FACE TIME - How employee and customer stories build trust, sell products, and grow revenues.

Our world is a sea of complex work environments - where business lines, employees, and even customers, have interwoven, non-linear relationships. Our country’s biggest brands depend on a globally distributed workforce, comprised of multi-cultural and cross-disciplinary employees with differing experiences and points of view.

Building a successful, profitable company in today’s economy means tackling a multi-variable equation - you cannot rely on a simple, cause-and-effect sequence of events to produce the results you are looking for. Everyone in your organization needs to work collaboratively toward a clearly articulated vision.

So, how do you communicate that vision? How do you build trust and enthusiasm with your target audience? How do you create an emotional connection to your brand, your products, and your services?

Why not let model employees and loyal customers do it for you?

Employee Stories: A little recognition can go a long way.


Research in the UK has shown that dairy cows with names (Buttercup, Betsy, Daisy, etc.) produce more milk for their owners than their anonymous counterparts. Interestingly, the same holds true for employees whose contributions are recognized by their supervisors and peers.

Recognition is one of the key ingredients of employee engagement. It should come as no surprise that employee engagement is a critical to your bottom line. But how would a two-minute Facebook video about an enthusiastic new advisor from Winnipeg make you more profitable?

By profiling model employees, you are not just recognizing and rewarding great behaviour; you are making a powerful statement about your corporate values and principles, your definition of leadership, your best practices, and most importantly, your brand. The practice sparks a chain reaction, or ripple effect, that aligns and connects people across your organization to common themes.

Employee stories bring life to your brand

So, what makes a model employee? The answer to that will be different for every organization. One thing is certain; model employees are not hard to spot. Just about every working group or department can identify at least one model employee.

Formally recognizing these brand ambassadors, exploring their work ethic, and sharing their perspectives across the company will resonate positively and loudly with your stakeholder groups – from employees to senior management, from new recruits to customers. Your audience will connect to these employees (and ultimately to your brand) in a relevant, emotional way.

Employee stories are highly effective communication tools that can be featured on your corporate intranet, your careers website, or used in your executive town hall meetings, sales conferences, and road shows. When employee stories weave in concepts like teamwork, workforce diversity, corporate responsibility, and regional focus, their power multiplies exponentially.

Look for my next article on customer stories, coming soon.

Turf the Teleprompter: Improving Executive Communication

It doesn't take much to turn a charismatic and engaging executive into a boring, wooden robot. All you need is a overwritten script, a stifling over-lit executive boardroom, a video camera and a teleprompter.   

Most executive communications are paved with the best intentions.  The problem is that the content is so often filled with corporate blah blah, that viewers simply tune out.  A formal videotaped address can be intimidating for even the most confident executive,  so why put everyone (including the audience) through the pain in the first place?  

I discovered a long time ago that if you want to get the best performance from your executive you need to ignite their passion.   And, if you want to get the highest level of engagement from your audience, that passion has to shine through.    

Next time you're considering an executive communique via video - consider a fresh new approach: 

Make it personal and authentic.

Record a candid, informal and unrehearsed conversation with the executive who is most passionate about the topic.  Make sure he or she uses plenty of "I" and "we" statements  free of corporate speak.   Let body language speak volumes about their passion and commitment to the issue.  

Make it real and relevant.

Make sure that the executive places everything into real-life context.  Ensure there is a connection between high-level business strategy and the everyday activities of your customers and front-line employees.  Resist the temptation to communicate earnings data, economic indicators, and statistics - these can be made readily available using other communication methods. 

Make a brand and culture connection.

If possible, map the topic back to the values and principles of your corporate brand.  Address the "what's in it for me" questions that will inevitably arise from your viewing audience and show that company executives are real people too.

Weave it all together using the power of story.

The best way to communicate a concept is to interject tangible examples of it occurring inside your organization.  Consider stories that not only recognizes internal teams, but maps precisely to your business objectives.  Finding those stories are easier than you think and your employee engagement will rise sharply as a result.

My experience is that a well planned informal "fireside chat" with a high-level executive takes no more time than the teleprompted speech to the masses.  You'll need to invest some quality time in weaving the conversation together in the edit suite to ensure the communication meets your objectives.  

The result will be an engaging 2 or 3 minute video that captures the passion of your leadership team, the successes of your employees, and the spirit of your organization.  And of course you'll be able to use the video for a lot more than the teleprompter version.

MADE TO STICK: Why some ideas survive and others die.

Making It Stick is well worth the read, but one of the take-aways for me was their 6 principles of stickiness.  As Dan and Chip Heath pored over hundreds of sticky ideas, they saw, over and over, the same six principles at work.

