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A story is the single most important thing you can share with an investor, a potential ally, or the talent you want to attract to your new venture. Whether it’s on the stage of an investor forum or sitting in a coffee shop with an audience of one, the most important thing isn’t your business plan…it’s you!
What people forget is that any time you’re before an audience, even an audience of one, from the moment the first word tumbles from your lips, you’re in an interview. Are they going to ask to look at your business model, your projections, your management team? Of course.
But the most important influence affecting their decision regarding your business IS YOU. You – because they understand that you’ve got to make that incredible transformation from inventor of the wheel to captain of the ship. They’ve got to make a decision about whether they’re going to fund your expedition, sign on as crew, or wave from the docks as you sail away. That transition from genius inventor to CEO and master of other people’s fortunes is important because you are all that stands between the opportunity they crave and the risk they fear.
They have to know that in a world of adversity, they’re investing in someone who will not flinch at the rush of misfortune. When you step onto the stage, the one question that a slide deck and business plan cannot answer is: When the body blows of a recessionary economy knock you to your knees, will you have the passion to get back on your feet?
Passion. Vision. Brilliance. That’s your toolkit.
Passion because no one wants to bet on the apathetic horse. Vision because no one wants to take on a partner whose motives are unknown or uncertain. Brilliance because no one wants to invest their time and their sweat and their money in a black box. They have to understand the nature of your innovation.
Share these with your audience using the power of a good story. The most important and impactful story you can tell is the Eureka Story–that brilliant moment of inspiration that allowed you to bring something new into the world. It’s a powerful story because it locks in perceptions of your expertise and authority right from the start.
In 1839, in Woburn, Massachusetts, a man named Charles had been researching rubber for five years, certain it had useful properties. But his friends, surrounding him in his family’s general store one day, begged him to give up the research that had consumed him and drained his family’s fortune. In a fury, he threw a ball of raw black India rubber into the wood burning stove. It hit the stove and sizzled and came away changed. Charles Goodyear realized in that moment that he had discovered vulcanization,a process that ensures that rubber won’t melt in heat or crack in cold. Soon Charles Goodyear had earned enough to repay his family’s debts and create a company that would make his name famous.
Stories are powerful tools, not just on stage, but off, too. Stories lead to conversations, to relationships, to long-term allies and partners. That’s the gold. People who can fund you learned a long time ago that this is the stage where the idea is inseparable from the creator. We’re not working in a lab anymore… we’re in the real world where you have to get people to believe what you say before they buy what you do.
“Listeners seem to pay the most attention to founders who tell a story about their company: where it’s headed, the dragons it’s going to slay, and the pots of gold it’s going to unearth.”
— John May, distinguished angel investor and the author of Every Business Needs an Angel.
Guest contributor Khris Baxter is founder of Baxter Baker & Associates (BaxterBaker.com), a presentation and communications consulting firm that offers one-on-one coaching and presentation workshops for entrepreneurs, executives, and trial lawyers. Khris is also a screenwriter and producer whose body of work includes numerous optioned screenplays and one produced film. He’s an adjunct professor at the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at Queens University in Charlotte, NC, and a member of the Virginia Film Office.
