Every company has customer stories to tell. Some don’t know they have them, some don’t tell them well while others miss the mark by using them to carry marketing too overtly. This eBook is about finding those stories within your happiest customers and harnessing them to support your business. It’s about how to structure evidence and validation into your offering as a powerful form of sales enablement and marketing. It is for sales and marketing leaders and those responsible for creating customer references within their organization. In this ebook we hope to share specific stories about storytelling to advance your sales and marketing efforts.

1. THE ART OF
CUSTOMER
STORYTELLING
Insights about how to find and tell better stories
and harness the power of your customers.
centerline.net twitter:@centerline
310 South Harrington St. Raleigh, NC 27603

2. An Important Quiz
Does your company have accessible customer stories
powerful enough to help you win new business?
Yes No
1

3. So what is this all
about?
Shortest answer
Increase sales using your best asset.
Shorter answer
We’re going to help you understand the
power of good customer references and
how to make stories work harder for you.
Short answer
Every company has customer stories to tell.
Some don’t know they have them, some
don’t tell them well while others miss the
mark by using them to carry marketing too
overtly.
This is about finding those stories within
your happiest customers and harnessing
them to support your business. It’s about
how to structure evidence and validation into
your offering as a powerful form of sales
enablement and marketing.
It is for sales and marketing leaders and
those responsible for creating customer
references within their organization.
In this ebook we hope to share specific
stories about storytelling to advance your
sales and marketing efforts.
2

4. A better way
to market?
Validation and evidence
Marketing and sales people have been telling The truth is, when your customers are talking
stories for centuries by finding the right story about you and the things you do to make their
for the right occasion to win more business. lives easier, other people naturally pay more
attention. It stands to reason that telling
Some stories are more fluff than others. And better, more deeply engaging stories will
when the business is telling a story, people address skepticism and build greater
can’t help but to be skeptical. It’s just the way authenticity and trust.
it is.
That is what this eBook is all about.
It is a primer on how to find
and tell better stories and
harness the power of
your customers.
3

5. Customer Story Platform
Table of Contents
Difference Between a Customer Reference Program and
a Customer Story Platform 5
What’s Missing From Customer Reference Programs? 8
10 Elements of a Great Customer Story 11
The Customer Story Platform Model 22
How Can a Customer Story Platform Help
Salespeople? 23
Centerline Digital Customer Reference Hub 24
Conclusion 25
4

6. Difference Between a Customer
Reference Program and a
Customer Story Platform
Customer Reference Programs are
primarily about gathering and
managing testimonial assets to Customer Reference Program
support and/or shorten sales
cycles. The emphasis is on asset
management and reference contacts • Stores reference assets
and not the quality and efficacy • Tracks how often customers are being used
of the content. Customer Story
Platform (CSP) is a concept created • Tracks reference-able customers
by Centerline Digital to address the • Fields requests for testimonials
most common limitation of most
• Hybrid between a contact database and
traditional Customer Reference
a Content Management System
Programs, the customer’s authentic
story. The platform is the key.
The Customer Story Platform
was built for enterprise
sales-forces, who need:
high-quality, reusable story Customer Story Platform
assets that can be used
online, in social media, in • Built on a solid content strategy
presentations, conferences, • Focus is on the quality of the story told
kiosks, etc. to help them win • Emphasis on story creation, higher-quality
business. • Custom-tailored story creation
The CSP is about capturing the • Creating persuasion from objective,
right stories for the right reasons third-parties
and targeting the right outputs to • Making the most relevant stories readily
get the most out of the stories accessible
being told.
...... It is best to focus efforts on fewer high impact customers than
5 dilute focus across many, perhaps less compelling, customer
stories.

7. Think of the Customer Story Platform...
...as a substance layer that sits on top of your customer reference program that makes your multimedia assets
better. The Customer Story Platform is for companies that want to augment their existing customer reference
programs with more engaging, substantive and results-based stories. The Customer Story Platform is not a
replacement for a Customer Reference Program — they work in unison.
We built the platform to allow people to focus on increasing the quality of those dynamic, reusable videos of your
happiest customers validating your business and your offering. We built it because we know these stories don’t
happen by accident. They require focused energy and investment. The platform helps people gain that focus.
Where to Invest The Payoff
1
Find the right customers. More engaged storytellers, improved level of
confidence, more compelling stories. They are
the evidence.
2
Make the story interesting. Deepen engagement, broaden appeal, make it
spreadable, increase efficacy.
3
Prepare the interviewer. Extract the best possible story, surface the best
details, keep the story objective. Uncover
salient details.
4
Make the story clear and Allow your audience to visualize their problems
understandable. in your hands. Appeal to the broadest audience.
Zero in on the insight. Take a stand, have a differentiated insight,
5 make the story more memorable. Illuminate
your focal point that helps validate your
offering with strength.
6 Editing. Tighten up the story. Make it more professional,
more believable and easier to internalize.
Customer references are most effective when used as a high-level entry point in
...... the conventional sales funnel. They are best used to enthuse and advance a
6 discussion, and not as an attempt to include all relevant sales and marketing
information.

