CHAPTER 8
The Stories That Make Your NSP Stick
Storytelling makes the brain light up in a way no other form of communication does.
—Nancy Duarte, author, CEO, and the storyteller of Silicon Valley
The default narrative of most organizations is a money story. You've already read about why a money story doesn't win hearts and minds. If you want to accelerate competitive differentiation and emotional engagement, you need to craft a meaning story.
A meaning story draws from the collective shared memories and beliefs of the people who work there. It's about your journey, where you've been, what you did, who you are, what you believe, and what it means to be part of your tribe.
A 2019 PwC research project about the connection between strategic purpose and motivation revealed that a mere 39% of employees could clearly see the value they create. More than half weren't even “somewhat” motivated, passionate, or excited about their jobs. The current crisis of disengaged employees is both stunning and heartbreaking. Millions of people are showing up for work every single day and leaving their hearts at home.
Even if you're not one of the disengaged, you're affected by them. When members of a sales force are disengaged, it has a chilling effect on the entire team, not to mention your customers.
One of the core responsibilities (and great delights) of a leader is to show your team why their work matters. Knowing your work has an impact on others inspires people. You can't illustrate the deeper meaning of work with a spreadsheet or a product slick. Meaning comes through story.
The challenge is that organizations tend to sanitize their stories and boil them down to the basic facts, eliminating the emotional elements that make them compelling. In most organizations, the emotion gets stripped out in favor of generic language like value, reliability, efficiency, flexibility, and superior provider of end‐to‐end solutions. These words fall flat because they're the exact same words that everyone else uses.
As a leader, you can do better. You want to accelerate emotional engagement, not erode it. In Chapter 4, you learned why shared belief is crucial for scaling your NSP. Belief drives behavior.
Build Belief: Create Sticky Stories
The fastest way to help your team believe in and act on your Noble Purpose is to share stories that illustrate your NSP in action. For clarity's sake, let's differentiate between founder stories and customer impact stories. Many organizations have inspiring founder stories. The tale of two geniuses tinkering in a garage or the twentysomething adventure traveler who built a global brand based on happiness is a great source of pride for the team.
You can and should share these stories often. If you want to shape sales behavior, however, you need to go one step further. You need to provide current examples of your NSP in action.
To illustrate, let's go back to the Lion Tribe from Chapter 4. Imagine you're a new member of the tribe. You hear the founder story about the three original members who wanted to form a new kind of tribe founded on the powerful principles of lions. You're inspired for sure, but do you know how to behave when you're out in the field? Maybe. Maybe not.
Now imagine your team leader tells you a second story. This one happened more recently. It's a story about one of your peers, someone just like you, who used the lion principles to save a group of children in the wild. The team leader describes exactly how the team member did it and, most importantly, the impact their actions had on the children and their parents. Now you're more than proud; you're empowered. Now you know how to act like a lion.
The stories you share with your team should illustrate your NSP in action. They provide proof you can deliver. We call these customer impact stories. They go deeper than the traditional testimonials and case studies used by most organizations.
Here's how they differ:
- Testimonials: Tell people you're great: “XYZ Company was prompt and professional.”
- Case studies: Explain your implementation: “The customer purchased product A with the added bells and whistles of B and C. Here's how it worked for them.”
- Customer impact stories: Describe the impact your solution has on real live human beings. Customer or client impact stories (depending on how you refer to your buyers) include facts, and they also spell out the business and emotional impact your solution has on the real live human beings you serve. They build belief with your team and shape the team's behavior for future interactions.
Here's an example from Supportworks, the foundation repair company you read about in Chapter 2 that is redefining the contracting world. As you read these examples, imagine you're at a Supportworks sales meeting, and your boss is sharing this information. Pay attention to how you feel after each one.
- Testimonial: Mr. and Mrs. Jones said, “The team at Supportworks is the best. They provided a high‐quality installation on time and on budget. And they cleaned up after themselves.”
If you're in the crowd at the sales meeting, you might be thinking, “I'm glad I work here. We have an excellent reputation. Our clients love us.”
