The Power of Storytelling | Lisa Horvat, Strategic Storytellers Inc.

A bit about how I got here today -‐  Back in 2005, I was working at a small interac=ve agency, changing the online space with big clients like Toyota & DaimlerChrysler. But then I got a new client, WWF-‐Canada. 1

-‐  Being kind of green since highschool, having World Wildlife Fund as a client proved to be really meaningful. Because our work now had the poten=al of affec=ng more than just the online world. -‐  So I caught that ‘meaningful’ bug and needed to devote myself full-‐=me to something I was really passionate about. -‐  I moved to WWF and spent 6 years leading their online communica=ons and mkt. And, this is a photo I took on my 6th year in a row geOng up at 2am to par=cipate in our biggest fundraiser of the year at the CN Tower. As we use to say at WWF, mostly sarcas=cally, but with a hint of seriousness, “Just another day geOng up to save the planet”. Minus those early morning wakeups, I had found my dream job. -‐  It was my dream job because now I was interac=ng with people everyday, either internally, externally, online, who were making steps towards ‘saving the world”. But yet, aVer 6 years I leV that dream job. -‐  Almost a year ago, I leV WWF. Because although storytelling will never save the world. Nothing in this world has every changed without a new story. So, if I wanted to make a bigger impact, I felt I had to start dedica=ng myself to that – changing the world’s stories. -‐  I’m now working with a lot of corporates and non-‐profits again, learning how stories are empowering them to reach their goals. That is why being here today and geOng to talk to so many of you in the non-‐profit space at once, not just one client at a =me, is really meaningful to me. 2

My goal is to help you get started with using great stories to change what is important in your world. We will cover: Why use storytelling , what is its power How to ﬁnd your great stories How to keep your stories alive and growing to con=nue to meet your goals 3

Let’s look at how people make decisions. What gets them to change behaviour? What are their intrinsic mo=va=ons to give? You’ve heard them before: 1.  It makes us happy 2.  Because others are giving 3.  Makes us feel important 4.  We want to be part of a success story, accomplish something bigger than ourselves, leave our mark And, you can use story to open the door for your prospects to do just that. But here is another way to think about all of this – How do people REALLY make the decision to donate to you? Of course decisions are made with our brains. Our brain is made up of 2 independent systems – emo=onal side (pain/pleasure), ra=onal side (deliberately plans ahead). 4

This picture illustrates these two halves. The elephant is in the moment, our emo=onal, ins=nc=ve side. The rider on its back is our ra=onal side – he seems to be in control, he has the reigns. But, if these two ever disagree, if there is a contest of wills, we know who is going to win the tug of war (150lb man or the 5 ton elephant?). So, in non-‐profit outreach, we want to first mo=vate the elephant, connect with people’s emo=onal side – that’s who decides if we donate, if we have that 2nd piece of cake, and then aVer that emo=onal decision is made, and only then, do our ra=onal selves kick in – I did run that extra 100 meters today so I’ve already worked off the 2nd piece of cake, etc. So to really connect and drive ac)on, you want to lead with emo=on and then back it up with the info to make it easy for the rider to go along with what our emo=ons want. So, if we need to connect with the emo=ons first – why use storytelling? Of course, great stories are all about emo=on… 5

Think of a brand like Nike. They actually don’t sell sports gear. They’re selling you an emo=onal story: a story of our hard work, sweat and perseverance. Just Do It –isn’t about NIKE, it’s about your personal quest for excellence and fulﬁllment (and that’s what we need to remember when we do our own storytelling, we don’t want to tell a story about our organiza=on, we want to tell a story about our audience) The Nike story bonds consumers to the brand in a way that escapes compe=tors like Adidas and New Balance – who don’t have a story that binds. So stories are vehicles to carry emo=on, inspire us,…but they also do many more things… 6

Memorable You can spend hours telling a prospect all about the reasons and benefits to donate to your charity. One day later they will have forgojen 95%. Just like you will forget most of this presenta=on… but when you think about it tomorrow you will probably remember some of the stories. We live in a sea of informa=on, a sea of op=ons, so we need to find ways to make our ideas s=ck. Use story to flip a switch in your audience’s mind, that allows them to actually feel/visualize the experience of your brand and your work. If you want to get in our audience’s mind – plant a story there – they ‘save’ nicely in the human brain and have a way of growing and replaying in our minds long aVer the storyteller is gone – giving them a las=ng, memorable impact. 7

Stories Show -‐ Which is bejer than just telling. Communica=ng in stories brings the value of something to life, gives it meaning, connects with the audience, good stories transport them so they see themselves in the story. Un=l they can ‘see’ it, you’ll have to spend a lot more =me convincing, reminding and reitera=ng people before they take ac=on. Like the ghosts in Charles Dickens’ a Christmas Carol – the ghosts just showed him what was happening, he came to the conclusions himself – he sold himself on what he needed to do without the ghosts prodding him. 8

Stories are TRUSTWORTHY They are disarming, you know that feeling when someone is trying to sell you something or ask you for money, you put up that wall. Well, storytelling puts us in an entertaining frame of mind, lowers guard of worrying that someone is pushing something on us. 9

Stories Spread Stories last for years, people hear a story, make them their own and retell them [that’s what we do as humans, we are wired that way] 10

It is all these elements that make storytelling such a powerful tool. Everyone has great stories around them. Some of us just have to look harder than others. We have stories inside the walls of Strategic Storytellers too. When I first started this was one of the first stories I heard… The story of Barney’s fishing trip and how it exemplifies the power of storytelling and got him to see the Fairmont brand in a whole new light… Read story at: hjp://strategicstorytellers.com/ourstory_fairmont.php 11

