inspiration rather than administration, fostering change rather than stasis.

Storytelling liberates innovation, by generating the energy needed to change.

Narrative helps us make sense of a world that is rapidly mutating, as compared to conventional management, which is more suited to a activities that are stable, linear and predictable.

Narrative is interested in the next generation of change, not just an extrapolation of the present. It copes with swirling, new, emergent phenomena and

phase changes that by definition escape the predictable frame of yesterday’s conceptions.

Narrative helps us cope with a future that is evolving unpredictably. Conventional management techniques miss the fact that we cannot measure tomorrow when we don’t know what it will involve.

Narrative is the natural instrument of change, because it draws on the active, living participation of individuals. It dwells in the experience of the people who act, think, talk, discuss, chat, joke, complain, dream, agonize and exult together, and collectively make up the organization. By contrast, conventional management focuses on lifeless elements; mission statements, formal strategies, programs, procedures, processes, systems, budgets, assets; the dead artefacts of the organization.

Narrative is a tool that gives privileged access to the living part of an organization, and so can be used to elicit decisions to create organizational artefacts and generate support for them.

Narrative is a tool for the instigators of change, who aim at continuing transformation and the creation of a fruitful tomorrow. Those whose goal is merely that of control will find that storytelling is not a very useful or important tool. For them, the important thing is accommodation to the preoccupations of a well-behaved yesterday.

Storytelling is more than just a tool. It is beyond any implementation; almost a requirement of being alive. Insofar as it has anything to offer, it generates fresh depth and breadth of perception. It enables us to surmount a humdrum world where everything makes sense and is logical, and get to that realm where deeper meaning is revealed.

When we hear a story that touches us profoundly, our lives are suffused with meaning. As listeners, we have transmitted to us that which matters. Once we make this connection, once a sense of wonder has come upon us, it does not last long, and we inevitably fall back into our daze of everyday living, but with the difference that a radical shift in understanding may have taken place.

A story is something that comes from outside; but the meaning is something that emerges from within. When a story reaches our hearts with deep meaning, it takes hold of us. Once it does so, we can let it go, and yet it remains with us. We do not weary of this experience.

Once we have had one story, we are already hungry for another. We want more, in case it too can transmit the magic of connectedness between the self and the universe.

Through narrative, we can let go the urge to control, and the fear that goes with it, learning that the world has the capacity to organize itself, recognizing that managing includes catalyzing this capacity, as well as sparking, creating, energizing, unifying, generating emergent truths, celebrating the complexity, the fuzziness and the messiness of living.

Chapter 17: Why Stories are Powerful

Let's begin with a story that will put this in perspective: In 1983, in an alley outside a grubby pub in Boston, Frank Johnson drew his fishing knife and faced the barroom bully Alan Caldwell. The much taller and muscled Caldwell lunged at Johnson and the four-inch knife blade punctured through the skin and muscle of Caldwell's abdomen and ended his life.

At the ensuing murder trial, witnesses were interviewed and the blurry events of that night slowly came into focus. Johnson was speaking to a woman in the bar and Caldwell became upset, Johnson left the bar but came back later that night with the knife, Caldwell challenged Johnson to step outside, some witnesses saw Caldwell draw a razor but others denied this. The crucial question; was it murder, or self-defence?

The jury heard the evidence and finally arrived at a decision: 63% agreed it was murder.

This was no ordinary trial. It was a mock trial staged by researchers, with a jury made up of university students learning the persuasive power of storytelling. The trial was repeated, but this time, the prosecuting attorneys presented their argument in a story format and when the jury returned, 78% agreed it was murder. The storytelling format made the argument more convincing.

The trial was repeated a third time. This time, the defence used a storytelling approach. Now, when the jury returned, only 31% were convinced it was murder. The results were sobering; whichever lawyer used a storytelling approach, the jury was swayed toward agreeing with their evidence.

Stories are powerful: they can convict a man to prison or set him free and what about you; do you have ideas you want your audience to understand and agree with? Can a story be the difference between a successful and a failed recommendation?

How Mercy Corps Used the Storytelling Effect

Non-profits have also discovered the power of storytelling. In September 2007, the non-profit group Mercy Corps wanted to know if better storytelling would increase donations. The director sent a different email to two groups of supporters. In the first email, the director wrote about the work Mercy Corps was doing and encouraged people to donate. The email started with a message about the organization's work.

"It's been a busy summer for our emergency response teams. Near-record monsoons in parts of Pakistan, Nepal and India. Torrential rains in central Sudan. Crop-killing floods in North Korea and a massive earthquake in Peru."

In the second email, the director told a story about a girl named Giselle and how her life was improved because of the group's work. This email began.

"Young Giselle fled the violence sweeping the Democratic Republic of Conga twice last week. On Monday, her family hastily abandoned their farm when soldiers arrived."

I will tell you that the first email generated one donation for every 3,000 emails and what do you think was the result for the second email? Twice as good? Five times as good? Go ahead, look away from this book and guess. How much more effective was the second email?

The answer: One of every 142 emails was answered with a donation; twenty-three times more effective than the director's first email.

Call it the "storytelling effect". Study after study by educators, lawyers, non-profit organizations, advertisers and other groups find we are naturally drawn to stories. Stories are found to make ideas easier to understand, easier to agree with and easier to remember later.

Stories are persuasive, and so it's no wonder that in boardrooms and ballrooms across the world, speakers are thinking hard about how to combine storytelling with their PowerPoint presentations.

Have you ever wondered how you can make your presentations more dynamic? Do you want to relate to your audience so that your message is more memorable? Maybe you want to add more drama or humour to your presentations. If so then storytelling is definitely the way to go.

Take a moment and think back to the last time you read a book that you simply couldn’t put down? How did you feel? Do you remember the story? The characters? Now think about a time you were inspired to work hard or keep going after reading an autobiography or success story? That feeling of exhilaration and energy you felt is the result of a powerful story. In a business context, leaders can use these types of stories to educate, engage, inspire and encourage employees. You know your story hit the mark when it helps your audience connect the dots between the rational and emotional in situations where they might not otherwise be engaged or interested.

Stories help people cope with change

Change is an inevitable part of work life. Whether good or bad most change brings some level of discomfort to the workplace because the unknowns of change are perceived as bad. When things change a story can help people understand that change doesn’t always mean doom and/or loss. By relating to their fears, uncertainties, confusion and anger you can help your audience craft a new more positive version of their stories. When crafting a story about change don’t just ask what happened. Ask yourself “what will make people understand the change?“, “how did change affect the character in the story?“, “how can I illustrate that the change wasn’t the end of the world?”

Stories get rid of the FUDs

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUDs) controls the average person more than they will admit. Fear of failure, rejection, ridicule or the unknown keeps many people from pursuing things they would likely find success in. When we feel afraid our instinctual reaction is to run or fight. We naturally want to do whatever it takes to preserve our sense of ‘safety’. A story in these situations can help people to fight their natural instincts by presenting a character who overcomes their fear without suffering a great loss. Many times the characters in these stories are far better off after facing down their fear.

Stories help make the complex simple

If you look at one of my presentations during my corporate days; you will see I am not a fan of the ‘stuffed data’ slide. I learned a long time ago that the majority of people simply tune you off when you drone on about data item after data item. We live in a complex world that has taught us to incorrectly rely heavily on facts and figures when communicating meaning in the modern workplace. The rule of thumb here? No one cares about your facts and figures as much as you do. Throw them out in favour of a story that explains what those numbers mean and why that meaning is important. A simple, memorable universal truth story about a person who solves a problem by taking a certain course of action will always serve you better.

Stories persuade where facts can’t

We live in a world where the best storytellers get what they want. They understand that the stories we hear and tell daily influence us on a very deep level. They also know that relying solely on organizational, product or technical knowledge isn’t enough in today’s complex business environments. When faced with an opportunity to persuade, if you can’t make it meaningful for your audience, what you talk about doesn’t make much difference. Stories will work because when compared with other persuasion methods, they allow your audience to come to the desired conclusion on their own.

Stories produce mental images

Visual communication is a fundamental part of human history. Indigenous cultures used images to communicate and record history. You see it in primitive cave painting, the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the notes and sketches of such great thinkers as Leonardo Da Vinci. This tradition has helped shape language, history and culture around the world. On top of that, a full 80% of our brain is dedicated to visual processing. If you can find a way to activate your audience’s imagination and create a strong mental image, the impact of your story will be multiplied. Visual imagery can help capture ideas and significantly improve the ability to learn and comprehend a subject. Start using visual words like imagine, think, picture, or when was the last time.

Chapter 18: Storytelling and Small Business

In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith proposed the written word as one of the three great human inventions; but long before humans were writing we were telling stories and these stories told, memorized and retold over millennia became the headwaters of human development. We humans love to tell stories almost as much as we love to listen to them.

Another thing that is older than writing is the marketplace. Long before Madison Avenue ad copy, merchants were verbalizing the value and benefits of their wares. Surely early business storytelling was the origin of modern selling skills.

In 1965, Intel's co-founder Gordon Moore made an observation that became Moore’s Law: “Computer processing power doubles every two years.” But in his 1982 watershed book Megatrends, futurist John Naisbitt posed this paradoxical prophecy: “The more high tech we create, the more high touch we will want.”

So what does all of this mean? It means that in a time of rapidly compounding technology generations, the most successful businesses will consistently deliver high touch to customers with one of our oldest traits; the telling of a story.

Here is Blasingame’s Three Cs of Business Storytelling:

Connect: Use stories to connect with prospects and convert them into customers.

Convey: Use stories to convey your expertise, relevance, humanity and values.

Create: Use stories to create customer memories that compel them to come back.

Storytelling is humanity in words and since small businesses are the face and voice of humanity in the marketplace, we have a great advantage in the Age of the Customer. No market sector can execute the Three Cs of Business Storytelling to evoke powerful human feelings more than small businesses and regardless of how they are delivered, stories don’t have to be long.

Write this on a rock…The Holy Grail of storytelling is when someone else tells your business’s story to others.