- Case study: The foundation of the Jones family home was bowing and cracking. During the first big rain of the season, it flooded. Water was inside the home; it was starting to create mildew and mold. We used our advanced technology to eliminate the water quickly. Then, using our patented foundation repair system, we pulled out the bows in the wall and fixed the cracks without having to jackhammer all the concrete. With the basement walls secured, we finished with a moisture barrier over the entire foundation. It was a big job. But thanks to our team, the project was done on time, with minimal disruption.
Now you might be thinking, “Our products are pretty impressive. Our team is great. We have a real competitive advantage.”
Now let's take it further. Picture the leader telling …
A Memorable Customer Impact Story
Imagine you have six‐week‐old twins. You arise after a mostly sleepless night to find your basement has flooded. That's what happened to the Jones family. They were just starting to get a handle on life with two new babies when they awoke to find their basement filled with six inches of dirty water. The timing could not have been worse. The mother was practically in tears when she called us.
Mrs. Jones was worried about the damage from the flood and the fast‐growing mold and mildew. The last thing you want with babies is a house full of mold. They vacated the house and went to stay in Mrs. Jones's mother's basement while we worked. With both babies and all their stuff in cramped quarters, it put a lot of stress on their family.
Knowing that the Jones family was crammed into that basement with their babies, our team worked like fiends to finish. We sucked every bit of water out of the basement and used our patented products to not only fix it but, as we say, fix it forever. Because we got the parts and the team there quickly, the Jones family was back in their home within a week. They can go to sleep at night confident their basement walls will stand strong in the next big rain. They don't have to worry about mold or mildew infecting their babies. Our team was so excited about the work we did for the Jones family, they took a picture of themselves standing in the cleaned‐out basement, high‐fiving each other. They sent it to Mrs. Jones in a text saying, “Your clean, dry home is ready for you and your precious babies.”
If you're in the crowd at the sales meeting listening, how do you feel now?
I don't even own construction gloves, and I'm ready to go muck out someone's basement! The testimonial and the case study are good. But it's the customer impact story that will make hearts beat faster. It's a sticky story, one you'll remember long after the meeting. This story tells you, “Our work matters. People are counting on us.” People are counting on you. This is how you as a leader can build belief.
Sticky Stories Create Meaning
Customer impact stories pull you in; they ignite your frontal lobes. They help you experience the joy of making a difference to someone. Once you've heard a story like that, it sticks with you. It inspires you to want to have that kind of impact on your customers.
Logic makes you think; emotion makes you act. Instead of looking inward toward the features of your product, a customer impact story looks outward. It points the listener toward the clients and the effect your work has on them. It galvanizes a sales team because it tells them “Our NSP is real, and it matters. On our best day, this is how we behave.”
Sharing stories like this one is how Supportworks transformed their organization from a traditional blue‐collar contracting firm into a tribe of true believers who are redefining an entire industry. The story shows their team that this is how we redefine, and this is why it matters.
One of their team members was so inspired by Supportworks' NSP that he had “Redefine” tattooed on his arm. No joke. Is it any surprise their team is changing the industry?
Supportworks has plenty of client testimonials to provide social proof of their effectiveness. They also use case studies to describe how their products are used and why they're better than the competition's.
The best stories use vivid descriptions and emotional language to answer the game‐changing question asked in Chapter 5: “How is this customer different as a result of doing business with us?”
Author and CEO Nancy Duarte, the preeminent storyteller of Silicon Valley, says, “Stories engage the brain at all levels: Intuitive, emotional, rational, and somatic. When we hear stories, our brains respond by making sense of information more completely.”
Customer impact stories help your team make sense of your NSP. They translate the aspirational into the actual. The stories you tell around the organizational campfire—sales meetings, morning huddles, and the like—tell your tribe, “This is what we do for people.”
The power of good storytelling as a leadership tool cannot be overstated. Think about your own life. What stories inspired you as a child? What were the stories your family told? How did they shape your beliefs? I grew up listening to my dad's stories. Some of my best childhood memories are of my dad telling my brother and me stories about his southern cousins.
