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Magnetic Stories: Connect with Customers and Engage Employees with Brand Storytelling
Improve customer and employee loyalty with your brand stories Your brand is the stories people share about you when you’re not in the room. Whether a small, one or two-person company or a large multinational; a not for profit or a Government organisation; a start-up entrepreneur or a corporate institution; a school or a sporting team; a religious institution or a political party; a local café or a global franchise ― everyone has a brand and everyone has a story. The reality is people are already sharing stories, both the good and the bad. Magnetic Stories will walk you through how to develop and communicate your own brand stories, focusing on the five types of stories you need in business to connect and engage people with your brand. You’ll learn how Magnetic Stories delivers a unique and timely message which is perfect for any business, regardless of size or industry.
- GenresBusiness
208 pages, Paperback
Published March 15, 2021
8 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Gabrielle Dolan
10 books20 followersGabrielle Dolan can tell you a story or two.
In fact, it was while working in a senior leadership role at National Australia Bank that she realised the power of storytelling in effective business communication. Since that epiphany, Gabrielle has found her calling as a global thought leader on authentic leadership and business storytelling.
A highly sought-after keynote speaker, educator and author, Gabrielle has worked with thousands of high-profile leaders from around the world and helped countless of Australia’s top 50 companies and multinationals to humanise their communications - Telstra, EY, Accenture, VISA, Australia Post, National Australia Bank, Amazon, Vodafone and the Obama Foundation to name drop a few.
She holds a master’s degree in management and leadership from Swinburne University, an associate diploma in education and training from the University of Melbourne, and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education in both the Art and Practice of Adaptive Leadership and Women and Power: Leadership in a New World.
Gabrielle is also the bestselling author of Real Communication: How to be you and lead true, a finalist in the Australian Business Leadership Book Awards for 2019. Her other published books include Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling (2017), Storytelling for Job Interviews (2016), Ignite: Real Leadership, Real Talk, Real Results (2015) which reached the top five on Australia’s bestselling business books and Hooked: How Leaders Connect, Engage and Inspire with Storytelling (2013). Her latest title, Magnetic Stories: Connect with customers and engage employees with brand storytelling will be published by Wiley in March 2021.
Bringing humanity to the way business people communicate isn’t just a career, it’s a calling. Her dedication to the industry was recognised when Gabrielle was awarded the 2020 Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators Asia Pacific region. The ultimate expression of her passion for the cause is her Jargon Free Fridays movement/ global movement (jargonfreefridays.com).
In fact, it was while working in a senior leadership role at National Australia Bank that she realised the power of storytelling in effective business communication. Since that epiphany, Gabrielle has found her calling as a global thought leader on authentic leadership and business storytelling.
A highly sought-after keynote speaker, educator and author, Gabrielle has worked with thousands of high-profile leaders from around the world and helped countless of Australia’s top 50 companies and multinationals to humanise their communications - Telstra, EY, Accenture, VISA, Australia Post, National Australia Bank, Amazon, Vodafone and the Obama Foundation to name drop a few.
She holds a master’s degree in management and leadership from Swinburne University, an associate diploma in education and training from the University of Melbourne, and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education in both the Art and Practice of Adaptive Leadership and Women and Power: Leadership in a New World.
Gabrielle is also the bestselling author of Real Communication: How to be you and lead true, a finalist in the Australian Business Leadership Book Awards for 2019. Her other published books include Stories for Work: The Essential Guide to Business Storytelling (2017), Storytelling for Job Interviews (2016), Ignite: Real Leadership, Real Talk, Real Results (2015) which reached the top five on Australia’s bestselling business books and Hooked: How Leaders Connect, Engage and Inspire with Storytelling (2013). Her latest title, Magnetic Stories: Connect with customers and engage employees with brand storytelling will be published by Wiley in March 2021.
