Stories That Stick - Kindra Hall

  3 min 52 sec to read
Stories That Stick - Kindra Hall

We are constantly exposed to storytelling in the form of fairy tales, movies, novels, advertisements, and sales pitches. Stories can help you bridge the gap between your product or service and the people who are interested in it. It's the secret to standing out and being remembered in an attention economy when everyone and their mother is trying to get your attention.

The book is a basic story of a character who is pursuing a goal while facing a barrier or hurdle. The plot of the story is driven by the character's attempts to overcome the hurdle. In order to tell an engaging story, there are five difficulties that must be addressed:

1. Is the character believable and relatable?
2. Is there enough conflict?
3. Are the stakes sufficiently high?
4. Is there an obvious cause and effect relationship?
5. Is there an emotional core to the story?

Kindra suggests the following tale structure: Normal (all is as it should be)-> Explosion (something unexpected occurs) -> New Normal (things have changed).To be effective, any story should include the following elements:

• Individuals are more likely to become immersed in a story if the characters are recognisable.
• Genuine feelings: a static timeline isn't a story, and emotion is what allows the audience to empathise with the characters.
• This is a pivotal moment—it helps to bring the story into focus and makes it more engaging.
• Specific details are important since, along with the significant moment, they aid in the establishment of a co-creative process between the audience and the storyteller.

The book focuses on the business side of storytelling, proposing four sorts of stories to master in the workplace: Value Story, Founder Story, Purpose Story, and Customer Story.

1. The Value Story is a narrative that aims to close the gap between the problem and the solution's value, as well as the gap between the product and the customer's value. People buy things for what they can do with them, not for what they think they can do with them. One of the most crucial parts is to ignore the product entirely and concentrate solely on the problem. It was fascinating to learn that the author believes that the traditional method of presenting a product (listing its strong points, all of its features, and a comparison to the competition) is rarely sufficient to persuade customers to buy it.

2. The Founder Story is a fictionalised account of the founder's interactions with investors, consumers, and top talent. The purpose of the tale is to set the founder/company apart from the competitors by making it more relevant and authentic. Even while it may appear that the founder should tell the tale alone, this is not the case; everyone in the company should learn and promote the founder's story. It's also crucial to distinguish between founder and value stories. Although the founder story and the value story may overlap, the founder story is mostly about selling the founder rather than the product.

3. The Purpose Story is a narrative that aims to bridge the gap between personnel and their objectives. Alignment and motivation are at the heart of the mission. The transcendent purpose (how it affects people's lives) motivates people more than the transactional reason (how it sells goods and services). It is simple to motivate while things are going well, but the purpose of the tale aids in maintaining motivation through difficult times and is therefore more beneficial. People will make up their own purposes if you don't specify one, and you might not like them.

4. The Customer Story is a narrative that attempts to bridge the trust gap between the product or service and its users. The most prevalent sort of review/testimonial isn't actually recorded as a tale, so it doesn't have the same tremendous impact as it could. Instead of merely asking for a star rating, one can provide questions post-purchase that can force the customer to deliver a story by asking the questions that lead up to the story (using the structure and components indicated above).

Stories make people like each other and are a part of what makes us human. Humans evolved to be cooperative because they could share stories, which helped them understand the world around them and create meaning. Stories allow people to imagine things that aren’t there, which helps them achieve their dreams. 

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