I first read Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in 1990. The lessons contained within have served my career well. But, after revisiting the book a few months ago, I noticed how applicable the habits were for business storytellers. Let’s take a look:
#1: Be Proactive
The best storytellers are intensely curious. They view the world in terms of roles, events, and influences. Guided by the mantra: “A story is the resultof peoplepursuing what they want,” storytellers build their works around people’s motivations as opposed to their actions.
#2: Begin with the End in Mind
While most stories are told from beginning to end, they’re written the other way around. Master storytellers always know their story’s ending before they tell it. (StoryHow™ PitchDeck Card #17: Ending)
#3: Put First Things First
Business storytellers edit ruthlessly. They prioritize and weave details intentionally into their stories. If a particular point doesn’t advance the story, it is cut brutally and without remorse.
#4: Think Win-Win
Business storytellers always deliver something of value (audience win) while supporting the reason why they’re telling their story (storyteller win). They do so by aligning what the message means to the audience (StoryHow™ PitchDeck Card #47: Meaning) with the reason the story was chosen to be told (StoryHow™ PitchDeck Card #46 Purpose).
#5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Business storytellers know where their audiences are coming from before they try to lead them someplace else. They build bridges to deeper levels of understanding through common interests, experiences, and philosophies.
#6: Synergize
Knowing that a burden shared is a burden halved, business storytellers seek the help of others for advice, knowledge, or to just borrow as sounding-boards.
#7 Sharpen the Saw
There’s always room for improvement. The best business storytellers read the works of other storytellers like Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic and Kendall Haven. They listen to podcasts such as The Business of Story. They go to the movies, watch documentaries and study other speakers. It’s like the old joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice.”
Before granting loans, banks need to know that they’ll get their money back. As a result, banking institutions have become experts in quantifying risk through calculations. But what if the calculated risk appears riskier than it should?
“The financials looked terrible,” StoryHow™ PitchDeck user Raina described one such loan application. With numbers that fell below acceptable thresholds, the bank summarily refused the loan.
“Sometimes the people looking at the numbers don’t have a chance to look people in the eye,” she said. But she had, and as a result, Raina worried about a different kind of risk–the risk that a good customer with a rapidly expanding enterprise might take their banking business elsewhere. “If you aren’t there for the worst, you aren’t wanted during the best.”
Raina wanted the bank execs to take another look at this customer, so she set out to answer their primary question. “Why can’t they just give us good financials?”
Her goal was to answer the question through telling the customer’s backstory, but she needed to be careful. “Writing opinion or bias into a financial analysis is highly discouraged,” Raina said. “You must be objective and refrain from using personal or non-objective language.”
Luckily for the bank, Raina studies storytelling. She knew that the absence of fact from a spreadsheet doesn’t negate its existence, and proceeded to weave the missing facts into a coherent backstory.
She described a multi-generation, immigrant family that owned a chain of popular auto service centers. Capitalizing on the community’s enthusiastic acceptance (and rating it as the best in the area), the family funded an aggressive expansion plan through bootstrapping. Seeking to accelerate their growth beyond what they could self-finance, the customer approached their bank for a loan. As we already know, that didn’t go over so well.
Successful businesses overcome obstacles. So, rather than pausing due to the setback, the family just continued to self-finance their new facilities.
“They persevered,” Raina said. “Even when we said no.”
Raina concluded that the financials looked weak because the family had focussed on short-term growth instead of the bottom line. But, she also pointed out that this growth wasn’t haphazard. On the contrary, the family was executing a long-term plan that included grooming the next generation to take over the business.
“Succession is very important to a bank,” she said.
Raina’s document revealed parts of the picture that the spreadsheet had obscured. “It helped them look beyond the spreadsheet and to give the customer a second look. The bank is now cultivating the relationship.”
“It got them interested because of the way I wrote it,” she said. “I addressed the points of risk that evoked emotion without using emotional language.”
Which is precisely the role of a business storyteller.
You’re walking through the woods and come upon something that you’ve never seen before. For as far as they eye can see, each tree trunk is wrapped with some sort of band. You wonder, “What have I stumbled upon?” Your mind races. What can it mean?
Smokey and the Bandit, the screwball comedy about two bootleggers being chased by a crazy sheriff, is one of my favorite movies. At one point in the film, Bandit (played by Burt Reynolds) says to Carrie (played by Sally Field), “When you tell somebody somethin’, it depends on what part of the United States you’re standin’ in as to just how dumb you are.”
