What’s Your Story POV?

By Arthur Germain, Principal & Chief Brandteller at Brandtelling

When we tell a story, we almost always tell it from our own perspective. That makes sense, of course, because we know what we are thinking and what we want to convey – for the most part. But have you ever thought about sharing your story from another viewpoint?

Let me give you an example: You know the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, right?

Quick recap: The Bears – Papa, mama and baby – are sitting down to breakfast, but it’s too hot (Note: Breakfast is porridge. I have never heard or used that word outside of this story), so they leave the table and take a walk in the woods. No sooner are they gone than Goldilocks appears, knocks at the door, enters and tries the breakfast. One bowl is too hot, one bowl is too cold, one bowl is just right, so she gobbles it up. Same thing with chairs – too big, too small (she breaks that one) and just right. Then the upstairs beds: too firm, too soft and just right. By the time the Bear family returns, Goldilocks is fast asleep and startled to see whose home she is sleeping in, she jumps out of a window to run away.

For most of the story, we get the narrative from Goldilocks. She tells the story of being lost and hungry and tired. The Bear family gets a minor role – they’re in the beginning and the end of the story, but they don’t really get to offer any perspective and we never hear about their walk in the woods and what they experienced there.

Our customers are the Bear family and most marketing stories about our customers sound like this one. We tell the story about their “problem” and then we talk endlessly about our “solution” and briefly about any “results” the customer may have received. We call these “case studies” like we’re at Harvard Law School dissecting an interesting corporate takeover.

What if we focused instead on the customer or the “other” point of view the entire time? What if we “stayed with the Bear family” in the story? What would that sound like?

First, I suspect that Goldilocks wouldn’t be the name of the story. It might be “Bear Home Break-in” or something similar. Not a fun fairytale, but more accurate from the perspective of the homeowners.

For “case studies,” what if we called them “Customer Success Stories” instead and we focused the entire story on the benefits, value and results the customer was able to realize? You have some service or solution or technology you want to relate to the story? Fine. That’s just the “porridge,” not the thing that propels the story forward. I mean, Goldilocks finally fell sound asleep, but I have no idea whether she was sleeping on a Serta or a Saatva mattress.

Let’s give our prospects some credit. If we were to tell our marketing stories from the POV of our customers and the results they receive, don’t you think the prospects who hear the story will understand that you assisted the customer in achieving their goals? We don’t have to hit them over the head with our marketing-speak, tech-babble, legalese or whatever flavor of industry jargon we use in house.

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