How The three Cs of Storytelling Can Unite Your Industry and Support Your Business - The First "C": Connection
Today’s business environment seems as competitive as ever, as we’re encouraged to find new and better ways to get a “leg up” on our business rivals. From a business storytelling perspective, many organizations invest considerably in their communications, content, and social media strategies, all designed to promote their products or services, or to influence people to take a specific action. But what about the strategy of working with your competitors to grow your business by putting industry goals and objectives first? Is that possible?
Yes.
I refer to this strategy as Telling Your Stories to Unite Your Industry and Support Your Business.Drawing extensively from Storytelling for Business – The Art and Science of Creating Connection in the Digital Age, I’ve curated three core concepts that explain how supporting your industry can grow your business now and for the long term—by telling your stories together strategically with connection, competency, and care. The three Cs!
To help illustrate real-world applications of storytelling with the three Cs, I’ll use the boating industry as a case study throughout this thought backgrounder, especially as I’m an avid boater and angler. In this edition of Robservations, I’ll cover connection as a strategy to Unite Your Industry and Support Your Business.
From 25+ years’ experience working with clients and pouring over data curated from customer surveys and market research, it is abundantly clear people prefer to buy their goods and services from companies or support organizations that stand for a shared purpose or reflect their personal values and beliefs. They want to feel a sense of connection beyond the transaction or the organizational initiative itself. Putting the objectives of your industry ahead of your own business or organization can facilitate that connection for something much bigger than any one entity possibly can, and telling your stories to support others will serve your industry, while indirectly growing your business.
What does Connection look like?
I go into greater detail with several strategies to create connection in Storytelling for Business, but am happy to introduce here that the most powerful connector is people! People see themselves in the experiences of others. That’s how they can connect to the experience of interacting with your business. I call that “People Power”!
Harnessing the power of people is your best storytelling tactic. Whether they are customers sharing their experiences (with or without your products, services, campaigns) or your employees sharing their expertise, your stakeholders will be influenced more with “real people”. As mentioned, as an avid boater, I’ll elaborate within the context of the boating industry. If the goal is to get more people to enjoy boating, that desire benefits all retailers and supporting industries. If we use People Power to showcase real boaters who love boating, their stories are going to be more influential than just a promotional video about a specific product.
If a group of marinas or retailers, for example, all invested in creating content about why people enjoy being out on the open water, everyone in the entire boating industry benefits as that goodwill lifts the entire industry, including the marinas and retailers where the content originated from.
People see themselves in the experiences of others, for better or for worse. By creating positive storytelling content that showcases the powerful connection people have with being in, on, or around water, collectively businesses within an industry can mitigate negative storytelling that can drive people away and reinforce the love of boating forever.
In case you missed it…
Learn how to find the right people in your business to tell your story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5LUJMU5cis
