Pick One....Interesting or Compelling?

Let me ask you a question:

 Which is more important, being interesting or being compelling?

 Your product might be interesting but few might say it's compelling.

 You make your product interesting, barely, when you talk about:

• Products

• Features

• Programs

• Process

On top of that, it’s what everyone else talks about, and people see you as "just like everyone else."

This is not a guess, it's the truth. There are only a few things in life that tell the truth, people while they are drinking. children and yoga pants, they often can't lie!

When we are compelling, we tell stories and back them up with facts. People buy stories, not products, programs or process.

People want to know about products, programs and - barely - process. They internally desire to know "why" we care so much and why we have the passion to save them time or money.

Its products, programs and process that make our roles interesting, it's our hearts that make us compelling.

Compelling stories talk about "why" you love your role, what drove "you" into this business and why you are so passionate about saving people time and money.

Talking about products, programs or process is important but those are facts not stories. 

Here are some quotes about stories

• Stories are a communal currency of humanity." --Tahir Shah, in Arabian Nights

• "Great stories happen to those who can tell them." --Ira Glas

• "The engineers of the future will be poets." --Terence McKenna

• "The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories." --Mary Catherine Bateson

• "Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form." --Jean Luc Godard

• "Story is a yearning meeting an obstacle." --Robert Olen Butler

• "If you're going to have a story, have a big story, or none at all." --Joseph Campbell

• "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." --Hannah Arendt

• "The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions." --Michael Margolis

• "Those who tell the stories rule the world." --Hopi American Indian proverb

• "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." --Maya Angelou

• "There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place." --J.K. Rowling

• "Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." --Robert McKee 

Tell compelling stories, back them up with facts.

Let's stop being interesting, let's be compelling!

Scott McGohan