Category Archives for "Storytelling"

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Basic Plots 3: The Quest

This third basic story-type, may be suitable for many businesses, when it is about business origin and development.  However, quest stories are usually very long, eg The Lord of the Rings or The Odyssey.

5 Stages of The Quest

As you read the five stages of The Quest, you see parallels with Overcoming the Monster and Rags to Riches.  You see also why quests take a lot of telling.  For this reason, I have adapted a real-life story of a business origin. It shows how to cover a quest in 10 or fewer minutes.  The business story is in red type.

1. The story begins with a call to action. There is some problem in the world of the hero and she sets out to find the remedy.  Alternatively, the hero hears of lost treasure and sets out to make her fortune.  The hero as a child watched a video about a wedding organiser many times and decided she wanted to be an event organiser.
2. The next stage is the journey. The hero usually has companions on the journey and encounters obstacles as well as help on the journey.  The hero studied and eventually got a job in New York.  She went there and found an amazing opportunity.
3. When the hero arrives at their destination, they are frustrated because things are not straightforward. The hero was not doing what she really wanted to do but took advantage of opportunities in New York.  Then she was offered an opportunity to organise a several hundred-dollar event.
4. The hero and companions have to face a series of final ordeals. These are often three-fold and there are tests only the hero can pass.  The hero was able to create a fantastic event by overcoming many obstacles to create something only she was able to achieve.
5. Eventually, the hero achieves their goal and returns home with the treasure or the threat resolved. The hero has achieved her childhood ambition and returns home with an assured career as an event organiser.

Notes

The Quest often divides into two roughly equal parts, the journey (stage 2) and the final ordeals (4).  This story is a journey with a purpose and so most of the story is about achieving the purpose.  Often the hero and companions have no idea about the final ordeals until they reach the end of the journey.  Here their first goals are usually radically modified.

The business story does not necessarily share the jeopardy of the traditional story.  The hero journeyed to further her second best career.  The final ordeal was really a great opportunity.  The traditional story offers an underlying structure for a story that could become pointless.  We’re on the side of the little girl with a dream, who achieves it in a few years.  The story is more satisfying when presented this way and not as a simple account of what she did in New York.  The person who told this story had already sensed this underlying shape to her story.

The Treasure

Let’s begin with the treasure.  What the hero sets out to do or find is not necessarily what they do or find when they get to their destination.  But their first promise sets their feet on the road and so it is important.  Typically, it is one of these:

Business and personal stories have their share of competitors or other obstructive people, distractions, the need to find the right path between two equally bad options and giving up the entire enterprise.

The Final Ordeal

Key to understanding the quest is the final ordeal.  The hero reaches journey’s end with all or some of their companions.  They discover things are not as they expected.  There is some final, apparently insurmountable barrier.

This part of the story can take as long to tell as the journey.  The journey equips the hero and companions with knowledge and experiences they need to overcome this final obstacle.  The reward at this stage is to secure the original goal.

The ordeal is often three-fold and the test is one only the hero can pass.  At the beginning of the journey they had little or no hope and now they can work out how to overcome the ordeal.

The little girl who watched The Wedding Planner many times over, would not have been able to organise the big event on New York.  She needed training and experience as well as to travel a long way!

Life Renewing Goal

The outcome depends on the goal of the quest.  The goal changes because things rarely work out exactly as planned.  However, we recognise the goal is achieved.

There is a sense of renewal in many quest stories.  The typical marriage of the hero and her partner and their benevolent role in their kingdom is likely.  But there is a strong sense of renewal for everyone because some threat is overcome and people can live in peace.

Looking Forwards

This is the third of Booker’s seven plot types.  Remember the aim is not to put your story into a straitjacket but to help structure your marketing story in a way that resonates with your market.

Next time we’ll look at a plot that on the surface is similar to the Quest.  Voyage and Return is the second about journeying and presents some very different challenges.

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Basic Plots 1: Overcoming the Monster

Introduction

The purpose of choosing a traditional story is to hold a conversation between it and your personal keynote story.  Whether you tell anyone about your traditional story, let alone tell it in public, is your choice but it is not essential.

Just like any conversation, aim to interrogate your own story, experiment with new ideas, and structure your story to emotionally satisfy your audience.  A traditional story that resonates with your story, deepens its impact on your business.

How do you find the right story?  A lot depends on the stories you know. It may take a while to find the right one.  I recommend you seek amongst myths, legends and fairy stories.  Why?  These stories are better known and so offer common ground to your audience. Even where you don’t tell your chosen story, it helps you find a structure that will feel right to your audience.

