Make Your Business a Gift: Unleash Your Storytellers

By David Mills
on December 16, 2014

I grew up watching a local car dealer advertise with a big white cowboy hat and a parade of farm and zoo animals.  He was giving us the gift of amusement.   It was memorable, but I was dubious about the kind of car buying experience I might have on his lot, because the elephant wasn't telling a story that created confidence in his auto expertise.   When we come to realize that we need to use a story-based approach for our organization, we can feel pressure to put ourselves in the movie business, or recruit a family member to become our amateur (and often ineffective) television spokesperson.  Storytelling should be a priority for every business in the this era of social media, but it doesn't require filming your own reality TV show, because an army of storytellers are already available to you-- they are your customers.

Insights into Story-Based Marketing

By David Mills
on November 25, 2014

Story-based marketing is a primary focus of the Story Collaborative.   Story-based marketing includes skills, practices and technology, but more than anything else it moves us toward a new way of thinking.  As we undergo a story paradigm shift, we can transition from antiquated and ineffective approaches of marketing, based in a rapidly expiring perspective about people and communication, toward a viral and powerful approach that places our goods, service-- our value-- into the lives of consumers directly through their story.

Demystifying brand Stories

By David Mills
on November 25, 2014

The word "story" has become a buzz-word in the last couple of years. Everyone seems to be using the vague concept of story in reference to marketing strategy and brand equity. But, what is story in a professional context?

Is Failure in the Story You Tell? Maybe it Should Be.

By David Mills
on June 24, 2014

You can get to know a company, department or organization by the stories they tell.

Failure isn't usually the topic of most organizational stories, but maybe it should be.

Marketers Ruin Everything: How to Become a Storyteller

By David Mills
on May 13, 2014

Being in business or organizational leadership doesn't leave us room to be romantic about the way we wish the world would behave. That romantic view of the world causes us to hesitate in moving into new marketing and communication realities because we are too busy observing how we wish things would "not be." We want the methods that we have learned to work and continue working. But the truth is, things have changed.