My dad was a city boy from Washington, D.C. Every summer, he would head down to Walhalla, South Carolina, to spend a month with his southern cousins, who took great delight in teasing their “Yankee” relatives. My brother and I would beg Dad for another story about his “mean” cousins almost every night—and he was more than happy to share.
One of the most memorable was the time they told him South Carolina bees don't sting. The cousins walked through a bee‐filled patch of clover in their bare feet, telling Dad, “South Carolina bees aren't like the bees up North; they don't have stingers down here.”
What my dad didn't realize was that a group of boys growing up in the South in the 1950s went barefoot all summer long. The cousins' feet were so tough and calloused that the bees' stingers could barely penetrate their skin. This wasn't the case for my dad. He was stung 20 times when he took off his lace‐up city‐boy shoes to walk through the clover.
They also told my dad that putting manure in his shoes would make him grow taller. They swore their strapping six‐foot frames had been achieved by small doses of manure in the toes of their shoes. My late‐bloomer dad smelled horrible for an entire summer.
But our favorite stories were about the times my dad got back at the mean cousins.
There was the time he went out late at night and painstakingly loosened the bolts on the front wheels of all their bicycles. The next day my dad said, “Race you down the hill!” The cousins got about halfway down the hill when their front wheels started to shake and then flew off. The image of the mean cousins at the bottom of a hill in a pile of bikes as my dad rode off into the sunset never failed to get a big cheer out of my brother and me. Even though we knew how the story ended, we begged to hear it over and over again.
Any parent today would be horrified at those stories. Upon reflection, I'm kind of amazed our mother did not intervene. Perhaps she knew what those tales would come to mean for us. Listening to those stories helped shape our self‐image. They told my brother and me what kind of people we are. We weren't wimpy kids. We were smart individuals who could figure things out. We were the Earle family. We wouldn't let a bunch of mean cousins get the best of us.
In telling those stories, my dad was creating the narrative of our family. He was cementing our belief in who were are and what we could accomplish. As a leader, you can do the same for your team.
Stories are the soundtrack of our lives. They shape our internal beliefs, which in turn drive much of our daily behavior. It's not without coincidence that all the great religions of the world have a book of stories. Stories remind us of who we are and who we want to be.
At first glance, your business life may not seem as colorful or dramatic as the cleaning‐a‐flooded‐basement story from Supportworks or the mean‐cousins stories I learned from my dad. But if you ask your team, you might be surprised at what you uncover.
Several years back, we were working with Graham‐White, a company that makes systems that improve the safety and reliability of brakes on trains and heavy vehicles. Their NSP was We make transportation safer, faster, and more reliable.
We asked the sales team for examples of their NSP in action. One of the salespeople stood up and told the following story:
- Locomotive engines are always in need of service. But they're running day and night, so it's a challenge to catch one stopped long enough to service the brakes. The brakes on a locomotive are crucial; lives are at stake if they fail. One of the Graham‐White reps was in the middle of a field improvement program, and he didn't want to miss the moment when the locomotive came into the shop yard. He realized if he went back to the hotel and waited for the customer to call, he'd lose 30 minutes. Even though it was after midnight, he decided to wait it out.
- So he slept in his car … in the snow.
- The customer called his cell phone at 3:00 am. Thirty seconds later, the salesman was standing in front of the customer's desk. The customer asked incredulously, “How did you get here so fast?” He replied, “I slept in my car.” The customer couldn't believe it: “It's 30 degrees outside; are you crazy?”
- The rep said, “I knew you needed me to check those brakes. I didn't want to miss it when the train came in.”
- The salesman thereby cemented his status as a legend: “The sales rep who sleeps in his car in the snow to keep the brakes safe.”
This story was new information to most of the audience. The older sales guys knew it, but the new ones had never heard it before. Upon hearing it, they all stood a little taller, and you could tell they had even more pride in their company.
How would you feel about your organization if you heard this story on your first day of work? Would you be proud you had joined the firm? Would you repeat the story to your spouse when you went home?
If you were a customer hearing that story, would you want to do business with that firm? When Graham‐White says, “We make transportation, safer, faster, and more reliable,” do you believe them? I sure do.