The best stories are told with a passion and conviction that makes them seem unique. In other words, the story may or may not be all that great; but when told by someone who has mastered storytelling, any story sounds good. Small businesses have the ability to be master storytellers, especially when they are enthusiastic about what they can do for their clients. Important to note is the potential for small businesses to attract as many readers as any large business. Internet level the playing field, so to speak…and small businesses can tell good stories as well as large companies.

Small businesses may target different markets than large corporations, but both have the same goal. Companies of all sizes want to ensure customer satisfaction while earning revenue. So, how do internet fit into the mix? Well, for one thing, internet help drive potential clients to your website. Businesses of all sizes find a company's website is a powerful inbound marketing tool. Small businesses may especially like one of the primary advantages storytelling offers; it increases their chances of being found online.

Small business have stories to tell, too!

Every business has a story behind it and people are waiting to hear yours. Ready to get started? There are infinite numbers of ways for a small business to tell its story through their website. These are a few to get you started.

1. The person or people behind your business can use the company's website as a way to introduce themselves to the world, or at least the Internet. This means the people who visit your website get to know you, as well as your brand. Tell your audience as much or as little about yourself as you like, but understand you represent your business.

2. A good story captivates, then holds its audience’s attention from beginning to end. Your business can

use effective storytelling to persuade and motivate your target market into learning more about your products and solutions. Use keywords to draw potential clients to your website, then follow through with moxie. When your message entices and educates rather than blasts or self-promotes you have a better chance of gaining and closing leads.

3. When a story really resonates within its readers, their first impulse is to share it with as many people as possible. Social media makes sharing easier than ever before so good (and some not-so-good) stories are spread far and wide, all in the blink of an eye. Create an experience around social media, and you will get more traction than you could imagine.

4. A good story also makes readers and audience feel connected, which is a good step towards developing positive relationships with them. Positive relationships help businesses gain positive reputations and the potential for increased business opportunities.

One may ask is your small business ready for storytelling?

When you start thinking of your website as a place for sharing your stories with potential clients as opposed to a way to blast your message, then you are going in the right direction. Although storytelling doesn’t come easily for everyone, it is not impossible. The only way to find out is to give it a shot. Your audience will let you know how you are doing.

Chapter 19: Winning Hearts and Minds

A leader inspires people to follow a new vision. But how does he do it? Often by using compelling stories to illustrate challenges. This is far more efficient than traditional information sharing.

How do you build a good story?

The idea that a leader should have excellent communication skills is not ground-breaking, but what makes communication efficient? Elaborate rhetoric? Good arguments backed up with facts and figures? Is this enough when leaders need to engage people in a new direction, when they have to build trust and inspire positive attitudes?

Just think about all the information circulated in offices on daily basis. How much do people remember, assuming they have time to process the details? Why do people often find meetings and speeches boring and tiresome? Brain research shows that we remember information much better when it is embedded in a context which addresses our emotions. If we receive essentially fact-oriented information, our brain gives up quickly. Getting information through narration stimulates us to remember the message more easily. That is how successful advertising works. Think of the adverts you love and like to talk about. For example, there is probably a good story behind the Coca-Cola web video “Happiness Machine” which went viral or behind the Nespresso series “Like a star”, which featured George Clooney.

Good stories touch our emotions

Powerful stories captivate both the minds and hearts of the people listening. Scheherazade, the storyteller from the One Thousand and One Nights, only survived because she began telling the Sultan an exciting story and he longed to hear what happened next. She managed to inspire him every evening and so her fate was postponed again and again. After telling one thousand stories, Scheherazade finally told the Sultan that she had no more tales to tell him. Having been made wiser and kinder by her tales, the Sultan spared her life, and made her his wife.

Stories are a good vehicle for illustrating change. That is why organisational storytelling is also a worthwhile tool for leaders. Storytelling can help motivate employees to achieve more than they thought possible, challenge the status quo and leverage emotions. By storytelling, leaders are not, of course, able to eliminate uncertainty or fear, but they can gain people’s trust and understanding by using and living compelling stories.

What is your company’s story?

Every company is full of stories about successes, innovations and unexpected turnarounds. If you want to find your company’s story, listen to the stories people tell you. Conduct interviews about positive experiences your employees have had and you will hear a lot of different stories, anecdotes and jokes. You will get to know how the company is perceived in your people’s minds, which values exist, and what goals are pursued. That way, you can build your corporate company story.

Evelyn Clark, president of Clark & Company, states that many American business leaders use stories to recognise employees who have been doing an extraordinarily good job. By highlighting employees’ accomplishments, leaders convey the organisation’s values and show how those values are being brought to life within the entire organisation. The employees who are complimented know that their efforts are appreciated, and others understand what it takes to be successful.

Another possibility is that the leader could use his own stories as an example to motivate other people to move on in their personal and professional development. A great example of how to motivate people to be passionate about life is Steve Jobs’ famous speech at Stanford University, in which he told three compelling stories about himself. We will look at this in detail later in this book.

Successful storytelling needs authenticity

If leaders really want to engage people through storytelling, they have to meet the following preconditions.

1. The leader must be perceived by his people as authentic and credible. If he is not, the message of his story is not perceived as credible either.

2. Leaders need to live the stories that they tell through their daily actions and interactions within the organisation. Their words must match their actions and their actions must match their words.

3. Storytelling may be a one-off event, for example as part of meetings or informal conversations, but the actions supporting the story are part of the leaders’ everyday behaviour. Whatever leaders say, people won’t believe it unless the leaders are actually doing it.

4. Leaders need to be sensitive to people’s needs. It’s important to know when to tell a particular story and lift people’s spirits. If team moral is low and a leader introduces a bright vision at the wrong time, a negative or even cynical response is triggered.

How good stories work

1. Keep it short and simple so that the story is easy to understand, remember and retell.

2. Find a creative, original angle. You don’t have to tell things in chronological order. For example, you can use flashbacks or start the story in the future.

3. Link the story to current events or to something a lot of people are thinking about at the time.

4. Decide which idea/value you really want to accentuate.

5. Start with an emotional initial point which leads directly to the problem.

6. Present a main character who is the most important figure for identification.

7. Clear message: Not only should the central theme be clear, but the main message should be obvious too.

8. Live your story. This is essential as you are the key communicator of the message!

More and more leaders have started to realise that boring PowerPoint packs with graphs and numbers have lost their impact. Leaders can only be leaders when people are willing to follow. People are willing to follow when the leader is able to depict a future world people want to belong to. An appealing and engaging story is probably the most effective way of depicting that future. Most leadership programmes and programmes focusing on partnership and branding pay attention to the ability to create, practise and fine-tune this personal, authentic story.

Chapter 20: Find Your Stories

Picture yourself in this situation; someone turns to you and says, “Maureen was supposed to do some opening remarks to start the meeting but she can’t be here, can you jump in and get us started?” You have thirty minutes to prepare. What would you do?

If it were me, I did look for a story. A good story will easily fill 3 or more minutes, and will be engaging and fun for you and your audience; but how do you quickly find a story that also matches the theme of the meeting?

You will be considered a genius if you can find a story that introduces the theme or agenda of the meeting or conference. If the theme is customer service, look for a story about a great or lousy customer service interaction. If the theme is more amorphous, like Moving Into the Future, look for a story where you or someone you know left something behind and moved into a new job, city or relationship.

Quick Tricks for finding a story.

1. Look Close to Home

First, look close to home; your home. What happened to you that morning from the time you awoke until the moment you arrived at the meeting? If you have a family and kids, you may find something humorous or applicable that happened at breakfast or while getting everyone out of the door. If you are single, maybe something happened on the way to work. Sometimes your story is right in front of your face, like the fact that you found out, 30 minutes before the meeting, that you needed to step in at the last minute. In other words, the first place to look is within the preceding couple of hours. Look close to home.

2. Look to the News

What is happening in the news? If the meeting is being held locally, focus on local events. If this is a meeting at a remote location, focus on national news. Avoid the political or religious news and go for the entertainment or human-interest stories. Also avoid sports news, even if it’s about your local team. Not everyone is into sports. If there is something happening that has the attention of the nation or the world (like hurricane Katrina or the Olympics) consider how that topic may fit your theme. Look to the news.

3. Pick an Address and a Year

Pick an address and a year. Sometimes, looking back over your entire life to find a story is difficult, especially when your past began when Harry Truman was President of the United States. You need a place to start. Your previous home addresses can be a great springboard to remind you of the stories of your life. When I think about the house I was living in when I was 27, all kinds of memories come back to me. The address and the year remind me of what car I was driving, my job at the time, my girlfriend, and as I remember any one of those specifics, I can remember good times, bad times, the obstacles I encountered and the lessons I learned. Pick an address and a year.

4. Pick a Project

Pick an assignment or project you worked on. Use your imagination to remember a job where you worked on a specific assignment or project. Think about who was in charge of the project, the other members of the team, the goals and objectives and what happened along the way. Remember the highs and lows, the successes and failures and what you learned. Create a story from your work experience. Pick an assignment or project.

5. Pick an Adventure

Think about a vacation or an adventure. Nothing stimulates your audience’s imagination like taking them on an imaginary excursion to a distant location, especially if it’s tropical or exotic. I am not talking about your trip to Tulsa for the holidays, unless it was really hilarious! Give me Spain or Florida. Take me to China or Thailand. Hawaii is okay, but Australia is better.

I have got a great story about looking for a place to stay in one of the Greek Island and being convinced by an old man on a mule to follow him way up a hill to a look at a room he had to let. Can you see it? White stonewashed houses with Mediterranean blue tile roofs glistening in the sunlight. Maureen and I are lugging our suitcases up a steep hill in 95-degree heat,

following an old man on a donkey. This is good stuff. Pick a vacation or adventure.

The good news is and I can’t believe I am telling you this that not all stories have to be meticulously crafted and performed.

Chapter 21: Use Your Own Stories As an Example

"You've got to find what you love," Steve Jobs

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, Former CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

"I am honoured to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I have ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out and here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it and much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation; the Macintosh a year earlier, and I had just turned 30 and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down; that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me; I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love and so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance and Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love and that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it and, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like; "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" and whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I have ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure; these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumour on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumour. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there and yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it and that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma; which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along; it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish and I have always wished that for myself and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

This story clearly inspired me then and today.

Chapter 22: The Iceberg Moment

Life is filled with obstacles and challenges. No matter how much you plot and plan, stuff happens that you think is not supposed to happen.

Your car breaks down; a cop gives you a speeding ticket; or your boss micro-manages everything that you do. These are obstacles that prevent us from doing what we were intending to do. A perfect example of an obstacle is what the people of Australia experience every year. wildfires and flood. In Australia, over 500 people lost their homes and everything they owned in Forest Fire and Flood every year. We hold them in our hearts with compassion and understanding.

Obstacles and challenges are the foundations of storytelling.

Fires and other obstacles are what stories are made of. Without the bad guy, James Bond is just a handsome guy in a tuxedo. Without aliens from outer space, the Avengers are just a bunch of weirdos in Halloween costumes and without the Iceberg, the Titanic is simply a story about a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic.

We seem to learn more when things go wrong than when things go right, it’s important to know how to portray the Iceberg Moment in your story.

The Iceberg Moment is the turning point in your story.

It’s the moment when you encounter the obstacle. Up until that moment, everything is going according to plan. Consider the movie, Titanic.

The movie starts with the ship in port. People are arriving in fancy carriages, luggage is being hoisted onto the decks and Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is playing poker.

Once the ship leaves port, it’s a big party. Everyone is having fun and Kate Winslet and Leonardo are falling in love. Everything is going according to plan until the Iceberg Moment. At that moment, the story takes a dramatic turn and people react.

In reality, no matter what the situation is, when we encounter the obstacle or challenge in our lives, we react. The first level of reaction is usually emotional, anger, frustration, shock, sadness, denial, resentment, disbelief, etc. In the movies, it usually involves a close-up.

The close-up in a movie is used to focus on the character processing this new information and deciding what to do about it. A close-up can last from five to ten seconds. It is filled with emotion.

The Iceberg Moment in your story should start with an emotional reaction as well. The technique for this moment is called Hold the Moment.

The Iceberg Moment is a stop sign.

It’s as if you are driving across town to an appointment and you are hitting green light after green light. When you encounter the obstacle or challenge, however, it’s a red light. Everything stops for a few seconds. There are no words or explanation. You simply stop and react.

Think about one of your stories right now. Think about the time leading up to the obstacle or challenge. If you have constructed your story correctly; you started off on your journey with every expectation that things would go according to plan and then the plan changed. Something that you couldn’t have foreseen happened: the obstacle, crisis or challenge.

If you can recall that moment in time, you probably froze for a few brief seconds. Time stood still during that moment as you processed the situation. You probably experienced one of the emotions listed above.

Your story pivots on this moment. It changes from an ordinary story about an ordinary day to a story about a challenging day; a day with an important lesson learned; because this is the pivotal moment in your story, you need to understand where it is and what to do to portray it.

The other day I saw a woman riding her bike. She slipped on some loose pebbles and fell hard on the ground. When she hit the ground she just laid there for a few seconds without moving. It was an Iceberg Moment. After about five seconds, she moved. She slowly got up and checked herself and her bike for damage. Those five seconds on the ground were a full stop. If the woman were telling the story, this would be the place for her to hold the moment.

The Iceberg Moment turns your story around.

After the Titanic crashed into the iceberg, the story changed. It became a story of survival. For the rest of the story, we witnessed people in distress. Some peoples’ responses were honourable and noble while others’ were selfish and mean. The story leading up to the Iceberg Moment introduced the characters and their relationships. The story after the Iceberg Moment revealed what kind of people they really were.

It’s a fact; we learn more about how to deal with life when things go wrong than when things go right. Develop the stories from your life where things got tense, messy or downright disastrous. When you encounter the pivotal Iceberg Moment, Hold the Moment to increase the power of your story.

Chapter 23: Corporate Narrative

21st century demands that companies present themselves in new ways. For example, old school product marketing, based on the exhibition of features and functions, no longer works or is even likeable in any way. It now demands something akin to "a day in the life." How are the products going to affect the outcomes I am looking for as my day proceeds? In other words a narrative, a story.

Entertainment and corporate communications have intertwined for as long as there have been things to sell and stories to tell. Marketing has traditionally shown consumers what they want the consumer to see, but pervasive communications; the explosion of multi-directional media channels has made this model obsolete. The age of broadcast is clearly dead. We are not just dealing with an audience, but an audience of audiences; people whose collective voice can have far greater power than any single television commercial or even advertising campaign.

It’s not news to anyone when I say we have entered a time where communications have become ubiquitous, and we live amongst a generation of hyper-connected individuals. The challenge we face is how to navigate across the chaotic ocean of pervasive communications. With the abundance of information useful and otherwise available to today’s consumers it’s becoming more difficult to make an impact and be heard above the noise.

This requires new techniques and tools. The solution lies in the substance of the corporate narrative.

The notion of storytelling outside of the context of entertainment has emerged. Words like “engagement” and “brand narrative” have entered the vernacular and are staples in the lexicon of those tasked with communicating for businesses and organizations. New digital and social media platforms have raised the bar and raised the stakes in how businesses communicate with their ecosystem.

Conversations surrounding brand have moved out of the marketing department. All the stakeholders of an organization customers, employees, investors, partners, vendors, and yes, even competitors are telling some aspect of the story of the brand.

The issue? They are not always talking about the same thing.

When there are different interpretations of what a company stands for, there is danger in generating contradiction and dissonance. The danger of dissonance increases exponentially when you introduce these conflicting messages into today’s super-mediated environment.

In an interview, a CEO makes an off the cuff comment about how his apparel was not created for fat and ugly people, and that message comes back to bite him in the ass on The Ellen Show years later. One of your customer service reps makes an untoward remark during a complainer’s call, and suddenly hundreds of people are chirping about it on Twitter.

In these cases, neither the CEO or customer service representative was committed to a corporate narrative designed to include a foundational philosophy that would have provided clear, forthright messaging in response to such mistakes, or perhaps even prevented them.

So how do you get everyone on the same page? The corporate narrative provides the framework. It is a story that embodies the essence of your business in action, comprised of more than just products and services, and more even than your mission statement. It’s what your company stands for, and how it’s making the world a better place. It’s a story that comprises your strengths and your weaknesses.

We identified the following elements that allow for the development of a corporate narrative.

The company’s vision, ethos and founding principles.

The company’s messages, themes and aspirational elements.

What the company is giving to the world; your products, services and your actions.

The Challenges of Corporate Narrative

In the pervasive media era we have powerful new platforms that influence how and what we communicate. Businesses need to evolve their communication model to meet the challenges presented by these platforms. Three important challenges we face include:

Glass Houses

People Will Talk

Conducting the Orchestra

1. Glass Houses

The Challenge: How do you align company stakeholder actions and messages with your corporate ethos?

Today, brands live in a world of unprecedented transparency. Where the old definition of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) was sufficient for sales and marketing messaging, the new definition of FUD (Full Unwanted Disclosure) presents challenges to the 20th century “broadcast” model of communications. Until recently it was fair to expect that, as a brand, you could make unilateral decisions about what you shared about your organization and push it through managed channels. Today, you have many more people communicating authorized or not on behalf of your brand and, as we have seen in many high profile cases on Twitter and Facebook, often with disastrous results.

Every action a company takes these days is subject to intense scrutiny. In particular, pervasive media creates challenges, with ease and reach amplifying the impact of a gaffe or faux pas. Whether it is a poorly worded interview, unfortunate updates on social channels, or internal conversations becoming public, there is a minefield of risks.

This is exemplified in the case of British retailer HMV. In the midst of a corporate reorganization, they pulled employees into a room to lay them off. One employee with access to the corporate Twitter account decided to live tweet the layoff.

This was an extreme example but it is indicative of the perils. The consideration here is not only the events but being in a position to mitigate the damage and impact, because it is not a question of IF this will happen to your organization, it’s WHEN.

Your corporate narrative needs to live in the real world, but like any great story it needs to aspire to greatness despite human foibles. Pretending to be perfect or wearing rose-coloured glasses can be just as problematic as making a wildly inappropriate statement. So your narrative has to be about the aspiration to be great and provide great products and services, but it also has to acknowledge mistakes and quickly offer remedies.

To address the challenge of Glass Houses requires buy-in from all elements of your organization. Your company message needs to be infused into everything, from marketing, PR and customer service, to HR, product development. Actions speak louder than words. You need a deep and engaging narrative that connects your employees to your message. They, in turn, will convey the message you want your customers to receive through their actions!

2. People Will Talk

The Challenge: How do you manage the endless waves of events and consumer actions impacting your brand at any given moment?

Companies and their brand managers need to come to terms with the reality that they are no longer the only voices in the conversation. The premise is simple but the execution is more complex. It begins with listening. You need to have the right tools and processes in place to hear and, most importantly, understand the consumer. Then comes the more difficult part; weaving the consumer into your corporate narrative. You need to put in place mechanisms to validate and celebrate participation in your brand.

The other big challenge within People Will Talk is the real-time aspect of pervasive communications. It’s not enough to listen, validate and celebrate. You need to construct a framework to deal with rapid response, whether to identify opportunity or quickly react to events that impact your brand.

A great example is the recent interplay with Kanye West and Zappos. West made said some unkind statements about Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and his products during a podcast. Zappos responded with a clever bit of content, but that is not the story. There was a flood of support from Zappos customers defending the brand; because Zappos has done such a great job validating and appreciating their fans, they now have an army of brand advocates more than willing to participate in the conversation. More often we think of brand advocates as a means to increase brand awareness and help sell more products; however, in this case their value lay in literally rising to protect a brand they loved.

Consumers are far more empowered than they used to be. They can air their grievances. As a business you have to care. Why? Caring is profitable. Does the same thing apply in a B2B situation? “Sure”. Like consumers, businesses can become disgruntled and complain, they can get together and air their grievances and use communication channels because you are not treating them well.

