This is part two of a three-part series on the impact, power and significance of Story. For part one, click here!

This second column on Story shares the importance of telling your audience their Very Best Story.

I learned the benefits of telling the audience their Very Best Story while helping build the first cellular telephone company in the Triangle.

Cellular service started as a local business. The FCC licensed two companies per market; one the existing telephone company and to bring competition to the monopoly telephone industry they set aside the second license for a new entrepreneurial entrant. That was us, Cellular One of the Triangle.

As our network was being built—we first provided service on September 15, 1985 with just ten cell sites operational at launch compared to the 87 T-Mobile maintains to serve the same geography — I spent my time out in the market, recruiting dealers who could sell and install car phones, and looking for promotional partners.

Most importantly I was meeting with the leading real estate developers, builders, contractors, and brokers in the area, any and all involved in the real estate trades figuring they would be the largest early adopter segment.

In these pioneer days, 95% of cellular phones were car mounted and cost $2,000, no consumer-friendly bundling deals yet being offered — you wanted a phone, you paid for it. And while it is hard to compare airtime costs then and now, since it’s packaged so differently now, my study indicates folks were paying at least five times more for a minute of talk time than they do today.

So, it was a significant expense — $2,000 adjusted for inflation comes to $5,000 today — and led me to consider it likely you would not pay for this if you were only in your car during your 20 minute commute but you would invest in this technology if you spent much of the day in your car, away from the office, because now with a phone present in the field you’d improve your business reach and effectiveness.

My marketing mantra at the start of my career was ‘Be Big Somewhere’ and with limited marketing resources we wanted to show up big for the real estate trades who could see the $2000 as an investment, not an expense.

At my first real estate meetings I shared a Story that showed how the features of our service would provide great benefits. I told them I wasn’t trying to sell them — we were months from providing service — but out of respect for their industry leadership I wanted their answer to the question ‘What’s the best way to talk to their colleagues about cellular service?’

I was stunned by the responses my Story solicited.

I’d grown certain that car-plus-car-phone made the real estate trades the best bet for early marketing and sales success but for every lunchtime companion who showed interest there were five who weren’t impressed at all, some even dismissive, saying things like ‘Clearly I don’t need this, I’ve been successful with a pager’ or ‘You want me to put a phone in my car, taking away the last private place I retreat to think strategically about my business. Why would I do that?’.

Note: In 1985 we were still years away from experiencing the impact of a generation growing up with tech abundant, becoming the ‘so hungry for the next big thing we line up at an Apple store the day before’ tech savvy country we’ve become — our Cellular One office had one Sun computer for the engineer and cell site technicians to share, one IBM PC for finance and accounting, and one IBM PC for our administrator. It would be five years before I’d have a PC on my desk, maybe another three or four before I had one in my home.

But as unimpressed as most of my lunch companions were with my cellular features and benefits, when it came to the Story, they were very impressed. Enthusiastically so, when the conversation turned to their industry’s contribution to the growth of the Triangle. With genuine pride and great expectations for what was coming these real estate professionals celebrated the critical mass of growth finally coming together — we were just then becoming the market now so widely respected and they were excited about their role in making it happen.

After a week of meetings following this pattern of disinterest — I tweaked our benefits Story, but it didn’t help — I finally decided to mix things up and figured I’d flip the script with my next round of lunches.

I would weave together what I had learned from my previous meetings and practice the best way to tell them their Very Best Story, the one certain to attract their attention because they loved it, making me attractive to them.

As I told them their profession’s Very Best Story about how excitement is building in the Triangle, I invited them to add their own riff next, and they did, eagerly, with pride. Only after they’d shared a full serving of their successful contributions did I introduce Cellular One’s Story, now in two parts.

First, I told them our cellular services’ features and benefits message, much like I had been delivering it.

The second part was new and each time I told it I made it clear it was inspired by the high-performance standards they established for the rest of the Triangle business community.

It was the Story of how Cellular One of the Triangle will always be striving to be the cellular service provider the Triangle deserves, to make our contribution to the excitement building in the Triangle.

Just as their Very Best Story was made up of specific instances of, for instance, a particular real estate developers’ accomplishments — Stories come alive in the particulars — our Very Best Story of Service to the Triangle wasn’t just a general promise; we offered specifics.

A couple examples: We ran the business locally, with decision making authority here in the Triangle (our competition was Sprint, operating out of Kansas City); we would form partnerships with Triangle businesses as dealers and phone installers, sharing our success by bringing them new revenue streams (the competitor was hiring their own in-house sales force and building their only installation facility in Raleigh); and with our dealer network in place, covering the Triangle, we’d promise immediate replacement if their phone broke (their customers would have to drive to Raleigh).

We promised the Story of our company would about making their Very Best Story even better.

I found that by first telling them their Very Best Story I attracted them by being attractive. Once I had their appreciative attention and they were ready to hear our Very Best Story, always telling the version that made their Very Best Story even better.

Our marketing campaign, “Excitement is Building in the Triangle”, coupling their success with our arrival, included newspaper and radio ads that celebrated the Triangle. For instance, a series of full-page newspaper ads highlighted the accomplishments of a rotating roster of real estate leaders; once we’d attracted the attention of other real estate professionals interested in these leaders’ Stories, their brains fully engaged, we told them our Story.

Our success? An independent survey at the end of 18 months of operations showed we had a 64% market share even though our airtime was a bit more expensive than Sprint’s and they discounted phones when we couldn’t afford to.

Here’s a formula you can adapt to your purposes. See your customers as an audience first so you remember you have to attract their attention or there’s no point in communicating with them. The best way to do that is to tell them an authentic version of Their Very Best Story. When you’ve attracted their appreciative attention then tell them the version of Your Very Best Story that promises to make Their Very Best Story even better.

“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!

You can also find more ways to explore your creative genius in this column’s companion radio program, broadcasting on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and posted here on Chapelboro!

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