Book Review: Stories that Stick – How Storytelling Can Captivate Customers, Influence Audiences, and Transform Your Business

The book is written by Kendra Hall, a keynote speaker and award winning storyteller. She has been published at Entrepreneur.com and Inc.com, and as a contributing editor to Success magazine. She speaks for and works with brands of all sizes to help them harness the power of storytelling.

The twelve main takeaways that I got out of this book are outlined below:

1. You must master three main elements to have any hope of building a bridge strong enough to get your intended audience – potential customers, key team members, investors, etc. – across the great divide: attention, influence and transformation… The easiest and most effective way to accomplish that is storytelling. Stories are what stick… A story allows people to fall in love with the product, appreciate the value of the service, and feel compelled to act.
2. Story can create lasting impacts because we remember better when we hear stories. This is one of the most compelling attributes of storytelling. Go back to a time before computing storage. Go back to a time before photographs, books, and even the written word, and you will find stories, told verbally and handed down from generation to generation. Why? Because they were memorable. They lasted. A lesson taught in story was a lesson that could be recalled when it mattered… The fact that we Homo Sapiens are the evolutionary winners in the race to still exist is because of our ability to tell each other stories. Our ability to tell stories is what enabled us to “not merely imagine things, but to do so collectively.” These are the words of Yuval Norah Harari in his 2015 New York Times best selling book Sapiens. “The ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens languages… such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers,” which means we “can cooperate in extremely flexible ways to countless numbers of strangers.” Harari admitted, “Telling effective stories is not easy… Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals. Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches or legal systems if we could only speak about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees and lions.“
3. What makes a great story – there are four components of a great story: identifiable characters, authentic emotion, a significant moment, and specific details… There is also the Storytelling Framework: normal (things are how they are), explosion (something happens), and new normal (things are different). There are also Four Essential Stories: The Value Story, The Founder Story, The Purpose Story, and the Customer Story.
4. The Value Story – the most important gap any business needs to bridge is the gap between what they offer and the people who, whether they know it or not, need it… Forget the product, what’s the problem?… Having an identifiable character is a critical point of distinction between a strong story and a weak one. The greatest mistake of marketing is to put what you offer at the center of everything instead of the person you offer it to… Authentic emotion: what keeps them awake? What problem are they staring at the ceiling snd trying to solve but can’t? What issue is worrying them, concerning them, stressing them out? Once you know that, then the next step is how do you fix that feeling?… A moment: the last thing to remember about the moment in value stories is that it’s often connected to the explosion… Specific details: when you tell stories to potential customers, don’t be afraid to get specific with your details… The essence of a Value story is to illustrate the value in a way nothing else can. No matter how big or small your business, if you want more sales and better marketing, start with your value stories.
5. The Founder Story: every business has a story… Whether you are in the launch phase and looking to secure investor dollars or trying to differentiate yourself in a crowded, noisy market or trying to attract top talent to scale, founder stories can handle all three situations in different ways and for different reasons… When it comes to a new product or idea, you’re selling yourself as much as anything else… Where to look for a founder story? Go way back… Remember the ‘There has to be a better way moment… Look for the blood, sweat and tears… Four Founder Story pitfalls (and how to avoid them): confusing the founder story and the value story (when you are telling a founder story you are selling yourself); not telling your founder story because you are tired of telling it; thinking you can’t tell the Founder Story when you’re not the founder; and letting the reluctant founder shut down the founder story.
6. The Purpose Story – stories constitute the most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal… Purpose over profit… Tell your stories first, otherwise someone might tell them for you, and you may not like their version… The Purpose of the (Purpose) Story: alignment around a goal or initiative; alignment around a sensitive subject (socks story, p. 116); alignment around what you are really about (food story, p. 118)… All purpose stories start with this essential question: What point do I want to make? What do I want my audience to think, feel, know, or do as a result of hearing my story? The answer to that question is your North Star. It’s what will guide you when you decide which story to develop. It’ll determine which pieces of a story you keep and which pieces you cut because of time or relevance… A word of warning: there is very little room for error when it comes to matching the message, the ultimate point you want to make, with the story you end up telling… Once you are clear on the message you want to deliver, the next step is to ask yourself: When did I learn this lesson? When did I discover this truth?… Identifiable characters: in a purpose story, it is almost always the storyteller, the leader who learned the lesson… the person who had the experience… Authentic emotions – an effective way to blend the experience of the identifiable character (you, the leader) with the experience of the listener is to lean on emotions… The root of social connection lies in vulnerability. When we’re vulnerable in the workplace, we connect on a human level, increasing trust among leadership and employees, encouraging the sharing of ideas, and increasing loyalty… A moment: it often coincides with the explosion… Specific details: the purpose story helps your team understand that what they do matters… Culture is a collection of stories that align and inspire. Employees feel more connected and happier when they know about the story of their company. The ups, the downs, and where it all started. More importantly, when they know how the company faced adversity and lived to tell about it, they know the company can weather the storm.
