I currently live in Brooklyn with my three little boys and husband. What can I say, I’m the unofficial -but official - Queen in my house. I love weird combinations of food (more on that later), going out (MOMS CAN DANCE TOO), and seeing the "A-HA" look on a founder's face when they unleash the story that has been buried in them and their business for way too long.
A survey by Ace Metrix found that ads featuring founders or CEOs perform 20% better across all effectiveness measures than other ads. The “founder effect” as it’s officially called is a real phenomenon.
➡️Startups that effectively communicate their founder’s story are 23% more likely to achieve funding goals.
➡️Companies with strong founder narratives experience 30% higher customer retention rates.
➡️Brands that incorporate founder stories in their marketing see a 65% increase in emotional connection with their audience.
And while you may not be a large corporation, the same principles hold true for small businesses and solopreneur-run enterprises.
But there’s a catch… you can’t swing TOO FAR into personal moments or the storytelling will miss the mark.
I had to learn the hard way that I was missing the mark in my own business when it came to storytelling.
Back in 2020, six months into showing up on social media day after day after day, I had nothing to show for it in terms of revenue.
Sound familiar?
But it was 2020.
And lifestyle influencers were who I saw predominantly telling stories.
Admittedly, I tried to follow suit (even though I knew in my bones that this wasn’t “it”. SEE CRINGE PHOTO SHOT BELOW #forgiveme.)
I documented EVERYTHING in my life, over indexing on personal moments.
Pregnant.
Two small kids in tow.
A small NYC apartment.
It was catnip for entertainment.
But not great for my bank account.
Thinking to myself, “well I’m BUILDING TRUST!”
Sure. But you need to have a balance.
The final straw for me was when I mentioned that I ran a storytelling & video company and someone DMed me saying, “I thought you were a mom blogger! I had no idea.”
Nothing wrong with mom bloggers.
But I wasn’t one.
As a solopreneur I needed to use free marketing channels strategically.
And I wasn’t.
▪️ Where was the value to my audience?
▪️ Who was I attracting?
▪️ What was I saying about my business mission?
It was around this time I said to myself, “Strategically Storytell Patrice” as a way to remind myself to not veer too far off into TMI land.
This system was playing on loop in my brain:
I started leaning into my own strategic storytelling and it started….working.
Working meaning I started to make money.
So what is this?
It’s how you strategically share your experiences to serve your business goals.
Here’s a quick breakdown.
1. The Life Moment Stories
This is the soul of your content strategy. Personal anecdotes that:
But remember, there’s an art to sharing life moment stories effectively.
It’s not just about dumping every personal experience into your content (me in 2020).
When done right, this strategy drives consistent engagement by presenting your authentic self to new followers & it invites them into your “house”.
2. The Audience-Cares Content
Layering in content that directly addresses what your audience cares about (pains, desires, fears, aspirations) gives your followers a reason to stick around and eventually convert.
Be cautious of only being entertaining (as your audience may care about that) but if it’s not addressing their deeper psychographics and it’s not your target audience for BUYING from you, this bucket will not drive revenue for you.
I have an amazing AI Chart framework that gets to the psychographics of an audience (you can use this too) and this chart will guide this entire bucket.
3. The Mission-Affirming Stories
Here’s the thing:
We know that certain followers will engage with our life moment stories and audience-cares content, but may not convert right away.
But if we can strategically weave in mission-affirming stories that showcase our business values and goals, we open up pathways for people to connect with our offerings on a deeper level.
I did NONE of this for the better part of a year and it was my achilles heel.
When you make sure your stories are periodically pointing to this bucket, you layer in more trust and credibility, adding to your overall impact and increasing the consistency of your sales.