Giving customers and prospects a glimpse into the entrepreneur's life and mindset can allow them to cultivate a deeper relationship with customers separately from the brand.
I think there's a great storytelling tradition in the restaurant business that tends to attract people with an oral tradition of bulls - ting and bollocking. Creative people, people for whom the 9-to-5 world is not attractive or impossible. It seems that way. There are a lot of stories in the business, and a lot of characters - and it seems to attract its share of artists and writers and people who hope to do something creative in their lives.
The Business story is designed to trigger the listener to take an effective action. If it doesn't, the story fails.
When I walk into a room, I know my storytelling has value and I have to sell my idea. I have to help people see the financial value and gain in my work.
So often corporate America, business America, are the worst communicators, because all they understand are facts, and they cannot tell a story. They know how to explain their quarterly results, but they don't know how to explain what they mean.
We all have a life story and a message that can inspire others to live a better life or run a better business. Why not use that story and message to serve others and grow a real business doing it?
When you write a business fable, people get caught up in the story and don't get judgmental about what you're teaching them. If you're teaching a bunch of concepts, people get skeptical and say, 'Where'd you get that research?' But if you tell them a story, they get caught up in it while they learn.
The genre of narrative business books that I love so much - the ones that have a you-are-there quality - was invented, or so it is said, in 1982 by David McClintick, who wrote 'Indecent Exposure,' a rollicking good read about a Hollywood scandal and the ultimate boardroom power struggle at Columbia Pictures.
If you tell your story well, it can help attract customers; it can help people understand your business better, and you are more approachable as a business and a company.
