In selling fasteners, storytelling is more important than facts and figures, Ann Marie Houghtailing told the joint conference of the National Fastener Distributors Association and Pacific-West Fastener Association.

“We know more about the human brain than ever,” consultant Houghtailing said.

Today neuroscience knows that oxytocin is released in the brain during storytelling, she explained.  The “feel good drug” is also released with human situations such as falling in love and breastfeeding.  

“You have no control over it,” Houghtailing added.

“Oxytocin floods the body,” which Houghtailing differentiated from the pain killing drug oxycontin. 

“Facts and data don’t persuade,” she said.  “Storytelling increases trust and creditability.”

Houghtailing quoted Jennifer Aaker, psychologist and professor of marketing at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business: “Stories are remembered 22 times more than facts alone.”

Houghtailing cited the nonpartisan, nonprofit TED Talks, which seek to spread science, business and global issue ideas through short, powerful talks.  The rule for a successful Ted Talk is “Thou shalt tell a story.”  

Notice how politicians “wrap their argument in a narrative,” Houghtailling pointed out.  “Policy is not going to do it.”

She cited the example of decades of increasing scientific evidence that nicotine is additive.  All the facts and figures couldn’t convince the public as effectively as the anti-smoking television commercial featuring a real woman smoking through her tracheotomy.  That told a story.

The value of so many objects is the story connected.  A baseball can be purchased at any sports store.  But the fan who catches the game-winning home run baseball has a valuable baseball.  “It is the story, not the object, that has value,” Houghtailing pointed out.

Storytelling also can be a “powerful tool for evil,” she acknowledged.  “Hitler was and ISIS is great at storytelling.”

Culture, history, memory, religion and identity stories are past down through narratives, she noted.

Houghtailing displayed a picture of Claudette Colvin and asked if anyone in the audience knew who she was.  Colvin refused to go to the back of the bus before Rosa Parks did.  But Colvin was an unwed mother in a time when that was too much of a negative to be the story to convince the public.  Instead, advocates turned to the safer Rosa Parks for the human in the story.

 • Ask yourself: What do I want my audience to feel?  What do I want my audience to know?  What do I want my audience to do?

“The goal is to educate and align, not manipulate and coerce.  This is how you move people to act.”

 • Stories are generally “told by the victors.”

 • She cited cave paintings in saying stories preceded facts and figures.

 • People remember two things – the peak and the end,” Houghtailing said.  “More information doesn’t necessarily change anything.”

 • It is important to let the customer tell their stories too, Houghtailing told the NFDA and PacWest.  “Sharing stories creates connection.”