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Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/in-business-or-life-whoever-tells-the-best-story-wins-1c03d806901d?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Shah Mohammed <img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*Zpz4zWnWXfiIAcWUiMROqA.jpeg">
In the movie ‘Amistad’, Mr.Joadson(Morgan Freeman) goes to meet former president Mr.Adams(a former attorney) and requests him to provide suggestions, pieces of advice that could help him win an important case in the court.
Joadson: Mr President, if it was you handling the case…what would you do?
Adams: Joadson, when I was an attorney, a long time ago, young man, I realised after much trial and error, that in a courtroom, whoever tells the best story wins.
<blockquote>Whoever tells the best story wins.</blockquote>
Why do we need to tell stories? Humans have story-driven minds and we are hard-wired to empathize with the characters from the story. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors sat around the campfire, told stories to strengthen the social bond, erect beliefs and establish norms. Stories helped to communicate, engage the audience and kindle interest in each other. Great stories had human’s inner conflicts, inherent flaws being laced around a listener’s emotions. As stories are more powerful, enduring, they were passed along orally for many generations and helped in building the civilizations. Without stories, the world would have ceased to exist long back.
<blockquote>A good story intends to mean something — it would be about the importance of love, valor, freedom, or any other human value.</blockquote>
How to define a story? I agree that there are endless ways and the definition varies based on the field of application. As a designer, I personally liked Kendall Haven’s(Thanks to the book ‘Storybranding’) definition of a story as “A narrative about a character overcoming one or more obstacles to achieving an important goal”.
Let’s see how this definition applies to storytelling in the movie ‘Amistad’
Adams asks Joadson: What is your client’s story, by the way?
Joadson with a puzzled look: Sir?
Adam repeats: What is their story?
Joadson: Why, They’re, um,… from West Africa.
Adams: That is not the story. What is their story?
A confused look on Joadsons’ face.
Adams Continues: Mr.Joadson, You’re from where originally?
Joadson: Why, Georgia, Sir.
Adams: Georgia.
Joadson: Yes, Sir.
Adams: Does that sum what you are? A Georgian? Is that your story?
Joadson is bemused and does not know what to answer.
Adams: No. Let me tell your story. You’re an ex-slave, who’s devoted his life to the abolition of slavery, and overcoming great hardships along the way, I should imagine. That’s your story, isn’t it?
From the above dialogue, we could see how Kendall’s definition matches — a character introduction(an African ex-slave), goals(Abolition of slavery) and overcoming great hardships(obstacles). So, What is your story?
<h3>Stories and the business of selling products or services</h3>
Stories work not only in movies or in courts but also in selling our products and services. Similar to movies, we should sell the human experience a product/service provides rather than the benefits. This experience could be communicated through a story by mapping out the intended experience of the use of the product — the story that you and your business want your customers to experience.
<blockquote>Stories provide humanness to our product or service.</blockquote>
A crucial law to remember — It’s not about us, it’s about them. Your product or service or your company is not the hero of the story. Your customer is the hero. People don’t care about your product or your service.They care about themselves.
“If you think in terms of marketing or selling your product, you would perceive only the sales barriers. If you think in terms of telling a user story, your mind would discover ‘User Barriers’”.
<blockquote>Don’t sell. Think how to make your customers buy.</blockquote>
As your customer is the hero of your story, you need to understand them in-depth — their goals, obstacles, problems — what efforts they took to overcome those problems — how your product or service provides a solution, provides them with an identity. Let us see an example.
<h3>Story Of Laura</h3>
Charles Duhigg in his book “The Power Of Habit”, tells a product story which I’ve mentioned below
Character Introduction — Laura an independent woman, living on her own, is in her late twenties. She is working as a park ranger in Phoenix. Her job is to trap lots and lots of skunks, which often sprayed her when she caught them.
Goals — She wanted to have a family, raise kids, but she remained single. Though she is sufficiently attractive, smart, her love life has not blossomed yet. She felt lonely and spent most of the free time sitting in her living room.
Obstacles/Hardships — The reason for her crippled love life was the smell of skunks — smell in her house, her truck, her clothing, her boots, her hands, her curtains.
Laura, “When I’m on a date, I’ll get a whiff of something that smells like skunk and start wondering, does he smell it? What if I bring him home and he wants to leave?”. The previous year, she had four dates with one guy but as soon as he came over to home, he changed his decision. Her love life crash-landed during taking off.
Efforts to overcome obstacles — She had tried all sorts of cures — special soaps, shampoos, cleaned carpets using expensive machines — Nothing worked in her life.
The Solution(How your product solves the problem) — One day, Laura was offered a chance to try Febreze. She had sprayed her carpet, couch, dress, curtains, bedspread, jeans, uniform and the interior of her car. After spraying, she realised that she could not smell skunk anymore. She invited her friends. They could not smell skunk either. The smell is gone. She cried and felt so relieved. Her life changed for the good.
<blockquote>Better the story, better the experience, better the word of mouth.</blockquote>
<h4>CONCLUSION</h4>
Stories are an easier way to explain and sell the product. Stories make a brand not to look for buyers but look for believers with the shared norms, values, meanings. They create a loyal fan base and help in building a strong community similar to ‘Apple’ community and ‘Harley Davidson’ community.
References: The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Storybranding by Jim Signorelli, Amistad movie screenplay, The User’s Journey by Donna Lichaw.
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<a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/in-business-or-life-whoever-tells-the-best-story-wins-1c03d806901d">In Business or Life — Whoever Tells The Best Story, Wins…</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">Prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In Business or Life — Whoever Tells The Best Story, Wins…

In Business or Life — Whoever Tells The Best Story, Wins…

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