Tell your tiny story

This blog entry is about stories. Good stories.

Because out here in the business world, you hear about stories all the time: Facts tell; stories sell. 

Stories — like founder stories, product discovery stories, industry disruption stories, social impact stories — are interesting. Stories build trust, make a message sticky, elicit an emotional connection which has been shown to drive sales more reliably than rational appeals.

So let me get nit-picky here, because not everything the internet shouts at entrepreneurs about story-telling is accurate. (Whaaat? Some of the information on the internet is misleading?!?)

The uber-successful, no-fail marketing consultants, social media mavens and business gurus online… let’s lump the one-size-fits-all-advice-givers into a category called Know-It-Alls for now… I find that these folks throw around the term story lightly.

I’ve read lots of articles that advise businesses to get clear on their story, offering a formula like this one for example: [Your brand] helps [your audience] [solve their problem] by [your solution].

Knowing this for your business is indeed important. But this is a value proposition, not a story.

Also important is to report results that your clients have achieved as an example of what’s possible. 

Comparing your role to a gardener nurturing seeds, or a lighthouse guiding ships, or a sculptor molding clay are strong analogies.

A value proposition, an example, an anecdote, an analogy… These are useful and important devices in meaning-making and message-mapping. Yet these are not stories.  

Story has an arc. In its purest definition, there is an overcoming. We could use the term ‘conflict’ but I find that word unhelpful because in business stories, unlike fiction, conflict isn’t obvious. Most of us aren’t dealing with duels, high noon shoot-outs, or blowing up the Death Star in our daily work. (If you are, then… wow, just, wow.)

A good story has a turning point, even if that turning point is subtle, innocuous, easily overlooked, mundane even.  Every story needs an identifiable moment that in some way delineates how “before this moment things were like this” and “from this moment onward, things were different.”

That’s what I love about Katherine Kennedy’s story-telling framework, Challenge - Choice - Change. (Her book, Speaking to What Matters, maps this out.) Katherine explains that we don’t have to have grand story arcs, rags-to-riches tales, rock-bottom moments, or earth-shattering epiphanies. (Also, in even the most challenging times, we have agency in how to move forward.) Katherine affirms that what resonates with people about a story is the moment when we make a choice (they don’t have to agree with the choice — that’s not the point) and what changes for us and around us as a result of that choice.

Most business owners I know feel they live ordinary, mostly-stable, regular, comfortable lives. Our lives are not Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Finding Nemo. Which makes it hard to spot, decide, or choose a turning point moment. 

Yup, I said decide. 

I’ve also been reading and listening to story-telling aficionado Jay Acunzo. In episode 212 of this podcast, Jay explains how we need to mine our lives for stories, how we have to actively craft stories, because in an ordinary, mostly-stable, regular, comfortable life, there may be nothing that whacks us across the head as story-worthy, AND, every moment of every day can niggle our path in a different direction. Thus, we get to decide what we will make stories out of. 

I wrestle with this a lot while collaborating with business owners on their web copy. Not everyone has a brush with death before becoming a health coach. Or storms out of a job after a major moral show-down. Still, there are always a number of turning point moments we can choose to craft a trust-building, sticky, emotionally resonant story.

In my case, there were a lot of tiny steps and mis-steps that brought me to this moment of sitting in my home office still in my pajamas, writing to thoughtful, articulate entrepreneurs and business owners about how to tell stories that will attract the right kind of people to their invaluable services.

Here’s one tiny moment that made a difference along the way…

I was a child song-writing genius. And by genius I mean an earnest, passionate, profoundly terrible, tone-deaf musician who poured her 12-year-old heart into rhyme. We had a big ole piano in our house, and all four of us kids took piano lessons until we had a basic ability to read music. I was not interested in reading music; I was way more interested in writing music, and I was working out the chorus to my next chart-topping hit one afternoon, crafting lyrics inside my head, pounding away on the keys trying to get the melody just right. I was deep into it, oblivious to the world around me, fully focused on creating, as happy, playful kids are able to do.

Until my mother strode in from the kitchen and jolted me out of my practice, shouting “Good god, Kate, will you stop that infernal racket?!” 

Aha. 

Pipe down. Be quiet. Keep your creative mess to yourself. When you play, play something beautiful. This sound is infernal; stop unless it’s heavenly. In this house, we value performance, precision, perfection. Good god, don’t impose anything imperfect on our sophisticated, discerning senses.

That was one tiny step on my route to becoming a quiet, meticulous, detail-obsessed, behind-the-scenes writer of other people’s words.

Now folks, bear with me  — I’m unlearning this lesson; it’s wrong. Yes, the creative process is messy, loud, uncomfortable, imperfect and squirmy. But while you’re creating, you are not performing. Don’t mistake your process for a product. The process is supposed to be playful, free, loud, and crashy. Which can feel infernal at the same time it is heavenly. 

My work today is to help you unlearn the lessons of perfect performance, and throw yourself into your practice and process with the joy of a 12-year-old superstar.

When did I change my stance on this? Oh, well, that’s another story.