8. Your Current References Aren’t Working if ...
• More energy is going into explaining your past client experiences than showing them.
• You are delivering several hours of testimonial with only a few seconds of insight.
• Your sales people aren’t using good customer stories everyday.
• Your new client prospects aren’t persuaded.
• You aren’t putting them into presentations, conferences, pitches, social media and websites.
• You have to “bug” your past clients to field phone calls from your prospects.
• You’re more worried about reference burnout than winning the deal.
• You’re spending more time looking for that one story from last year that no one can seem to find.
• Your customer references sound more like a product demonstration than an outside perspective about you.
• People are dropping out before they finish seeing the story in its entirety.
7 ......
A conversational tone, versus a sales-oriented one, is more
engaging and persuasive.

9. What’s Missing
From Customer Reference
Programs?
Story.
Your customers each have a story to tell — and that story is the content that can support your next big win.
Customer stories provide a unique opportunity for existing customers to earn you additional business. Let’s face
it: however you market yourself, your messaging and positioning simply can’t compete with validation of your cus-
tomers telling their story on your behalf — compellingly, sincerely, persuasively. Your future customers want
more than a simple business transaction. They want to know that you can offer what they need, that you are the
right fit and that you, the company, can understand them because you’ve helped others like them.
We know storytelling will help you craft that right fit.
We see customer story design as the act
of turning complex business problems
into easy-to-follow content.
...... Impart extended benefit and greater knowledge to the
8 customer beyond the immediate solution implementation
story.

10. Better fishermen typically know more about fishing, know the
techniques, catch limits, etc. and they find better fishing holes.
Better storytellers, by the same token, know where to find the
best stories — at the very least, they know where your most
authentic and persuasive stories are, how to catch the stories and
know their limits.
Storytelling is complicated. If your offering or sales cycles are
steeped in complexity, and the value of that offering is difficult to
understand, it’s possible that one story isn’t capable of telling it
all. Consider telling the story in pieces.
Key questions to uncover your best story:
1) What customer is most invested in your success —
whose success is tied to yours?
2) What customer is evolving or maturing your offering the
most?
3) What sale of your offering had the greatest impact on
the customer and their market?
4) Who is most capable of making your offering a
no-brainer?
A successful customer story not only speaks to the solution
...... or service you provide, but also how the customer was able
9 to reach their own goals and growth because of the support
and collaboration they received from you.

11. How to
Find
the
Right,ght,
Great
Stories
• Your best stories will have, at the same time, broad appeal to
create more connections to a wider set of prospects and
narrowed insights that really resonate with specific audiences.
• They should be able to be told verbally and create a strong
positive reaction.
• They should be told by people who are legitimately interested
in the story’s origin and outcome. Their interest in the story
being told provides the strength required to make it work.
• They should be told from a personal point of view.
• They should have some distance from your brand.
Where will your customer reference videos be delivered once they are
completed (your website, to a specific person, a social media channel,
...... etc.)? Knowing this in advance helps define the content of the video... and
10 will help you know where the video will be best-leveraged or posted
(your website, YouTube, etc.).

12. 10 Elements of a
Great Customer Story
Every customer story is different but the best ones have the same underlying “magic” in common. By balancing
your focus and energy on the 10 strategic and functional elements, the stories you tell will truly change the way
your prospects respond to the value you offer. They are:
Strategic Functional
1. Interesting story 7. Preproduction
2. Interviewer knowledge 8. Editing
3. Story clarity 9. Supporting footage
4. Quantifiable results customer is 10. Story activation
comfortable talking about
5. Substance vs. Aesthetics
6. Thought-provoking insights
...... The interviewee’s position within their company should relate directly
11 to the primary audience you wish to reach with the reference. Interview
your client’s CEO if that is the role you wish to reach next.

