We were in the minivan. I was 12, traveling north with my family on rural Minnesota roads on the way to our little lake cabin for the weekend.
The scene in the van was always the same. My dad drove and listened to the game Twins or Vikings on the radio, my mom read his book and complained about having to read the sound of the game. I too read from my seat in the middle row. My younger brother was sitting in the back, listening to a Beach Boys tape, and my younger sister was sleeping next to him. Every trip, for five hours, was the same; each of us falling quietly silent.
But on this particular trip, our relative silence was broken by spontaneous bursts of laughter from my brother.
It was annoying at first, like the noise emitted by little brothers tends to be. And then it was confusing; What was suddenly so funny about 'Help Me Rhonda'?
The mystery was quickly solved when I realized he wasn't listening to the Beach Boys but rather a tape my mother had pulled out of the library – a narration tape.
The tape contained about ten stories, told live by different storytellers at the National Storytelling Festival. As an older sister, it was my job to ignore whatever my little brother did, but it just couldn't be ignored. His laugh was so genuine that we all wanted a piece of it. My mom made my brother remove the tape from his Walkman, my dad reluctantly turned the game off and we played the tape from the start for the whole van to hear.
Although we varied in age, experiences and travel plans, we were all equally captivated. We laughed till we cried for all of Side A and most of Side B until we got to the cabin. We were the most united I can remember.
All it took was a few stories.
It was one of the few vivid memories from my childhood when I witnessed and felt the bond that a story can have about an individual, the glue it can become for a group.
Several years later, I entered and won a national storytelling competition. The grand prize was an opportunity to tell a story at the very festival where this travel tape was recorded. So I traveled with my mom to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, where every October people from all over flood a fireless town and gather under huge tents to hear stories from master storytellers.
Scrutineers are not there to sell a product or promote an agenda, but rather to connect the thousands of people who sneak into these tents. I watched and listened to the stories of the storytellers mesmerize the crowd and felt the impact of the storytelling went beyond what I felt.
At the end of the festival, my mother and I went back to the airport together. She looked at me and said, “You can do it, you know. You could be a professional storyteller. I laughed at her and rolled my eyes, as is the custom among teenage girls. " Oh yes. I will tell stories for the rest of my life. Sure. ”
And even though she now probably feels the need to say “I told you so” to me on a daily basis, I like to think that we were both right because, yes, from that moment on, the stories have been my life; they are what I do, they are what I know, they are how I earn my income and how I make a difference.
However, the storytelling I do has very little to do with my stories and everything to do with helping you tell yours.
And that's why I'm here. As a reader of SUCCESS , surely you have goals similar to those of the storytellers who came in our minivan so many years ago, and you want to break down the barriers that stand between you and your goals. You want to force your clients or co-workers to turn off whatever distracts them and pay attention to you. You want to engage people in a real and meaningful way so you'll remember them long after the interaction is over.
Just like my family gathered in the van on that ride to the cabin, the stories unite teams, connect customers to brands, and bridge the gaps that separate us.
When storytelling works best
I once received an email from a woman who used storytelling with great success and wanted to tell me about it. It was a special occasion and she had desperately tried to secure reservations at a restaurant that was impossible to enter. She thought she had tried everything, but after hearing me talk about the power a story can have, she decided to give it one last try to get a table. So she called the restaurant and asked to speak to the manager, this time telling him the story of what they were celebrating and why the restaurant was so special to them. "And we got the reservation!"
I'm telling you this not because I think your most pressing need is to get a table at a local hotspot, but rather to illustrate that when you feel like you've tried everything , what you probably missed is the story. Whether you're struggling to get someone to understand what's really at stake, or trying to coerce someone into doing something or picking on you, storytelling is valuable in all types of scenarios.
Telling Stories and Selling
If you're in business, chances are you're suffering from a little-known but alarming plight that affects entrepreneurs and businesses around the world. I call it the TTT syndrome. TTT stands for “Through the Trees”. You know how difficult it can be to see the whole forest (big picture) when you focus on each individual tree (the day-to-day of your business).
It's your job to be obsessing over the finished details of your work – knowing every last metric, eating, sleeping and dreaming about the features of your product or service, and never stopping telling the world about it. However, as you become more and more rooted in the details, it is easy to forget about the big picture and, more importantly, to communicate what that picture means to others.
It Several years ago, I was on a conference call with a potential dream client. She asked all the tough questions, and I felt good enough for me to have the answers to them all. I told her everything she needed to know about the program and the product, the deliverables and why I was qualified for the job. As I hung up the phone, I had no doubt that I had nailed it. I half-expected her to email me immediately to confirm I had the job.
But that email didn't come. Several days passed and still nothing, so I followed up with a playful message – something about the possibility of working together, and was there anything else she needed? I tried to bury any trace of desperation in my optimistic tone. To my delight, she answered! But much to my dismay, she simply said, “I just need something…more…”
What was she even talking about? I had given him everything – every detail of the last tree I was growing in my small business forest. After a moment of panic, it came to me. I didn't give her what she needed most:a story. Another client and what hiring me meant to their success. A story of results.
I'll be honest. It's not always comfortable to tell these kinds of stories. In an effort not to sound boastful, it's easier to stick to the facts. However, in the moments when everything "makes sense" and they still don't say yes, it's because logic is only part of the equation. Emotion is the other, more important part – the part that forces tell them yes, instead of convincing do them.
