“Stories are a device… [that] provide managers with a form of social and intersubjective interaction that reflects belief systems, role expectations, interpersonal norms and conditions for work behavior”- International Journal of Management
“Storytelling is essential to successful branding, since your brand is the sum of all your corporate behaviors and communications that inform your customers’ experiences with your product or company”- The Journal of Business Strategy
“Researchers have shown that storytelling strengthens the connections consumers have to brands, so that to a great extent what a brand means to a consumer is based . . . on the narratives he or she has constructed that incorporate the brand.”- Journal of Business Strategy
“Employees have a deeper affiliation with the message through organizational storytelling due to aligning stories with their own experiences and understanding”- International Journal of Business and Social Science
“Audio narrative has recently benefited from profound cultural shifts in media consumption associated with on-demand television’s binge watching revolution and the advent of digital longform storytelling”- Journal of Radio & Audio Media
“Audiobook sales revenue has been on a steep rise since 2018, reaching 1.3 billion USD in 2020”- Statista
“19% [of Millennials] say they have paid in the last year for a subscription service for eBooks or audiobooks such as Kindle Unlimited or Audible”- American Press Institute
“116% growth in spoken word listeners 13-34 years old in the past even years, with 18% growth in the last year”- National Public Radio Organization
“Online audio (podcasts, radio shows, music and audiobooks) has become more popular than ever before”- Publishing Research Quarterly
“Audio platform superiority was about the desire to use an audio platform that is perceived to be superior to other audio alternatives, including on-demand convenience (time and place) and content (vari- ety and uniqueness)”- New Media and Society Journal
“Millennials are more technologically advanced than any previous generation [and] survey data has shown a correlation between age and reading preferences [where] younger people listen to more audiobooks than older Americans”- State University of New York
“Narrative presentation of corporate strategy, comparative advantage, is more effective at producing a consistent and confident choice of competitive advantage among an audience than a presentation of corporate strategy using a PowerPoint style, bulleted list approach”- Journal of Strategy and Management
“83% of Millennials would be more loyal to a company that allows them to contribute to social and environmental issues”- Cone Communications
“The storytelling process yields positive impacts on internal and external stakeholder outcomes including increasing employees’ thriving and meaningful work, as well as the attitudes and trust of multiple external stakeholders”- Journal of Strategic Marketing
“Corporate storytelling is suggested to help demonstrate the importance of the corporate brand to internal and external stakeholders… as well as help a firm to bond with its employees”- Product & Brand Management
“73% of the U.S. 12+ population (an estimated 209 million people) have listened to online audio in the last month, up from 68% in 2021”- Edison Research
“Employees have a deeper affiliation with the message through organizational storytelling due to aligning stories with their own experiences and understanding”- International Journal of Business and Social Science
“The audiobook market share shifted from 42% digital copy sales in 2009 to 87% digital copy sales in 2017”- Audio Publishers Association
“[the way employees are on-boarded] sets the tone for the culture of a place, the people, and the values of a new institution and can have a significant impact on employees’ sense of belonging”- Journal of Research, Assessment, and Practice in Higher Education
“When it comes to digital storytelling for branding, there is, a more positive attitude towards the company when the employer branding message is using digital storytelling”- Management Dynamic in the Knowledge Economy Journal
“Maximizing success through onboarding by storytelling during orientations, [helps employees understand] the company's culture and values [and] its goals and history”- Society for Human Resource Management
“A poor cultural fit is frequently cited as one of the main reasons [an employee] decides to leave an organization… defining the organization's culture through storytelling should start with branding of the organization and continue through the interview and onboarding process”- Physician Executive Communication Journal
“There are currently about 1000% more titles published since 2011”- Audio Publishers Association
“The most recent era in audio entertainment… users are asserting power over the medium to select particular content at particular times”- Mass Communication and Society Journal
“The majority (79%) of Millennials want to work for a company that cares about how it contributes to society and 69% would refuse to work for a company that is not socially responsible”- Journal of Education For Business
“The corporate world cannot ignore the demands and expectations of Millennials, who are devout in their desire to associate with companies aligned with their values”- Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University
“Storytelling that starts with the persona allows us to tap into these deeper recesses, where the influence of attitudes and emotions is greater… loyalty and trust are found there”- Journal of Business Strategy
“A focus on social responsibility is particularly important to attract, retain, and increase the commitment and engagement of Millennial employees and talented women”- Center for Creative Leadership
“Story-telling is an important element… involving the sharing of experiences and creation of mental-maps of the environment in which people are motivated to perform to their full potential”- Leadership and Organization Development Journal
“Storytelling that integrates a moral and spiritual component can transform an organizational culture so members of the organization begin to feel connected to a larger community and a higher purpose”- Journal of Business Ethics
“Brands can bring their CSR (corporate social responsibility) efforts to life through authentic storytelling [and] Millennials want to know what companies are doing to make the world a better place”- Center for Social Impact Communication at Georgetown University
