Hairy men and horses. Making your business relatable to others using storytelling.

13 years ago, I went to the local hospital for a gastroscopy. I’m telling you this only because it turned out to be a lesson on how storytelling makes your biz make sense to other.

And I also want you to understand that need for the nurse to take my mind off things and help me relax.

Her solution was to start a little chit chat by asking me “So, what do you do?”

That is normally an excellent conversation starter. But in my case, not so much. Collaborating with experts from various areas, helping transform their complicated findings into compelling communication is sometimes hard to explain. At least in a few minutes.

At this moment I wanted to go for something short and simple. So, since I had recently been to a conference focusing “textiles in tech” I told her that.

Unfortunately, that turned out to not be the best of choices. Her immediate response was “Oh! That is nothing I would understand a bit of. It sounds way too complicated!”

This could have stopped our conversation, but it was a challenge I couldn’t resist.

What could I say to make her interested and understand how useful it could be to combine textile knowledge with technology?

In my mind I scrolled through everything I’d heard and seen at the conference. Was there anything that might be of interest to her?

I decided that she might be interested in band-aid for horses. After all, band-aids are something she should know everything about.

So, I told her about the team that was developing a band-aid that was supposed to stick on horses despite the problem with their fur.

This time her immediate response was: “Wow! That is something we could need to put on hairy men!”

Thanks to my little example story a connection was created. Not only did she understand the need for such an invention, but she could also see how this could be especially useful for her in her work!

Now we could dive into a conversation about how tech and textile in combination can transform our everyday life. And I could share more examples from the area of health care.

Do you find it hard to explain to others what you do?

Then this is a splendid example of how storytelling helps you make sense and become interesting to others. They might even see how your thing can be of value to them!