Is your businesses story telling portraying you as the hero? OR the villain?
No hero = no story
Let me be direct: you can’t have a story without a hero.
If there’s no hero, there’s no one to root for, no stakes, no reason for me to care. Without a hero, you’re just retelling a situation.
But here’s the thing: heroes aren’t just defined by their existence. They’re defined by what they overcome.
Every time you’ve ever paid to consume a story whether that be a book, magazine, cartoon, or movie. You aren’t just listening to someone talk about how great they are. And how well everything’s gone.
Drama free Little Mermaid
Imagine The Little Mermaid where Ariel argues with her dad and… that’s it. No sea witch, no deal, no loss of her voice. She just packs a bag, moves to the castle, and everyone’s fine with it.
She and Eric instantly fall in love (obviously), the wedding is Pinterest-perfect, and they start a successful artisanal sea salt business.
The end.
…That story is dull as hell.
And we’re all really happy for her and cry at the end, after being gripped by the whole movie.
Except we’re not, right?
Not gripped, and not happy for her.
In fact, we think she’s a little stuck up. And we’re kinda tired of hearing about her amazing life.
Let’s think back to the actual movie. We see Ariel’s Dad tell her the land isn’t safe, and to stay away from the sea witch, and he was totally right. She did land herself in a bunch of trouble. Fall hopelessly in love with someone who didn’t immediately reciprocate and put herself though pain and trauma, eventually endangering her entire family. And tragically, see her Dad (who warned her not to get into this nonsense) turn into some kind of weird shrimp guy.
Everything we’ve seen, the struggle, the support from her friends, the attempted seduction, all futile. We we’re invested. It went Pete Tong.
The story puts us through stress as viewers. And all the while look how easy it is for our villain, Ursula. Like all villains, Ursula is a perfectionist. She’s crafty, always wins, has unwavering support from her cronies and is extremely body confident. Look how Ursula could make herself conventionally hot at any moment, but she’s so confident as who she is, she stays as a weird octopus lady.
The villain tests our main character and through this process, we get to find out who our character really is, which we may not see if Ariel stayed unda da sea. This is called a character arc. And stories without a character arc, are a bit dull.
What makes a hero?
So to summarise we want our hero to:
- Be tested by a villain, be exposed to terrible situations so we can find out who they really are.
- and watch them transform into someone even more powerful than the villain, even though nobody expected it.
If someone isn’t being tested, we don’t get to see their transformation, we don’t get to see them over come a problem they felt was futile, then we aren’t really watching a hero.
So if your social media is telling the story of you, or your brand.
And its all:
- Wins
- Awards
- Masterful things you know that other people should know so they can become as successful as you
- How you are so successful even though everyone doubted you
Then you aren’t the hero. We can’t root for you if you don’t have any trials or character tests.
Villain = perfect
Mr Perfect, you’re the villain.
Without vulnerability, without us seeing what you’ve overcome, we can’t truly root for you. And it has to be genuine, because in order for us to care, we need to be invested in this problem with you.
Being a villain is really cool. As the old Jaguar ad points out.
Villains are usually sexy, intelligent, (sexually intelligent?), well organised, and well dressed.
You don’t see many scruffy villains. You don’t see any villains who think ‘you know what, I don’t feel like working out today’. They’re dedicated, driven, perfect. They’re also annoying by design. We don’t connect with perfect people, because we’re all extremely flawed. And I don’t mean in a deep down, villainous backstory way.
|f your brand story is all about wins, you’re the villain
Villains are perfectionists. They never forget passwords, never miss a workout, never spill coffee on their shirts before a big meeting. They have flawless plans, perfect speeches, and impeccable wardrobes.
Meanwhile, heroes? They’re a mess. They stumble over their words when speaking to a love interest. They doubt themselves. They get rejected. They spend half their journey failing before they win. And that’s why we love them. (Because they’re just like us.)
So when you show off about your perfect processes, your wins, how everything went to plan. You scream villain.
Let’s remember that Villains have a tragic backstory, Heroes sometimes do: (Batman, Spiderman AND Superman), and they sometimes don’t: (Bilbo Baggins, Luke Skywalker, Ash Ketchum). The tragic backstory helps us build empathy for the villain and increases their complexity. We find out that Miranda (Anna Wintour) in The Devil Wears Prada, is actually really unhappy in her relationships. And even Voldermort, perhaps the villain with the least depth of all time, began life as little boy Tom Riddle who was abandoned by his muggle father.
I’m telling you this because when you point out that you’re doing well now, but that things were hard at first, it doesn’t do anything to build your story as a hero. It keeps you in firm villain territory. Saying you built your business from scratch, or that nobody said you would make it, doesn’t take us along for the ride. It sounds a bit ‘okay, we get it, you had it harder than any of us and you’re still in the 5 am club’.
When we take someone for the ride with us, as a hero of the story, we get their investment and we get them to care about us. We hook them in, so that they want to see all the updates like an episode of Eastenders.
Take 30 under 30 list Amy Smale, who grew her business Odd Muse to 2mil in the pandemic. She shares her highs and lows on her TikTok. Whether that be feeling overwhelmed and stressed by her finances, or sharing the excitement of attending brand photoshoots. To add a social element, she’ll open up personal decisions to her audience (should I hire a CTO?).
Seeing you wake up and never miss a days workout, and tell us all how to achieve it. Isn’t endearing, inspiring or telling a story.
But don’t go too far, get a therapist
But what about the opposite end of the field? What about people who are too vulnerable and are always complaining, always seem to be in some kind of drama and always need help. That’s also unheroic. Hero’s make appeals for help, it’s part of their shtick, but they’re not out here constantly begging and crying.
Let’s appeal to the expert on vulnerability, Brene Brown. According to Brene, there are two kinds of vulnerability. One we love, as humans. And one that’s…. icky.
Vulnerability that’s useful to us in PR is stuff that gets people to say, ‘wow I’m rooting for you, and I have that problem too sometimes’. It allows them to see your humanity and invites them to think about their own journey. True vulnerability enhances connection. Faux vulnerability, feels self-indulgent, performative or even manipulative. It feels like, yet again, this person is asking me to ignore my own problems to deal with theirs.
Here are some tips from her book, Daring Greatly.
- Oversharing can feel like a shield. Disclosing too much, too fast can push others away and be an attempt to control perception. True vulnerability should be gradual.
- Sharing struggles is important, but if you’re in the midst of processing it, it’s best to wait to make it public. This is the difference between people feeling obligated to help you with a problem, and waiting until you’ve learned a lesson from your problem so you can tell people ‘hey, I really struggled with this but now here’s what I’ve learned’. Ask yourself before hand, ‘am I sharing this to connect, or am I seeking validation?’
- Work out the story BEFORE you share. Your audience isn’t your therapist. We aren’t sharing to vent, we’re sharing to share a story, so what’s the story.
Make sure you’re the hero, not your competitor
So, if you’re telling your brand’s story, ask yourself:
- Are you making people root for you, or just admire you from afar?
- Are you sharing the real challenges, or just the polished results?
- Are you the hero of your story, or are you accidentally playing the villain?
Let people see the trials. Let them invest in your transformation. Because a story without struggle isn’t a story at all.
Let’s grab some post-its, some coffee, and work this out…
Wanna work with me a little on this? I’ve prepped a little workbook for you. Don’t worry, it’s free. But imagine how much fun we could have together if we were brainstorming a strategy for this, face to face, with some post it notes and plenty of coffee. Just saying, there’s plenty more where this came from.
I’ve also created some social media prompts for you based on this conversation.
If you’re a hero obsessed with Notion, I put the workbook on there so you can make a copy and type up your answers…
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