Telling a Story: What Matters Most

Storytelling -- it's all the rage.

"I love to tell stories," says one junior level candidate, "that's why I want to be in PR."

"I'm a story teller at heart," wrote another in his "cold" email to me.

"What I love about PR is the stories you get to tell," says another one.

Clearly this must be on the curriculum somewhere.

 Unfortunately, when I ask, "what's the most important thing about storytelling for PR people?" I get the blank stare - the deer in the headlights - the "oh shit, now what do I say" glaze.  And here's when we get to how much I distrust the BS or BA in PR -- because it's the rare student who learns the whole thing about this profession in the classroom.

So I'll tell you. The most important thing about storytelling is finding the story that will get RETOLD by someone else who will be heard by someone else, who will retell the story ... and so on.

To that end, boiling down the story (usually someone else's if you work at an agency) to a compelling nugget in right sized bites that are interesting enough to take hold in the reader or hearer or viewer and take time up for them to share with colleagues, family, friends and associates.

And until you can do that, you're not a storyteller we can hire....but we'll teach you.

Good reading on this is Made To Stick by Chip Heath.