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Most storytelling is selfish

Let’s face it, storytelling in business is mostly selfish. It’s about getting attention, engagement, and ultimately, the deal.

The childhood stories people tell, the holiday stories they share, the family stories they post, these are often (not always) just an attention grabbing packaging to trigger emotions so the marketer can sneak in a call-to-action.

How often have you found yourself disappointed after clicking on “read more” when that cute little story was just one more way to grab your attention and get you to click on something.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that emotions wouldn’t have a place in business or that you should stop sharing your private side.

Actually, quite the contrary: Do more of that. Trigger more emotions. Deeper emotions.

But do it respectfully.

Tell stories ON BEHALF of your audience – as opposed to exploiting them.

Great stories don’t trick us into an action that’s in the marketer’s best interest. Great stories move us to take action that’s in our own best interest.

Fake tension vs. real tension

Bad newspapers lead with fake tension.
Great newspapers lead with real tension.
What’s the difference?

Fake tension is created by holding information back.
Real tension is created by the information itself.

Here’s an example:

A. Scientists made a sensational discovery. Click to learn why space as we know it is about to change.

B. Scientists were able to create a wormhole in the lab. Read on to learn the story behind the discovery.

The first version doesn’t tell me what’s so sensational. I’ll have to click to find out. Most of the time, I’ll be disappointed because, well, wormholes aren’t the usual reveal. More often than not, what the writer called sensational, turns out to actually be lame to me.

The second version does tell me what’s sensational. The crucial difference, though, is that it trusts the reader to judge this. It doesn’t pretend to know better than me what I find sensational. It trusts me with that decision.

The problem with fake tension is that it easily becomes addictive for the writer. Because it works. At least for a while. People do click to find out. Which makes it appear as though the readers appreciate that kind of writing.

Real tension, however, is a lot harder to create. Because it requires empathy. What is it that my readers are actually interested in?

But when you consistently figure that out, not only do you get rid of fake tension. But because you deliver on your promise of real tension, you create trusted long-term relationships.

So, what do your customers actually find sensational? What creates real tension for them?

The storytelling difference

There’s a huge difference between telling stories DURING a speech and telling a story WITH your speech.

Most storytelling advice aims at the former. It helps you tell anecdotes and share experiences effectively.

But too often it stops there. It’s used to decorate the communication or hammer home a point.

But the most compelling pieces of communication go way beyond that. They don’t merely tell stories. They turn the whole piece into a compelling story that takes the audience on a profound journey.

Interestingly, professional speakers often excel at the former but fail at the latter. They are super good at sharing experiences and telling anecdotes to hammer home a point. But way too often their speech as a whole lacks a compelling structure and a clear story arc.

When it’s over, it’s over

Another simple truth that great authors understand:
When the story is over, it’s over.

Great authors don’t repeat the end a second, third or even a fourth time.

They don’t hammer the take home message in a plethora of variations.

They say it once, but clearly. And then they stop.

The story has come to an end.

Business communication is different. For example, most business talks end with the speaker repeating their take home message over and over. These speakers don’t trust their stories to be clear enough. They don’t trust their endings to be convincing enough. So they repeat it. And again. And again. With the effect of weakening the impact each time they do it.

If your message isn’t clear and convincing, instead of repeating it make it clear and convincing.

Keep reading

Here’s a simple truth that great authors understand:
We start reading. Then we keep reading.

In other words: The story unfolds. Step by step.

Specifically, a story is not told by dumping everything the author knows at once. We don’t learn the backstory of the hero on page 1. We learn it when we’re ready to learn it … when it’s exactly the information that keeps us reading.

Looking at storytelling through that lens means that it might be simpler than most storytelling frameworks suggest. Basically, we face two challenges:

  1. We need to get our audience’s attention.
  2. We need to keep it.

Specifically, we don’t need to tell our audience everything at once. We only need to make them keep reading. (Or listening. Or watching.)

The good news is that this starts with the simple skill of listening. The better you listen, the better you’ll be able to understand what resonates so strongly that it will get – and keep – your audience’s attention.