The story cements shared belief in their NSP. It tells their team, we are the kind of people who go the extra mile to deliver on our Noble Purpose. If we have to, we will sleep in our cars, in the snow, to make sure we help our customers.
The Formula for Sticky Stories
You can use customer impact stories internally to scale belief and behavior. And if you haven't already figured it out, they're also one of the most powerful sales tools you can use to engage clients.
When you tell compelling customer impact stories inside the company, you prepare your team to share them with clients. The same stories work in both places: inside the company and outside the company.
Here's what makes a customer impact story compelling:
- It's true.
- It's short. You should be able to tell the story in less than two minutes, in about 300 words or less.
- It describes the impact on the customer. A good NSP story doesn't stop at the event; it describes the impact: the twins came home; the parents felt safe. You want your team to think about whom the events affected and the implications for their businesses and lives.
- It includes vivid details. Descriptions such as “six inches of water in the basement, mold, and mildew” add energy and drama to the story.
- It touches emotions. A good NSP story is about human beings whose lives were changed in some way. Emotional words such as frustrated, angry, delighted, and thrilled add energy to the story.
- Most importantly, it supports your NSP. The story's value and purpose is not to merely entertain; it is to authenticate your NSP.
If you're selling something and your customers are buying it, I guarantee you have customer impact stories. And they might be even more life‐changing than you expect. That's what the team at Hootsuite discovered.
Hootsuite is the global leader in social media management. The Vancouver‐based SaaS firm's platform is used by more than 17 million customers and employees at over 80% of the Fortune 1000. Founded in 2008 by Ryan Holmes, Hootsuite helps clients “unlock the power of human connection.” Their platform helps organizations build lasting customer relationships at scale.
Back in 2012, Hootsuite was growing fast. They had created a new market, but competitors were quickly nipping at their heels. They needed to amp up their sales force quickly to ensure that they captured the lion's share of the growing market they had created.
Hootsuite was hiring salespeople at a rapid rate. The new salespeople needed to be compelling, and quickly. Describing themselves as a social media management platform would not create the urgency they needed to win business. Hootsuite wanted prospective clients to understand that this was more than brand building. Hootsuite's platform was a way to forge enduring relationships with constituents and customers.
Their new sales team was on fire. They were also new to the space. Many of the salespeople came out of traditional tech; some had sales experience, but many did not. The team was also competitive and wanted to win; to do so, they needed to learn how to be compelling and emotionally engaging, fast.
Hootsuite's chief revenue officer at the time, Steve Johnson, who was employee number 27, said, “A lot of our clients only buy licenses for their marketing teams; they think we're just for consumer brands. We needed to help them think bigger.”
As a traditionally trained tech team, it would have been easy for the Hootsuite sales force to charge forth with a product‐driven narrative. Instead, Johnson tapped into the team's competitive nature and launched the Hootsuite Story‐Off.
Leaders drew on the game‐changing question (“How will the customer be different?”) and asked the team to look for examples of how it changed the lives of its customers. Sales managers got training to help sales reps craft the stories. They recorded client impact (the company calls their customers “clients”) stories on cell phone videos during the weekly sales meeting. The teams held practice sessions where they listened to each other's stories and provided feedback. They coached each other and learned what worked best.
Then it was time to compete. Each salesperson recorded his or her story. Teams voted for the initial winners. These went on to the quarter‐finals. Using the criteria I outlined earlier—true, short, client impact, vivid details, emotive, and supports the NSP—Hootsuite leaders chose the five best stories. The reps won the chance to compete on stage in a story‐off during the company‐wide town hall.
Imagine you're a new salesperson sitting at the Hootsuite town hall and listening to the stories. You hear about how the Mall of America uses Hootsuite to create more engaging shopping experiences. You hear about how school systems use the platform to reach out directly to busy parents. You're starting to get a sense of how your work impacts people. You're likely thinking, wow, we really do empower human connection.
Then the final salesperson takes the stage. You discover that during Hurricane Sandy, Morris County used the Hootsuite dashboard to prioritize pleas for help and send out reports about road closures and evacuation efforts.