13. 1. INTERESTING STORYv
0197 0198 0199
Your stories need to hold the audience’s interest, but what’s interesting to you may not be for those buying your
solutions. It’s what they see that is important. Depending on the goal of your story, you may need to adjust
accordingly, but for most intents and purposes, you really have to empathize with your audience. Here’s a trick:
look at “interesting” from five different perspectives:
1) What’s interesting to you and your brand?
2) What’s interesting to your prospect?
3) What’s interesting to your prospect’s customers?
4) What’s interesting to an independent analysts researching your
offering and that of your nearest direct competitor?
5) Finally, what do these perspectives have in common? What are
the most significant findings? Can these perspectives help you
craft an interesting story?
...... In the delivery of the story, passion and personality is just
12 as important as the story itself when the goal is motivat-
ing a potential customer to take action.

14. 2 INTERVIEWER
KNOWLEDGE
The catch has a lot to do with the quality of
the fisherman. By that same token, interview-
ers play a critical role in creating your best
stories. They know how to create the best
possible conditions to extract the optimal
narrative. And it’s not just about the story.
It’s just as much about the story-teller. A
great interviewer knows the story intimately
and knows how to bring it to the surface.
He or she knows how to shape the narrative,
how to comfort the storytellers, and how to
listen and bring out the best. A good inter-
viewer knows how to balance objectivity with
the benefits of your offering in an
environment of authenticity, and does so
with experience. If the story isn’t coming to
the surface, good interviewers know how to
find it through the voice and character of the
storyteller.
...... Location based interviews tend to be more compelling as the
13 story can be visually supported and the interviewees are typically
more relaxed.

15. 3.
STORY
CLARITY
Clarity is very important. The hardest thing is to make a
unique insight understandable, relevant and persuasive.
Clarity is what makes your story successful. Here is a
valuable exercise: with existing stories in mind, ask
yourself the following questions about their clarity:
1) Can you distill the story down into 10 words?
2) Can you find the sharable insight?
3) If you swap your name out with a competitor’s, does
the story still make perfect sense? If so, you need to
modify.
4) Does the story compel people to think clearly about
how you solve problems?
5) Are your stories focusing on the customer more than
your offering?
6) Does your story draw a line between what is and
what can be?
7) Does the story build? Does it motivate listeners to
want more?
8) Is there any doubt that your customer benefited
from your involvement?
......
14 At the current rate of growth, video will overtake written content
in terms of use within most buying processes.

16. 4.
QUANTIFIABLE RESULTS
A CUSTOMER IS COMFORTABLE
TALKING ABOUT
Proof. Your customer stories should be centered In order to get your customer to state that,
around evidence and validation. Is there clear, because of your offering, they had a 45% increase
irrefutable evidence that your solution helped in overall revenue over a 12 month period, or
your customer solve a problem worth solving? And something to that effect, you have to make sure
to what degree? Capturing that “essence” they are comfortable saying so. They have to own
authentically is a silver bullet. that statement.
Think about the stories you want to tell and how The key to this is your customer’s ability to “own”
you want them to be heard. You want the stories their result. Sometimes the outcomes are softer
you tell to tactfully and powerfully compel and less quantifiable. Stating they had a happier
people to take a step closer to considering your company culture as a result is easy to say because
offering. You want your prospects to hear the story it’s not quantifiable. Your audience is left to
and feel an increased confidence in your interpret the value of that outcome in terms of
solutions. Having one customer share their their problems and needs. And leaving this up to
experience with your prospects does this. interpretation is a way to devalue the story’s
Sharing concrete results makes that story intent.
stronger.
...... In the medium of video it’s best draw out the story through its main
15 points, high level conversation. The inspiring points that viewers can
relate to.

17. 5. Substance vs. Aesthetics
There are two sides to quality. We’ve developed this simple
“story algebra” to balance cinematography and shot
composition with story substance and clarity:
People who create customer reference assets (stories)
struggle with this balance everyday. They wonder how
much (very finite) energy they should devote to writing or
shaping a story vs. how much they should spend on the
aesthetics and in post production.
While mileage may vary, there is always a good balance to
be struck between the aesthetic and the story’s substance.
You know you are balancing the equation when your
outcomes are successful and you’re staying on budget.
......
16
You want to get viewers to see themselves in the same situation,
empathize with their hardships, be inspired by their journey and
moved to action.