The line holds special meaning for me as a storyteller who’s lived in different places. Growing up in one part of the country and moving to another has given me ample opportunity to see how one person’s “normal” is another person’s “odd.” For example, a frappe in New England is called a milkshake in California. “Rad” in California is the same as calling something “wicked good” in New England. And while most of the country only has one form of bowling, New England has three: “10 Pin” (what everyone else calls bowling), “Candlepin” and “Duckpin.”
Storytellers know that “different” marks the beginning of any story. Whether your plot line tracks “a fish out of water,” “puts a stranger in a strange land,” or opens with mysterious bands around trees, storytellers know that violating an audience’s expectations is the best way to pique its interest.
Massachusetts’ forests have been under attack for over 100 years. The aggressor? A harmless-looking, fuzzy insect. But don’t let the Gypsy Moth Caterpillar’s appearance fool you. This pest eats trees. And when I say “eats,” I mean, completely defoliates them. The state has spent millions trying to either eradicate the pest or protect trees from it. One of the best protection methods is the “tree band.”
During the day, Gypsy Moth Caterpillars use their silk to belay from the trees to the forest floor. As evening approaches, they climb back up the trunk for their leaf-fest. However, a century ago, someone figured out that wrapping a piece of burlap around a tree’s trunk blocked the caterpillar’s ability to return to the canopy. Ever since then, tree bands have become the most popular, pesticide-free way of protecting specific trees. And although today’s tree bands are made with different materials, the method is the same. Simply placing a band around a tree trunk keeps the Gypsy Moth Caterpillar from climbing up it.
Stories begin when our expectations are violated. While tree bands are normal to New Englanders, travelers who’ve never seen them will demand an explanation.
So, what are your company’s “tree bands?” What’s standard operating procedure for your company that may be considered different or odd from an outsider’s perspective? Identifying corporate tree bands usually leads to the most interesting business stories.
I’d only been selling the StoryHow™ PitchDeck for about a month when I received an email from Ian in London.
“I haven’t received the package,” he said, three weeks after I’d mailed his copy.
I dropped another one into the mail and proceeded to forget about the wayward parcel.
On one hand, it’s just folded cardboard that serves its purpose before being tossed unceremoniously into the recycle bin. But while fulfilling its role, a shipping box is as important as the contents that it contains.
Finding such a box for the StoryHow™ PitchDeck proved to be a challenge. It needed to meet two requirements: fit my 4.75” x 2.75” x 0.8” deck and protect it from the bumps and bruises of the shipping process. After many days of searching, I found The S-16519 Indestructo Mailer by ULINE.
“Indestructo,” I thought. Perfect.
Its marketing copy described the box as “CRUSHPROOF” (yes, in all caps) including impressive specs like: “Triple wall sides and double wall front and bottom” and 200-pound test. Evidently, the little box was even ASTM D5118 and D3951 compliant…umm…whatever that means.
And while the S-16519 certainly sounded indestructible, what did those impressive-sounding specs mean in real life? The only way to find out would be to put the box through a grueling test, but who wants to do that? I mean, every car has a 5-MPH-rated bumper on it, but do you really wanna test it?
I opened my mailbox to find Ian’s lost box among assorted letters and junk mail. Its condition looked consistent with a bumpy, three-month, twelve-thousand-mile round-trip path between Southern California and London. That’s when I realized that I had a rare opportunity to evaluate the box’s 5-MPH bumper.
The moment of truth had arrived. Had the S-16519 lived up to its Indestructo name? Had its 200-pound test, triple wall sides, ASTM D5118 and D3951 compliant construction protected the StoryHow™ PitchDeck from the perils of its three-month ordeal?
I opened the box to find…
…a perfectly protected deck of cards.
The next time you think that your product or service is too bland, boring, or unremarkable to have a story, think about the reputations of the people who depend upon it.
“We’re in the insurance business,” Sébastien Lenaerts, the Head of Digital at BNP Paribas Cardif Belgium said from his office in Brussels. His company sells mortgage insurance and credit protection services and he is responsible for its digital B2C channel sales and content.
“This business is all about the numbers so our presentations are always the same.”
But Sébastien decided to shake things up when preparing his 2015 budget presentation.