Another reason to favour traditional stories is they are relatively short.  If you choose a novel, film or TV series, you may find you have far too much material.  Longer works can help and feel free to borrow ideas from them but if you want an overall shape to your story, stay short!

Basic Outline of Any Story

[amazon_link asins=’0826480373′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’markettogether’ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’1f213fd5-886f-11e8-a930-2390d9e115e2′]These posts are loosely based on Christopher Booker’s “The Seven Basic Plots”.  This long work is worth reading to learn more about stories.  Booker does not consider business applications for storytelling or discuss combination with real life plots as I recommend.  His focus is on the stories themselves, where mine is on storytelling.

There is, according to Booker, a 5-stage basic structure to most successful stories.  Not all stories follow this pattern and the seven basic plots each have their own take on it.   Remember this is a model and guide, to help you structure your story.  You do not have to follow every detail.

Overcoming the Monster

Here is the basic 5-stage plot for Overcoming the Monster

1. The call or anticipation stage establishes a threat from some monster. The hero (male or female), sometimes with companions, set out to defeat the monster.  Sometimes they take special weapons.
2. The dream stage is where things go well at first and they find their way to the monster’s lair.
3. The confrontation or frustration stage is where they experience a major setback, often involving capture or discovery the monster is more powerful than they thought.
4. This leads to the final ordeal or nightmare stage, where the monster unleashes its full power on them or the wider community.
5. Finally, the miraculous escape stage, where usually something seeded earlier in the story turns up and saves the day at the last minute. The benefits of the victory are briefly mentioned.

This is possibly the most common story type.  It is simple, exciting and everyone is familiar with it.  It is found in almost every genre, eg science fiction, westerns, thrillers, war stories.

Business owners should approach this plot with caution.  Opposing good and evil is not always helpful.  The swashbuckling hero seller of lavatory brushes may be able to pull it off.  But the danger of coming over as an idiot or megalomaniac is real.

However, don’t reject this plot out of hand.  You might not have a monster to fight but your customers might.

External Threat

The monster is an external threat.  If you need a story about struggles within your own psyche, eg with depression or stress, this is probably not the best plot.  External threats turn up out of the blue and they are not your fault.  You or your community are under attack.

In these stories, there is polarisation between good and evil.  There is not much room for nuance.  Real life is not like this, evil is not so easy to identify.  Neither is good!

The monster has several characteristics.  In appearance it is hideous.  If human, it is likely to be deformed.  It is dangerous, can’t be left to its own devices because it will harm you or your people.  It is deceitful and so may first appear to be friendly.  It’s true purpose and abilities are likely to be concealed at first.  And it is mysterious.  Who it is and what it wants is not immediately obvious.  The hero often sets out with little idea what it is they are actually fighting.

David Tennant, when he played Dr Who, in an interview claimed they no longer call them monsters but creatures.  He made the point, just because something looks scary, doesn’t mean it is evil.  If there are other worlds with their own sentient beings, they won’t necessarily be enemies.  That’s true but not relevant to this plot.

Who Benefits?

Don’t forget two main groups benefit from defeating the monster.  First, there is the hero and his or her allies.  They hone their skills and grow in experience to defeat the monster.  Usually, they set off ill-equipped for the task.  They are the best person for the job, however ill-equipped they appear to be.  Sometimes they become more mature.  They show themselves worthy of whatever benefits accrue to them for their victory.

The other beneficiary is the wider community who suffer from the monster and despair of ridding themselves from its terror.  It is easy to forget this dimension to the story because usually the focus is on the hero.  However, it is always important because it is about who is worthy to rule, some monster or someone with proven prowess and character.

Equipment

One aspect easy overlook but relevant to some businesses is equipment.  Think of any James Bond film.  Towards the beginning, Bond receives instructions from M and then meets with Q who provides him with equipment.  Bond often finds some unexpected way to use the devices he is given during the adventure.

Perhaps this is one major application of this plot to business.  Customers often have a problem and need some way to fight it.  You can provide practical help or advice and guidance.

The Monster

The monster often evolves in a specific way.  It starts as a predator, picking off seemingly random people as it follows its plan.  At first this doesn’t make sense but as the monster becomes better-known its activities become easier to understand.

