CHAPTER 11

Origin/Background Stories

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.

—Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

On a core level, stories work because they are non-hierarchical. In other words, they provide an inoffensive way to push forward your agenda. I see many types of business narratives being used on a daily basis. The following types of stories are the most prevalent. Can you think of examples that fit each of these?

Note that I usually urge my clients to really polish one good personal signature story that they can use in a multitude of situations. This is your go-to story, the one that embodies one or more of the following typologies.

This is probably something deeply personal; it is your story, an authentic piece of your life, told to illustrate who you are and your connection to your company or brand. The personal experience you relate in this story both defines you and connects you to your brand or company. It can be told by a CEO, executive, manager, employee, staff member, or consumer. And your signature story can be any or even all of the following:

Origin Story: This story relates the beginnings of your company to the world. In doing so, it allows the consumer to better understand who you are and your core values in an inoffensive way.

Mission/Purpose/Values Story: The content of this narrative may contain just about any story, but its theme and meaning are designed specifically to transfer core values and/or a mission/purpose that the brand or company want to embody.

Knowledge/Information Story: This story allows the wisdom and collective knowledge of the company culture to be stored and transferred to new people who are joining the company and will be essential to its success.

Brand/Product Vision Myth: This is a biggie. It is an inspiring story that tends to ignite passion and helps the company progress through the difficulty of any transition. In relating a vision for the future, this narrative provides an emotional blueprint for people in the company and for clients and customers who purchase from the company as they deal with change.

In this chapter, I will focus exclusively on the origin story and then, in the following chapters, we will look at other types of stories, when to use them, and so on.

Origin stories

Who are you as a company and why are you here? Your origin story does more than just tell about where you came from; it also informs where you are going and communicates who you are along the way.

Take the company United Services Automobile Association (USAA). If you go to their Website, they urge you to become part of the USAA family and they claim they will be there for you during every stage of your life. They offer to help you with insurance, banking, investments, and retirement. They tell you that it’s free to join and if you are unsure, you can rest assured based upon their origin story:

“Our story is built on the values you live by. USAA began in 1922, when twenty-five Army officers agreed to insure each other’s vehicles when no one else would. Today we follow the same military values our founders prized: service, loyalty, honesty and integrity.”

It is a simple story that stresses their humble beginnings and their values. To be honest, I wish they said more about their beginnings and established who they are a bit more, but it’s a good start.

Next, I’d like to explore a company that has effectively discovered their Brand DNA and, as result, they’ve created a series of brand narratives that has led to great success. It’s an organization that is well-aligned and it’s a place where everyone knows, feels, lives, and breathes their Brand DNA.

The company I’d like to look at is Uno Alla Volta, which means “one at a time.” Their tagline is “from the hearts and hands of artisans.” Their CEO is Terri Alpert, and I should reveal here that I went to high school with Terri and am hugely proud of how successful she has become. I just think it’s incredible that she has created a socially conscious, multi-million-dollar business from her home in a few decades with just a small initial investment. Uno Alla Volta is famous for its gorgeous catalogs, even in this age of the Internet. Terri told me that 50 percent of her transactions do come in online, but her beautiful catalogs drive 10 times more business to her Website than social media does.

Terri says that “These days, almost everyone needs at least two of the three channels: bricks and mortar, Web, print.” With Uno Alla Volta, she has focused on Web and print. In essence, Uno Alla Volta is a direct marketer that specializes in selling handmade jewelry and crafts.

On their Website, they describe themselves this way:

Talk to our artisans, and you will hear in their voices the happiness that creation can bring. They will speak of the joy of spreading “particles” of their human spirit throughout the world, much as a dandelion spreads its seeds. You will hear of their wish to create something truly lasting—something which will be cherished, appreciated, and shared.

Talk to our customers and they will share with you an appreciation of what it means to be a caretaker of work fashioned by a fellow human being. You will hear that when they come to Uno Alla Volta, they are welcomed into our una grande famiglia, our one great big family.

Talk to those who have received gifts carefully chosen for them and you will hear how wonderful it is to receive creations from the hearts and hands of artisans. They will tell you how special it is to know a bit about the life of the artisan and how the personalized certificates of authenticity forever serve as a reminder of the human connection—the dear friend or family member who gave them the gift, the artisan who crafted it and the great many people here who made it all happen.

