Effective storytelling: How it can create chemical changes in the brain and lead your business to marketing success
By Jim James, Founder EASTWEST PR and Host of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.?
Mark Carpenter, who is a master storyteller, joined me in the new episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur to talk about how storytelling can help the average entrepreneur to get noticed.
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How Storytelling Impacts the Brain
A lot of times, entrepreneurs are focused on showing how their products are better and how their features are stronger than what their competitors offer. They want to get data out there, in front of people.
However, storytelling can provide a more powerful impact. It helps you stand out from competitors and connect you to people in very compelling ways. And a lot of this has to do with the brain science behind storytelling.?
Recent research shows how stories impact us as human beings. If you think about it, it’s actually what we’ve been doing evolutionarily since the beginning of time — we connect with each other by telling stories. And brain science tells us why it’s so effective: Storytelling induces changes in brain chemistry within us. It increases hormones such as oxytocin, which creates trust. If you tell a good story that has some conflict in it, it increases cortisol, which enhances attention. And if you make a good point that ends the story, you get an increase in dopamine, a neurotransmitter that gives you a sense of satisfaction and completeness.?
By telling stories, you can get these benefits — and these are things you can’t have when you just share data, features, and benefits.
What Defines a Good Story?
People tend to overcomplicate a good story, which can turn off their audience. It can also discourage others from telling their story, thinking that they need to do all these several steps before they can have a good story.
When telling a story, you can draw inspiration from your real-life experiences and turn them into lessons that will teach, lead, and inspire. And to do that, you have to have relatable characters first. You have to think about the people you’re talking to and relate to them.?
For instance, if you’re talking to investors, you’d want to relate to them in a way that shows that you’re a solid financial bet. You’d want to show some background that the things you’re concerned about are the same things that they’re also concerned about. You’d also want to include in your story some worthwhile goals that you’re trying to accomplish, put those goals at risk (to increase cortisol) and show how you’ve overcome that risk (to increase dopamine). These are the chemical reactions that go on in the brains of your audience when you have a well-told story.?
Keep in mind that a good story is not so much about you — it’s about your audience. It’s about the point that you’re trying to make or the lessons you’ve learned that they can connect to.
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Sometimes, people get caught up in thinking that they need to be the hero of every story that they tell. But what would be more powerful and more memorable than that is when you tell a mistake you made — and how you overcame that mistake. The point here is that you need to think about what’s connecting to your audience more than how can you make yourself look good in your story.
Where to Find Stories
Many things happen in everyday life that are great opportunities for you to turn into good stories. You can also look at the news and history to help you tell stories as well.?
For instance, in the war between Ukraine and Russia, there’s storytelling that’s going on on both sides. Russia is trying to frame the story in a specific way and cut off stories that might not fit their frame. From a leadership standpoint, you need to be careful about what your motive is in telling your story. Because if your motive is manipulative, that’s going to come back and haunt you.?
Mark shared that one of his colleagues is working on a project where they’re talking to people in Ukraine, getting their stories, and trying to get those to the people in Russia through more personal media. And they found out that the narrative that Russians are getting is different from what their government tells. This shows that presenting and knowing a different side of the story can have a positive impact on society and on how people feel about certain situations. And these are the kind of stories that are very important to tell.
How to be an Authoritative Storyteller
The most authoritative storytellers are the most authentic storytellers. In today’s generation, most younger people, for example, are turning to TikTok as their source of news instead of platforms like the BBC because they feel like the former is where they can find more authenticity and realness.
This is why Mark also encourages people to look for experiences in their own lives and turn those into stories. Because those are going to be very authentic. Even those experiences where you’ve struggled or had challenges are going to come off as very authentic because everybody else has struggled at some point.
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If someone always tells stories about how they’re perfect and heroic, you’ll start to question that person because nobody is perfect. But if you hear someone tell stories about their failures and how they overcame their problems, you will be able to relate more because you’ve also had those situations.?
Going back to the brain science behind storytelling, that kind of story is what increases oxytocin or the trust hormone. You can feel more connected to each other and you’ll consider that storyteller as an authentic person that you want to work with.?
The Three Key Elements of Good Storytelling
Effective storytelling starts with the idea of being intentional about why you’re telling the story. What’s your purpose in telling this? If it’s a story to encourage employees to live the company culture, then it’s going to be framed differently than if you’re talking to investors and trying to get them to invest.?
