Storytelling

When we were kids, certain kinds of “story telling” got us into BIG trouble.

As businesspeople, a different kind of storytelling can be the difference between successful and failed ventures.

Stories are the links between facts and logic that move people to action. Stories are how we remember. We tend to forget bullet points and lists.

We “googled” for the names of the greatest storytellers. As you can imagine, the list went on forever and included Shakespeare, Dickens, JK Rowling, Hemingway, Salinger, Virginia Woolf, Walt Disney, and Steve Jobs!

We were a bit surprised by Jobs being included but then recalled a quote of his:

“Great stories have recall and motivate”.

Jobs often started new product introduction meetings with a story on the motivation for that product’s development.Stories bring facts to life. They allow us to encourage people’s imaginations and motivate our audiences to act. Stories make the abstract concrete.
Storytelling is an art. It requires great intelligence and skill. It requires knowing your audience, being consistent and authentic, and communicating the problem you solve. It demands compelling content, action, and a result.

Storytelling is a powerful tool. It is flexible and reflects new circumstances and new learnings.

As successful businesspeople, we must be able to project the future. The best way is through stories. Not with exaggeration or in a manipulative way, but by painting a picture in which the listener can see themselves. Stories are not just interesting they are an enormously effective way to deliver your message in a way that makes it memorable.

At Dye & Eskin, we love to tell stories.