The Cult of Storytelling

Who made the call that everything needs to be somehow fitted into a storytelling framework? That every single piece of information needs to be decorated with an emotional anecdote from our childhood?

These are just two of the many consequences of the Cult of Storytelling that we witness as soon as we fire up any social media. And it’s caused by a profound misunderstanding about the power of storytelling:

It’s not the story that we tell that gets us the impact, it’s the story that’s triggered in our audience’s minds that makes the impact.

And that’s a huge difference. Most importantly, for some people, these “internal” stories are triggered by a single number that we mention or a familiar situation that we reference with a simple statement (”Remember the iPhone keynote?”). These things can trigger a whole suite of stories in our audience’s minds. On the other hand, full blown “storytelling” stories might not trigger anything at all for some people as they just don’t resonate with our childhood stories, so it has no effect whatsoever on them.

Rather than fit everything into a storytelling framework, the more useful question to ask is: How can we trigger the right stories in our audience’s minds?

Do funny ads work?

Remember that funny ad?

Well, can you also recall what it was advertising? Let alone did it make you buy the product?

You’re not alone, judging from a study by Ace Metrix which found that “funny ads were slightly less likely to increase desire or purchase intent than unfunny ones”.

But let’s look closer. Michael Curran, the study’s author explained that “humorous ads tend to be light on informative content, which in turn creates a lower desire for the advertised product”.

Which – to say it straight – is disrespectful to the audience. Essentially, funny ads fail when they favor the “wow effect” at the expense of the “aha effect”. When they go for the laugh without going all the way to the insight.

In other words: Make your communication fun and entertaining, but do it in a way that serves your message – rather than having it steal the show.

Humour is a great way to get people’s attention. But clarity about the message must come first: What’s the point? And why should I care?

PS: Essentially, what Ace Metrix found is that funny ads do work if implemented that way.

The future within reach

If you’re anything like me, a good story can trigger some deep emotions. Sometimes I can feel the hero’s pain almost physically. Or their hope, their struggles, their happiness … even if I’ve never been in a situation that’s even remotely similar to the hero’s situation.

That’s one of the fascinating aspects of stories. They allow us to experience a taste of a different life. A life that’s unlike our own, maybe vastly so. Stories allow us to participate in experiences we could (or would) never make ourselves – such as being cast away.

It works because as humans, we are exceptional at empathizing with others, even if their life is different than ours. What it takes to have these feelings from a story is not that it’s a situation that we have encountered ourselves but that it’s a situation that we can relate to.

The fascinating part is that this works even if the story is not real. Even if it’s about a fictional situation.

Or about the future – something that is not real, yet.

Through powerful stories you can give people a glimpse of a possible future. A future that they can taste now – through the story – and then, based on that experience and the emotions they had during the experience, decide to go for it (or not). If you start with empathy you can trust your audience with that decision.

Does your story achieve that level of tension?

Meet Rambo

We don’t meet Rambo when he was born. We don’t meet him in school. Not even in Vietnam.

We meet him after all of that has already happened. We see him walking down a path, arriving in Hope, Washington.

We meet him at the latest possible time in the story.

Most business stories are different. They start at the earliest possible time. Usually when the business was founded. And then they continue by telling us about the company milestones – all kinds of events that matter a great deal to the founder but not at all to the audience.

When they get to the interesting parts, they have long lost our attention. Rather than to make us curious about the story, the founders expect us to be already curious. Which we’re not.

It’s much better to do it like the great novels and movies. Start at the latest possible point. Speak about things that grab our interest. Give us a reason to care

When you do, it’s almost inevitable that we want to know the details.

The longevity of a story

Most stories can be told in a couple of minutes, sometimes less.

Good stories resonate way longer. Great ones even for years and decades.

Most stories of the latter kind are not told on a cinema screen but by people we interact with personally.

It’s not the big budget of Hollywood that makes for a great story but the relevance of it being the right story in the right moment.

Spread the Word

Dr. Michael Gerharz

Dr. Michael Gerharz