I stared at my phone and tried to think of a reason why I could ignore this call. The one from my boss. The one I was dreading. Thinking of none and knowing I'd have to see him in 30 minutes anyway, I picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

No greeting, just "Where are you?"

"About 30 minutes from the office." I said.

"Come see me immediately when you get here."

And so with a stomach full of doom I drove back to the office, parked, and walked into the elevator. As the doors sealed my fate I thought about simply driving away and not coming back - but the elevator was already moving. Moving to the 3rd floor. The floor where the scariest man in the world, my boss, was.

With a loud ding, the elevator doors opened and heads suddenly began popping up over cubicle walls, not unlike prairie dogs in the desert. Simultaneously the sound of laughter began and someone yelled out, "HEY! THERE'S SPACE RANGER!"

And so went my most embarrassing story...

People love stories. They draw us in, and cause to stop what we're doing and pay attention. Some companies know this and so they create stories that beg to be told.

For instance, I have a weird-looking pair of shoes from TOMS. People don't recognize them so I get asked what they are. I tell them that the founder of TOMS was in Argentina once and he saw kids running around with no shoes on. So he formed a company that makes these shoes - that mimic the design of traditional Argentinian shoes - and whenever a pair is sold they give another pair to a child somewhere in the world. Now they've given over 600,000 pairs of shoes to kids who had none.

Cool story, but let's look at it from a marketing perspective. TOMS talks less about WHAT they do (sell shoes) in favor of communicating WHY they do it (giving shoes to kids). One creates a story, the other simply creates another shoe company. The interesting thing about TOMS is that they've done very little marketing and advertising. They haven't needed to. The people that wear their shoes tell the story.

Business owners seem to constantly get stuck talking about what they do. But there's no story there. Start talking about WHY you do it. Start getting personal. Start being authentic and genuine. The danger of course is that doing so makes us feel uncomfortable since we're putting ourselves out there. But I heard this saying once and I repeated it the other day to a client, "That which is most personal is most relate-able."

When you get personal and tell a story people start to listen. When people are listening they're paying attention. And when they're paying attention you have the opportunity to build a relationship that benefits both of you.

Start telling your story and WHY you do what you do. Your clients will start paying attention.