I’m so pleased to have Melissa Cassera from Cassera Communications join The Mogul Mom as a columnist. Melissa is an entrepreneur, national public speaker, and professional story spinner. She uses her storytelling mastery to help people craft compelling stories for use in work and in life. Melissa gained experience in various industries including entertainment, healthcare, and publishing before starting her own company at the age of 26. Her ambition gained her recognition as one of the Southern New Jersey’s Top 35 under 35 business professionals. Melissa was also named the 2007 ‘Woman of the Year’ for the Southern New Jersey Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and is dedicated to serving the community through various philanthropic efforts.
A common complaint entrepreneurs have is dissatisfaction with the amount of media coverage their business is getting. They have beautifully-crafted press kits, plenty of media contacts, and have practiced mock interviews countless times in front of the mirror. The ingredient they are most often missing is a relevant, timely and compelling pitch.
If you take nothing else away from this article, understand that the one element that will always land you media coverage is having a great story.
But let’s not stop there. Storytelling is also a great way to tug the heartstrings of prospective clients. Stories humanize often impersonal marketing collateral, websites and product packaging. Stories help us form a stronger connection with others – both professionally and personally.
Are you convinced that stories are a great strategy for your business? Follow these simple steps to craft stories that will captivate and motivate your audience.
Start a Story Journal
Trigger your memory to remember your stories by holding frequent brainstorming sessions. Keep a regular journal, jotting down specific instances that made an impact on your life.
Don’t Stop at One Story
One story is never enough. You will need different stories for sales meetings, networking events and media interviews. Choose the stories that will resonate most with a specific audience.
Share Someone Else’s Story
Many entrepreneurs feel uncomfortable revealing their personal stories. Until you feel comfortable opening up, use customer testimonials to illustrate your point.
Tell a Better Story
Any story can be interesting – it’s all in the way you tell it. Stories should be wrought with specific details. Think about the colors, the mood, and creating the visual. They should also have emotion. It’s not about what happened but how it made you feel when it was happening. Lastly, mention the other people, or characters, that make up your story. How did they contribute to what happened?
Practice Clear, Concise Storytelling
Challenge yourself to tell stories in 30-seconds or less. This is the amount of time you will have to pitch a reporter or grab a prospect’s attention. Practice with your personal storytelling advisory board comprised of family, friends, business associates or anyone whose opinion you trust.
Mom entrepreneurs are launching new businesses every day. How can you stand out from the pack? Simply by sharing your unique stories.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Melissa,
Great post! I would love to hear an example or two of what you find to be a compelling story (told in a 30 second format!).
Thank you for contributing.
Karen
http://www.lipstickwisdom.com
http://www.twitter.com/lipstickwisdom
Can I second that? I would love an example as well!
Jamie
http://www.minimebabygear.com
Hi Ladies!
One of the best I’ve read is Sarah Blakely’s story – the inventor of Spanx. You can read it here: http://www.spanx.com/corp/index.jsp?page=aboutSara&clickId=topnav_aboutsara_text
Here’s one of my stories I used recently at a conference:
I despise exercise. I was always the kid that was never involved in sports. I had zero athletic ability. My confidence was low. I couldn’t run, swing a bat or even ride a bike. This was always a sore spot for me throughout life. In my mid-twenties, I fell into the ‘exercise for skinny’ trap –meaning that to look skinny and beautiful I forced myself to exercise. This caused many days of painfully boring trips to the gym, failed spin classes, wanting to rip my hair out in yoga and cheating with Windsor Pilates by not quite doing the moves right. It wasn’t until I had the crazy idea to sign up for this boot camp led by a former marine captain 3 mornings a week at 6am that I started realizing that exercise wasn’t for appearance – it was for overall health and well being. I also learned that by overcoming my fear of feeling inadequate and accomplishing things like pull-ups and 5 mile runs means that I can tackle anything in life!
The moral of the story – no matter how uncomfortable it may feel at first to tell your story – the more you do it, the better you’ll feel. Stories shape who we are. The goal of my story is to share my experience, and hopefully inspire you to move forward with telling your own.
Twitter: heathall
June 5, 2009 at 2:23 am
Hi Melissa,
Thanks for sharing that example…my husband works for a big investment firm and often gives presentations to hundreds of brokers. Early on, he learned that storytelling helped him reach his audience–it helped them see that he was a “real guy” that they could relate to and that he was a trusted source of information because he had shared something personal with them.
I think storytelling is important in business–it humanizes you and it helps you reach your audience/customers in a more personal way. If you can find that one story that will have real emotional pull, you’re on the way to success….
Thanks for a great guest post.
Heather
Great post. Storytelling can be so powerful and more people in business do need to get over their reluctance to engage only in the most “traditional” forms of communication.
The narrative is a powerful thing. It really connects at a gut level.