Stories for Good - Every Company is Mission Driven with Dan Sieger

Dan Sieger from Stories for Good is our guest on this episode. As a writer and brand strategist, Dan believes your story is never finished. Instead, your story responds to the market and evolves over time. He uses the example of an employee -  when they join a company vs a year later, their story and their profile changes. We discuss how every company is mission driven and that the one thing you truly own is your brand story. 

Connect with Dan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielsieger/

Connect with Miranda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirandaoconnor-mba/

Learn more about The Art of Storytelling: https://www.theartofstorytelling.com/

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That's what stories often do, right? You're unlocking what's already in there. You're helping to bring it to life, to massage it, and and shape it in a way that, you know, is going to be compelling to the people. Something I talk to companies about is that you always need to be looking at your story to see if it's if it's matching. Right. Because, number one, your story's always changing. Number two, the needs of your customers is always changing. And three, your competitors are always changing. So you have to be able to sort of look and say, Does my story really represent where I am today? Does it represent where my customers are today and my potential customers, and does it differentiate me from others in my space? Your story is never done. Welcome back to another episode of Video Storytelling for Community Engagement by the Art of Storytelling. I'm Miranda O'Connor, and today I spoke with Dan Sieger from Stories for Good. Dan is really passionate about helping companies own their story, and we found so much in common through our similar lines of work. If you've been enjoying these podcasts, please connect with me on LinkedIn or through our website, theartofstorytelling.com We would love to hear your feedback or if you'd like to be a guest, please let us know. If you want to support the show, the number one thing you can do is share it on your social media and tag me and the guest. That helps us get the word out and we really appreciate it. Dan Sieger is in the U.S. and we connected recently through a mutual contact who heard me speaking at a webinar and thought that we should connect because we're both into storytelling. So I wanted to thank Luke Kline for making that connection. And Dan, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, yourself and your company “Stories for Good”? Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Miranda, it's great to be here. I'm excited. So I have a company called Stories for Good, and I began about a year ago, and I've been in the storytelling side for about 32 years working for companies before that. We didn't call it storytelling, you know, back back then a sort of somewhat a newer term in the business world. But, you know, I started my career PR and then got involved in the word speechwriting and then ultimately working for companies, creating brand level narratives and made the decision about a year ago to go out and do this for solopreneur small companies, large companies. Basically it's content marketing through storytelling. Excellent. Yeah. And that is very similar to what we do. We are just using the visuals for storytelling. And Dan, So in your experience, why do stories work so well? Why do people like to listen to stories and why do they really resonate with the people who listen or read them or watch them Stories, as you know, were handed down from the beginning of time right before we had the written word. We had stories. And that's how information was passed from generation to generation. And it still remains that way. People remember stories so that more people remember the emotion they feel when they hear a story. They know what it sort of does inside them. And I think that's why it's such an effective tool for businesses to bring out a little more of the emotion of what's going on in the business. Yeah, for sure. I think that's exactly why it works so well, because it is something that you remember a lot easier when, you know, if you think of a company or you think of someone that you've like heard this story or read this story. It's the story that you remember when you're remembering the person. Right. People, people, people buy into people. People buy from them. They don't buy from companies. So ultimately, it helps put a face on what could be a faceless company. You know, some companies get stuck in the in the feature and function side of things, what they do. And again, what both of us do is figuring out the why get in, getting to that core level. Yeah. Yeah. And that's you know, I like to say that that's humanizing the brand and helping your, you know, helping your company to really connect with the audience or the stakeholders or the even if it's the employees, it's humanizing your brand. And I mean, that's actually going to be the topic of our next webinar in September is going to be humanizing your brand through storytelling. Dan, what do you think are elements of a good story? So if you're doing a written piece, what would make the elements? What are the elements that are going to make the story really compelling? The three pillars that I work towards are being memorable, quotable, and honest. Right. So, you know, taking them one at a time, memorable. Well, you gotta you gotta bring in the emotion that we talked about a minute ago. You have to allow a little bit of vulnerability. You know, when when stories are real and they bring in, you know, things that are not 100% perfect, right? They connect with people. They strike something in your chord. And some people say, Oh, yeah, I've often felt the same way, too. Right. Honorable, it's got to be your story. I like to say the only thing you own in the world, the only thing you truly own, is your story. And so finding the right words to tell your story. So when I work with companies, we look and look at the competitors and we see, Oh, what words are they using to tell their story? And then we find our own words that are going to the third pillar. Honest. Right. They have to be true to you because, as you know, people can sniff out a manufactured story a mile away and it really is a difficult process. And it's very it's very you know, even for a big company, you know, I work with Solopreneur as well as well. And it's it's it's it's emotional sometimes, like coming out and like being willing to share your story. Yeah. Done that work when you've really dug deep to find what your story is then then it also and it feels really honest. So memorable. Honorable. Honest. