Lead With A Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince and Inspire – Paul Smith (Amacom)

U.S. companies spend hundreds billions of dollars annually on advertising. They spend over ten billion more on public relations efforts. All of these dollars are spent in an effort to tell their story; the story of their product, their service, their message. Even with all of that spending, the question often remains; have they effectively told their story?

In Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince and Inspire, Paul Smith, whose day job is Director of Consumer & Communications Research for Proctor & Gamble, lays out the strong case for companies to focus on not only developing, but delivering a strong business narrative. Smith details not only the development of your message but the effective delivery.

I would make the case that there is a need to focus on the venue and method of that delivery. I recently spent months working with a C-suite team developing an annual public board presentation, strategically crafting not only review of the prior year’s initiatives and significant successes, but also the plan for moving forward with development and growth in service lines. The story was well crafted and the supporting materials perfectly reinforced the case that was made.

The best laid plans derailed when a young, inexperienced reporter was assigned to cover the session. While we crafted a broad spectrum story, the reporter locked in on one element of the plan for the future. So instead of big picture story, we ended up with one piece of a much larger pie. Looking back, was the story we told ineffective? While hindsight is 20/20, the fact is the story was well crafted and the case well made, it was the final method of delivery that missed the mark.

In the end it was a strong reinforcement that no one is better qualified to tell your story and that of your business than you. It was a light bulb moment that lead to the development of a series of C-suite editorials that will finish the job of telling our story, the way we want it to be told.

Smith details a broad based approach to the impact of storytelling at multiple levels of business. Storytelling can and should go beyond just the leadership team. It should be a focus for both internal and external audiences. To be truly impactful the message must hit the mark at all levels and the impact doesn’t happen by accident; it takes thought, planning and development.