Connect and Persuade Through Business Storytelling

Introduction to Business Storytelling

Hello! It’s Kristine here with the Express to Impress podcast. This week, we’ll talk about one of my favorite pastimes–storytelling! More specifically, we’ll talk about business storytelling. Before we get started, I want to make an important distinction here. Today, you’ll learn how to tell oral stories, not written ones. 

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Now, let’s begin!

Why is Business Storytelling So Important?

I love hearing stories, telling them, and helping people learn to tell them. But, I know, I know; not everyone loves storytelling as much as I do. So let me try making a case for it. Firstly, stories are memorable–more memorable than facts. When we hear a story, we imagine it in our minds and feel moved by emotions.  That is a powerful response that sticks with us in a way that facts alone can’t accomplish. Furthermore, hearing stories can be enjoyable and a nice break from everyday business as usual. Additionally, when someone shares a story, we feel connected to the person telling it. A person has to be vulnerable to tell a story, and the listeners are often able to relate to the storyteller in a new way. And of course, stories are a powerful means to share wisdom and influence others’ behavior.

Now, let’s look at who tells business stories and why they tell them.

• Potential employees tell stories about their past work experiences when asked behavioral interview questions. Their stories allow the employer to imagine them in action and predict their future behavior.
• Leaders tell stories to inspire their employees and to help them see what’s possible!
• Marketers tell stories about their company’s products and services that reinforce people’s beliefs and satisfy their wants. And hopefully, those stories lead to more sales and attract talented professionals to work for the company.
• Leaders tell stories to help employees understand business priorities.
• Salespeople tell success stories to their customers and potential customers that make their promises seem more believable.
• Leaders tell stories to teach their employees something; perhaps tales of caution. 
• Leaders tell investors, donors, board members, and others impact stories that reassure them their time and money are working!

Whew! There are a lot of people telling business stories, and that’s not even an exhaustive list. Business stories hold so much potential that I think they should be told every single day in workplace interactions. So, of course, it’s important to learn how to become a better storyteller. Even if you don’t identify as a storyteller, you will be prompted to tell stories at times in your career. And as you’ll see in the story section of today’s episode, telling business stories will make you better at your job. 

How I Use Business Storytelling as a Coach

As a communication and career coach, I tell stories all the time to my clients. While I don’t have to tell stories to do my job, telling them feels like a natural way of driving home points that’s not possible by simply sharing advice. For example, trying new communication approaches can be scary, but if people hear a story from someone they trust about an approach that has worked for them, it makes it seem more plausible. I tell stories about my business experiences along with stories I’ve read about or learned about first-hand from friends or clients.

As a communication and career coach, here are some of the situations where it feels natural to tell clients business stories. 

When a client is struggling with a workplace relationship, I’ll open up and tell a story about a difficult workplace relationship I had. By the end of the story, my client will see how I navigated it, what I wish I would have done differently, and what I learned from it.

If a client lacks the confidence to speak in their second language in an interview or the workplace, I’ll tell them a story about my experience interviewing in Spanish.

When someone is struggling to learn English, I tell a story about discovering the best way for me to learn another language while living in Mexico.

If someone is struggling to adapt to another culture, I tell them one of my many stories of failing to adapt to another culture–like my failed photoshoot in Brazil. We’re laughing in no time at all. Then I tell them how much I wish I’d read Erin Meyer’s “The Culture Map” years earlier, and many of them go on to read the book. 

A Story about Business Storytelling

Now, I’ll recount a story I told a client earlier this week who was having difficulties communicating about delegated tasks with her new boss. 

I had an employee who executed a task differently from how I thought I had instructed him to do it. I assumed I had been clear in my communication, and he hadn’t followed my instructions. So, I pointed out the problem.

I found this problem. I realize you didn’t do XYZ.

Then, I set an expectation to avoid this problem from repeating itself:

Please ask me questions if you ever have any doubts about a task and check previous templates.

Needless to say, I was caught off guard by his response:

I didn’t ask questions because I thought it was doing it correctly and had zero doubts.

