Storytelling is important. None of us live in a world of data and logic, as much as we might pretend that we do. Stories are important.
Stories provide contexts to teach our customers and help them learn. They provide a basis for helping our customers understand how we might help them. They help customer learn through understanding the stories of people and organizations who have faced similar issues. Stories engage our customers hearts and minds.
Unfortunately, when we think of stories, too often, we think of our stories or those we want to tell.
But our customers have their own stories—stories relevant to their own companies, organizations, and functions. These provide the frameworks that provide them meaning in their jobs. Stories that are personal, these provide the context of who they are. Inevitably, these stories are tightly intertwined.
Stories provide the framework and rationale to how we live, what we believe, what we value, how we dream, what we want to achieve. They shape who we are–as individuals and as people working in organizations.
We focus so much on the stories we want to tell, too often we forget to understand our customers’ stories.
But that’s probably most important, until we can understand our customer stories, we have difficulty positioning ours. Until we understand their stories, we don’t know how to help our customers expand their stories to include ours.
Storytelling is important.
Imagine if we took the time to let our customers tell us theirs.
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