7. The Customer Story – Branding is what people say about you when you are not in the room (Jeff Bezos)… 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations… Consumers read an average of seven reviews before trusting a business… A product review might be good for business, but turning it into a consumer story is great for business… With a customer story, it’s not the company, it’s a person – just like you – who tried it and loved it and has nothing to gain by telling you… The details matter: imperfections in the story are what make it real… How to get the consumer story: you must ask; ask specifically (p. 144)… Identifiable characters: encourage customers to express their true selves… Authentic emotions: the joy or relief they felt after finding you only matters when placed in contrast to how they felt before finding you… A moment: you can encourage the inclusion of a moment by asking questions like “Where were you the first time you tried our product?” or “Do you remember where you were when you first heard about our service?” These questions are moment-driven so the answer will often include the moment for you… Customer stories aren’t easy.
8. Create your story – To be a person is to have a story to tell (Isak Dinesen)… The process includes three stages: Finding, Crafting, and Telling Yiur story.
9. Finding your Story: the first process is the story collection; the second process is the story choosing. Good story finding is a combination of both… Getting better stories requires asking better questions since the stories attach themselves to the nouns in our lives (people, places, things, events), so make a list of people or places or things or events. And as you write each one down, allow some mental space for the memories connected to those nouns to come to you. Using the noun approach to find stories gives you endless access to stories possibilities. To find nouns, you can make a list of all the jobs you’ve had, the homes you’ve ever lived in, your teachers in school or coaches in sports. And with each noun you write down, take a moment. It is likely that a memory or two will come back to you. A memory that can be turned into a story. Think also about firsts. Make a list of customer objections and questions. And ask yourself a lot of questions (see list of questions in page 162)… Story choosing implies picking between any story versus the right story: choose a value story if you want more effective sales and marketing; choose a founder story if you want to increase confidence and differentiate; choose a purpose story if you want to align and engage your team; and choose a customer story if you want better sales, marketing, and credibility. Ask yourself which story you need the most right now… It’s all about the audience: who are you telling this story to? What do you want them to think, feel, know or do? The answers to these questions are an essential part of the story-choosing process.
10. Crafting your story – Ideas come and go. Stories stay (Nassin Nicholas Taleb). Your next job is to craft your story in a way that makes it compelling for the person who will read it, hear it, or see it. Remember the storytelling framework: Normal ➡️ Explosion ➡️ New Normal. Start in the middle with the explosion – once you identify that pivotal moment to build the story around, it’s time to go back to the beginning… Normal: back to the beginning. This is where you take a happening and make it matter. This is where the listener, reader or hearer of your stories settles in, lets down their guard, and if you do it right, blurs the lines between their world and yours long enough for you to bridge the gap. Include details about the identifiable character, details that will paint the picture and sound familiar to the audience. Include the emotions, what they (or you if you are the character in the story) were feeling or hopeful for or thinking as the situation was unfolding. Include the particular moment in time and place that this was happening. Include details so it sounds familiar to them. Throughout the story they should be telling to themselves, I’ve felt that. I understand that. That sounds about right. Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes… New normal: smooth sailing. The most important piece of crafting the new normal is to use it as an opportunity to come full circle. End the story back at the beginning, except with the benefit of the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding you didn’t have in the normal. Remember what Mark Twain said: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter” – a nod to how much harder brevity is than length. The ‘elevator pitch’ used in the entrepreneurial world illustrates that. The overall inventory to craft your story is: Normal, Explosion, New Normal, Identifiable Character, Emotion, Moment, and Specific Details.
11. Telling your story – Storytelling is as old as the campfire, and as young as a tweet. What moved people is someone who is credible (Richard Branson). When in doubt, tell a story. Tell them in emails. Leave a story in the voicemail. Tell them in meetings. Tell stories in webinars. Tell them online… Tell stories in presentations: whether it is a five-minute update or an eight-hour pitch, stories will make your presentation and subsequent results better. Here are a few tips: start with a story (helps break down barriers and makes you a person just like them; it also helps you calm your nerves; the visual cues of acceptance will help you); a picture is not always a thousand words (do not fully rely on the images to tell your story); practice breaks perfect (the key is to focus on your message, not your words)… Storytelling is a natural ability for humans. Almost all problems in storytelling aren’t so much story problems as they are problems with the teller getting in the way of the story. So find a real story that resonates with you, and it will almost tell itself.
12. Great stories happen to those who can tell them (Ira Glass) – every story needs to start somewhere. It needs a beginning. The tricky thing with beginnings, though, is they sometimes look like endings. So the way forward is simply to begin… “Once upon a time, I read a book about storytelling in business, and then…”

The book’s Appendix (p. 207) presents the four story cheat sheet which outlines the purpose, primary audience and who should tell each type of story. This 10-minute video illustrates Kindra Hall’s approach and the audience-oriented focus she presents throughout her book, keynote conferences and seminars.