Business Storytelling For Dummies E-Book

Karen Dietz

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 723

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Ready to hone your storytelling skills and craft a compelling business narrative?

Professionals of all types -- marketing managers, sales reps, senior leaders, supervisors, creatives, account executives -- have to write. Whether you're writing an internal email or a social media post, a video script or a blog post, being able to tell a good story can help ensure your content resonates with your intended audience.

Storytelling is an art, but there’s a method behind it that anyone can learn. Full of practical advice and real-world case studies, Business Storytelling For Dummies is a friendly, no-nonsense guide that will help you tell more engaging stories in your business presentations, internal communications, marketing collateral, and sales assets.

Connecting with customers through storytelling can help you build trust with your audience, strengthen your brand, and increase sales. Look to Business Storytelling For Dummies to

• Learn the elements of storytelling and how to use them effectively
• Become a better listener to become a better storyteller
• Make your stories come to life with relatable details
• Back up your story with data points
• Use the power of storytelling to effect change
• Choose the perfect format to tell your story

Startups, small businesses, creative agencies, non-profits, and enterprises all have a story to tell. Get the book to explore examples, templates, and step-by-step instruction and create your own compelling narrative to tell your story to the world.

Leseprobe

Business Storytelling For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.comCopyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949562

ISBN 978-1-118-66121-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-73017-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-73019-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-73028-7 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Business Storytelling For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/businessstorytelling to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Business Storytelling

Chapter 1: The Scoop on Business Storytelling

Storytelling’s Role in Business

Getting in on the storytelling action

How storytelling can help your business

Nutritious stories versus junk food stories

How We Define Story

How Stories Impact People

The physical impact

The mental impact

The emotional impact

The human spirit impact

Dispelling the Myths of Storytelling

Chapter 2: The Why, What, How, and Who of Business Storytelling

It’s a Proven Fact: Storytelling Works

What Makes Business Storytelling Different?