Mark recently published “Master Storytelling” and one of the powers of his book is the power of simplicity in structuring your story. His book breaks the process down into three parts or elements:
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Remember: People don’t want to work with those who fail all the time — they want to work with those who recover all the time. So your story should be able to include: How do I bounce back from that challenge or problem? What principle does my story show that makes me relatable to my audience, enticing them to trust and work with me?
If you can tell a story that includes these things, it will connect you to people in a way that’s more powerful and memorable than just sharing information, facts, figures, features, and benefits.?
On The Use of Words and Pictures
When it comes to word choice, you need to use words that your audience understands. Because that will show that you know them and you’re indeed connected to each other.
During the podcast, Mark recalled that he was listening to a speech by a lady nurse and she kept on using terminology from the medical field. The speech wasn’t even a medical speech — she was trying to make a point about how she solves problems and how she overcomes adversity.?
Fortunately, Mark’s wife is an X-ray technician and so he kept turning to her to ask what those terms mean. However, the fact remained that he kept getting lost in the story because he didn’t have the same terminology as the nurse.?
If you know who your audience is, you must use the language that they can relate to.?
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The use of pictures also has a powerful impact as well. Just make sure that the visuals are well-connected to the words that you’re using. If there’s an image on the screen when you’re explaining something that doesn’t connect with what you say, you will lose people trying to make that connection. Their thought process is going to be focused on figuring out how the image is related to what you’re saying — rather than being focused on the things that you’re saying.?
Also, keep in mind that words can help you paint clear pictures. When you describe a situation, your words can help your audience form an image in their heads. It’s why it pays to be able to tell stories well — they will lead people to develop pictures. And it’s something that facts, figures and data can’t do.?
Storytelling in the Context of Large Organisations
If you’re a team of one, you have the responsibility to make your story relatable across different audiences. But if you’re in a larger organisation, you have to develop a team of good storytellers.?
Storytelling creates vicarious experiences. If your manager is telling you an experience and relating it to the culture of the company — you, as someone who sees that manager every day, will be able to relate to that story more compared to a story told by a person who’s three levels away from you in the organisation.?
For larger organisations, there’s a need to build a team of powerful storytellers because that’s what’s going to inspire action, lead change, and get people to fully understand the culture of the organisation.
As an example, Mark talked about an employee who came into a company in a sales role. During the orientation, he and his fellow new hires were told that the company is very team-focused. Anytime somebody needs something, everybody jumps in and helps.?
Two weeks since the employee joined, his manager came in and said that they’ve got an emergency and all hands are on deck. Some materials didn’t get to be shipped to the location where they’re doing an event. Everyone was instructed to go downstairs and help load up the truck.?
The employee, however, said that it’s a job for other people — what he needs to do is to get some sales closed. His manager insisted that he should come and help. He reluctantly went down and helped load the truck. Then saw their own Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the founder of the company at the back of the truck, stacking boxes. At that moment, the employee realised that the words he heard during the orientation were indeed real.?
The Stories of Your Customers Matter, Too
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Customer stories can help embed a brand in the marketplace. If you’re talking to a potential client, it helps to tell a story of another client who has worked with you successfully to overcome a problem that’s similar to what that person is experiencing. This way, they’ll be able to see themselves in that story. Once they relate to that, and then you give them the solution, it’s going to be more effective.?
In one of his master storytelling classes, he had a group of salespeople as his students. The biggest objection that they had was about giving information on features, prices, and benefits of the product that they’re selling. He clarified that they don’t have to stop doing that; rather, they should include storytelling in that.?
Two weeks after the event, one of the salespeople sent him an email and thanked him for the idea that he gave. That salesperson has been trying to close sales with a client. Instead of telling that client about the features of the product, the salesperson told a story about a similar client and the impact of their product on their organisation. That story was able to break down a barrier and open the door for sales opportunities.
Getting Himself Noticed
To live up to what he tells people about how your everyday life can teach principles, Mark does a weekly post on his LinkedIn account. He also has a master storytelling page on the same platform.?
Apart from holding virtual master storytelling workshops via Zoom, he also offers them to companies to directly help them solidify organisation stories that they want to tell to teach, lead, sell, and inspire.
Mark’s Master Storytelling book is also available in different formats on Amazon around the world.?
This article is based on a transcript from my podcast The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, you can listen here.