Every business has a unique story to tell. Sharing that narrative with potential customers is essential for forging an authentic, emotional connection, one that will ultimately help you grow your business. However, not every entrepreneur is a born storyteller.
That’s why it’s important for a business owner to hone their abilities to share a compelling brand narrative. To help get you started, members of Forbes Agency Council have offered their best advice for becoming a better storyteller and brand steward for your business. Here is what they advise:
Members discuss a few ways you can improve your storytelling and branding.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Start With Your Vision And Core Beliefs
People don’t buy “what” you sell, they buy “why” you do it. By developing a story based on your company’s vision and core beliefs, you possess the power to attract like-minded individuals. It takes the conversation to a higher-level beyond just selling features and products. – Chris Gutierrez, LeadJig
2. Define And Articulate Your Purpose In The World
To be able to tell an effective and impactful story, you have to be able to clearly articulate the purpose of your business—how it impacts the world and what you are committed to doing to achieve that every day. You can’t make an emotional connection with someone if they don’t understand what you believe in and what you are committed to. If you start from the point of purpose, you will quickly attract those that align with you and just as quickly repel those that don’t. – Fran Biderman-Gross, Advantages
3. Observe Your Team’s Interactions With Clients
Watch and get involved in the interactions between team members and clients. This gives valuable insight if the brand is being conveyed correctly and is a perfect opportunity to obtain storytelling scenarios. – Charles Mazzini, Hyperlinks Media, LLC
4. Gather And Listen To Customer Feedback
Take customer feedback seriously and look at your service from their perspective. How do your customers perceive your business and brand? What do they care about? What will help them on a personal level? That becomes the story surrounding your business purpose, brand and services. – Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations, Inc.
5. Tell Stories About People Living Out Your Brand’s Purpose
Understand and clearly articulate your brand’s purpose and tell stories around how your brand lives that purpose in the world at large. These are the most authentic and believable stories. They usually involve people and can be told on a human level instead of a corporate level. – Brandon Murphy, 22squared
Read more in How Advertising Storytelling Is Evolving With Consumer Demands
6. Be Authentic
The best way for business owners to become storytellers is to tell stories that people want to hear and are true to oneself. People can eventually pick up when you are lying or when stories don’t match—that’s the last thing that you’d want to happen for your brand. – Daniel Veiga, Rapid Fire Media
7. Believe In What You’re Doing
For me to become a good storyteller and brand steward, it required me to believe in what I was selling. Although the company was starting seeing growth, I still had doubts about scaling. I had to take a hard look at our backend operation and make some changes that gave me the confidence I needed. We lacked in customer service and training, and it started to show. I decided to update my policies and procedures which required quarterly training for all my employees. We also decided to add a customer service software which allows all staff to stay in direct communication at all times. By making those minor changes, I noticed a significant shift in customer feedback. After a couple of years of perfecting the system, it gave me the confidence to go after larger clients. – Joshua Morales, International Van Lines, Inc
