3 Expert Strategies to Prepare You for Storytelling Success in 2021

In 2020, marketers had to drop their "business as usual" plans and pivot toward messaging that relied less on promotion and more on emotion. Effective storytelling became more crucial than ever. We learned to tap into the morals, emotions, and truths our customers were experiencing in the COVID era.

As we head into the new year, emotion-based business storytelling strategies will play a huge role in which businesses survive and thrive in the post-pandemic world. The business stories you tell going forward must be interesting and memorable. They must touch on the right details to spark a deeply-felt connection with your customer.

In essence, you need to take an outside-in approach to understand exactly what your customer wants and needs so that you can guide them past their obstacles and onto their desired state.

I recently spoke on a panel hosted by SAP to discuss strategies for compelling and engaging business storytelling with two other experts on the subject. Based on our conversation, here are three things you should be doing as a leader or marketer to position yourself for business storytelling success in 2021.

1.    Go beyond the data and make a real, human connection.

As a communications professional with an improv background, Nancy Watt knows more than most about how to engage an audience. For instance, she knows that a storyteller needs to deliver more than data to make a lasting, memorable impression. Pairing that data with a story makes a connection in the brain — it activates our neurochemistry by lighting up our language processing, visual cortex, and auditory cortex.

But something else happens when people are genuinely engaged in a story: They bring their own meaning to what they're hearing. The listener filters that story and inserts their own experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, and values to create meaning and a lasting, intrinsic connection to their lives based on the information in the story.

That's why Nancy says it's so important to apply the "Yes, and" philosophy that's so core to improvisation to your business storytelling.

"‘Yes, and’ is the improvisational theater principle of accepting the reality that has been created on stage and advancing that reality with how I contribute to the scene,” said Nancy. “[It] elicits a deeper connection and a collaboration that is critically important in our ability to tell a story and … connect in a deeper way, but also gives us the opportunity to cultivate what is so critically timely and relevant today: our adaptability.”

Nancy introduced the concept of the “adaptability quotient,” which is our ability to mentally pivot and deal with unpredictability. This skillset has never been more crucial than it is in the current pandemic and social climate, and it should be at the center of every business’s storytelling strategy.

To broadly summarize and interpret Nancy’s insights, businesses must be able to adapt their data — their facts and figures, their speeds and feeds — and contribute to the advancement of their customers’ reality with a relevant, emotional story that means something to them.

2. Identify your audience’s desires and difficulties so you can craft a perfect denouement.

So, how does a business say “Yes, and...” to their customers’ reality? They first need to understand what that reality is, starting from the outside-in.

A straightforward way to do this is with Go Narrative’s 3D StoryTM framework. We talk about this quite a bit, as our clients and loyal readers know: The three Ds in your audience’s life are their desire (what they want), difficulty (what’s standing in the way), and denouement (how they work through their difficulty to obtain their desire).

Now, your product or service should figure into the denouement, but it’s critical to nail that desire and difficulty first. You must frame it in a way that puts your audience at the center and helps them fill in that personal meaning Nancy mentioned.

With those details and context in mind, you can then begin to present the “untangling of the knot” — the processes, approaches, and actions someone takes to resolve their situation. What they learned along the way. The outcomes and benefits they’re now enjoying, thanks to your produce or service.

We view these 3Ds as the gateway framework to better storytelling, and they feed nicely into our more in-depth TRIPS StorytellingTM framework for building your strategic narrative:

·         Transformational: The anticipated positive transformation someone will undergo

·         Reasons: The evidence or “reasons to believe” in the promise of said transformation

·         Innovative: Why your offering is better or different than the alternatives

·         Problems: Getting to the promised change is rarely easy. What stands in the way?

·         Stories: The story structures (anecdotes, analogies, quotes, case studies, etc.) that can be leveraged to demonstrate all of the above

Taken together, the 3D StoryTM and TRIPS StorytellingTM frameworks can help you map out the right stories for and about your audience and ensure consistency with the overarching meta-narrative of your brand.

3. Take control of your own narrative, too.

It’s one thing to know your customer and tell a story that speaks to their experiences. But if you don’t have a good handle on your personal narrative, how can you draw a real, human connection between yourself and your listener? Incidently this is also why we aer such a big fan of The WHY Institute and it’s teachings.

As fellow digital storyteller Gail Mercer-MacKay pointed out, people buy from people they know, like, and trust. In our digital world of information (and misinformation), it’s important to craft and project a personal brand that inspires trust and makes people want to listen to the stories you have to tell.

“If you can take control of your own narrative and ... the way you show up online, it’s going to really be helpful,” said Gail. “It's going to impact … whom you can do business with, [and] ... it's going to impact your career and your career trajectory."

Gail shared the story of "the shortest sales cycle of her life," in which a perfect stranger came up to her in a meeting and asked to work together, based solely on seeing her well-crafted LinkedIn, Twitter, and blog posts.

"Taking control of your own narrative can connect you with the right people ... that can help you get the things you want to get in life," she said.

If you're not sure where to begin, Gail recommended starting with your LinkedIn profile, which she describes as "the best place for building out your personal narrative." With the right visual elements, content, and third-party validation, you can tell a holistic story of you — who you are, what you do, and why people should want to work with you — which can, in turn, open the door for prospects who want to hear more stories about your product or service.

The secret to business storytelling success

What works in business storytelling today is nothing new. The core elements of effective stories have not changed because of COVID-19; however, we will see more and more businesses start to understand and leverage the power of outside-in, emotion-driven storytelling.

As you consider your marketing strategy for 2021, think about how you can go beyond the data and improve your connection with your audience by telling the right stories and building a personal narrative that inspires trust and understanding. Once you've identified your audience's 3Ds, you can use them as a framework to guide every single story you tell, at every stage of the customer journey.

Want to learn more about the Go Narrative approach to business storytelling? Book a complimentary 30-minute consultation with us and let's chat.

 Go Narrative is a Seattle Based company that assists business leaders in technology companies build and implement advanced marketing strategies. Get attention. Be heard. Sell more.

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