By Isaiah O’Connor

Last post I mentioned how Marvel tells a good story. You may think, of course, they tell a good story, they produce comic books and movies which are at the heart storytelling mediums. In order to have incredible success in either you need to be a master at storytelling.  Sure you can be a mediocre storyteller and wow audiences with visuals in both mediums, however for truly great success and fan loyalty you need a solid story to go with it. Marvel has a good overall track record of telling good stories, even their worst films had an okay story that still kept them from being a total financial failure.

Other movies and other franchise with amazing visuals have often failed due to a bad confusing or mediocre story.  Even some Marvel movies outside of the MCU have suffered this fate.

You may ask, “how does any of this apply to me the small business Entrepreneur?” That is a good question and this is how. Notice how the best brands do not sell there product or services directly. They tell a story about their product or service.  When your clients are invested in your story they will want to be a part of it. Think of Social media such as Facebook or Instagram. Both offer you to add to your story. To get people to follow you, you need to keep a good narrative that makes sense to them. When you go off track you will start to lose your audience.

For example, In one course on marketing, I learned about the famous “Got Milk?” The initial story they told was one of not having milk when you needed it. This was a powerful message and yealded a nice sales increase. However, they changed the “Got Milk” Story from something you desperately need into, something that cool celebrities drink. Sales dropped.  People did not seem to really care if Michael Jorden had a milk mustache or not.

This is something that is very hard to remember. I fail at this all the time. I get so excited about my service that I forget to tell a story to bring others along for the ride.

Next post I will go into a related topic, and that is, you need to stop marketing your product or service… You do need to market but not what you think you need to market :)

Your Friendly Neighborhood Entrepreneur

Isaiah O’Connor