SIMPLICITY

To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. 

UNEXPECTEDNESS
We can use surprise — an emotion whose function is to increase alertness and cause focus — to grab people's attention. But surprise doesn't last. For our idea to endure, we must generate interest and curiosity. 

CONCRETENESS
Naturally sticky ideas are full of concrete images — ice-filled bathtubs, apples with razors — because our brains are wired to remember concrete data. In proverbs, abstract truths are often encoded in concrete language: "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush." 

CREDIBILITY
Sticky ideas have to carry their own credentials. We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves — a "try before you buy" philosophy for the world of ideas. 

EMOTION
How do we get people to care about our ideas? We make them feel something. We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions. 

STORY
How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories. Research shows that mentally rehearsing a situation helps us perform better when we encounter that situation in the physical environment. Similarly, hearing stories acts as a kind of mental flight simulator, preparing us to respond more quickly and effectively.

To summarize, here's their checklist for communicating a sticky concept:  a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story. 

Sadly, for those who try to develop an idea like this, there is a villain. The villain is a natural psychological tendency that consistently confounds our ability to create ideas using these principles. 

It's called the Curse of Knowledge. 

Rally your audience simply and cleverly.

I was on Dan and Chip Heath's Fast Company Blog not long ago and ran across a link to a cleverly executed microsite called GirlEffect.

www.girleffect.org

The site seeks to rally audiences around complex, interwoven global development issues and suggests the solution to the world's woes has been in front of us all along.  The site invites visitors to get involved in a wide range of development initiatives that will truly make a difference in third world and developing countries. 

The online video that launches the site, and the additional resources available on the site are insightful and cleverly executed.  GirlEffect.org proves once again that impact shall triumph over completeness every time.

 

Reuse and recycle: The shelf life power of a great story.

I'm amazed how much large organizations spend on "single" or "limited use" videos that are played at a conference or a town hall and then tossed into the archive.  It's not unreasonable for a large corporation to spend tens of thousands on a "big opener" - video that really doesn't have any real value outside of the event.

I'm a big fan of working with my clients to develop creative approaches and themes that will not only stand the test of time, but leverage a multitude of distribution opportunities beyond the initial premiere.  

For example, have you been to a conference themed around teamwork lately?  Have you seen the fast paced video clip with the sponsoring executive extolling the virtues of working together?   Did you read the words "collaboration",  "stronger together", and "team" pulsing to the beat of a popular music track as you stare at a seemingly endless collage of photos of a politically correct mixture of employees hugging and high-fiving.   Oh wait, was that Fred from accounting in that picture?

Now, really.  Does that really inspire teamwork?  

I've found that you'll earn way more brownie points from your audience if you go out in advance and capture tangible examples of teamwork already occurring in your organization.

By theming your event around these "front-line successes" you not only demonstrate that it's achievable, but you recognize the people who are already doing it.   You will be amazed at the rise in employee engagement when you start profiling company success stories based on teamwork.

In developing a strategic, story-based approach, you can explore in greater detail the techniques and best practices being applied, personal perspectives from those "in the trenches", and inspire your audiences to take ownership and do the same.  You can edit the stories into engaging 120-second success stories for your company Intranet, or dissect the content and use the components as training resources.

Whether you roll it all into a punchy 90-second video, or spread your long-form teamwork stories throughout the organization, its up to you.   One thing is for sure, the teamwork stories you produce today will have value to your organization for months and years to come.

True North- A Nut company use stories to differentiate it's brand.

When I saw an engaging TV commercial about a committed local community leader during a visit to New York one weekend, I was compelled to go to the Web link advertised at the end of the spot.  The 60 second story about Lisa Nigro, founder of the inspiration cafe, was sponsored by True North Snacks - a Frito Lay company.

www.truenorthsnacks.com

The site is the outcome of a contest, in which consumers of True North Snacks submitted stories about local heroes and voted on the winner.  The story was then captured and turned into a 60 second spot which aired during the Oscars.

So, what's a True North?  A true north is "that singular passion in life that causes you to leap out of bed in the morning and think "Why am I here?".

 

The goal was to connect True Northerners with a regionally branded nut snack and reinforce the company's commitment to social responsibility.  Upon further exploration I discovered several spots about inspiring "local" thought leaders across the northern half of the US.  All of the spots, it seems, were directed by Actress Helen Hunt and all are energizing with a high end look and feel.

There's even a behind the scenes interview with Ms. Hunt where her commitment to such social causes is shown to align nicely the brand principles of True North.  

