Well, they might believe it at first. But as soon as they have a story of their own, people ignore the official story.
What is the official story? They are the stories that we learn from official sources – government or religion or school or a business.
As Roger Schenk says, “they’re the stories that our boss, our government, our parents or anyone in authority instructs us to tell.”
“Official stories are carefully constructed to tell a version of events that is sanitized and thought to be unlikely to get anyone in trouble.”
They are intended to make complex issues appear simpler.
Do we believe the official story? Only if we don’t have a story of our own for a particular situation. Once we have our own story that we believe more than the official one, we tend to ignore the official story.
Here is an example. If I hear about a book, I go to Amazon and look it up. First I skim through the Editorial Review for the official story. The Editorial Review is always glowing and positive.
Then I start reading the Customer Reviews. It is these reviews that give me more useful viewpoints and allow me to construct my own story about the book.
It’s not that the Customer Reviews are simply positive or negative. The reviews are more nuanced than that. They describe strengths and weaknesses. They suggest similar books. They indicate what types of people would get the most from reading the book.
Your customers must go through the same process. If they are interested in your company and are considering working with you, they must construct their own story about you. The information they learn about your company will remind them of experiences they have had. Potential buyers will reconsider their experiences in light of what they learn about your company. And then they will create their own story about you.
If all you provide them is the Official Story, they are forced to go to other sources to get the additional information they need to form their own story about you. Or worse, they ignore you because they can’t get the information they must have to construct their own story.
Some other related posts you might find useful:
About David Crankshaw
[...] we read is the official story – the watered down, safe version – the one that is “carefully constructed to tell a version of events that is sanitized and thought to be unlikely to ge….” This version of the story has no conflict. Which is why so many business fail to engage the [...]