I occasionally say something on stage that sounds a little harsher than I mean it:
People don’t care about your story. They care about theirs.
Of course people care about stories.
And of course they can care deeply about yours.
I’ve watched speakers hold entire rooms with deeply personal stories about things that happened to them.
But there’s a difference between telling people what happened to you and creating a story that means something to them.
That’s the bit that requires skill.
Because while you might be the person telling the story, somewhere inside it your audience needs to find a reason to come with you.
Ideally, they need to find a little bit of themselves.
Your story needs to earn its place
I tell personal stories in my keynotes.
One of them is about the first three presentations I ever delivered.
The first was bad.
The second wasn’t much better.
By the third, I’d started watching the people around me and realised something.
Most of them weren’t particularly good either.
And that gave me a choice.
I could keep copying what everybody else was doing.
Or, if I wanted a different result, I was going to have to try something different.
That’s why I tell that story.
Not because I think an audience desperately needs to know about Michael Philpott’s first three presentations.
They don’t.
The story earns its place because of where it takes them.
If you want different results, you have to be willing to try different things.
Now my experience has become a vehicle for an idea the audience can apply to their own lives.
That’s a very different use of personal storytelling.
The best personal stories contain a bridge
There’s a structure you’ll often see great speakers use.
Life is good now.
But it wasn’t always this way.
Something happened.
There was a fall, failure, loss, challenge or period where things went horribly wrong.
Then came the climb.
Lesson by lesson.
Decision by decision.
Mistake by mistake.
Eventually they arrive somewhere different.
And now those experiences drive their mission to help somebody else make the same journey.
That can be incredibly powerful.
But notice why.
The audience isn’t simply watching somebody else’s life story.
They’re being handed a map.
The speaker is effectively saying:
I’ve been somewhere you might recognise. Here’s what I discovered while I was there. Maybe something I learned can help you.
That’s the bridge.
Without it, a personal story can become autobiography.
With it, somebody else’s story can start becoming ours.
People want to see themselves in the story
This came up during an interview I did after speaking at Southern SaaS a few years ago.
We were talking about storytelling when the interviewer essentially reflected the idea back to me:
“So what you’re saying is people want to see themselves in your story?”
Exactly.
That’s the game.
Can I tell a story in a way that allows you to travel through it with me?
Can you recognise the frustration?
The ambition?
The fear?
The problem?
The hope?
Can I ask a question that places you inside the experience?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if…?
Have you ever found yourself…?
What would change for you if…?
Now we’re not simply exchanging information.
We’re creating an experience.
And this is where storytelling overlaps beautifully with charismatic communication.
Stories, metaphors, analogies and rhetorical questions all appear among the Charismatic Leadership Tactics I’ve studied and taught for years.
They help us take an idea out of our own head and create something another person can see, feel and understand.
Good storytelling is audience-focused.
Enter Mr Miyagi
One of my favourite ways to explain StorySelling is The Karate Kid.
Think about Mr Miyagi.
How much of the movie is actually about him?
We learn enough.
We understand something of his history.
We see his character.
We understand that this slightly mysterious man knows considerably more than Daniel initially realises.
But Mr Miyagi isn’t the hero.
Daniel LaRusso is.
Daniel has the problem.
Daniel experiences the pain.
Daniel has something he wants.
Daniel has to learn.
Daniel has to practise.
Daniel gets frustrated.
Daniel gets knocked down.
Daniel has to step into the arena.
Mr Miyagi guides him.
Wax on.
Wax off.
He provides knowledge, training, perspective and support.
But ultimately Daniel has to do the work.
That’s the relationship I want organisations to think about when they’re telling customer stories.
Your customer is Daniel.
You’re Mr Miyagi.
Most businesses desperately want to be the hero
This is where StorySelling often goes wrong.
A company starts telling a customer success story and somehow the company becomes the most impressive character in it.
Look at our incredible product.
Look at our amazing technology.
Look at all these features.
Look at our process.
Look how innovative we are.
Look at us.
Look at us.
Look at us.
Meanwhile, the potential customer is sitting there thinking:
Yes, but what does any of this have to do with me?
You’ve made yourself the hero.
And you’ve left the person you’re supposedly trying to persuade standing outside the story.
Nobody wants the drill bit
There’s an old marketing idea I’ve always liked.
When somebody goes into a hardware store to buy a drill bit, they don’t really want a drill bit.
They want the hole.
Actually, we can go further.
They might not even want the hole.
Maybe they want the shelf the hole allows them to install.
Maybe they want somewhere to put the photographs of their kids.
The product isn’t the outcome.
It’s a means of getting there.
StorySelling works on the same principle.
The interesting part isn’t simply your solution.
The interesting part is what your solution allows somebody to change.
What painful problem existed beforehand?
What did that problem cost?
What had they already tried?
What did they want instead?
What changed?
What became possible afterwards?
That’s where the story lives.
StorySelling makes the customer the hero
The way I describe StorySelling is simple:
Craft a story where your customer, or potential customer, can see themselves as the hero on a journey to success.
They’re on a quest to overcome a painful problem.
You have something that can help.
What they want to hear isn’t simply how brilliant your solution is.
They want a powerful story about somebody in a similar situation who experienced a similar problem and achieved a meaningful outcome with a little help from your solution.
That’s completely different from a product pitch.
Instead of:
Here’s what we do.
You’re saying:
Here’s somebody like you.
Here’s the problem they were experiencing.
Here’s why it mattered.
Here’s what they tried.
Here’s what changed.
Here’s what happened afterwards.
And here’s what you could do next.
Now I can locate myself in the story.
I can think:
That’s my problem.
We’ve experienced that.
That’s what I want.
Maybe this could work for us too.
That’s when a story starts selling.
Problem. Pain. Solution. Outcome. Action.
This is why I use the PPSOA structure so often in my work.
Problem.
What is happening?
Pain.
Why does it matter?
Solution.
What changed?
Outcome.
What became possible?
Action.
What should happen next?
Notice where the product sits.
In the middle.
Not at the beginning.
We don’t start with:
“Let me tell you about our revolutionary…”
We start with the human being experiencing the problem.
Because that’s where recognition happens.
And recognition matters.
Before somebody cares about your solution, they usually need to recognise that you understand their problem.
You can be in the story without making the story about you
This is the distinction I keep coming back to.
Personal stories aren’t bad.
Company stories aren’t bad.
Founder stories aren’t bad.
Your story can create trust, credibility, emotion and connection.
Mr Miyagi absolutely belongs in The Karate Kid.
The movie wouldn’t work without him.
But imagine if halfway through the film Mr Miyagi pushed Daniel aside and said:
“Enough about you. Let me take you through 47 slides about my karate methodology.”
Different movie.
Your role matters.
Your experience matters.
Your expertise matters.
Your product matters.
Your story matters.
But ask yourself why you’re telling it.
What does the audience get from it?
What do they learn?
What do they feel?
Where can they see themselves?
What does it help them understand about their own situation?
Because the best stories don’t leave an audience thinking only:
What an interesting person.
They also leave them thinking:
What does this mean for me?
That’s why I still use the deliberately provocative line:
People don’t care about your story. They care about theirs.
It’s not an instruction to remove yourself from the story.
It’s an instruction to remember who you’re telling it for.
