Stories are being told about your company all the time. Unless you have never had a customer, someone somewhere is talking about your company. When they do so, they are speaking with passion either for or against your business. You need to have your passionate stories ready to add to that conversation. To create raving fans in your business, you need to be a raving business.
When a customer experiences your company, they leave with an impression. If they were offended, hurt or feel they did not get good value, they will passionately talk about (create the story of) their perceptions of your business. Likewise, if you exceeded their expectations, they will also talk about that story. When a person hears one of these customer stories about your business, do you have your own equally passionate company stories to counter or confirm? Can your customers find these passionate stories on your website via video or audio links?
Here are five storytelling for business tips to help you express your passion:
1. Do not be afraid to be full of passion about your product or service. For example, I am always amazed at the way small brick-and-mortar business owners can be so alive and excited about their offerings but yet have zero expressions of that anywhere on their websites, other advertising or in casual conversations. Real passion ignites real passion. Don’t tell me that you’re “passionate about the perfect cup of coffee” at your coffee shop. Rather, through business storytelling, show me your passion by telling me the story of how you spent a year travelling the country to find the best and most unique roasting machine. I want to see that look in your eyes as you tell me about the best/worst coffee you ever had that led you to start your own business. Let me laugh with you about your obsessive interviewing and auditioning in order to find the perfect baristas. Help me to feel your focus as you tell me about going through a dozen suppliers (and their unique personalities) looking for the perfect coffee beans.
2. Your employees are your best source of truth about your company. Train your employees in ways to gather and collect their own company stories. Then, on a regular basis, gather employees together to share these stories. The sharing of these stories must not be mandatory. Requiring employees to have a story results in faked stories. By the way, my coaching clients will sometimes hesitate to use this story-gathering process with employees because the session will generate “nothing but complaints” from the participants. All stories have value to your company and if you are getting lots of complaints, let those stories be the catalyst for internal change. Take the cue to understand: if your staff is producing uncomfortable stories, then you can be assured that your customers are unhappy, too.
3. If your company is very large with multiple locations or large departments, start your storytelling process in just one section of the company. Nothing squashes passion more than yet another management project that “we are all going to do.” Choose one department and let them be the first group to experience the power of business storytelling. Once they have learned and applied storytelling techniques successfully, then other departments or locations will want to join in.
4. The elevator speech is dead. For any size company, learn to tell each of your stories in a variety of time formats such as two minutes, six minutes or fifteen minutes. Always be ready to tell potential customers about your work. Your preparedness will help convey your passion.
5. Remember that storytelling is a person-to-person experience. Take every opportunity to be in front of customers or employees to tell your stories. Digital storytelling, print advertisements and social media are all fine tools, but they can never replace the benefits of experiencing your story passionately told live and in person.
Storytelling is one of your business communication essentials. Add passion to your public speaking!
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Sean Buvala is a storyteller and corporate coach focusing on communication skills through the art of storytelling for business. He can be reached at www.seantells.net . You may also follow him on Twitter at @storyteller.
Posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago at 2:13 pm. 2 comments
Episode Five: “The Elevator Speech is Dead”
Sean talks this week about the archaic concept of the elevator speech. The elevator speech: when you learn a singular “speech” to talk about your business with new clients and customers. Rather, Sean talks about learning the power of your story to be used in different time frames. Sean also tells you the obscure Grimm tale of “Not Much.” You’ll also hear from a listener who called in to tell us his reaction to these podcasts.
Listen in: Episode Five
Posted 10 months, 1 week ago at 4:06 pm. 4 comments
Non Profit Leaders: Do your volunteers know your story?
Yesterday, on my way into the grocery store, a woman sitting at “animal rescue” table asked me if I would like to donate to their rescue shelter. As I made my way into the store, I had both the time and the inclination to listen to her ask for a donation as my family has been connected to the work of rescue shelters for more than six years. (You can see the website at 3lostdogs.com.) As well, we have three “rescued” shelter dogs in our life. So, I am open to the idea that these volunteers were promoting. I also know that these impromptu tables are an important non profit funding source.
I asked her, “What does your shelter do?” The volunteer was not ready to answer my question. She did not know the story of the shelter she was representing. Her only answer was, “We do the adoptions at the (name of pet store).” Outside of that, she did not know what to say.
