What’s in this article:
- Another chapter in our TED Talk lessons for marketers
- Lori Gottlieb’s TED Talk teaches you how to take full control of your brand’s story in a way that leads to massive success for your business
- It’s important that you regularly step outside of your own shoes and look at your company from a variety of perspectives
As the title suggests, Lori Gottlieb’s TED Talk, “How changing your story can change your life”, focuses on the importance of truly knowing and understanding your story in order to take control of it.
In it, Gottlieb talks about two anecdotal letters she received from readers of her “Dear Therapist” newspaper column. Long story short, both letters were about the same issue — but were told from two different perspectives. As Gottlieb retells the anecdote, it becomes clear that each party had failed to see the “big picture” — and, in turn, had lost control of their own story.
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While Gottlieb’s Talk is more about personal growth, her words of wisdom can be applied to the business world in a number of ways. Here, we’ll discuss how to take full control of your brand’s story in a way that leads to massive success for your business.
“Un-Know” Your Brand to Truly Understand Your Purpose
Every company on Earth has a unique reason for existing.
This goes well beyond “making money” — and even goes beyond the generic idea of “serving the customer to the best of your ability”.
Really, both of these statements should be a given. But they shouldn’t be the only things keeping your organization moving.
However, it’s pretty easy to get wrapped up in the pursuit of profits and business growth — and to lose sight of the real reason you originally started your business. Let this go on for too long, and you’ll have a tough time telling your brand apart from the many other companies in your industry.
As Gottlieb explains, “…Part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself. To let go of the one version of the story you’ve been telling yourself so that you can live your life, and not the story that you’ve been telling yourself about your life.”
Obviously, generating revenues, increasing sales, and growing your following are all essential to business success.
But, if you lose sight of your purpose in doing so, you’ll eventually find yourself in a position you never wanted to be in in the first place.
It’s crucial, then, that you regularly revisit your company’s purpose, vision, and mission to ensure you’re growing for the right reasons. At times, this might require a “reset” of sorts — but it will ultimately keep your team aligned with your organization’s true goals over time.
Remove the Invisible “Bars” Keeping You from Your Goals
In her Talk, Gottlieb mentions that we often set limitations on our own abilities based not on our actual circumstances, but on our perception of these circumstances.
On a personal level, Gottlieb explains, this typically comes in the form of excuses: “That will never work”, or “That’s impossible, because I can’t…”.
In the business world, we often limit our efforts based on the status quo within our industry. We’ll make any number of excuses for not taking further steps, such as:
- “That’s not how we do things in our company.”
- “That’ll never work for our organization.”
- “No one else in our industry is doing that…it must not work.”
Sure, not every innovative idea you have will pay off for your business. And you certainly don’t want to invest into a given initiative unless you have a clear idea of how it’ll work out.
But, in never allowing your team to think outside-the-box for fear of failure, you’ll place a limit on what your brand will be able to accomplish within your industry.
It’s vital, then, that you break down any barriers you’ve unwittingly created, and that you give your team the freedom to achieve what you’re fully capable of achieving.
However, Gottlieb also makes clear that “freedom comes with responsibility”.
Once you’ve freed your organization from your self-limiting ideas, you’ll still want to remain vigilant in terms of how you proceed. As we said, not every path will lead your business to greatness. As your team presses forward, you need to know which paths to stick to — and which to avoid at all costs.
The idea is to be strategic and intentional with your outside-the-box thinking — and just as strategic and intentional when paving a path forward. While your team likely will be limited in specific ways, approaching these limitations with a clear plan will eventually allow you to overcome them — and to continue writing your story as you see fit.
See the Whole Picture
The point of Gottlieb’s hypothetical scenario is that seeing things from all sides allows you to know all the facts, and to write a more realistic and comprehensive “next chapter” of your story.
In the business world, it’s important that you regularly step outside of your own shoes and look at your company from a variety of perspectives.