“Three uses for storytelling in organizations: (1) to motivate employees, (2) for education and (3) to consolidate corporate culture”- Journal of Marketing
“Over 71 thousand audiobook titles (were) published in 2020, a 39% growth between previous years”- Statista
“[onboarding] can also aid employees in identifying values congruence which is critical to career contentment and commitment which can significantly impact retention to both the field and the institution long-term” - Journal of Research, Assessment, and Practice in Higher Education
“Should produce positive effects on key audiences, such as increasingly positive attitudes toward the company and eventually behavioral intentions to support this company”- Public Relations Review
“As technology evolves, people have more options available to them, which may explain why [reports] found younger adults to be more likely to opt for audiobooks and the multi-tasking they enable”- Forbes
“Spoken word audio listening is up 40% in the past seven years, and up 8% year over year”- National Public Radio Organization and Edison Research
“64% of Millennials consider a company’s social commitments when taking jobs and will not work for a company if they do not have strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) values”- Cone Communications
“There is value in a story that is, designed to drive the simulation and to elicit the [employee’s] best performance”- Society for Human Resource Management
“Audiobooks have had a big shift in popularity in 2018 where for the first time, “a full half of all Americans ages 12 and older have listened to an audiobook, up from 44% last year”- Forbes
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Why should you be worried? You’ve successfully navigated your company through those treacherous startup days when you maxed out all your credit cards and faced bankruptcy on a daily basis. You even single-handedly secured your first couple of big paying customers to help you keep the lights on in the buildup phase. Then, you narrowly escaped the tricky expansion stage when you found out about the real cost of sales and customer service. Now, your company is finally entering the more secure enterprise stage with lots of big customers, plenty of money in the bank, and a big office building. So, why should you worry? You’ve got it made, right? Wrong!
The Problem
Now, it’s starting to dawn on you that your company, slowly but surely, is getting farther and farther away from those principles you learned about the hard way. You see new employees coming on who are willing to work for anyone. For them, there’s nothing special about your company.
As you have grown, so has the division of labor, specialization, and the attitude that, “Sales are not my department!” You watch as your staff transforms right before your eyes from being excited to be a part of your new venture to taking their jobs and your company for granted.
Will the new generation with its embrace of the latest tech forget the human hardship, hustle and heart that you endured to create their jobs? Will they “throw the baby out with the bath” due to their disdain for all things “old” which includes the classic lessons you so painfully learned? Will they remember and apply the guiding principles you engaged in to achieve success way back when, or are they just “retro” notions of little value in today’s technical world?
Corporate Standardization
You know you can’t live forever, be CEO forever, or even remain active in your company forever. What will happen when they forget the very foundations of your company? What will happen when your brand becomes just another label? How will you keep your entrepreneurial spirit alive in your company? How will you maintain the principles that resulted in your success and ensure that they will be honored and used in the future? And how will you preserve your history with all its challenges and breakthroughs? How will you do all that when you are gone? How will you do it in a fun, engaging, and entertaining way?
A 21st Century Solution
This is precisely the problem we addressed when we created Business Audio Theatre. We took our own story, The Barefoot Sprit, How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand and produced it in an audiobook. It’s not just another business audiobook narrated to you, but a fully-casted audio theatre performed for you …complete with sound effects, and an original musical score. We did this to create an example that that demonstrated to founders the power of “theatre of the mind.”
Now we are offering this to other founders to keep their spirit alive, preserve their history, and maintaining their guiding principles … long after they are gone.
Imagine being hired by a company and during the onboarding process, they give you an MP3 of a theatrically performed audio play of the founder’s humble beginnings. You listen to it on your way to work or while jogging, at your convenience and in short episodes.
The characters, scenes, sound effects and original musical score bring the story to life! You are there. You experience all the ups and down, surprises and cliff hangers, of a real seat-of-your-pants adventure.
But it’s not just any adventure. It’s what your founders when through to create your job, prove their concept, and establish the business where you now work. Do you think you would better identify with your new company? Do you think you would learn through story the history and principles of the founder? Would you be more likely to engage to keep the story unfolding? We think so!
Save Your Legacy
In fact, we are now offering Business Audio Theatre as a 21st century onboarding tool to reduce turnover and increase engagement. We have the team that pioneered the first business audio theatre, The Barefoot Spirit, standing at the ready. Let us preserve your legacy, history, and guiding principles in a fun and memorable way with stories your employees will remember and principles they’ll never forget!
Give your employees a reason to be more engaged and loyal. We can work from a business bio or start from scratch. We can help you keep your spirit alive with a Business Audio Theatre audiobook!
Check out why Forbes calls it “Transformational”, why BookTrib calls it “An immersive listening experience”, and why the Audiobook Publishers Association named it as a Finalist for the 2020 Business and Personal Growth Audiobook of the Year.
