The older I get the more I recognise the power of story and
storytelling.
Take a look at the world in the last few years and the
stories that were successfully told:
The story Trump told the blue collar workers in
the ‘rustbelt’ states in the US during the 2016 presidential election
The story Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and
colleagues told to the public in the United Kingdom during the Brexit
referendum
Perhaps you have told a compelling story yourself in the
last few years. Maybe you have been telling one all your life.
We tell stories to persuade and influence. Stories are powerful
and the human mind is particularly receptive to story.
The story we tell ourselves, our family, our friends and
colleagues, the Workplace Relations Commission, the Labour Court, Civil Court,
Criminal Court, our boss, our schoolteachers, the voter is a powerful tool in
whether we will succeed or not.
And when it comes to a dispute, regardless of the venue in
which it will be held, the dispute can be boiled down to at least two competing
versions of events-two stories.
Whose story will prevail? Whose story is the most
compelling? Whose story will the adjudicator ‘prefer’?
I was at an excellent event recently UCD. It was a competition
for PhD students to explain in plain language, to a lay audience, the research
they were carrying out.
This is not an easy task given the level of complexity of
much of the research, and the associated language and science vocabulary.
After each presentation the expert panel of judges asked a
few questions of each of the PhD students. One young man presented his interesting
research on feeding cocaine to rats as part of a project to look into cures for
addiction.
One of the questions from a judge was how the student would
persuade industry/business get involved and finance further research into an
apparently exciting area. The reply of the student, who would have had no forewarning
of the questions, replied, “I would show them the data”.
However, I fear that was the wrong answer because data alone
won’t sell anything; story, combined with data, will do the trick, however.
Story is one of the most powerful, and underutilised or
badly applied, tools we have at our disposal. We need to use it wisely.
And the first story we need to concern ourselves is the story we tell ourselves.
P.S. Proud to write that my daughter, Rebecca, won that competition.
I found the photographs this week, worried I had lost one in particular. Turns out I had put it away so safely I could not find it.
Anyway, here it is. On the back it says “Feb ‘87, started trading in December, ‘86, sold in February ‘89, bought Navan July ‘89”
This is where my business story starts, at the age of 23, on 6th December, 1986.
It was a failed, locked up shop unit with a 2 bed apartment overhead. My brother Pat and I worked like mules to build it up from ground zero, from zero turnover to a healthy one within 12 months.
We traded from 7 am to 12 pm, not very common in 1986, built the turnover up well, and sold it on at a nice profit in early 1989.
Then I went to Navan in July 1989 and bought this property on Flower Hill.
Flower Hill, Navan, 1989
Did quite well there, too, but my dad wanted to retire from his petrol station business in Enfield, Co. Meath.
So I sold Navan and bought the filling station business in Enfield in 1996 and spent a lot of money developing it: new convenience store, new branding, new deal with the oil company, new tanks, equipment, pumps, car wash, etc.
Enfield, Co. Meath 1996
I had a young family and the hours of work and commitment in retail are savage. Retail, if you are running the show yourself and the buck stops with you, is relentless and genuinely 24/7.
I had also bought a small shop and building at Seapoint avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin and was trying to develop and run this at the same time.
So I eventually sold it in 2006 and went into property development. I bought a site in Edgeworthstown in Longford and built a block of 8 apartments.
Edgeworthstown, Longford, 2006
Down through the years I had been buying and selling property, flipping shops, houses, a little bit of renovation and improvement but this was the first time I was building from scratch.
So I managed the build myself, hired a teleporter and learned how to drive it, engaged the services of sub contractors and was involved in a race against the clock.
Just as I was coming to the end of the build and getting ready to launch the apartments the signs in the economy were bad, even though there was some hopelessly misguided talk of a ‘soft landing’.
We all know what happened next: the economy crashed and nowhere was the effect more pronounced than in the property game.
I lost everything. Wipeout.
When the tide goes out there is no fighting it. You are stranded. Just ask Sean Quinn or Tony O’Reilly or any of the other wealthy individuals who ended up being wiped out by the property crash.
When I say I lost everything I mean everything material or financial. I was healthy and had a great family and even though I hadn’t a cent to my name and massive debts I had two things going for me:
A good attitude
A willingness to work hard
So I went back to college to study law. I went to Griffith college and studied full time for about 4-6 months.
I spent the days in my garage at home and the nights in Griffith attending lectures.
The garage at home where I commenced my legal studies!
I sat the 8 FE1s-the entrance exams to the Law Society-and scraped a pass.
In all 8 subjects.
So then I became an apprentice solicitor and qualified after the usual period of apprenticeship and professional practice courses in the Law Society.
Now I have my own solicitor’s practice here in Enfield, Co. Meath.
Enfield (again) 2011
And the funny thing is my office is only about 200 yards from the filling station. I even buy my milk for the tea there, sometimes.
It’s funny walking across the forecourt on a morning to buy a litre of milk for the office and getting a flashback to 20 years previous-for example walking across the tanks I can remember vividly getting down on my knees at least twice a week to dip the tanks.
Or the little office in the shop in which I spent a lot of time dealing with the problems of a growing business. Or the flower beds around the place-they were my doing.
And the property I refer to above at Blackrock , Co. Dublin? I sold it to my younger brother who in turn sold it to my older brother and I am now acting in the conveyance of this property, some 20 years later.
Talking about going full circle.
What you have read is most of my origin story; I have actually left out parts. For legal reasons.
Building your brand
If you are starting or growing your business it is a good idea to use your origin story-your back story. Everyone has one.
And it helps grow and build your brand. Some brands appear to have something intangible that makes them more attractive to would be customers or clients.
One of these hidden characteristics is an origin story.
Think Ray Kroc, the milkshake salesman, building McDonalds and his origin story as a seller of milk shake machines and what he noticed on his travels, particularly the success of the McDonald brothers restaurant.
Think about Phil Knight starting Nike. Or Richard Branson and his beginnings in business.
Or Howard Schultz who was instrumental in growing a small coffee shop in Seattle, Washington called Starbucks into a global corporation. Or the college students who started Google.
And ask yourself this: when did you last, or ever, see an ad for Starbucks or Google? Starbucks and Google are just two brands who have grown without huge or any advertising spend because of their origin story and the ability to attract true believers.