This ties into much of what we’ve said thus far: If you’re only seeing things from your own perspective, you’re likely missing a big part of the whole picture. In turn, you’re likely setting limitations on what you think your team can accomplish, based in large part on an incomplete understanding of how things are.
Gottlieb asks her audience, straight out:
“What would happen if you looked at your story and wrote it from another person’s point of view? What would you see now from this wider perspective?”
In order to write your brand’s story, you need to understand how your company fits into your customers’ lives, your industry, and the world as a whole.
It’s all about thinking of your brand in different contexts.
In thinking from your customer’s perspective, you’ll want to focus on the actual value you bring to their lives. What does your brand allow them to accomplish that they couldn’t before? How do your products/services compare with those of your competition? What would your customers’ lives be like without your brand?
Looking at your industry as a whole, it’s important to know what you bring to the table. What do you do better than the other brands in your niche? What innovations have you brought to your industry? How have your efforts changed the course of your industry as a whole?
Finally, consider the value your organization brings to the global community. On top of the value that you provide within your niche, what are you doing to make the world a better place? How have your charitable or extracurricular initiatives helped the people you’ve aimed to help? What changes and improvements have your efforts had on the world around you?
When writing (or rewriting) your brand’s story, you need to take all of these factors into consideration. In doing so, you’ll ensure that your next chapter will lead to positive things for everyone your company reaches.
Listen to the Right People: Your Best Customers
In Gottlieb’s hypothetical story, the crux of the issue is that the two parties (a husband and wife) aren’t communicating all that well — which is the main reason they’re unable to see from each other’s perspectives.
As it turns out, both stories could have played out much differently — and potentially led to much more happiness — had both parties been more focused on communicating.
For our purposes, it’s essential that you seek out those who will help you write your story in a way that allows your organization to thrive. As discussed above, this means listening to others outside of your company to gather more information and insight.
It also means knowing who to listen to — and whose words to take with a grain of salt.
Of course, listening to your customers is the key to being able to consistently deliver laser-focused value to them. Continually learning about your most-engaged and most-valuable customers’ evolving needs will help keep your team on the right track — and keep your story moving in the right direction.
That said, not all customer feedback is worth paying too much attention to. Listening to the wrong people (e.g., poorly-fit, one-time customers, etc.) can derail your team’s efforts — and lead your organization away from your intended goals.
The takeaway here is to think critically about the information and feedback you collect from your audience. While you certainly want to consider how this info will play into your brand’s overall story, it’s important to focus on the information that will enable you to write the best possible version of this story over time.
Keep Building on Your Story Over Time
We’ve avoided talking about a “happy ending” for your brand’s story for a reason:
As long as your company exists, its story will continue to be written — whether or not you’re holding the pen.
Needless to say, you want to have control over how your story is written at all times.
The good news is that it gets easier and easier to write your story the longer you hold the pen.
- You’ll gain a more comprehensive understanding of the “big picture”
- You’ll become less inhibited by blockers — self-imposed or otherwise
- You’ll have a stronger foundation upon which to build the rest of your story
But the inverse is also true: The longer you allow your brand’s story to be written by outside forces, the more difficult it will be to take control of it. Eventually, you’ll lose sight of your organization’s original goals and purpose — and you’ll be hard-pressed to make any kind of substantial impact within your niche.
The lesson here is two-fold:
First, you need to take full control of your brand’s story as soon as you possibly can. The sooner you do so, the sooner your team can embark on your journey to success.
Once you’ve taken control of your story, you need to maintain control of it from that point on.
Every passing moment is a chance for your story to progress — or for it to go off-track. Being in control of your story means always being able to take full advantage of these moments as they come.
In controlling and building your brand’s story as time goes on, you’ll inch closer and closer to making your ultimate vision for your business a reality.
As Gottlieb explains:
The only thing left to do is to pick up your pen and start writing your masterpiece.