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

part 2
of this book. These stories are a
straightforward way to narrow an infinite number of stories down to a few that
serve a specific objective.
Here’s a little cheat sheet:
• Choose a value story if you want more effective sales and marketing.
• Choose a founder story if you want to increase confidence and
differentiate.
• Choose a purpose story if you want to align and engage your team.
• Choose a customer story if you want better sales, marketing, and
credibility.
Over any reasonable period of time, most companies need all four stories.
There’s no enduring business that hasn’t been through the process of being
founded, growing sales, leading teams, and delivering service to customers.
Additionally, the purpose of each story isn’t exclusive. A great founder story, for
example, can also serve to help sales. An awesome purpose story can drive sales
too. The four stories overlap. But seeing them as distinct story types helps you
get started choosing the right one.
So ask yourself which story you need the most right now. Which objective is
most pressing? Once you narrow in on your objective, use the four stories as a

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guide to sift through the story options you discovered in the collecting process to
find the one that best serves you.
This subtle but powerful shift to telling value stories was what VetBilling
needed all along. Now, instead of focusing on the founder story, which still had
its place of course, they began to build a collection of value stories from vets
themselves. Stories that illustrated the true value of what was possible with
VetBilling: the ability to fulfill every vet’s ultimate desire to help as many pets
as possible.
The results quickly followed.
“It tripled, quadrupled getting clients,” Tony recalled. “Once we got the
campaign rolling, it really expanded. Now, the veterinarians that we’re signing
up because of our stories, 95 percent of them are sending us business right
away.”
All About the Audience
What the VetBilling story teaches us is that making story work for your
business is as much about choosing as it is telling. It’s not enough to find a story.
You need to pick the right one. The one that fits your needs, your business, and
your audience.
That last one is key: your audience.
Remember, you’re not telling a story for story’s sake. And I certainly hope
you’re not telling a story just to hear your own voice. If you’re telling a story in
business, you’re telling it to an audience for a reason. These are always my first
two questions any time I sit down with a storytelling client:
1. Who are you telling this story to?
2. What do you want them to think, feel, know, or do?
The answers to these questions are an essential part of the story-choosing
process. If the client is telling their story to new potential customers who might
need some reassurance that this entrepreneur is the right person for the job, we
choose stories that showcase the entrepreneur’s competency and passion and
have a dose of “you want what I have.” If the audience is a boardroom of
skeptical decision makers who care about and are doubtful of the effectiveness
of the product, we’ll choose a story of the product thriving under pressure and, if
possible, include characters who were also skeptical but became believers after
they said yes.

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At its core, the art of choosing a story is all about knowing where the
audience and your objective meet. Look through the moments you’ve collected,
and choose a story that sits in that particular intersection and you’re golden.
Finding Stories in the Moment
We have spent the majority of this chapter discussing ways to find stories that
have happened in the past: moments in your history that could, with a little
crafting, bring a bigger message to life and result in some big returns. But I
would be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite way to find stories: watching
them unfold before my eyes.
As I boarded a flight recently, I saw a little old lady, her sister, and a flight
attendant in a battle over putting luggage in the overhead bin. Apparently, the
elderly woman asked the flight attendant to put it up for her. The flight attendant
said she wasn’t allowed to per her contract. Maybe someone threw a punch? I’m
not sure; I missed that part. But something big must have happened, because by
the time I sat down, the flight attendant was threatening to remove the eighty-
year-old and the sister from that flight.
Since I hadn’t witnessed the beginning of the altercation, it was unclear who
was at fault, but either way, the whole thing seemed a little extreme. Finally, as
the flight attendant called the gate agent to make the removal, the sister was able
to deescalate the situation by explaining that this was the first flight either of
them had flown in many decades and they were unaware the policy had changed.
The sister then told the story of the family reunion they were attending and how
excited they were to be all together again.
The story saved the day. The flight attendant immediately softened and told a
story about a recent family reunion she had attended. The sisters and the
attendant discovered they shared Midwestern roots. They exchanged stories and
contact information and hugged when we landed. I watched all of this unfold and
thought that there was more than one story here. What I saw were stories about
customer service, about jumping to conclusions, about misunderstandings, and
how knowing someone’s story leads to more connection, understanding, and
compassion.
I made some notes about this interaction and thought that someday I would
tell this story. (Technically, I suppose that someday is here, although it’s not for
the purpose I originally intended.)

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Now this story is a reminder that stories are happening around us every day.
And now that you’re well versed in the importance and value of stories, my hope
is you’ll be as addicted to finding new ones as I am.
To feed this addiction, all you need to do is put your cell phone down and
look around. Any moment that makes you wonder could be a story. Or one that
brings a smile to your face. Or one that makes you slightly angry. Or one that
you watch unfold with heightened curiosity. Each of these is prime story
material happening in the moment. The risk, of course, is that you’ll forget it.
The key to avoiding this fate is to quickly make note of what you saw or heard
or witnessed.
This does not have to be a complicated process. In fact, my process for
recording these moments is quite sloppy. Sometimes I jot a few thoughts down
in my planner (yes, I still have one) or a small notebook (yes, I have one of those
too) or in an app on my phone. Sometimes I email them to myself or post my
thoughts as an Instagram story that only shows up for twenty-four hours and
then is archived in my personal history for future reference. I scribble story
scraps on napkins, the back of receipts, corners of pieces of paper that are laying
around the house or in my bag.
My archive of stories is not neat. It’s not pretty. And I vow to get better at it
someday. In the meantime, I’ll settle for at least having some kind of record of
what I saw. And you should too.
However you choose to do it, take a moment to make note of the stories that
are happening around you so you’ll be more likely to remember the story scraps
should the time come when you need to craft them into a story.
Once You Find What You’re Looking For
I believe that was what I was looking at all those years ago at the storytelling
festival in the moments before I welcomed my mentor to the stage. A list of
scraps, collected over decades and ready to be told.
Of course, that’s the difference. Donald Davis’s list of scraps were more than
just scraps. Each of them was ready to be told because he had taken the time to
craft them.
That is our next step.

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CHAPTER NINE
Crafting Your Story