Times have significantly changed over the past couple of years regarding promoting your company. Gone are the days when it was enough to showcase what your business sells and does to pique someone’s interest.
These days, something like this is simply not going to cut it. If you want your brand to resonate with people, you must use storytelling. That is because everything regarding your company will become much more relatable.
Nowadays, it’s all about connecting with people, and that’s precisely what you’ll accomplish with it. If you want to know more about this, focus on the facts below!
It Doesn’t Have To Be A Typical Sales Pitch
Self-promotion has become very common among various types of people. This is not referring only to businessmen. Even though that’s something legitimate, it oftentimes isn’t perceived as something positive.
People who want to be successful and spread the word about themselves are trying to think of various ways to pitch their stuff. This includes starting from social media platforms, numerous forms of advertising, and many other things.
And since many people are not too thrilled by this, these strategies frequently receive negative feedback from potential consumers. But luckily, you’ll get a completely different outcome with storytelling.
Namely, with it, you’ll get to talk about your brand without making it look like you’re trying to sell anything. You can thoroughly discuss its advantages, how beneficial your products and services can be for customers, etc.
If you want to spice things up and make the whole story even more relatable, you can always add a personal story related to your business’s mission. Trust me when I say that people will be all ears in these instances. That is because they’ll be amused by everything you stated.
Remember that your attitude and approach can build the foundation of your whole marketing strategy.
Focus On Developing A Human Connection
As stated above, authentic storytelling is about creating a human connection. Therefore, if your firm has come up with some fantastic idea, it is highly likely there’s a story behind it. You should definitely employ this story to offer some context to people.
That’s precisely what a successful entrepreneurial marketing expert, Kurt Uhlir, has done numerous times. Namely, proptech and innovation keynote speaker Kurt Uhlir likes to use a mixture of innovation and storytelling when promoting a company. He usually loves accentuating what particular idea has helped him solve a problem. He describes that entire journey (step-by-step) to ensure his story is relatable to listeners.
And precisely then, he loves mentioning real-life situations that led to this idea. As concluded previously, storytelling should be perceived as a tool to connect with others. Only then will you appear to be reliable and honest in their eyes.
Generally speaking, people love seeing entrepreneurs who are not trying to sell anything at all costs and force numbers their way. If the audience sees some of the flaws and virtues in the character that’s part of the story, I kid you not, they won’t forget your company so quickly. To clarify things, I’ll give you a great example of excellent storytelling that’s very relatable. Namely 2007, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he talked about how challenging it was for him to bring several devices simultaneously. He used one for browsing the web, one for music, and the third one was a cell phone.
He got tired of it and created an iPhone because it has it all. People loved this story because it was a typical real-life situation that a vast majority of people faced before the iPhone entered the world.
Numbers Are Not Something People Care About
Every successful leader will tell you that although numbers are relevant for the statistics, they are not something most people will pay attention to. Fortunately, that’s not the case with storytelling.
In fact, if you want to get your message across, you must definitely turn to storytelling. According to some reports, it’s more than 20 times more memorable than when you try to accomplish this by utilizing the facts.
Storytelling is here to make things more interesting. It can effectively translate these very dull and dry numbers into something captivating. A renowned psychologist, Jennifer Aaker, had a tendency to say:
“When data and stories are used together they resonate with audiences intellectually and emotionally for a lasting effect, you need to persuade the rational brain but also resonate with the emotional brain.”
Take a look at these guidelines below if you want to make sure you’ve understood everything I stated above:
- Narrative + Visuals = Engage; combining succinct and clear communication with a compelling visualization will quickly pique the audience’s attention.
- Narrative + Data = Explain; if you offer context for the data, you will efficiently explain to listeners what you’re talking about and how crucial your data is.
- Visuals + Data = Enlighten; developing a solid visualization that perfectly depicts the data and what it means will accomplish that “aha” momentum.
Storytelling Transfers Value & Beliefs On The Listeners
The crucial aspect that will stimulate others to act is when your beliefs and values become theirs. It is widely known (and something that every accomplished entrepreneur will confirm) that storytelling has played an integral role in creating shared beliefs and values.
One of the best ways to achieve this is by showing your audience what stimulated you to believe in specific values and beliefs in the first place. Something like this can be very significant when a CEO decides to communicate the business’s values.
