Pixar Animator Shares Secrets to Telling a Compelling (Company) Story
Unveiling the magic behind Pixar's captivating narratives, a seasoned animator shares invaluable insights. Discover the art of weaving compelling company stories, transforming mundane business narratives into captivating tales that resonate with audiences and leave a lasting impact.
Matthew Luhn: Pixar’s Story Supervisor
As a story supervisor at Pixar, Matthew helped shape heart-wrenching and warming classics like Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, UP, and Ratatouille.
- He showed professionals how to tell a compelling story that is impactful, persuasive, and memorable.
Focus on transformation as a part of how to tell a compelling story
Make it clear how the candidate’s life will change
- Change catches our attention
- The abrupt highs and lows of exciting stories fill our brains with dopamine and cortisol
- People love to hear about transformation
- Recruiters should focus on how candidates’ lives will change
Bring the pitch home with personal stories that show how people authentically live out your company’s mission
Your company’s big-picture mission might be inspiring, but you can make it more personal by peppering your pitches with personal anecdotes about ways that you’ve changed
- Recruiting is all about convincing someone to change their life
Tell stories to candidates
Stories can be far more effective at selling a job than impressive facts and figures
- Research shows you only tend to remember about 5% of facts after 10 minutes
- Narratives are 22x more memorable than facts
- Recruiters shouldn’t sell jobs as a dry collection of responsibilities and perks
- Instead, tell stories that evoke strong feelings
Stories make us laugh, cry, and – sometimes – join a new company
Recruiters can use storytelling to make an emotional, memorable pitch to candidates
- Always video for their #LikeAGirl campaign is an example of a company telling a good story
- It has a great hook, it’s got a beginning, middle, and an end, and it’s about change
Start off your story with a strong hook
Hooks grab our attention because they’re unusual, unexpected, action-filled, or driven by conflict
- That’s just as true for strong brands
- What if toys came alive when we weren’t looking? (Toy Story) What if a rat always dreamed of becoming a French chef? (Ratatouille)?
- Recruiters should equip themselves with one-sentence pitches that wrap up the company
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