How to pinpoint the purpose of your corporate story
Corporate storytelling must have a business purpose and a business context.
Do you know your story’s WHY or reason for being?
Try this formula:
Fill in the blanks of the following sentence to create a purpose statement that will guide your corporate storytelling from start to finish.
The purpose of this story is to show how
[SOMEONE OR SOME ENTITY DID SOMETHING REMARKABLE]
so that [WHO: THE INTENDED AUDIENCE]
will believe that [SOME THINKING OR BEHAVIOR CAN BE CHANGED].
Here are three examples:
The purpose of this story is to show how
meticulous planning many months before a large company move allowed a company to quickly get back to serving customers again
so that leaders of other large companies
will believe that they need to get their moving plans in place many months ahead if they want to avoid costly downtime and a potential loss of customers.
The purpose of this story is to show how
one company used online recruiting tools to quickly and cost-effectively hire employees in a tight labor market
so that leaders in other companies
will believe that traditional hiring methods may not work as well anymore.
The purpose of this story is to show how
a CEO identified 12 new ways to keep customer service at the highest possible levels in the midst of rapid growth
so that other CEOs facing the same challenges
will believe that they can take the same actions to keep their own customer service from slipping.
Try this formula the next time you write a corporate story to make sure your corporate storytelling stays on track.