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I don't know how you do your work. I guess you go through a series of interviews and talking to the client, and what we do is we do the same thing. We do, but we do the interviews on camera. And that is when people do feel very nervous, when they have to sit and talk about their story. And really this is like they are the subject matter experts in in their life and their business, in their brand, and they should be confident in what they have to say. And they usually are like they know, they know their stuff, but they feel there is a little bit of discomfort sitting in front of a camera telling their story. But what I find and you probably find this, too, because you're doing more written pieces, but I find, you know, you can go through the process talking to someone on camera, doing the interview, and at the end of it, they feel okay that they've that they've told their story. But what they really like is when we come back to them, we've edited their story and we've moved around the thoughts and the feelings and the content, and we've put some kind of emotional hook at the beginning. By the time they watch that video that's now maybe like three or 5 minutes, they feel pretty proud of what they said because we have massaged that story into something that makes them proud. How do your clients feel when you come back to them with their story? It's still their story, in their words, but you have massaged it into this nice piece. I think it's a great way to actually at one point to consider naming my company your story better. Right. Talked me out of it. But it is really like we're not creating anything. No, we're packaging it from out there and helping put it in a form that's really we know as storytellers is going to resonate with people. So I've certainly experienced a lot of what you just mentioned there. The other thing which I find fascinating about the process is you know, part of what I do is I interview a lot of customers and clients. Right. So when I when I am figuring out, let's say Miranda's story, right, I don't it's not that I don't I don't just want to talk to you. I don't trust you. But I think people are going to add colour to that story because sometimes our customers or clients are friends. That's something else that I do as I, I often talk to a long time friend because it helps me get to the core of what that person, what makes them tick. So very often these customers, clients, friends see things that the person themselves don't see. And it opens their eyes up. And it's really very enlightening because when people see the difference they've made in other people's lives, how they've improved something for someone, it's it's incredible. And storytelling can can help really show the power of the impact of what a person or a company can do. So it's the whole thing is very revelatory. Yes. Yeah. And definitely when you talk to those like clients, clients or employees or friends or when you talk to someone else and you ask them their perspective, they will say it in words that the person you're telling the story for would not think to put those words together because they don't feel like that about themselves. So it does help with like that imposter syndrome or just, you know, you don't want to be too, too proud and to bold to say how amazing you are. But when someone else says it and they actually say the why and the what you do that makes it so special, it's it that is the amazing part. And that's what really brings the emotion into the story and helps people to say, Oh, this is a really true, believable story. And I like it. One of the first clients I worked with and sometimes they don't remember, they don't remember some of the things they've said over the years. So this woman was a career coach and I was talking to one of her clients and she said, you know, one time Crystal said to me, everything in life is a trade off except your soul. But wow, that's that's a great line. And went back to my client always goes, Oh, I did used to say that, too. And it became a really important part of her positioning and her story. Right? Because again, the story of the jumping off point where we create the story and then we create all that content around it. You know, in your case, you're starting with the video. In my case, I'm starting with the written piece. But then we say, okay, how do we bring this to life? And that's what it gets, especially. But then sometimes people don't always get like, okay, we're going to create this story document, but we're not going to use it verbatim anywhere. Like, well, what is a note? Because we're going to use it as the Rosetta Stone, as the Magna Carta to figure out how else we're going to bring it to life. But I sort of there's something we keep going back to and looking at. It's okay. Is this speech, is it true to my story? Those kind of things. So Dan will tell me how or where can stories be used or where are you using your written words in stories? So let's start with the most obvious is the website, right? Is your website telling your story properly? You know, you think about your home page or about us page, but also in your testimonials and your customer case studies, in your PR and blog. All those areas, videos, obviously videos are, as you know, very important. And powerful visual ways to tell your story. I love doing I love working on video scripts and seeing it come to life, whether it's through a live action animation. So in speeches, as I mentioned. So all these different areas are great ways to have social media to tell your story. You were telling me when we spoke last week about the bios? And I thought that was really interesting how, you know, you talk to me talk to me about the initial bio story. The employee and employee stories are great. I mean, we've done lots of employee stories and they're always like, so enlightening about the company. And also, you know, it just it makes the employees feel really good about working at this company. But tell me a little more