The Story Teller
Every day I do my best to take 30 minutes out of my schedule to listen, learn and potentially tell a story.
I heard about what makes a great story teller, this is a person that knows how to passionately stand back and tell people around them about a product they bought, heard about or was even told about by a colleague. Did you know that by the very fact we communicate a story we are actually marketing a brand and in turn allowing those that are interested to continue selling your brand because of the way you told the story.
I heard about a lady that kept telling others about a baby product she used and how impressed she was. The company (like Chinese whispers but without the confusion) ended up hearing about this and sent the lady a year’s supply for free as a way of saying thank you. Now I’m not saying all companies should do this, but isn’t it amazing that from one person’s mouth a story is told and eventually gets back to the company, who in turn recognizes and reacts positively.
How are we meant to react?
Well this bit is easy. We have to be grounded and talk (especially electronically) to people like human beings. Be sure to nurture your clients, understand your marketing strategy and where best to focus your energy. We need to learn all over again how to “talk”. After all, none of us likes to hear a machine that directs you to a multitude of options that only leads in frustration to a person that says “it’s not their department”. If that is you? Then change, change now.
Do you understand Digital Body Language
Have you taken the time to know your client. If you don’t then it’s time to start using marketing campaigns to keep them interested and even educate people about you, your brand and what you offer. You must also be there to understand when someone is ready to buy or if they need to be nurtured, until such time they are ready to buy.
“When we learn how to comminicate we learn how to grow our business”
The harder you make it for your clients to talk to you, the faster your business will disappear.
You may be busy – with little or no time in your day, too many meetings or your product needs to be cared for. Whatever happens when a client wants to talk to you, STOP and talk.
Many business people these days feel the aching need to hide behind a laptop screen and create a fantasy world that is too often hard to believe or keep up. This is where Radical Honesty comes in and your approach to the ever-changing future we face ahead of us is key. If we don’t stop, step back and look around it will pass us faster than the bullet train and the words “it’s all too late” starts ringing in your sad sorry ears.
I mentioned Radical Honesty and this is something I would like to touch on at a later stage. For now, it’s one of those amazing concepts I read about and in turn learnt and now use in my everyday life and the impact it has had on my myself and my businesses has been incredible, but for now I want to keep a focus on you and your company and the story your going to tell everyone in the surreal attempt to make a change.
However you want to share your story whether face to face, Twitter 
or Facebook 
and no doubt many millions of up and coming new social media channels that are here, coming soon or yet to be created will potentially make your life easier to tell your story.
If a client is blogging about your brand ask the person if they want help, be first to reply don’t sit back and wait in hope. If no one is writing about your brand then you blog it and starts the ball rolling, nothing comes from sitting back hoping, step up and get creative.
In this modern age as we take a look at the rules of engagement and how they are no longer black and white, if you simply want to raise the profile of your company or your reputation you need to make change and make it happen fast.
Allow me to tell you a story.
Once upon a time in a land not so many years ago we used to have greedy online people that drank and ate from the “free buffet” of online knowledge. Then in the early part of 2010 something changed and those people with this amazing power to give over knowledge started to charge and you became upset, even angry finding out that a blog, video presentation or even PDF written by a person of interest would cost money, then the complaints started to come in. But why, why would people complain? Is it a given right to be able to find everything online for free?
Back in the day, even I would have said yes, but in this new era when information has value things have changed and yes people are and will charge. Don’t panic, you will always be able to drink from the flowing fountain of the web, it just won’t be as pure as it once was, if in fact it ever was.
The shift is coming and coming fast
You must do research, listen to people’s comments. Remember you will be challenged, but when you are defending yourself, be sure to believe in your product, understand your company and have a clinical passion about how to approach this and with a clear head your company will achieve it goals.
2010 will also see a new way businesses will pay for the way they obtain information in the social marketing world, and how working together you can make business grow. Smart people recognize that business is often slow to change, but online is always changing, relentless and fast so you have to keep up to date or become out-of-date.
The quicker you respond to changes in the online world, the faster you will see your company grow. Stand still and see the social marketing world wave you bye-bye.
Now my story is told and if you got anything from it great, if you didn’t well I tried but like anything – you only pick up the bits you want to read and leave out the rest. Remember, we can’t all change overnight; it may take a little time.
Are you a storyteller now?
If not, I encourage you to become one and start blogging today, go on you have little to lose and lots to gain.
Written by Gino Meriano 19th March 2010
SMA the way for 2010