We all know that if you want to get someone’s attention, tell a story. We also know that not all stories are engaging.
I believe many companies are picking stories like people fish–toss a line in the water and see what bites.
Finding a good story in your organization is like looking for a great quote. That person’s story you tell will be handy because their story is a brief distillation of the larger pool of people you serve.
A good story also affirms what we already know about ourselves. The report helps you to reaffirm your beliefs and helps to define the category of the brand you are.
This past weekend I saw my daughter’s Spring Dance Concert. I photographed the event for the school to use for their recruiting and promotion.
While editing some 2,600 images, I was reminded that distilling the event down to a few photos was communicating what they hoped to become and what they were doing. They only have a dance minor at the time and are in the process of creating a dance major.
Biggest Mistake
One of the most prominent mistakes organizations make when picking a story to tell is to pick one based on politics rather than the story’s strength.
I have been consulting for many years with organizations, and over and over, the people they want to feature are often someone who has been around a long time or is very popular.
Here are the critical elements in a story that help you identify the best story for your organization to tell.
- There is a before state and an after radically different state. This is before your organization made a difference in their life and after they encountered the organization.
- This was a crisis of sorts. They had a real problem, and the organization helped to solve it. The key here is when comparing their crisis to other possible people for your story that their crisis was the worst.
- Their story represents your target audience’s crisis that you will problem solve as an organization.
Too Close
One of the problems for most companies and organizations is they are just like the dancers–they are too close. They cannot see what they look like from the audience’s perspective.
Even the directors of broadway go into the audience seats and give feedback to those on the stage; they lack the ability often to truly separate themselves from the production and see it with fresh eyes.
I was given a story to execute when I started as a photographer. My mentor Don Rutledge encouraged me to go and find stories and do them to get better. I did this for many years and syndicated those stories through Black Star and Camera Press.
If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.
Jim Richardson
I learned very quickly the story you picked had more influence on the outcome than execution alone.
After shooting and writing many poor choice stories through the years, I slowly realized I was pitching more and more stories to editors. When I did those stories, they got much better engagement than those I was given.
The better I got to know my clients and what they were doing to help their customers I was pitching no longer just exciting stories but now strategic stories.
Another Mistake
Don’t pursue those stories that only entertain and do not move people to the “Call To Action” for your organization.
Be sure the stories you pick a point to what you do best and how you can help the audience with similar problems.
If you are a profit-oriented company, you solve problems for the audience. If you are a nonprofit, you ask the audience to join you in helping solve a problem.
Secret
The key to your company’s success is picking the right story to tell. Once you have done this, your next step will be identifying another story. Your success is directly related to communicating what you do to solve a problem for a person. Then it would help if you consistently executed doing this for those who respond and ask you to fix their problem.
Tell people what you do through a story. Do what you tell people you do. Continue to improve in the execution of your service and repeat this process.
