3 Rules of storytelling in business - all great stories follow these principles

You’ve read Why story matters.

You know how important storytelling is.

Now you want to become good at it.

This article is a great start.

Whether writing short snippets on your site, or preparing a huge speech.

Here are 3 rules that apply to all storytelling in business.

1. Story is about change

Every story shows action.

People move. Things change.

Every story follows some form of narrative arc:

• Struggle - Problem, status quo
• Sequence - Change, adventure, solution
• Success - Result, resolution, peace

It almost always includes:

• The protagonist - Hero of the story (e.g your customer), who wants to achieve something
• The antagonist - The enemy or the problem standing in the way or making hero fail
• The guide/sword helping the hero win (e.g your business/idea/product)

It can also specify:

• Setting/Location (Where the hero is)
• Actions (What he is doing)
• Thoughts (What he is thinking)
• Emotions (What he is feeling)
• Dialogue

Everyone says the story needs to be specific.

It doesn’t mean you always tell the entire thing.

Some places only have room for parts of it.

Example: statements in your bullet list, where you name the outcome, but don’t name the customer (it’s implied).

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2. There is a room for logic

One of the main point of stories is making an emotional connection.

But we aren’t writing novels here.

If you sell B2B you still need to be clear about what you do and HOW you do it.

Your website header can be an outcome-based big idea, a desired transformation for your customer.

But then your sub-header should name your category - how do you deliver the outcome.

Your ads can tell a deep emotional story, but would it attract the type of buyers that you’re looking for?

There is a room for specific numbers and facts. Story can serve as better packaging and presentation.

3. Good story is engaging, memorable and clear

If you want people to share your story with their friends and peers - they need to remember it first.

You need

• hook to capture attention
• structure (tension, value) to keep it
• clear meaning to avoid any confusion

This applies to all content, not just videos.

People decide to stop+watch or ignore+scroll in the first seconds, sometimes even less than a second.

Bad hook = the rest of the content is skipped, regardless of quality.

After the hook you need to continue engaging viewers with proper structure and actual content. Make it easy and enjoyable. Or be so controversial that they don’t even care about how it’s presented, they MUST know how it ends.

Good hook is 80% of the work, but other 20% is also critical:

You need the story and its meaning to be clear, so that there is no ambiguity.

Even if your story is good, if everyone interprets it completely differently - they will all tell it differently.

No one will actually understand what you’re doing and what you stand for.

Even worse - it will be unclear WHO you are helping.

If you don’t care - be poetic and nebulous.

But most founders want to build an actual brand with clear associations.

So if you want your message to spread to the right people - make the meaning of the story clear.

Pro tip: Simplicity scales the message (If the story is too complex, people won’t be able to tell it to others).

To recap

Create emotional connection through a change narrative.

Get organic growth through message clarity.

Build more trust with facts and logic.

That’s how you tell a great story.

One that not only spreads, but spreads where it needs to.

I share business storytelling & growth tips every week. This publication is supported by readers like you. Thank you.