Tell Me a Juicy Story!

When our son calls, his daughter almost always wants to get on the phone, saying “Daddy, I want to see Grandmom and Granddad!” (make the call a FaceTime call) and once we are visible, odds are she will say “Can you read me a story?” She usually asks Kerry, I guess her storytelling is better than mine, at least in our granddaughter’s eyes.

What’s the point, other than a cute antidote about Eva? The point is that we identify with stories from the time we are very young… we’ve been reading stories to Eva since she was just a few months old. We relate to stories, we learn from stories, we start to better understand our world through stories. Stories help us see things that cold hard facts would not allow us to see.

Not only have we been individually conditioned to hear, relate to, and enjoy stories, as a species we are conditioned the exact same way. Stories have been around since man has learned to use language. How else could important information be relayed from generation to generation, before writing, the efficient reproduction and storage of that writing was invented? Stating facts, figures and rules… are easily forgotten.

Think about it… which would you remember more:

“Be careful when you go into the woods and watch for bears.”

Or

“There once was a boy about your age named Lucas, who wanted to surprise his mother with a basket full of delicious berries, so he didn’t tell her where he was going. He reached the berry patch and was filling the basket that his mother had just spent a month making when he heard a rustling behind him. He turned around to see a big black bear also picking and eating berries. Lucas jumped up, scared out of his wits, dropped the basket of berries and ran screaming out of the woods back to his mother. The new basket and berries were lost.”

There is far more there than just the length that helps us remember the rule about bears. Among other things, it is all the different emotions that we feel as the story is being told.

Some of humankind’s greatest works are story-based. The Jewish Torah, the Christian Bible, etc. Who from either of those faiths does not know the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, or of Noah and his ark? Why do we know them so well even if we have lapsed from our religious upbringing?

Because they are stories, that’s why. Would you remember Noah, if it was taught in your high school history class as plain and simple history, “In 2304 BC, there was a great flood where everything died except for animals and people on this one boat.”

I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, but I certainly remember the story of Noah.

Why tell stories besides it helps us remember the information?

Because it captures our attention and hopefully encourages us to read on to get the full benefit. Back to Noah, think about how it starts, how it unfolds and how you want to find out what is next, and how it ends. If you are not familiar with the story of Noah and the Ark, here is one rendition of the story.

Want to impart information to your clients and prospects? Tell it with stories and you are much more likely to get them to understand what you are trying to tell them.

Make the story as interesting and juicy as possible. Be sure to add humor (even self-deprecating humor). That introduction about Eva was meant to catch your attention and get you to read far enough until you get to the ‘meat’.

Oh, and the title is important too….but that is for another time.