You’re probably asked all the time what your business does — do you like your current answer? Follow the five steps below and you’ll have a clear, concise go-to core story to use as the basis for copy on your website, social media channels, when networking, and elsewhere.
Most companies put together a string of facts as their business description. The language tends to be dry and forgettable. But, our brains are wired for stories. So, incorporating storytelling into your business description can help you connect with people and make your company unforgettable.
By the way, if you like workbooks to follow along, I created one for this post here.
Step 1: Discover Your Story
First, we need to figure out what elements make up your story. We want to come up with several leads that we can weave together to build a story that explains what makes you and your business unique.
First, we need to understand your ideal customer. What is important to them? What are their challenges? What are they looking for? Why does your product or service help them?
Look at my 25 Thought Starter Questions About Your Business. These are questions about how you started your company, the people involved, what differentiates you from your competition. Not all of these will apply to you, so pick and choose from them, or see if they spark any other ideas not listed.
Once you’re done, look through all of the information you gathered. Prioritize what will be most compelling to get your target audience to your goal of buying your product or hiring you.
Step 2: Write Your Messy First Draft
Alright, so now we’re ready to write our messy first draft. The idea here is to get something down on paper or screen. We’ll make it sound good later on. Just focus on getting down all of the ideas in your head into a few sentences.
Most stories are structured the same way. The main character goes on a journey to achieve a goal. Things happen along the way. It’ll build up to a point of ultimate tension when all seems lost. And then we end on some kind of resolution.
Your story is most likely about either the people who need your product/service. Or, it’s about the person/people who started the company and/or the people who work there now.
Try this formula to build your core story for your business:
1. Describe your main character and establish their goal.
2. Show their journey.
3. Establish some type of resolution that involves your product or service.
4. Add a call to action, such as checking out your store, visiting your website, following you on social media, sign up for a free trial, etc.
If you don’t consider yourself a writer, or just want some help getting started, we created a Business Description Story Starter Worksheet where you can fill in the blanks.
Keep tweaking it until it rings true. Try reading it out loud, too, to see how it sounds. You’re looking for something that is authentic to who you are as a company. Something that captures your tone and culture and vision.
Step 3: Make It Memorable
The key to making your story memorable is to make sure it has emotion and personality. You want your target audience to personally connect with what you’re saying. Ideally, they see themselves, or someone they know, in your story.
One example that I think illustrates this perfectly is a video that Gilette put together for their Treo Razor, which they created to solve an unmet need in the market. It shares the story of a son caring for his father and using the specially designed razor to give his father a shave. I highly encourage you to take a few minutes and watch this video for inspiration of how story can help make a product memorable.
Video: Gilette’s new Treo Razor solving an unmet need
Now go back and re-read your messy first draft. Add in anything you can think of to ramp up the emotional connection, while making sure it still sounds authentic to you and appropriate to the business.
Step 4: Edit Your Story
You have a solid story in place at this point. You made sure it has some emotion to it and that it reflects your personality. Now, we want to edit it to sound awesome.
For this step, go through your story four times. Each time, spend some time looking for any of these common writing pitfalls.
- Cut out the jargon. Use simple words. If you told your story to a kid or your grandma, would they be able to understand it?
- Avoid repetition. Without realizing it, we often repeat the same word or phrase, particularly if you’re describing a product or service. A good test is to read your story backwards to catch these repeated words. Use a thesaurus to come up with another way to say it.
- Remove unnecessary words. Common culprits include just, very, also, so, that, then, really and like. Similarly, look if you have any “double words” when you use multiple words that mean the same thing. For example, use “result” instead of “end result,” or “surrounded” instead of “surrounded on all sides”. You want to keep the details in there but keep it short and sweet.
- Use simple sentences. Each sentence should have one thought in it. If you combine too much into a sentence, you’re making your audience decide what is important. You don’t want to leave it up to them. Instead, make your points clearly and simply.
Your story will be stronger as a result.
Optional: A fresh set of eyes is always a good idea. Consider sending your story to a trusted friend and asking them if it’s clear and if they have any ideas for how you could improve it. Or, use it the next time you meet someone new who asks what you do to see what reaction you get.
Step 5: Share Your Story
You now have a core story that can be your default, go-to description whenever you need to explain what your company does.
This is the secret sauce – it helps you present a consistent message to build your brand. It saves you time because you start here every time you need to write something new.
But the current format and length you have won’t always work so you’ll need to adapt it. Below are five situations where you’ll want to tweak your core story for different needs. Pick those that are relevant to you and your business and start evolving your core story for each.
- Tagline: Take a phrase or sentence from your story that captures your main message. This can then go onto your business cards, your email signature, etc.
- Website Copy: Add details and examples to blow this out to longer copy for your About Us or Our Story section on your website. Do you have images to incorporate to help bring the story to life?
- Social Media Profiles: Update your social media profiles so they are aligned and telling the same story.
- Professional Bio: If you use your professional bio to market your services, incorporate part of your story into it.
- Elevator Speech: Practice saying your story out loud. Turn it into a brief 30 to 60 second pitch that you can use at networking events. Or, a shorter version that you can use when you get the questions “So, what do you do?”
Build on this over time – have fun figuring out how you want to tell your story in all of the places you talk about your company.
Your Turn to Take Action
Act on what you’ve just read:
- Follow along with these steps to write your core story. If you like workbooks, download the one I created for this blog post here.
- Pick at least one situation from Step 5 above. Commit to posting your story to it this week.
I’d love to read your stories or answer questions – post in the comments below.
If you want to keep going, grab our cheat sheet with five ideas to incorporate storytelling at work that will make a big impact.
If you want to learn more about how to write your business description, I have a class on Skillshare called Storytelling for Small Business: Create a Killer Business Description that Sticks with People. If you’re not familiar, Skillshare is an online learning platform with thousands of great classes available on business, design, photography and more.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
