Who is the hero of your story?

‘Who is the hero of your organisation’s story?’ I asked the CEO. As he began to register what I’d said his eyes widened, he sat back in his chair, blew out a massive puff of air and replied: ‘in all my years running companies no one has ever asked me this.’

He didn’t have a clue. 

‘Look at your website,’ I told him. 

The browser on my laptop was open on their website, displaying each and every one of their heroic homepage paragraphs. All spoke of the company’s brilliance and were riddled with phrases like ‘what we do for our clients’ and ‘our passion and expertise’. 

This use of these kinds of words are the biggest sign your brand is the hero of its own story.

And… it shouldn’t be! 

Because the hero of your story should ALWAYS be your customer. Always. 

If our customer is our hero, who are we?

Your story has two main characters. Your customer is the hero. Your organisation is their mentor. You are their Dumbledore to Harry Potter, Obi Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker and their Glinda The Good Witch to Dorothy!*

When you make your customer the hero of your story it changes everything. Your story is no longer about you and how great you are. It’s about your customer. You supporting them. Everything should evolve around them. 

This is why knowing your story and its main characters is such a potent tool for any leadership team. 

What if your CEO is the hero?

This is also really useful to know if you have a founder CEO with a big personality. Because the day will eventually come when they decide to take a step back or sell the business altogether (and want to avoid having to be sold with it).

It’s always better for an organisation to have a separate story from its founder so it can stand on its own two feet.

One of the first stories we ever worked on was with an inspiring CEO/founder who runs an extremely successful burlesque school in London. She told us that as she was creating her story she noticed a gap forming between her and her brand. Up until that point the company had been all about her. And she was exhausted.

Creating her organisation’s story meant it was no longer all about her. And for the first time ever she felt more relaxed and even found herself delegating more, much to the delight of her team.

All she’d done was shift their focus onto her customer. The true hero of their story.

* in the case of an internal comms story your people are the hero and your organisation is still the mentor