What is Your Company Story?

Every company, big or small, has a starting point. That starting point represents the beginning of your company’s story. Scott McKain explains how to use your company’s story to help connect with customers, inspire loyalty, and keep them coming back! If you are able to communicate your own company narrative in a way that is interesting and intriguing, you increase your potential for lasting success and customer loyalty.

What is Your Company Story?

by Scott McKain

What is the “story” of your company, department, organization, and team?

How about YOUR personal and professional story?

The fundamental role of “story” in business is to create a method by which audiences (customers, prospects and colleagues) understand and emotionally bond with a brand, organizationally and individually.

Because of our entertainment culture, stories are more powerful than ever.

Yes, your “company story” has the power to make an emotional connection with your clients and colleagues. They can captivate your audience and cause them to stick around, waiting for the next chapter.

What do you think happens next? Your customers and employees become so invested in your story that they want to be a part of it.

• For your employees, that means thinking long-term and staying loyal to the organization.
• For prospects, that means converting into paying customers.
• For existing clients, that means having loyal brand advocates.
• A great story can inspire years of purchases and organizational loyalty!
• Whether it is politics, sports, professional wrestling, or your business – we are ALL in “show business!” Therefore, we must tell our story!

But how? Where do you start?

Whether it is a movie, television program, or your corporate story, certain fundamental elements are found in all stories. Let us examine the ingredients that create a compelling business story:

The Hero

Companies get started because they fulfill a need. They offer a product or service that helps their customers overcome some sort of challenge.

When your business solves their problems, you become the hero they seek…and a story is born.

Strong Narrative Tension

Every story needs some form of dramatic tension; without it, we lose interest in the story. Your audience wants to wonder what happens next. They love the thrill of watching the hero’s journey and how they overcome all odds. The journey is perhaps the most captivating part of any story; it is where the hero shows the audience what they are made of.

We typically see these kinds of dramatic tensions build up in a “three-act” format. It starts with “act one” – the setup or introduction. It is followed by the “second act” where the effort to resolve the conflict is established. Finally, we come to the “last act” – the resolution.

Because your business is “show business,” craft a three-act story that will have your customers cheering for you!

The Memorable Conclusion

There is almost always a well-defined, heroic resolution in every movie. The guy makes it to the airport in time to profess his love, or the lone survivor defeats the bad guys.

Take a hint from Hollywood: do not terminate your business story with a definite end. Instead, conclude it with the hint that something new and exciting may follow.

The Marvel Universe has done an exceptional job at this. Each superhero is like a different product, each with their own story to tell. Sometimes they branch out and do their own thing, and other times they come together to tell a story together. The point is — because we are all so invested in their journeys, the studios can keep telling us new stories, reinvent old ones, or go back to their origins, and we will be just as captivated.

• Are you ready to tell the story of why your business does what you do?
• Do you have a compelling reason why your story is worth telling?
• Does your story create distinction?

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Scott McKain creates captivating presentations and bestselling books which clearly reveal how to create more compelling connections between you and your customers and how to stand out and move up, regardless of the economic climate in your industry.

• Scott has presented his business strategies on platforms in all fifty states and seventeen countries…from Singapore to Sweden; from Mexico to Morocco…from the White House with the President in attendance; to conferences in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
• He has been honored with induction into the “Professional Speakers Hall of Fame.”
• He is a member of “Speakers Roundtable” — an elite, invitation-only group of twenty business speakers considered by many to be among the best in the world.

Scott is the founder of a consulting and training company that explores the role of ultimate customer experiences in creating enhanced client retention and revenue, and is the author of three Amazon.com #1 business bestsellers; all teaching how to expand profits, increase sales, and engage customers.

McKain’s latest book, released by publisher McGraw-Hill and titled 7 Tenets of Taxi Terry, provides the specific steps for every employee to create and deliver ultimate customer experiences.