Why the case study should be central to what you do.

Everyone loves a good story.

I was listening to a presentation the other day. There were no slides. Instead, the presenter told stories to illustrate his points and make them real and understandable to the audience. It worked.

I once heard a presenter weave three stories simultaneously, keeping the audience rapt, waiting for the conclusion to each of the stories. The technique is perhaps most famously associated in the UK with Ronnie Corbett.

Telling stories is the way that humans connect. It’s the way, for centuries, that we’ve handed down heritage and history, learning and understanding. And it’s this last word, understanding, that is critical because I want to talk here about the importance of storytelling to business.

If you want potential customers to really understand what you can do for them, what problem you can solve, how you can change their lives for the better, you need to tell them a story. A story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Stories touch our emotions and emotion is bound up in purchasing decisions.

Can do to have done

Some businesses are good at this. But so many, for whatever reason, are not. Whether through neglect, ignorance, lack of confidence or expertise, they’re missing a golden opportunity to switch on that light for people. They need to shift their focus from what they can do for people to what they’ve done for people.

At the heart of this for medium-sized businesses should be the case study. A story that demonstrates what you’re capable of by showing clearly what you have done for a happy customer. The case study can take a variety of forms – hard copy, on your website, a video (after all, a picture paints a thousand words). But in each case it should follow the same basic structure. What was the customer’s problem? What thinking did you apply? What was your solution? What was the result for the customer and how has it transformed their business?

It needn’t be complicated. I recently dealt with someone who needed widespread awareness quickly for their project in order to attract the materials they needed to complete it. I realised that this was a great visual story, which I put together. I spoke to a broadcast journalist I know and within days it was on the main regional evening news bulletin. The result? Donations came pouring in.

Your case study would, of course, have more detail than this but you get the point. Think of job interviews. You wouldn’t dream of going into one without a fund of stories showing just what you can do by showing just what you have done. It’s the same for your business. Every potential customer is interviewing you. So tell them a good story.

Are you sitting comfortably?…