Data persuades, but strategic storytelling influences behavior. Explore the magnitude of impact it can have on business communications.
Data persuades, but strategic storytelling influences stakeholder behavior. To what extent does influence communication?
The business landscape involves quite an intriguing sequence of actions. But they don’t merely materialize into a consistent revenue stream on their own. From decision-making to closing a sale and subsequent follow-ups – these actions follow a defined structure.
What gives them this definition? Intent and vision. Action is a catalyst, transforming intent and vision into desired outcomes – from boosting revenue to elevating brand awareness.
In the business world, if the ideas and thoughts weren’t acted upon, brands such as Apple and Amazon wouldn’t exist. It illustrates how deciding to undertake a task and seeing it through to completion are two very different functions.
A business vision requires the right hint of intent in storytelling to foster real impact and success.
This reaction works both ways.
One cannot achieve a desired outcome simply by holding the intent to do so. As mentioned before – intent to complete an action and actually completing that action are contrary concepts. Intent in business storytelling has to be driven by an action, such as developing the project from an intangible to a tangible entity.
For example, a stakeholder has a specific direction for a business – it’ll cut down on manual human-led tasks and be significantly driven by AI. This is a mere vision that they hold.
What are the specific steps required to transform this vision into reality?
- Outline clear objectives
- Conduct a feasibility study to integrate AI into the ideal segments
- Build an AI-dedicated team of experts
- Design, develop, and test different AI solutions according to business requirements
- Invest in the required infrastructure
- Deploy the developed AI solutions and track their performance
- And keep up-to-date with the latest AI trends
Unless a roadmap is built and successfully executed, it’s quite puzzling to state whether the business will be backed by artificial intelligence. Obstacles such as a misplaced resource allocation or a lack of time could negatively hinder the curated vision.
This is where business storytelling proves to be crucial.
Not only does business storytelling drive smooth stakeholder relationships, but it also highlights the potential barriers and different variables. By understanding the direction a project might take beforehand, it becomes easier to elevate its success probability.
Storytelling helps produce a clear framework for outlining the vision, mapping the intent, and executing it through impactful actions.
This peculiarity is ingrained in the narrow crevices of businesses.
From boosting profit and solidifying business development to providing a competitive edge and maintaining organization-wide momentum – storytelling persists everywhere.
Achieving a distinctive outcome in businesses is complicated. Unknown and unforeseen market elements often derail specific projects, resulting in financial losses, reputational damage, and blemished client relationships.
But business storytelling can help negate these to a significant extent. It engages and mobilizes all individuals towards the same objective by inspiring and motivating.
Business storytelling is not about adding a twist or garnish to an already solid strategy. But its prowess should be implanted within to transform storytelling intent in business into actions.
Here, intent in business storytelling works as fuel to ensure the storyline remains on its rightful path.
But before a project’s implementation or development, there are factors to consider. This includes raising capital, acquiring investors, ensuring alignment between diverse stakeholders, and instilling a positive media reception, among others.
Why should your project vision be approved as compared to others? How do you convince a plethora of different individuals to be involved?
You’ve to formulate a compelling story that spotlights how the strategy will be beneficial and create immense value.
But is business storytelling as easy as we think? Just by following Freytag’s Pyramid, could a story be deemed impactful? No.
Even though storytelling also across businesses is all about flow and tone, it requires a meticulous approach to create lasting impressions. A carefully laid out strategy for business storytelling gives it a clear framework, i.e., what it may be attempting to accomplish.
So, businesses must initially create a strategy approach for gripping and effectual storytelling.
The primary thing to remember is that not every story is the same. Each blog, podcast, and graphic is different. Brands catering to similar audiences and offering similar products don’t even hold the same story.
Each narrative depends on the details. Hence, curating a business or project story is equally meticulous and vital as creating a brand.
But the truth is no one straight-up wants facts. They need triggers, vulnerability, and consistency. How can business storytelling ensure it’s scratching the right surface?
1. First, it’s about the audience, not the story per se.
In businesses, a strategic approach to business storytelling begins with identifying the effect you want your story to have on your audience. It focuses on who they are – investors, stakeholders, or prospective customers.
