Let me tell you a quick story. Maybe it will help you persuade more people to do business with you.
The story is about a financial advisor named Mort. You probably know someone like him. Mid 50’s, always has that slightly disheveled look, slouched over guy-hasn’t stood up completely straight since Clinton was in office. You know the guy.
Despite all of his best efforts, Mort just couldn’t tell an interesting story to save his life. Sometimes the stories rambled. Sometimes they made no sense what-so-ever. Sometimes-and this was the key culprit-the stories were as boring as a zealot proselytizing about global warming.
The biggest problem with Mort’s stories was that we just didn’t care about them.
He’d talk about a client who was worried that retirement meant a lower standard of living. So what?
He’d go on about a couple who were scared to death about outliving their retirement…Big deal.
He’d blather on about some poor schnook who was afraid he wouldn’t be able to afford medical care…b-o-r-i-in-g.
Now here’s the thing…the problem with Mort’s stories wasn’t the issues that these people face. Those are real, and lots of people are worried about them.
The problem was that we didn’t care about the people in Mort’s stories.
And that’s an important point if you want to tell good stories. Your audience needs to be a teeny tiny emotionally invested in what happens to the characters.
So how do we create good characters? One of the easiest ways is by fleshing them out before starting to talk about the problems they face.
When I told you the story about Mort, wasn’t it easy for you to picture him in your mind? Why was that?
Well, first, I gave him an interesting name. Sometimes a name-like Mort-conjures up an image of a certain type of person. (Which is why you don’t run across too many suave debonair super-spies named Tristen.)
Second, I gave you some quick physical characteristics about Mort. I only used 18 words to describe him, but those were 18 important words.
If you’re going to care about my story, you first have to care about my characters. That’s why before you tell your story think about how you’re going to describe the characters to your audience. Unfortunately we often don’t pay attention to that and as a result, tell stories like Mort.
Good food for thought
Mark
Learn more about how to engage your audience by telling great stories.