This is good writing and good storytelling. Terri ends this mission statement with this quote: “Talk to me and you will hear how I have found my true calling in this life. You will hear of my never-ending gratitude for the gift of being able to facilitate the creativity and growth of so many. And, to whom do I owe that gratitude? I owe it to all of you—la mia famiglia—my family—mia una grande famiglia!”

I love their catalogs and am convinced that to sell their handicrafts, they are really selling stories. Take these scissors, for example:

Image courtesy of Uno Alla Volta, used with permission.

The story makes you salivate over a pair of scissors. I never wanted one before, but now—I can’t help it—I am dying for a pair. Or take this jewelry:

Image courtesy of Uno Alla Volta, used with permission.

I am hooked. I want that jewelry because of the story behind the jewelry.

The stories being told are so interesting that they make you want to buy the product. And it’s easy to forget, but images, such as photos, tell stories too! Terri even told me, “My photographers know that they are storytellers. They ask the merchants what kind of emotion we are going for and then they have to nail it…while still showing all the physical attributes accurately.”

Beyond the stories told in the catalog, the origin story of how Uno Alla Volta came into being is a good one. So now, I will get to the interview and let Terri tell it to you and I hope you will soon see how it’s a key element to their brand as a whole:

RK: Can you give us your origin story?

TA: Okay, you asked for it so here it is:

In 1993, I was a Wall Street tech maven with a degree in physics, who was on my maternity leave after having just given birth to my daughter Sarah. Now remember: This was an era when entrepreneurship was decidedly not cool, and risk-taking was considered crazy. So, in a way, starting a family actually gave me a “leg up” over many male would-be entrepreneurs, as “maternity leave” created a level of safety for me, or so I felt. In other words, it actually reduced (even if only in my mind) the risk of failure by reducing the stigma of failure. You see, after all, even if my new business project was a flop, I could always justify it as something I tried for fun during my time away from Wall Street.

The truth is that for all my skills, financial knowledge, technical know-how, and project management expertise, I knew I didn’t know “squat” about running a business, let alone creating one from scratch. So I framed my first venture as a “science experiment,” a learning exercise. To both minimize my family’s financial risk, and to maximize my learning, I allocated myself only $10,000 in startup capital. I vowed that whatever I learned, it would be by trial and error on the cheap. And because I was a scientist, I wanted to develop a business in which results were measurable and repeatable.

I sensed that some type of “mail order” business, as direct marketing was called back in the day, might just be the right business model. It would provide a national audience from day one. The 800 number could even ring in my home without anyone ever knowing that this was a home business.

By selling to consumers, there would be no accounts receivables. If I could find a way to turn my inventory faster than I had to pay for it, perhaps I could use normal trade terms of net 30 to help finance my marketing efforts. This would work if I had to find a product line in which I could offer the world’s best selection, along with the world’s most knowledgeable service. But what?

Terri’s first light-bulb moment

I was home with my six-month-old colicky daughter who had only two modes: nursing and screaming. I was dealing with my own post-partum depression, and the loss of professional identity, and so, frankly, one day I just lost my shit!

My husband could tell something was wrong and so he came home early to give me a much-needed break. He then suggested, “Hey, let’s all go for a ride.”

I grabbed the baby and we drove around. We had no place special in mind and so when we saw a restaurant supply shop that had a sign on the front that said, “Public Welcome,” we decided to give it a try. Ten minutes later, after browsing through the store, both my husband and I looked at each other and said, “Found it!”

High-end kitchen knives. Yep, high-end kitchen knives!

At this time, really good knives were not easy to find, so I had found my niche. A few months later, Professional Cutlery Direct was born. I took out my first advertisement in Food and Wine Magazine. A full week before I thought the magazine would even be seen, the 800 number rang, and I sold my first knife. I picked up now 10-month-old baby Sarah and clutched her to my chest and jumped up and down with delight, exclaiming, “We’re in BID-ness, Sarah Bear. We’re in BID-ness!”

I was fully aware that the value of my business at any time was a simple function of the quality of each customer’s most recent experience. So I put a lot of thought into how I would shape each experience. For example, I insisted there be a handwritten note on every packing slip forever, a practice we continue to this day.

