What if you could get people to pay attention to what you had to say, share, or sell?
“If you knew how powerful your story was, you wouldn’t be sitting on it,” says Mark Leruste.
TELL AND SELL – WRITING YOUR BUSINESS BIOGRAPHY
Traditional storytelling tools for business biographies, in my opinion, don`t quite cut it. Writing in the third person and peppering the story with facts and successes can alienate your readers. Big businesses can afford to pay for the writing of more impersonal stories. But start-ups and entrepreneurs don’t have that luxury. You want to fascinate and captivate your audience with your unique story.
USE THE AIDA PRINCIPLE – ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE, ACTION
This is one strategy and framework for your business biography – equating action with inspiration.
Attention: Your humanness, your struggles, your determination to succeed and the ways in which you had to hustle draw attention to business story.
Interest: The products you create or manufacture, are direct results of your personal expertise, knowledge, or struggle. You have developed a strategy and a philosophy.
Desire: Your aim is to create a spark of desire in your reader, to such an extent that they want your product or to be associated with you and your business.
Action: Action in this context equates inspiration. Your business biography can trigger an AHA moment in your reader, inspiring him or her to take action.
WHAT IS IMPORTANT WHEN TELLING MY BUSINESS STORY?
In a previous blog, “Focus on the key elements of curiosity and alertness when writing”, I spoke about focus and deep inner listening skills, to find your voice and story.
Gemma Manning writes in CEO Magazine that she found listeners related when she told her story from the heart. “One attendee mentioned that she had undergone corporate storytelling training and that my story ticked all the boxes. I was fascinated as I had never approached my storytelling in a manufactured way; it is authentic, natural, and unscripted.”
KEY ELEMENTS TO EXPLORE IN YOUR BUSINESS BIOGRAPHY
Essence: Consider the essence of what made you follow a particular path in your business and use that in your story. For example, being Italian, living in South Africa and, since childhood, making pasta with your nonna. Take the thread of your story from there and weave it into your start-up restaurant story. Readers can immediately relate to childhood dreams.
Key Characters: Choose a few key characters in your story and build their stories as well. In literature you have rounded characters and flat characters. You want to create rounded characters, because you wouldn’t be where you are without a few supporting figures around you. Tell your reader about them, honestly and authentically. Even an animal can become a character in your story: your Golden Retriever going with you on morning jogs, keeping you company in the garage where you start your business or lounging at your feet in your home office.
Honest about adversity: Be honest about complications and hiccups along the way because you engage your reader in the creative ways you had to find to overcome adversity.
Showing vulnerability: 72% of entrepreneurs battle with depression, according to a study by Michael Freeman. So, be honest and open about your own vulnerabilities and challenges along the road to success.
Authenticity: The more honest your storytelling is, the more authentic your business story is going to be perceived and appreciated by your readers.
GOING THE WHOLE NINE YARDS
“Inspiring people to work with you, buy from you, partner with you or invest in you is a critical part of any business. Storytelling is key to this inspiration,” says Gemma Manning.
Remember that, as a writing coach, we can explore and develop your business story today!