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

Explosion:
Finding VetBilling.
•
New Normal:
Now she can serve all pets. Also note the tie-in with the
normal when we mention her lifelong dream and then her ability to do the
work she was born to do.
•
Identifiable Character:
Lisa the vet.
•
Emotion:
Heartbreak.
•
Moment:
This story doesn’t include a specific moment (which isn’t ideal,
but with a super short story, often one of the components gets cut).
•
Specific Details:
Like the Unbounce story, this one doesn’t include a
specific physical detail. But the heartbreak is a familiar and specific

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emotion veterinarians experience.
To go from the full story to ten seconds is pretty extreme. And the chances
you’ll actually talk to someone in an elevator are slim. Typically, stories in
business range from three to seven minutes in length, and it’s your job to spend
those minutes wisely. Those minutes are best spent building out the normal with
the components, drawing your audience into the co-creative process, helping
them create a compelling picture in their minds, connecting them with the
emotions and what’s at stake, and getting them to say, “I understand that” and “I
can relate to that.”
If you do that, time won’t matter. It will stand still.
Avoiding Common Crafting Pitfalls
Even with a framework and components as simple as what you’ve learned here,
there are a few common missteps and temptations to avoid. Knowing them up
front will help you in the process.
Not Crafting the Story to Specifically Support Your Goals
In 2015, I did a workshop for the United Way in Indianapolis. The audience
that day was made up almost entirely of fund-raisers, which was particularly fun
and challenging because the room was filled with what amounts to professional
storytellers. While my job is often to help people who are just beginning to use
stories, this was an opportunity to help professional storytellers raise their game.
Most days, the job of a fund-raiser is really one of sales. To raise funds for
United Way programs, they might have a one-on-one meeting with a decision
maker or donor one day and speak to an entire room of corporate employees the
next. But in each case, it’s their stories that help them do their work.
We spent a day working on those stories, and I came back the following June
to check in and take things a step further. By that point, they’d been applying the
previous workshop strategies for almost a full year, and it was time for some
advanced tactics.
The day’s plan was simple. Four people would share the stories they’d been
using, and we’d workshop them together, enhancing them, refining them, and
sharing what was working and what wasn’t.
Sharon (not her real name) told a beautiful story about a little boy she’d

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worked with when she’d first been a volunteer reader with the United Way.
When she met the boy, he was debilitatingly shy and withdrawn, but over the
course of their time together, he emerged from his shell and began to thrive.
It was a killer story that perfectly illustrated the possibility for change that
United Way could offer, and Sharon had the room captivated. After much ado, I
got ready to move to the next story. Sharon had clearly nailed it.
But after the accolades and before I welcomed the next teller, Sharon raised
her hand. “Here’s the problem I’m having,” she said. “I’m not getting
donations.”
“Do you tell it just like that?” I asked.
“Yes. And I know people love the story. Some people get close to tears.”
I was confused. What was the problem?
“The problem,” Sharon explained, “is that they all want to become
volunteers.”
At first blush that sounds impressive. Getting volunteer help is notoriously
challenging. And United Way always needs volunteers. But that wasn’t Sharon’s
goal. The programs need money, and Sharon’s job was to raise it. Her story, as
beautiful and touching as it was, simply wasn’t doing the job she needed it to. It
was doing