Why Storytelling is Good For Business

“Purposeful storytelling isn’t show business, it’s good business.” – movie exec Peter Guber

Do you think you don't have relevant stories or you're not good at storytelling?

Want good news? Storytelling is a skill, just like driving a car or using a computer. Anyone can get good at it, and it's in your best interests to do so because information goes in one ear, out the other. Even if what you're saying is important, if it's not illustrated with a true story that shows how people do this in the real world, it will be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

NPR host Ira Glass who said, “Great stories happen to those who can tell them.”

Know what I've found after 20+ years of helping people create and craft stories into intriguing reports, presentations, bestselling books, and successful fund-raising pitches?

If you get good at telling intriguing stories, life will send you more intriguing stories .

And you will become more effective and influential because people will listen to what you say, relate to what you say, remember what you say, and be inspired to act on what you say.

7 Steps to Becoming a More Effective, Influential Storyteller

1. Jump into the scene. No perfunctory remarks. The goal is to have people at hello. One way to do that is to tell us where and when this happened so we can see what you're saying and we're right there with you. "We were 30,000 feet up in the air on a cross-country flight when we encountered turbulence. The man next to me turned and said..."
2. Don't belabor the timeline. If you say, "I was 35 years old. No, I was 33" or "It was Oct. 13, 2013" you have lost people at hello because they start doing the math in their head. It's better to make a quick reference like "I was listening to a podcast last week" or "One my way to work yesterday," or "My first year as a supervisor" and move on.
3. Use the classic Hero Journey arc. Well-constructed stories are like a three act play. The first act is getting to know (and hopefully relate to) the lead character(s). That could be you, a customer, coworker, or family member. The second act is the lead character encountering a challenge, problem or dark night of the soul. The third act is the victory, resolution and/or lesson-learned.
4. Describe the lead character so we can SEE him/her in our mind's eye and know their MOOD. The goal isn't merely to give physical characteristics, (e.g., "He was 6 feet tall, brown hair). Help us picture that person and their state of mind. For example, "A VIP client, imagine an angry George Clooney, stormed into my office, slammed the door and said, 'If this is how you treat your clients, we're taking our business elsewhere."
5. Re-enact the dialogue. Why can we read a novel for hours at a time and it's not hard work? It's because the author plays out the conversation so we feel we're part of it. Dialogue is a non-negotiable of making a story come alive in your audience's (or readers') mind's eye. Even if the lead character is thinking, put it in quotes, "I told myself, 'I can't believe we're about to lose our best client. I've got to figure out what went wrong and how we can fix it.. today."
6. What's the moral of the story? Share why you told this story , the lesson-learned and how it ties in to your topic, the group's goals, and the meeting/conference theme. When you say, "The point of this story was to show..." the dots connect. The story now "makes sense" because people understand its purpose and relevancy.
7. Hook and hinge the story back to your audience. Follow up with three YOU questions so people are thinking how this pertains to them. "Have you ever had a VIP client threaten to cancel their account? Asking the audience YOU questions makes YOUR story THEIR story.
8. Do all the above in 3 minutes or less. In today's short-attention span world, it's important to follow Strunk and White advice to "Make very word tell." How do you do that? Use the three act play as an organizing structure for your timeline. You have 1 minute to set the scene and establish the character(s), 1 minute to describe the adversity, and 1 minute to share the happy ending and/or how it was resolved.

Hope you'll share this post with your team. Next time they're preparing a report, white paper, presentation, or meeting brief, these techniques can help them start with a memorable, meaningful story that motivates people to give you their full attention.

Because, as Travelocity founder Terry Jones said of my Got Your Attention? book, "If you can't get people's attention, you'll never get their business."

1. "Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” – Seth Godin
2. "Stories are data with soul." - Brene Brown
3. "The world is not made up of atoms, it's made up of stories." - Muriel Rukeyser
4. “History is mostly ‘story.’”?- Ken Burns
5. “Stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.” – Dorothy Allison (one of our all-time favorite speakers at the Maui Writers Conference)
6. “All our employees should be storytellers.” – Anita Roddick, Founder of the Body Shop
7. “There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” J.K. Rowling
8. “The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.” – Jonathan Haidt
9. “Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.” – Jean Luc Godard
10. “The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.” – Mary Catherine Bateson
11. “A storyteller finds order in the apparent chaos of life, and order is a light in the darkness.” – Dean KoontzThere have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.” – Ursula LeGuin
12. "If there is magic in story-telling, and I'm convinced there is, the formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader." - John Steinbeck
13. "The role of the musician (storyteller) is to understand the content of something and to be able to communicate it so it lives in somebody else." - cellist Yo-Yo Ma
14. "I see but one rule: to be clear." - Stendahl
15. “Storytelling is built into the human plan. We come with it.” – Margaret Atwood
16. "The old way was to make a point and then tell a story. The new way is to relive the story first because it will make your point better than anything else." - Sam Horn

Remember, no matter how important your information is, it is not enough. In fact, it is a commodity. People can find most information online, for free, whenever they want.

If you want to connect (and that's the purpose of all communication) use these steps to share stories (online and in person) that people relate to, remember, and are motivated to act on.

You'll be glad you did... and so will everyone else.