So, unlike most people passing her table, I stopped long enough to actually talk to her. I was a prime-candidate to donate money to her cause. However, she had not been trained in how to talk to potential donors. Either she did not know the story of her group or she had not been trained to speak about her organization.
This, of course, is not her fault. Her lack of preparedness was the fault of the director of her non-profit organization. It is possible that she had been trained on where to find the table that she needed, what to do with the money she collected and where to turn in the forms at the end of her shift. She was not trained in talking about the mission of her organization.
How about your volunteers and employees? Have they been trained to tell both their story of why they volunteer as well as the story of your organization? I am not talking about elevator speeches here. These elevator speeches, also know as unique selling points, are static anecdotes used to snare others. Rather, knowing the multiple stories of your organizations and how to adapt them to both casual and formal situations is a key skill for your staff, both volunteer and paid.
Here are three steps you need to follow to prepare your staff to use the power of story in your non-profit organization.
1. Collect the stories of your group.
There are a variety of techniques available to aid any organization in the collection of their stories. However, the best method is the oldest method: listen. Train your staff to think about stories. Ask them to think: what is happening/has happened that others need to know about? Find a way to share these stories at regular gatherings. Never make story sharing mandatory in any setting. Although many trainers advocate this, the pressure of “I must have a story” results in poor stories shared when your staff is under pressure to come up with anything. Stories should always be gathered in an organic or grass-roots process.
2. Train staff in the essential skills (the how-to) of storytelling.
The best investment you can make in your organization’s future is to enlist the help of an experienced storytelling coach to teach your staff and volunteers to tell stories. You want your team to be able to know and tell your core or essential stories in a variety of time formats. For example, the volunteer I encountered outside the grocery store might have known the 20-minute story of their organization but had not been trained to tell it to me in a two-minute setting. She would need to know both the long and short versions. You also want your team to be able to use stories as frames for presentations that require quantities of data and shared information. Teach storytelling techniques first and save the high-level theories of storytelling for advanced classes once your staff has had success with storytelling.
3. All non-profit leadership must use stories at every gathering.
In every public speaking setting, from formal board meetings to casual walk-arounds, the leadership of the organization must fully immerse themselves in the use of story. Despite the glut of storytelling-for-business consultants available, the idea of storytelling for adults in a business setting remains challenging for many. Your leadership team, from the top on down, must clearly demonstrate the importance of story in all settings.
In even good economic times, a non-profit organization must have a strong command of their past, present and future stories. Your potential donors are interested in what their money can do in your organization, assuming your mission aligns with their values. Are your volunteers ready to speak your mission statement, not in overused mission “statement-eese,” but rather in the geniune stories of your group’s daily experiences?
Expressing your organization’s story should be a skill for all of your staff. It is a requirement for business communication today. Consider everyone in your organization to be public speakers. Your experiences, expressed in story, are the unique features of your group. Be sure your donors can understand them.
I did explain to the volunteer outside the grocery store about my family’s history and thanked her for the good work she was promoting in defense of abandoned animals. Her work was important and I hope she had some success in collecting funds for their rescue project. However, I knew that she was unprepared for real conversations about the work and mission of her group. I hope that the leadership of her group soon gets a chance to teach their staff to tell the real stories of the challenges and successes of their charity.
Good stories, willing listeners and a staff trained in public speaking skills are tangible assets for every non-profit group must have.
Posted 11 months ago at 12:40 pm. Add a comment
Three Quick Fixes to Your Storytelling for Business.
Having done executive coaching and corporate storytelling training over the last 23 years, I have seen many common mistakes from folks wishing to use storytelling for business presentations. Here are three of my quick fixes for public speaking issues.
Fix Number One: Take your story seriously.
World stories, myths and legends have endured for many centuries because of their ability to carry powerful messages in the small space of well-selected words. Use this power carefully. When I work with clients, they will often have spent many hours on their appearance, their eye contact and the slides they will project. However, they only spend minutes on story selection and presentation. This is a big mistake. There is no such thing as a simple story. Stories are powerful tools and, used incorrectly, they will explode back at you. Stories selected with care, crafted with good storytelling techniques and told with an intentional purpose will create a long-lasting impact on your audience. Your listeners will remember your stories long after the memory of your nice tie, fancy dress or overhead slides quickly fades away.