18. v
6
THOUGHT
PROVOKING
INSIGHT
A thought-provoking and relevant insight is one of
the best ways to validate your offering. Without
insight, your customer’s story is just marketing. Example for Technology X Company:
With insight, you will create meaning. “I knew the only way I was going to be
able to solve the mayor’s problem was to
Think about it this way: Your prospect has seen
your customer reference video on your website. outsmart our city’s crime with newer and
They are interested but not yet ready to buy from more agile views into bigger data.
you. What are the things you want your prospects Technology X Company had the platform
to take away if they aren’t immediately persuaded
to buy your offering? Answer: You want them to
and ideas that could help me reduce
come away from the story with a strong, crime by 20% in 9 months, and they
memorable feeling that your company “gets” worked through my unique situation with
them. You want to diminish doubt and skepticism me.”
that your company understands customers, is
adaptive and competent. And you want all this
essence to come from your customer’s story.
The overall insight above is using bigger
We believe your stories should deliver unique and data as a crime fighting tool. The subject is
meaningful insight into “why you?” And with that, about fighting the mayor’s crime problem.
the story should heighten the customer’s The object is newer and more agile views into
confidence in your ability to address their unique bigger data. The supporting role was played by
challenge. In the example below, we illustrate a Technology X Company. It’s more about the insight
complex story with a hierarchy of insights. and less about the company.
...... The speaker or speakers must be able to express their story with passion
17 and authenticity. This is the difference between “storytelling” and
“selling.”

19. 7 PREPRODUCTION
Preproduction makes everything
smoother. Done right, it assures
you are getting the right people,
locations, shots and ultimately,
the story.
Having preproduction time to research,
talk with subject experts, client, sales
reps, business partners and the customer
also contributes to the overall quality and
relevance of the story. Good planning is
never evident in a well-told story —
unfortunately bad planning is.
Through effective preproduction you
are able to scout and select the best
location, interview and select the most
appropriate contacts, and set up the
right conditions to capture quality
supporting footage (B-roll.) These may
seem like “nice-to-haves” but are
always the difference between a good
story and a successful story.
......
18
Think about where within the buying process your viewers are:
(Influencer early on, purchaser later on?) How does this affect the stories
you want to create?

20. 8.EDITING 8.E
A good story is told three times. Once in the The most common editing mistakes that prohibit the
preparation, once in the shoot and then again in success of good stories are:
the edit suite.
1) Edit is too tightly packed—interviewees
You can interview for hours and find the most
powerful story packed full of insights and validation seem like they’re speed-talking.
and have it fall flat because of a poor edit. Imbalance
between story substance and post-production can
mean the difference between a very successful 2) There are too many details drowning
reference and a vast waste of time, energy and out the insights.
money.
Good editing is about drawing out the personality of 3) There is no sense of gravity that ties
the customer in a way that feels natural, authentic
the importance of the story to the
and integrated. This is a delicate sensibility,
and not a one-size-fits-all. The director needs to audience.
communicate to the editor how to best portray the
client’s brand.
4) The keystone resolution to the problem
isn’t clear.
5) You settle on too much company (you),
and too little customer (them).
The speaker/customer is providing their story as a reference for
...... you, their story contains the benefits provided by your products
19 or services, so it should be about their story and not the story
(messaging, product name drops) you want them to tell.

21. We call supporting footage, “B-roll.” B-roll helps illustrate the
customer’s personality and brand then ties it to the larger story. It
provides the backdrop, helps carry the weight of context (of the
solution and the speaker) and can help set the tone of your entire
story.
It’s difficult to plan sometimes, but knowing in advance where you
can film good environment, tone and setting shots will pay off in
huge dividends. Your editors will certainly agree.
Directing the photographer/cameraman and associated team to
capture B-roll appropriate to the customer brand leads to a much
more interesting and cohesive story. Always grab as much as you
can.
Many companies have excellent B-roll all ready to go. Don’t forget
to consider the work that those before you may have done.
SUPPORTING
FOOTAGE
Videos are accessed most by INFLUENCERS early in the purchasing
process – and they are most often found off the corporate website.
Videos are accessed more by DECISION MAKERS later in the process
20 ......
– and they are most often viewed on the corporate website. Take this
into consideration in how you package and proliferate your references.

22. STORY
ACTIVATION
Activation is what happens to the story once it’s Also, when you have a platform view of your story
completed and “out there”. Activation is how you assets, you’ll gain an advantage by seeing the
amp up your assets to work harder for you. additional pieces of your story broken up into
smaller, more digestible parts. This will help you see
While “put it on YouTube” isn’t a strategy or a mea- how great assets can be repurposed or applied to
sure of success, it’s a smart tactic for many reasons. other sales and marketing efforts. (Don’t forget to
One in particular is the Search Engine Optimization look on the cutting room floor.)
(SEO) value you derive. YouTube, Vimeo and other
video posting sites are indexed for search better than Your videos can also have a life beyond the web. Get
the video embedded on your site. Posting your video them on the desktops of your sales team through the
on those sites with strategically chosen tags and use of a desktop widget, mobile application, feature
description, will make your story more “findable”. them in an email campaign and use them at trade
Another activation strategy is to break up the full shows and other events.
customer reference story into smaller or individual
soundbites that can be used in blog posts, banner In all cases, they’re compelling pieces that direct
ads, on video posting sites, and other search-engine people to you.
friendly places around the web. You will be
amplifying the message, pollinating links back to
your website where your customers may spend time.
In addition, your smaller snippets can also be well
leveraged by sales reps in meetings and events, etc.
Escaping the noise with your customer references takes both
21 ......
quality CONTENT and CONTEXT. This will help you create a signal
that your target audience can separate from the noise.

