A lot of effort, time and money is spent on marketing, sales, advertising and branding.
Experts are busy doing the job of ‘selling’.
To move the ‘outside world’.

But within organizations
It’s a different story.
Literally.

It seems like we don’t know how to tell and sell the story.
And how to move others.

As Daniel Pink says: Like it or not, we’re all in sales now.
So, how do you tell/sell your story?

The system

We know the importance of ‘selling’. A lot of effort, time and money is spent on marketing, sales, advertising and branding. To move the ‘outside world’. But within organizations, there is still a lot of communication going on that is far removed from what appeals to people. Boring language, death by powerpoint, incomprehensible stories. Name it.

Why should you care? Great ideas that are going down the drain, solutions that never will be executed, a hard road trying to change mindsets of people, trying to convince them of value, usefulness or necessity. It all gets stuck somewhere, because we are not able to move people.

As Daniel Pink says: “Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others. Like it or not, we’re all in sales now.”

So, if we spend our days trying to move others, how could do you do it?
How do you get other people to love your idea, service or product?

Tips & Tricks

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Storytelling in organizations still is undervalued and underutilized, while it is extremely powerful.  

Here’s why. About the power of storytelling and the use of storytelling as a business tool.

Why Storytelling?

People think more narrative than through arguments or paradigms and are more affected by stories than by logic. Emotions are essential for any ‘rational’ decision and emotions are extracted from frames (context) and stories. A story is a direct connection to someone’s heart. Thereby, stories are shared and distributed. And remembered.

The use of storytelling in business is powerful in many ways. A story can help to make the new future more clear – to blur the line between reality and fiction. Stories provide a reference point and give meaning to a particular situation. Stories can connect cause and effect – something our minds ‘normal’ not easily do. Good stories connect listeners and encourage shared experience (“do you remember when we …”). Storytelling can work vigorously to make things more tangible. And complex stuff can be made accessible to non-specialists in a narrative style. Stories help to hold attention and to generate curiosity for the unknown, to move people, overcoming resistance…And more.

Fact is: it is one of the most powerful ways to activate our brains. A lot of scientific research to prove that (check out the infographic for more on the science of storytelling and how it affects the brain).

The use of patterns and metaphors

There’s a lot to say about storytelling. At the end of this blog, we’ve made a collection for you. For now, we want to point out two things: the structure of a story and the use of metaphors. [Read more…]