Hollywood: What to take and toss

Move people to action: The ultimate goal

Using Stories at Work

Know when not to tell a story

Pull people versus push messages

Everyone is born a storyteller

Storytelling Principles in Business

Chapter 3: What Makes a Story a Story

Recognizing a Story Based on Its Core Elements

Making Her Mark

Flesh out the plot/conflict

Describing isn’t telling

Defining Different Types of Narrative

Anecdotes

Case studies

Descriptions

Examples

News reports

Profiles

Scenarios

Testimonials

Vignettes

Putting It All Together

Chapter 4: Stories to Have in Your Hip Pocket

Having Stories Ready to Go

“Founding” Stories

Your founding stories

The organization’s founding story

“What We Stand For” Stories

Stories about what you stand for

“What the organization stands for” stories

“What We Do” Stories

Stories about what you do

Stories about what the enterprise does

“Future” Stories

Personal vision stories

Personal scenario stories

Your organization’s future stories

“Success” Stories

Your personal success stories

Your organization’s success stories

“Overcoming Barriers” Stories

Your stories of overcoming barriers

Your organization’s stories of overcoming barriers

“Memorable Customer” Stories

Your customer stories

Your organization’s customer stories

Stories to Avoid

Chapter 5: Listening: Hearing What Others Have to Say and Capturing It

Improving Storytelling by Listening

Be in service to the story and storyteller

Reveal what’s in people’s hearts

Uncover market, customer, and employee intelligence

Discover new ideas for products/services

Deciding on Perspective

Identify who has story and perspective

Identify the myriad uses of the story

Evoking a Story

Stay away from questions

Spark the story you want: Story prompts

Prime the pump: Story modeling

Evoke a story with memories, props, and more: Story triggers

Apply these approaches in everyday work

Listening to Stories

Stay away from disrupting the story

Listen delightedly

Respond after you’ve finished listening

Maximize meaning and value

Listen to stories deliberately in groups

Capturing and Preserving the Raw Story

Attend to legal/ethical issues

Create and transcribe an audio recording

Bullet the flow of the story

Write out the raw version

Create a video recording

Part II: Moving People to Action: Creating Compelling Stories

Chapter 6: Crafting a Story

Driving Home the Story’s Key Message

Determine the themes

Figure out the key message

Tease apart the layers of meaning

Starting a Story

Clarifying the Core Conflict

Describe the conflict or problem

Unfold the plot

Lay out the story arc

Ending the Story: This Isn’t Disney

Creating a Detailed Story Outline

Step 1: Get an idea

Step 2: Gather your notes

Step 3: Create a mock-up

Step 4: Tighten and toss extraneous details

Step 5: Try it out

Step 6: Save it

Differences Between Oral and Print

Chapter 7: Polishing a Story: Structure and Embellishments

Choosing a Story Structure

Hollywood-focused story structures

Business-focused story structures

Apply structure to a story

Getting a Story to Pop

Bring characters to life

Enhance sensory imagery and contrast

Use figures of speech

Grab people’s attention

Use humor to lighten the mood

Making the Story Memorable

Fix the key message and action

Identify tag lines

Putting All This Together for Pam’s Story

A Bright Light in the Dark of the Night

Chapter 8: What to Do About Data

Engaging the Brain

Distinguishing Data and Information

Making Sense versus Making Meaning

Including Data Is a Must: What to Do

Create frames for the data

Massaging Complex Data

Break data into bite-size chunks

Display complex data so it tells a story

Crafting a Great Story with Data

Create compelling visuals

Find the key message: Data into meaning

Move to action when data’s involved

Structuring a Data-Rich Presentation

Chapter 9: Expanding and Contracting Your Story

Shortening a Story

Analyze and rewrite

Build in empathy

Edit to emphasize themes

Look at the results so far

Ask questions and edit for structure

Look at the results again

Weave in the action steps

Appraise the final story

Time the story out loud

Rebuild the story

Lengthening a Story

Map the story’s structure

Identify the key message

Add details to support the key message

Drive home the key message

The final story

Changing It Up: Stories Are Flexible

Part III: Sharing Stories for Maximum Value

Chapter 10: Getting Comfortable Telling Stories

Playing Out the Telling-Listening Cycle

Act as the center of exposure

Acknowledge the gifts you bring as a teller

Tell: Transformational or transactional?

Enhancing Your Telling Skills

Recognize what’s happening to listeners

Know when to speed up and slow down

Identify characters: Gestures and voice

Practicing Your Story

Story Lab: Practice with others

Get the most from your rehearsals

Don’t rely on mirrors and video

Ready, Get Set . . .