3. Conducting The Orchestra

The Challenge: How does your company orchestrate and steward your brand across divisions and communications channels, year after year?

There is a wide array of channels through which brands may communicate, from traditional media to cutting edge social and digital platforms. In addition, as we have seen with Glass Houses and People Will Talk, brands are not the only ones creating compelling and highly accessible content anymore.

As social media continues to expand, every significant happening becomes one of the most written about events in human history, simply because nearly every single human has access to a public forum upon which they can express themselves. With writing and grammar correction software, and even greater ease of creating and posting videos, consumers are only going to become more empowered. Corporations and brands are growing frightened of this power, but the best way to deal with human beings, alone or collectively, is by listening. You can’t do that these days unless you have a distinct presence across multiple media platforms.

It is no longer enough to share the same message on multiple channels. Care needs to be taken to not only take advantage of the value proposition of each platform e.g., print, video, TV, social but to be sure all the messages are complimentary and add up to a satisfying whole.

You can think of all the possible communication channels and touch points as different instruments in an orchestra. As individual instruments they can make beautiful music, with unique sound and rhythmic qualities however, when properly orchestrated in concert, they can make music that surpasses the sum of their parts.

Conducting the orchestra begins with conveying the right and most resonant messages. Then it is a matter of devising the message so that it plays to the strengths of the selected platform, taking care to maximize the features and inherent value of each medium and in the process it is important to applaud the audience as well by promoting dialog and action. You have to be able to conduct the orchestra to integrate (end user) voice into the story.

There is a production technique called transmedia that is being used to Conduct The Orchestra with great efficacy by the media and entertainment industries, and increasingly by progressive corporate communications departments.

Conducting The Orchestra is possibly the most complex aspect of corporate narrative. Current marketing efforts focused on content strategy are a step in that direction, but still nascent.

The More Things Change…

The world continues to grow more complex, straining the efficacy of not only traditional marketing and communications techniques, but how businesses communicate with their entire ecosystem; but as people become more intricately and potently linked with one another, we are discovering that strong messages are becoming more quickly and potently distributed. That is, providing the story is clear and compelling, and that the audience is encouraged to respond. The fundamental tenets of narrative remain unchanged. It is time to apply the most effective transmedia techniques to how businesses and organizations tell their story.

Chapter 24: Enemies of Clarity in Your Business Storytelling Efforts

One of the most common questions in content marketing is, “What is high-quality content?” Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. Quality has technical aspects, such as grammar, as well as more qualitative dimensions, such as whether your business’ story moves readers on an emotional level.

This chapter will discuss a very important aspect of business storytelling; clarity. Clear writing may not be the single, defining element of quality, but without it, readers are unlikely to be persuaded by your story or take action on any business purpose that stands behind it.

Clarity’s enemy No. 1: Business buzzwords

Using buzzwords is often a consequence of lazy thinking. Consider a word that has been driven into the ground; solutions. When a company says it offers SEO solutions, or packaging solutions, or accounting solutions, what is it really telling you? The phrase says nothing about the company’s product, service, brand, or value. When going down this road, your company should simply say it sells SEO, packaging, or accounting.

On the other hand, if a company says it offers SEO services to entrepreneurs, or packaging products for extremely challenging applications, or accounting services for nonprofits, it may not be telling the whole story, but it tells a clearer story; it provides readers with a point they can relate to and take action on.

Yes, eliminating your reliance on common industry buzzwords like solutions can take real effort. Actual selling points must be articulated, and perhaps even elaborated on in detail; but other buzzwords can be dealt with less laboriously. For instance, empower can be replaced with assign responsibility; incentivize with motivate.

Peppering your business storytelling content with needless buzzwords such as solutions and empowerment can bore and confuse readers, in addition to under-informing them. Add clarity by using more exact and descriptive alternatives that truly convey your brand’s value and purpose.

Clarity’s enemy No. 2: Obscure terms and industry jargon

In an effort to avoid buzzwords, some writers go overboard in the other direction and use words that may be unfamiliar to the intended audience. This will only confuse and irritate your readers.

Here are some examples that came up in content I recently read:

Disseminate instead of distribute.

Expeditious instead of fast.

Optimize instead of improve.

Oscillate instead of go back and forth.

Remediate instead of fix.

Tangential instead of unimportant, or non-essential.

For web writing in particular, simplicity enhances clarity because readers commonly scan content, and are likely to pass over big words without even trying to understand them.

The same applies to business jargon, though it’s important to note that some standard terms have a specific meaning in certain business situations, and can help readers understand your intentions more easily. For example, the word remediate may be considered jargon in its general use as a substitute for remedy; yet, in the context of occupational health, it is often used to refer to a specific inspection and assessment process as in mould remediation. Using remediation in its proper, precise business context adds clarity, rather than detracting from it (assuming your audience works in the industry, or is undoubtedly familiar with the term in question). The problems arise when writers pick up words such as remediate and use them in more general business storytelling scenarios.

Even when used properly, jargon can still undermine clarity when it is overused. Thinking back to my days in the medical device industry, our packaging designer use phrases like, “the low coefficient of friction of this closed-cell foam enhances its surface protection characteristics,” in our marketing content. Even though packaging engineers would understand this, a clearer way to express this same concept would be,

“this foam will not scratch your product.” When in doubt, clarity is best served by keeping it simple and by emphasizing solid benefits in your content.

Clarity’s enemy No. 3: Inaccurate use of words and phrases

When it comes to using buzzwords and jargon, there is a level of judgment involved in deciding what is clear and what is just unnecessary. But some business words and phrases are commonly used incorrectly and this is never a good thing. Not only does it reduce clarity, it can also convey the opposite meaning of what you intended to communicate in your business storytelling.

For instance, if you confuse former with latter, and end up recommending “the former of two choices” (i.e., choice Number one) when you meant “the latter of two choices,” (i.e., the second one), you have put yourself in a jam. If you say literally when you mean figuratively (as in, “this product will literally knock your socks off”), you are going to sound silly and risk losing credibility.

A few other common examples:

A writer implies, while a reader infers.

In lieu of means instead of, not in light of.

Something that may happen is more likely than something that might happen.

Unfortunately, education in basic grammar and usage is not what it once was. As a result, editors must be extremely careful in reviewing the accuracy of submitted copy.

Clarity’s enemy No. 4: Metaphors

There are different schools of thought about using metaphors in business writing. Some contend that metaphors interfere with comprehension because they force the reader to slow down and grasp a meaning that is not readily apparent. Others say that an apt metaphor is worth a thousand words.

While I agree that an apt metaphor can enhance clarity, the wickedly difficult problem is coming up with one that works. If the metaphor is strained or inappropriate, it stands in the way of comprehension. If the metaphor is overused; the ball is in your court, for example; readers will understand it, but may dismiss your business storytelling as unimaginative and unworthy of their attention.

My favourite example of a metaphor that works against clarity is one I will bet you are familiar with; Content is king. This phrase may turn heads and get clicks but what does it mean? What is content king of? What specifically is subordinate to content, and why? Kingship implies a hierarchy that doesn’t exist in this context. Content is one element of marketing; an extremely important one to be sure that strengthens some elements (such as conversion optimization); yet it relies on other elements for maximum effectiveness (such as SEO). Marketers will accelerate the learning curve around business storytelling by eliminating clumsy metaphors like these, and by instead focusing on explaining how content marketing works.

Effective metaphors tend to be simple; which is perhaps why they are so difficult to craft, and so rare to see. Consider a few great ones.

Organizational DNA: Here is a case where an acronym conveys several obvious yet profound characteristics of an organization; it is complex, alive, ever-present, changing, defined at a basic level, etc.

Sticky: This one may be past its prime, but is nevertheless an effective word to convey the benefit of a whole set of web development techniques. Sticky makes visitors stay on your website.

Tipping point: With these two simple words, one could expressed a complex process of how change takes hold.

In order to create clear and effective metaphors, the writer must have a complete grasp of the subject. Even then, not all authoritative writers are masters of metaphor. For the most part, business storytellers should view great metaphors as happy accidents and focus elsewhere for devices to strategically improve content quality.

Clarity’s enemy No. 5: Illogical, insufficient or incomplete arguments

So far, I have discussed clarity at the word level. Let’s now consider some bigger-picture issues. You don’t have to be a logician to be an effective business writer or substantive editor, but a basic understanding of logical thought certainly helps. In the B2B world, emotion certainly plays a role in content, but buying decisions normally have to be explained and justified logically. Yet, common fallacies like the following often crop up in business content.

SEO is critical for marketing because you can’t generate traffic without it. This statement assumes what it is trying to prove i.e., that SEO generates traffic. In addition, it oversimplifies the argument because there may be other ways to generate traffic.

Don’t trust ‘the cloud’; install our servers. This statement plays on a person’s unfamiliarity or discomfort with a certain type of technology, setting forth an argument for making a purchase that does not have a sound basis in reality. Even if this negative perception of cloud computing were true, the statement still fails to put forth any reasons why the company’s servers provide a good alternative.

Sales forces that use tablets are 10 times more likely to respond to customers within one hour: Assuming the statistic is accurate, this statement implies a cause-and-effect relationship that may not exist; causation and correlation are quite different. Furthermore, statistics such as this may be accurate, but not based on a wide sampling or obtained using sound methodology.

Thinking about your business proposition from the customer’s point of view goes a long way toward firming up flimsy arguments. Imagine what would happen if

Your new client tells his boss there is no other way to get traffic besides SEO. Will that statement be challenged? What kinds of challenges would you expect?

Your new client announces to his IT staff that the cloud can’t be trusted. Will that be challenged and in what ways?

Your new client tells his boss your tablet will reduce response time to one hour. How might that be challenged and what will the consequences be if it doesn’t happen?

Clarity’s enemy No. 6: Stylistic and design weaknesses

In closing, I want to mention several stylistic inhibitors of clarity. While these get written about frequently, they bear repeating here.

Complex sentence construction: Instead of piling up clauses, favour short, simple sentences. Use longer ones selectively, to prevent a choppy flow.

Long paragraphs: Web readers scan; paragraphs over five lines tend to be passed over.

