A very good friend of mine is an excellent artist. He paints full-time and makes his living solely through the sale of his paintings. He can paint anything, but for whatever reason he is captivated by river rocks.

A number of years ago, before he became the accomplished painter that he is today, he told me a story of an art show he had recently participated in. He was displaying his paintings along with a number of other artists. The art lovers who were attending the show would stop to talk with the artists, step back to analyze their art, then either enter into the buying process or move on to another artist.

At this time my friend was already a very good painter, but he didn’t seem to be selling as many paintings as he thought he would. However, he noticed the artist next to him was selling far more paintings than him. She was not as talented a painter as he was, but she was selling more art.

He was a bit perplexed by this so he decided to watch and listen to see what was going on. After a while he began to notice that she was a great storyteller, and the art lovers were being captivated by the stories behind the paintings.

More accurately though, she was a good “storyseller”.

She wasn’t selling her art per se; she was selling the story behind the art. To put it in the 1960s sales vernacular, she was “selling the sizzle, not the steak.”

A number of months after this encounter I was with my artist friend and he showed me a striking painting of an old weathered tree leaning into the wind. I asked him what the story was behind this painting. He simply said, “I saw it and liked it, so I painted it.”

I then shared with him the power of “storyselling”, about how important it was for him to be able to tell the story behind the art to engage the potential purchaser. Like the story of the gal at the art show that he then relayed to me.

Storyselling is a little like this for the painting of the weathered tree: “While hiking along a back country trail I rounded the corner to see this solitary tree standing in the field. Weathered, battered and beaten, but not broken. It spoke to me about the need to stand strong in the face of opposition. To face life’s difficulties head on and not back down – even if no one stands with me.”

Wow. I love the story. Now I engage with the art at a deeper level. I am not talking about confabulating, but simply painting a picture with words to engage people at a heart level.

Being an effective “storyseller” is critically important for leaders. Leaders must be able to repeatedly tell the stories behind their organization, their raison d’etre, and their vision – in other words, their past, their present and their future. The stories we tell need to be authentic and compelling. They need to engage employees and customers at a heart level. Not smoke and mirrors. Not lipstick and rouge, but powerfully compelling authentic stories to engage the listener with our product or service offering.

A leader who is adept at “storyselling” engages employees at a heart level with a compelling vision to bring meaning and significance to their work. Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? These stories must be repeatedly woven into the fabric of our corporate conversations. It’s not enough to write out your mission, vision and values and stick it on the wall. Tell the stories and tell them often – create your organizational folklore so your people can repeat them.

Storysellers reproduce storysellers. When your people begin repeating your corporate folklore – who you are, where you came from and where you are going – you know you are an effective storyseller.

The difference between ‘storytelling’ and ‘storyselling’ is the purpose – storyselling simply moves the listener toward an intentional objective. And, great leaders are intentional about being compelling storysellers.