The power of storytelling & stories in business
Originally posted on: www.carnsight.com
“Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution – more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.”
Lisa Cron, Wired for Story
Did you know that this week is National Story Telling Day? (April 27th)
Storytelling is built into our DNA. For as long as we’ve existed, humans have shared stories. As Margaret Atwood once said “You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built-in the human plan. We come with it.”
Quotes aside, storytelling is absolutely vital to humanity (can you tell how passionate I am about this?!) and therefore storytelling is of course absolutely a vital tool in creating a successful business. You may not think so, but here is why being able to tell a good story is key:
What’s your story?
People don’t buy from businesses, they buy from people and this has been proven time and time again. Humans look for points of connection. We want to be understood and to understand. We want something to relate to. You have to be that for your customers.
Having a clear story that highlights who you are as a person, the journey you are on, and how far you’ve come thus far is key for building strong relationships with your customer or client base.
Especially in this day and age, where social responsibility is increasingly important to consumers, people want to know who is behind the brand.
And the why should we care?
Stories provide the background information that gives the consumer context. It tells them why you were driven to do what you do, and perhaps most importantly, why they should care about that. In PR, the why is incredibly important – if we can’t communicate to a journalist or publication why their readers would care to hear about a business and its news, then it simply won’t get featured.
What makes a good news story is another topic entirely – and definitely one we’ll cover in a later blog so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
Being able to relate to something and having a good understanding of it gives us a reason to engage. We all have stories to share and our experiences are very likely (undoubtedly in fact) going to overlap in one way or another. Stories offer us a point of connection and are a great springboard for conversation and engagement.
Storytelling in business is a mammoth topic with so many areas to cover (I’ve written a post in the past about finding your business inciting incident that you may also find helpful) and so I want to write a whole series of blog posts covering different elements of storytelling in business. We’ll talk about what makes a good story, how to structure your business story, personal brand and telling your story, and so much more. Reach out to us on socials and let us know what you’d like to read more about with regards to storytelling in business.
At Carnsight Communications we create strategies and campaigns to showcase our clients’ brilliant work through PR, content and social media. We help them get noticed by the right audience, at the right time. We specialise in creative agency PR.
