Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business

emergency
is
another word for 
expensive.
Before the weekend was out, Suzanne was facing a
$4,000 bill that she had no idea how to pay.
At the time she was going through a bad divorce. Money was tight, and she
couldn’t get third-party financing because of her credit. The emergency clinic
didn’t accept payment plans.
What do you do if a loved one needs care you can’t afford? It’s a
heartbreaking dilemma.
Suzanne’s dog eventually recovered, but the agony of having a sick dog and
no way to pay for care stuck with Suzanne. That was the beginning of
VetBilling, which helps vets provide flexible payment options to pet owners.
Suzanne and her partner, Tony Ferraro, run VetBilling, and storytelling is a
key part of their sales process. Unlike many companies that are still hoping
features and benefits will get the job done, Suzanne was convinced they needed
to connect on an emotional level. She has used her story from the beginning to
illustrate the problem facing pet owners and vets and how VetBilling could help.
At first, things seemed to be working. They were signing up veterinarians to
the VetBilling program without difficulty. But gradually a problem began to
emerge. They had no revenue. Despite a number of vets on the roster, no money
was coming in.
What Suzanne and Tony were running up against, they realized, was a
deeper sales problem. While pet owners ultimately generated VetBilling’s
revenue through the use of the payment plans, the only way to get pet owners on
plans in the first place was to have them referred by the vets. Even if a vet was
signed up with VetBilling, nothing happened unless the vet used the program
with their pet-owner clients. In essence, VetBilling needed the veterinarians to
be fully engaged in order to succeed.

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“When we first started,” Tony said, “we would sign up ten clients in a
month. But that doesn’t mean that they would send us any payment plans.
They’d say it was great and they understood it, but they wouldn’t use us.”
The VetBilling challenge was essentially the opposite of one that, say, a
membership service like a gym might have. A gym just needs to sign people up
—as many people as possible—for monthly membership plans, and then it
doesn’t matter if the client actually uses the gym. The gym still gets paid. Not so
for VetBilling. The only way they make money is if their customers use the
program.
The initial story had worked, but it hadn’t solved the second part of the sales
process—the part that means revenue for VetBilling and puts food on Suzanne’s
table and in her dog’s bowl. How do you get the vets to use the service once they
are signed up?
That was a problem for story to solve.
But not just any story. The right story.
Any Story Versus the Right Story
Suzanne’s story, and the one she was telling the potential new veterinarians,
was a classic founder story, and it was a great one. Her poignant personal
experience had led to the creation of an entire business. It was compelling and
authentic, and if you wanted reassurance that she was committed, her founder
story did the job very well. But it wasn’t growing VetBilling’s revenue. Signing
up was cost-free and risk-free. Vets could easily say yes, and they did. But
getting the vets to use the service required a different story. A story that
illustrated the value of using their service. A story that connected with the thing
that kept vets up at night and showcased VetBilling as the solution to that
problem.
Suzanne and Tony knew what that thing was: the heartbreaking act of
turning a pet away because their owner couldn’t pay. They knew veterinarians
face all the challenging and tremendously stressful situations that many health-
care professionals do. But they face an extra challenge that many doctors and
nurses don’t: almost no one has pet insurance. The industry is predominantly a
cash business, and many pet owners simply cannot afford the cost of an
unexpected visit.
Imagine you’re a veterinarian. You almost certainly got into the business
because of a love of animals. You empathize deeply with the bond between pet
owners and their pets. But you’re also running what is essentially a small

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hospital, complete with diagnostic equipment, surgical services, and inpatient
care. It’s expensive. You can’t afford to make every pet a pro bono case.
What do you tell a pet owner who can’t afford a life-saving procedure for
their family dog? How do you walk the line between keeping your business
solvent 
and
helping every person and pet you want to?
After reflecting on the dilemma facing their clients, VetBilling shifted their
story strategy to telling value stories, which changed everything. At the end of
the day, it makes all the difference when you choose the right story for your
situation rather than just any story.
If your goal is to have more stories to tell at family events or at gatherings with
your spouse’s friends or on the sidelines of your kids’ soccer games, then simply
collecting stories would be enough. But when you want to use stories
strategically, particularly in business, choosing the right story is equally as
important, and a great place to start the choosing process is with the four
essential stories we discussed in