Photo by Drew Hays from Unsplash
I sat in a networking event late last year and was struck by the fascinating stories of the attendees. We all had our unique reasons for starting businesses, winding paths full of unexpected events, challenge and change.
Stories. Our world is full of them. In The Science of Storytelling Will Storr talks about unexpected change both in fiction and in life. He says that, ‘…every now and then, that change matters. It forces us to act. This is when story begins.’
We are fascinated by stories. The emergence of a seemingly unsolvable problem, an unforeseen disaster or setback. What will happen next? Safe predictability vanishes and curiosity is piqued. This is what makes a ‘page turner.’
In life and in business, page turners are everywhere. The professional who quit a ‘safe’ job for health reasons and set up a business doing something completely different. The mother who turned a hobby into an income stream. The lawyer who switched focus from her career to home educate her child. Ok, I admit, all three of those examples bear more than passing resemblance to my own story. My life has been full of unexpected change!
Once we start noticing stories, what do we do with them?
When you are marketing your business, consider your back story and whether prospective clients will be interested in it. Most people like to know the person or people they are buying from. If you provide a little background, you may cultivate trust or even identification. You will invoke curiosity, hold the reader’s attention, keep them on your site or holding your leaflet for just a little longer.
And when dealing with clients, remember that each one of them has their story. Your job, very often, is to find out that story, not necessarily the one they first tell you, but the real story, the real reason they are turning to you. What is their problem, the real one? As the mortgage adviser Samantha Lindsay told me, sometimes clients believe they need to move but their real story is that they need more space for a child with special needs. Sometimes, we need to delve a little.
It may take time, a little silence and a little stillness, perhaps more than one meeting and the cultivation of rapport, to discover your client’s real story. And when you know what it is, your job is to complete the story. How can you solve their problem, help them make the best of the unexpected change? How can you complete their story?
If you do that, you will likely have a happy client who recommends you to friends. You may also have something else. The opportunity to write your client’s story to share with others. A case study.
With their permission of course, your clients’ case studies can be powerful marketing tools. As we said earlier, everyone loves a page turner. The story of your client benefiting from your product or service will draw the attention of new clients and help to establish your integrity.
Chances are you can think of three clients right now whose stories would be compelling. Not sure how to go about interviewing them and writing the story? Your business writer friends (ahem, one right here) just love doing that sort of thing. Finding stuff out and writing stories? Two of our favourite things! Let me know if you’d like to explore this further.