Stories like these help to reinforce, in a memorable way, the story behind the package of flavoured nuts you come across in the convenience store.  Because you've been touched emotionally by the True North brand, you're more likely to place your trust in the product.   By purchasing it, you presumably become a more socially responsible human being. 

As the True North people state: while every True North story is unique, each one has the power to inspire millions more.   Whew, too bad we can't get them here in Canada....

Hitachi Real Stories - Inspire the Next

Here's a great storytelling microsite from the US division of electronics giant Hitachi:     

These well crafted, high quality docu-stories celebrate Hitachi's strategic partnerships with educators, law enforcement agencies, and health care and social service providers.   The stories reveal the innovative ways Hitachi technology is helping to improve the lives of everyday people all over the United States and a new one seems to appear on the site every several months. 

In addition to this microsite venue, I have no doubt that the videos are used widely to promote Hitachi's products, services, and social responsibility efforts at all levels of the company - internally and externally.  They bring the Hitachi brand to life in a real and meaningful way. 

I must say, stories like this have a way of connecting with audiences in multiple ways - meaning, you don't have to be a prospective customer of high tech solutions to appreciate their brand values.  What better way to communicate your brand to existing employees, prospective recruits, and strategic partners than to reward and recognize the innovators within your community.

Bookmark this site and drop back from time to time to see new material.

Online stories get traction

I’ve been following a great number of storytelling initiatives on the Internet lately. 

If you haven’t already, drop by globeandmail.com to browse some of the stories in their multimedia section. They are featuring a number of long-form documentaries that integrate photos, video interviews and lengthy articles. If you have 20 or 30 minutes to spare and want to tuck into something deep – this is the place to go.

 
If you’re hoping for quick and cheery, Home Depot is diving in with both feet in an effort capture the imagination of do-it-yourselfers of every demographic. The flagship video stories are rich [BIG budget], inspiring, and the Submit Your Story section features dozens of simple text-based stories from customers.

Blackberry, Genworth, Hitachi, and Shell all share stories that bring their brand to life. If you run across anything worth sharing drop me an email.  

Cheers, R

RBC Client First Stories

A few days ago, a friend of mine asked to see some of the many brand stories I directed for RBC. 

I directed her to rbc.com but thought that it would be worthwhile compiling a few of the public versions of the Client First Stories for others to see as well.

In addition to being the creative lead on the initiative, I directed and shot most of the two-minute internal stories.   To date, there have been almost 40 completed.  These included a half-dozen "pilots" for various divisions of the bank - stories that helped to establish the look and feel of Client First, long before the name was formalized. 

They included Steve's Auto, Muttluks, KK Plastics, and the Marshall's.

The first official Client First Story was Hilary and Dennis, the story of a young professional couple from Vancouver and the RBC Financial Planner who helped them get ahead.  

Within a few months, we had completed Abe's Story, Pierre Paquin,  Jack & Laurie and Kate. Recognizing the value of the stories both inside the organization and out, RBC established a client stories page off rbc.com.  But the real return on investment was employee engagement and alignment around the "Client First" brand principles. 

All of the stories are accessible on RBC's employee intranet, and many have been used to open town hall meetings, employee conferences, and training sessions across the RBC network.   A number of recent stories originally developed with "internal-only" objectives, have also found their way to the public site.  Notably, the story of Randy and Neil, the couple from Winnipeg whose story is now available on the Homeline Plan product page.

Grab a coffee, sit down and enjoy.

Welcome to the Storymasters Blog

The last several years have been an exciting journey for me.

I moved from an energizing freelance directing career, to a Senior Creative post at a Toronto-based integrated communications firm. From there, I aligned with a handful of like-minded people and opened a creative services firm of my own.  Our collective core genius: storytelling.   

Like the others who have joined the team, storytelling encapsulates of all the things I love to do.  I'm a writer, a cinematographer and a graphic artist who gets a kick out of weaving all those disciplines together in creative, memorable ways.   

Had I connected the dots sooner, I would have drawn a line directly to Storymasters many years ago.  But I'm also a believer that you have to wander down many paths in life in order to land confidently on the one that's right for you.   Experience, no matter what kind, is a good thing.

Since the launch of Storymasters, the progress we've made has been remarkable.  We went from zero to full throttle in a matter of weeks.  The more we talk to people about stories, the more energized we get. 

So, 2008 promises to be a great year on many fronts.  The first and perhaps most obvious indication of forward progress is the birth of the Storymasters Blog.  As version 1.0 of the Storymasters website nears completion, it makes sense to log on and get used to this rather informal, yet revealing method of communication.  

Will the Storymasters Blog endure?  Only time will tell....