Yes, It’s a Story...

A post floated past my feed the other day, claiming that B2B marketers are not really storytellers, which reminded me of a video that got some buzz a few years ago, including on AdWeek, where Stefan Sagmeister, a designer, told marketers, “No fuckhead you are not a storyteller”.

If you are a regular reader of this, you’ll know I have no problem with being called a fuckhead, but we should be storytellers. And I don’t mean adding this to our BS bloated LinkedIn profile titles; I mean the craft.

Accusing B2B marketers of not being storytellers could be true, not because we shouldn’t be, it’s just the stories are so shit it’s hard to see the craft in action, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

A press release is a story, and it’s clearly marketing.

They often tell very human stories of triumph (or tragedy) about someone buying or selling their company, securing investment, the team's ingenuity in moving the category ball forward with new product innovation, or someone scoring their dream job.

The sleepless nights, the realization of dreams, the human endeavor, and the challenges overcome reduced to a quote of “how we are delighted to announce that the leading, AI-driven, innovative company shifted the paradigm and did a thing that was unprecedented”.

And suddenly, who gives a fuck?

We could.

The founder lived off ramen noodles and credit card debt, and now has a fucking BOAT.

It’s the same with customer case studies: a client in distress had a problem, the vendor rode in on a big white horse, problem solved. The end.

I agree, that’s not storytelling, there’s no tension, no arc, no jeopardy, no reason to tune in next week.

I'm not saying we should be entertainers, all rainbows, crayons, and unicorns; we still need to flog our gear. But the journey is the interesting bit.

When a potential buyer is reading a case study, they already know the end; otherwise, you wouldn’t be sharing the story with them.

They want to know the challenges they will face, the pitfalls, and the reality of the journey of change they are embarking on, and how they can avoid getting fired when those inevitable challenges arise.

Aside from being the interesting bit, in today’s age of AI, when information is abundant and free, information itself has no competitive value; we need to give it the feels.

Your buyer is a prompt away from everything they need to know about your product category, and your competitor's AI can do the same. The facts, the specs, the use cases, and the comparisons are now table stakes.

And of course, AI-generated content is the average of everything that has been written before. It is competent, but statistically smooth, beige, and lacking anything that might cut through and stir the soul.

But let’s not blame AI, we have been writing B2Boring content for years, we really didn’t need AI to ruin that experience, it was already dull, we can just do it faster and at scale.

And yes, I have played my part in the misuse of the word “leading” to the point that it’s now meaningless. I’ve said it before, that’s why they don’t give us nice things.

What hasn’t changed, whoever is generating the words, is why it matters to this specific human, in their specific situation, with their specific fears and ambitions.

The fact that we can’t tell them a decent tale doesn’t mean we are not storytellers; we are just a bit shit at it.

BTW - Back in 2018, my chum Robert Rose wrote a fabulous rebuttal to the Sagmeister video - Yes, You Better be a F**king Storyteller

Oh and.... this is what Claude said when I asked it to review, which made me laugh:

The only risk is LinkedIn being squeamish about "shit" in a headline, though given you're using the word freely throughout the body copy that ship has probably sailed.

The robots are wise :-)