I’ve spent my entire life using story as a means to grow. In college, I shared my story while traveling and studying abroad in Australia, Turkey, France & Spain and gained friends all over the world. I’ve delivered speeches on my dad, SCPO Dan Healy, who was KIA in 2005 during Operation Red Wings to spread his legacy. I’ve shared my story of mentoring other gold star children, advocating for their needs and have watched them grow over the last decade. Finally, I’m sharing the story of Poor Bear Stories, a storytelling and video production company, and the incredible opportunities we have been a part of. So, how have we at Poor Bear found ourselves so fortunate and blessed to be a part of hundreds of life changing stories over the last four years? I’d like to share my tactical storytelling approach in a nutshell.
My first story tip originated 25 years ago, over bed time stories with my grandma. To this day, I can remember details like rainy the dog, his love interest and inability to be with her due to complicated circumstances. So, what made them so memorable? She made every moment of her stories engaging. She used the tone of her voice, dramatic pauses, physical interaction and strong hooks to keep us begging for more – these are all layers, key elements to story and something we will talk more about below. Not only did my grandma teach me what good storytelling was, she showed me.
To this day, we have two full suitcases of developed photos and another several boxes of home video tapes. My grandma photographed and filmed everything. She didn’t just have an eye for the action, she knew how to direct and orchestrate – she knew what she wanted to see because she was always thinking of the audience – another key element in storytelling. As a child, I was learning more about storytelling than any college could ever teach me and I had a deep appetite for it thereafter.
Now, enjoy this clip of my dad letting my sister Chelsea try a little “carbonated water” followed by a couple more moments of my youth – as captured by my grandma.
Maybe you found yourself smiling or feeling something like I do every time I watch these. They aren’t just nostalgic, they say something. What kind of man was my dad? Who was I as a kid? What was my family like? In 3 minutes or less, you can give yourself a far better picture of me and where I came from because of what and how my grandma captured it on video.
Alas, her name is Beatrice or Busy Bea and she is still creating and telling stories to this day. My grandma framed the action, always looking for the best story in each moment. She had a keen sense of the story before it happened, before others knew it was happening, and she would let the camera roll. Lastly, she was a master of knowing what to focus on, guiding our attention to the little details that make a story memorable. So, what does all this have to do with successful video production and storytelling today? Layers.
Take our work at Poor Bear Stories for example. Each of our stories are successful in their desired outcome because we build our videos like we bake a cake – with layers! With over 35 years of combined video production and editing experience on the Poor Bear Stories team, we each understand layers can make a very uninteresting subject into a very intriguing video to watch.
I’d like to share a video we did with Legacies Alive on one of their “Legacy Challenge” participants which we are particularly proud of.
It’s not quite the same as my grandma’s home video above but we used all of the same elements to craft an engaging and compelling story that you will remember and take with you for years to come. Obviously, technology has allowed us to take editing to an entirely new level but it all comes down to layers. Composing the frame, letting the story unfold, guiding your focus to the bits and pieces that build trust, familiarity and more for the sake of our mission (in this particular case, to raise funds for a memorial dedicated to Shawn’s friends).
So, how does all of this help you to win business? Again, Layers, only this time not just the layers we need to “bake a cake” – but the layers of information.
A business is just an organization and an organization is made up of people – people are stories. Success in the age of information has a lot to do with how we share our stories around what we do, but it all boils down to how we share information. So, in a world where everything is competing for our attention how do we tell your story to win business? We share you in layers.
Business development in any organization understands the fundamentals of making a sale and retaining it over a lifetime. However, what most marketing and business development arms don’t understand is how to reverse engineer the layers of you in micro doses of information so that your story ripples trust, belief and warm familiarity toward you in a way that seems completely natural to each congruent story. It is what we at Poor Bear Stories strive to achieve in each of our crafted works for each of our customers.
How do you make a 5-day conference video that encourages and invites target attendees to be there next year? How do you inspire trust in donors and recipient families? The video above features Special Operations Warrior Foundation and one of their key program efforts – EPIC or the Educational Planning Information Conference. As seen, we interviewed attendees and scholarship recipients on the program as a whole. We also recorded presenters throughout the conference and chose soundbites for the edit that fit the narrative we are trying to share. As a scholarship recipient myself, I have a sense of gratitude toward SOWF that bleeds in to each of our works for them. However, the fundamentals of storytelling remain the same.
When producing and editing stories, we visualize layers of information like a big brainstorming network – It starts with your desired goals or outcomes on the exterior and follows the layers of information and storytelling techniques back to you and your solution. The clearer your goals are, the easier it is to map a production and storytelling path to reach them. Now, how do you utilize these techniques to tell stories that win business?
Break down your goal/s into pillars of information and create “layers” under those pillars. Below is an example of the video architecture used in the video examples above.
Does your map encompass the ideal and most-effective means to communicating the information necessary to achieve your goal/s? In the end, each path should have poignant layers that utilize storytelling techniques and illustrate your solution clearly.
In closing, if you have a solution you want to sell then you need to establish a goal for a story you want to tell. Once the goal is clear enough, your story should include layers of both information and techniques that are pieced together in a way that not only holds our attention, but consistently builds trust, familiarity and confidence in your solution. This can be done in a single story or campaign of stories. It can be done in a minute long video or a 3-hour long video – so long as it holds true to the layering techniques discussed above.
I’ll end with some practical questions for you to discuss and share as you think about your story and how to win business with it.
We are all interested in the tick of a clock, your clock – It’s human interest at the most basic level. What makes you tick and why did you decide to spend your life and precious time on this specific product or service?
When you show resilience, you prove yourself to be somebody worth backing and rooting for (someone who won’t make a fool out of us for supporting). What obstacles have you had to overcome or are you in the middle of overcoming with developing your production/service?]
If you found this article helpful and gained something from it, myself along with everyone else at Poor Bear Stories would be very grateful if you shared it.
If you are interested in continuing the conversation on how to tell your story to win business, feel free to reach out by filling out the contact form below. We look forward to hearing from you!
