5 Questions to Unleash the Best Stories

Read time: 2min

Welcome to the Tuesday's Narrative Nerd, the weekly(ish) newsletter where I provide actionable ideas to help you become a magnetic speaker and storyteller.

Sharing your stories is great, but having your customer (or coworker) share their stories, that’s where the true magic lies. That's where you'll get to know them on a much deeper level, where they'll feel very positive emotions speaking with you, and you'll get interesting insights to improve your collaboration. Here are my 5 favorite questions and 3 tips to help you unveil the best stories.

5 Questions

1. What moment inspired you to start at your current role (or company)?
2. What has been your most memorable (/ interesting / fun) experience working at [current company]?
3. What was the best experience you’ve had working with [our company / our competitors]?
4. What was the worst experience you’ve had with [our company / our competitors]?
5. What's the most challenging project you've worked on?

3 Additional Tips

• Focus on specific moments: Ask about particular instances or moments in time. Storytelling is about sharing specific visual memories. For instance, inquire, "When was the last time a customer thanked you for your work."
• Use problem prompts: Start a conversation by saying, "Have you ever noticed that..." and follow it with a problem commonly faced by people you’re interviewing.
• Share your story first: Share a relevant story that relates to the type of story you want to hear. This may prompt the interviewee to share a similar story. Just be mindful of not taking up too much interview time with your own story.

There you have it. 5 questions to bring out the best stories from your customers or coworkers.

Action item: Pick one of the questions above and weave the question into your next conversation with a customer or coworker. You'll be amazed to see how much deeper the conversation goes just through one question.

Which of the 5 questions do you like the most? Is there any other question that you like to ask? Leave a comment below.

Happy Storytelling!

Philipp

P.S. Ready to unleash the storyteller within you? Here are 3 ways to transform your storytelling skills:

1. Power of StorySelling course?starts on soon. Check it out now and claim your 33% early bird discount
2. Get your copy of the #1 best seller?The StorySelling Method
3. Watch hours of free content on how to become a better storyteller on my?youtube channel