So I answered. This time, instead of talking about more trees, I told him the story of a recent phone call I had with a woman who saw me talking. She said my post transformed her job by solving a problem her team had struggled with for a long time. I typed up this story, then read and re-read my email before hitting send. Five minutes later, I received a response:"Let's do it." »
If you ever try to sell – be it a product, service or idea – and your message keeps falling, you may have TTT syndrome. Take a step back from the features, benefits, data, metrics, and everything that goes through your brain all day, and look at the forest you've built. Tell the story the value you've created and the difference you're making.
Storytelling and Leadership
Storytelling isn't just about making sales. It is also the key to great leadership. The best leaders are great communicators who captivate people. The most captivating communications are stories. If you aim to lead the masses – or even a small team – accelerate those goals by telling better stories, more often.
Think of the people whose advice you followed, whose ways you emulated, whose ways you accepted the advice. Think about the people who have influenced you. Think about who you've followed and why. It's probably a story that has something to do with it. Here's why:
Storytelling establishes credibility.
A requirement of leadership is confidence – faith that you are qualified to lead people in the direction they want to go.
How do you establish that credibility? How do you let your potential subscribers know you're the leader they need? You can tell them your title and how long ago you said the title and hope they are impressed. You can give them a list of accomplishments and hope they are impressed. Or, you can tell them a story about what you did to earn that title or what you did while you had that title and know not only will they be impressed, but invested , too.
This is where aspiring leaders often go wrong. When trying to establish their credibility, they think that a conversation focused on quantity wins over one focused on quality. They opt for a list of many accomplishments instead of diving deep into one Success.
If you're ever in the position where you need someone to figure out that you're the man or woman for the job, by all means, share a list of your skills and business information. Relevant identifications, but do so after telling a story that highlights who is most important. The most powerful way to establish your professional credibility with a group of followers, be they employees, customers or potential customers, is to share a history of you implementing your expertise. A well-told story will do more than a list of services.
Are you a turnaround specialist for struggling businesses? Tell the story of a particular client in distress and the relief they felt when you showed them how to turn things around. Are you a real estate agent specializing in the luxury condominium market? Tell the story of one seller, a the buyer and the one killer sale that was a win-win for both.
The best leaders are those who understand that the power of their leadership lies not in the title they hold, but in the stories that earned that title . Telling these stories strategically will get you the respect you deserve.
Storytelling allows controlled vulnerability.
In today's business landscape, being authentic and vulnerable is so important. And not just because in the age of social media, the world wants to know your story the moment you reach a leadership position, but because if you don't tell your story, someone else will... and you might not like his version.
So who are you? What are you talking about? Can people trust you? Whether they know it or not, your followers will remain restless until their questions are answered and their concerns alleviated. Your effectiveness as a leader depends entirely on the speed and depth with which you can meet these demands.
Fortunately, storytelling gives you the perfect platform to provide the vulnerability and authenticity people seek. , while keeping control of messaging. Whether the story is inherently positive in nature or deals with sensitive information, a well-crafted, well-placed, and well-told story can help any leader navigate disclosure.
Telling stories beyond business
There's a meme about doing something creative that I found several years ago. It goes in the order of "It's amazing!" to…
This is tricky.
This is crap.
I am crap.
That could be OK.
This is amazing.
Anyone who works for themselves can probably make the connection. I sometimes go through this series of statements several times a day. It's exhausting! And those few in-between phases – the ones where you guess yourself – are sometimes hard to break. While storytelling has obvious implications in business or relationships with other people, I believe the most important stories you can tell are the ones you tell yourself.
In these dark times, have you you a story ready? The story of a time when you made a difference in your client's life? The story of a time when someone believed in you? The story of a time when a spouse, child, friend or family member stopped you and told you how great you are, how proud they are, or how much your work means?
There are a million different places you can use stories to your advantage, but none of them matter if you don't have your own story.
Finding your story
/>So you might be wondering how you can start harnessing the power of stories in your business or career. The first point is to understand what a story really is. I will give you three main points.
A story must have identifiable characters. For your message to be a story, there has to be a character that your audience can relate to and care about. Most often it's a person – it could even be an animal – but it's not a company or a product.
A story must include emotion. A recitation of events will not make a compelling story. Include emotions to engage your audience.
A story must include a moment. Statements like “We have always been committed to excellence” have their place in business. However, for your message to be an effective story, choose a time when this excellence was exemplified.
There's more to consider, but that should be enough to get you started. So now you are ready to be a better storyteller. You know why stories work and what to avoid…now what?
To begin the process of storytelling your messages, first think about the message you are trying to convey. Clarity of message is critical to the effective use of storytelling in business. It's the difference between "Let's do it!" respond and the "Why did you just waste my time?" brow furrow.
Once your message is clear, think back to your life and work experience and look for moments that show that message in action.
If this is a sales message, you may need to come up with a story about when your product made a difference to someone. If this is a story for your team or to help you establish yourself as a leader, look for times in your life when you exemplified leadership qualities. Keep in mind that everything is fair game! Some of the best business stories I've heard weren't about business at all, but rather stories from the cashier's personal life.
Remember that people want to do business with people. The moments you choose will become stories that relate you to org charts and compensation plans in different ways.
It's like the story I told you at the beginning of this article. I don't know if you grew up in northern Minnesota or if you were the oldest of three kids or what sports teams your dad liked. I don't even know if you've ever done a road trip. But I'm sure you could imagine me there, in that van, as if you were there yourself. And in that moment, as you listened to a story about the power of history… you were actually experiencing the power of the story.
And I hope the next time the stakes are highest, you break down the barriers and fill in the gaps because you chose to tell a story.
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2018 issue of LadiesBelle I/O magazine.
