You are the hero, the villain, and the story.
BigIdeas on Storytelling
I have often found myself struggling with one crucial skill - storytelling. Despite my best efforts, I have yet to truly grasp the essence of what makes a good story.
So, ended up reading (+ practicing) a lot of insights on storytelling and today, I am going to share a very simple framework that will help you craft a good story - esp from your work life point of view.
Doesn’t matter whether you are a senior leader or starting your career, the framework will surely help you improve on your storytelling skills.
A perfectly placed, impeccably delivered story can transport a person to a place beyond interested, straight past paying attention, and into a state of complete captivation..
#BigIdeas from the book Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business.
We will look at:
The different types of stories
Components of a great story
A practical storytelling framework
As always, if you are from India - you might face difficulty paying for the subscription - so please use this link.
The four essential stories:
The value story,
The founder story,
The purpose story, and
The customer story.
Each story serves a different purpose and audience, and can help you achieve different goals.
The value story: The value story is the story that convinces customers they need what you provide. It shows them how your product or service can solve their problem, fulfill their desire, or improve their situation. It also shows them why they should choose you over other options.
The founder story: The founder story is the story that persuades investors and customers your organization is worth the investment. It shows them how your business came to be, what challenges you faced, what values you uphold, and what vision you pursue. It also shows them who you are as a person and a leader.
The purpose story: The purpose story is the story that aligns and inspires your employees and internal customers. It shows them why your business exists, what impact you want to make, and what culture you want to create. It also shows them how they fit into the bigger picture and how they can contribute to the mission.
The customer story: The customer story is the story that allows those who use your product or service to share their authentic experiences with others. It shows them how your product or service has changed their lives for the better, how they overcame obstacles, and how they achieved their goals. It also shows them how they can become advocates for your brand and spread the word.
“If gaps have emerged in your business or on your path to success that you just can’t seem to close, there’s a good chance the problem starts with the elements you’re using, or not using, to build your bridges.”
The four components of a great story
The four components that every story should have:
identifiable characters,
authentic emotion,
a significant moment, and
specific details.
These components make your stories more relatable, engaging, memorable, and credible.
Identifiable Characters
To be clear, a character is not a company name. It is not a value someone is committed to. It is not even a large mass of people or even a small group of people. A story needs a single or several single, separate characters we can identify with and connect to.
Authentic Emotion
A list of events or occurrences does not a great story make. A static timeline is not a story. The emotion doesn’t have to be overly dramatic; it can be as simple or common as frustration or wonder or curiosity. But it needs to be there.
It is through that emotion that the story receiver experiences empathy with the story. No emotion means no empathy; no empathy means reduced impact of the message.
A Significant Moment
The third component to an effective story is a moment.
A specific point in space, time, or circumstance that sets the story aside from the rest of our existence. It’s a way to take what might otherwise be a broad, generic description and zoom in tight to allow an audience a better view.
Specific Details
The specific details component involves the use of specific, descriptive, sometimes unexpected details and imagery that are relevant to the intended audience in an effort to create and draw the listeners into a world that sounds familiar to their own.
The finer the detail, the better.
A Practical storytelling framework
Mix them well and you have a good story!
Normal: Things are how they are.
Explosion: Something happens.
New Normal: Things are different.
Normal
A bad story has a single defining characteristic: we don’t care. Even the flashiest of colors, the biggest of budgets, or the cutest of puppies can’t make us care. They might get our attention, but they can’t make us invest emotionally. They can’t influence and transform.
Fortunately, the majority of the time, the root cause of this disconnect can be traced back to a single mistake: leaving out the first part of the story. The normal.
The normal is where you include the components. The normal is where you give your audience a reason to care. The normal is the part most people leave out, which is why their stories don’t stick.
Explosion
The explosion, for our purposes, is simply the happening. It could be a big thing or a small thing, a good thing or a bad thing. Most importantly, it’s the moment things change. Perhaps it is a realization or a decision. It may be an actual event. Whatever the case, the explosion is the point in the story where things were going along as normal and then suddenly they are different.
Good different, bad different, doesn’t matter.
New Normal
The third and final phase is the new normal. This is where you share with your audience what life is like now, after the explosion.
You tell them what you know now, why you are wiser or stronger or how you improved (or are still trying to improve) as a result.
It could be when a client lived happily ever after, after using your product or service. It could include a call to action.
People don’t buy the thing. They buy what the thing will do for them. In order for them to do that, you have to tell them a story. That story is a value story.
What’s Value Story
This is the first gap in business: the value gap.
The gap between the problem and the value of the solution.
The gap between the product and the value to the customer.
The most important gap any business needs to bridge is the gap between what they offer and the people who, whether they know it or not, need it. To capture the attention of buyers, to convince them that, yes, this is the solution, and eventually to transform them into repeat users, customers, buyers, believers.
When it comes to sales and marketing, the value story is king. And the value of a value story starts in psychology and spans the full spectrum of why we say yes.
Happy storytelling!
-ashish.