What is the one thing that a story must have?
Conflict. Without conflict it’s just a series of events that no one cares about.
As Robert McKee says, a story is when life gets thrown out of balance. A customer rejects the terms of a contract, investors threaten to pull out of a deal, or the new version of the product has an unexplained failure. “The story goes on to describe how, in an effort to restore balance, the protagonist’s subjective expectations crash into an uncooperative objective reality.”
In other words, when there is a conflict between what you thought was going to happen and what actually happens.
When you communicate in business – whether it is to a buyer, an investor, or to your organization – your audience is most likely to listen, to remember and to act upon what you say if you communicate in the form of a story.
Yet look at most web sites or other business communication. What 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 get anyone in trouble.” This version of the story has no conflict. Which is why so much business communication fails to engage the reader.
What are some examples of story that you could use to communicate with your buyers? Stories that have conflict and will keep their interest? Here are a few ideas:
- The story of a customer that faced an obstacle and was able to overcome it using your capabilities.
- How about the founding of your company? A founder sees a problem in the world, an obstacle. The founder realizes no else is doing anything about it and decides to build a company that can defeat this obstacle.
- Or when you went to get funding or to find your first customers. They didn’t believe in the value of what you had created. You had to work and work to get the funding or to win your first customers?
When you start looking for it, you start to see conflict everywhere. Which is not surprising, Business is all about conflict, addressing conflicts, resolving conflicts. Think about what you talk about when you come home at night or when you are with your friends. It’s all the conflicts that you experience at work.
That doesn’t mean that you are going to tell all these stories to your buyers. It just means that conflict is everywhere, so stories are everywhere. And the stories that you want to tell your buyers are the ones that create value for them. The stories that answer the questions or solve the problems that the buyer has at that stage of their buying cycle.
If the buyer is wondering if they can trust you, tell a story that shows that you have similar values, that you are interested in helping them solve their problem, that you have done this before.
If the buyer is asking if you have the capabilities they need, tell a story about similar buyers and how your capabilities helped them overcome their obstacle.
If you want to arouse the emotions and energy of your buyer tell a story. It will bring together idea and emotion. It will engage their hearts and move them to action.
Some other related posts you might find useful:
About David Crankshaw