When the hero penetrates the monster’s lair, we see the monster in its second mode, holdfast.  Here we see the monster has accumulated treasure or weapons, as a result of its predatory activities.  This stance is primarily defensive.

Finally, when the heroes have a measure of success, they  provoke the monster into its avenger state.   Here it reveals its true powers and is most dangerous because it is angry.

Defeat

Its defeat comes about through some blind spot, where the monster overlooks something that makes it vulnerable.

Remember this is the plot where the hero defeats monster.  There are stories where the hero converts the monster.  That’s not a problem but it is not an overcoming the monster story!  If you sell equipment for overcoming some problem, customers want something that works.  They will be less attracted by something that enables them to live with the problem.  It depends what you sell.  Competitors might befriend the problem, you deal with it.

Rewards

There are three main rewards the hero receives for overcoming the monster.

The love of a princess (or prince) and their hand in marriage.  Consider what this means.  The relationship is usually either a result of rescuing the beloved from the monster’s holdfast or a reward from the community.  Whatever your take on sexuality, don’t lose sight of the point of this.

Marriage at the end of the story stands for maturity.  Male and female coming together balances both people.  You can experiment with this but reflect on how you feel when the hero and heroine get together, there is something deeper here than simply getting the girl (or boy!).

The two together are often deemed worthy to rule over the kingdom, community or household.  This preoccupies most traditional stories.  What makes a good leader?  It is never solely the male hero’s strength and courage but includes characteristics associated with the feminine, such as seeing the whole picture and flexibility.

The point is not whether some characteristics are male and others female, both sexes exhibit both.  Both are needed to rule a kingdom.  Marriage puts both in charge. Problems start when we over-associate with one or the other.

Finally, they inherit treasure taken from the monster’s holdfast or as a reward for defeating the monster.  They become wealthy and much the same applies to wealth as to political power.  I’ll explore this in more detail next time when I consider rags to riches stories.

From a business perspective, these outcomes may be important as the promise you make to your customers.  Note all are awards for those proved worthy through defeating the monster.  This helps us think about our offers on a deeper level.

Looking Forwards

This is the first of Booker’s seven plot types.  Remember the aim is to help you structure your marketing story in a way that resonates with your market.

Next time we’ll look at a plot that on first glance seems much more relevant to business, the Rags to Riches story.  This is an interesting plot that is a good fit for some businesses but possibly not the ones you might think.  If you think your business is about creating wealth, read the next post to find out whether it is!

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Telling Your Traditional Story

You tell a better story if you understanding traditional stories.  Therefore this bottom layer of the storytelling cake is something different.  Many businesses offer help with storytelling to businesses but few use traditional stories.

What is a Traditional Story?

Traditional stories are rooted in oral traditions.  They may be published and so you find them in print.  They are myths and legends, fairy stories, sagas and other accounts of adventure and tragedy.  Some are presented as for children but most assume an adult audience.  They can be bawdy, cruel, violent and devastating but almost always resolve in a positive ending.

Jokes and Anecdotes

Jokes can be stories.  Consider the shaggy dog story.  A long meandering story, often invoking the rule of three to the point of tedium.  Eventually we get to a punch line, which elicits a laugh or a groan.  The punch line is the point of telling this story.

An anecdote is in some ways similar.   Maybe less likely to depend on the rule of three but it has a punch line.  There is a reason for telling it and it results in recognition.  Ah, yes now I see!  If you remember the anecdote, it might remind you of the main point.  The anecdote does not converse with the main point, it serves to illustrate it.  You choose or create it for that purpose.  If it challenges the main point in some way, it is more likely you change the anecdote, not the main point.

Imagination and Fantasy

A traditional story is an imagined story with certain structural and functional attributes.  Imagination is important.  There is a difference between imagination and fantasy.

An imagined narrative comes from within what the psychologist Jung called the collective unconscious.  It is collective in the sense we all have access to it.  People recognise traditional stories as somehow satisfactory.  It makes sense at a deep level.  I shall return to this in future posts.

A fantasy aims to satisfy egotistical desire.  Whether the desire is for money, sex, food, violence; the fantasy attempts to articulate and fulfil them.  Fantasies generally fail because they are not the thing they depict.  Frequently mistaken for reality, they confuse and mislead.

The story of Ignatius of Loyola illustrates this distinction.  He was a knight wounded in battle and convalesced in a castle with a limited library.  He had two books to read, an account of the daring escapades of knights and the lives of the saints.  Ignatius decided to make up stories based on those books.  On the one hand, winning in battle great treasures and the hand in marriage of a beautiful woman.  On the other a life of contemplation.  He found the latter was far more satisfying and so was born Ignatian spirituality.

