Family Offices, Thrift Stores, Walt Disney, and You

Three minutes from now, you will complete this article—and with that completion will come a powerful understanding of what market force can thrust your business into the financial stratosphere.

Point One: The Secret Life of Stocks

All stocks listed on the Dow and the NASDAQ have the same ticker symbol. Now, you might not believe me because you type MSFT for Microsoft or CVX for Chevron. Those are distractions. The only stock you buy, the only investment a mutual fund manager makes on behalf of millions of account holders, is called STORY.

You and I do not own stocks. We own stories. Once you metabolize this fact, the way you market your company will never be the same. Regardless of whether you are a Fortune 500 company or a start-up, STORY is the single most powerful instrument in the financial markets.

Point Two: Judging By the Numbers

Imagine this: You purchase a few items from a thrift store at a total cost of $129.00. You then sell the same items on eBay for approximately $3.6 million. You have just achieved a profit of 2,700%.

This actually happened, by the way (I'll explain in a moment).

What convinced buyers to spend so much money on otherwise useless thrift store trinkets? Storytelling.

You see, instead of listing the items based on their description, researchers Rob Walker and Joshua Glen hired storytellers to create narratives about each item, thereby creating a human connection for potential buyers. The result? Enormous profit. (Read more about the experiment online).

Point Three: Expanding Your Definition

When your favorite analyst describes financial statements, reports quarterly earnings and cash flow; when they mention a company's value as five times EBITDA, this too is a story—the story of numbers and their relevance to the future appreciation of your original investment. Even science is a story—one about objective data and its superior nature over anecdotal experience. The scary tale you heard around the bonfire as a kid, and little Woody in Toy Story...they are all stories.

Point Four: Significance

Storytelling is the carrier of significance. Without it, all we have are heartless things and bland services. Storytelling infuses virtue, purpose, and the value of non-monetary gain into products and services. Ironically, we don't buy things based on the monetary value of something—we buy anticipating our purchase will unlock non-monetary value. It may cost a parent less than $15 to buy a meal, but what they really seek is the smile from their child who is appreciative of this meal. Priceless.

Whether you are a family office or a philanthropic organization, without a touch of Disney in your copy, in your marketing, and on your website, you will find it difficult to attract and maintain success. Have your salespeople, business development team, or those answering the phone ever taken a class in operational storytelling? If not, why not?

The marketplace has been replaced by the humanplace. Companies with great profits but without great storytelling are being tagged as useless gluttons with no vision beyond their stock price. For better or worse, that is the direction we are headed. Ignore it at your peril.

Point Five: Grow or Die

Stories don't always present themselves as "Once Upon a Time" or "When I was three." Storytelling is not quills, feathers, and quaint bottles with smudges of ink. Story is an invisible force able to reach any objective you desire. The magic of story is that many people believe they know when a story is being told. The real story never shows up as a story.

Conclusion

Learn how to craft the invisible story and you'll create tangible results.

Written by: Dennis Ross

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