How to Make the Shift From 'We' Stories to 'You' Stories

One of the primary mistakes I see in company stories - across mediums - is a focus on 'we' stories rather than 'you' stories.

Our product is revolutionary.

Our product is disruptive.

Our product is the first of its kind.

You’re likely to read this above the fold on many company websites - especially in the SaaS and software space.

These companies, in reality, are making a small tweak to an existing product that maybe makes it .0000001% better than a direct competitor or a likely alternative, but they’re selling you on the fact that it’s revolutionary, disruptive, or the first of its kind - none of which are likely true.

These companies aren’t curing cancer, they’re making a piece of software a little more efficient, a little faster, a little more powerful etc. But because they’re stuck in this mindset of being ‘revolutionary’ and ‘disruptive’ they sell you on the features and benefits of their product. And why this makes them so amazing, so amazing, in fact, that you have no other alternative than to work with them.

They’re so great, that you’d be a fool not to.

There’s a major problem with this type of storytelling. At best it depends on a transactional mindset from potential customers, and at worst it ensures that building loyalty will be virtually impossible.

Why? Because potential customers and clients don’t care how great you think you are, they care about one thing only.

How you can help make their lives easier. That’s it.

So how do you make the switch in your storytelling?

?? 1 Big Content Idea: The Switch to ‘You’ Stories

When a company is accustomed to telling ‘we’ stories, the switch to ‘you’ stories isn’t easy. It requires a completely new mindset and a switch in thinking around the reason you’re crafting stories to begin with.

Essentially, you have to put aside your ‘marketer’s hat’ and think like your potential customers. To do this, you have to know as much about your potential customers by talking to them often, but that’s a post for another day.

A switch to ‘you’ storytelling focuses on these factors:

• The potential customer’s current state - especially the negative emotions tied to that state
• Empathy with that current state and a recognition things can be different
• A description of the transformational path that your potential customers will encounter when working with you
• How their lives will be better after undergoing that transformation - especially the positive emotions tied to this new state

Seems like a heavy lift? It’s not as bad as it may appear.

Here are a few things you can do tactically to start the shift.

?? 2 Actions to Take: Get An Impartial Assessment and Remove Every ‘We’

There are two things you can do to make the shift to ‘we’ stories:

1. Get an impartial assessment of your storytelling by someone you know and trust but who is not a marketer.
2. After absorbing their assessment, revisit your content and remove all instances of ‘we’ to prepare to shift the narrative.

The Impartial Assessment

One of the best things you can do as a business owner is to ask someone close to you - a spouse, good friend, a parent, a fellow business owner - to do an impartial assessment of your content and let them provide an honest opinion.

It’s important that this person isn’t a marketer so they’re truly thinking like a potential customer - ask them to consider a few questions:

1. Do you feel like we understand your needs as a customer?
2. What emotions do you feel when reading our content?
3. What stands out as positives in our content?
4. What stands out as negatives in our content?

With answers to these questions, you will have a better idea where there are blind spots, and where your story needs the most work. The next thing to do, is to remove all instances of the word ‘we’ in your content.

Remove Every ‘We’

Go through your website and remove all instances of the word ‘we,’ and shift those sentences to something that’s focused on your potential customers.

How does it read? Is it more engaging? What do others think about the shift?

Continue to rinse and repeat this process as you better align a story that pulls your potential customers closer as they recognize that you want to make their lives better, and trust that you’re the right option to choose.

How We Help Our Clients

Our company Zanate Ventures is a content studio based in Austin, Texas. Our goal is to help companies tell a better company story through fractional content strategy services including, but not limited to:

• Website content refreshes - to the customer’s transformation
• Content strategy - focused on repeatable systems and processes
• Marketing funnel development leveraging:

We offer several levels of engagement, but everything kicks off with a 30 Day Diagnostic period to identify the quickest wins and long-term plays to help energize your company’s story.

Interested to learn more?

Book a 30 minute discovery call here!

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