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15 Benefits Of Storytelling In Businesses

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 Why don’t more entrepreneurs use stories to explain their business? The reason maybe they don’t understand the important benefits of storytelling in business or how compelling stories are. But, defining, and crafting a story takes time, Another misconception is that stories are what the marketing department does. True.

But your story needs to start long before there is a marketing department. If it doesn’t, you could be trying to wordsmith your sales communications later for short-term tactical gains because you don’t have a competitive advantage. Why? Most companies have competitors, and everyone is selling the same product at the same price with the same service.

Here is what Ben Horowitz, venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz says: “The mistake people make is thinking the story is just about marketing, No. The story is the strategy. If you make your story better, you make your strategy better.”

The story is the engine that drives successful companies. And with today’s technology, you can tell your story, many times for free, to individuals anywhere in the world. That makes stories more important than ever.

Benefits Of A Storytelling Strategy

Stories will help you build and grow your company and your brand. According to Kevin Smith, the world’s most valuable, innovative, and fastest-growing companies, regardless of age, industry, or size – know the story behind the brand. (Airbnb, Apple, Facebook, Tesla, etc.) delivers success.

Or Simon Sinek, author of “Start With Why” put it another way, “Remember, people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it, And what you do simply proves what you believe.” Simon Sinek, author.

The following are some of the benefits you will get from a well-crafted story.

Stories help you develop and sell your idea.  

  •  Stories simplify big ideas in a way that sticks in one’s mind.

  • Data can persuade people, but data doesn’t inspire them to act.

  • Stories help you attract and keep talent and then improve efficiency by keeping everyone on the same page.

  • Stories help you transfer your beliefs to your audience.

  • Stories help you keep all employees on the same page and focused on the same mission.

  • Stories give your company a short- and long-term advantage over competitors.

  • Facts are essential, but sories connect and motivate people.

  • People remember stories but not many facts.

Stories help you build a brand.

  • Stories  will build a foundation of trust, but a customers’ personal experience will cement that trust into something that lasts,

  • Buyers often look to the story to justify the purchase.

  • Stories can raise the value and, therefore, the price you can charge. If you can’t get a higher price for your brand, you need a better story.

Stories help you market your brand to potential customers.

  • Stories, when done right, can significantly boost lead generation by many times normal.

  • Stories grow your sales pipeline — stories make it easier for your ideal customer to recognize your value

  • Stories shorten your sales cycle and increase sale ratio

  • stories build your sales pipeline — stories make it easier for your ideal customer to understand your value

  • Stories Improve the quality of your sales forecast because they attract better-qualified prospects

If you are looking to take your startup to the next level, stories are a great way to accomplish that.

Also, see our blog,” Five Quick, Effective Ways To Tell Your Business Story.”

Jim Zitek/ Harbor Capital Group 

We empower entrepreneurs with information, insights, and the conviction they need to find, develop, and embed their stories throughout the development process to build successful companies.

What Information To Put Into Your Story To Make It Successful?  

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What Information You Need To Put Into Your Story To Make It Successful?  

 

Every story starts with a problem. Don’t put more than the problem, solution, and success or result in your story.

OK, but what information do you need to put into your story to get the outcome you want. The story must, at a fundamental level, explain why you exist? Why does the market need your company? Why are we need this?  And why is what we are doing important?

What do you want to tell people? This information is the crux of your story and the real reason why people will buy from you or invest in your company.

Start by framing the issue. Don’t let our competition frame the issue. You may have to reframe the issue, so you are attacking the right problem. Does your core story articulate and reinforce the vision and values you are promoting to identify and solve the problem?

Different people have different ideas about what should go into your story. Here is one version. Your vision should be distilled into a single sentence, broken down into three parts:

1 What is the best action word describing what the brand is doing to serve the customer (empowering, teaching coaching,etc.)? Remember, you are not the hero of the story. You are the mentor showing the customer how to solve the problem.

2 Who do you want to hear your story? Be specific. The better you can target your audience, the more effective you will be. But, the audience has to be big enough for you to make a profit. Also, if your vision is clear, you will attract the audience you are seeking.

3 What is the outcome or transformation the customer will receive by using your product or service?  What are the benefits short-term and long-term, what are the consequences if the customer does not use your product or service?

