Many of my clients engage in short storytelling, instead of telling the stories stakeholders and clients really want to hear.
As a result, their stories lack dimension, details and credibility. In addition, these stories stop short, just when clients want the story to continue. Consequently, clients feel short changed, rather than engaged.
Why continue to fall short of their expectations?
Are you expending lots of energy on short storytelling? And, falling short of gaining client co-investment in the stories you tell?
Depending on where you sit around the organizational table, storytelling is deployed to achieve a variety of outcomes. For example, there are stories for selling purposes, mostly used to acquire new clients and cross- and up-sell existing ones. Then again, there are stories to justify service quality delivery, which tend to be on the dramatic side of the spectrum.
Yet, the majority of stories which clients want to hear remain undiscovered and untold. These compelling stories reside in the day-in, day-out values, actions and behaviors of employees, stakeholders and partners serving clients, post-sale.
- First, these employees responsible for ongoing customer success remain nameless and faceless.
- Next, their stories are dismissed as unimportant and insignificant.
- Yet, in reality, their stories are realistic portrayals of just how it is, when working with your company.
Do you know who these unsung storytellers are? Because the stories they have to tell are epic, instead of short stories. And, once discovered, the stories they co-create when serving clients leave your customers feeling anything but short changed.
Telling the stories which engage clients propels you away from using a traditional short storytelling format.
Instead, you see the use- or business-cases you rely on as a component in the larger story you need to tell. Because, over the long-haul, storytelling creates the type of employee and client experiences which create their success and retention, long term.
Why continue to leave clients feeling short changed, when your goal is co-creating a long-term client partnerships?
Take the next steps to creating the stories that clients really want to hear.
- Planning your next team, corporate or association meeting? Engage me to present one of my Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs, workshops or moderated facilitation services. Contact me here.
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Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset® Storytelling for STEM Professionals and Left Brain Thinkers speaking programs leverage purpose-driven value differentiation through storytelling, to create and retain successful employees and clients. Find out more about Babette’s professional story here. Babette is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of communication hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile is on the espeakers platform. Contact Babette here.
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