You hear the gripping tale about neighborhoods plunged into darkness with impassable roads, trapping people in their homes. For people sitting in the dark, not knowing when or if help is coming, their phones become their lifeline. They're frantically tweeting and messaging to find help.
But they're not messaging into a dark, overcrowded void, as in so many disasters. These citizens get a response. Because thanks to Hootsuite, the Morris County social media manager has prepared for this very moment. She is collaborating with 39 municipalities to disseminate and amplify up‐to‐date news. In a time when it would be easy for citizens and government workers to panic, the Hootsuite dashboard prioritizes and assigns incoming messages to ensure that nothing is missed.
How do you feel when you hear this story? If you're a salesperson, do you want to repeat it to your customers? You better believe you do. That's exactly what happened. The Hootsuite sales team doubled revenue the year they held their Story‐Off. After sharing their stories with each other, they started telling them to clients. As their sales grew, so did their reputation. As of this writing, Hootsuite is the world's most widely used platform for managing social media, and the company is valued at over $1 billion.
After he led the Hootsuite team to explosive growth, Steve Johnson went on to lead teams at Vidyard and Intelex. He has created over $3 billion in market value for companies he's been part of and helped lead. As someone who has successfully taken firms from startup to post‐IPO, he says, “In the early days, purpose and storytelling is super important because if you don't have an overarching reason to exist, there's not enough there to motivate people. When times are tough, you need something that appeals to bigger goals and reasons.”
Johnson is currently the president and COO at Berkshire Grey, a firm that combines AI and robotics to help customers change the way they handle fulfillment. He asserts that no matter what field you're in, customer impact stories are essential: “It is easy to say our product is xyz, but the definition doesn't tell the whole story. When you hear a story about achieving your purpose, then it closes the loop and makes everything much more understandable—and meaningful.”
Does every sale have to save lives? No. Sometimes it's simply about helping merchants forge better relationships with their buyers, or getting on a busy parent's radar. The point is, the team knows every sale they make has an impact on someone.
If you want to scale belief, start with stories. The facts in these stories are 100% true, but it's the emotion of the client impact that enables the team to go forth with such compelling sales narrative.
It's also important to note that Hootsuite tapped into their young team's competitive nature by creating a contest. But finding the winning storyteller wasn't their only endgame. Helping the entire team become skilled storytellers and sharing those stories across the entire organization was the real point.
One person won the contest, but every single member of the sales team got to practice their own story. They also got to hear the other stories. Sharing the stories publically means, even when you don't win, you walk away knowing, wow, we help a lot of people, the work we do here matters.
Jumpstart Purpose with Customer Impact Stories
The previous chapters helped you name your NSP. Customer impact stories will help you claim it. They enable you to scale. The best part is, you don't need a fancy brochure or perfect web copy to get started.
At your next meeting, share a customer impact story. Simply say, “I've been thinking about the impact we have on clients.” Then share the story.
Here are some places you can tell a customer impact story:
- Team huddles. Open with a short story to remind your team why you're there.
- Giving praise. Tell people the impact their actions had on the customer.
- Town halls. Bring in a live customer to describe the impact you have had on them.
- Meeting with the CEO. Use a customer impact story to add color to financial results.
- Meetings with backstage teams. Let non‐customer‐facing staff know how your organization's work impacts clients.
Whether you're sharing customer impact stories onstage in front of thousands or you're starting small, in a weekly sales meeting, the important thing is to focus on how your solution makes a difference to clients. It's not about your product or your quota; it's about the impact you have on customers.
Remember, good stories are sticky. The emotion makes them memorable. They tell your team, “This is what it means to be part of our tribe.” While this book is primarily about work, sharing stories with your team members affects the way they show up for everything else in their lives. When you know your work matters, your life starts to matter more.
My dad once told me that “Every person deserves work they can believe in.” He was right. Sharing stories about how you make a difference to clients elevates your team on multiple levels. It helps them be more authentic and engaging with clients. It also reminds them, “You're not a meaningless cog in a money machine; you're real live human being whose work matters to others.”