You can always turn to different interesting stories to convey what your brand stands for and discuss the values behind a particular product idea. One of the best examples is Peter Guber, an eminent entrepreneur and director.
Namely, one day, he decided that he wanted to make a movie in Havana’s harbor, and that idea (in the beginning) wasn’t approved by the late Cuban President Fidel Castro. There’s no need to remind you that Fidel Castro has always been perceived as one of the biggest enemies of the United States.
However, surprisingly, Peter Guber managed to put his idea into effect. How did he do it, you’re probably wondering? He did it by invoking the beliefs and values Castro had for the heritage of his country and how, as a director, he wanted to emphasize some of those elements without jeopardizing Cuba’s privacy.
This approach convinced Castro to allow Guber to film anywhere he wanted in Havana’s harbor. In fact, he permitted this more than Guber needed.
Everything You Experienced Resonates With People
The whole point of storytelling is to communicate the practical application of your services and products. For instance, if your company provides business training, you could tell a story of a particular firm that overcame adversity and stayed strong by employing the wisdom in one of your business-related training.
There’s a specific story formula that’s going to help you accomplish this. It’s known as the Origin Story, representing a fantastic story structure that has become highly efficient in business settings.
In it, you talk about the situation before the “thing” that turned your company around was uncovered. Remember to mention the different hurdles you had to overcome during this process.
Then, after everything was executed successfully, and you practically won, you can discuss the benefits of that success. What makes this so effective? Namely, during storytelling (if you’re persuasive enough), the listeners will cheer with you as you try to overcome every obstacle before the victory.
Once your storytelling is over, the audience will start perceiving you as vulnerable, with numerous virtues and flaws, yet has managed to become successful. All in one! Consumers will love this because they will believe that what worked in these instances will work for them, too!
And you will no longer be “only” a person they can relate to, but also a spectacular leader who is honest about real-life situations and is not trying to embellish anything.
Emotions Are Everything
No matter how often people try to hide it, deep down, we all are very emotional, and we love when we hear touching and relatable stories. That’s because we want to connect with others and feel understood.
As I previously mentioned, if you talk about the hurdles you’ve had on your journey, people will root for you as if they are going through the same thing. That’s why you shouldn’t hesitate to discuss your past failures and struggles.
In fact, if you accentuate them, you’ll become “more human” in the eyes of the listeners because they will realize that even the most successful people had to go through hell to “experience heaven.”
To give you a great example of it, I’ll tell you the story of one of the most accomplished businessmen of all time, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. Approximately eight years ago, he talked about how one time he tried to apply for a job at KFC, along with twenty-three other people.
The KFC store hired twenty-three out of twenty-four people, and unfortunately, Ma was the only one who didn’t get the job. He also wanted to mention how various schools rejected him (including Harvard, which rejected him ten times). He was very open about his previous failures, and people were moved by his speech even though they knew his net worth was more than $50 billion today. But at that very moment (when he was talking about all these rejections), they couldn’t care less about his money.
He managed to evoke and engage various emotions, essential in storytelling.
Storytelling Increases Employee Efficacy & Engagement
Not every company in the world is outstanding, and one of the things that make a huge difference between an average and phenomenal company is the people. If you want your company to bloom and remain successful, you need to have workers who are always prepared to give their all regarding work-related tasks.
Unfortunately, the latest surveys have shown that many employees are not stimulated and engaged. That is mainly the case with millennials. Many businesses nowadays struggle to keep them productive and engaged.
So, is there something that can be done about it? According to Nita Clarke and David MacLeod, four enablers will lead to successful employee engagement. The most effective one is the strategic Narrative.
What does it mean? Every entrepreneur must rely on storytelling to connect with his or her workers and inspire them to become more proactive and invested in their work. So, what sorts of stories are most desirable in these situations? It could be anything, starting from customer impact stories, CEO stories, leader-specific stories, employee impact stories, and many others. These are just examples, and it’s up to you to decide which one you will choose.
The whole point is to remind you that captivating narratives with a particular emotional context can only positively affect communication between you and your colleagues. This will also make you look more “human” to them.
Next, you’re supposed to encourage your staff to share their stories, too. This will get them into this business-wide initiative. All of these things are going to enhance employee engagement for sure!
Storytelling has always existed. However, it seems people (especially business owners) have forgotten its importance. And I hope that this article has managed to emphasize its importance.