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StoryTelling
storytelling techniques
1
As
Access
1
As
Access

Some of the best narratives come from an unfiltered look behind the curtain.

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2
In
Incongruent
2
In
Incongruent

To see or read something that appears out of place grabs attention. The mind strives to reconcile, “what the hell?”

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3
Fa
Failure
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Fa
Failure

No failure, no drama. Virtually all movies and novels depict something going awry.

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4
Cv
Conversational
4
Cv
Conversational

Talk and write like a real human being. You can do it!

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5
AC
Atomized Content
5
AC
Atomized Content

Packaging bite-­size chunks of a story often resonate with journalists.

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6
Ow
Outward
6
Ow
Outward

The opposite of “Me, me, me … and here’s a little more on me.”

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7
Sm
Sausage Making
7
Sm
Sausage Making

Sometimes, a backstory on how something happens is more interesting than the core narrative.

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8
Qa
Quantification
8
Qa
Quantification

Everyone likes to keep score. Numbers can bring shape to the intangible.

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9
Op
Opinion
9
Op
Opinion

Nothing bores like the middle of the road, often viewed by execs as a safe harbor. Have a take.

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10
Wo
Words
10
Wo
Words

Words matter. A single word amidst a vanilla page can jar the senses.

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12
Cx
Context
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Co
Contrast
13
Co
Contrast

Comparisons – like the difference between “what was” and “what is” – can help the audience ascertain significance.

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14
Vi
Visual
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Vi
Visual

Even if a picture isn’t worth 1,000 words, visuals accentuate storytelling.

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15
Hu
Humanity
15
Hu
Humanity

Faces dominate the covers of business magazines for a reason. Cultivate human touch points in your storytelling.

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16
An
anecdote
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An
Anecdote

Underutilized in business communications, the anecdote brings realness and entertainment value to the story.

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17
Le
Levity
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Le
Levity

Considered the killer app in business storytelling, the mere cracking of a smile is a win.

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18
Dr
Drama
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Dr
Drama

Business storytelling with an entertainment dimension stands out. Enter drama, stage left.

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19
Pr
Protagonist
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Pr
Protagonist

Transform an executive into a hero, and you’ve got the makings of a happy ending (and a brand-­building moment).

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20
Ba
Barrier
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Ba
Barrier

Here’s one surefire way to cultivate drama: Communicate a barrier and tease out the journey of overcoming that barrier.

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21
Vo
Voice
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Vo
Voice

A distinctive voice can elevate a business story, whether that comes from the company or an individual.

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Revisiting the Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” Speech

Revisiting the Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” Speech

The holiday celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. prompted me to dust off the “I Have Dream” speech.

It’s a revealing exercise to read the text of the speech rather than watch and listen to the speech.

King was such a gifted orator, you get the feeling he could recite the owner’s manual for a daisy-wheel printer and the audience would be out of their seats with emotion.

Yet, when you strip the speech down to just the words, the storytelling still offers unmatched verve.

While the section framed by repeating the words “I Have a Dream” forms the guts of the speech, my favorite passage is the following metaphor:

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check – a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

Powerful stuff.

Words do make a difference.

How Does a B2B Customer Story Crack The Wall Street Journal?

Virtually every national and global company desires coverage in the business media. For B2B players, this quest presents an additional hurdle in shaping a story that the average Joe will understand, much less care about.

For those who toil in the B2B arena, the pursuit of business media is not a job for squeamish. Often, the activity starts with educating the client that product announcements — “The Opaque security suite protects enterprise and government customers once and for all” (from an actual news release) — won’t open doors at business publications like The Wall Street Journal.

With this in mind, it’s instructive to reverse-engineer a story from a B2B company that did land in the business media, a SAP customer story in The Wall Street Journal.

SAP customer story Wall Street Journal screenshot

How did SAP pitch and package the story in a way that caused the journalist (and her bosses) to green light the piece?

First, they targeted The Wall Street Journal’s CIO channel, a natural for this type of enterprise customer story. Zeroing in on a specific section in a media property increases the probability for success. And they pitched a journalist, Kim Nash, who has over 20 years of experience covering enterprise computing for trade publications such as Computerworld and CIO Magazine and knows her way around transaction processing.

Next, they offered the Smithfield customer story as an exclusive. By exclusive, I mean only the Journal would gain access to Smithfield’s global CIO for an interview.

Before going further, it’s worth acknowledging that high-profile names help in selling this type of story. SAP, the vendor, and Smithfield as the customer are both multi-billion dollar companies. Still, these lessons apply even if you’re an enterprise startup. It’s just going to take a little more guile — and luck — in pushing the story up the hill.

Even with the clout that comes from big brands, SAP pitched a narrative that plays at the industry level: As CIOs increasingly favor cloud computing over constructing new data centers, here’s a CIO moving all applications to the cloud.

Drilling down to the next level, the story quantifies the move:

  • Saves 20 percent in IT costs
  • So far, has moved about 30 percent of its systems to the cloud
  • Aims to cut the number of applications by 40 percent

The hard numbers make a difference though I was surprised that Smithfield didn’t divulge its IT savings with a bottom line number. It must have convinced the Journal that its total IT spend shouldn’t be in the public domain for competitive reasons.

And the story offers the type of details that bring texture to the storytelling like:

“The company processed 30.5 million hogs at nine U.S. plants in 2015. Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, Armour smoked sausage and other packaged meats are put together at 33 plants across the U.S. Its breeding facilities are also run separately.”

And my personal favorite that uses the classic before-and-after storytelling technique:

For example, a processing plant that sends pig parts to a packaging plant currently accounts for the transaction as a sales order. With an integrated ERP system, the transaction would be handled as an intra-company shipment through a shared transportation system. This is more efficient and costs less.

The choice of words do come into play. While it’s the journalist who’s crafting the story, I still give SAP credit for offering the right pool of content to draw from. There’s something about the phrase “pig parts” in an enterprise software case study that jars the reader in a way that an equivalent phrase like “sections of the animal” doesn’t.

Of course, the vignettes of the overarching narrative all relate back to the core pitch — cloud computing delivers benefits over the traditional data center.

Taking these elements together, you’ve got a fighting chance to gain the ear of a business publication.

Though it doesn’t relate to the actual pitch, you’ll notice that the Journal story includes SAP competitors Microsoft and IBM. Obviously, I don’t know how the SAP executives reacted to seeing their competitors piggy back (couldn’t resist) on their case study and gain a mention in The Wall Street Journal for free. But this is the price of admission when pitching the business media with the journalist striving to frame a vendor story — in this case Smithfield moving to the cloud thanks to SAP — with an industry context.

I raise this final point because nothing is more discouraging than navigating the business media labyrinth to the finish line for a win only to have your executives infuriated that competitors also appeared in the story.