Using Great Storytelling To Grow Your Business
By John Lux
Originally posted on the Fast Company website on March 5, 2012, Expert Blogger Kaihan Krippendorff talked about Using Great Storytelling to Grow Your Business. In reading the blog I found myself thinking “FINALLY, THANK YOU!” This philosophy has been the basis of our branding work for many years. In fact, it has pretty much been the basis of our entire company for 10+ years. Just recently our StoryAnalytics Master Rick Stone spoke at a Business Success Strategies event for Orlando, Inc. (Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce). During the presentation, Rick talked about using stories to grow your business. Rick spoke about what a story is, why stories are powerful for business, how story drives your brand and marketing, designing a story to produce an experience, and what three stories you need to tell about your business (video clips below). As I read the blog on Fast Company by Kaihan Krippendorff, I realized that the blog was, essentially, a sales pitch for IDEAS. It’s easy to tell people to use storytelling to grow your business, it’s another things to actually do it, properly. We’ve been doing it for 10+ years so we know what we’re doing so thanks Fast Company and Kaihan Krippendorff for telling people they should hire us!
Below are excerpts from the blog, click HERE to read the entire blog on the Fast Company website by FC Expert Blogger Kaihan Krippendorff
1) Use lots of LOTS. Our facilitator told us a story and had us dissect what we remembered. Do this, and you will realize your audience is often checked out, comatose, or unable to hear or remember what you are saying. The key to engage them is to use lots of “language of the senses,” or LOTS. When telling a story, share with us what you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear. When you trigger a sense in someone, you bring them into the story with you.
2) Build on your story spine. I was taught to open presentations with a standard structure: situation, complication, question, answer. Use a five-step structure and do so not just to open your presentation, but throughout your talk. They call it the “story spine”: reality is introduced, conflict arrives, there is a struggle, the conflict is resolved, a new reality exists. These two tools caused a profound shift in our abilities to tell effective stories.
Read MORE from Fast Company
What Makes a Story
Anecdote vs Story
Using Story to Inform Experience
Story Drives Brand & Marketing
Stories Answer 3 Questions in Business
Why Stories are so Powerful
Narrative Assets in Your Company
Design a Story to Produce an Experience
3 Stories To Tell About Your Business
About the Author: John Lux
