 Imagine for a moment that you went to a lake, launched your boat, and started to fish without knowing if the body of water was an environment where fish could thrive. Your results will be hit or miss. You could be super lucky and get a bite with every cast. You could go through the whole day without a single nibble. Maybe you have a bit of success and you bring in a few fish in return for the investment of your time, your equipment and the energy you expended to plan your day and get there. What would be better, would be to learn about the kind of fish you want to catch, and go where you know you’ll find them, and be prepared to use the right fishing techniques to reel them in. So it is with Buyer Personas.
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 We’re getting quite predictable, you and I. We use our consumer behaviors to shop for just about anything, be it a new dishwasher for our home, a software tool for work, or even our next job opportunity. Don’t believe me? Answer these questions. What do you do first when you need to buy a product or service? You go to the internet to research the problem that you need to solve, and you learn about the options available to solve it. When do you usually contact a company that you have put on your short list of possibilities? You probably don't want to talk to anyone until you have a pretty good idea of which direction you want to go.
Many businesses now realize that it's vital to create online interactions to guide people towards a purchase decision, but when it comes to recruiting talent and building a candidate pipeline, they’re missing the mark. Read on to learn why recruitment marketing is a growing trend not to be ignored.  If you ask, your clients are generally happy to put out a good word for you. They’ll refer you to their friends and colleagues. They’ll respond to your customer satisfaction surveys with high marks and a smiley face. They’ll even give you a favorable review on Facebook or Google. Unfortunately, the feedback, while good, isn’t necessarily compelling because what they have to say is flat. That is, it doesn’t take the reader up and over the dramatic arc, a necessity if you want to activate empathy – which you do.
 If you want to use case studies to differentiate your business and gain buyers’ trust, the first thing you need to do is find the stories that you need to tell. Once you know how to uncover these stories, and you get your whole company involved, you’ll discover that you have a consistent source of ideas for the best type of content that influences your buyers’ decisions. No special tools are needed to give these five tactics a try.
 When I was working on the brand story for my business, something hit me right between the eyes. Storytelling is a competitive advantage. It hit me so hard that I changed my tag line to reflect this concept. The reason why it’s a competitive advantage is because it gives you the opportunity to magnify who you are. Storytelling gives you the chance to not just tell people what you do, but to show people who you are and to stand out by telling the stories that only you can tell.
 Something a client said at a meeting recently has been mulling around in my head. What she said was a great compliment, although I don’t think she realized it. She validated that my work with their organization is not just to help them with marketing, but it’s also to change the way they think about who they are trying to reach by getting into their story.
 Now that I’ve caught you with that headline, I won’t keep you in suspense, but first-- what it isn’t. The single most important ingredient in your success story isn’t success. It’s distress. Surprisingly enough, when you leave out the struggle that led to your success, you really have no story at all.
[Transcript from video] Lori Creighton, here, Marketing Consultand and avid gardener. The last time I brought you to my garden I talked about how the garden, and your marketing, need to be tended. Today I'm going to talk about why, and that is -- competition.
[Transcript for video below] Good morning! Lori Creighton here - Marketing Consultant and avid gardener. This is my garden. I spend a log of time out here and when you're working it's a great time to do some thinking, and I've been thinking lately about how parallels there are between the work that I do in my garden and the work that I do in the marketing world.
 I know why you haven’t started using a storytelling approach to your marketing and communications. You’ve been hearing about it everywhere – from your industry organization, in your social media feed, at training events. You’re sold on its power to connect, persuade and motivate people. You just haven’t taken that first step. Here’s why. You don’t know how to find the stories you need to tell.
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