Structure and Function

A traditional story has a specific structure, basically a beginning, middle and end.  Let’s focus on the end for now.  By the end, things are put right and nothing is out-of-place.  “They married, inherited the kingdom and everyone lived happily ever after” is important.  It ties up the loose ends.  Of course there are other possible endings but after all the vicissitudes the hero and heroine pass through it is a relief to get there.  Tragedies are an exception.  Here the endings are negative but still make sense as a story.

The beginning middle and end tell us something about how the story evolves through time.  Another aspect of the story’s structure is its geography.  Where it takes place and the people and objects the protagonists encounter.  Without these the story is somehow incomplete.  Many personal stories focus solely on the protagonists, and exclude others.

What is traditional storytelling’s function?  First, it is to grasp and hold attention.  This is something all business people need to do.  A well-crafted story can do that.

It tells us something about the storyteller.  Through their choice of story and the way they tell it, they help their audience know, like and trust them.

Finally, it helps the audience understand something of themselves.  Usually, they lack something and need a remedy.  The aim is to move the audience and so bring about a wider transformation of relationships within or between businesses or with the wider world.

Finding Your Traditional Story

We all swim in a sea of stories.  The challenge we have is to find our signature or keynote story.  One step towards this is to find a traditional story that resonates with our personal story and our market’s story.

Oral Tradition

Most of the stories we encounter are published.  You find them in books, magazines, comics and games; on TV, radio and the cinema.  These are all good places to look for your story but remember these are stories set in stone.

Even traditional stories are published.  You might occasionally hear a storyteller or remember stories told many years ago.  Chances are you take recourse to a published version to check your memory.

The challenge is to return to the oral tradition.  Even if you plan to publish, you need to make the story your own before you do.

Orientation for Businesses

Overcome your prejudice.  “This has nothing to do with business”, may be your first thought.  I’ve shown there are real potential benefits and here’s one more.  Choosing the right story helps you understand your business.  Your offer, market and brand all become clearer as you work with the right story.

“There are far too many stories.  How can I choose the right one?”  You don’t need to study every story.  Find a story that resonates, study and understand it.  How do you know you’re chosen the right one?  You don’t.  Do your best with the one you have and be aware other stories might help.

“Aren’t these stories for children?”  Adults told traditional stories for adults.  Children’s stories may be just as useful.  Watch the ending because the outcome is often they find their way home to mother, not something we want our markets to do!

There is no app or technique to help you find your traditional story.  The temptation may be to buy a book of stories and read them all.  Life is too short.

Finding Your Story

Finding the right story is intuitive and so trust your intuition.  Focus on your personal story and market’s stories and ask whether they remind you of a traditional story.

Whatever comes up is likely to evoke a response like, “Oh no, that can’t be it”.  Ignore that and spend time with the story that has come up.  Is it a traditional story?  If it isn’t, why did it come up, can it work as an inspiration or is it a dead-end?

Find a published version and read it, taking note of everything you had forgotten.  Then stand up and retell the story from memory.  Do this several times and note how you begin to change and inhabit the story.

Telling Your Traditional Story

You have chosen a traditional story and now you tell it.  You have four options to consider.

On the Book

You could stand up and read the story as published.  Read it well and hold the audience’s attention as an actor would.  You put some of yourself into the story this way but does this work in a business environment?

This is reading a story in public, it is not telling the story.  The place where this happens regularly is in church.  Every week lessons are read and then the preacher interprets them.  The preacher rarely tells them or retells them.  This is a pity.  The reading is for reassurance, the foundational writings are still there.  Now we hear the preacher’s interpretation for this place and time.

It is difficult to imagine a business context where this has utility.

Telling Your Version

Better and more fun is to tell your version of the story.  This is in the oral storytelling tradition.  You tell the story here and now, for these people in this place.

Emphasise what you believe is important in the story.  Add or subtract incidents, characters and tweak them to convey the message you want to communicate.  As you become adept, you draw elements of your story and your market’s story into it.

This is worth experimenting with for marketing.  You are on a spectrum and as more elements from your story move into your traditional story, you see greater success with this approach.  It leads on to the next possibility.

Structuring Your Story

Perhaps the most helpful approach is to use the traditional story to structure your story.  Think of the two stories in conversation.  Your story asks the traditional story for help.  How can I tell this story better?  What is missing from it?  What does it mean?

