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Stories that Stick

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Stories that Stick

How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business

HarperCollins Leadership,

15 min read
9 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Your great story is waiting for you.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Concrete Examples
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Social media channels enable every company to tell its product’s story, but lists of ingredients and features – and even reviews – aren’t stories. Bonafide stories can attract attention, exert influence and transform audiences, but they do require a robust structure. Award-winning storyteller Kindra Hall helps you identify the kind of story that best fits your vision and strategy. She explains why stories matter and how to craft a story that links your product to your audience. Leaders and marketers can learn how to capture their firm’s value in a story that will garner and hold consumer attention and affection. 

Summary

Stories help you bridge the gap between your product or service and your targeted audience.

Every business has one goal: to profit by delivering a valuable product or service to the people who need it and will use it. Failed businesses prove this isn’t easy. Even a successful brand, Extra gum, faced lagging sales. That turned around in 2015 when the company crafted a two-minute boy-meets-girl story that begins with the couple sharing a piece of Extra gum in high school and ends years later with him proposing marriage. Sales soared, because people connected the gum with their own happy memories of young love and togetherness. The video attracted 100 million views, and it shows how stories can create emotional connections like nothing else can.

To be successful, your story must incorporate all three of these “bridge-building elements”:

  1. Attract attention – You don’t need to take attention from people. They will give it freely if the subject is worthwhile. Stories are co-creations. The teller guides the listeners, who fill in the gaps with their own experiences...

About the Author

Award-winning professional storyteller Kindra Hall is president and chief storytelling officer at Steller Collective – a consulting firm that helps clients craft compelling stories as part of their organizational strategy.

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