Begin your story

Stay away from these words

Telling Stories: More Considerations

Make the most of your personal stories

Communicate really tough stories

Share stories that aren’t your own

Know when not to tell the whole story

Chapter 11: Moving Stories into Multiple Media

Criteria for Deciding on Media

Oral: Storytelling in Person

Digital: Visual Storytelling

Audio: The Sound of Storytelling

Written: Old School Stories

Graphic: Sharing via Graphic Works

Photo novellas and graphic novellas

Posters, infographics, photomontages, and collages

Icons: Sharing Iconic Stories

Deciding Which Medium Fits Your Needs

Find the purpose of sharing

Determine what’s desirable

Choose a medium using story length

Creating Stories That Go Viral

Recognize the art, science, and mystery

Chapter 12: Incorporating Story in Your Organization

Overcoming Resistance

Assessing Storytelling Competence

Taking Personal Ownership of Story

Getting Story into an Enterprise’s DNA

Provide training and coaching

Hitch story efforts to work processes

Link story into project work

Propose a small story initiative

Bank and access stories

Build storied work environments

Attach story to organizational strategy

Reward the practice of storytelling

Avoiding Ethical Problems

Part IV: Tailoring Storytelling to Special Circumstances

Chapter 13: Storytelling to Fund Your Passion

Getting People to Open Their Wallets

Four Things to Keep at the Forefront

Spark desired emotions in others

Highlight the challenge

Lead with respect

Building Co-created Worlds and Story Fields

Help supporters tell their stories

Structuring Storied Presentations

Get people committed and on board

Go after external venture capital

Raise money by tugging on heart strings

Change stories as organizations mature

Using Funding Stories in Other Ways

Put stories into corporate communications

Fuse stories into the grant process

Meld stories into advocacy campaigns

Chapter 14: Storytelling in Marketing

Telling Consumers About the Enterprise

Give consumers sharable stories

Provide insider stories

Close the gap between inside and out

Providing Stories About What You Offer

Tell the story behind your offering

Speak to the why

Sharing Stories About Consumers

Develop personas and archetypes

Build stories in which others are the hero

Leverage the underdog

Return to back stories — from consumers

Getting Consumers to Tell Their Stories

Pull stories from your community

Inspire: A new way of engaging others

Storifying Marketing Materials

Integrate story into websites

Create dynamic e-mail campaigns

Storytelling and Social Media

Building a Storytelling Strategy

 Storytelling in Branding

Chapter 15: Selling with Stories

Shifting the Sales Cycle

Create deep affinity and chemistry

Before Prospecting

Identify awareness level

Know the market segments you serve

Storytelling While Prospecting

Use story when meeting face-to-face

Capitalize on online opportunities

Calling on a Prospect

Dig deeper through prompts, not questions

Get prospects to open up with triggers

Relay a variety of stories

Story: Soup’s On!

Overcome objections through story

Asking for the Sale

Incorporate story into the proposal

Create a story-based presentation

Using Story Post-Sale

Chapter 16: Using Stories to Spark Change

Story Sharing versus Storytelling

Creating the Need for the Change

Get to know stakeholders through story

Find stories of pain and urgency

Demonstrate that change is possible

Apply story structures to launch a change

Communicating the Vision of the Change

Structure a dream story based on the past

Follow King’s “I Have a Dream” approach

Process for developing a future story

Future story: Try present-future structure

Embody the future story

Initiating the Change

Identify what needs to get done

Pinpoint and mitigate risks

Implementing the Change

Obtain the resources you need

Overcome all kinds of obstacles

Build skills

Adapt as we go

Closing Out the Change

Capture best practices

Celebrate results

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten Things You Should Never, Ever Do

Focusing Exclusively on Telling Stories

Assuming There’s a Formula for Crafting

Neglecting the Beginning and the End

Telling On-the-Fly in High-Risk Situations

Getting Lost in Digressions

Skipping the Meaning-Making

Playing with Emotions

Using a Story Without Knowing Its Origin

Telling Someone Else’s Story as Yours

Assuming You’re Doing No Harm

Chapter 18: Ten Storytelling Tips for Speakers

Identifying Your Signature Stories

Refashioning a Tale

Opening with a Story

Using a Story in a Short Presentation

Crafting a Keynote Solely Based on Story

You Sure You Want to Use PowerPoint?

Using Memory Devices

Co-creating a Story with the Audience

What to Do If You Screw Up the Story

Preparing for After the Presentation

Chapter 19: Ten (or so) Ways to Measure the Results of a Story Project

Collecting Evidence

Gaining Return on Investment (ROI)

Validate that the message was heard

Capture changes in behavior

Track engagement

Document financial results

Measure emotions

Track relationships

Innovate and be creative

Applying Story Tools to Daily Work

Appendix: Real-Life Stories and a Template

Title of story

Perspective

Layers of meaning: Themes, key message

Alert listeners before you launch the story

Start the story

Get clear on the core conflict

What to do about data

Get a story to pop!

End the story

Determining story structure

Tag line

About the Author

Cheat Sheet

Connect with Dummies

Introduction

Welcome to Business Storytelling For Dummies! We guarantee if you choose to read this book, your work life will change for the better.

What makes us say this? We believe that business storytelling is the most critical skill set to hit the business arena in ages. You’re probably asking, “Well, if that’s the case, why isn’t everybody doing it already?” Ah. What looks really simple on first blush isn’t. That’s why you now have this resource in your hands. Although it takes a little time to put the strategies, tools, and techniques of story into action, the results are striking.

