The other day I was talking about the value of storytelling in customer retention.
Stories are one of the best ways you can get your clients to remember your product.
But if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “Oh, we don’t have time for stories in this business, that’ll never work here,” I’d be a very rich man. For some bizarre reason, a lot of people are operating under the misconception that telling a story requires 800 pages, like Stephen King’s “The Stand.”
(BTW, “The Stand” is one of my all-time favorite books, I read it multiple times when I was 12, which just goes to show you that I have always been a sucker for anything post-apocalyptic. Was when I was a kid, and still am.)
But you don’t need 800 pages to tell a story. You can tell a story in 3 sentences. Yes, you heard that right, just 3 sentences.
The structure is called Boy Meets Girl.
Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back.
One up, one down, one up.
“Give me an example,” you say? Sure. I had a client once in the asset management business who used this structure to describe the Turkish bond market to his clients.
His version? The bond market rocked at the beginning, but then it stagnated (insert diagnosis here), and when that got fixed, it rocked again.
I’m sure we packed more technical details in there, but it’s been a long time.
BTW, if you’re selling a service, insert yourself at the tail end of the second, downward, stroke, before the story enters its final upward stroke. Now you’re the key that helps get the girl back. Boom, story done.
A short break for something that is at best only tangentially-related to the topic at hand…
Whenever I hear the phrase “storytelling for business,” for some reason I think of the U2 song “Stories for Boys.” Boy is a great album, by the way, I highly recommend listening to it if you haven’t already.
Boy is from 1980, about 10 years before Bono decided he was Jesus. The band went downhill quickly from there. Most bands break up before someone goes Jesus, thank god. Can you imagine someone from The Clash going Jesus?
Oh, who am I kidding with this “listen if you haven’t already” thing? U2 is one of the most popular bands ever. Everyone on earth has probably listened to Boy. Even my 82-year-old mom probably has a favorite song on that album.
Speaking of favorite songs on that album, mine is An Cat Dubh, especially the guitar progression that starts at about 3:34 and ends about 4:22.
So anyway, back to the topic at hand, storytelling for business:
Combine BMG with six-word story, insert your service into the tail end of the downward leg, make sure you’re packing it all with Drywall Anchor Bolts, and you’re good to go.