Brian McColl - What's The Story? - Puget Sound Radio Dot Com

               Brian McColl
               PugetSoundRadio.com
               Tuesday June 17th, 2008

What’s The Story?

I’d like to tell you a story.
This story involves a young man, not unlike most other young men. He grew up in a middle class part of town. His parents gave him just enough love and attention and fulfilled his needs as best they could. He appeared to the world a content and well balanced person. He helped out around the house, was attentive to his younger sister and was everyone’s idea of a ‘good little boy’.
Then one day something happened to this good little boy. Something that would change his and his family’s outlook forever. Something, so out of the blue and so against his character, that those who knew him could not believe him capable of such an act…
When this young man turned sixteen he….
I’ll tell you the rest later!

What??
You want to know what the boy did?
Why?
Why do you want to know?
You never met him. In fact you didn’t know of his existence until a moment ago. What’s the big attraction about this boy?
Why should you care about him at all?

That’s what this article is all about:
The power of a story.

Every day, people tell each other stories as a way of explaining themselves. Stories are used as a means of conveying a message or an idea.
Why?
Here are three reasons why humans tell each other stories:
To share information about our lives and ourselves.
To compare our situations, thoughts and ideas.
To bond.

Some stories are large in scale, like when you come back from holidays and want to tell your friend all about the trip. How many times have you heard the expression, “I have a million stories to tell you”?
A million stories. Not a million facts, or a million figures.

The story telling is used to bond.
By me telling you about my trip, I am letting you into my life and sharing with you some of my thoughts and experiences so that you can get to know me better as an individual and therefore strengthen the bond between us.

Here’s a quick comparison. Which one of these is more interesting?
a.
“We flew on BA605 to Stockholm at 06:00. The weather upon arrival was cloudy and three degrees Celsius. I ate a sandwich for lunch in the city. Many cars and people passed by as I ate. Then I went to the hotel, stayed for one night and returned home”.
Or:
b.
“The flight was great. Arrived on time in Stockholm and it was freezing. I though I’d never warm up! At least it didn’t rain, though. I’ve always wanted to have a Swedish Rye bread sandwich in Sweden, so I went to a tiny little café right in the hustle and bustle of the city and ordered one. The ham and cheese was so tasty. My favourite sandwich ever! The hotel was lovely, not too small or big. Very clean too and the staff just smiled at us all the time. I felt very welcome. Definitely, I will go back to Stockholm again, in fact one night wasn’t enough”!

OK, which one?
I’m guessing you’re going for the second one.
I’m also guessing you know why you’re going for the second one!
Because it’s more interesting. It’s got life in it. It’s a story.
The first one is fact. Bam, bam bam. Fact, fact, fact.

Remember what it was like when you were in school? Think back to the teachers you had. The good ones told you stories and involved you. The not so good ones just gave you the facts to memorise.

Story telling is such an amazingly effective tool to use on the radio.
You can put it any where in your hour or in your link.
A great story can be a short story. Look at ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ – always voted one of the greatest movies ever made. Guess what?
It started life as a short story.

Let’s go into your on air studio.
You’re about to do a talk break. Nothing major. Just a piece of house keeping where you have to forward sell a song.
Now, as always with any link you do, you have a choice here. Your choice is to do the minimum amount required of you and fade away unnoticed. Or you can decide to make something of the time allowed and connect with your listener.

Link 1 can be, “On the way, the new song from The Kaiser Chiefs”.
Link 2 can be, “On the way the new song from a band who’s lead singer says his favourite TV programme is the Teletubbies”.
OK, as examples go, it may not be the greatest. However, you get my point.
Link 1 is a fact.
Link 2 is a story.
I can now ‘see’ the link.
We’re using the good old Hook and Tease in Link 2 there as well. Hooking the listener for the payoff through the story.

Near the start of this article, I mentioned that one of the reasons we tell stories is to bond. That’s so true. And one of the ways we bond is through shared experiences.

Imagine you had seen the new hit movie of the year. It’s a blockbuster. The one everybody is talking about. You meet your friend the next day and it turns out that your friend has just seen the same new movie.
What have we got? We’ve got a shared experience.
You both did the same thing.
The difference being that you both will have had a different outlook about the day you saw the movie and your opinions on the movie itself will not always be the same.
The important thing is that you both have a shared experience. Now, you can both discuss the film and tell stories of how you arrived in the cinema, what the cinema looked like, who were with etc.
The basic experience is the same, the component parts are not.

That’s another reason why we stay local on the radio.
By being local we are bonding. By bonding we are sharing our experiences with our listeners.
“Traffic is bad on Highway One  today…isn’t it always”?
Shared experience.
Your listeners might have a different outlook on the bad traffic, but the basic premise is the same – bad traffic on a road we all know.
The “isn’t it always” is the story, believe it or not. It’s the human side.
You can, of course go way further than this by saying things like,
“I was on Highway One yesterday and My God was it busy? I thought I’d never get off. There was one man who just got out of his car and walked away. He left the car there on the motorway”!!
There’s a story. Your listener can picture the road from past experience and now has the ability to imagine the man getting out of his car. You have shared and you have bonded through a simple story.

We tell stories everyday.
Someone asks you how did you get to work today and you tell them, “I drove. I don’t normally but I had get in early”. Story.
What did you have for dinner? “I went to McDonalds. I was with David and he’s addicted to the stuff”. Story.
How are you? “I’m fine now. I was in bed for two days with a stomach ache”. Story.

Stories help us bond with each other and as such they are one of the most used conversation tools we have.

When you are on the air, trying to look for the story in your link (no matter how big or small) will bring you closer to your listener. They will get to know you better and will feel more attached to you. It builds loyalty and trust. You share a little bit of your life and your experiences each time and by doing so; you create a healthier and stronger relationship with your audience.

Oh yeah, the boy in the start of the story?
He attacked his pet hamster in the kitchen with a knife. Nothing too drastic, but I figured you’d like to know.

Hey, did you just picture a kitchen, a hamster and a knife? I remember once when I was in my kitchen…!

Have a great week.

Brian.

brian@bmacmedia.com

http://www.bmacmedia.com

http://www.presenterworkshop.com