We’d love to give you a magic wand and have everything you touch turn into golden stories but alas, that talented we are not — yet! What we can do is remind you that you already tell stories, and with this book in hand you can become an awesome business storyteller. Then you can dazzle your co-workers, stand out in your career, and run rings around your competition. Woo-hoo!

About This Book

For years, we’ve wanted to write a pragmatic book on business storytelling. And voila! We now have this book to share with you. We didn’t want you to just grasp concepts associated with storytelling; we wanted you to be able to take action after reading each chapter. So we’ve spent a lot of time documenting “how-to” steps. This was hard for us. Storytelling is as much an art form as it is a science. It’s not linear. We know those who are advanced in the subject will appreciate the value of reducing complex topics to a series of step-by-step bullet points that cover the basics. At the same time, we recognize that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Yet we wanted to give you a clear-cut place to start. We hope those new to storytelling will benefit from our efforts.

We also had a personal agenda. We wanted to give you the latest, greatest information and tips we had on the subject. This means there are topics here that you may not find anywhere else.

There are two different audience slants for this book. The first has to do with your role. The second has to do with the type of organization you’re affiliated with. With that in mind, this book is for you if

You’re an individual who needs to make a compelling point in a presentation or a meeting in order to get people to take action.

You’re an account manager or sales professional wanting to enhance customer relationships and increase your closing rate.

You’re a supervisor who needs to get your staff on board with changes and motivate them to continually produce high-quality work.

You’re a project or program manager who needs to garner commitment, communicate progress more effectively, and capture best practices.

You’re a mid-level manager who needs to build a collaborative work environment and drive innovation and creativity.

You’re a senior leader who needs to rally and align large groups of people around a common vision to achieve new goals.

You’re an entrepreneur who wants to grow your business in unique and cost-effective ways.

We did our best to cover these organizational types throughout the book. You’ll find the content valuable if you

Work in a startup that’s looking for more funding and visibility in the marketplace.

Are a small or microbusiness that wants to use stories to attract and retain customers and expand into new markets.

Are attached to a nonprofit seeking to build a community and spread your cause.

Are in a creative field and want to bring storytelling into your design and production work.

Are employed in a public sector organization seeking cost-effective ways to effectively communicate with employees and constituents and shift their thinking and behaviors.

Work for a privately held or publicly owned enterprise that desires increased brand awareness, more market share, and more compelling corporate communications.

What was our overall goal for this book? To get you to benefit from the active use of storytelling techniques and processes in your daily work and your daily life. Business Storytelling For Dummies shows you how to drive your organization to new heights and become a force for change yourself.

We used the following conventions throughout the book:

Websites appear in monofont to help them stand out — like this: www.dummies.com. Some addresses may need to break across two lines. Just type exactly what you see in this book, pretending the line break doesn't exist.

Any information that’s helpful or interesting but not essential to the topic at hand appears in sidebars, which are the gray-shaded boxes sprinkled throughout the book.

Whenever we introduce a new term, it’s italicized.

You’ll see three additional conventions in the book:

Any time a story or other type of narrative example is used, we indented it so you can easily identify it.

We’ve put several stories that we reference into the Appendix.

We’ve noted cross-references throughout the chapters so you can easily find information.

We made several assumptions about you:

You want practical advice. We provide our own personal experiences and those of others — as well as steps for doing whatever we suggest.

You want examples of what we consider to be well-constructed, compelling stories. So we give you several.

You want to read more than what’s here. We provide numerous links to articles, blog postings, books, and other resources we’ve found to be of interest.

You most likely define story differently than we do. We make sure that every story we present or refer to is consistent with our definition. When it isn’t, we mention that.

We use the words storytelling, storifying, and story work in this book to include finding stories, evoking them from others, digging into them for meaning, crafting them, using story triggers as memory devices, and telling them.

Throughout this book are a variety of examples of story use and actual stories that people gave us permission to use. Please respect the copyright notices in the front matter of this book.

Icons Used in This Book

Look for the following symbols to find valuable information in the book:

This icon indicates helpful advice, tips, how-tos, and steps to doing whatever we encourage you to do.

This icon points out pitfalls and mistakes to avoid. Read them!

