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Ask the Author: Storyteller Tactics – Feb 2024

John: (00:00) Can you tell stories when you haven’t decided on a brand identity yet?

Yes you can. Hero and Guide will help you put your customer at the heart of your brand story. The customer is the Hero, you are his/her Guide. This tactic gives you six options to choose from to work out what kind of Guide you might be. You can go much deeper into brand identity with the Archetypes expansion pack.

Solly: (13:00) I work in the nuclear power industry and need to explain vital safety concepts to students.

Failure stories make great teaching tools, especially when the stakes are so high – as in the nuclear industry. Four cards will help here: Downfall and Epic Fail are stories about mistakes and the aftermath. Pride and Fall is the story of good intentions gone bad (I personally love that story). And Thoughtful Failures points out how you can recover from failure – by learning the right lessons, not covering up.

Story Hooks: (25:00) We do a deep dive into one card.

Brian: (46:40) How can real estate stories stand out from the crowd?

Do a comparison: real estate listing vs AirBnb listing. See whose story gets told. If you’re going to stay for a week in a house, you want to see reviews from other customers who’ve stayed there. But if you’re going to live for years in a house, all you see are descriptions of rooms and photographs. What about the ‘reviews’ of the people who lived there before you? What are the stories of living in the house and the neighbourhood?

Watch previous Ask the Author sessions here.

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