Here is another way to look at what you should include in your story. Define the problem you want to address. It might be one huge problem or several problems you need to address separately.

1 Focus on addressing the problem and the challenges the problem causes the customer

2 The results or outcomes of solving that problem and the benefits the customer will receive.

3 Explain the difficulties the customer will have to go through to solve the problem in a way that brings the emotional aspects of getting to the solution. Is it relatable, believable, stressful yet transformational once accomplished?

One last thing. The end of the story is not the end; it’s the beginning of your relationship with the reader.

 

Why A Core Story Is Critical To Your Success

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Why A Core Story Is Critical To Your Success

When you look at startups that have developed into very successful companies, you find that one of the things that make them so successful is that they have a core story, which is also their strategy. These core stories sound deceptively simple but are extremely powerful. You should be able to tell your company’s story in one sentence or even a tweet.

Here are a couple of examples:

Google’s core story is Google: provides access to the world’s information in one click.

Apple’s core story is: Apple empowers individuals with well designed, easy-to-use computers.

Your target audience will be able to “get it” immediately if they don’t get it; they are probably not in your target audience. Once prospects understand who you are, what you do, and the benefits of what you do, expanding on your story is easy. You can direct the conversation in many different directions, depending on who’s in the audience.

Now, you need to implement this core story/strategy into everything you do, from product design to hiring people, to operations, marketing, and after-sales service.

If you live your story, you will have the ability to grow and add to your product line over time. It will be easier because you will have loyal customers who trust you. Think about how Apple and others have expanded over the years with the same core story/strategy and maintain a loyal customer base.

Now, for the hard part. Defining and creating your core story/strategy is challenging to do and takes time, But, take the time. It might be the difference between success and failure.

Now, let’s look at defining the core story/strategy in a little more detail. There is additional material on the different aspects of creating and telling your story that you will want to read as well.

What is a core story/strategy

Simply stated, a core story is a powerful narrative about your company, which explains what you do (problem, solution, benefit, or results) plus why you do what you do.  In other words, your core story is your strategy, and it drives success.

A core story also creates an emotional impact, will hold the reader’s attention over time and is flexible enough to be able to explain your company in different ways to different audiences.

This core story is not a  story about you, its the company’s story about your customers. Carmine Gallo, the author of “Talk like TED,” states that a company story is the company strategy, and the CEO is the keeper of the story. You are creating a clear and compelling vision and story around the “why,”  which is a fundamental task of leadership.

Answering the why question is how you build trust and eventually loyalty,  Business books are full of advice on how to achieve specific objectives and goals, but they are light on the Why questions. Carmine Gallo, the author of TED Talks, says to ask the following questions, Why are we doing this? Why should I join the company? Why should I invest in this company? Why should you buy this product or service from this company? The answer to why is the company story.

A core story also motivates employees, defines company culture, and provides a vision to attract investors and even define future product development. However, your story must be authentic or the results could turn customers away.

According to Christan Riedal at Mind Caffeine, a core story is the basic narrative that structures why we believe something is meaningful. It is the story you live by. The core story of a company can be an experience, a specific moment in time, or a belief that shows the real purpose of the enterprise: why you are doing what you do.

It is also a story that is designed to create relationships and gently persuade an audience into suspending their cynicism to buy into an emotional point of view. We make decisions with emotions.

 If you take the time to refine your story, you refine your thinking and the company strategy, Companies that don’t have a clear, articulated core story don’t have a clear and well-thought-out strategy.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the story is just about marketing. It’s bigger than just marketing. The story is your strategy. If you make the story better, you make your strategy better.

 

Creating And Sustaining A Competitive Advantage

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An advantage is rooted in asymmetries among rivals. It is leadership’s job to identify which asymmetries could offer an advantage. You want to exploit real advantages and be careful to avoid your weaknesses.  You also don’t want to get into a fight you can’t win.

A Sustainable Competitive Advantage

A sustainable competitive advantage like lower costs or higher quality is the goal of every business, but you also have to realize that your advantage may not be across the board. Your advantage may only be in certain products or services. Also, your customers are not monolithic. They differ in knowledge, biases, perceptions of quality, budgets, etc. Therefore, your advantages may be limited or temporary and not extend across the market.

