Quarantine stories

How storytelling can help your business through tough times

In my work, I get to tell the stories of small businesses for an industry magazine, as well as help businesses tell their own stories via websites, blogs, presentations, speeches, etc. 

During my magazine interviews, we spend a good bit of time talking about the company’s history, and it’s common for business owners to bring up the 2008 recession as a milestone. 

“We were having a growth spurt, and then 2008 came along.”

“Less than a year after I started my business, the recession hit.”

“Believe it or not, we found a silver lining in the recession.”

Most of us tend to focus on the big highs and lows when we look back, so it’s not surprising that the recession has come up so often in these conversations. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. Everyone I know is trying to wrap their heads around the unprecedented personal, professional and economic challenges and fallout of COVID-19, and none of us know how this part of our story is going to end. 

So given that, why I am talking about stories at such a stressful, uncertain time? 

Because I believe the stories we tell ourselves and others are powerful, even when we don’t know the endings. Here are a few thoughts about how you can use storytelling to help yourself and others through this tough time.

Look back at the earlier chapters of your story.

Think about times when you’ve gone through a crisis – getting fired or laid off, facing a professional failure or disappointment, dealing with a personal or medical crisis, etc.

In the moment, these big life events seem impossible to get through, but most of us have risen above difficult times and gone on to experience success, stability, peace of mind, health (or whatever applies) again. If writing things down helps make things more concrete, make a list of the things you’ve overcome in the past. 

When you’re feeling overwhelmed by the current and/or future effects of the COVID-19 situation, look back at your story and remind yourself that you have a track record of overcoming hard times.

Skitterphoto

Keep a (professional) quarantine journal.
I’ve seen quite a few articles that suggest keeping a personal journal during these strange quarantine days, and it struck me that keeping a quarantine business journal could be interesting and valuable.

If the word “journal” makes you flinch or roll your eyes, come up with your own word for it. Log? List? The point is to keep a record of this time, and the form that takes doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be complicated, and you don’t need to spend a lot of time on it, but I think writing things down (whether online or on paper) is worth a few minutes out of your day. Here’s why:

• I don’t think I’m the only one dealing with distraction and lack of focus right now. My mind often feels like a pinball machine, with questions, worries, ideas and assignments bouncing around noisily. Writing these things down as they come along helps me organize that chaos.
  
  This might sound like the kind of note-taking you already do in your online or paper planner, but the quarantine version would zero in on the unique thoughts, concerns and ideas flowing from the situation we’re in now.
  
  Examples: Questions that pop up in the course of the day about unemployment or stimulus programs, cash flow, budgeting; what you need to (or want to) to communicate to clients or customers; brainstorming ideas about how to tweak or reinvent your work or processes. (Brainstorming "rules" are usually pretty loose, holding that no idea is too dumb to put forward because it may spark another idea; this is a good way to approach your quarantine notes.)

  
  If you tend to be a perfectionist about how things are organized and that’s likely to prevent you from ever getting started, try to let go and just commit to making a few stream-of-consciousness notes at the end of the day.

• Use your journal/log/list to keep a running list of the steps you’re taking to manage and overcome your business challenges. It’s so easy to tell ourselves that we’re not doing enough. Writing down what you’ve done so far helps override that negative soundtrack and can help you feel a little more in control.

• Use whatever is easiest – notebook, smartphone, iPad, laptop, etc.

• If you’re feeling inspired, also include non-business details or observations about quarantine life. I’m trying to do this at the end of every day because I think it will become a written time capsule of sorts that my teenage daughter and I will be glad to look back at later. My entries include the odd things we encounter on our daily “cabin fever” walks, the latest quarantine messages our local indie theater is putting on its marquee, the comfort food and snacks we’re gravitating to, what we’re watching, and our virtual visits with family and friends. 

And don’t talk yourself out of keeping notes because you haven’t been doing it from the beginning (I came close to doing this myself). Think back over the past few weeks and jot down whatever comes to mind or just start now. There are no rules.

Share your story to help other people.

Listening to the stories of people who are dealing with the same struggles/uncertainties I’ve faced personally or professionally has always been helpful to me. 

The saying “Misery loves company” can sound mean-spirited on the surface, but the truth is that while I don’t wish misery on anyone else, it is comforting to know I’m not alone in my misery during tough times.

Tracking this strange time in your professional life and turning your notes and observations into stories you can tell (via blog posts or social media or conversations) can at the very least give a shot in the arm to others who may feel they’re the only ones faltering. 

At best, your stories may inspire people and spark ideas/workarounds that may solve some of their biggest frustrations. Stories really do have power.


Share your story to help yourself. 

When I work with businesses on bios or the “About” pages on their websites, we talk about how to make this content more personal and conversational – how to give those who will read it a true sense of who you are as a business person or as a company. Much of the about/company history/bio content I come across on websites sounds like boilerplate, so it’s always refreshing to read company or individual stories that feel real. I’m a firm believer that this helps to inspire trust from the get-go. 

As we continue to deal with COVID-19 challenges, remember that people are drawn to stories and consider the possibility that being transparent about your experiences may have value for your business, too.

