How to prevent a story backfire or sidefire

A family painted as yellow icons on a street

Sometimes a story sidefires—often in my mailbox. Yesterday, I opened a giant packet from a company selling me life insurance. They included a photo of a beautiful young family and a story about how boy meets girl, they fall in love, have babies...so far so good. He’s a provider and a planner so—no surprise here—he buys life insurance. Then the hard pivot.

The husband gets cancer and within the year he dies. Fortunately, the family has life insurance, which eases some of the burden on the wife. The end.

That’s it?

Wait. Hang on a second.

A story backfire causes you harm

Let’s be clear. The story didn't backfire. The writer did a good job of keeping it succinct and emotional without being manipulative. They even mentioned how the wife wanted to share her story because of how critical it was to have life insurance.

The story sidefires.

Yes, I made up this word. Let me explain.

A story “sidefire” benefits your competition

The story achieved half of its ends. The takeaway was, “If you have dependents, buy life insurance.” But the story failed to position why to buy life insurance from THAT company.

This miss means a prospective customer might now be sold on getting life insurance because of that story, but they’re going to comparison shop.

Whoops.

What could have made this story stickier? Swapping proportions and protagonists.

Proportions are about how much story real estate you spend where.

Many business storytellers frontload a backstory before the pivotal moment when their services kick in. In this case, the backstory is meant to get the customer to fall in love with this family, so we’re sad about the husband’s death. Yet when the husband dies and the life insurance appears...they drop us.

If they spent less time on the backstory leading up to the husband’s death and more on how a newly widowed mother reassembled her life with THAT insurance company, it could have been more powerful.

I’m not saying the bulk of the story should be about claims and paperwork. I’m saying show us how the wife felt as she gained some relief within her grief.

Protagonists are who we are rooting for so they should drive action.

The moment the husband buys the insurance makes a weaker impression than when the wife leverages it. A life insurance story should focus on the living, yes?

These swaps within business stories better show how a company delivers on its mission for its customers. Was the wife’s experience tailored? Turn-key? Frictionless? Did she have an advocate (maybe name the employee contact to humanize the brand)?

By telling the story from the wife’s perspective, and avoiding a process rundown from the company’s perspective, the emotional impact remains.

Tell stories about YOUR value, not your industry’s value.

Again, the story was well written, yet in business storytelling, that’s not enough. You must pull the audience through YOUR door while bypassing your competition.

Spend your story real estate on the differentiator that matters most—how your customers feel when you deliver on promises your way.