Finding the one sentence at the heart of your story

Every project we take on starts with a sentence, and it is almost never the one the business arrives with. The one they bring usually describes what they do. The one we need describes what changes for their customers when they choose them.

The gap between those two is where most business storytelling fails, so it is worth spending some time on it before anyone writes a script.

What you do versus what changes

"We are an accountancy firm for small businesses" is a description. It is accurate, and it is useless as a story, because nothing happens in it. Nobody is different at the end.

"Our clients stop dreading the last week of January" is a sentence with a person in it, a feeling, and a before and after. It can be filmed. You can cast it. You can write six episodes about it, or a thirty-second ad, or a short film about one client's year.

The test is simple to state and surprisingly hard to pass: can you name the person, and can you say what is different for them afterwards? If the sentence has no person in it, it is a positioning statement. Keep it for the pitch deck.

How we get there

We ask a version of the same question until the answer stops being about the business. What changes for your customers when they choose you? The first answer is usually a feature. The second is usually a benefit. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth, someone in the room says something specific and slightly emotional, and that is the one.

Imagine a veterinary practice. First answer: we offer out-of-hours care. Second: pet owners get peace of mind. Third: you can always reach someone. Fourth, from the practice manager, quietly: people ring us at two in the morning and we pick up, and you can hear them breathe out. That last one is the story. It is a scene. You can see it.

It helps to have the right people in the room. The founder knows the ambition, and will usually give you the positioning statement. The person who answers the phone knows the customers, and will usually give you the story. Invite both.

The sentence does not have to be elegant. It has to be true, and it has to have something happening in it. Elegance is our job, later.

What changes for your customers when they choose you?

What the sentence is for

Once it exists, everything else gets easier to decide. The format follows from it: a sentence about a quick decision is an ad, a sentence about belonging is a series, a sentence about trust is a short film. Casting follows from it, because now you know who the person is. The ending follows from it, because now you know what the change looks like.

It also protects the work. Somewhere in every production someone will suggest adding a second message, a product shot, a line about the app. The sentence is what you hold up against that suggestion. If it does not serve the change, it does not go in.

You can do this exercise yourself, with the people who talk to your customers most. Ask the question, write down every answer, and keep asking until an answer surprises you. Then bring that one to us. It is the only brief we need, and it is the one most businesses have never written down.