Absence of lists: Ordered or unordered lists make it easy for readers to grasp selling points, features, benefits, etc.

Hard-to-read fonts: Italics and over-stylized fonts can be difficult to read and don’t necessarily even make a good visual impression.

Overly small fonts: Larger fonts are always a safer bet than smaller ones, especially as the average age of the target audience rises.

Poor contrast: Gray text on a gray background, orange text on a purple background, etc., can render an otherwise clear message incomprehensible.

Over to you!

How do you manage the clarity of your content?

.

Chapter 25: Preparing Your Brand for Business Storytelling Success

Creating quality brand stories requires skill, insight, and ongoing effort; it’s definitely not something that can be mastered overnight; but even if you had all of the time in the world, your brand’s business storytelling efforts probably won’t get any easier to develop and manage unless you have the right strategic plan in place.

What is business storytelling anyway?

Definitions abound, but basically it boils down to brands sharing their messages in ways that engage audiences and drive them to take a desired action (like making a purchase, calling a sales person, downloading or subscribing to content, etc.).

It sounds a lot like content marketing; reaching audiences and prompting them to do something doesn’t it? But while the two are similar and related, they are not synonymous. Business storytelling is a distinct content discipline that leverages well-crafted narratives in a diverse range of content types, while content marketing is much broader and speaks to the collective efforts that companies use to communicate with their audiences in informative and engaging ways.

Precise definitions aside, when it’s done well, business storytelling can effectively support a brand, connecting it with readers, listeners, or viewers and incentivizing them to come back for more.

Great business storytelling demands that your team puts forth its best efforts. But while this level of content excellence should always be the ultimate goal, it’s important to create a business storytelling plan that allows you to experiment and test different options and decisions. It is better to try, fail, learn, and improve, than to jump in without a plan, or to stay on the sidelines and miss out on an opportunity to build engagement over time as your content marketing strategies, skills, and storytelling techniques improve.

How should you be looking at business storytelling before, during, and after you release your best stories?

Here are some critical elements to think about as you develop and deploy your plan

Why are you writing brand stories in the first place?

Of course you are hoping to brand your business in the mind of the reader or, better yet, sell to them. But first you need to understand the demographics of the specific audience you are targeting (gender, age, income, interests and more), so that you can get a clearer idea of what it will take to create and foster positive brand associations in their minds.

Reference questions like the ones below to evaluate your storytelling plan in terms of whether it will help you reach your overall business goals.

What are you trying to achieve as a business or a division?

How do you expect this new content to help you reach those goals?

Who are your potential customers, and what value will your stories hold for them?

Are you hoping to appeal to existing customers, as well as new prospects?

What types of content should be part of your storytelling plan?

When creating your business storytelling plan, you will need to think about the kinds of content that will be most appealing to your particular audience. For example, if you are targeting Fortune 500 businesses, what would be the best way to package the content for their consumption? Would they be most likely to engage with case studies or educational industry guides or videos? Or would this audience be looking for something else entirely?

For business storytelling, you will likely want to roll out and track different content types over time (including creating multiple versions of the same story for different formats), based on the most likely engagement scenarios for your target audiences.

Use your answers to the following questions to help determine what topics and content types should factor into your content plan.

What specific audiences do you have in mind for your content?

What types of content are already popular among these groups?

What content have you already developed?

Do you already have too much content about a particular product, service, or other brand initiative?

Is your mix of content formats heavily biased toward certain formats?

Though decisions of how much content is “too much” for a given topic or format can be subjective, start by looking at your budget. If your video projects are consuming a disproportionately large amount of your time or budget, try thinking of other ways you can be creative that might require fewer resources.

When considering potential topics for your content, how confident are you that your content team can do justice to the topics you plan to cover? Do their skills and experiences lend themselves to writing about certain areas of your business over others?

How will the new content primarily be used? How might you be able to reuse it afterwards?

Depending on the size of your organization, you may not have the answers in advance for every piece of storytelling content that you plan to produce. But these considerations should help you ensure that you have as firm a handle as possible on the factors that are within your control.

What talent is needed, and how will it be sourced?

Creating content takes work and a good amount of time; especially if you want stories that engage and convert. Whether your organization has an in-house team of talented writers, designers, and producers or needs to tap into external resources, there are many allocation questions you should be prepared to answer, such as.

What resources are available for producing and distributing content?

Are these resources internal, or will you need to rely on outsourcing?

Are costs for the writers, designers and video production professionals you need manageable given your current budget, or will you need additional funds?

Do your content producers have a strong track record of being successful with business storytelling?

Will you need to adjust team roles to accommodate your storytelling requirements? If so, is this a viable option within your department/organization?

What standards and processes will you need to establish?

Business storytelling content must reflect well on your organization on the whole, which means you need to set standards for quality and acceptability. In addition, you will want to put the right processes in place to ensure that the guidelines you set are carried out for every piece of content you put your brand’s name on.

Here are just a few of the questions you can answer to gauge how well you are prepared to execute on your storytelling plan.

How will you ensure that your stories meet your standards of quality and consistency before they are published? (At a minimum, I suggest setting your stories aside for a few days and revisiting them with fresh eyes or getting a second set of eyes to review them and make sure you haven’t missed any typos or factual inaccuracies).

How will your content be routed through all the team members and other stakeholders who need to sign off on it?

Will you be using a calendar to track your content topics and processes, or are there other tools you prefer to use?

How will you share best practice guidelines with internal writers and freelancers so that everyone is working from the same playbook?

How will you document and track all the places where your storytelling content will exist online?

How will you measure and learn from your mistakes and successes?

How will you test and evaluate which storytelling techniques and formats are working for your brand and which ones aren’t? For example, are you tracking the number of downloads, completed forms, and shares through social media or other analytics options?

Do you have a plan in place for learning from what you find, and making adjustments based on this data? For example, how will you discover the tipping point in your content’s length, after which point readership drops off? With your blog, can you identify patterns in user engagement that indicate your audiences’ content preferences? If you produce white papers, how will you know whether shorter report summaries or lengthy case studies are driving more reader interest for your brand?

How will you gather feedback on how well your brand messages are coming across, how high the quality of your writing is, or how relevant your stories are to your audience’s needs and experiences?

Food for thought!

Chapter 26: Brands That Get Storytelling

Interruption marketing is dead, the online attention span is dwindling, content creation is up, and your brand needs a hook to catch consumer attention before the message goes in one ear and out the other.

Storytelling that works is all about telling your story in a context that gets people thinking about their own lives. Every brand, no matter how “boring,” has some special hook in their product line or their value system that is a great story just waiting to be told.

At the heart of it, storytelling is about using characters, setting and storyline to take an audience somewhere and make them feel something.

Corporate storytelling is nothing new. Presentations and books on telling a great story; opposed to shilling product are abundant. But examples of brands doing it well are harder to find.

That seems to be changing, though. As content marketing and brand journalism takes hold, better corporate storytelling examples have emerged, especially in B2B marketing where sales cycles are long and the need to engage an audience is pivotal.

Seeing is learning. With that in mind, we wanted to point out some examples of brands that truly get corporate storytelling.

Cisco

Cisco has transformed it’s former News@Cisco site into “The Network”, a dynamic, constantly changing newsroom for topics like social media, collaboration, video and data. They have tapped journalists from top-notch media brands and they provide lots of entertaining technology stories. The result is a full-fledged media platform that gives readers a reason to come back.

HSBC

A big part of HSBC’s model is focused on global companies. It makes sense then that the bank’s Business without Borders platform is all about providing knowledge to companies who have or intend to expand internationally. The company licenses content from The Wall Street Journal and offers guides on specific topics. With that kind of partnership in place, they ensure great storytelling will live on their site.

Intel

A big part of the brand journalism story is curation. Intel is going full force into content curation with its recently launched iQ project. Besides the original articles Intel produces, the iQ platform uses an algorithm to identify the content employees are consuming by analyzing actions “likes” and retweets while taking into account recency and shares. The result is a media arm that curates based on Intel’s own staff.

GE

General Electric is a massive company and a household name. Locked in its impressive history are a ton of stories. GE Reports breaks these out in the form of videos and articles. Some of these are downright fascinating histories, the kind you did find in a business book. They also position the GE brand as an innovator.

Boeing

Visit the Boeing site and you will find plenty of stories. The brand reveals how it tests and builds its products, not as a pitch but like a news story and it works. Just check out the views on its YouTube video of testing a rejected takeoff. It’s the kind of storytelling that grips and engages.

Online education is not the sexiest subjects in the world. So what makes these storytelling campaigns so successful?

The short answer: They are successful because they tell great stories.

We hear lots of talk these days about the power of storytelling and why it is so critical for businesses and brands as we continue to rush forth in the digital age.

But like so much of this other stuff we yap about in the marketing and branding realm, storytelling has always been important. It has been the essence of the greatest and most successful communicators since the beginning of man.

Socrates was a good one.

Jesus was even better.

Ben Franklin was masterful.

Dale Carnegie was genius.

The list goes on and on.

The Lego Movie

Today, stories, when used properly, not only give soul to a brand, but can also supercharge their overall branding and marketing efforts and no better example have I ever seen of this than The Lego Movie that was released by Warner Bros. As I sat in the cinema to a packed house along with my children, I marvelled at what I was witnessing. Kids laughed. Adults chuckled. Everyone was thoroughly entertained. All because a brand had managed to create a masterful story, using their product as the star, and at the same time created what is the most effective 90 minute commercial for a “toy” we have ever seen.

In fact, an hour after we had returned from watching the movie, two of my kids walked out of their bedroom, each with a newly-built Lego ship. (This after not having touched their Legos for months.)

A few minutes later, my friend's 10-year old son made a simple statement to his mother:

“Mom, I need a new Lego set.”

That is how to tell a story and induce your customers to action.

Sure, making people feel good when they hear or read a story is nice, but making them spend their money is ultimately what it is all about at least if we are being honest with ourselves.

The Simplicity in How Lego Did It.

But the reaction of my kids and my friend's kid is no surprise really. If one analyzes the film, it’s quite apparent what makes it so very effective.

