Guy Kawasaki gives an overview of The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing from Lois Kelly’s book, Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. There’s nothing that makes for better marketing than a well-told story.
Coup d'Oeil
No box. Just thinking.
Stories are great tools for more than marketing. Since they’re the way humans have remembered and made sense of complex situations since the beginning of language, stories can help you in managment, as a parent, in negotiations. I wrote Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership in part as a story because stories are such great teaching tools.
Right you are, Wally — with something to which we can relate, we learn more easily and naturally. Explaining i the abstract is fine for some, but for most people the story sinks in much better. For general learning (i.e., wisdom or “skill at living life”) we can be greatly rewarded by reading the biographies of people who have achieved things we admire. Takes more time and patience, but I think it’s rewarding. I confess I’ve not read your book, was only familiar with your blog… but sounds interesting — will get it onto my wish list.