Share the core of your business in a way that engages the people you want to work with.

 

What is your brand story? It is a hero story – in particular, the hero story of your business. If you don’t feel like your business is particularly heroic, please be assured that it is.

 

Businesses are created for a reason – to serve and support certain people who have a particular challenge and a need or desire for things to be better, simpler, easier, more fun, more accurate, or more meaningful, among many other outcomes. 

Your business is no different. Here are five questions to ask yourself to help ascertain the hero story that will resonate with an enthusiastic audience.

 

1. What inspired you to start your business? What was the original spark?

Some founders create a business based on a gap they can discern in their industry, to help fill a need for clients who aren’t being served. Others have creative ideas and want to make them come to life, and then find clients who share their vision. Many founders see how things could be done better, more efficiently, or at less of a cost and seek to create a business that offers these things to their clients. What was the reason you started your business?

2. What is a pervasive challenge that you see your audience facing – one that you are helping them address and overcome every day?

Whether you created your business to share your skills, talents, and live in greater alignment with your passion, or you are filling a need that you see in the world, you are helping people. What is the core challenge you help to address? Once you identify this, why does overcoming this challenge matter to the people you are helping? What can they do once they receive your support? What doors open to them?

3. What do you have a beef with? Go on a small rant about any business practices or gaps in your industry that you are actively filling

Even for those founders who like to keep the focus on what they do best, there are obvious limitations, frustrations, and gaps in any industry. Sometimes certain customers aren’t being served at all. Sometimes business practices are shady or overpriced. Sometimes it’s obvious that things could be more efficient, or more personable, or more sincere, or more bespoke. 

We recently worked with a general contractor who voiced a lot of frustration in the home renovation business, where too often, homeowners are left with a larger bill, a longer timeline, and a lot of uncertainty during their renovation. He wants to help fix this – to improve the reputation of the industry – starting with the way he runs his operation. What is your beef?

4. Be a fly on the wall of a conversation where a beloved customer is referring your business to one of their friends. What are they saying?

This is a fun exercise when determining your hero story. Pretend you can invisibly overhear one of your clients having a conversation with a friend. They have realized that their friend might love your brand as much as they have, and they enthusiastically pull out their phone to show their friend your business and talk about their experience working with you directly, enjoying your products, or using your services. What are they saying? In a way, this exercise is a way to imagine the most ideal client reviews you could receive and help you pinpoint what matters to you the most. Some examples:

“They showed up on time, worked quickly, and were super nice and knowledgeable the whole time.”

“This was such a beautiful venue, the staff were so supportive, and it made planning and hosting my event so easy.”

“I’ve tried lots of solutions before, but they never worked for me. This one did.”

5. What is your ideal client’s story?

The best brand stories actually have your clients in mind. What you value, they value. What you have encountered as a challenge yourself, they have too. When you take the time to speak with your clients and prospects, learn more about their desires, fears, and hesitations, and weave these insights into the story of your brand, you are telling their story. And this is what makes a brand story so compelling.

 

If you want to nail your brand story and connect with your ideal audience, book a consultation with us. We can’t wait to meet you.

 

 

Brittany Veenhuysen 

Copywriter & Co-Founder of BrandPsyche

Brittany is a business & brand writer with over 10 years of crafting brand, marketing and sales copy. Her strategic, language-based skills bridge the gap between businesses and their ideal audience, resulting in effective messaging that informs their ongoing marketing efforts, internal communications, and product & service development.