This past fall was a super busy season. I went to a few conferences and did some speaking. All of this excitement caused me to get behind on my Startup School updates.
Even though Startup School has finished, I still want to share what I learned each week. I hope this will benefit you, as well as force me to look back over what I learned and remember to put it into practice.
In Week 4, we focused on two different things. Again, they covered product design and the importance of considering and involving your customer in the process. This is super important and I talk about a lot of this when I work with entrepreneurs. But, I'm not going to spend my time here today.
The other aspect they focused on was Public Relations (PR) and getting your story out there. They shared great tactics for when and how to approach media outlets. Most importantly, they talked about good storytelling.
They brought in Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures to share the importance of telling your story well. She brought a fantastic perspective on what investors want to hear when they are listening to your story.
Telling Your Story
Just as important as developing a great product is telling a great story.
The entrepreneurs I work with usually have great ideas and great products, but they rarely have great stories. At least at first.
Being able to captivate an audience by telling a great story is essential to the success of your business. You will have to do this over and over again throughout the course of running your business.
You will tell your story to your customers. You will tell your story to investors. You will tell your story to your employees. You will tell your story to the media.
I know some of you are terrified as you are reading this. You are thinking, "I hate public speaking and would rather go jump off a cliff." Before you do that, I'm here to tell you to calm down. While there may be a few scary and stretching moments, most of the time you will only be telling your story to one other person. In fact, most of the time your website, social media posts, products, flyers, and brochures will tell your story for you.
I want to help make telling your story easier for you. Below I break down the important parts to telling your story.
The Story Formula
As you tell your story, there are a few key components you need to provide to make it compelling. All of these are crucial, so you need to make sure you have thought through each one.
The Story Formula:
Your Story = You + Customer + Problem + Solution + Benefit
Let's dive in!
You
You need to be a central part of your story, just as you are a central part of this business. You don't have to always come first in your story. Sometime people like to start with the problem to grab the attention of their audience. But you need to come pretty quick.
You will weave yourself throughout the story. You will talk about how you relate to your customer. Maybe you used to be in their shoes.
You need to describe how you came to realize the problem your customer has and why you are passionate about helping them solve it. If you used to be in their shoes, this is really easy. If not, you need to stress that you are able to sympathize with them.
You need to share why you are the best person to create a solution for them. You experienced the problem. You have experience in their industry. You have solved similar problems before.
All of this points helps your customer to see that you are the person they need to listen to.
The Customer
Your story also needs to prominently feature your customer.
If you are selling to individuals, you need to know the demographics of that person. What is their age, gender, location, and income? You also need to dig deeper. What is your customer passionate about? What skills, beliefs, and values do they have?
And it needs to get as personal as possible. Can you close your eyes and picture your ideal customer in your head? You should be able to do this. Once you can, give them a name. They may already have one and be someone you know. If so, that is even better.
Once you know your customer's name, you can better understand them, and you can tell their story. At that point, their story becomes part of your story.
If you are selling to another business, you need to know the demographics about the business. What industry are they in? What size business are they? But this will only be part of your customer story.
You also need to know the person in the business who is purchasing your goods or services. What are their demographics? What are their passions and reasons for engaging your business? What skills, beliefs, and values do they have? They will need a name as well and become the other half of your customer's story.
The Problem
Once you know your customer, it should be easier to describe their problem.
If you have not already been in their situation, you can easily put yourself in their shoes. You can ask yourself:
- What is causing pain in my customer's life or work?
- What is a challenge my customer is currently facing?
- What is something my customer wants that they can't have? Why?
- How do I know these things are true about my customer?
If you can't provide clear answers to these questions, you need to get out and talk to customers. Use the sketch of your ideal customer to go out and find people who meet that criteria. Ask them for coffee or lunch and listen to their stories about their problem.
This will also ensure your solution has adequately solved their problem.
The Solution
Once you have tangible stories of your customer's problem, you can point people to your solution.
As you build your story and your solution, you need to show how you fix your customer's problem. How does your solution fit into the life of your customer? How does your solution directly address your customer's problem? What does it provide them with that they didn't have before?
The Benefits
Now it is time to show how your solution matters to your customer.
The benefit section of your story speaks to why the customer should care about your solution. What is it going to do for them? Is it going to give them more of something they want, like money or free-time? Is it going to take away something they want less of, like stress or hassle?
Your story has to show how your solution is going to make your customer's life better. You have to show how you are going to meet the deep needs of acceptance, freedom, or empowerment.
This is not a place where you describe the features of your solution. Those tie into the solution. Here you want to focus on how your solution meets those deep felt needs and passions of your customers.
The Pitch
Once you have all the pieces of your story, you are ready to share your business' message.
This happens through conversations with customers, pitches to investors and bankers, conversations with employees, social media, and anywhere else you market your product or service.
It may differ in length at times, but the story should always be the same. And it should always end with meeting a specific desire of your customer.
MyDaily Update
As Ryan and I went through this process, we were able to make a compelling pitch. Since he currently works in the underground utility industry, he had experienced the problem first hand.
We were able to focus in on who his ideal customer should be. In fact, he identified three people and reached out to set up meetings so he could listen to their stories.
Next Steps
What next step can you take in creating a story for your business? Maybe you need to get a better handle on who your customer is or what pain point is most aggravating to them.
Maybe you have all the pieces of your story and need to put it together. And you need someone you can practice with to help you refine it.
Whatever the case, I encourage you to move towards creating this important tool for your business. This way, you can tell the world about your business in a way they will understand.