In our continuing look at the six senses of the Concept Age, it’s story
time!
Dan Pink references Mark Turner, cognitive scientist and author of The
Literary Mind, who says “Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking
is organized as stories”. Stories are
fundamental to human learning and recall.
In a world where facts are abundant and easily accessible, meaning is
becoming more valuable. Stories connect
with us emotionally and provide us with context. They provide meaning – the hooks on which we
hang our facts.
Creating stories can:
- Help your customers understand why your products
and services are unique and valuable, - Help your team understand your corporate strategy
and objectives, - Help your customer service representatives deliver
remarkable service, - Help you orient new employees and partners,
- Help you train your team. (Dan talks about how Xerox used stories,
rather than manuals, to train their repair personnel. They gathered these “stories into a database called Eureka that Fortune estimates is worth $100M to the company".)
Anyone can assemble a list of facts or comparisons. Not everyone can create a story that imbues
those facts with significance that resonates with an audience – at least not
without practice.
Dan offers some great ideas to help us practice. Most of them involve reading, writing, or
listening to stories. I just signed up
for One Story (www.one-story.com). Every three weeks they will send me one
story. I’m also planning to go to a
storytelling festival. Dan offers a list
in the book. But, depending on where you
live, you might be able to find one closer to you by looking online. Another great idea he has is to interview
someone on tape. Ask them questions
about their life and learn about their story.
I’d recommend looking at Seth Godin’s post “Ode:
How To Tell a Great Story”. It’s a
phenomenal description of how to create an effective marketing story.
If you’re still not convinced that a remarkable story is a business
imperative, visit today’s post on CopyBlogger, “Discover
Your Hidden Remarkable Benefit”, it illustrates just how valuable finding your
story can be to growing a business.
Come back and tell me what you think!
Technorati tags: Business, Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind, Story
Stories can be good motivators, too. As you’ve mentioned, stories can help your customer service representatives deliver remarkable service to clients. Let’s say that you are assisted by an Act CRM software for maintaining customer relations, and have given the assigned users of this software a proper CRM online training. Have a meeting and tell some motivating stories, then the service they deliver will definitely improve. It’s like taking advantage of software assistance and good employee motivation!
Ann, this was an absolutely fascinating post and introduced me to a whole new concept of marketing. As a writer, I was particularly interested in how storytelling ties in with marketing and with educating and appealing to customers. Great post!