A dynamic portfolio of success stories proves that your company is in the business of energizing customer results and that you're not just a vendor of products and services. If you don't tell your stories, you are wasting an opportunity to differentiate your company. If you don't have compelling stories to tell, you probably compete on features, price and delivery, which shouldn't give you a high degree of confidence in your business.

Your responsibility is to commit to a success story portfolio that can be used by everyone in your company. Top tier BizD professionals are natural "StorySellers". The middle tier, who fear the risk of tackling new customer challenges, will learn what your company has done for its customers and feel less threatened when looking for new customer problems to solve.

Your company is a collection of customer stories. Employees and partners should contribute product or service applications that have solved customer problems. Then, you can prioritize the stories which need to be published based on gaps in your success story portfolio.

After gathering story essentials and the best contacts for internal and external interviews, apply a format that spotlights your customer and what they achieved through your solution. Compel readers to understand, believe and remember your message by including visualization narratives, quotes, images, charts and numbers. Readers will insert themselves into your story, draw their own conclusions and retell your story in their own words.