Fix Number Two: Plan the gestures you will use.
Your hands do not always need to be in motion nor held clasped in front of you as if you were carrying a bouquet of flowers. Avoid making choppy hand movements with eve-ry syl-la-ble you speak. Plan your gestures to match your story and move effortlessly and smoothly from one gesture to another. Let you hands rest naturally at your sides in between gestures. Try to avoid the finger pyramids or hand clasping between gestures.
Fix Number Three: Speak in your natural voice.
One of the best time investments you can make as a public speaker is to watch a professional storyteller speak to your target demographic of adults. You will see and hear the differences between how one tells stories to adults and how one practices storytelling for children. You must avoid the “sing song” voice of the unpracticed storyteller, who, like revered hosts of children’s television programming, makes a lilting vocal pattern that sends adult audiences screaming out of the room.
Also, be aware that when you speak personal or “real” stories about your company you do not imitate or mimic the voices of others. Speak in your own voice. In most cases, do not change your voice to reflect your perceptions of the gender, race, regional origin or social status of those of which you are speaking. Mimicking another can quickly backfire on you, causing you to lose goodwill and trust with your audience.
Applying these quick fixes for public speaking will help your audience to be fully immersed in your presentation. Your storytelling, well prepared and well coached, can lower your public speaking anxiety and make you one of the best business speakers your audience has ever heard.
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Sean Buvala ( Twitter him @storyteller) is an award-winning storyteller, experienced business speaker and executive speaking coach who helps businesses grow their bottom line and create employee satisfaction through the power of storytelling. His website is http://www.seantells.net. He offers private training and coaching. Learn about his small group, multi-day workshop at http://www.executivespeakingtraining.com .
Posted 11 months, 1 week ago at 5:00 pm. Add a comment
How to Tell a Story.
One of the most searched-for communication skills on the Internet is “how to tell a story.” I would like to give you a quick step-by-step guide to this process of story telling, drawn from my 23 years of being a professional storyteller. This is the fast and quick method to learn a new story.
1. Decide on a story. Sounds elementary, but at some point, you need to find a story that you love. If you are having problems, search the Internet for some simple Aesop fables or find some good stories at a site like Storyteller.net .
2. Break the story down into an outline of events so that you can remember the episodes of each story.
You have two choices for step three. Do one or both if you would like.
3A. Write out or draw out the parts of the story. Using longhand, that means pencil and paper, write out the episodes of the story in your own words. Do not copy the story. Rewrite it in your own words. Doing this process by hand allows your brain to overcome any resistance you might have to the story. Knowing you can do this process with your story is also a way for your brain to overcome some fear of public speaking that might hinder you from telling this story.
3B. The other way to break down a story is via “storyboarding,” a technique that many storytellers use. Take a letter-sized piece of paper. Fold it in half along the length. You now have an eleven inch piece of pager that looks like a taco. Then, fold the right side up against the left and then fold the same way again. When you unfold the paper you will have a piece of paper divided into 8 segments.
Starting at the top segment, draw out each step of the story. This is only for you to learn so stick figures and bad drawings are just fine. This visual method may help you grasp the story better than writing alone.
4. Begin to tell yourself the story, aloud, using your own words while looking at one of the #3 tools above. Repeat this process several times.
5. Think about the story you are telling. Are there parts of the story that do not really need to be there? Do they drag down the story? Cross them off the list or the storyboard and tell yourself the story one more time with those parts of the story removed. Again, at each of these times, you are speaking your story aloud. Let your face get a feel for the story.
6. Put your notes down and tell yourself the story a few more times. This is a great exercise to do while you are driving your car or cleaning your house. Just keep talking to yourself.
7. Call up a friend or find an associate and tell them your story. Use no notes or storyboard. When you finish telling the story to your associate, ask them if it makes sense to them. Did they think you left out any parts? This is not the time to see if they “get it” or understand the deep meanings. You just want to know if the essential delivery of the story makes sense.