To have a sustained advantage, your competitors can not be able to duplicate your advantage (eg, even lower prices or higher quality). To achieve that you need patents or processes, or unique skills and methods that you have obtained through experience or a strong brand name like Apple.

Interesting Advantages

Some advantages are more interesting than others. Richard Rumelt in his book “Good Strategy/Bad Strategy” explains that a competitive advantage that is “interesting” only when the advantage helps you increase value.

Competitive advantage and profitability are not equal. You can’t make money or get wealth by simply having, owning, buying, or selling a competitive advantage. The connection between competitive advantage and wealth is dynamic. Wealth increases when competitive advantage increases or when the demand for the resources underlying it increases.

How to increase value

Increasing value requires a strategy to do at least one of the following:

  1. Continue to strengthen your advantage (stay in beta mode forever)

  2. Keep expanding your advantage in both products and markets

  3. Create a higher demand for your advantaged products

  4. Make it difficult for competitors to copy or imitate your advantage

Deeping your competitive advantage

Start by defining advantage in terms of surplus — the gap between buyer value and cost. In other words, widen the gap by increasing value to buyers, reducing costs or both. This is difficult for two reasons:

One, Management must believe that improvement is a “natural” process and that it can not be accomplished by pressure or incentives alone. Improvements come from reexamining the details of how work is done, not just cost controls.

The same improvement rules apply to products except observing buyers is more difficult than examining one’s own systems. Companies that excel at product development and improvement carefully study the attitudes, decisions, and feelings of buyers. Then have empathy for buyers and anticipate problems before they occur.

Two. The second reason deepening your advantage is difficult is when your methods and processes themselves are weak. The improvements must be embedded or protected from rivals.

Broadening Your Advantage

Extending your competitive advantage into new products or markets means encountering new competitors. This requires looking at and reexamining the underlying skills and resources of your proprietary knowledge.

Extension based on customer beliefs (brand, reputation, etc,) may be diluted or damaged by careless extensions. (look at how Disney has protected — no cursing,  no sex, and no gratuitous violence- its brand while expanding) A brand’s value comes from guaranteeing certain characteristics of the product. But those characteristics are hard to define

Creating Higher Demand

Advantage increases when the number of buyers grows or when the quantity demanded by each buyer grows Technically it is the scarce resources that underlie the advantages that increase in value.

Note; increases in long-term profits only occur if you have already created a competitive advantage and you continue to use your proprietary processes and methods to expand demand. Engineering increased demand for the services of scarce resources is actually the most basic of business strategies. The increased value will come from less imitative competition.

If you continuously improve, more and stronger patents, strengthing your brand-name additional copyrights, etc your competition will have a hard time imitating your products. It’s like staying in “Beta” forever.

 

Anticipation Is A Strategy Leverage

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Anticipation is simply Insights into anticipated future events or others’ behavior that you can turn into

an advantage (e.g., investing in a property that you think will increase in value).

In business, we think of anticipation in terms of potential changes in consumer demands

or actions competitors will likely take. (e.g., Netfilicks vs Blockbuster).

Most of the time, we worry about current competitors and potential new entrants into our market.

At the same time, competitors are trying to anticipate what you are going to do.

Most strategic anticipations draw on predictable “downstream” results such as;

1 Results of events that have already happened

2 Trends already at work

3 Predictable economic or social dynamics 

You have to be careful when you do “standard” forecasting because we tend to predict

three things and then take the middle one (like shoppers do in stores when they have three choices).

Also, we tend to extrapolate a continuous rising curve to future developments,

which may not be valid. e.g., n the 1970s, the price of oil kept rising rapidly to $100 a barrel,

and then oil was so valuable in the ground that producers started

to pump more oil, increasing supply, and prices began to tumble.)

 

 You don’t have to be a psychic to anticipate what might happen in the future.

Just look around, and pay attention to consumer habits and other trends. These trends will be in plain sight.

 

Next, you have to look at pivot points.

To achieve strategic leverage, you have to have insight into specific pivot points that you can

focus on and use resources to gain a significant advantage. These pivot points could be

products, technology, processes, operations, or business models.

You are looking for specific insights that have the potential to increase demand and leverage your advantage.