1. It is actually a good movie incredibly well written for kids and adults.

2. The product is the entire movie. Every scene is masterfully created with Legos.

3. There are deep messages happening within the movie, all of which are uplifting and easy to get behind.

There is a “builder” within each one of us if we only believe.

We are only as limited as our imagination allows us to be.

You are never too old to create magic.

This is exactly why Lego has hit such a huge home run with this movie, which is quickly becoming the Mecca of “story telling done right” for brands big and small going forward.

Stop Selling “Stuff”

You see, Lego does not see themselves as a company that simply makes little blocks that can be turned into bigger objects.

Rather, Lego understands their bigger purpose; one of challenging the minds of people young and old to create, imagine, and go beyond what they believe is possible.

In fact, Lego doesn’t sell “blocks” at all, they sell possibilities.

It is my firm belief that every brand and business needs to find their inner Lego, as it is certainly within each one of us.

We can sell “things,” or we can sell so much more; something with meaning, depth, and purpose.

So my hat tips to Lego for thinking so far ahead of the storytelling curve, and it is my hope that this is just the beginning.

Chapter 27: Storytelling in the Consumer Driven World

Digital Storytelling Communication has changed. With the growth of the “Social Market,” businesses can no longer rely solely on traditional mediums such as; television, print, and radio, to win consumers. Consumers are key players in a social revolution that is changing the way they speak with each other and with businesses.

So, what does this mean for Marketing and Customer Development? The way consumers choose products and services has taken a sharp turn, with more decisions driven by word-of-mouth and experiential benefits. From a Marketing perspective, businesses need to focus on pulling customers in by offering targeted, useful, and engaging content, rather than pushing out broad campaigns.

How can businesses take advantage of this two-way communication and connect with customers in a way that drives loyalty and advocacy? One of the best ways is through storytelling.

1. Stories help us understand the world.

Throughout history, stories have been the way people make sense of the world. People thrive on stories to help them put things in perspective and to help them navigate the overwhelming amount of data, facts, and realities that confront them. Stories are one of our oldest mechanisms for security, which is why they are so powerful. If a business can use a story to show how a product/service can be beneficial, people will form a stronger connection.

2. It is human nature.

When you tell someone about your child or vacation, you don’t tell them your child’s hair colour or that the weather was 85.2 degrees. You communicate more emotionally by telling others something funny that your child did or that you went surfing for the first time. People do not operate in the realm of data, it is counter-intuitive to how we are hard-wired, which is why storytelling in business is so powerful. If you want to connect with a person and drive advocacy, your best bet is weaving factual benefits into an even more powerful story.

3. Don’t overwhelm with data.

At the end of the day, you are speaking to a person. People don’t digest data the same way a computer can. Data can be beneficial, but most people are looking for a connection. Apple is a great example of a business that has driven a connection with their customers by weaving data with storytelling, which is one of the reasons they have such high brand loyalty.

4. It is no longer a ‘Business’ connecting with a ‘Consumer’.

It is people connecting with people. Businesses need to understand who they are speaking with and cater communications in relevant manner. People will not connect with a business that offers no emotional connection and that doesn’t meet a need.

5. It is a two-way street.

Consumers have a larger say in marketing and branding because the way consumers communicate has shifted. People are listening to other people as opposed to large campaigns. The value of word-of-mouth has soared, and social media allows people to see what others are saying, in real-time. Two-way communication is very powerful. By taking the time to have conversations with consumers, businesses have been able to learn and thrive in the consumer-driven market. This is critical to success and to building both advocacy and loyalty.

Storytelling is a pivotal part of marketing, communications and business. Without it, consumers find it difficult to connect and advocate for something. Storytelling can and should be used in any business because it can drive loyalty, advocacy and trust.

I don’t know about you, but I would not trust a solely data driven business to care for my interests, I would and do trust the businesses who have worked to understand my needs and who have created an emotional connection through the power of stories.

Chapter 28: Storytelling Makes Strategy Stick

Yesterday one of my sons called and said, “I have an idea for a book you should write. Why don’t you collect a bunch of stories that illustrate different leadership challenges and publish them for leaders to retell.”

Good idea son. We all need a repertoire of stories to tell and they are never easy to find just when you need them. You have to find them before you need them. You need to be a story collector.

There are three buckets to dip into to find stories.

1. Your stories

Everyday things happen that can be remembered and told as a story. I told a very small story about my son to start this chapter. When something remarkable happens you need to capture the essence of it in a notebook or something like Evernote. As these stories are going to be retold orally it is important not to write them down fully. Just jot down enough to remember the story and any details, such as names and dates you might forget and then use the tagging features in Evernote so you can find the right story when you need it.

2. Stories other people tell you

Again, jot them down when you hear them. Most importantly, NEVER retell someone else’s story as if it happened to you. I have seen this happen and it is not pretty. It’s fine to tell other people’s stories if you know they in the public domain, just say, “The other day Eddie shared with me what happened at their organisation …” and then tell Eddie's story.

The art here is to ask questions that get your stories rather than opinions. The short version is, ask when and where questions rather than what, how and why questions.

3. Stories from other sources

Now, this is the treasure trove of stories. For business people all popular business books are written with stories. To learn how to tell these stories simple read them and picture it happening. Use all your senses to watch, taste, feel, hear the story unfold. This will help you remember it. Then sit back and think about what is most important about this story? What is the business point it makes for you? With these questions answered you will emphasise the right parts of the story in the retelling.

Here is a story for you to practice on.

Rob McEwen, the CEO of Goldcorp Inc., knew that his geologists were sceptical, if not downright worried, about what he was proposing and he couldn’t blame them. He was asking them to go against a sacred tenet of mining and share 50 years worth of the Canadian company’s precious geological data with the world, to allow pretty much anyone to trawl through the information for clues as to the whereabouts of as-yet-undiscovered gold deposits.

There was also the fact that despite McEwen’s well-known doggedness, not all of his initiatives worked out. Several years earlier, when Goldcorp had first started struggling with debt, a contracting gold market and a keystone mine in Ontario that appeared to have run dry, McEwen had taken the bold; some thought suicidal step of ramping up exploration instead of winding it down. The gamble seemed to pay off. A lode of gold was detected in the depths of the Ontario mine that was thought to dwarf the existing deposits; but subsequent efforts failed to pin down the location and value of the gold, and it was back to square one.

It was in the wake of this setback, however, that McEwen had an epiphany. He attended a conference where someone told a story about how the operating system Linux owed its success to the decision by its creator, Linus Torvalds, to freely distribute his code, allowing smart programmers around the world to refine it. The Goldcorp CEO realised he could do the same thing with his geological data. Instead of relying only on his own geologists to find the Ontario gold, he could dare other great minds to do it. It went against every mining convention, it was enormously risky, but true to form, McEwen was determined to do it and so, in 2000, overriding the protests of his employees, the CEO launched the Goldcorp

Challenge, which dangled prize money of half a million dollars in front of the participants. McEwen was floored by the results. Over 1000 people from 50 countries not just geologists but also programmers, mathematicians, consultants and others used their expertise to identify 50 new sites in the grounds of the Ontario mine. Amazingly, over three-quarters of them yielded significant gold deposits. Within 7 years, 8 million ounces of the precious metal was mined by Goldcorp at those sites, and several years worth of exploration time had been saved.

Following in the footsteps of Linus Torvalds, McEwen had dispensed with the old, slow, secretive way of doing things and embraced open collaboration, harnessing the intelligence and enthusiasm of new colleagues.

Chapter 29: Developing Emotional Distance

At what point is it appropriate to tell the story about losing a son in a drunk driving accident? When are you ready to tell your cancer story? How much time must pass before you can use the tragedies of your past to help others?

Over the years, I have worked with many students and retreat participants who have a tragic story to tell. They want to tell their story because they believe it will help others to learn from their journey. They want to share their healing process or how they overcame their challenges, hoping they can give others the courage to carry on.

I call these stories Crucible Stories. They tell the tale of a severe life test. In many cases, they deal with life and death situations. In every instance, they are extremely emotional and require a good deal of skill if they are to be effective; because these stories deal with difficult and stressful times in a person’s life, the telling of the story often stirs up genuine and raw emotion. To tell this type of story without emotion would undermine its power. It would be a “rip-off” for your audience. To tell this type of story with uncontrollable emotion would be unprofessional. So, two questions needs to be explored.

When are you ready to tell the story?

How do you work with your emotions during the telling of the story?

The answer to the first question has to do with emotional distance. As a speaker, you have enough emotional distance from the event that you can feel and express all of the emotions in your story without being overwhelmed by them. You can work with the emotions, rather than being worked over by them.

When you are telling a crucible story, you want to use the raw and powerful emotions in a way that serves the story and your audience. It is unprofessional to be self-indulgent with your emotions or to have a cathartic “therapy session” on stage.

You know that you are not ready to share your crucible story if every time you tell it, the emotions are so powerful that you start to cry uncontrollably and it takes over a minute to regain your composure. When you lose your composure in front of your audience, you don’t have enough emotional distance.

We have all heard that time heals all wounds, but the amount of time to heal an emotional wound can vary from person to person, and from situation to situation. Emotional distance does not necessarily mean distance, (in a specific amount of time), from the actual event. It includes a degree of healing, combined with a calling or passion to share that story to help others. Sometimes emotional distance can be achieved by simply waiting for more time to pass. Sometimes therapy or counselling helps it happen. There are no hard and fast rules, but the individual knows when they have enough emotional distance by what happens to them when they work on or tell the story.

If the emotion in your story is genuine, honest and real, (and doesn’t overwhelm you), you are ready to tell that story and express the emotions natural to it.

Now, let’s look at question number two; how do you work with your emotions during the telling of the story.

Growing up, He friend of mine once said "I never learned how to deal with my emotions properly. As a boy, crying was discouraged. If I got hurt or scared, I was told to “stop crying like a baby.” So, like most people I have talked to, I learned to stuff my feelings."

"Then I got into acting. In acting class, if you had an emotional scene and you cried, you were rewarded with applause. In that context, it was okay to cry in public. Furthermore, if you wanted to be considered a great actor, you were expected to be able to cry on cue when the scene required it."

