Why Stories Are Important for Business
Why Stories Are Important for Business
Imagine a first date where you aren’t allowed to tell any stories about your past, present, or future hopes. Yikes. You’d likely spend the whole time talking about something mundane…like how edible the bread is. While you might learn a little about your tastes, that information doesn’t give you enough of a connection to want to book a second date, does it?
How Not Using Stories Hurt Businesses
Business works the same way. When interactions are purely transactional with no heart, then no customer / business relationship exists. That relationship fosters loyalty, which is how many businesses, regardless of size, advertising budget, or breadth of products endure through even the toughest times.
Businesses that neglect using stories to reach customers are only as enticing as the product that they sell or their next semiannual sale. Customers only return if incentivized with cost-cutting measures because they don’t have a reason to stick with a business for which there’s no emotional bond or sense of loyalty.
In the long run, this hurts businesses in the form of needing to employ deep discounts to attract customers. Businesses may endure lengthy stagnant periods as well. Without a vocal customer base, businesses also fail to get feedback useful for keeping their products and services fresh.
How Stories Help Businesses
So, if being purely mechanical hurts businesses, it’s makes sense that using stories to connect with customers has a beneficial effect.
• Stories encourage loyalty. Businesses with loyal customers thrive because their customers not only continue doing business—even when times are tough—they also advocate for the business by telling friends about the business, posting about the business on social media, rating the business, etc. All of these things attract new customers.
• Stories stir up customers’ emotions. Customers who have emotional connections are more likely to be repeat customers. Why? Because people are naturally compassionate. Stories engender familiarity, and we as humans naturally make connections with familiar things when we hear stories. Think of Google’s Super Bowl commercial about an elderly man trying to remember his wife. Millions wept over that commercial because they related it on a deep, emotional level. Emotional triggers compel people to do things for others—including businesses--even if it is less convenient or more costly.
• Stories make businesses memorable. Businesses that bond with customers through stories are more memorable. Stories trigger our neurotransmitters in multiple ways and cause us to commit more to memory than do facts, statistics, transactions, etc. Try to remember the last statistic you heard about a company. Now try to remember a story you heard about the same company. Unless it was a recent or mind-blowing statistic, chances are, that precise number didn’t pop readily into your mind; however, if you’d heard a story about that company, not only will you remember some if not all of the details of it, but you’ll also remember how it made you feel, which relates back to emotion and to deepening those connections even further.
Essentially, stories allow customers to get to know businesses and vice versa. When businesses get to know their customers, they learn what their customer’s needs are and can focus on ensuring those needs are met, which further strengthens the customer / business relationship. Such needs could be a menu change for a restaurant, different hours at a boutique, an app for a tax firm, etc. However, without the bond forged by storytelling, businesses are often unable to get such helpful and authentic feedback that can grow and maintain operations.
The Best Stories for Business
Now that we’ve answered why stories are important business, it’s necessary to explore the kinds of stories that are best to tell and how they benefit any business.
• Origin story: Your origin story tells customers how you came into being. What was your original mission or the problem you were trying to solve? Even if that has changed entirely, your heart shows in this story. The origin should be published on your website and in brief on your social media accounts. It should be something you can refer to later (think of the way Spider-Man referred to his origin story throughout his epic adventures).
• Evolution story: This reveals how you’ve evolved and grown. This story shows how you’ve witnessed and responded to customer needs. Customers feel comfortable with a business with a proven track record for growing and for meeting other customer’s needs. This story tells them that they, too, will be taken care of.
• Future plans story: Just like in a dating relationship, customers want to see where you are going. What are your plans for growth or the future? You don’t have to be a psychic and forecast to the letter how things are going to change, but whether it’s an app or a new location you are planning to implement, share the story. This story opens lines of communication and feedback.
• Employee stories: Businesses that give their employees the freedom to tells their stories of working with the business from the inside not only create familiarity with the customers that is akin to a familial relationship, but it also establishes a line of solidarity between the business and the customer. Stories from happy employees paint a picture of a good business.
• Customer stories: Businesses that allow customers to step into the spotlight and to tell their stories tend to be favored because customers have no reason to tell anything but the truth about their experience with a business. Customers trust their peers. If their peers love and trust a business, they are more likely to approach that business with a positive attitude.
The sky is the limit for the kinds and the ways that stories can be leveraged. Businesses should tell stories through spoken and written word, through video, through images, and through whatever other creative means they can think of to reach their audience. Storytelling cultivates genuine and lasting relationships between businesses, which is why stories are important for business.
Have a business but aren’t sure how to tell your story? The Storyteller Agency loves telling stories…ours, yours…so click here to contact us, and let us find the best stories you can tell as well as the best ways for you to tell them.
AMY DELCAMBRE, STORYTELLER
Author’s Bio:
Amy is a creative nonfiction writer and editor with over a decade of professional writing and editing experience in technical writing, content marketing, travel writing, memoir and creative nonfiction essay writing, and contemporary fiction. She has worked for multiple companies including The Storyteller Agency, Vertical Measures, Compass Media, and Madden Media to name a few. Amy’s writing has been published on countless websites and in various collections.
Amy serves as co-president for the Mobile Writers Guild and as a member-at-large for the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA). Amy is also a member of the Authors Guild, the ACES: The Society for Editing, and the Alabama Writers’ Conclave. In addition to her writing activities Amy is a part-time professor of English for the University of South Alabama and for the University of Phoenix Online. She routinely teaches courses in literature, composition, writing for social media, fiction writing, and creative nonfiction. Amy holds a Master’s in creative writing from the University of South Alabama and in publishing from George Washington University.
Amy is a work-at-home widowed mom of three young daughters and one angel son. Much of Amy’s writing revolves around the chaos, confusion, and crocodile tears of navigating work and child-rearing as a solo act; however, Amy remains eternally optimistic about life and the beauty of this world as she processes her grief and helps her daughters navigate theirs.
When she isn’t writing, Amy is an avid outdoor fitness enthusiast. She loves running, biking, swimming, and kayaking and engages in at least one of those activities every day. Amy is also a passionate home cook and culinary gardener. Like most writers, Amy is a reader who gets her literary fix on the fly through audiobooks, which she listens to while cooking, cleaning, exercising, folding endless piles of laundry...whatever it takes. Like most work-at-home moms, Amy is trying to strike the right balance between slowing down and taking it easy, and “having it all”. The results are entertaining if nothing else.
Read more of Amy’s writing at:
Her personal website, www.amydelcambre.ink
Her website dedicated to processing losing her son: www.letterstojude.com
Her editing website, www.creativeeditingservices.com
Follow Amy on Facebook @amysdwriter and @creativeeditingservices and @travelingwithstories.
Follow Amy on Instagram @amy.s.d_writer and @travelingwithstories and @creativeeditingservices
