11 Oct Powerful Stories Can Be a Transformative Industry Tool
In our previous article, Inventing Story Where None Exists: Engaging Visionary Buyers! we dove in and explored storytelling as an essential business broker tool. This article was based on Glen Cooper’s recent webinar from the series “Glen Cooper on The Nuts and Bolts of Selling a Business.” It is safe to state that Cooper likely feels that there is no tool as powerful as that of storytelling in the world of business brokerage. Properly utilized, storytelling has enormous power.
Don’t Underestimate Information Gathering
A potentially overlooked aspect of the business broker storytelling process is that of communication. In order to weave an amazing and cultivating story that will appeal to buyers and sellers alike, it is important to gather information. This means investing the time to get to know a client and understand their motivation and, of course, their story.
Cooper acknowledges that sometimes sellers may be reluctant to share too much of their own story. There are many reasons why this may occur. On such occasions, it is necessary for you to be able in improvise. There is always a story to tell. There is always also a reason why a business is worth buying, and a way that a business can be transformed. If nothing else works, you can always tell your own story and highlight why you are the expert on selling businesses.
Your Buyer is the Hero
Stories have heroes. In the case of selling a business, the hero is the person that is going to sweep in and take the business to the next level. It is a story of evolution and reaching new heights while simultaneously achieving one’s own goals.
As far as the seller is concerned, Cooper notes, “When you tell the seller’s story, you want to talk about the challenges that the seller faced and how those challenges were overcome, as well as what the challenges are today.”
It is no accident that so many of today’s mass culture storytelling revolves around sequels. The notion that there is a “storytelling continuum” where a buyer can plug into something that already has a history and is great and can be a powerful motivating force. Most epic stories have the hero as part of some sort of continuum. In other words, the hero does not simply appear out of nothingness. The hero is actually part of the pre-existing world, and it is the hero’s mission to transform the world, in some fashion, for the better.
The Moral of the Story
As Cooper notes, every story has a moral and the story of why a given business is a good buy is no different. He stated, “You shouldn’t take a listing if you can’t envision the buyer that should buy it. You envision the buyer that should buy the business and then you tell the story of the business that matches the right buyer. And that’s what the moral of the story is. The moral of the story is that this business is the perfect fit.”
From Cooper’s perspective, and based on his decades of hands-on experience, there is no replacement and no substitute for the incorporation of storytelling into your strategy and approach. Being a great business broker or M&A advisor is about guiding buyers and sellers to finding a profitable and better path forward. Nothing helps guide people toward that path quite like the power of story.