about the bios with the initial bio and then the bio of an employee who's been with the company for a few years down the line. It's a great point. And it's it's a lost opportunity for a lot of companies. So you know, it plays into the set it and forget it mentality, which can never happen with storytelling, right? You can never set it and forget it. So bios are great example. So when you're when when a new person joins the company executive level or every year and have, you know, their bio on your website from naturally 95% of it and 99% of it's going to be about their former company, right? Because they just started at the new company. So their accomplishments at the former company or former companies. But six months later, a year later, you need to be going back on a regular basis and looking at those bios and refreshing them to talk about the story they're doing at the new company, what they've accomplished, what they've brought to the new company, things they're proud of, things how they've helped others. Right? Because then so so bios are just in the let's always look at them and make sure that they're telling the company story properly. You know, one of my pet peeves is when companies just put a link to someone's LinkedIn bio on their website and sure, it's easy, but their LinkedIn profile is not doing storytelling, it is just doing fact to give it and your people are your company ultimately. So making sure their bios reflect your company. And then actually right before you, you raised them. Well, those employee profiles are amazing. And you know, another audience you have to think about are potential employees. It's very much a two way street with employees if you want to hire someone. But they're checking you out, too. They want to see if you're a right fit for what they want to do next in their career. Using the stories for recruitment is a very powerful tool that, you know, only the really big companies are thinking of doing that. But it's something that any size company can do because, you know, if you're talking about your your mission and your vision and your purpose and and what you do and why you do it, and you bring in some employee stories to that so that the employees can see what it's really like working here. I think that is really key to recruiting and also retaining those employees because employees, you know, it's a competitive world out there and employees have options of where do they want to work. In my opinion, using stories, it's not just for the selling and the marketing, it's also for selling yourself and selling your company to to the recruitment options that are out there and the the employees that are looking to join a good company. I couldn't agree more. Right. You want to retain and attract the best talent and the right talent for you. Because when you find people who are attracted to your story, they're more likely going to be a good culture fit. Your story is a key part of your culture. And I think last time we spoke, you told me that you think every company is mission driven, which obviously they are. You know, I agree with that. And so what do you what do you think of that statement? That every company is mission driven? Yeah. I mean, when I started Stories for Good, you know, my initial most I'm going to only work for nonprofit. So that was my goal because I am really passionate about what nonprofits can do to help change the world. And I started diving in I realized that and this was sort of an eye opener to me that every company has a mission to help people or they wouldn't be in business. Whether it's installing a track systems or selling shoes. Everything has a mission to make someone's life a little bit better. You're not bringing that mission to the forefront, then you're not doing your your company justice. And, you know, sometimes you have to dig a little bit deeper to find out what that mission is, because you might not always like you might have an assumption, especially if it's a company you haven't worked with before. I mean, like I have a client, right now that we're working with for the second or I guess third time, and it's an amazing little hairdressing salon in the Town of Orangeville on Broadway. So initially you think, okay, how can I help this salon? You know, like I don't know how to sell to consumers and help them, you know, come and get your haircut. And that's when you're just looking at it on a superficial level. But when you actually start to talk to the owner and she tells you about, you know, her mission is to support women with curly hair that, you know, they don't always have hairdressers that they can go to who can actually deal with their hair. And so her mission is to be able to help all of these people who cannot be helped anywhere else and to do it with using like the cleanest and most environmentally friendly products and also buys products from only Canadian companies, women owned companies, and as close and as local to home as she can. Then you start to see this company has a purpose and they have a mission and they've put a lot of thought into how do they want to do their business and make themselves different and special and unique to other hairdressing salons. I mean, there's millions of these things. Ultimately what they're not doing, they're not giving a good haircut. They're building confidence. Making that person feel better about themselves. There was someone I was working with once on, you know, their personal branding. And she was involved in professional development for K-12 teachers, elementary school teachers. When we began working together, I said, okay, tell me what you do. And she said, Well, I create these worksheets and, you know, I work with teachers to help them do this, and then we do this. Okay, good. And then we worked together for a while, and then when we were done, I said, Tell me what you do. And she said, I build better teachers, your hairdresser, builds confident women. That's ultimately what they do. And so, yes, everyone's got a mission. And it's great when you actually get to, you know, the juice of the story and they actually tell you what it is and then you think, oh, yes, now I have something that I can work with that's going to make this a powerful piece, going to make it interesting and memorable and believable. So, yeah, that's that's actually like where the magic lies is when you hear that actual special sentence