I hired and trained customer service associates who could provide an incredibly high level of dedicated, knowledgeable service. I brought the owners of the factories that made many of America and Europe’s finest culinary tools to Connecticut to do show-and-tell sessions with my employees, educating them on the tools, their construction, their use, and the origin stories of their own companies.

I encouraged my service associates to leverage the human connection when talking with customers. If a customer was asking a question about a Wusthof knife, the associate might say, “Well that’s a really good question. In fact, I asked a very similar question myself to Wolfgang Wusthof, when he was here last August.” Now at that point, the customer realizes they are talking to someone who has personally spoken with the owner of the most prestigious knife company in the world. There’s credibility.

Yet it has to be done with the right touch. There can’t be hubris, just a reminder that every one of us puts our pants on one leg at a time. Again and again, I reminded my team, “Remember: People don’t buy from companies, they buy from people!”

Over the next several years, Professional Cutlery Direct grew rapidly, always profitably, and it was financed entirely from internally generated cash flow. There was a slight slowdown in growth in 1996, the year I gave birth to my second daughter, Rachel. Nonetheless, the company achieved $1,000,000 in sales that year and within another three years it was selling $10,000,000 in knives, cookware, and other core hand tools to serious hobby cooks around the country. All along the way, I kept thinking, “This is much too easy.”

And, I have “absolutely nothing protectable.”

Remember: This was to be just a science experiment. I didn’t expect it to work. Yet it was working and in order to continue, the company was going to need a building and need a management team. So, at long last, I took the plunge, making major investments that required serious debt.

Winning awards for growth (three-time winner of the Inc. 500 for being among the fastest-growing private companies in the nation, the Cisco Growing Technology Award, the Award of Excellence from the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and even being named Entrepreneur of the Year by Business New Haven), anyone on the outside would say, “Hey, that company is healthy and going places.” In fact, anyone who looked at the financial statements would also see a very rosy picture. But I wasn’t looking at the financial statements. Those, I knew, were nothing more than a rear-view mirror. My eyes were fixed squarely on the road ahead and I didn’t like what I was seeing.

My current profits were due to my building of the customer base over many, many years, and it was costing me more and more to acquire new customers who seemed to be worth less and less.

Why? The world was changing rapidly, and now every big box store and every new dotcom was offering the products, which were previously very hard to find. Customers and competitors were looking to Professional Cutlery Direct (PCD) to know what the top products were, to understand how to use them, but then many of them were buying them elsewhere.

In fact, one customer told my customer associates that she used to work in a Williams-Sonoma store and when she was trained there, she was told that when a customer there had a question she couldn’t answer, she should call PCD for the answer. Yikes!

PCD was building demand for these great products but in doing so, it was building the business for its suppliers and its competitors. And, now PCD had a management team, we had a 30,000-square-foot facility, we had technology infrastructure, and we had debt! Our ship was heading right toward an iceberg.

So now what? I knew it was time for a change, but what would be my next step?

As I kept thinking about all the things right with the PCD business model and all the things wrong with it, I decided to do what I always do in times of crisis: make some lists. My lists led to the development of criteria—criteria that would comprise the ideal attributes for a new catalog company that would leverage the existing infrastructure I already had.

My big criteria:

• A meaningful brand. Check. Professional Cutlery Direct was so meaningful that when I asked customers how they had heard about us, most said that they had been buying from us for years.

• Category flexibility. But PCD was a confining brand. We were such an authority on cutlery that we didn’t even have the same credibility for cookware. The meaning was much too functional, much too narrow. I needed a brand that would allow the business to adapt to the types of products our customers would want to buy. Therefore, a meaningful brand needed to be emotionally meaningful not functionally meaningful.

• Proprietary product. PCD was selling items that were available elsewhere. A new brand would have to have proprietary product so that as it developed customer loyalty, the customers would be loyal to my company and not my supplier’s.

• Barriers to entry. Whatever the next brand was, it couldn’t be easy to replicate. I had to create something protectable for it to have any lasting value.

With these criteria/attributes in hand, I took a fresh look inward and asked myself: What brings me joy? What truly nourishes my soul?

I also took a fresh look at my merchandising data. What were all those petri dishes containing my science experiments telling me? Hmm…

The answer was clear. The best-performing products that PCD had were ones that were handcrafted, and for which I was telling their story: French pocket knives and beautifully painted Polish pottery.

My second light-bulb moment

A-ha! That’s it. Handcrafted products. Not products, really. Treasures. Treasures made by artisans. Treasures made one at a time. Treasures touched by the human spirit with great stories to tell. Such a brand would meet all of the criteria! And with the French pocket knives and the Polish Pottery, there was a place to start. Now what could possibly connect these two? Hmm…ah! Venetian glass.

And so, in 2002, I launched a test catalog built around this core. In the very first catalog, I told my customers that each treasure would be accompanied by its story. I aimed to create stories that you would remember after reading the catalog. And if you were giving the product as a gift, would the gift recipient know it is as special as you do? So, I created little cards with stories that would go with each product. Yes, each product line was its own little science experiment.

And thank goodness I didn’t wait a moment longer because, at that moment, I was coming face to face with that big iceberg. All my fears about selling branded products in the age of the Internet and box stores were coming true, yet even faster than I ever expected. Running both companies from the one infrastructure created more than a little chaos. But I needed PCD to bring in the dollars to cover the cost of my infrastructure and I needed to keep the infrastructure in order to be able to grow Uno Alla Volta (UAV). This was how I steered my ship and avoided that big iceberg.

Fast-forward to 2006, and UAV is on fire; PCD is much smaller, is now called Cooking Enthusiast, and is still ticking. Almost too good to be true. Once again, it is time to make significant investments in infrastructure to support the next level of growth. It is time to take this two-brand enterprise from $20,000,000 in revenues to something many times larger. To accomplish this goal, I would need a serious management team. Costly for a few years, but necessary; and it will be well worth it in the end, or so I told myself. It didn’t turn out that way, of course. Instead, I found myself facing another iceberg. I’ll skip a few chapters, but let’s just say that I am truly grateful that we survived to write new chapters of our story, and that our best chapters are still yet to come.

RK: Beyond your origin story, please tell me all about the other kinds of stories you use and why you use them?

TA: Well, let’s see. There are many stories baked into my leadership style. I run a lot of “town meetings,” which we call “State of the UNO.” I use these to help create the ongoing narrative, which binds my team together, to psyche them up, and to understand both our common vision and the inner workings of our economic engine, so that they can each use their own native genius to advance our common goals.

I find stories to be layers. They interconnect, intertwine. There are stories about stories and there are stories that give context to stories. For me, the act of writing is such a one-dimensional, linear, sequential task. And the stories? That, I see in my mind, are two-dimensional or even three-dimensional. So when I first put pen to paper, I tend to overdo it and weave in and out. But I need to write that way to let all the words out. Then, I step back and revise all that content in order to make a compelling polished story.

By the way, in addition to “stories,” my communication style is always metaphorical. I might refer to “starter yeast” if I know someone has culinary background or use “field” analogies with an athlete, etc. It really sucks, though, that I couldn’t play a sport or a musical instrument if my life depended on it. So I never know if I’m messing up my metaphors. I certainly mix them all the time. One paragraph could have cooking, music, film editing, and football in it.

Overall, I think there are many kinds of stories that I use:

1. Stories about our artisans for our customers.

2. Stories about me for our customers.

3. Stories about our customers for each other; stories about our customers for our artisans. (It all links together.)

4. Stories about Uno Alla Volta evolving from Professional Cutlery Direct.

RK: Give me an example of a specific story or stories that you are most proud of?

TA: Well, let me start with a cool biz factoid: Our results improved measurably when I started sharing aspects of my life and philosophy of living with our customers. It brings the authenticity to the brand. So we decided to try something new in 2014. Instead of some form of site-wide discount or some pushing of excess inventory, we built our Cyber Monday special around “A few of my favorite things” and it was a huge hit. The sales happened not because of price, but only because of the human connection our customers made with me and my life/philosophy, etc. Again, proof that storytelling works! We did so much better with this as our Cyber Monday special than we would have by just giving away margin on current product or trying to put another spin on 50 percent off of “leftovers.”

Every issue of our catalog, 15 a year, now begins with a unique letter from me, connecting our brand philosophy with the season or with a particular product line. They get really personal. Boy, when I first started sharing personal stuff with our readers/consumers, was I nervous! I just felt so vulnerable and so uncomfortable being this vulnerable with half a million strangers! Here is the specific text to give you a feel for it:

Why blue?