Your personal story need not ape your traditional story.  It need not have the same meaning.  Your traditional story helps you find meaning in your own story.  For example, many traditional stories have a communal dimension; the success of the hero or heroine benefits everyone.  Personal stories often show the protagonist overcoming some problem.  The communal dimension can be overlooked.  It does not follow the communal benefits of your personal story are the same as those in the traditional story.

Key is understanding how elements in traditional stories stand in for things in real life.  If there is a magic sword in the story, what role does it play?  Does something in my story play a parallel role?

This is an intuitive exercise.  Work on your own storytelling, no-one else can tell you how to do it.  However, storytelling is a conversation between you and your audience.  The more you tell it, the more you find images and ideas from your subconscious.  Not all are helpful, test everything.  Finding and testing your story is never complete until the grave closes the final chapter!

Telling Fragments

Another approach to your traditional story is to use fragments in your marketing.  Two or three words that evoke a well-known image from a tale saves a lot of words.

This associates your business with a vivid image.  But make sure you are familiar with the traditional story, so the image you use is congruent with your business.  If you choose the wrong image to associate with your business, you can mislead your market.

Looking Forwards

I’ve walked you through the three layer cake, including icing and decorations.  Your marketing story is the icing, then your market’s story, your personal story and finally your foundational traditional story.

This last is perhaps least familiar as a business approach and so the next posts look at the structure and function of seven common plot types.  Most stories follow one or more of these common types.  Knowing them helps you see them in the stories businesses tell, intentionally or unintentionally.

So, next time we’ll look at one of the simplest plots, Overcoming the Monster.  This lays the groundwork for more complex plot types.  If you think your business is about overcoming monsters, read my next post and find out whether it is!

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Why Tell Your Keynote Story?

Now we reach the middle layer of the storytelling cake.  In business you take on the role of leader for your market.  If you want people to follow you, they need to know you and why you are in business.  Telling your personal or keynote story is the best way to establish leadership in your field.

I’ve already covered the different types of personal story you might tell.  Your story must engage your market’s interest, be structured for emotional impact and resonate with your market’s values.

In this post, I focus on why storytelling is essential and how to get your message across.  Every story is different and you must find your personal approach to telling your story.  What do you need to bear in mind as you build your story?

Building Your Story

Trial and Error

It’s tempting to think of your story as something to polish off over an hour’s work at your desk.  You may come up with an outline but it is a starting point for a lifetime’s work.  The telling of the story to audiences is important.  Each time you tell your story, you tell it different.  You can write down the story but the story’s essence is in its telling; telling stories implies a relationship with your audience.

So, think of storytelling as trial and error.  Each time you tell it, you get a better sense of what works and what doesn’t, what is superfluous and what is necessary.  There is no final perfect version of the story you tell.

Your Story is Not Yours

Don’t confuse your story with your life.  Your story is not the same as the story you tell.  Is your story a lifetime’s task because you need to live your life to have a complete story to tell?  Think of the story you tell as drawing inspiration from your life.  No-one can live through what you have been through but they can be inspired by it!

Your story is not yours.  It is a gift to your listeners and it is your responsibility to tell the story they want to hear, that in some way makes them better people.  It doesn’t matter whether you are talking a big or a small change, your story is for them and for their benefit.

And yes there are always some for whom this is not their story.  They might enjoy it but they reject your message.  And that’s fine.  They are not your market.  They are free agents and have no obligation to you.

But it’s Embarrassing!

If it’s not embarrassing, why is it worth telling?  Your embarrassment shows you emotionally engage with your story.  Many people have hang-ups like yours.  They need to hear whatever it is, is OK.  If you offer services as a coach, as a guide for your market, what does it mean if you cannot tell your story?

Only you know your full story, you control what you tell.  The more realistic your story is, the more it builds trust and interest.  You don’t have to say everything, if some aspect is too hard to speak, maybe you’re not ready to speak it.  Say what you can now and leave the rest for later.

So Much to Remember!

Yes, these posts taken together are a lot to remember.  How can you possibly pull something together that meets all these criteria?  You can’t and you don’t have to.

Find a story that might work and start to tell it.  Each time you tell it, review it.  From time to time, read these posts and ask yourself where your story meets these suggestions.  Maybe there are aspects you don’t need to meet.  Maybe at this stage you can’t see how to include something you want.

