The importance of good china and how to use storytelling in your business
The importance of good china and how to use storytelling in your business
When I was a child we had a lot of ‘good’ china and glasswear which stayed in a cupboard and was only brought out on special occasions – such as really important guests. The china was never used for family celebrations, however special they might be, but was mainly to impress those outside our family circle.
I never understood it. What’s the point of having lovely things and never using them? There’s a school of thought that you should save your best things so that you can pass them to your children when you die. But what’s the point of that. You have these great objects but never enjoy them yourself, and then, I’m just assuming here, you pass them down as an inheritance and your kids either don’t use them either, find them not to their taste and give them away, or sell them for profit.
If you have something nice – use it! Or give it away. Just don’t let it collect dust in a cupboard. My philosophy extends to breakages too. I’m always sorry when some beloved item meets its maker and shatters on an unforgiving floor, but my house rule has always been that you need to tell me when something breaks so I don’t go searching for it in the future.
I’ll now take this little bit of personal musing and use it as a springboard for business storytelling, but before I start I’ll explain myself. These days our clients and customers choose us as much for our personalities as our services or products. When we do our marketing we need to be authentic, and to do that we can often use anecdotes from our rich personal life experiences, or things we have just seen during a walk. Everything around us and in our memories can be turned into a story which has a lesson we can use to engage with our audience.
When I think about my passion for using the ‘best’ china, and other precious objects which have a use, in our everyday lives it makes me think of encouraging my clients to not save their best ideas for later and not to hold back when they have a passion to do something.
"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today."
We often stop ourselves from activating great ideas because we treat them like the good china – we put them to one side until the right opportunity comes along. Opportunities don’t often come on their own though – they usually arise because we have been open to them.
I could go on a bit more about how I would and could turn a story about good glassware and special occasions into useful learning experiences, but now it’s your turn.
Make a list of your main services/popular products.
Keep them in mind and think about your last visit to the shops or your most recent walk with the dog, or other outing. Once you’ve got that experience fixed in your memory think back to your services. Was there any experience, anything you saw or heard, which you can turn into a story to illustrate how your product or service can help your client or customer?
Write a short piece, suitable for social media, which uses your experience to illustrate how you can help someone in your business.
That’s it, really. You just have to keep your ears and eyes open and be a bit innovative and clever with using objects and experiences in your daily life to showcase your business.
Storytelling taps into our human inclination to connect through stories and leverages the power of narratives to capture attention, evoke emotions and create a lasting impact.
"At its very core, marketing is storytelling. The best advertising campaigns take us on an emotional journey - appealing to our wants, needs and desires - while at the same time telling us about a product or service."
- Melinda Partin, Senior Director of Marketing & Digital Strategy, UW Medicine
You don’t have to limit your storytelling to your personal experiences either, you can use client/customer feedback and testimonials, a behind the scenes look into your business life and more – even an ‘unboxing’ video can be compelling which you talk about it as it happens.
I was hunting around for an illustration of this storytelling tactic when I was talking to a client the other day and uploaded an image of a dead agapanthus flower I’d taken recently while walking around my regional town. My words to go with the social media post weren’t brilliant, because I didn’t give them a lot of thought at the time – too busy trying to illustrate a point! But, this is what I wrote:
Wonderful sunny day today, the dead agapanthus reminds me of things I need to do to revive my ideas!
You don’t need to be too complicated when you write something – often a quick idea will work wonders.
Be creative and see what you can come up with. Using storytelling in our marketing and the way we engage with our clients and customers is much more compelling than something contrived, flat and boring – think about using your good china!
I’d be keen to hear what you come up with!
Have a virtual coffee with me!
Want to chat about how storytelling can improve your business connections and attract clients and customers, then let's connect over a virtual coffee.
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Nan Berrett creates visibility for small business as well as mentoring small business owners and startups to help them navigate the mountain of knowledge which seems to be part of our everyday life in a digital world. She is based in regional South Australia in the beautiful Clare Valley and is happy to travel to meet clients or chat over Zoom. Find out more or book some time to chat: www.wordsolutions.com.au
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