TumbleWeed and SageBrush in Vancouver. 12

Facts & ﬁgures? No, if you look a lijle deeper and bring to your consciousness what you are really thinking, you will realize that every =me you think of a person like this you bring up your own built-‐in story of them or perhaps a story about yourself. It is not them who changed the world, it is their stories. And that is how they created their movements – they planted a story in people’s brains that was memorable, inspiring, and that broke the majer down to something simple people could hang on to and then extrapolate for themselves to move the story forward. 14

For a non-‐proﬁt, there are 2 really important types of stories: Explaining stories – illustrate a point, paint a vivid picture of a situa=on, put complex issue in human terms. They are used to grab ajen=on, replace or supplement sta=s=cs, show human impact of the work. Note though that these stories by themselves don’t compel people to act but they leave a las=ng impression and may make someone to want to know more. Compelling donor centric story -‐ oﬀers readers/listener an opportunity to say something about what kind of person they are. Set the donor up as a hero, or speaks to the impact one person can have. Your org is not the hero in a story to compel someone else to act. 15

Explaining Story from hCp://100khomes.org Really great example because the ﬁrst =me I watched it it was like something popped in my brain, changed the way I think of things forever. View video at: hjp://bit.ly/KreLHF 16

Compelling donor centric story from hCp://invisiblepeople.tv This is not a tradi=onal make donor the hero but brings the scale of the problem down to a personal scale. This org started because of a story, a story of a homeless person on Hollywood Blvd. who actually thought he was invisible un=l one day someone handed him pamphlet – he was shocked that they could see him. View Robert’s story: hjp://bit.ly/Luq3cj 17

What is a story: It is about a character dealing with some obstacle to achieve some goal – which he may or may not be able to overcome but some kind of personal transforma=on occurs as he tries. 18

Doing this exercise in a large group will help you learn from hearing yourself tell your story, from hearing how other people tell their stories and if you do this exercise with your own staff and volunteers you might just find that next big story that will change the world. Thanks to the Swiss Agency for Development and Coopera=on (SDC) for this exercise: Materials: A bell/ gong, a large open space Method Round One 1. Place the par=cipants into groups of up to 10. Move the chairs to one side – the exercise is run standing up. 2. Ask the par=cipants to take a moment to think of a moment from their own professional experience when (for example) they felt really inspired 3. Each person in the group has 90 seconds to share their story 4. A bell is sounded at the end of each 90-‐second s=nt to signal the start of a new story. Round Two 5. When all the ten stories are heard, the group splits up with each person finding a new group of 9 others. When everyone is sejled, each person has 90 seconds to tell the same story again… 19

... Clusters and Chains 6. Each person recalls the story that most resonated with them, or the story that most inspired them. 7. Everyone stands up and ﬁnds the person who told this story and puts their hand on his or her shoulder. 8. The facilitator asks for a show of hands of all those who have one hand on their shoulder, then two, then three. The aim is to ﬁnd the top 3 stories in the room (i.e., the tellers with the most hands on their shoulders). 9. The top 3 stories are told in plenary. Each story can be told followed by 20 seconds of silence rather than applause. The audience is encouraged to no=ce how the story engages them. Each story is given a name that conveys some aspect of its essence. + what engaged them about it. 20

This survivor video story that we did for Heart & Stroke Founda=on is so hot oﬀ the presses that you can’t get it online yet. So for those downloading this presenta=on please click to the next slide to see a corporate survivor story we did for RBC… It follows the same principles… 22

View Bill’s Story -‐ hjp://www.rbcinsurance.com/insuranceneeds/bill.html 23

This may sound obvious but we oVen have a great story, put a lot of eﬀort into producing it and then release it and watch the number of views add up and then aVer a week or two we forget about it and so does everybody else. Good stories have a long shelf life, we just have to nurture them and help them succeed beyond our expecta=ons. 24

-‐  Find out what stories spark your target audience – it may be interes=ng to staff but not your prospects -‐  Start now in building rela=onships with influencers who may be interested in sharing your story (and story followups) -‐  Figure out if the story is genuine to who you are, your values as an org – are you living this story? If not, it isn’t the story for you, find another. -‐  Start blogging about the values that are ajached to your story, and/or the backgrounder informa=on that will help your target audience understand the story to a greater depth. This also helps the story seem like it isn’t coming out of the blue. -‐  Arm your biggest supporters (usually staff, board, etc.) on how they can use the story, give them more background info so they can talk about it in their circles with confidence. -‐  Ensure there is a mechanism for calls to ac=on 25

-‐ Reach out to all your connec=ons and if they aren’t the target audience, give them another, more appropriate ac=on to take -‐  Release more blog posts, more stats/data, infographics, etc., that =e back to the story, release this for over a long period so you can con=nue to leverage/link to your great stories -‐  Don’t make your story an orphan, surround it with follow-‐up stories, updates, behind the scenes with staff, people from the video doing speaking engagements, etc. -‐  Listen to what people are saying, how are they taking the story and making it their own? How can you share other people’s spin off stories and become a story-‐ sharer? -‐  Take the themes and keep them alive in conversa=on. -‐  Provide next steps for people who take the first ac=on. BASICALLY, take the core of your story and con=nue to live it. Con=nue to build the material and momentum around those stories throughout the year in your communica=on channels – online and off, and listen to how people are engaging with that story to find new opportuni=es. 26

Thanks to the Heath Brothers for a lot of the inspira=on in this presenta=on. 27

Now tell your story that will change the world! 28

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The Power of Storytelling | Lisa Horvat, Strategic Storytellers Inc.

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The Power of Storytelling | Lisa Horvat, Strategic Storytellers Inc. Document Transcript