Stories That Stick: How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business by Kindra Hall

Author:Kindra Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsChristianPublishing
Published: 2019-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

The Founder Story: Breaking Down the Components

Whether you are looking to raise capital, secure more clients and customers, or recruit your dream team, telling a story is your solution.

And not just any story. A founder story.

Fortunately, when you include the essential storytelling components, this story basically writes itself. Let’s take a look at how the four components look in the context of the founder story.

Identifiable Characters

At its core, the founder story, as you might have guessed, centers around the founder. It’s designed and told to position the entrepreneur as the right captain for this idea’s ship. So when it comes to identifiable characters, it might seem obvious that the founder is it. Putting the founder front and center is the only way we get to know you, believe in you, and root for you.

Obvious.

And yet this is where many founder stories go wrong.

A few years ago our team was approached by a founder who had a desire to tell his company’s story. They had everything you could want from a company: a passion for the work they do, a genuine commitment to creating excellent products and services, and as icing on the cake, they were frustrated that other companies in their space were beating them in sales and social equity with inferior products.

We were excited about this project for many reasons, but particularly because we suspected we were just one great founder story from rising above the proverbial noise. In highly saturated markets like this one, when everyone is pretty much saying the same thing, given time, a well-executed founder story can elevate a brand powerfully.

Unfortunately, the ending of this story is not a happy one.

After weeks of interviews, drafts, and revisions, we were at a standstill. The problem? The founder didn’t want the story to have people in it.

The first draft of the story was a classic founder story with the identifiable character as the founder himself, as it should be. He rejected that version, saying he didn’t want the story to be about him. In another version, in an effort to creatively work around this roadblock, we focused on a different character and used other components to tap into that essential, pitch-winning founder story vibe. He scratched that one too. Ultimately, he didn’t want the story to have people in it. He wanted the story to be about a “commitment to excellence” and “better ingredients,” which, as you might have guessed, was exactly what his competition was saying.

The great strength of the founder story is that an identifiable character is a gimmie. And since people—investors, customers, potential talent—want to work with people and not faceless companies, having a built-in character like the founder is a win-win.

Unfortunately, my team and the company could not come to an agreement on this, and we mutually parted ways. I’d tell you who they are, but it wouldn’t really matter, because you’ve never heard of them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.