When people first come into contact with you…
- On your website
- In the audience where you’re speaking
- By reading an e-book you’ve written
- By subscribing to your email list
…they need to know a little more about you before they’ll become a customer. They aren’t too sure about you and what you can offer them.
They need to:
- get to know you
- feel comfortable with you
- trust you
- like you
That’s because a big part of the buying decision is emotional.
One important way to accomplish this is to tell your story — and before you can tell it, you need to write it!
What is your story?
You can have many stories and they can be of several types, but a good start is to think about a transformation in your life that brought you to the present day — a transformation that resonates with the transformation you’re trying to create for your customers.
For example, one thing I do is to show people how to design PowerPoint slides for their presentations and webinars — slides that engage rather than bore. Since most presenters aren’t designers and may not have the budget to hire one, I give them simple techniques they can use to create clear, engaging and persuasive slides.
But I’m not a designer either.
In fact, I had an embarrassing incident that showed me how bad my slides were.
I wrote an article for a magazine called Presentations without Bullets. In the following issue, I saw a letter to the editor complaining about how bad my example was. It said, “It has no focus! Please give us better examples!”
I was mortified. I still remember the pain in my heart as I read that letter. But that started my journey to learn how to design slides, even though I was never going to be a designer. I went to a conference every year. I read books. I looked at award-winning presentations. And so I not only learned how to design simple, yet effective slides, I also ended up with a simple system that I could teach others.
And now, that’s one of the ways I help presenters — teaching them to design their own slides.
This story encourages presenters to work with me because they want to learn how to design slides that will look professional and get their message across to the audience.
What experience have you had that brought you to the skill you have that can help others?
How to write your story
To write your story, you think about relevant experiences you’ve had in your life. Remember that you want your story to have a point, to be strategic. It needs to be meaningful to your audience.
A story should have a beginning, middle, and end. Fill it out with relevant emotion and sensory details.
Finally, you should have many stories–different situations will call for different stories.
Get the “Write Your Story” worksheet
To help you write YOUR story, I’ve created a simple worksheet that will take you through the process.
Not only will this help your business, but you will find it personally meaningful.
Furthermore, you can reuse the worksheet to write multiple stories.
Share this with others!
Please let others know about this free worksheet. And leave a comment or question below.
2 replies to "Why you need to write your story"
My story is in the About Page of my blog. Did I write enough? Should I tell more? If you have time, I hope you can check: https://momtraneur.com/about/
Jennie, your former name might turn some people off but the rest is excellent!