Bringing humanity to the way business people communicate isn’t just a career, it’s a calling. Her dedication to the industry was recognised when Gabrielle was awarded the 2020 Communicator of the Year by the International Association of Business Communicators Asia Pacific region. The ultimate expression of her passion for the cause is her Jargon Free Fridays movement/ global movement (jargonfreefridays.com).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 19, 2023
My thought about the book:
The issue that I have with this book is that it is not so much about stories and storytelling as it is about strategic communication of a company to its employees and customers. I expected more information on how to structure a story based on the experiences provided by a company to its employees and customers and how to distribute those stories as efficiently as possible on all possible channels. Instead, we get a list of five types of stories that a company should collect and distribute to all stakeholders, and some minor reasoning why that is good backed up with some case studies. My issue with the case studies is that some are stories while others are just descriptions of events that happened. My reasoning for defining case studies in such a way is that not everything is a story. I disagree with the author that every event that happened and you are now telling is a story. A story must have a specific structure - The opening, the incident, the crises, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. In some of the provided case studies, some of these story elements are missing and because of all of this I feel like the title and introduction to the book are misleading and the book does not deliver what "was promised". In or after the chapter where the five types of stories were defined I expected the author to elaborate and break down case studies for each of the story elements and to show how to create "Magnetic Stories" from real live events. Sadly that was not the case and I don't recollect if the author even once mentioned anything about story elements.
On the other hand, if you don't have such expectations (but then I don't understand why such a title) and you only look at the content and what it provides from the perspective of strategic communication the book has some good advice. Many books that talk about business storytelling don't go that much into educating employees about the effects that storytelling can have on their success and the success of the company. While in "Magnetic Stories" Gabrielle talks quite a lot about that and gives some good examples and instructions on who and how to educate in your company. She also provides guidelines on how to get your employees to share their experiences with each other and with customers and most importantly to collect them so that each and everyone can maybe use someone else's "story" if need be. Another good piece of advice was that even though if a company shared one of its stories in one media/channel it doesn't mean it can't share it again in a different media/channel and if need be rework it a bit differently. In the end, I got a little bit of value from the book, it's just not what I was expecting.
My short summary
Gabrielle starts with some examples of why stories are important and how their emotional plea can affect your decision about buying something. She then continues explaining which five types of stories a business should have on "stock" and share with its customers and employees. They are:
The Creation stories - how and why your organization started
The Culture stories - employees living the company values
The Customer stories - amplify the customer's voice
The Challenge stories - how your company deals with internal and external challenges
The Community stories - how does your company help the community
Then she continues with her model of implementing Brand Storytelling into organizations. The elements of the model are:
Define - First companies need to know what message they want to get through to their customers. What do they want their brand to be? Sometimes this is difficult to define. So if you are stuck at this step take the other approach and define what your brand is not.
Teach - At this step, you teach your employees how to find stories and share them in a concise and engaging way. It is important to know which employees need which level of education of the matter. One of the main things to keep in mind though is that senior executives should be involved in the training. The training must involve the practice of sharing stories.
Collect - When looking for stories from others many make a big mistake by saying "Tell me a story". Most people then think that what they did or achieved is not big enough to be considered a story that others want to hear and decided not to share what may be a perfectly good story. So next time instead of saying "Tell me a story", say "Describe a time when you..." or "Tell us about..." or "Give us an example..." Once you collected enough stories from your employees you can do an analysis and see which values are already embedded and part of your brand and which need a bit more of work.
Communicate - Communicate internally and externally, in written and oral formats on all channels. Share your stories to help connect and engage with people. Remember just because you told your story in one format on one channel it doesn't mean you are done. Tell the same story on every channel, just do it properly.
Create - Understand that if people have a positive experience they will share positive stories. The same goes for negative experiences. Use this knowledge and create circumstances that are in your favor.
Gabrielle ends her book with what she calls "Case stories" where she shares stories she learned about from interviewing people from different companies about how they are using brand storytelling to communicate internally and externally. This includes stories from a family-owned and operated business, a restaurant, a hotel and resort, a financial company, and an electronics company.
You can find more about the book (like my notes) at https://purposefocuscommitment.com/bo...
The issue that I have with this book is that it is not so much about stories and storytelling as it is about strategic communication of a company to its employees and customers. I expected more information on how to structure a story based on the experiences provided by a company to its employees and customers and how to distribute those stories as efficiently as possible on all possible channels. Instead, we get a list of five types of stories that a company should collect and distribute to all stakeholders, and some minor reasoning why that is good backed up with some case studies. My issue with the case studies is that some are stories while others are just descriptions of events that happened. My reasoning for defining case studies in such a way is that not everything is a story. I disagree with the author that every event that happened and you are now telling is a story. A story must have a specific structure - The opening, the incident, the crises, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. In some of the provided case studies, some of these story elements are missing and because of all of this I feel like the title and introduction to the book are misleading and the book does not deliver what "was promised". In or after the chapter where the five types of stories were defined I expected the author to elaborate and break down case studies for each of the story elements and to show how to create "Magnetic Stories" from real live events. Sadly that was not the case and I don't recollect if the author even once mentioned anything about story elements.