From the earliest moments of childhood, blue has been my favorite color. Today, at nearly 52 years of age, I have figured out why. I am a very high energy person, moving, thinking, planning, and creating almost all the time. Those who know and love me adore my passion, but abhor the tension that comes from my more frenetic behaviors.

Cobalt and ocean blues remind me of family summer vacations in the Outer Banks. They take me back to the beach, sitting by the ocean, and watching the waves lap up onto the sand as the sun sets and hints of sapphire and dusk dance across the darkening sky. Surrounding myself with these hues is calming. They remind me to slow down, to breathe slowly. To stop creating. To stop doing. To stop talking. To simply be.

Why spirals?

I love the grace of a meandering line, the cyclical nature of a circle broken out of infinite repetition and into the forward direction. For me, the spiral is a metaphor for life. Each year, as the seasons pass, and as the birthdays come around, I want to make sure that I have grown and become a better me.

Why interconnecting circles?

The circle for me is a symbol of friends and family. How often do we each speak about those in our inner circle? We all have our circles of influence which expand ever outwards beginning with our own souls, then our immediate family, then our extended family and dear friends, followed by our neighborhoods, our churches, our synagogues, and, ultimately, all of those with whom we share this beautiful planet.

When these human connections begin to overlap, those are, for me, those linked circles. So if you come to Uno Alla Volta seeking the perfect gift for someone dear in your life, in your inner circle, you are then linking with the inner circle of the artisan who crafted the treasure, and the inner circle of every member of our una grande famiglia—Uno Alla Volta’s one big family. All our lives are now inextricably linked to one another even if only in the smallest of ways.

Why labradorite?

It is a soft spoken neutral with fire within! Its iridescence is magical. It changes with each glance, yet in an oh-so-subtle way. If opal and dichroic glass shout “Look at me sparkle! Let me light up the room!” then labradorite whispers “I am to be appreciated by those who care to pay attention. I know who I am. I like who I am. And you will find me here long after the show is over and the lights have dimmed.”

Why lapis and sapphire?

It is those deep blue hues again, beckoning me, pulling me into the water, and offering me their oasis of calm.

And garnet?

To celebrate my birth (January) and, thus, my life. It is a deep, calm, noble red, not at all showy like the bright, bold ruby.

RK: Why have you chosen to embrace both stories about your artisans and products, but also bigger UAV brand stories?

TA: Stories, in all their forms—words and pictures, textures, memories, and emotions—are a vehicle for conveying our humanity and for making the essential connections with one another that define our lives. Stories are one of the primary ways we have of striving to achieve the Uno Alla Volta vision, which is “To bring the human connection into every interaction with every customer, artisan, coworker, and supplier—thereby enriching their lives. By so doing, we enrich each of our own lives as well.”

Now then, you may ask, “Why are stories at the heart of Uno Alla Volta?” Because, quite simply, we don’t sell “stuff.” We sell treasures crafted by the hands and shaped by the hearts of artisans. I ask you, Rich: How can one have a proper appreciation of what is in your hand, if you don’t have a sense of where it comes from and why and how it came into being?

Whether they are silversmiths in California, glass blowers in Venice, ceramicists in Poland, our artisans speak of the profound joy that comes from knowing that they are creating an object that will bring joy to someone halfway across the world, someone they will never meet. And, they speak of the hope that long after they themselves are no longer on this earth, items created from their imagination, crafted by their hands, and touched by their spirit will continue to put smiles on the faces of others.

So Rich, let’s say you see a beautiful necklace in our catalog that you know your mother will love. In that moment, you’ve made a connection. Our artisan’s design pulled at you and touched you. When you present your mom with her gift, sure she may “ooh” and “aah” at how pretty it is, but if that’s all that happens, then this necklace is just another thing. But say, instead, she understands just a small bit about the person who created the necklace, and all those who facilitated this moment. Well then, her appreciation for the work in her hands is all the greater. Perhaps even she may view herself less as its owner than its caretaker. In her hands is the creative work of a fellow traveler in life’s journey.

At Uno Alla Volta, we have an obligation to tell these stories.