The story has to include an angle that relays the benefits to the audience. What is in it for them? The climax embedded in the content has to convince them.
This is known as the audience-first approach:
- Will the circumstances the audience is placed in will allow them to resonate with the context of the story?
- What specific action do you want them to undertake after hearing the story?
- Amplifying which emotion will propel them to take a specific action?
- What is the main message you wish for them to understand?
- Is the curated story enough to propagate these feelings and thoughts and eventually inspire the actions you want them to undertake?
A story centered on the teller takes away the limelight from the audience’s pain points and experiences. Stories are meant for them. And it’s the audience who’s supposed to relate and resonate with the rooted messaging.
2. To develop the right story and message, define the content beforehand.
The difference between corporate jargon and business storytelling is the dash of humanness. Stories generally involve characters who evoke particular emotions.
It’s not about listing down the events but voicing what happened, to whom, and its consequences. This comprises emotions they felt, their experiences and thoughts, and what was heard and spoken. Every factor has to be relatable.
Storytelling means grabbing attention, and without the relatability factor, your audience wouldn’t understand the crux.
While communicating with external investors, you highlight Michael Jordan as the most definite example that success and greatness aren’t just handed over. Every setback that he faced has fueled his determination to become better. His never-give-up attitude and work ethic have not only inspired the sports landscape but echoed through the business and investment world too.
Jordan’s story highlights perseverance, action, and upholding a vision.
One can imagine the investors and external stakeholders resonating with this story of resilience. The protagonist here went through ample transformations – the road to success was murky and unstable. But the underlying message is that the road ahead is brighter even if it takes a while to reach there.
This story delivers the need for change and transformation by creating an emotional impact.
While not every business requires a transformation, certain shifts are a requisite for sustainable success. It’s more about adapting to revenue curves and focusing on continuity.
3. Embed captivating hooks and engage certain creative liberties in the story.
Getting the audience to think in a particular direction is the goal of good business storytelling, but manipulating them isn’t.
The story has a purpose, right? So, it has to be genuine and honest in its objectives. Every facet of the characters and plot should lead in a specific direction rather than reflect dishonest cues.
One way of doing this is by adding inner dialogues and personal anecdotes. It helps make the stories more reflective and also connects them with what your audience might be wondering.
For example, while developing content, marketing teams should crucially consider the ebbs and flows of their content. It should tug at the reader’s heartstrings while entailing value for them.
Creative liberties add an engaging hook for these readers and listeners. From quotes and different content formats to infographics, differentiating elements help speak the latest industry trends and highlight the necessary information.
4. But consistency is the key here.
Fragmented and disconnected stories (narratives) can adversely affect client relationships and brand reputation. Hence, the story has to be consistent across all the channels and platforms.
Any gaps in the elements could disenchant the audience, lessening the impact. Hence, lime lighting the details that might elevate the cognitive or emotional impact in your audience’s eyes could facilitate success and a positive brand image.
Especially for marketing, consistency in business storytelling means consistent branding – colors, logos, values, and taglines. Consistency will foster brand recognition and awareness over a long period, building trust and credibility in your messages and keeping your brand atop the buyer’s mind.
This is also possible by asking and allowing your audience to ask rhetorical questions, building back-and-forth communication. By facilitating audience members to become a part of the storyline, you’re building a common ground for pain points and experiences alike.
Business storytelling is all about accentuating a business’s values and mission.
“People are attracted to stories,” Quesenberry tells me, “because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people,” pens down the Executive Coach, Harrison Monarth, in this HBR article.
Storytelling isn’t new to the business landscape. It’s always been a resourceful tool to inspire action.
What happens when specific motivations and thoughts holding intent aren’t followed by an action? On the other hand, what if the action doesn’t entail any direction or lacks impact? It lacks intent.
This is why intent in business storytelling is leveraged vastly across businesses – from brand building to project management. It fills in the cracks and crevices businesses wish to eradicate and fosters impressionable dialogue between two parties.
Amidst the technological disruption and market noise, business storytelling foregrounds the uniqueness of a business.