"For over a decade, I took different kinds of acting classes, and finally I learned how to cry on cue. The most effective training I discovered was Method Acting. The method required you to recall a painful moment from your past, draw on the emotions stirred up by that memory, and then apply it to the scene you were acting. Bingo - you got tears! That method works very well for actors."

"Then I became a motivational keynote speaker. In that context, I was no longer an actor hiding inside a character in a movie or play, but I was myself; a motivational speaker standing in front of an audience in a hotel ballroom in London or Paris or New York. The stories I told were my stories, and the emotions were real. It was clear that I wasn’t in Hollywood any more. What I needed was a new method for managing my own emotions that were true to the story."

Here is what my friend developed to manage his emotion. You can apply this method to the emotional moments in your stories, so you can better serve the story and your audience.

When the emotional wave hits:

Stand still; get grounded and relax.

Stop talking.

Breathe; take a big slow breath.

Allow the wave of emotion to well up (rise and fill you).

Allow yourself to feel choked up, feel flushed in your face or nose, or even shed a tear or two.

Allow the wave to pass.

Breathe again.

When the wave has diminished in power, continue with your story.

The power and beauty of your crucible story is that it is about a very challenging time in your life. The more challenging the event, the more powerful the story. Every crucible story I have helped my colleagues craft and perform is an absolute testament to the human spirit. These stories inspire me and make all of my little problems seem insignificant.

Often our most powerful life lessons come from our moments of deepest pain and despair. If you have a crucible story to tell, determine if you have the emotional distance, then learn how to tell it with the true emotion of the story. Your audience deserves to hear it.

Chapter 30: Frequently Asked Questions

A big part of a CEO's job is to motivate people to reach certain goals. To do that, he or she must engage their emotions, and the key to their hearts is story. There are two ways to persuade people. The first is by using conventional rhetoric, which is what most executives are trained in. It is an intellectual process, and in the business world it usually consists of a PowerPoint slide presentation in which you say, here is our company's biggest challenge, and here is what we need to do to prosper and you build your case by giving statistics and facts and quotes from authorities; but there are two problems with rhetoric. First, the people you are talking to have their own set of authorities, statistics, and experiences. While you are trying to persuade them, they are arguing with you in their heads. Second, if you do succeed in persuading them, you have done so only on an intellectual basis. That is not good enough, because people are not inspired to act by reason alone.

The other way to persuade people and ultimately a much more powerful way is by uniting an idea with an emotion. The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story. In a story, you not only weave a lot of information into the telling but you also arouse your listener's emotions and energy. Persuading with a story is hard. Any intelligent person can sit down and make lists. It takes rationality but little creativity to design an argument using conventional rhetoric; but it demands vivid insight and storytelling skill to present an idea that packs enough emotional power to be memorable. If you can harness imagination and the principles of a well-told story, then you get people rising to their feet amid thunderous applause instead of yawning and ignoring you.

So What is a story?

Essentially, a story expresses how and why life changes. It begins with a situation in which life is relatively in balance. You come to work day after day, week after week, and everything is fine. You expect it will go on that way; but then there is an event; in screenwriting, we call it the "inciting incident" that throws life out of balance. You get a new job, or the boss dies of a heart attack, or a big customer threatens to leave. The story goes on to describe how, in an effort to restore balance, the protagonist's subjective expectations crash into an uncooperative objective reality. A good storyteller describes what is like to deal with these opposing forces, calling on the protagonist to dig deeper, work with scarce resources, make difficult decisions, take action despite risks and ultimately discover the truth. All great storytellers since the dawn of time; from the ancient Greeks through Shakespeare and up to the present day have dealt with this fundamental conflict between subjective expectation and cruel reality.

How would an executive learn to tell stories?

Stories have been implanted in you thousands of times since your mother took you on her knee. You have read good books, seen movies, attended plays. What is more, human beings naturally want to work through stories. Cognitive psychologists describe how the human mind, in its attempt to understand and remember, assembles the bits and pieces of experience into a story, beginning with a personal desire, a life objective, and then portraying the struggle against the forces that block that desire. Stories are how we remember; we tend to forget lists and bullet points.

Businesspeople not only have to understand their companies' past, but then they must project the future and how do you imagine the future? As a story. You create scenarios in your head of possible future events to try to anticipate the life of your company or your own personal life. So, if a businessperson understands that his or her own mind naturally wants to frame experience in a story, the key to moving an audience is not to resist this impulse but to embrace it by telling a good story.

What makes a good story?

You emphatically do not want to tell a beginning-to-end tale describing how results meet expectations. This is boring and boring. Instead, you want to display the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness. For example, let's imagine the story of a biotech start-up we will call Chemtech, whose CEO has to persuade some Wall Street bankers to invest in the company. He could tell them that Chemtech has discovered a chemical compound that prevents heart attacks and offer up a lot of slides showing them the

size of the market, the business plan, the organizational chart, and so on. The bankers would nod politely and stifle yawns while thinking of all the other companies better positioned in Chemtech's market.

Alternatively, the CEO could turn his pitch into a story, beginning with someone close to him say, his father who died of a heart attack. So nature itself is the first antagonist that the CEO-as-protagonist must overcome. The story might unfold like this. In his grief, he realizes that if there had been some chemical indication of heart disease, his father's death could have been prevented. His company discovers a protein that is present in the blood just before heart attacks and develops an easy-to-administer, low-cost test; but now it faces a new antagonist; the FDA. The approval process is fraught with risks and dangers. The FDA turns down the first application, but new research reveals that the test performs even better than anyone had expected, so the agency approves a second application. Meanwhile, Chemtech is running out of money, and a key partner drops out and goes off to start his own company. Now Chemtech is in a fight-to-the-finish patent race.

This accumulation of antagonists creates great suspense. The protagonist has raised the idea in the bankers' heads that the story might not have a happy ending. By now, he has them on the edges of their seats, and he says, "We won the race, we got the patent, we are poised to go public and save a quarter-million lives a year." And the bankers just throw money at him.

Aren't you really talking about exaggeration and manipulation?

No. Although businesspeople are often suspicious of stories for the reasons you suggest, the fact is that statistics are used to tell lies and damn lies, while accounting reports are often BS (Bull Shit) in a ball gown; witness Enron and WorldCom.

When people ask me to help them turn their presentations into stories, I begin by asking questions. I kind of psychoanalyze their companies, and amazing dramas pour out. But most companies and executives sweep the dirty laundry, the difficulties, the antagonists, and the struggle under the carpet. They prefer to present a rosy and boring picture to the world; but as a storyteller, you want to position the problems in the foreground and then show how you have overcome them. When you tell the story of your struggles against real antagonists, your audience sees you as an exciting, dynamic person and I know that the storytelling method works, because after I consulted with a dozen corporations whose principals told exciting stories to Wall Street, they all got their money.

What is wrong with painting a positive picture?

It doesn't ring true. You can send out a press release talking about increased sales and a bright future, but your audience knows it's never that easy. They know you are not spotless; they know your competitor doesn't wear a black hat. They know you have slanted your statement to make your company look good. Positive, hypothetical pictures and boilerplate press releases actually work against you because they foment distrust among the people you are trying to convince. I suspect that most CEOs do not believe their own spin doctors and if they don't believe the hype, why should the public?

The great irony of existence is that what makes life worth living does not come from the rosy side. We would all rather be lotus-eaters, but life will not allow it. The energy to live comes from the dark side. It comes from everything that makes us suffer. As we struggle against these negative powers, we are forced to live more deeply, more fully.

So acknowledging this dark side makes you more convincing?

Of course because you are more truthful. One of the principles of good storytelling is the understanding that we all live in dread. Fear is when you don't know what is going to happen. Dread is when you know what is going to happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Death is the great dread; we all live in an ever shrinking shadow of time, and between now and then all kinds of bad things could happen.

Most of us repress this dread. We get rid of it by inflicting it on other people through sarcasm, cheating, abuse, indifference cruelties great and small. We all commit those little evils that relieve the pressure and make us feel better. Then we rationalize our bad behaviour and convince ourselves we are good people. Institutions do the same thing: They deny the existence of the negative while inflicting their dread on other institutions or their employees.

If you are a realist, you know that this is human nature; in fact, you realize that this behaviour is the foundation of all nature. The imperative in nature is to follow the golden rule of survival. Do unto others what they do unto you. In nature, if you offer cooperation and get cooperation back, you get along; but if you offer cooperation and get antagonism back, then you give antagonism in return in spades.

Ever since human beings sat around the fire in caves, we have told stories to help us deal with the dread of life and the struggle to survive. All great stories illuminate the dark side. I am not talking about so-called "pure" evil, because there is no such thing. We are all evil and good, and these sides do continual battle. Kenneth Lay says wiping out people's jobs and life savings was unintentional. Hannibal Lecter is witty, charming, and brilliant, and he eats people's livers. Audiences appreciate the truthfulness of a storyteller who acknowledges the dark side of human beings and deals honestly with antagonistic events. The story engenders a positive but realistic energy in the people who hear it.

Does this mean you have to be a pessimist?

It is not a question of whether you are optimistic or pessimistic. It seems to me that the civilized human being is a sceptic someone who believes nothing at face value. Scepticism is another principle of the storyteller. The sceptic understands the difference between text and subtext and always seeks what is really going on. The sceptic hunts for the truth beneath the surface of life, knowing that the real thoughts and feelings of institutions or individuals are unconscious and unexpressed. The sceptic is always looking behind the mask. Street kids, for example, with their tattoos, piercings, chains, and leather, wear amazing masks, but the sceptic knows the mask is only a persona. Inside anyone working that hard to look fierce is a marshmallow. Genuinely hard people make no effort.

So, a story that embraces darkness produces a positive energy in listeners?

Absolutely. We follow people in whom we believe. The best leaders I have dealt with; producers and directors have come to terms with dark reality. Instead of communicating via spin doctors, they lead their actors and crews through the antagonism of a world in which the odds of getting the film made, distributed, and sold to millions of moviegoers are a thousand to one. They appreciate that the people who work for them love the work and live for the small triumphs that contribute to the final triumph.