“Touché!” I thought! How can someone ask questions if they have zero doubts? Then I told him,

Okay, so it seems the fault for the miscommunication is mine. What could I have written differently so that it was clear that I wanted you to do XYZ?

And he quoted a part of my written instructions and explained how he registered those words differently from how I had intended.

Wow! I could see his brain worked differently than mine and it was truly an innocent misunderstanding. I thanked him and reassured him I would be more specific and give examples when assigning tasks in the future. Nowadays, I send quick instructional videos on Loom instead of writing out instructions if I think there’s a possibility of confusion. 

To be honest, my initial thought was that my employee wasn’t good at following instructions. But I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I had hired him for his commitment, attitude, and willingness to learn after all, and had to believe he wasn’t careless or doing anything wrong intentionally. It turned out that taking the blame and asking questions to get his side of the story allowed me to better understand him and communicate with him more effectively. 

At this point, my client made one of those “huh” sounds that told me my story left an impression. Then, she thanked me for the story and said she could see that taking the fall for the miscommunication could disarm the other person and pave the way for getting to the root of the misunderstanding. She seemed a lot less skeptical and frustrated by her manager, too.

Storytelling Tips 

Alright, now let’s move on to the tips section of the episode. I’m going to give you some business storytelling techniques that you can put to use right away!

• Identify the business point of the story. What is the lesson or insight you want to share? Let that guide what story you tell.
• Don’t take a long time to tell a story. As a rule of thumb, most business stories can be told in two minutes or less.
• Include dialogue, even just a snippet. Dialogue makes stories come to life. They spark our imagination and we can see the characters alive in our minds. 
• Stay on point! Tell a story about one specific instance, and don’t go off on a tangent.
• Use a casual, conversational tone. When we talk, we don’t use the same language as when we write, which is often more formal. 
• Speak at a steady, careful pace and watch your audience’s reactions. Make sure they are following you.
• Show; don’t tell. For example, don’t say your team collaborated. Instead, explain the things they did and the listener can piece together that they collaborated.
• Approach business storytelling like answering a behavioral interview question. Choose a relatable story and describe the situation as quickly as possible with details like the time and place, what happened, and who was involved. Then, talk about the actions you or someone else took. What did they say? How did they react? Finally, tell the outcome and reflect. Ideally, you will reveal something surprising since surprises catch our attention and are memorable. 

 

Those are all the business storytelling techniques I have to share with you today! Being a great storyteller takes practice, so I challenge you to start paying more attention to those around you who tell great stories. Then, start brainstorming what stories you could share and start small, by sharing a short story or example to someone you feel comfortable with. You’ll be telling a good story in no time!

Write a Standout Resume Online Video Course

I often remind my clients that they interview with a company BEFORE they ever talk to someone about a job. The first interviews are written ones, of course! Before you get a chance to talk about yourself and your abilities, you represent yourself in writing on your LinkedIn profile, resume, cover letter, public online communication, and email correspondence.

To help my clients succeed in their written communication during the job search process, I created the 90-minute online course, How to Write a Standout Resume. The course makes it extremely easy to create a standout resume and other important documents because it includes resume, cover letter, and e-note samples and templates. Most people pay at least $100 for a good resume editor or English teacher and, sadly, never learn how to create their own standout resume.

As you know, you need to update your resume continually, so you could end up spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on resume editing throughout your career. However, you can invest in learning how to do it yourself. The course is priced at just $49, and you can get 15% off by using the coupon code podcast15 at the checkout. As a result, you’ll have a skill that will allow you to prepare your resume efficiently and save you money again and again.

To learn more about my How to Write a Standout Resume video course and watch free lessons from it, visit my website at express-to-impress.com. 

English Language Learning 

That’s all for today! Thank you so much for listening to the Express to Impress podcast. I invite you to tune in next time to learn definitions for the idioms and phrases covered in this episode. 

And if you found this episode helpful, please remember to share it with a friend! See you next time. Bye!