What's the story? Tell Don't Sell

Storytelling is about telling and selling the story of you and your business. It attracts like-minded customers to your business. Using anecdotes can really help you. Creating a compelling, memorable story that shows why your business is unique is a powerful way to stamp your brand on the hearts and minds of your customers. It's not about your product, rather It's about how your business or product makes people feel. "Tell, don't sell." Nobody likes to be sold to but everyone loves a good story. If you want to sell your product to customers, your business plan or vision to investors, or your ideas to the world, you need to recognise the power and importance of great storytelling.

1. Introduction

Introducing your business with a story starts with your business card. A unique card or message can be a pathway to open a conversation to tell them a story. Make it creative and present a professional image that people will remember. Your business website is another way to introduce your business and tell a story. Use the About feature to describe the business and include your timeline history and detail the business Vision Statement describing your goals and values. Use social media and create a facebook business page. It provides space to tell a brief story about your business.

2. Biography

Business websites and company Annual Reports are another way to tell the story of you and your key staff. A professional biography will give your customers an accurate sense of who you are and what you do, establish expertise and credibility, and qualify your experience and background. A good business founding story takes readers on your journey and gives them a glimpse of who you are. It helps gain an emotional buy-in. Just reading your story can make people feel better, so they start imagining how good it would be to do business with you.

3. Product Selling

Telling great stories either personally or by using social media adds flavour to your product and lifts it off the page and into the mind of your customer. Life is too short for a long story so keep to the point. Ensure you have a creative beginning, state your point and then move on. Stories can conquer buyer fears about your product or service or when considering changing supply to your business.

4. Presentations and Public Speaking

Getting up to speak at the podium can be quite daunting. Preparation and rehearsal is vital to making a great presentation. Having a prepared speech is most helpful to ease the nerves. However, reading directly from speech notes can become rather disengaging for your audience. Some departure points to enable ad-lib story telling will greatly improve your presentation. Everybody loves a good story. It should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order.​ Your speech could be opened and closed with some story telling.

5. Virtue Signaling

Many business owners are now creating their own story linking their products with social-justice goals. As a marketing tool, identification of your business with these goals can be good for the bottom line. However, virtue-signaling has been known to backfire and ruin your credibility and brand. Take care not isolate or offend certain segments of your customer base.

Your story helps people understand what drives you, who you are, and why your business is important to them. Getting your customer's attention can be difficult. Try to connect with people on a human level and tap into their emotions. Create a story worth sharing, and your audience will reward you by passing it on to their family, friends and colleagues. The Business Minder operates in SE Asia with clients in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.