Last year, I stopped by the Little Free Library a couple of blocks from my house and found a small square, inviting book titled SHOW YOUR WORK. The author’s name was familiar to me; Austin Kleon is probably best-known for his book STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST.
After leafing through SHOW YOUR WORK, I happily took the book home. I remember thinking that the universe had delivered it to that Little Free Library just for me.
The book is, after all, about one of my biggest hurdles. I do a lot of writing related to personal projects (rather than paid client work), and I often let it sit in folders on my laptop instead of showing it out in the world.
SHOW YOUR WORK has been a great nudging, encouraging force for me, but it also included a section that speaks to one of my deeply felt beliefs about business writing: You need to tell the story of your business well in order to connect with the people you hope to work with and help.
Your story should have a human element, color, warmth and real-ness. It should not be a recitation of facts. “X company was founded in X year to provide X for X customers. It has grown X amount and provides X services.” Because I’ve already provided a sample of a more colorful way to tell a business story elsewhere on my website (you can read that here), I won’t recreate the wheel in this post. Instead, I’ll share Austin Kleon’s wise words via these screen-grabs from his book, which has a fun, inviting design.
I hope this will inspire you to think about your business story in a new way.
~ Carla Atkinson
