An excellent example of the value of storytelling comes from the non-profit world.

Yes, the non-profit world.

We like to tell ourselves that our world of business is the real hard-nosed one, and non-profits are for fuzzy do-gooders, but the reality is this:

Cash removes stress.

If you want to stress a system, remove cash. And who lives every day with cash removed? Non-profits.

So if you want to find hard-nosed people, non-profits are where you go. We “hard-nosed” businesspeople could learn a thing or two from them.

Which brings me to A/B testing stories.

Non-profits send out fundraising emails, right?

And time and again, their A/B testing shows that fundraising emails that come with a story do better than the emails without.

And the story doesn’t need to be long and complicated. Remember BMG? A story in three sentences:

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. Insert your product or service at the tail end of the second leg.

Your ability to tell a story is how you get money to the top line, whether you are in the non-profit world or ours.