As I outlined my plan to add content to this website, my overarching goal was to start documenting “everything” I have learned about customer advocacy and referencing. I want to capture it, write it down, and share it with anyone who might find it useful.

This particular topic — storytelling & referencing — is one that is near to my heart.

Today, I have the honor of leading an advocacy and reference program. Through this program we identify and qualify prospective reference customers, and then coordinate with a variety of corporate teams to match the customers with their respective programs.

I love this job.

But I started out in this field as a writer. I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t love a great story.

Stories humanize. That’s why advocacy works.

We often focus on B2B customer advocacy in transactional terms. We know references are critical to advancing sales motions. We think of references as levers that we insert into in our sales and marketing collateral.

References are “proof points.” Data points. Boxes that B2B prospects check as they consider purchases.

You’ve seen the stats, right? Things like: At such and such a stage in the buyer’s journey, x% of prospects ask to speak to peers who have used the product.

These kinds of insights are important. They help businesses understand the importance of reference programs and why their expense is justified. They rev the engine of the reference program. “We need x references and we need them now!”

But there’s another side to this business as well — a profoundly human side.

Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reference assets are more than data points that chip away at a prospect’s resistance.

Referencing works because it places a prospect within a story, making the purchase decision relatable in deeply human terms.

Each of us lives inside a story.

If you’ve ever looked at the literature or practice of mindfulness, you have probably come across the term “monkey mind,” a Buddhist descriptor for the state of restless chatter that tends to dominate our waking awareness.

The goal of mindfulness is to quiet that chatter, to make space for other kinds of awareness that are typically less stress-inducing.

However, as a writer, I find this chatter fascinating — and I don’t believe it’s as chaotic as some of the definitions suggest. Mind chatter is, in fact, a kind of story-telling. It’s a rolling loop of narrative snippets: us telling ourselves who we are, what is happening to us, and the roles we and others are playing.

Think about the last time something happened to you that upset you. An argument with your partner. A health issue. A career set-back. Or something as simple as a jerk cutting you off in traffic.

How did you process that event?

Did you replay your memory while annotating it mentally — or verbally, as you talked it over with others?

“It was raining. The guy was a maniac. He passed me on the right and swerved back into my lane. I had to slam my breaks to avoid hitting him. Then he drove right off, oblivious. I couldn’t believe it. That jerk!”

It’s a story. You’re the careful driver, minding your own business. “The guy” is the careless, unpredictable, dangerous antagonist that threatened you, nearly caused you harm — and got away with it.

Running the story through your mind helps you to process what happened. Sometimes it helps you draw lessons (how to avoid dangerous drivers, what patterns suggest your partner is out-of-sorts, what symptoms mean a doctor’s visit is a smart thing to do).

The story also reinforces your sense of who you are and your place in the world.

“Highways can be dangerous places.”

“I’m sometimes vulnerable.”

“People who are rude to me don’t suffer any consequences.”

If we consider these kinds of statements, we can see that the story is operating on two levels. There’s the mundane level: what happened. The rain, the car, you hitting your brakes.

But there’s another level, which writers and Jungian psychologists recognize as the level of myth. “I’m sometimes vulnerable” is a timeless observation. It places “me” in a universal pantheon of wounded heroes, Achilles bleeding from his heel, Gilgamesh weeping over the serpent’s theft of the magical fruit of immortality.

“The symbols of mythology are not manufactured … They are the spontaneous productions of the psyche, and each bears within it, undamaged, the germ power of its source.”

— Joseph Cambell

Customer references as mythology

When we engage with customers who have agreed to serve as advocates, we start with the facts. We document the customer’s decision to buy our company’s product or services. What problem did the customer need to solve? What outcomes did the customer achieve after implementing our solution?

But our customers don’t purchase our products or services (usually!) for trivial or mundane reasons. They purchase them to solve problems that affect them in deeply personal ways. Maybe they want to contribute in meaningful ways to their company’s success. Or earn the respect of peers or leadership. Or relieve themselves from some problem that is causing them distress.

So it’s critical to be conscious that our customer’s story is operating as well on the level of myth-making. Our customer is a hero who set out on a quest, gathered tools and allies, overcame obstacles, defeated enemies, and emerged triumphant.

All the fun’s in how you say a thing.

— Robert Frost

When we engage reference opportunities as story-tellers, our references come alive. They resonate on a profound level. And they work more effectively, because when prospects encounter them, they’re able to relate the story to their own nascient hero’s journey.

We don’t need to explicitly articulate those deeper needs in our reference assets. But by recognizing what our stories are really about, we invest in them the elements that make them more compelling and meaningful.

And what could be more satisfying than that?