8. As your confidence in the story grows, you will want to start thinking about the emotions represented by different words in the story. You may find that you wish to emphasize one part or character over another. These things come with time. If you feel better about saying “once upon a time” at the beginning or “the end” as one of your story endings, then do so. As you grow to understand storytelling even more, you will learn so many other ways to start or end a story.
9. When it is time for your story’s debut, be confident. Look at your audience. Speak clearly. Slow down and enjoy the story experience. As a professional storyteller, I can tell you that it takes a dozen or more tellings of a story to find the your true rhythm and delivery for each story.
There you have it, how to tell a great story! This is a quick, get-it-now guide to storytelling. There is so much more you can learn about how to tell a story. Remember- get started today telling stories. Like a painter who must paint often to get better at painting, you, too, must speak stories often and to many groups in order to improve.
Some resources:
To get my free ECourse on storytelling, see the front page of my website at www.seantells.net.
For hundreds of articles and stories, please visit www.storyteller.net.
To order the EWorkbook on storytelling that includes live coaching and audio files, please visit www.storytelling101.com
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Based in Arizona, Sean Buvala is a full-time professional storyteller and storytelling consultant who works throughout North America teaching storytelling for business. Along with storytelling techniques for corporate communication, Sean is also sought after for teaching storytelling for teachers of middle school and high-school students. For more information about Sean’s work as a storytelling coach, please see his site at www.seantells.net.
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 12:39 pm. Add a comment
(Submitted by K. Sean Buvala)
There are three essential stones needed to build a strong foundation of storytelling in business. Are you practicing them?
1. Corporate and Non Profit Storytelling must be gathered in an organic manner. The imperative of “come to the meeting with three stories to share” is always destined to fail. It is a very popular teaching right now to have company meetings where employees are required to share stories. Mandatory story sharing does not work. Most people, unless they are trained in the process of gathering stories as they happen, cannot produce stories on demand. It is much like the old game-show experiences where contestants say they can play the game great at home, but when they are there in the television studio, they cannot remember anything at all.
To gather stories from your employees and volunteers, immerse them in the techniques of story gathering. I teach several different methods including Trigger Words™ and Intentionality™. As people become more comfortable with finding stories, they will be better able to submit these story ideas via Email or perhaps in employee gatherings where storytelling is optional and fun. These types of stories, gathered in a natural and organic manner, make a much stronger foundation upon which to build programming and marketing.
2. Stories used in business storytelling must be used in an ethical manner. When you find a story, either from an employee or customer, you must get permission to tell that story. It is never ethical to tell someone else’s story as your own, as if it happened to you.
Several years ago, I was teaching at a corporate event. At the end of the session, members of the class began to share their stories that they had worked on all day. One participant began to tell a story about eating cookies while seated at the gate of an airport. As she spoke, I began to recognize clearly that her story was taken directly from one of those collections of sappy stories printed in mass market books. When she finished her tale, I asked her how it felt to have had that story published in a very popular book. After several moments of go-around, she admitted that it was not her story but one she found. Of course, her integrity with the group dropped a notch or two. What would the fallout be when caught telling lies with real customers?
In the non-profit world, the use of stories must be approached with special concern and sensitivity. Always have permission to use a story and never tell a story that did not happen unless you have clearly identified it as an amalgamation of the “typical” stories of your company.
3. Storytelling must be practiced from the “top down.” If the CEO and other senior staff members refuse to use storytelling, then you cannot expect the sales staff on the floor to embrace story. Unlike many management fads and ideas, story as a communication tool has been proven successful for centuries. Yet, many employees may find storytelling initially uncomfortable. To be successful in your organization, the most senior members of your staff must be the first to tell stories in meetings and events. As a trainer, I know that the first group I must train for storytelling are the folks in the corner offices.
Knowing these three essential stones to storytelling will improve your experiences in corporate communications.
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About the Author: K. Sean Buvala
“I help entrepreneurs and non-profit leaders utilize the power of storytelling to increase their bottom line, secure funding, and recruit/retain staff and volunteers.” He is the founder and director of the “Executive Speaker Training” workshop, with focused, small-group training in the art and techniques of business storytelling.