come out of their mouth. Everything. Everything comes easier after that, doesn't it? Because once you get that core nugget of what you're all about. The rest of the storytelling starts to flow naturally out of that. And it usually works really well when they talk about how they are helping other people rather than trying to talk about themselves and what makes them so good. Like it's easier for them to talk about their how their work helps. Same same hairdresser we were talking to, she called me and she says she said she won an award or she's nominated for an award. She's now a change maker. And I didn't know that. What is this hairdressing like? How are you a change maker? What is this association of hairdressers and change makers? But there is an award ceremony and she was nominated as a change maker because of the work that she's doing. And this comes down to what she's trying to do, you know, making sure her employees are really happy, making sure her customers feel safe and cared for when they come into her salon, and then all the other things about the environmental stuff and the women owned businesses. She had to make this video and answer these five questions. And they were simple questions about, you know, why? Why do you think you're deserving to win this award? And that was the first question, how it was listed. That was the first question. And it was the most difficult question for her because she you know, she doesn't feel like she's the only one doing this and that she's she doesn't feel like she's more deserving than anyone else. But the last question was something like, you know, how do you help or how how have you made changes and, you know, help your customers and employees make these changes? And I said, you know what, Let's just flip the questions and let's talk about the helping work that you do first. And she was so cool with it, Like she was able to talk about it, talk about how, you know, it's great for her, her employees to get this recognition. She was able to talk about it when you flip the story around and the last thing you asked is, well, why are you so proud of winning this award? Because you've turned it upside down and you've made it not about me, but about what I've done to help other people. You freed her. and it was literally turning the questions around. That's what stories often do, right? You're unlocking what's already in there. You're helping to bring it to life, to massage it, and and shape it in a way that, you know, is going to be compelling to the people. Something I talk to companies about is that you always need to be looking at your story to see if it's if it's matching. Right. Because, number one, your story's always changing. Number two, the needs of your customers is always changing. And three, your competitors are always changing. So you have to be able to sort of look and say, Does my story really represent where I am today? Does it represent where my customers are today and my potential customers, and does it differentiate me from others in my space? Your story is never done. It's like life. Your story's never done. Yeah. Yeah. It's constantly changing. And I tell that to clients, too, you know, like, don't think you can do this video now and use this video for three or four years because it's going to be outdated. Things are going to change. Things are going to improve. You're going to want to tell your story again. Yeah. You add more color to it. Yeah. All right. Even if the bones of the story are the same, right? Even if even if your hairdresser is still serving the same group of customers in five years, she's got more stories. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can add more color and more proof points to her foundation. I want to give a little shout out to Dana Copeland from Flaunt Salon in Orangeville, Town of Orangeville on Broadway. She is an amazing change maker and amazing businesswoman. Awesome. If I had curly hair and lived in Canada, I would come visit her and I was a woman, so it would be a great match. So Dan, what about organizations that are not telling their story? So, you know, in my opinion, if it doesn't mean that there is no story around your brand, like there's no it doesn't mean that there's no narrative being formed around your brand and your story. It just means that you are not really participating in it and you're not helping it along. Because if you're not telling your story, someone else is telling your story that that could be what your clients are saying to other people, what your employees say about their job, what they say to their friends, what the media has to say about you or not, and what the community says and feels about you. So, you know, your story is always being developed, but you need to be a participant in that story so that the narrative goes a little more along your way, then along the way that the other people are taking it if they are not properly directed or educated about your brand. So what is your opinion on on how the whole narrative and your whole brand forms with your story? Yeah, it's like that saying you you can't stop the waves. You might as well learn how to surf, right? So employees are going to be talking to people about your company and you want to arm them with and they want to be or they want to know their mission. They want to be able to have the right words. Someone told me a story once where she had just started at Google and first day on the job and they had like one of those shuttle busses that takes you from the parking lot to the main campus. And she's in the shuttle bus and she sits next to someone else. So, you know, Are you new here? Yeah, I'm new. Oh, what are you going to be working on? She tells her what I'm working on. He goes, Oh, that's going to be really impactful. And then later, as she got into the company, realized that, like, impact was one of their core tenets. Right? And because the the veteran employee kind of was talking, you know, in the way of Google, they were able to impart that down to the new employee. Like we kind of come full circle, Our conversation stories of the way things are passed down from generation to generation. Stories are passed through, you know, employee to employee as well, and through customers and through members of the media. Like you said, all these different channels are passing around stories. So arming them with what you want to be