They say great conversationalists are first really great listeners.
The communications master Dale Carnegie put it this way: “If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems.”
Keep in mind that Mr. Carnegie wrote these words in the mid-1930s. This is not new material. The not-so-subtle jab at the general populace is this: we love to talk about ourselves. We love to talk about what we’ve done, who we’ve seen, the hurdles we’ve crossed and triumphs we’ve realized. If we’re not careful, we can talk about how amazing we are and leave our guest completely out of the discussion.
Brands do this all the time. Agencies do this all the time. All this chest thumping and self promoting leaves consumers and customers on the outside looking in … if they even stay around long enough to keep looking.
So how can brands master the art of conversation in their storytelling?
Stop talking about you
As a young copywriter I was taught to talk about the benefits of each product feature because the benefit is what the consumer/customer is actually looking for. It’s the solution provided by the feature.
But many companies want to talk about their accomplishments, size, scale, equipment … features. This is a TELL approach, as in, “let me tell you about me.” It almost makes sense. After months and years of product and brand development, people want to get credit for their hard work. The problem is that no one wants to listen to you talk about you.
Start listening to them
I have a friend named Karen who is amazing at this. Karen is the kind of person who circles a room meeting people and comes back within a few minutes knowing personal details on every single person. People open up to her and share their inner thoughts, goals, and challenges as if she’s the therapist they never knew they needed. It’s magical to see in person.
So what’s her secret? Karen asks great questions and doesn’t interject her own stories while other people are talking. People open up to her because she is genuinely interested in them. If the other person doesn’t ask about Karen, she’s fine to leave those details out.
Obviously brands can’t work a room in their daily communication. But they can spend a lot more time listening to the wants and needs of their customers. Those wants and needs often show up as frustrations.
In an earlier post I talked about Command™ Brand hanging solutions. The brand had tried for years to talk about the superiority of their technology over other options but consumers didn’t care. It was the better mousetrap no one wanted. But in research consumers talked about their frustrations with punching holes in walls and having to repair them, about not being able to move things around, about wanting to hang some things for the holidays and take them down later without making it a big deal. Those frustrations opened up new opportunities for the brand. By repositioning the brand as “Damage-Free Hanging Solutions” that can let you change the position of your hanging as quickly and easily as you change your mind, the Command™ Brand found audiences who couldn’t live without the brand.
Be nice. Be real.
You might think that being nice should be a given in brand storytelling, but it’s not. Brands should choose their tone of voice and brand personality with purpose, teach the fundamentals to everyone who interacts with customers, and reinforce the principles on a regular basis.
When helping organizations launch or rebrand, we spend a healthy amount of time on brand personality and how that will come to life in the marketplace. That may include call center scripts, ad copy guidelines, online content guidelines, etc. Everyone on the brand team must be clear how the brand communicates and what tone of voice is supported. Wendy’s might be able to get away with snarky tweets, but your brand might not. And you should know before you damage the brand.
Let them be the hero
Dale Carnegie said people “are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems.” Essentially, we’re all fascinated by ourselves. Think you’re different? Find a group photo you’re in and see who you look for first. Yup. You look for you first. We all do. Then we look at our friends and enemies (hoping they look horrible in the shot), and filter out everyone else as visual noise.
In the brand storytelling world, we must let the customer be the hero. The brand’s position is to help solve their issues and take their pain away. That means helping them be better cooks, better at lawn management, better at home repair, cleaning, office work, workouts, weight management, and many more.
Brands exist to help make the world a better place. They do that by enabling and empowering their customers to take on new challenges and be amazing in their efforts. That means the customer is the hero.
No, really, it’s all about them
We’re only focusing on four steps to brand conversations here because it shouldn’t be that complicated:
Stop talking about you
Start listening to them
Be nice. Be real.
Let them be the hero
There are times when brands need to cover details about themselves, but more often than not, the focus should be on the customers and how the brand can help solve their challenges.
If you’re in the market for storytelling help, let’s chat to see how we can support you.