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Stories to stand out

I came across a wonderful story of a singer who worked hard and trained himself to be a good singer. Ray worked in a shoe factory and one day he decided that wants to be a singer and songwriter. He worked hard and put in lot of hours in training by listening to records. He achieved what he wanted to achieve.

Apart from his singing, what moved me is his powerful story. I decided to listen to his music because I was moved by his story. So many times we have seen that stories are building blocks of any successful purpose. Stories provide authenticity to whole mission of person or an organization. Without stories you are one of numerous noodle in a bowl and if someone throws noodles on wall some sticks to the wall and lot of them fall on the floor and forgotten. Those which are on the wall are plain lucky and will fall after sometime.

I read somewhere “Experience stays with people while money goes away”. To build memorable experiences, one requires powerful stories. Stories which can become talk of the town. Oprah Winfrey is famous because of stories she chose to show on her show. Tom shoes are selling shoes with the help of incredible stories around their efforts of helping poor and needy children in Africa. Internet is full of interesting customer experiences shared via stories about Zappos.

It is important to have stories in these tough times. Businesses which some compelling stories to tell will stand out. So is true for individuals.

Take away point – Have a powerful story which you can narrate to your customers.




3 Comments so far »

  1. by rads , on April 30, 2009 11:05 PM

    Awesome write-up...and it is soo true...I can't help but agree with you...especially after the Susan Boyle episode I strongly felt that more than her voice it is the way she portrayed herself that she's never been kissed and she lives with her cat alone, seemed to attract people more than her song...so the audience obviously did not expect more from her and when she chose a tragic song that more or less gelled with her story it only got them to tears and they couldn't help but applaud...frankly I felt she wasn't so good at it...nobody who's listened to the original will like her version

  2. by Ramesh , on May 1, 2009 5:55 AM

    Yes - so true. Stories indeed do stand out. Incidentally , if you look at the Paul Potts story ( the winner of the same Telant Show in 2007, in which Susan Boyle is now making waves), its uncannily similar to the Boyle story now.

    Your cracking form continues Adesh. Another nice post.

  3. by Adesh Sidhu , on May 1, 2009 12:37 PM

    @ Rads Thanks. susan's story is very powerful and whole world is noticing it because of her story.

    @ Ramesh As always thanks for encouragement.