A 3-step blueprint for telling purposeful brand and business stories
How to refine, organize and share your most important ideas
Every time you give a presentation, pitch an idea, market a service or sell a product, you’re telling a story. Stories are not only told and heard; they’re also experienced and felt.
At its core, storytelling is the art of framing an experience, idea or message so that it captivates its intended audience. There are truly endless ways that any story can be delivered.
A great example of this shows up near the end of Michelle Obama’s book Becoming. She writes:
“I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.”
The rise of “storytelling” as a buzzword in the business and marketing world is often more shine than substance, but its roots go deep. As anyone who’s ever cried in a movie theater or gotten helplessly lost in a novel knows, stories have the power to utterly capture us.
What’s more, stories stick with us. Information presented in the form of a story is easier for people to understand, remember, and repeat than in any other framework. It’s true: even so-called “memory athletes” (people who compete in memorization contests) rely on stories to help make information stick.
So…how do you tell an effective business or brand story?
Start by being intentional. Tell stories on purpose.
What I mean is simply this: step back and consider what you actually want to communicate. Then make some thoughtful decisions about how to tell that story based on who it’s for and what it needs to accomplish. Do this, and you’ll have a solid foundation for sharing your ideas in a way that’s powerful, memorable, and human.
(Which sure beats tired, clichéd and forgettable.)
Here’s a three-step approach that will help you take the raw materials for nearly any story — experiences, relationships, ideas, facts, emotions, data, or some combination of them — and make purposeful choices about how to organize them for maximum effect.
You’ll notice that this isn’t a guide for what you should communicate, but rather a simple process for how to take the message you want to share and put it together in a way that’s clear and compelling.
The purpose, the pieces, and the path
There are three basic things you need to do when you’re designing any bit of communication. Think of it as a 3-step story-building process:
1. Purpose: Set the stage. (Why are you telling this story?)
2. Pieces: Identify the story pieces. (What do you want to communicate?)
3. Path: Put those pieces together. (How should this story be told?)
Let’s take a closer look at each step, along with some questions that’ll help you steer a story in one direction or another.
There truly are limitless ways that any story can be told. Your job is to find the way that works best for you and your audience…and to choose which story you want to tell.
THE PURPOSE
The purpose is why you’re communicating. Is it to persuade, inform, inspire, teach, provoke, or entertain people? Who are the people in your intended audience? What do you know about their needs, values, and goals? How does your purpose meet or address them?
Getting clear on your story’s purpose before you start telling it is critical. It’s surprisingly easy to get excited about (or overwhelmed by) content ideas and start plowing ahead when your purpose is still fuzzy. Don’t! Define your purpose and audience first.
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Step 1: Define your story’s purpose
Get clear on the story’s reason for being.
Some helpful questions:
- Why are you telling this story? What’s the goal?
- What’s the job of this story? What does it need to accomplish?
- Who’s your audience? How do you want them to respond?
- What emotions do you hope people will feel when they hear this story?
- What core value or belief are you appealing to?
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THE PIECES
The pieces are the raw material of your story. This is what you’re communicating.
Once the purpose of a story is clear, I find it helpful to get everything that’s content-related out of my head and onto a mess of sticky notes or index cards, one thing per card. You can always add, subtract, or rearrange these later.
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Step 2: Collect the pieces of your story
Take stock of the raw materials you’ve got to work with.
Questions:
- What are the elements or segments you need to tell this story? Write each of them down. Some things to consider:
- What’s the context? What’s the setting, landscape, or world this story takes place in?
- What’s the tone, energy or vibe of the story? How will you establish it?
- Who are the main characters?
- What’s the central message or big idea?
- How will you build a case for this big idea?
- What else does your audience need to know or understand?
- Is there a perspective shift, turning point, or big reveal?
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THE PATH
Once you’ve got your story pieces laid out, it’s time for the fun part. The path is about how to organize and articulate those pieces. This is how you create a narrative: by deciding how to structure your message to achieve the desired effect on your audience.
This step requires the most creative thought-work, and often takes the most time. But once you’ve defined who your audience is and what your story needs to accomplish (step 1) — and you’ve laid out all the pieces you have to work with (step 2)— it becomes MUCH easier to organize those pieces into a story that’s clear and cohesive.
Try out some different ways of ordering the pieces of your story. By physically moving the pieces around on a table or board, or by talking through potential storylines out loud, you may be able to more easily see what works and what doesn’t. You’ll probably find that there are some pieces you need to add, and others you can cut. You might discover some gaps that need to be filled. Experiment with different arrangements until you land on one that feels right.
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Step 3: Design a path for your story
Create a narrative path for your audience to follow.
Questions:
- Where should this story begin?
- Should it be told chronologically, or ordered in some other way?
- How do the pieces of this story connect to one another?
- What transitions could you use to connect them?
- How does the story end?
- What do you want to leave your audience with?
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THE END
Once you’ve led your audience on a journey with your story, make sure to give some good thought to the note you want to end on. The ending offers you one last opportunity to leave an impression, pose a question, give a moment for reflection, remind people what’s at stake, or to call them to action.
Every ending is also a beginning, after all.
It just depends on which way you want to tell it.
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About the Author: Erin Rufledt helps companies develop their strategic messaging and brings it to life with visual design. She’s the founder of Luminary Lab, a communication design company that works with leaders and companies to align their vision, their brand and their marketing to win more business and clearly communicate about the work they do.
