With shrinking budgets and increasing competition, it has never been more important to give your stakeholders a compelling reason to work with you: to subscribe to your service, select your product, fund your project, partner with you. This paper delivers a framework and a set of tools to help you communicate value and resonate with your stakeholders.

1. 1
Nine ways to communicate the
value you offer
CONNECT
Patricia McMillan
www.patriciamcmillan.com

2. 2
3 challenges in technology and research
With shrinking budgets and
increasing competition, it has never
been more important to give your
stakeholders a compelling reason to
work with you: to subscribe to your
service, select your product, fund
your project, partner with you.
This paper delivers a framework and
a set of tools to help you
communicate value and resonate
with your stakeholders.
Challenge 1: What is it you do again?
If you work in technology or research, the nature of what you offer is usually abstract or
conceptually new. It may be innovative and ground-breaking, but it’s hard to explain it
quickly to anyone else in a way that makes sense.
Challenge 2: Demonstrating impact
Your contribution to measured outcomes may be indirect with a significant time lag.
Instead of demonstrating impact, you wind up measuring the cost savings you offer, and
that doesn’t represent the real value you provide.
Challenge 3: Differentiation
Why should your customers and partners work with you instead of outsourcing to a
global company that can provide apparently similar services cheaper and more reliably?
A value proposition that focuses on features and price may not provide a satisfactory
answer to this question.
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

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the activation ladder
5 “I’m in!” (meaning) x10
4 “I like it” (connection) x 8
3 “I get it” (sense) x 4
2 “Huh” (attention) x 2
1 “Blah blah” (data) x 1
People engage with information at different levels.
The greater the connection, the more sway the
information has over the person’s decisions, actions,
and beliefs.
Think of a set of levers. If you have only a short lever, lifting a
weight requires a large force. But with a long lever and a
fulcrum, a small force can be amplified many times, and you
can move a large weight with very little effort.
It is the same with communication. Creating a deep connection
is like creating a long lever. With this kind of leverage it takes
much less effort to activate your audience: to influence their
decisions and actions.
how likely is your audience to act?
To address these challenges, it’s important to be able to connect with your audience.
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

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levels of activation
1: “Blah blah” (Data)
At the lowest level, information is just data.
Your audience is surrounded by much more
information than they can consciously
process.
The vast majority of this information has
about as much impact on their thinking as
the ads in their spam folder. It’s filtered out
unless they know it’s relevant.
Although extremely useful in context, data
has no leverage on its own.
2: “Huh” (Attention)
A small amount of this data works its way
through unconscious and conscious filters
and attracts your audience’s attention, if
only briefly.
A message that captures attention is more
likely to generate action than one that
doesn't, but attention alone is not enough;
it’s necessary but not sufficient.
Attention is a short lever.
3: “I get it” (Sense)
With effort and empathy for your audience,
you can craft a message that makes sense
to them: they will understand what you are
saying.
Reaching this level is not easy; if you doubt
this, look at a few technology service
provider websites and ask yourself, “What is
it they actually do?”
Examples, diagrams, and metaphors
provide leverage for making sense.
the ladder explained
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

5. 5
levels of activation
4: “I like it” (Connection)
You message starts to have real impact when your audience
connects with it at a personal level, when they not only
understand it but they feel something about it.
Decisions—even rational ones—have their basis in emotions.
We intuit something is the right course of action long before
we’ve had a chance to think through the pros and cons. This
means that in order to influence decisions and actions, your
value proposition needs to reach people at an emotional level.
Stories and images are the keys to activating emotions.
5: “I’m in!” (Meaning)
At the highest level of activation, a message taps into a deep
meaning for the audience. It fits into a larger, archetypal story
they want to be part of. This is when they say, “I’m in!”
For example, Steve Jobs helped Apple customers to see
themselves not just as product users but as creative rule-
breakers, challenging the status quo in order to change the
world. At this level, your message captures your audience’s
imagination and comes alive for them.
Archetypal stories are the longest levers, the levers with which
you can move the world.
the ladder explained
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

6. 6
9 tools to communicate value
moving up the ladder
7
personal
archetype
4
personal
stories
1
what
you do
8
company
archetype
5
company
stories
2
what
you offer
9
customer
archetype
6
customer stories
3
who your
customers are
you
meaning
company customers
connection
sense
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

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3 explanations to help you make sense
Make sure you have a simple, jargon-free explanation for:
1. What you do. What is your role in the organisation?
2. What your organisation offers. What are your products and services?
3. Who your customers are. To whom do you provide products and services?
Try to get each of these down to one or two sentences that express only the core idea. You may
be amazed at the clarity this step provides, both to your audience and to your company.
Making sense is the first
priority. This is the place to
start if you struggle when
you need to explain what
you do.
making your value proposition simple and clear
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

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3 stories to help you connect
4. Your personal stories. You may be tempted to think these aren’t relevant, but your
audience is much more likely to listen to you if they know who you are and what your motivation
is in talking with them. You are an intrinsic part of the message of your organisation. Why is the
message important to you, personally?
5. Your organisation’s stories. Now that they know who you are as an individual,
stories that help your audience get to know the company you represent will let them form a
personal connection with it too. Who started your organisation and why? What principles can be
seen in the way you do your work today?
6. Your customers’ stories. Let your prospects experience what it is like to work with
you through the eyes of your existing customers. What challenges have they faced? How have
they overcome them? These stories demonstrate that you empathise with your customers and
understand their needs.
With these stories, your
value proposition becomes
much more than a
discussion of
product features and price.
It creates a human
connection.
making your value proposition more human
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

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3 archetypes to help you capture the
imagination
Archetypes are story patterns that have appeared over and over again in all cultures since the
time stories have been recorded and presumably much longer. They are the story patterns that
capture our imaginations, such as the story of the hero who saves the village, the outlaw who
breaks the rules, the sage who is the source of wisdom, the magician who transforms the
ordinary into the extraordinary, the explorer who forges new paths.
When you have built a collection of stories as outlined in the previous stage, some of these
patterns will naturally begin to emerge. You will start to see which archetypes you, your
company, and your customers identify with, and this understanding offers opportunities for the
highest levels of connection and influence.
7. Your personal archetype
8. Your organisation’s archetype
9. Your customers’ archetype
When you have built a
collection of personal,
company, and customer
stories, they will begin to
point to archetypal story
patterns: the larger stories
people use to create
meaning.
making your company part of a larger story
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

10. 10White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015
No one can duplicate who you are.
Your stories give your prospects a
compelling reason to work with you and
you alone.

11. Patricia McMillan is a business storytelling consultant, helping organisations and
individuals uncover and work with their own, real stories in a way that resonates.
She has a background in information technology and worked as a programmer, business
analyst, project manager, and director of strategic initiatives before starting her own
company.
Since 2006 she has participated in projects related to Australia’s National Collaborative
Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), ), including the $50 million Research Data
Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) project and the $47 million National eResearch
Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) project .
Patricia is a popular speaker and a performing storyteller. She is an accredited member
of the Australian Storytelling Guild NSW and a Certified Technologist with the Australian
Computer Society.
About the author
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015

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want to know more?
Contact Patricia’s office if you would like to know more about
how you can uncover, craft, and use real stories to:
 Communicate the value you provide
 Engage your audience and deliver a brilliant presentation
 Create a compelling narrative to launch your new strategy,
product, or plan
 Gather input to inform strategic direction or solution design
www.patriciamcmillan.com
patricia@patriciamcmillan.com
+61 434 602 050
using stories in your organisation
White paper: Nine ways to communicate the value you offer © Patricia McMillan 2015