What is Preemptive Storytelling?
Keep this tactic in your backpocket
Hi friend,
How are you? I hope you had a nice holiday season.
I spent some time in NYC for work and CT to see friends and family. It was a mix of being freezing and nostalgic, as it had been a decade since I relocated to Miami from Westchester, NY.
I find it refreshing to take time off. It allows you to break your daily routines with timeless holiday traditions, great food, people, and places. No doubt - a winning formula.
Last week, as part of the holiday’s slow pace, we visited an old strawberry farm in Florida City, with the peculiar name - Robert is Here.
We visited the place years ago, as it was famous for its strawberry smoothies. Now it has been transformed into a mini theme park featuring natural food stands, unique produce, and even goats you can feed with crisp lettuce.
As I was walking through the various fruit stands, I came across this strange, yellow-jagged shell Pitaya fruit.
I’ve never seen it before, and my mind immediately fired two questions: where does it grow, and what does it taste like?
Boom! I found the answers right on the sign.
I bet the staff kept receiving the same questions from shoppers, so they decided to preempt by providing the essential information on all signs.
Another familiar example
If you have a home garden you tend to, I bet you often visit a nursery to buy new plants to keep it beautiful.
Because gardens act like “action movies.”
They carry different looks due to constant changes in light, temperature, water, humidity and nutrition. So, there are always vacant spots you can fill with new plants.
Or it’s just my poor gardening skills…
Anyways, like in the fruit farms, you’ll find the same preemptive storytelling in nurseries; a very descriptive plant sign with all your key questions answered.
From these two basic examples, you can see that Preemptive Storytelling is pretty much about accurately reading your audience’s mind and providing answers to their key questions before they ask.
Beyond clever signage, you can use this tactic for any story on any platform.
Kick off the year with a splash by bringing my Storytelling Workshop to your team
How to find the key questions
Doing it right means conducting both direct and indirect customer research, while constantly analyzing their behavior across all touchpoints.
Be it a website, newsletter, app, ad, or custom chatbot.
And don’t forget to chat with your frontline sales and support teams. They get the real praise, complaints, doubts, or wishes - golden intel for you to leverage.
Once you identified the key elements, you’re ready to build your story.
Since you know that a story is nothing but a simple string of events stitched together, you can be strategic about it and decide what details to include and what to leave out.
A classic example is when you build your pitch deck to wow investors.
You can intentionally leave a pertinent detail out to make sure your audience will ask you about it.
This will allow you to catch two birds: provide your dazzling answer, and preface it by a feel-good “great question” to compliment the inquirer :)
Relevance and mystery help each other get you closer to your goal.
See you next time!
Best,
- Shlomi
Shlomi Ron
Founder, Visual Storytelling Institute
story > visual > emotion > experience
shlomi@visualstorytell.com
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