Council Post: Storytelling: Why A Great Narrative Can Grow Your Business

Founder and CEO of ERG Enterprises. Nationally recognized thought leader on entrepreneurship, investing and leadership.

My career as an entrepreneur began in 2003, the year I bought Omega Hospital with 12 other physicians. It marked an important moment in my life as I transitioned into the role of CEO and focused on leading the first physician-owned freestanding hospital in New Orleans. The genesis of my decision was simple: I wanted to fix the deficiencies I saw in healthcare every day. While hotels and restaurants in New Orleans delivered an exceptional experience for the consumer, healthcare often did the opposite. Our industry lacked the customer-service innovations of most industries, even those perceived as high risk (for example, air travel). It seemed shocking to me, especially because no one could deny the clinical benefits of comfort, care and convenience.

Omega became my opportunity to disrupt the status quo of traditional healthcare. Together, my team made it our focus to optimize the patient experience. We upgraded patient rooms with big-screen TVs, kitchenettes and Murphy beds for family members and friends to stay overnight. We developed patient navigation services to help answer nagging questions, reduce anxiety and effectively prepare patients for the big day. We optimized workflows and kept our nurse-to-patient ratios low, sacrificing quantity for quality. We also recruited the most experienced and skilled caregivers and hired only registered nurses for our care teams because they maintained more rigorous education and credential standards. And lastly, we aggressively selected and attracted the top physicians in the gulf south region.

This anecdote, which provides a window into the founding of Omega Hospital, became the essence of my talk track as CEO and our organization’s rallying cry. I share it with you to underscore one of the most important weapons in the entrepreneur’s arsenal: storytelling. Not the ability to fabricate, misrepresent or lie, but the ability to articulate a compelling narrative that breathes life into an otherwise lifeless enterprise. By sharing the backstory of Omega Hospital, I improve the chances that you see the business as more than a financial entity, but an organization run by real people who are focused on more than just making money.

Storytelling is not only relevant in business, but it’s also vital to engaging employees and customers and fueling the growth of an enterprise. It remains paramount to the bottom line, on par with other necessary activities such as developing an organizational focus, understanding the target customer and building standard and repeatable processes.

Storytelling matters in business because emotion dictates purchasing behavior. It influences what customers think, how they behave and which products or services they buy. Ample evidence reinforces this claim, including in B2B contexts. As it relates to B2B, research shows that no matter what objective measures companies adopt — for example, relying on cross-functional teams as decision-makers — subjectivity still influences the outcome.

Because storytelling drives emotion and emotion unavoidably dictates the buying process, entrepreneurs should recognize the importance of this discipline. After all, we live in an age of increased homogeneity and competition among businesses, where features and functions too often overwhelm customers’ ability to discern one company from the next. Storytelling adds differentiation, meaning and authority to the value propositions of those who are wise enough to invest in it.

While the art of storytelling goes beyond the scope of this article, I believe entrepreneurs can start the process by developing three core narratives. In my experience, addressing the following questions can help develop stories to begin incorporating into everything from company messaging to culture, onboarding to employee education.

Founder’s Story

• Why did you start your business?

• Why were you the right person to start it at that time?

• What early challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?

• What keeps you motivated to lead your business?

Company Story

• What has been the overall trajectory of your business?

• What have been your most important challenges? What did you learn from them? How did you overcome them?

• What have been your biggest wins? Why? How have they helped sustain your growth?

• How has your business changed and not changed since its founding? Why is each important to what you’re trying to accomplish now?

Customer Success Story

• What client project or partnership best demonstrates the approach you take with customers and the results you create for them?

• What challenges did they face that you helped them solve?

• What solutions did you provide and over what timeline did this occur?

• What results did they experience?

• Where do they stand today, and what is your continued involvement in their business (if any)?

Crafting the story behind a business calls for significant time and attention, but it remains an endeavor worthy of the investment. The good news? Growing a business brings all the elements of a great story:

• An inciting event.

• Rising action.

• Climax.

• Resolution (hopefully).

• Protagonist (that would be us).

• Antagonist (that would be the status quo).

Your customers don’t know the journey of your business or the commitment and sacrifice it took to reach your current state. They also don’t know how you’re improving the human condition. Only you know the full story. So, put it down on paper. Standardize it. Evangelize it. Give them a reason to root for you, a reason to say yes.

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?