23. CUSTOMER
STORY
PLATFORM
MODEL
It’s not enough to plan for, capture, edit and activate your
great customer stories. You also have to store or archive
them intelligently — so those who need them can access
the right stories, instantly — not allowing them to fall into
the content chasm (that area of content between what’s
publicly available and what’s private or behind the firewall).
This content chasm is a growing challenge in most
companies. It is deep and widening! It holds an evolving
and maturing collection of sales enablement tools such
as customer reference videos, presentations and product
demonstration animations. When this chasm grows, so
does the problem of accessing the right tools for the right
purposes quickly and effectively.
Compounding this challenge is a growing organization’s
quality control, along with the savvy salesperson’s
requirement to build better sales presentations with the
best existing assets in minutes rather than hours or even
days.
There are tools that address this problem by allowing
salespeople and marketers to access the right stories
by keeping them categorized and cataloged and ready
to go.*
* The Reference Hub is a Web application developed by Centerline Digital to
categorize and catalog customer reference story assets. It provides ready access
to your company’s internal sales and marketing assets and allows employees to
stitch together their own string of assets to tell a better story.
You cannot underestimate the importance of an original voice.
...... The interviewee shouldn't sound like a marketing person or have
22 an over-polished delivery. S/he should come off as a real-world
person who had to solve a real-world challenge.

24. HOW CAN A CUSTOMER
STORY PLATFORM HELP
SALESPEOPLE?
Imagine having a salesforce that is able to tell stories that professionally validate your
company’s offering, using quality dialog from your best customers. A Customer Story
Platform should help salespeople and marketers by giving them access to the
company’s growing collection of sales enablement assets quickly.
By enabling salespeople to pick from a tightly curated and tag-based
body of video references and other media, they can cut the time
required to build compelling presentations in half—or better.
Additionally, they can all store their best compilations for
other salespeople or continually improve on their own.
Once done, they can simply send or share their
new creations in any way they see fit.
This cuts the sales cycle down, ensures that only
the very best impressions are being made
and better equips future sales efforts.
A picture is worth a 1000 words while a metaphor is worth
...... 1000 pictures. Use an interesting metaphor or analogy. Inter-
23 viewees should be able to crystalize the issues they deal with in
a metaphor that makes a complex issue easy to understand.

25. The Centerline Digital Reference Hub
E
The Reference Hub is a media asset management system on steroids. It helps fast-moving sales and
marketing professionals create riveting presentations on the run.
Among its many purposes, it:
1) Allows people to access the very best assets to piece together the best
presentation in minutes.
2) Ensures the highest quality output by allowing the team to discriminate each
asset — quality in, quality out.
3) Is all tag-based allowing people to quickly find specific assets.
4) Allows people to build, distribute and share their creations as they see fit.
5) Allows people to record their own introductions to customize their presentations.
24

26. CONCLUSION
Every company is different and so is every story. Once you have a system and platform in place allowing your team
to perfect the necessary storytelling elements (plan, shoot, produce, activate and warehouse), the sky is the limit
for the types of sales and outreach your company can perform.
To us, storytelling for sales and marketing and employee engagement is about setting exciting new benchmarks
around quality, creativity, results and access. For 15 years we have been using ideas, technology and hard work to
create a storytelling platform for one of the world’s largest and oldest companies. This has given us the opportunity
to blast through the obstacles and help people use better assets to work smarter with less energy.
Centerline Digital is a group of Raleigh, NC-based writers, directors, strategists, Web/Mobile/Social creatives,
animators and editors. The stories we help our clients tell have to yield results, so we call ourselves accountable
storytellers.
If you would like to learn more about the subject of this eBook, ask questions or learn more
about our capabilities and experience, please contact us at 919.821.2921 or at the email
addresses below.
John Lane
Vice President of Strategy and Creative
john@centerline.net
twitter: johnvlane
Erin Craft
Account Executive
erin@centerline.net
twitter: erincraft
25