“Rather than presenting just the numbers, I told a story about a user and how we were helping him. Once I went back to the numbers, they now had meaning.”
He described the move as risky because he broke from the traditional way of presenting. But his gamble paid off in two unanticipated ways.
“I was the digital guy that nobody understood. In the past, executive management would listen to my presentations and tell me to keep up the good work. But they had no idea what I actually did.” Yet, after Sébastien started applying story-structure, something changed. “The customer stories gave them a better way to understand me and to stay with me.”
“Executives are now thrilled to come to my presentations. They understand what I do.” A few were so impressed with his skills, that they’ve asked for his help with their own presentations.
Positive reactions to his new presentation style added a second unintended consequence; it helped persuade some of his marketing peers to rethink their content. “By looking at our content from the customer’s point of view, they could see how our customers felt when they received email or other forms of push marketing. We’re now trying to look past boring corporate gibberish and write from the end user’s point of view.”
Sébastien found his way to storytelling through a personal interest. “I had read a couple of books, but they were more about copywriting than storytelling.” That’s when he found the StoryHow™ PitchDeck.
“The deck is easy to put into practice,” Sebastian said. “It’s a pragmatic approach rather than theoretical. For me, you nailed it.”
“My favorite card is the Meet Cute (Card #22). I use it to show how our customers find us. I also like the Irony card (Card #56). Irony is a great way to start a presentation.”
During the past eight months, Sébastien has noticed that his use of the deck has evolved. Comfortable with the StoryHow elements (roles, events, influences, and techniques), he frequently finds himself using the deck to double-check his work.
“After I’ve put together a presentation, I pull a few random cards just to make sure that I’ve covered all of the things that I need to do.”
“You’re gonna have to drive,” I said as I pulled the car to the curb and stopped.
“Again?” my friend asked.
He took the wheel, as he’d done many times before, while I reclined into the passenger seat with my eyes closed.
There are always at least two stories: the one being told and the one being heard. No matter how great your communications skills, the odds are that some gap will always exist between the information that you’re conveying and the meaning that’s subsequently assembled inside your listener’s head.
Over the years I’ve become familiar with a particular type of meaning gap. You see, I suffer from migraine headaches. At times, the symptoms are debilitating, requiring those around me to accommodate my peculiar requests–like taking over my driving responsibilities. And while most people are very accommodating the first time, their patience wears thin after I’ve altered their plans for the third, fourth, or fifth time. And with each new episode, the migraine meaning gap widens to a point where I’m frequently chastised. “It’s just a headache, Ron. Cowboy up.”
I can’t blame them. It’s unfair to expect someone to understand migraine symptoms when their only reference point is a common headache. It’s human nature. Until a non-sufferer can experience a migraine from a sufferer’s point of view, the migraine meaning gap will continue to expand.
Lucky for me and millions of other migraine sufferers, that day has finally arrived!
Excedrin® has single-handedly closed the migraine meaning gap through an augmented reality (AR) application that presents non-sufferers with a first-person view of a migraine. The Migraine Experience consists of a series of videos that captures the exact moment when the migraine meaning gap slams shut.
For example, before donning the AR glasses, Tiffany’s best friend expresses her annoyance with migraine headaches–complete with judgmental air-quotes around the word migraine.
“Oh my God! Oh my God,” she says during and after the experience. She looks at her best friend with a new sense of appreciation (and maybe a little guilt). “I don’t understand how you can function. I understand what you go through now.”
In another video, Jessica’s boyfriend tries to navigate around a kitchen. “Oh, wow! Okay,” he says, reaching for a chair to maintain his balance. No longer able to endure the simulation, he ends it abruptly. “I gotta stop that,” he says while pulling the AR device from his face. “I’m sorry that I ever doubted you.”
Emily’s co-worker describes what she sees through the glasses. “It feels like I’ve taken a ride on a roller coaster.”
When it’s over, her eyes roll uncontrollably in their sockets as she reorients herself to normal vision. Emily is there to comfort her. “Are you okay?” the sufferer asks the newly educated non-sufferer.
“That’s crazy,” she says. “I just didn’t know that it was this intense.”
Great stories convey meaning. They allow listeners to experience ideas in terms that they understand. The Migraine Experience AR App allows people to walk in the shoes of others– a process that unleashes the most powerful communications force in the world: empathy.
Congrats to Excedrin® for a great example of business storytelling.