Posted 1 year ago at 5:41 pm. Add a comment
A good company story is worthless if you do not have the product or service to back it up. Welcome to the world of the dangerous “lure story.”
I have been teaching and training storytelling for several decades. I have come to know that storytelling should be the most-used tool in your metaphorical toolbox when you want to communicate anything to anyone about any subject.
A story is powerful except when you can not back up the story with excellent service or product. Is your company living up to your story?
The following applies to any organization, whether it is a for-profit or non-profit group.
Recently, I worked with a company that has a great story. I was their customer for a big event I was hosting. Customer service was what I needed from this organization.
They had a great story to share, a story that the news media was very excited about. The owners shared their story on television and in print media more than once. With just a little polish, they could have presented a story that would probably lock in more business than they were already getting.
I thought that with their powerful and attractive story, the company would be delivering fantastic service that I would be able to gush about. Afterwards, I would be ready to write one of those raving-fan letters that every company would like to get. How exciting it would be to see a good story connected to a good product.
The company did deliver, but it was not what their story promised.
I ended up with a company that simply did not communicate. The leadership may have been excited to share their story, but their employees were not delivering. Maybe the employees did not even know the story. If they did, they did not care about living up to the story. I doubt that the employees were ever allowed to even participate in the company legend and that they were only there to do the job. The employees I worked with, the few I actually saw, told me several times, “I don’t know anything about that,” when asked even the most rudimentary of questions.
Their company story was great. Their services were poor. I did not write any raving fan letter. I did not even write a letter of dissatisfaction. I simply will not use their services again. I do not want to be part of their story any longer.
In my storytelling workshops, we call this the “Lure Story” of a company. Customers are lured into a sense of the greatness of your company with your fantastic story, only to discover that the lure has a painful hook attached to it. Like a fish that escapes, a customer will bite once but not ever again.
How do you avoid the “lure story,” that causes your customers to vanish?
1. Be sure that your company story and the product or service you offer are growing together concurrently. Good press is not a substitute for shoddy service. Do your employees or peers feel a part of the ongoing story?
2. Actively seek out the stories, both positive and negative, from your staff. Use our “Trigger Words” or “Intentionality” methods to get to the heart of what your employees are feeling and experiencing. Make storytelling a part of every company meeting. This is a risk-taking process, but well worth every moment you spend doing it.
3. Allow your story to change. Like any good story throughout history, a story changes as it encounters new people. What you did five years ago is already outdated. How has your story changed in the last year or even six months?
4. Follow up with customers, inviting them into your story. You might, for example, write to a customer. “At XYZ Organization, we believe that our company story is all about (fill in the blank.) Please tell us how we did living up to that story.”
You may have a company story, but it might not be the real story. Your customers and your staff are speaking your true story every day in every encounter.
What are they telling about you? Back up your great story with great service and you will be unbeatable.
Posted 1 year ago at 4:19 pm. Add a comment
Our next edition of the “Storytelling and Narrative for Business Podcast” is now available. This time around, we respond to a listener’s email asking about the use of jokes, anecdotes and stories. Sean discussion the differences between each of these items as well as tells you the story of “Just Enough.” Sponsored by http://www.executivespeakertraining.com and presented by http://www.seantells.net.
Please send your questions and comments to sean@storyteller.net and be sure to put “podcast comments” in the subject line.
Click below to listen in!
Storytelling In Business Podcast #3
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 5:05 pm. Add a comment
Our next edition of the “Storytelling and Narrative for Business Podcast” is now available. This week, we ask what makes a plumber worth what they are worth, talking about telling an old-hat or familiar story for your business. Sponsored by http://www.executivespeakertraining.com and presented by http://www.seantells.net.
Listen in:
Storytelling and Narrative for Business Podcast #2
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 6:22 pm. Add a comment
We’ve launched the “Storytelling in Business Podcast” presented by seantells.com and executivespeakertraining.com. These are short, easy-to-listen-to podcasts that last between 8 and 10 minutes.
We want your input, your questions. Maybe you do something interesting with Storytelling in your business? Send your comments to us at sean@storyteller.net and be sure your subject line reads something such as “podcast question” or “podcast comment.”
Storytelling in Business Podcast #1 (seantells.com)
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 4:15 pm. Add a comment