On the other hand, if you don't have such expectations (but then I don't understand why such a title) and you only look at the content and what it provides from the perspective of strategic communication the book has some good advice. Many books that talk about business storytelling don't go that much into educating employees about the effects that storytelling can have on their success and the success of the company. While in "Magnetic Stories" Gabrielle talks quite a lot about that and gives some good examples and instructions on who and how to educate in your company. She also provides guidelines on how to get your employees to share their experiences with each other and with customers and most importantly to collect them so that each and everyone can maybe use someone else's "story" if need be. Another good piece of advice was that even though if a company shared one of its stories in one media/channel it doesn't mean it can't share it again in a different media/channel and if need be rework it a bit differently. In the end, I got a little bit of value from the book, it's just not what I was expecting.
My short summary
Gabrielle starts with some examples of why stories are important and how their emotional plea can affect your decision about buying something. She then continues explaining which five types of stories a business should have on "stock" and share with its customers and employees. They are:
The Creation stories - how and why your organization started
The Culture stories - employees living the company values
The Customer stories - amplify the customer's voice
The Challenge stories - how your company deals with internal and external challenges
The Community stories - how does your company help the community
Then she continues with her model of implementing Brand Storytelling into organizations. The elements of the model are:
Define - First companies need to know what message they want to get through to their customers. What do they want their brand to be? Sometimes this is difficult to define. So if you are stuck at this step take the other approach and define what your brand is not.
Teach - At this step, you teach your employees how to find stories and share them in a concise and engaging way. It is important to know which employees need which level of education of the matter. One of the main things to keep in mind though is that senior executives should be involved in the training. The training must involve the practice of sharing stories.
Collect - When looking for stories from others many make a big mistake by saying "Tell me a story". Most people then think that what they did or achieved is not big enough to be considered a story that others want to hear and decided not to share what may be a perfectly good story. So next time instead of saying "Tell me a story", say "Describe a time when you..." or "Tell us about..." or "Give us an example..." Once you collected enough stories from your employees you can do an analysis and see which values are already embedded and part of your brand and which need a bit more of work.
Communicate - Communicate internally and externally, in written and oral formats on all channels. Share your stories to help connect and engage with people. Remember just because you told your story in one format on one channel it doesn't mean you are done. Tell the same story on every channel, just do it properly.
Create - Understand that if people have a positive experience they will share positive stories. The same goes for negative experiences. Use this knowledge and create circumstances that are in your favor.
Gabrielle ends her book with what she calls "Case stories" where she shares stories she learned about from interviewing people from different companies about how they are using brand storytelling to communicate internally and externally. This includes stories from a family-owned and operated business, a restaurant, a hotel and resort, a financial company, and an electronics company.
You can find more about the book (like my notes) at https://purposefocuscommitment.com/bo...
March 6, 2021
Storytelling has been flavour of the month in organisations for some time now. Anyone can spin a yarn - although not all do it effectively. If you really want to sharpen the strategic focus of those yarns and captivate people with your message - this book will show you how, and how to take those your work/ volunteer with on that journey too. Filled with real life stories, examples and personal anecdotes, this book is not just for corporates. The guidance re “brand” stories can equally be applied to “mission” for those, particularly Individuals and those in the Not-For-Profit sector, for whom mission IS their brand. A must-read for anyone wanting to adopt a more purposeful and strategic approach to communicating.
September 22, 2021
Genius storyteller and business leader Gabrielle Dolan strikes gold again. This is the 5th of her books that I have read and she continues to amaze me. Her ability to mix data, sticky storytelling, wit and humility teaches the reader how to make a real point. The author has helped grow my leadership over the years. Especially loved the examples of successful business storytelling like the story of the Columbia Restaurant in Florida! Must read for any communicator who seeks to make a greater impact!!
February 20, 2021
Ral produces another fine book on storytelling, this time focusing on stories that brands (ie organizations) can cultivate for influence. Not only is it full of great stories (of course!) but the reader is led through them with Ral’s unique and witty quips. Very amusing! She finishes with a practical guide on how to find and craft your own organization stories.
March 19, 2021
Authentic and practical!
March 14, 2023
Practical advice and very convincing about the role of stories and how to find them, if not a little repetitively towards the end
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews