If someone asked you to tell a story, where would you begin?
Most likely with a person.
Perhaps the boy who discovers he is a wizard.
Or the outsider who gets a chance, and wins against all odds.
The character can be you or someone else.
Real or fictional.
It almost doesn’t matter.
What captures us are emotionally charged events with a human at the center.
When a story follows the brain’s natural pathways, it cuts through resistance like a hot knife through butter.
Otherwise, it’s quickly forgotten.
Want to be heard? Speak in stories that start with a human being.
Great stories are often built around three roles
Whether you want to reach new customers, motivate others, or inspire your team, messages usually work best when they’re built around three roles:
👉 The Hero: the one at the center who undergoes a transformation
(think Luke Skywalker)
👉 The Resistance: what stands in the way
(the Empire, but also Luke’s self-doubt)
👉 The Guide: the one who provides tools, knowledge, and direction
(think Obi-Wan Kenobi)
The hero drives change.
Resistance creates friction.
The guide makes transformation possible.
The big mistake in business communication
Despite the fact that all strong stories follow more or less the same logic, most companies break it in their own communication.
Look at an average company website or sales presentation! They often follow the same pattern:
• Here are our amazing solutions.
• Here is our vision, our milestones, and our fantastic employees.
• Here are our customer cases proving how good we are.
From a storytelling perspective, something crucial happens.
The company places itself in the hero’s role.
The customer is reduced to an audience.
The unconscious signal becomes: “This is our story. You get to watch.”
Your role in the customer’s story
In business, everything is about the customer’s transformation.
That requires a shift in roles:
👉 The hero is the customer. It’s their journey that matters.
👉 The resistance is their problem. Inefficiency, uncertainty, outdated ways of working.
👉 You are the guide. Your job is not to win the battle, but to give the customer the tools to do it.
Your role is to hand over the lightsaber.
Not to swing it yourself.
A lesson from 1964 🚗
In Volkswagen’s classic commercial from 1964, we see a car fighting its way through a brutal snowstorm (here you can see that ad). A speaker voice says softly:
“Have you ever wondered how the snowplow driver gets to the snowplow?
This one drives a Volkswagen.”
The driver is the hero.
The snowstorm is the resistance.
Volkswagen is the guide.
The car is the tool.
Your customers aren’t looking for someone who steals the show.
They’re looking for a guide who helps them win their own battles.
So who was the hero in your latest presentation: you or the customer?
Here you can read about how to create value for your customer.