 

Finally, You Have To Concentrate

After you have identified your pivot point, you have to concentrate your talents and resources on exploiting it.

When you focus on fewer objectives, you can generate more significant payoffs.

Also, your company may have some constraints you have to deal with, and there may be

a threshold requirement (like the amount of advertising and sales required to break through the everyday noise).

It may also make sense to introduce a new product region by region,

concentrating its advertising where the product is new to spur adoption.

Also, it may be preferable to dominate a small market segment over having

an equal number of clients who represent only a sliver of a large market.

Questions

Is keeping track of and anticipating future changes and trends on your radar?

Is it on every team member’s radar?

Do you have touchpoints with your entire organization every so often to discuss strategic alternatives?

 

How To Use Anticipation As A Powerful Strategy Tool

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Insights into anticipated future events or behavior can deliver opportunities. In business, these insights are generally about future buyer demand or how competitors will respond.

These future events take time to develop, and they will not always evolve the way you anticipate them too. But, most often these trends, technologies, regulations, etc are in the open and already underway and visible. They may be ways off, but you have to seek them out, monitor them, and anticipate where they are headed. Otherwise, you could miss a significant opportunity or end up like Blockbuster.

Once you understand the significance of this future change or trend and the timing, you have to find a pivot point that you can leverage to your advantage. Finding this pivot point will take some insight. It could be re-imaging your product or value proposition or your technology or operations or other organizational functions.

Once you have identified your pivot point, you will need to concentrate and focus on specific, limited objectives around that pivot point that will generate the most significant profits. Unless you have unlimited resources, you will have to select and limit yourself to one target,

Is your company using anticipation of future events to build or maintain your market position?

If you would like to learn more about how to develop your business, check out our website at www.https://harborcapitalgroupinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Braintopview-1.jpg.com

At Harbor Capital Group, we help serious entrepreneurs turn ideas into businesses.

 

7 Ways To Sell Subscriptions

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This information is from John  Warrillow’s, book: The automatic customer: Create subscriptions in any industry and from Zuora’s blog,

1 Think 10x vs. 10%

Customers are aware that a subscription is more valuable to you than a one-time purchase. So, to get hem to commit, you need to give then a significant return for their investment., They are unlikely to subscribe to a “Save 10%” but might if they could enjoy 10x the value of the alternative.

Net; “provide a ridiculous amount of value.”

2 Appeal to their Rational Side

The subscription model has gone mainstream, and people are demanding a better value than the alternative. Subscriptions are sold by appealing to convenience — especially B2B.

3 Give Customers an Ultimatum

Most customers would prefer to keep their freedom and buy your product a la carte, on an as-needed basis. YOu might consider making a subscription the ONLY alternative (they have) you sell, You can’t buy one movie from Netflix.

4 Give Them a Freemium Option

Give them a free taste of what they will get from a full-blown subscription. Magazine publishers found it virtually impossible to sell first-time visitors a subscription to an information product (e.g., magazine or membership website) until they have first opted into a free email newsletter to sample the value of the content,

Once they opt into the free newsletter, they convert to paid at a rate of 3% to 30% per year depending on the number of offers are presented and how carefully the publisher manages the list (weeds out undeliverable addresses and those who have opted out.)

In this freemium, you want to leave plenty of value off the tale to instill a sense of intrigue about what the customer will get from subscribing. A good taster gives just enough to access the product but leaven plenty of temptations behind the curtain

5 Offer a Trial

If your product or service is hard to describe or has to be used to be understood, it (the benefits) consider offering a trial subscription. Unlike freemium, usually available forever, a trial has a start and end date.

6 Offer Your Subscription as a Gift

The problem with a gift is that it is forgotten in a few days, but if you give a subscription, it expresses that appreciation over time, Standard Coca offers 1, 3, and 6-month subscriptions. They get a 75% increase in sales for Christmas and Valentine’s day. BUT, gift subscriptions are difficult to renew, but you can use them to top off your regular subscribers,

7 Set Fire To The Platform

One of the best things about a subscription company is it is always on, always available. Customers love it, but it is challenging to sell a subscription if it doesn’t change from day to day, why buy today?

One thing to do is artificially simulate a burning platform that causes the customer to act to avoid losing something (they keep thinking about it but never do it). You could put a compelling offer out there (e.g., buy the first year for half price) through the end of the month (BUT only for those interested but not signed, don’t advertise it, use it discreetly.

 

Why Your Strategy’s General Policy Is Critical

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SnapDeal is an Indian company that is very successful in selling high-transaction products to value-conscious customers. They have been successful because they adhered to the General Policy of their strategy. What they were willing to do and not willing to do. Sometimes the decisions were very difficult.

While merchants everywhere were touting the latest cell phone, they decided not to sell them because they could not make the transaction efficient enough to be profitable. Many people told them not selling cellphones was a mistake. They didn’t rule out selling cellphones, they ruled out selling cellphones until they could do it efficiently and make a profit.

Based on their strategy of selling to the value-conscious customer, their General Policy was if they were unable to make the transaction profitable, they would not sell the product regardless of its popularity and selling price.

By sticking to their general policy, it did not turn customers away. In fact, it solidified the  “Positioning” in their customer’s minds as a retailer of value products. Today the company is thriving in a very competitive marketplace,

This story illustrates the value of having a long-term strategy and adhering to the strategy’s general policy and coherent action.

Are you staying on the path laid out by your strategy?

Positioning: An Important Way To Differentiate Your Brand

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SaaS companies are no longer unique, and most have many SaaS competitors with similar services.

This makes it difficult to break out and get attention.

Getting attention is similar to the problem marketers had in the ‘70s and ‘80s

when getting through the media noise was almost impossible.

That’s why its time  to take a look at your competitive position in the minds of buyers,

 

Marketing ROIs were getting expensive. Then, JackTrout wrote a book about “Positioning.”

The idea of positioning is to find and take a unique position in the customer’s mind. 

 

For example, many car rental companies were fighting each other at that time. 

Hertz was the acknowledged leader.

Avis realized that service was an essential outcome people wanted and a position no one owned.

So, they positioned themselves in the minds of consumers as being  #2,

because “We Try Harder” propelled them into number 2 and above the crowd.

 

Many SaaS companies are facing that same competitive environment today.

Therefore it’s time to take a look at your competitive position in the minds of buyers,

In an article by Yasmine de Aranda from Martet8, she stated you must ask the critical question, “

Why should a prospect choose you over the competitors”?

You need a compelling reason for them to buy from you.

Remember, they don’t care about your awesome company until they care about what you can do for them.

The right position will increase responses and conversions, a shorter buying cycle, higher retention, and scalability.

Some information you will need to create your positioning:

  • Who are your potential customers?
  • What outcomes are they trying to achieve?
  • Why are your competitors unable to achieve these outcomes?
  • How will your solution make your customer’s life better?

 

Don’t just write down the answers. Ask your customers for the answers.

We help turn ideas and startups into businesses by working with you as a consultant or

by guiding you through the development process with our online ClickVisor subscription-based platform.

Customer-Centered: How Can I Help You?

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In today’s world, most people realize that you must put the customer first, not the product. ?

But does that mean that you accept everything the customer tells you? NO, 

But it doesn’t hurt to be customer-centered and ask how can I help you.

 

According to David Stucer, in a Sales & Marketing article, you believe the customer when

he is talking about his issues. You do want to pay attention when they tell you their needs

when they tell you what’s broken in their lives, when they tell you why where they are hurting?

 

A customer comes to you or wants to do business with you because he wants you to solve his problem.

Therefore you have to show him how you can solve his problem or issue.

 

As David would say: “We hear you, we can help you, here is how.”

This is easier said than done, however. You can grasp the problem conceptually,

but most people have difficulty conceptualizing the solution.

Make it easy for them to see how you can solve the problem,

 

People often jump to talking about their company and their product or services.

That’s certainly not customer-centric. The customer doesn’t want to hear about your business;

they want to hear about how you are going to solve their problem.

 

You  will get a better reception if you focus on how your business can help him improve his business,

As David would say, “People are far less concerned with doing business with an awesome company

then they are about whether the company can solve their problem”,

What you want to do is consistently tell the story in every media,

about how you solved this problem and that problem related to their problem, market, or industry.  

 

 

Jim Zitek/Harbor Capital Group 

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