Yesterday’s business backstory gets you to where you are today. However, does this history showcase how you get clients to where they need to go: tomorrow and in the future?
Today’s businesses represent the intersection of people, processes and interconnected software-machine interfaces. That Internet of Things environment may not be the bedrock upon which you established your business, a while ago. However, this Industry 4.0 environment sure does drive business growth tomorrow and in the future.
Is your business storytelling strictly transactional? Or are you focused on translating how you meet client expectations over the long haul? So you get to where you need to go: together?
Do you engage or narrate a yesterday-focused Business Backstory?
A mid-market client has a business backstory told as a third-party narrative. Does this story sound familiar? Their website talks about how long they have been in business, their shop floor square footage and manual workforce size. Why? Their anticipated outcome is showcasing manufacturing capacity, so they win contracts to fabricate really large metal parts for even larger equipment.
Overall, their story is a “Me” story, focused on their own company and their sexy clients as justification for new and existing clients to do business with them. As a result, even their own employees remain nameless, faceless and value-less commodities. Because the Voice of the Employee does not factor in anywhere in this story, the story omits employee and customer experience, as key components of storytelling engagement.
This company continues to resist moving one millimeter beyond how they always tell their comfortable stories. Consequently, they do not tell the stories that their partners, stakeholders and clients really need to hear. The stories of co-created transformation. The stories about Trust.
Yesterday’s transactionally-focused business backstory falls short of creating transformational customer experiences.
More importantly, the old-school, old-style story they tell lacks a “We” focus. As a result, smaller and more nimble competitors nibble away at chunks of these complex manufacturing projects. Why? Because the more entrepreneurial companies focus on what happens next in the stories they tell. These smaller competitors connect their own Voice of the Employee “what we do” stories to the “Voice of the Employee” stories within their clients’ organizations.
You see, these really large manufactured parts are not standalone components. In fact, these creations depend on integrated software interfaces to serve each end-user’s needs. In showcasing their less-than-perfect, transformational and business-forward stories, these smaller entrepreneurs focus on how they co-invest in their clients’ stories, first. Instead of rushing to execute on a set of manufacturing specifications.
Do you see the difference in a transactional backstory-focused narrative compared to a transformational business-forward one? Click on this link to discuss transforming your own business storytelling scenario. Let’s get to where you need to go, together.
When you completely rely on Yesterday’s Business Backstory to establish Tomorrow’s credibility, you appear out of touch with client expectations. Let’s not let that happen anymore.
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. How can we tell a compelling business story, together?
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 tools and methods, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Babette’s speaker profile is on the espeakers platform. Contact Babette here.
Image source: Adobe Stock
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