Remember telling a better story is not incremental.  You are more likely to make big changes when inspiration strikes.  Reviewing your story helps you work out where you need inspiration.  Remember, inspiration strikes in unexpected ways.

Keep it Simple

Your aim is to tell a simple, compelling story.  Adding bits on to meet some aspect of good storytelling is unlikely to work.  You may find it helps to take aspects away!  Does the story work without this incident?  The less material, the more chance you have of sensing the shape of your story.  As you become clearer about what the story is about, you can add material for longer versions of the story.

Don’t lose material you cut from the story.  You need several stories apart from your keynote.  So long as they support the keynote story, use them when the keynote is not appropriate.

Your Personal Story

In telling your personal story, you seek to establish yourself as a leader in your field. Your story is more important than your business message.  When people appreciate your story, they want to hear your message.

To do this, focus on two aspects of your story: authenticity and inspiration.

Show people what you are really like.  If you are honest telling your story, you are likely to be trusted in business.  Sometimes people find it difficult to be at the mercy of strangers (friends might be worse!).  It is daunting and even embarrassing (worse in retrospect!) but at the same time effective.  You seek people with a problem.  To hear someone speak about a problem that is rarely spoken about is very effective.

And inspiration is important because if you inspire your audience to take up the battle you took up, you have keen potential customers.  With inspiration, your market can identify with a story about you.  Your story of triumph over adversity becomes their story.  If they identify with you, they become the hero of your story.  You need time and experience to work out how to do this but it is worth the effort.

Your Story / Their Story

Here are some things to consider when telling your story in the hope it becomes their story:

Telling Your Business Story

Your personal and business stories might be the same or distinct.  Decide which is your keynote, if they are different.  If you major on the personal, there may be aspects of your business story you can include.

Your Why and Your Values

Your business story should be more than an account of what you do and how you got started.  Explain why you do it through your story.  I’m in business because I believe business has a role building community.  I want to work with people in sympathy with my why.

Also share your values.  Together with your why, they help draw your potential market’s attention.

Values in What You Do

Values make sense where they contribute to what you do and the way you do it.  In the first of this sequence of posts, I wrote about the need for consistency between all aspects of marketing.  This must extend to how you deliver your business obligations.

To what extent do you look after your customers?  Do you exceed expectations?  Can you see the values you claim expressed throughout your business?  If they are, you will find in your business itself means to extend your marketing.

Your customers commit to similar values and so help promote your business.  If they know your story, they pass on recommendations with reliability and conviction.

You are Your Business Culture

Larger businesses develop their own culture and once developed it is hard to shift.  Habits shared by large groups, are incredibly hard to change.

You see this even in small businesses.  You employ 3 people to work 8 hours a day, while you do important stuff for 3 hours a day.  Your staff takes their cue not from their contract of employment but from you.  You set the culture of your business.

Seek congruence between how you behave and the stories you tell.  But if you are self-employed with no staff, you have a degree of flexibility.  You can set the tone through the stories you tell.

Finally

Here are three questions to ask of your personal or business story.

Tell your story and then compare it with these questions.  Can you make changes to improve the story and move it closer to your marketing needs?

Looking Forwards

My next post reaches the bottom layer of the cake, where we access the power of traditional storytelling. It opens up seven more posts that explores traditional stories.  Your traditional story – how do you structure a story to resonate with your audience’s emotions and values?

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Telling Your Market’s Story

Why consider your market’s story before we move onto your own story?  This sequence is about storytelling in marketing and so your market imposes constraints on the story you tell.  This is not storytelling as entertainment, your purpose in telling your story is to tell your market’s story.

You aim to move people to take action in their own interest.  Stories have done this for millennia.  They guide their hearers through life and show them how to flourish as mature human beings.  Your market’s story must do the same.

The hero sets out incomplete.  The story equips the hero to deal with their problem.

Your Market in Your Story?

In storytelling, characters and other things stand in for things in real life.  You need not refer to your market directly but understand with whom they identify in your story.

If they identify as the hero, they emotionally engage in the story and see they need the attributes the hero develops to tackle their problem.

Don’t identify yourself with the hero. If you market a solution to the problem, your market does not need to know you are searching for the same thing they are.  They need to know you have found it!  You are better positioned in the story as helper or guide; someone with a solution to the market’s problem.

However, bear in mind it can be inviting to offer participation in a journey.  Here you present yourself not as someone with a complete solution but someone who invites their market to join in a journey.  A good example in marketing terms is Jeff Walker’s seed launch.  Customers pay to be part of an exploratory project and receive the results of the work, usually some online product.

The challenging question is: how do I make my market the hero of my story?  Perhaps you experienced some life-changing event? Your market cannot feel what it was like to be there.  This is a challenge all storytellers face.  Helping your market engage fully is not always easy.  They never experience exactly what you experienced but can experience emotional involvement in your story.

Using Your Market’s Story

One possibility is to use your market’s story directly through a case study.  Use a single case or combine several to make a typical case.  Remember confidentiality constraints; changing names is not always sufficient to hide an identity.

Case studies help you showcase your role with the customer.  You tell their story and show how you helped them.  Sometimes this works better than shoehorning your market into your personal story.

What’s Their Problem?

Your market has a problem you can solve.  Does your story accurately describe their problem and explain why they should try your solution ?  If not, why tell that story?  If you tell an apparently unrelated story, know why you tell it and how it helps your business.  For example, your story might help your market know like and trust you.

The further your story is from your market’s problem, the greater your difficulty getting them to commit to further contact.  A lot depends on context.  For example, if you have a story that builds trust, use it with other material about the problem you solve.

Many successful business people have a keynote story that does not relate specifically to what they offer.  It is branding, creating a memorable public image that helps people understand their business.  This works where a business has a range of offers for various markets and needs a coherent overall message.  If the market’s problem is absent from the keynote story, feature it somewhere else in your marketing materials.

What Stage are They At?

There are other things to consider as you build your story, eg how aware are your audience?  Take a look at this post about the Awareness Ladder.

Here are the types of audience, from the bottom of the ladder upwards. They:

Each implies a different market with different needs.  How you tell your story depends on your offer.

Call to Action (CTA)

Finally, your call to action is crucial. It must acknowledge all these factors and dovetail with your story.

Sometimes you can sell from the stage, especially with a low-cost product, such as a book.  Selling your book is easy, especially if you design the story you tell to whet appetites for the rest of the book.

Otherwise, explain your offer and show people what to do if they are interested.

One possibility is start with your CTA and build your stories around it.  If you sell a book, a cliff hanger might work, so long as your audience doesn’t feel manipulated.  To sell a coaching service, your story needs to show the consequences of not taking action and the value of working with you to solve the problem.

Looking Forwards

In my next two posts, I work further down through the layer cake.  When we get to layer one, this opens up seven more posts as we explore traditional stories.

So, next time I describe the second layer down – your personal or keynote story – how to tell a compelling story that establishes your position in the marketplace.

2

Telling Your Marketing Story

Overview

I begin with the icing on the cake.  Once you have a marketing story, how do you promote it?  Why start here?  My first priority is to show how a good story is necessary for marketing.  This sequence of posts focuses on storytelling and as we get into detail it is important we don’t lose sight of the reason we tell stories as business owners.

How do you know whether you have a good marketing story?

1. Does it directly address the interests of your market by posing a problem and offering a solution?
2. Does the story help you stand out from your competitors? How does it position you in the marketplace?
3. Does the story appeal to your market at an emotional level? Does it move them so they are likely to respond to your call to action?

If you answer no to one or more of these questions, don’t abandon your story just yet.

How Marketing Has Changed

We’re all familiar with the rise of the Internet and understand it opens up opportunities for small businesses.

We’ve moved from a world where broadcast marketing was commonplace to one where targeted marketing is more common.

30 years ago you were in one of two possible places.  You were a big player who could afford broadcast marketing.  Television and radio, hoardings and publications were the main places to advertise.  Most of this was brand marketing although sometimes businesses used ingenious approaches to direct marketing.  Most direct marketing was through the post, once people signed up for something.  Mailshots were expensive.

There is little doubt these methods worked because businesses deployed them.  However, smaller businesses were at a disadvantage.  They were forced to use more localised methods, eg flyers handed out on streets or put through letterboxes.  Local publications might carry adverts at reasonable prices.

Perhaps the most effective marketing was through shop premises where there were several methods business owners used as people passed by or entered their shop.

All these approaches are available today but the big change has been the advent of the Internet.  This brings on board many new approaches and makes traditional approaches more affordable.

Hub and Spokes

Perhaps the easiest way to think of this is the Hub and Spokes analogy.  The spokes bring traffic to the hub.  The hub is where your keynote story is heard in full and where you build relationships with your market.

Your Hub

The hub is the focus of your marketing and you aim to bring people into the hub and retain them there.

Here are some hubs:

Consistency and Innovation

Assume you have a keynote story, a hub and spokes.  How often and when do you tell your keynote story?

First consider traffic and conversion.  You may find your story works better for one of these.  Does it lead people to find out more or to buy?  Does the way you tell it favour one or the other?

It’s worth having versions of different lengths.  A one minute or less version is useful for networking and equips you with a quick summary.  A short version sparks interest, longer versions build relationships.

Do you tell the story in the hub or the spoke?  In the spoke, your audience is unlikely to be familiar with you.  You excite their interest and tell them how to stay in touch.  You need a clear, compelling call to action.  At the hub, can you assume people are interested in your offer?  How often have they heard your story?

Always the Same Story?

How consistent do you need to be?  Most people think their market gets bored.  The only thing that matters is whether your story creates interest and generate income.  Some say you stop telling your story only at your accountant’s request.

So consistency or innovation?  To a degree storytelling is always innovative. You tell the same story over and again but always experiment with the way you tell it.  Even the time available rings significant changes.  Once you have a good story that resonates with your market, why change it?

When you address a room full of people, they can’t get out.  They have to hear you even if they are distracted by their mobile phones.  On social media, it is much easier to opt out of listening.  You may find you need more innovation there because people actively seek novelty.  You may need a range of stories or anecdotes to generate traffic.

Looking Forwards

In my next three posts I work further down through the layer cake.  When we get to layer one, it opens up seven more posts as we explore traditional stories.

So, next time we’ll look at the next layer down – your market’s story – their problem and your solution.

3

How to Design Your Business Story

I listen to many business stories through my Telling Stories: Making Business Lunch and Learns.  We all benefit from telling and hearing business stories.  This is the first in a series of posts about how to design your business story.

The Problem

Most stories I’ve heard over the last year have been life stories.  The challenge is how to turn a life story into a story to promote your business.  Many life stories do not work for marketing, not least because may don’t work as stories.

So, this sequence of blog posts is about how to work your story into a story that works for marketing.  Much of what I write applies to any storytelling and so may interest anyone interested in stories.  But my focus is specifically on what works in a business context.

Alternatives to Life Stories

Before I explore storytelling in more depth, let’s think about alternatives to life stories.  Similar rules apply to any story but it’s worth considering alternatives to your life story.

I’ve encountered two types of life story.  Perhaps the most successful describe a life-changing event.  Everything arranges itself around that event.  Sometimes someone with such a story has already written a book.  A book, whether self-published or through an established publisher, is potentially a great marketing tool.  I may return to this in a future post.  The problem is what to say to promote the book.  How much of the story to cover?

The other type of story is where there is no single life-changing event and so the story becomes one thing after another.  Some stories have a theme, eg depression or “how I got to where I am today”.

Both types share the problem of too much material.  How can you focus the story to help your audience grasp your message?

Here are Some Alternatives

These mostly don’t draw on the life story:

These alternatives overlap.  Use them to interrogate your story and see it in new ways.  You have far more than one story to tell and for marketing that is an advantage.

How to Structure Your Business Story

You’ve found a story to tell.  Good.  The next step is work out a structure for the story.  This is harder to explain than it is to do!  People have told stories for millennia.  It is an art-form and as Fats Wallah said of song-writing: “It’s 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.”

Think of your story as a layer cake.  All four layers need to be present although some may not be immediately obvious.  Together they structure your story. Here is a basic overview and in future posts I offer deeper exploration.

1. The deepest layer is a traditional story. I shall  explain what I mean by traditional in a future post.  The aim is to find a traditional story that resonates with your story.  This contributes an underlying structure to your story.
2. The next layer is your personal story. It is likely to be one of the alternatives I suggested above.  It could be something else as I make no claim to have covered all possibilities.  This is the story you are telling, structured by the lower layer.
3. The topmost layer of the cake is your market’s story. Sometimes, eg case studies, you draw on this more than others.  But keep this in mind because these people are your audience.  Your story is for them and so they need to be part of it in some way.
4. Finally, you have the icing and decorations.  It is all the means you use to promote your business.  Aim for congruence between them.  So everything from business cards and flyers, through websites and social media to speaking and networking tells your story.

Looking Forward

In my next four posts I work down through the layer cake.  When we get to layer one, we’ll find this opens up seven more posts as we explore traditional stories.

So, next time we look at the topmost layer – the icing and decorations – your marketing story.