This icon points out important information you should try to remember and details we want to embed in your brain.

This icon links you to a website, book, blog posting, video, audio, or article that we encourage you to check out.

This icon highlights what we and/or others have done related to the discussion point. To the best of our knowledge, these real-life examples are valid.

Beyond the Book

You'll find free articles and a cheat sheet for the book on the Dummies website (www.dummies.com/extras/businessstorytelling/). One article gives advice on how to title a story. Because we know how hard it is to turn data into a story, the second article provides another example of how to successfully do so. Two additional articles discuss how to use stories with virtual teams and ten things you should always do when working with stories (the opposite of Chapter 17).

We’ve created three cheat sheets to help you use the content in this book. First, we summarize beyond Chapter 4 all the types of stories we mention in the book. The second cheat sheet is about crafting a storyboard. The final one summarizes all the story structures we present in the book.

Where to Go from Here

If you want help in a specific subject area, search for it either in the table of contents or the index. If we want you to know something prior to this material, we provide a cross-reference to this information. Feel free to jump to any topic of the book and get what you need right when you need it. Or take a more traditional approach and start with Chapter 1.

Take the time to delve more deeply into various topics by going online to check out the links we provide throughout the book. This extra information will help take you to the next level. It certainly has expanded our thinking.

We hope this book empowers you to do more than you’ve ever thought possible — to get your voice heard, get people to take action based on what you share, and achieve results you thought were out of reach. Story on!

Part I

Getting Started with Business Storytelling

For Dummies can help you get started with lots of subjects. Visit www.dummies.com to learn more.

In this part . . .

Highlight the role of storytelling in business and its impact on individuals.

Identify the ultimate goal of business storytelling and the results that can come through its use in organizations.

Identify the core elements of a story and what distinguishes it from anecdotes, case studies, examples, and other forms of narrative.

Outline seven types of personal and organizational stories to have in your hip pocket at all times.

Evoke, listen to, and capture stories from others in a way that empowers and honors these individuals.

Chapter 1

The Scoop on Business Storytelling

In This Chapter

Highlighting the role of story in the new economy

Identifying the best definition of a story

Connecting story to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual

Is storytelling a tool, a technique, or a core competence and a business strategy? We believe it’s all of the above. More and more businesses are recognizing that storytelling is more than giving presentation skills to managers and staff. They’re acknowledging it’s a critical capability in effectively leading an organization. That working with stories requires an overall strategy that addresses why and what, in addition to building skills that speak to how. That storytelling in marketing, branding, and sales is about engagement, listening, and creating storied experiences to sustain customer loyalty and profits. That stories provide deep, rich, and meaningful experiences for people if crafted and told well. And that stories can be the wellspring for change and help unite a community around an organization.

Storytelling’s Role in Business

For years, businesses have realized that story can mean big money. In the 1995 article, "One Quarter of GDP Is Persuasion," economists Deirdre McClosky and Arjo Klamer calculated that persuasion activities (advertising, public relations, sales, editing, writing, art making, and so on) accounted for 25 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (American Economic Review, vol. 85, No. 2). Author Steven Denning, formerly of the World Bank, conjectures in The Leader's Guide To Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative (Jossey-Bass, 2011), that if half of that amount is devoted to story, then storytelling is worth $2.25 trillion annually (www.stevedenning.com/Documents/Leader-Foreword.pdf). A 2013 review of literature relating to McClosky and Klamer's research suggests this persuasion number is closer to 30 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, which equates to $4.5 trillion annually (www.treasury.gov.au/PublicationsAndMedia/Publications/2013/Economic-Roundup-Issue-1/Report/Persuasion-is-now-30-per-cent-of-US-GDP). These numbers alone are enough to pay attention to storytelling!

Getting in on the storytelling action

How does this mountain of money that’s being spent on persuasive communications — which could be devoted to business storytelling —translate to organizational work? Dan Pink, the author of the New York Times best-seller A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future (Berkley Publishing Group, 2006) says business is entering a new age marked by the need to do the following:

Use synthesis to detect patterns and opportunities for new innovations