As I state on my homepage; "there's a story in everything."
And your story is the most important aspect of building your brand. As the owner of a small business you are the power behind a community’s engine. The pulse of a town can be measured in its main streets, and its heartbeat is found within its local economy.The work you do, and the reason you do it matters. It helps tell a story that transcends the service and product you provide.
Pinpointing the reasons you started your business; created the product you did; or felt compelled to provide the services you do connects you to people. Storytellers bring people together and provide common ground for people to come together on. As a business owner, you're the storyteller, and the customers are your audience. Your story can bring them together and cultivate community, creating legions of loyal guests, brand ambassadors, cheerleaders, and sometimes even good friends.
Stories, at their crux, tap into human desires and hopes, or provide a salve for their fears. They connect; they entertain; they soothe; they inspire; and they influence the perspectives through which we view the world. When choosing to purchase a product or work with a person many customers internalize the brands they purchase from, because the brands made them feel a feeling they've been seeking.
I love storytelling, and find the skillset to be one of the most vital for anyone leaving the confines of their home and entering the world. Your ability to tell a story and engage with those around you - whether it's for 3-minutes with the barista pouring your coffee, or as a headlining presenter at a conference - is a priceless gift. While there's a capitalistic edge to the way I am describing it can be used, at its most pure, storytelling awards builds the links of kinship between us all.
Focusing on strengthening those links is where the gold lies in building your brand. Sure, hex codes; fonts; tag-lines; filters; PR lists, are all important when building your brand, but if you don't have a story, then what are you building your brand around? No one wants to buy something from someone whose story is simply "I woke up one day, and realized I could make money by selling XYZ." People want to know how your heart was ripped out by not having XYZ; or how you overcame adversity by using XYZ; or how you achieved the greatest milestone of your life with the support of XYZ; or how you saved an entire community through the innovation of XYZ.
Because maybe if you did all that with the help of product or service XYZ, maybe your customers can too. That's what they're buying - the inspiration that they too can achieve their dreams, be inspired to go for them, or assuage their fears of what happens if they don't.
Like I said, there's a story in everything. We just need to figure out what yours is. Questions I ask to help us do that include:
"If your business were a room, how would people feel upon walking into it?"
"What role are you taking when you “go live?”
"Based on brand attributes, how would you describe its voice?"
"How do you think your business is recognized and internalized by its audience?"
Even if you think there's no possible way your business could have answers to these questions, they do. There is not a single business in existence that doesn't have a need to answer these questions, because you're selling to humans, and humans want to feel something.
Stories help them do just that.