Last week, we explored how to strengthen your messaging by crafting a strategic narrative.

Today I’ll share an overview of how to actually create your own strategic narrative from the ground up.

The Narrative Framework

There are a variety of ways to tell a compelling business story, but two approaches in particular that I’ve found most useful:

1. Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen, by Donald Miller.
2. Everyday Business Storytelling: Create, Simplify, and Adapt A Visual Narrative for Any Audience, by Janine Kurnoff and Lee Lazarus.

While each of these approaches stands on its own (and I highly recommend picking up both books), I’ve combined my favorite elements from both into a narrative framework.

Characters/Setting/Challenge (Current State)

• Who’s your ideal client?
• What’s their current reality?
• What do they want?
• What are the problems they need to solve to achieve what they want?

Big Idea

• A short, impactful statement that makes a bold claim about their challenges and how to resolve them. The “how” their problem will be solved, and why it matters.

Solution/Impact (Future State)

• In what specific ways does your business solve these challenges for your clients?
• What’s the big picture, high-level payoff your clients will get by solving these challenges?

Call-to-Action

• What does the path forward look like, and what’s the first step that a potential client needs to take to get started?

Notice how this approach focuses first on your ideal clients and their challenges, NOT on you, your business, or your services?

Take a moment to compare this framework to your own core messaging (on your website, etc.).

Ask yourself:

“Is the client and their challenge the primary focus of my messaging, or is it really all about me and what I do?”

“What might happen if I made the client the hero of the story?”

“What if I focused on describing my ideal client and their challenge? How might that impact how prospects relate to my messaging?”