Let’s start with a confronting truth:
Your business might be brilliant.
Your team might be stacked with talent.
Your product might practically sell itself.
And still, nobody cares.
Not because people are cruel.
Because they’re busy.
Also, your business probably sounds like every other business. You’ve got your six-page capability statement, a tagline that includes the word “solutions”, and a beautiful diagram with overlapping circles that no-one understands
What you don’t have is the story.
Not a brand film with slow-motion handshakes and drone shots of a warehouse.
Not a paragraph on your website titled ‘Our Why’ that made your copywriter quit.
A real story.
The kind you could tell a stranger at a barbecue without bracing for embarrassment.
I know, I know. It sounds fluffy. “Storytelling” is everywhere.
TED Talks. LinkedIn posts. That one guy selling a course for $997 while they ‘hustle’ by the pool, working remotely in Thailand.
But this isn’t about sounding inspirational. It’s about being understandable, engaging and hopefully memorable.
Because if people don’t quite get what you do—or why it matters—they’ll hesitate.
Maybe they won’t buy.
Maybe they’ll skim your email and move on.
Maybe they’ll open a new tab, looking for another option, and forget you ever existed.
Strategy gives you direction. Story keeps you from sounding like a robot.
Without a story, your strategy is just a smart plan with zero emotional GPS.
People nod politely, but it doesn’t stick.
Because no one follows a strategy.
They follow something simple enough to stick, and useful enough to say out loud without cringing.
With a story?
Now they can explain what you do to their boss. In plain English. Without needing a whiteboard, a glossary, or moral support.
Imagine that.
A decent business story usually sounds like:
• We started here
• We noticed something broken
• We thought, “Surely there’s a better way”
• So we built a thing
• It helps people
• And if it works, more good things happen
That’s it. That’s the whole trick.
No need for a sweeping narrative arc. No need to pretend you’re disrupting fifteen industries and “redefining human connection through cloud infrastructure.”
Just talk like a person.
Your marketing story is not your business story
Here’s where I think a lot of businesses get confused.
They’ve got a marketing story.
It’s about the customer—their needs, their journey, what’s in it for them.
But your business story? That’s about you.
Why you started.
Why you keep going.
Why you still get a weird little thrill when your competitor’s ad has a typo in the headline.
It’s the version you tell a friend over a drink.
Not the Frankenstein version built from old slide decks and emails—but the one that comes out when you’ve done the actual work.
And if you don’t find that version interesting, no one else will either.
So here’s the test:
Could you stand up—no slides, no buzzwords—and tell the story of your business in a way that doesn’t sound like an AI-generated press release?
Would people lean in?
Would they get it?
Would they remember anything at all?
Would they stay and listen instead of faking a bathroom break?
If the answer is “ehh… maybe not,” that’s okay.
It just means it’s time to write the damn thing.
Because in a market where everyone’s shouting “cutting-edge synergy” at each other…
The clearest (and least boring) story wins.
Or at least gets you a meeting.
