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

particularly harrowing incident at a TSA checkpoint. Right?
You’ve heard a story.
Let me ask you, did the copy on the hydraSense product in any way resemble
the stories you hear in your life?
No!
People don’t talk like that. And on the occasions they do talk like that, they
certainly wouldn’t characterize it as a story. Your friends wouldn’t say, “I have a
story for you” and then recite the items on their grocery list. (If they do, get new
friends.)
Herein lies the problem.
In its rise to acceptance, popularity, and buzzword status, we’ve lost track of
what a good story is.
Don’t get me wrong. I love that storytelling has become a buzzword in
business. I love that people are at least aware there is a place for story in
marketing, sales, and leadership. It’s a wonderful thing that few seem to disagree
with the premise of strategic storytelling. But there is a downside.
In the drastic swing of the storytelling pendulum, we’ve gone too far. Now
we think everything is a story. If you click on the link that says “Our Story,”
there’s no telling what you’ll find. Now, when someone says, “This is our
story,” what follows could be dates, résumé bullet points, ingredients, or who
knows what else. I’ve seen salespeople stand in front of a room and say, “Let me
tell you the XYZ company story,” and then proceed to flash dates, statistics, and
an infographic or two onto a projection screen. I want to stand up and object, just
like the professor did in my thesis defense meeting.
Yes. Stories are extremely powerful.
Yes. You should be telling stories to do business. And sometimes we do tell
stories to do business.
But stories, somewhere along the way, became known as brands. And
somehow we forgot that, no, not everything is a story.
When you look at the advertising, meetings, pitches, and boardrooms of the
world, you quickly realize one thing: despite the acceptance of the concept,

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there’s still a lack of actual storytelling in business.
And then, every once in a while, a real story is told, and we remember it.
When a Story Really Is Told
In 2017, I needed a new pair of glasses.
I’d heard of Warby Parker. It seemed like what all the cool kids were doing,
so I thought I’d give them a try. Ten days after my appointment and choosing
my frames, the glasses arrived at my home.
I opened the box, opened the case, and there they were: a beautiful new set
of frames and a little Warby Parker-branded hanky to help keep the lenses clean.
The hanky wasn’t branded with the Warby Parker logo but rather their story. A
real story: