Telling your story

Telling stories is how human beings communicate. It is how we have recounted events, explained our feelings, explored our world and understood each other since we were first able to communicate – from cave paintings to online documentaries. Every person and every entrepreneur and small business has its own unique story to tell.

Listening to and telling stories is deeply ingrained in us. Stories elicit an emotional response, and a strong emotional response leads to the message of the story being imprinted on the person that hears it. Telling your own story is a highly effective way to share your message with your customers, and to reach out to new customers. For a small business with a tiny marketing budget, storytelling is a vital component of your business plan.

Since stories are so important to us as humans, since storytelling seems to be imprinted in our DNA, it is something, that with practice, we can all turn to.

Here are some tips for telling your business story to the world:

Quickly connect with your audience

Have you noticed how speeches often start with a short anecdote? This is because short stories, funny or otherwise, immediately help the reader or listener connect with you, they relate instantly. That forms a bond between you and the person you are reaching out to. This emotional connection is what starts off your relationship with those who you want to become your new customers.

You don’t have to be giving talks to huge audiences to do this. You don’t even need a camera, a YouTube video or a podcast. A simple few lines on your About page in the form of an anecdote will be a start.

This short story will be your ‘brand’ story – how did your business spark up? What were the events that led to you and your team getting together? What is the ‘why’ behind your business? Draw your audience in and use social media to keep that special story of you circulating.

What is the point of your story?

Every story has a message, a central thesis, a point to make. What is it that you want people to know about you, your service, your business? Be crystal clear about this yourself and you will be able to communicate your message clearly Keep it simple – if you want your story to be about your business values, keep to one value at a time.

A story must communicate effectively in brief few sentences so avoid overwhelming with a wordy thesis. Keep the language simple: this is a story to a wide audience, not an Elizabethan sonnet to scholars. Your story has to be an example of why you are the inevitable choice for that service or product.

Take your audience on a memorable journey

Everyone is busy all the time, but we also all crave to be taken outside of the daily grind for a few beautiful minutes and then feel that we have been put on a path to something that is going to serve us well. Your story can do that. Make sure you completely understand exactly the destination you are taking your audience to through that story and then work backwards from there.

For example, do you want your customer to feel that only you can give her the manicure that she most desires? Have your story end with her dream of putting her hand with delicately manicured nails and glowing skin into the hands of her life partner in a beautiful tropical sunset and work your way back to the start where her ripped nails and dry cuticles are crying out for the attention only you can give. You can do this in a few images or write a few sentences of how you came to learn to manicure because you used to rub cream into your mother’s hands every night to soothe the ache of hours of housework and you understand that this act shows love and value, and what customer doesn’t want to feel loved and valued?

Spark an emotional response

People will only listen to you if they want to – you can’t force the issue, however, many millions you pour into your marketing campaign. You need to find the emotions people feel around the product or service that you are offering.

Following the manicurist example, we have a manicure for a short session of self- care, to feel that we value our own hard work and effort and to feel good about ourselves. I suffer from very dry skin (I could talk about the years of handwashing baby nappies when I could not afford disposable ones nor had a washing machine, but that’s a whole other story!). To me, an occasional hour spent at the manicurist along the road is an hour of feeling that all that work and effort was worthwhile, it brings me instant relief and comfort. When I read a good piece of storytelling from a small beauty business, anything to do with hand cream and hand massage brings me a sense of warmth and comfort and love and feeling cared for. I book a session on the spot.

Before you take the plunge and start typing out your story, or your stories – different anecdotes about you and your business will work for different occasions, campaigns or products – spend some time researching. Look up other brands, other campaigns, from huge ones to small ones. Find the kind of story that works for you and learn from them. Then think about how you could apply what you learn to your own, special story.

Then again, if you are caught up delivering your service or filing tax returns and would like some help, reach out to us at Athena Services and tell us your story. We’ll help you get your story to people who are out there, waiting to learn about you.