Many of us have been doing our best to support the local businesses we know so well. We’ve been ordering from coffee shops and restaurants that are offering curbside pickup, hoping our support can help them weather this huge hit. I’m awed by the creativity and patience my favorite businesses have shown as they’ve continued to serve customers and keep them safe. 

The updates our neighborhood coffee shop (The Third Place in Raleigh, NC) has been sending out are making me an even more loyal customer because they have shared not only their evolving offerings and safety procedures, but also the “journey.” They have been upfront about the learning curves they’ve faced in transitioning to phone and online orders and contactless pick-up. Knowing about the behind-the-scenes struggles makes an impression on me; their story of rising above matters. 

Yours does, too. Share it.  

Photos via Canva. Credits, top to bottom – Victor, Pexels; Suzy Hazelwood; Skitterphoto; Jessica Lewis; Tumisu.

"Our work doesn't speak for itself."

Last year, I stopped by the Little Free Library a couple of blocks from my house and found a small square, inviting book titled SHOW YOUR WORK. The author’s name was familiar to me; Austin Kleon is probably best-known for his book STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST.

After leafing through SHOW YOUR WORK, I happily took the book home. I remember thinking that the universe had delivered it to that Little Free Library just for me.

The book is, after all, about one of my biggest hurdles. I do a lot of writing related to personal projects (rather than paid client work), and I often let it sit in folders on my laptop instead of showing it out in the world.

SHOW YOUR WORK has been a great nudging, encouraging force for me, but it also included a section that speaks to one of my deeply felt beliefs about business writing: You need to tell the story of your business well in order to connect with the people you hope to work with and help.

Your story should have a human element, color, warmth and real-ness. It should not be a recitation of facts. “X company was founded in X year to provide X for X customers. It has grown X amount and provides X services.” Because I’ve already provided a sample of a more colorful way to tell a business story elsewhere on my website (you can read that here), I won’t recreate the wheel in this post. Instead, I’ll share Austin Kleon’s wise words via these screen-grabs from his book, which has a fun, inviting design.

I hope this will inspire you to think about your business story in a new way.

~ Carla Atkinson

‘DATA WITH A SOUL.’

I wrote this blog post in the early days of my business, and moved it over here from my old website; after all, there are some core writing/communications principles that don't go out of style.  When I glanced back over this post, though, I was taken aback to realize that it may seem quaint and dated.

Part of this uphill battle I fought for so many years has been won, at least at a high level: These days, everyone talks about the importance of story-telling, my long-time "soapbox" cause.

But I'll keep this post in the mix because we still have some finer points to talk about on the storytelling front: While more companies, universities and nonprofits embrace the idea of telling good stories about their work, some are still uneasy about letting loose and dropping the insider jargon and down-in-the-weeds references they have used for so long.

In 30 years of writing for a wildly varied assortment of for-profit and non-profit organizations, I’ve seen the same battle over perception playing out over and over again.

Nearly everywhere, I’ve encountered people who were convinced that if their story was told as a story, with anecdotes or examples and in a conversational style, it would instantly lose credibility.

Years apart, colleagues in two very different nonprofits expressed their deep-seated fear that an overhaul of their publication to a more magazine-like format would turn it into People. One mention of the word “magazine,” and all they could conjure up was a celebrity glossy. They were genuinely alarmed and not easily convinced.

Credibility by way of jargon

These and other intelligent, highly educated colleagues over the years would hold tight to their academic or scientific or industry jargon, their eye-glazing detail and their “just-the-facts, ma’am” approach as credentials of a sort.

One academic protested that his work didn’t need examples or more approachable language and explanations because there were only a few people in the world who followed his area of specialty, and they didn’t care about that sort of thing.

If there has been a common thread in my career, it has been this uphill battle to convince people that taking something complex and making it colorful and engaging is a good thing … that everyone, no matter how brilliant or credentialed, likes to be entertained when they read.

I’ve seen stellar short- and long-form writing (from ad campaigns to magazine articles) numbed-down after too many people in too many meetings gave in to this kind of insecurity – to the notion that it is more important to impress than it is to engage.

It’s always heartening to see businesses and nonprofits where the truly creative stuff makes it out into the world, unfiltered by “the committee” – places where the creatives are allowed to live up to their job description. (After all, it does seem like a colossal waste of money to hire people with skills you have no intention of using.)

Postscript:

I watched a TED talk by Brene Brown a few weeks after writing this post, and I was struck by the story she told at the beginning. An event planner was struggling with how to describe Brown in promoting an upcoming speaking engagement. 

She thought calling Brown a researcher would lead people to assume that her presentation would be boring, so she suggested calling her a “storyteller.”

Brown recoiled at the description. “The academic, insecure part of me was like, ‘What?’” 

But she came around to the idea.

“Maybe,” she thought, “stories are just data with a soul.” She told the woman to bill her as a researcher-storyteller – at which point the event planner laughed and told Brown there was no such thing. 

“… Stories are just data with a soul” is now one of my favorite quotations.