CEOs, likewise, have to sit at the head of the table or in front of the microphone and navigate their companies through the storms of bad economies and tough competition. If you look your audience in the eye, lay out your really scary challenges, and say, We will be lucky as hell if we get through this, but here is what I think we should do, they will listen to you.

To get people behind you, you can tell a truthful story. The story of General Electric is wonderful and has nothing to do with Jack Welch's cult of celebrity. If you have a grand view of life, you can see it on all its complex levels and celebrate it in a story. A great CEO is someone who has come to terms with his or her own mortality and, as a result, has compassion for others. This compassion is expressed in stories.

Take the love of work. A friend of mine once told me a story about his days in graduate school. "Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I worked as an insurance fraud investigator. The claimant in one case was an immigrant who did suffered a terrible head injury on a carmaker's assembly line. He has been the fastest window assembler on the line and took great pride in his work. When I spoke to him, he was waiting to have a titanium plate inserted into his head."

"The man had been grievously injured, but the company thought he was a fraud. In spite of that, he remained incredibly dedicated. All he wanted was to get back to work. He knew the value of work, no matter how repetitive. He took pride in it and even in the company that had falsely accused him. How wonderful it would have been for the CEO of that car company to tell the tale of how his managers recognized the falseness of their accusation and then rewarded the employee for his dedication. The company, in turn, would have been rewarded with redoubled effort from all the employees who heard that story."

How do storytellers discover and unearth the stories that want to be told?

The storyteller discovers a story by asking certain key questions. First, what does my protagonist want in order to restore balance in his or her life? Desire is the blood of a story. Desire is not a shopping list but a core need that, if satisfied, would stop the story in its tracks. Next, what is keeping my protagonist from achieving his or her desire? Forces within? Doubt? Fear? Confusion? Personal conflicts with friends, family, lovers? Social conflicts arising in the various institutions in society? Physical conflicts? The forces of Mother Nature? Lethal diseases in the air? Not enough time to get things done? The damned automobile that won't start? Antagonists come from people, society, time, space, and every object in it, or any combination of these forces at once. Then, how would my protagonist decide to act in order to achieve his or her desire in the face of these antagonistic forces? It's in the answer to that question that storytellers discover the truth of their characters, because the heart of a human being is revealed in the choices he or she makes under pressure. Finally, the storyteller leans back from the design of events he or she has created and asks, "Do I believe this? Is it neither an exaggeration nor a soft-soaping of the struggle? Is this an honest telling, though heaven may fall?"

Does being a good storyteller make you a good leader?

Not necessarily, but if you understand the principles of storytelling, you probably have a good understanding of yourself and of human nature, and that tilts the odds in your favour. I can teach the formal principles of stories, but not to a person who hasn't really lived. The art of storytelling takes intelligence, but it also demands a life experience that I have noted in gifted film directors; the pain of childhood. Childhood trauma forces you into a kind of mild schizophrenia that makes you see life simultaneously in two ways. First, it's direct, real-time experience, but at the same moment, your brain records it as material; material out of which you will create business ideas, science, or art. Like a double-edged knife, the creative mind cuts to the truth of self and the humanity of others.

Self-knowledge is the root of all great storytelling. A storyteller creates all characters from the self by asking the question; If I were this character in these circumstances, what would I do? The more you understand your own humanity, the more you can appreciate the humanity of others in all their good-versus-evil struggles. I would argue that the great leaders Jim Collins describes are people with enormous self-knowledge. They have self-insight and self-respect balanced by scepticism. Great storytellers and I suspect, great leaders are sceptics who understand their own masks as well as the masks of life, and this understanding makes them humble. They see the humanity in others and deal with them in a compassionate yet realistic way. That duality makes for a wonderful leader.

Chapter 31: Conclusion

We live in an age of soundbites, special effects, snappy comebacks and the 30-second attention span. It seems that no one is interested in taking the time to listen to, or tell a good story.

Yet think back to the last time you were truly moved by a film or play or TV show. When you last cried in the cinema or sat on the edge of your seat thoroughly gripped by a thriller.

Chances are that it wasn’t because of the special effects or any snappy dialogue. It most likely wasn’t even due to great acting; although that can help.

No, the reason you were truly engaged with the film or play was because of the plot; because the author hooked you with an interesting story and especially, because the author got you to really care about the characters in that story

Stories in Business Development

Now think about that example in the context of business development.

Don’t you want your clients and prospects to really engage with what you are saying? Don’t you want to grab their emotions rather than just their logical brain?

Of course, you will never build the same degree of emotional response in a sales meeting or pitch as in a thrilling drama; but you can certainly do a lot better than the majority of dry, dull sales presentations made today.

The secret, of course, is to use stories and the most powerful stories to use are personal ones. Stories with real human protagonists rather than faceless corporations.

When you introduce your company, for example, don’t tell your prospects you can save them 10% on their telecoms costs, or that you have worked with the top 5 car manufacturers. Get that same message across in a personal story and it will have so much more power.

Contrast these two different introductions

“We work with all the leading consumer goods companies. Our six-sigma and lean manufacturing services can save you at least 10% of your operating costs and cut 20% from your lead times”

and

“We recently worked with Andy Steven, the CEO of Manufacturing First. Andy’s problem was that because of the long changeover times, his production was very inflexible and he couldn’t respond quickly to the needs of some of his best customers and so he was losing market share hand-over-fist. By working with us using our lean manufacturing and six sigma methodology, he was able to offer the sort of flexibility his customers were crying out for and as an added bonus, he found that running costs were 10% lower than before.”

Admittedly, the second introduction is a few sentences longer; but those extra sentences and the way the whole introduction is worded make a world of difference.

Think about how you would respond to the introductions as a CEO of a manufacturing company.

The first introduction is okay. The professional builds some credibility by highlighting that they work for the top companies in the industry and the fast changeover times and 10% saving on running costs sound okay.

But there is no emotion here. It is cold, hard facts.

Worse, the “we could save you 10%” is almost a challenge. The natural response of most people is to silently think “Oh you could, could you? Prove it”. After all, it’s a first meeting: what does he really know about my business? How does he know I am not already highly efficient?

But by rephrasing into a story as in the second introduction we get over these problems.

Firstly, the prospect becomes more engaged when he hears someone’s name. You have indicated you work with executives just like them; perhaps even someone they look up to and when you use the word “frustrations” not just a business problem, but real frustrations; then they begin to feel empathy towards that person. Chances are they are feeling frustrations too; but like many executives, there are few outlets for them to vent those frustrations. Now, by talking about someone else’s frustrations you have begun to create an environment where they can safely talk about their issues.

Additionally, by using an interesting story where you happened to solve the client’s problem and save 10% of running costs, you are not making a direct claim. You are not risking a challenge because you are talking about something that was done for someone else. You are not claiming you can save the prospect 10% but they will begin to make that inference for themselves. So now the prospect’s thinking is “hmmm, I wonder if they can make those savings for us?” not “well, he claims he can make those savings, but I am not sure”. Your story has allowed him to reach a conclusion for himself and so he is much more likely to believe it than if you claim it yourself.

In similar vein, when you get a prospect or client talking and they tell you about some of the issues and challenges they are facing; you can use your stories to build credibility and confidence that you have experience in these areas and know how to help. But notice that you are not jumping to providing a solution for the client’s problem (where you run the risk of being wrong) you are relating a story about a client in a similar situation and what worked for them. Again, the prospect thinks for himself: “Maybe this can work for me and even if not, they were able to solve this guy’s similar issues; maybe they can find a different solution for me”. As opposed to their thinking if you try to suggest a solution to their problem. “How can they know how to solve my problem after 5 minutes? Do they think I am some sort of idiot who has not thought about this?…..”

Crafting a Compelling Story

Some people are great natural storytellers. They mentally record their experiences as stories and have no trouble recalling them in an interesting and entertaining way.

For the rest of us, it takes a little work.

What you need to have in your armoury is a set of compelling stories; perhaps 6 or 7 covering a variety of situations where you, your products or your services have added significant value. You can then select from the stories as needed to fit the particular circumstances you think are going to be relevant and interesting to your prospect and you can use the same story as an example as part of your introduction, your elevator speech, or in an expanded version when the prospect opens up and talks about a particular issue they have.

To craft the stories, first think about the typical problems your product or service solves. Then think of some recent examples of specific customers where this has happened.

Next, write a short paragraph summarising the example. A few guidelines should help here.

Make the story personal. Don’t just talk about a company, talk about a named individual who “owned” the problem your product and service solved. Your story will feel much more real and your prospect will feel much more empathy towards a person rather than a corporation.

Talk first about the challenges the person faced. Again, try to describe them in personal terms so that the prospect builds a connection to your story. Don’t belittle the person; turn them into the hero of the story they had a problem which (by working with you) they overcame.

Don’t spend a lot of time describing what you or your service actually did. Although this might seem interesting to you; it’s the least interesting aspect to your prospect. They are much more interested in whether the problem you solved is similar to theirs, and what value or benefits did your solution bring.

Close with the benefits your product or service provided but underplay this. Almost add it as an afterthought as if the tremendous value you brought was just part of everyday business for you. Avoid boasting or self aggrandising statements.

Write these examples up using natural, conversational language and revise them until they sound right. Then learn and practice their main points so that they don’t sound like a script and, of course, make sure you get the permission of anyone whose name you use.

Putting the Stories to Work

Armed with your stories you can begin to put them into action in sales situations. Don’t overuse them as you risk hogging the conversation when you should be listening. Instead, use them sparingly to spark the curiosity of the prospect, gain credibility, and provoke a reaction or question.

Personally I use one story to introduce my company and what we focus on (selected based on what I think is likely to be of most relevance). Then I may use further stories later on to illustrate a point, or to show that I understand their situation; but I will rarely use more than a couple in a sales meeting of an hour or less. To use more than two stories runs the risk of dominating the conversation and not giving the client enough space to open up about their problems and if they don’t talk about their specific problems, then I can’t begin to show them how I can help them.

Good luck!