Tell me your story

Following essay was posted to monthly magazine "Staff Adviser " home page.
http://www.staffad.com/business/shinbori06_02.html

"Tell me your story"

●Story embedded in a pair of tennis shoes：
If you are a tennis fan, you probably know the name Monica Seles.
A US woman tennis player, she won the French Open at the youngest ever age of 16.

In 1993, she was stabbed by an attacker during a tennis match.
She was seriously injured in the back.
It took more than 2 years for her to be able to play on the court again.

At that time, I was in charge of marketing at Nike Japan.
Nike decided to introduce a pair of tennis shoes featuring Monica Seles.

The shoes contained our wishes for her quick recovery and return to the tennis court.
In marketing this product, we decided to appeal the story behind the shoes, rather than emphasize the shoes’ performance.

The story behind of the model featuring Monica hit a cord with tennis fans.
By virtue of this story, these tennis shoes turned out to be a great hit.
Weaving a story into a product is called "Story Marketing".
It is a marketing technique which attaches added emotional value through a ‘story’ on top of the value of the product as an object.


●Storytelling generates sympathy and emotion :
This form of storytelling is applied not only to ‘objects’ but also to people.
In October, I had an opportunity to attend the conference which was held by the "International Coach Federation".
I met with a HR manager of a US corporation.
She mentioned that she asks applicants "Tell me your story!” when interviewing them.

Talking about oneself is a form of ‘storytelling’.
When storytelling people talk about a turning point or an actual experience in their own lives.
"Storytelling" also involves talking for 2-3 minutes about such things as prior struggles, times where you turned things around from disappointment, hard-earned achievements and what you learned from them etc.
According to this HR manager, storytelling is a very useful way to learn other people's views on life and sense of value.

Here is one example of storytelling:

“I was working at a measuring equipment manufacturer as a sales representative. My sales performance had not been favorable. My sales results were the 5th lowest among 12 sales people.
One Friday I was tasked with trying to find the cause of a malfunction of one of our products with workers of a customer’s factory by working holidays, overtime and all through the night, with the permission of my boss.
On Tuesday, 4 days later, the cause of trouble was proven to be the poor quality of the parts, and they were immediately exchanged.
This had caused a lot of trouble for Company A, but due to this trouble, I could forge a stronger relationship with Company A, one of our clients.
My sincere attitude seemed to be well appraised.
From this I gained confidence in myself.
I found myself visiting customers more often, and as a result of this, I had a newfound interest in sales.
My sales results improved and I received commendations for my work.”

Like this, a story further engages the reader/listener by including specifics regarding the matter actually experienced or how change occurred.
In order to formulate this kind of story, it is important for people to look at oneself objectively and make a conscious effort to improve one’s abilities.
People who do not have an awareness of the issues surrounding them do not make good storytellers.

There was an article on ‘storytelling’ in a recent issue of the US magazine “Forbes”.
“How storytelling spurs success”
The article told of the importance of storytelling in advancing one’s career.
It also included tips on how stories should be constructed.

Good stories often induce laughter, tears, sympathy and other emotions.
The data and information on a PowerPoint slide cannot catch the hearts and minds of your audience.
Storytelling is like creating your own personal episode of the NHK TV program “Project X”.

I told my wife about storytelling.
My wife says: “I can tell why your storytelling has the ability to fully move others.” “I have a lot of source material from which I can tell your stories because I have seen your failure, disappointment and discouragement many times over.”
“It’d surely deeply move people and give them confidence.”

I’ll have to find a way to put a zipper on my wife’s mouth.
It’s a good thing that there is no family interview when applying for a job, unlike an interview at a private elementary school.

End