I’ve been incredibly fortunate with the influences and informal mentors I’ve learned (and stolen) from over my career. One of the most consistent themes has been to celebrate the importance of language and storytelling, in the form of both compelling, punchy messaging, and rich, in-depth narrative. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in politics, business, the charity sector, sport or the arts, the same question comes up again and again: What’s your story? Whether you’re building
ng a fast-moving, consumer-facing, social-first DTC (direct-to-consumer) brand or a dry, complex, highly technical B2B (business-to-business) company – when it comes to growing your business, little (aside from the core craft or expertise that your product is based on) matters more than your storytelling.
Focus first on your external story. The things you want the people who matter to you (your customers, your shoppers, your users, your stakeholders) to know about you. There are a number of things at play here, anchored in your conversation hierarchy. Let’s work through them one by one.
Conversation hierarchy
This tool, introduced to me by my long-term strategy partner, Amber Groves, helps you build out both the breadth and depth of the story you want to tell. You can apply it to your overarching business, to a new product you’re releasing or even to a particular audience you are targeting; for example, CIOs and IT decision-makers for a B2B software company.
Approach it by thinking of your business story (the conversation you’d ideally like to have) at different levels:
Level one asks you to define the short version of the whole story. What’s the most succinct, crystallised and powerful way you can capture the story of your business or product?
Level two asks you to pull that story apart but remain at the surface level. How could you make sense of your story in three to five high-level messages or points? What should those messages cover? How would your ideal conversation unfold? Things I would value and consider include: your origin story; your purpose and ambition; your point of view on the world and the key insight that inspires you; your hero offering or product; your core craft or capability; and, your difference and the reason to choose you. If level one gives you your elevator pitch, level two is what you’d tell a customer CEO at a quick meet and greet. It’s about capturing the full breadth of what makes you special without going into depth or detail. At Four Pillars, our level one is about being modern Australian gin-makers, making gins we could only make here in Australia. Then level two would unpack our focus on flavour and drinkability, our commitment to experimentation and creativity, our love of hospitality and community, and our passion for our place and sustainability.
Level three is about taking a shallow dive into each of the main areas of your story, each pillar if you like. Congratulations, you’ve got the bones of your website storytelling sorted.
Level four, finally, gives you the deep dive. Put it all together at this depth and you’ve got yourself a longform narrative for your business.
This is a rough framework, of course, and four things and four levels may not be right for you, but the logic is solid. Can you tell your whole customer-facing story succinctly and conversationally? Can you quickly capture the full breadth of your higher purpose and ambition, the core of what your business or product does, the value you create for your customers and users, and the differentiating ways you create that value? And can you deep dive into each area on a case-by-case basis, depending on audience, medium and objective?
This is the mastery of your story that your conversation hierarchy gives you. And from here, writing social media posts, Linkedln articles, customer emails, investor decks and business plans all gets a lot easier.
Storytelling tone, style and personality
The second side to getting your storytelling right is to understand your tone, style and personality. Who do you want the reader to picture when they read or hear your story being told? What associations do you want them to make? What emotions do you want them to feel?
The way you deliver your story needs to align with the brand emotions and feelings you define, whether that storytelling shows up on the side of a gin label, on the side of a delivery truck or at the start of a sales meeting.
At Four Pillars, we were lucky to have an abundance of writing talent in house. Stu and I are both excellent writers (well, he’s excellent and I’m fast). Stu has more natural flair, gusto and humour; I’m more nuanced, strategic and precise (AKA dull and dry).
Between the two of us, we were able to set a direction and tone for the brand that a fast-growing team was able to master and make their own.
Messengers and personification
One way you can help to set the tone for your business is to identify your hero storytellers and start to think about them as the personification of your business.
At Four Pillars, we were fortunate to have three co-founders who are experienced speakers and storytellers, giving us multiple faces and voices for the brand and the ability to match different founders to different audiences and environments.
Ultimately, it was Cameron, with his dedication and seriousness around the craft of distilling, but also his brilliant sense of humour, his naturally self-deprecating personality and his love of hospitality and meeting people, who helped the wider team nail the tone of Four Pillars. Who gives your business a face and a voice? And who can you use as a reference point for the personification of your brand?
Audiences, touchpoints and channels
Who are you trying to talk to? Are you clear on your different audiences, customers and stakeholders and what will influence them? Feel free to carve up your conversation hierarchy this way, too.
And where does your story need to show up? Which touchpoints matter most? Which communications channels have the potential for the greatest positive impact on your business and your growth?
For example, every time Four Pillars released a new gin, Stu would take the lead on crafting a press release full of technical gin information combined with colourful storytelling. This, combined with our commitment to stunning editorial images of every gin we made, helped us secure the coverage we wanted.
Your story matters. How you tell your story matters. Even more important is how others tell your story on your behalf. And all of this begins with defining the story you want to tell.
This story first appeared in the January 2025 issue of Inside FMCG magazine.