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Stories, everywhere
Unless you tell a story, you don’t have a way of convincing people. Unless you tell a story, you don't have a way of transmitting your vision to your clients, investors, or team members. That said, what makes a good story? I believe it has much in common with a good business: it should be focused.
A good story converges onto something : A goal, an intrigue, a character’s quest, an emotion. Even when the goal is to create confusion or a dream-like state, if it is the author’s intent, it must be deliberate and sharp, clear within its own fog, as in the works of Murakami or sometimes Chuck Palahniuk.
Each sentence, or scene, pushes the story forward, and either provides crucial information or helps the story progress. A good storyteller knows how to say a lot without writing much, how to fit a whole story into a single paragraph, how to inspire a whole world in just one sentence.
Ernest Hemingway, Bukowski, Steinbeck : All of them were masters of concision. A good storyteller knows as much about what to disclose as what to hold back.
Hence, a good story-brand captures a company’s mission clearly, and makes it resonate through the experiences of its clients, founders, and back to its origins. When it comes to telling the story of your company or your founder’s journey —ideally the two marrying each other harmoniously— it’s crucial not to overload with details that don’t help people resonate with who you are, and what you’re offering. Every new information can bring people closer, but also push them away.
No fluff policy
The best story-brand examples often come from B2C companies. The best of them are masters at shaping stories, knowing what to focus on and which sub-culture they want to reach. For instance, Dior advertisements celebrate beauty and a high-class aesthetic. They don't explain much about sourcing the plants used for their perfumes. That doesn't matter to Dior. For other fragrance brands, however, it does. It depends on what you want to sell and whom you want to sell to.
A good business story also act as a good filter. It opens the door to potential participants to join in, while those not a good fit simply move on. Just as the odyssey of humankind, it happens in the physical dimensions of the world, and is a matter of space and time.
Your narrative, at a single faint instant in space, invites people to sit beside you—those whose resonance aligns with yours—and to wear your colours in some way. Over time, though, the story feeds followers as much as they feed the storyteller, helping each other converge and narrow the scope of their identity.
Hemingway fed the world with his stories, and the stories of the world fed Hemingway. He lived at the heart of the great adventures of his time: World War I, World War II, the Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution. In business, the same dynamic exists: Vans and the skater community fit each other, Patagonia and rock climbers fed each other with stories and crucial product feedback. In both cases, you can tie the early identity of a brand to a subculture, a narrow group of people deeply focused on a single activity, usually something most others ignore. Think of early Nike and the runners, back when running was still considered unfashionable.
When you build a company, when you start selling a product and shaping a brand story, it’s mandatory to focus on the people who truly feel your intentions. Why? Because one person who screams your message is worth more than hundreds who only whisper—or worse, stay silent.
The enemy of a good story, and of any brand, is not rejection. It is indifference. Your story should never be met with blank stares. You want at least a few people to resonate so strongly that they can’t help but amplify it. Over time, their passion convinces the crowd that your message is worth listening to. It’s your goal, even if you’re selling something as seemingly dull as B2B accounting software.
What, then, does this have to do with building a great product?
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