The Story You Tell
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the book The Black Swan, claims:
We only perceive about 20% of our field of vision, called our perceptual span. The same thing occurs when we listen. Our situational awareness is limited to what we perceive as relevant to what we believe matters.
In summary: customers are shaped by their memories and focus exclusively on what they believe matters. They will collect fragments of stories that they preperceive will help them to whatever they pursue. They will investigate if the claims made in these stories are valid. If so, the customer will want to move closer to the brand and confidently add an experience to their life story.
Jobs to be done
Coined by Peter Drucker, but made popular by prof. Clayton Christensen is the concept of the Jobs to Be Done (JTDB):
When customers become aware of a job that they need to get done in their lives, they look around for a product or service they can ‘hire’ to get the job done. Their thought processes originate with an awareness of needing to get something done, and then they set out to hire something or someone to do the job as effectively, conveniently and inexpensively as possible.
The functional, emotional and social dimensions of the jobs that customers need to get done constitute the circumstances that they buy. Companies that target their products at the circumstances in which customers find themselves, rather than at the customers themselves, are those that can launch predictably successful products. Put another way, the critical unit of analysis is the circumstance and not the customer.
Egonomics, Coalignment, Fragments and JTBD
If we combine these aspects you’ll understand that a brand’s story should not be aimed at the customer, rather at the circumstances of the job to be done.
These circumstances — the functional, emotional and social dimensions of the job to be done — are the elements the customer is bound to resonate with, for as long as these dimensions coalign with what they need/want/like to pursue.
Storyline
David Miller of StoryBrand describes what a story should look like:
- A Character
- Has a Problem
- And Meets a Guide
- Who Gives Them a Plan
- And Calls Them to Action
- That Helps Them Avoid Failure
- And Ends in a Success
This is a story. You are the guide and your value proposition is the plan.
Beware: the brand is the guide with a plan. The goal is to get each customer to believe they can be the hero. Advocacy is their way of saying: Thank you for letting me hero my own story!
The story you tell
The main objective of the construction of the 360-degree customer lifecycle, as part of the cross-silo, multi-tier ROUNDMAP™, was to create a complete map of all — mostly emotional — aspects of the customer lifecycle.
But however complete, each customer will still only capture fragments of your story. Make them count!
Finally: It is not about about the product you sell, it is the story you tell.
So when later, when experiences have become memories, customers can pass on their story to others, turning believers into advocates.