their story is exactly what you want to do. So it's just it's a great opportunity and it doesn't have to be huge. That's the thing. Like, this is not a rebranding. It's not taking HBO Max, and changing it to Max or Twitter and changing it to X. You know, at some point we'll see if this podcast down the road, like two years from now, will Twitter still be X? It is about taking what's true and honest to you and spreading it through the company. Right. It's not it's not reinventing rebranding. It's just taking what makes you special and being willing to talk about it. And like we said earlier, that requires a little bit of vulnerability. And also being able to talk about it in a consistent way so that everyone in the company is aware of the story of the company and how to discuss the company and what what the company is like, what it's working towards. And I've seen that many times. Usually the bigger organizations like banks, oil companies, we've done lots of interviews with them and no matter who you talk to, they all can talk along the same line. And it is what the story is with the company. It is where is the company going in a few years? Why are we doing this project now? How is this going to help you know, the economy or whatever? And they all have the right words. They have the right. It's because they've all heard it so many times, you know, and the story is being rolled out to them in everything in their blogs and their internal communications mostly. So they know how to talk about the company's story. And then when you get another company and you talk to three or four employees and they're not really sure what the mission is, or they start to say it in different ways, and you think, okay, so this company hasn't really gone through the process of understanding what their story is talking about it. I guess it has to do with just awareness and it's something that h.r. Probably has to put some effort into h.r. And communications. Yeah. Those companies, their story does not come across as connected as it as it could be. So you raised a really good point because, you know, let's go back to your example of the large company where everybody was saying that doesn't mean they're robots. I had someone that I worked with who said every department should have their own special brand of weird, and it always stuck with me because a division, a department of function, they're all going to bring the story to life in a way that's right for them. Yeah, maybe using similar words. But then there is something special about your your, your smaller group, and that's important for company culture and coherence. Yeah. And I think it's it's sometimes it's just that they understand the goals that they're working towards so that they can they can talk about that, you know, so like why do you like working here? Because I like, you know, working towards these goals. What does this what's the main goal of the main story? And here's how I and my team helped bring it to life. Yes. Yes. You feel like you're part of something. One big mission, rowing in the same direction when you have the story and the mission to guide you. Here's the company story and here's how I helped. An immense point of pride for people. Yeah. So last question. When you're working with an organization, do you work more with the h.R. People or the leaders or the communications or like, where do you go to find these elements of the story? Generally, I start with the marketing team. That's generally who brings me in. But I go right to the ceo. You know, if if I'm not talking to the CEO, then I'm not doing the company justice, right? So I speak with the CEO and their team and, you know, their top leaders as well as as we talked about earlier customers and whatnot. And they ultimately the CEO ultimately is the person who has to buy into this. Right. The buck stops with that person. And, you know, making sure that they and as you said earlier, it's wonderful to see their excitement when it comes to life. Right. Because then the wheels start turning in their head about, okay, this is great. So here's how we're going to do this with this, but this with this. And they start thinking of all these different ways in which they're going to get the story out there. So, yeah, once they see what's going on, they really become excited partners in helping to bring it to life. Yeah. And then what kind of feedback do you get when you start to give them, you know, the written pieces? Because sometimes we get people get very emotional when they see and hear themselves with their story and they feel so amazing and proud of of what they said and how they how they sound and how they look. We often get you guys worked magic or I you know, I got goosebumps. I brought tears to my eyes when I saw it. What kind of feedback do you get from your stories? All of those, you know, I mean, so yeah, it me again, it's a very personal thing. It's an emotional thing. And when I work with people, you have to really give them space. You have to let them sit with that. You have to let them marinate with your drafts because it's very personal to them. We have to give them the time. So it's it's an iterative process. And again, you do your best to come up with every word that you think is perfect. And there's just, you know, it's really worth it. This doesn't feel honest to me. And then when I come out of the process as well, we develop a list of words that you want to use again and again, and these are your words that you want to do. And as I mentioned earlier, we look at you know, we look at the competitors very closely and we make sure that the competitors aren’t trying to own those words. We come up with that. That really can be the ones we stand for. Yeah, Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well Dan, I think this has been an amazing podcast and I'm sure we can talk about stories in all different kind of forms. At another time. So maybe we'll have to do another one. Because I feel like we have a lot more still to discuss, but I'm going to leave it here today and thank you so much for participating. This was super fun and very informative and I hope all of our listeners and watchers have enjoyed this and got something out of it. I hope so too, Miranda, it was an honour. It was a lot of fun. And you know, it's been great getting to know you and your company I'd love to do it again sometime. This was great.