Be a storyteller

What’s your favourite movie ? When did you see it ? Do you still recall key scenes and dialogues from it ? Like most people we tend to remember our favourite movies, charaacters and even some scenes. This is because the human mind is designed to understand things as stories – as a narrative of what happened, why it happened and how it happened.

On the other hand how many presentation slides do you remember from last week ? Chances are very little or almost nothing. Our classic method of presenting to others is highly ineffective – numbers, charts and slides. It’s also not the best way to persuade someone to change their mind or to show them your proposal.

Instead choose to become a story seller – sell and convince others through stories. How can you do this for your company, your brand and your business. Take a pen and a paper and write down a few stories – try to add colour and creativity to them as you do so

Where we come from, our origin story – An example of a origin story – Once upon a time, there was a young manager who was struggling with his career. He saw one day an unhappy customer and asked him what was the problem. The customer asked him for a solution to problem XXX and our business was born. Since that day we have…… You can have many versions of this wonderful story but in all cases there will be a hero ( a central character), a challenge ( a problem to overcome) and a happy ending ( successful story). Try and write your origin story.
Where are we going, our destination story – An example of where we are going. The world is full of hungry people who struggle to get the basic nutrition they need every single day. Our mission / goal as a company is to eliminate hunger in the next 10 years by bringing to everyone a low cost nutritious drink that gives you all the vital nutrients for the day and costs very very little. We know this hard but we also feel it is worth it. So far we have developed xxx…… and our current challenges are yyyy….. Our vision is that the day when no one sleeps hungry is not far.
Why We cannot stay here, a bring urgency story – An example of a crisis story. The world is into a pandemic and there is dire need for hygiene products to serve consumers and keep communities safe. We need to drop all other projects and put all our energy into focusing on one need – serve everyone around the world with hygiene products and keep them safe in the pandemic. Lets come together now and keep everyone safe.
Why do we exist / what makes us special – An example – We are a distribution company that serves ethnic communities in the west coast of the US. These immigrants largely from asia often miss their favourite food products from their home countries. We do what it takes to bring their favourite foods to America and home deliver it to them. We make every immigrant feel connected to their home.