(Continued from previous slide) Which kinds of stories seem to resonate most with the customers of a B2B business?

ASHLOCK: And then stories that shake. … There's a certain kind of narrative that provokes a response of fear, of uncertainty … . It's a horror story, basically. And that's its point … to scare. These are often powerful narratives [in which] you are trying to motivate urgency. … The story would be something to the effect of ‘You are, if we look at these two trends, going to be out of business in the next five years, based on factors you didn't see coming.’ … It puts the fear of God in you.

The last one is stories that stake. These are territorial stories, expansion narratives, planting a flag in a place and then going from there … [such as] starting small with a market penetration or an acquisition or small investment and proving oneself and [the subject of the story is] slowly expanding its influence into a domain or industry or territory. These are really good stories to tell when … you know your audience has a curiosity but also maybe has a limited appetite for risk.