Imagine you’re organizing an event and you’re asking people to participate. You’re trying to persuade them to join you. The story you tell them should include one or more personal benefits each of them may realize by participating.

In his latest post on business storytelling, Ira shared three tips for inspiring others to action through our stories. Including personal benefits in your story falls under his third tip, “Make the journey relevant.”

You can do this by including elements in your story that answer questions like “So what?” and “What’s in it for me?” Your target audience is more likely to act if you can show them how each member might gain something of perceived value from participating. In other words, make the journey relevant to them.

Take, for example, the upcoming Bike to Work Day event on May 20th. If I positioned it as a healthy and clean way to get to work, it’s not likely I would garner a lot of attention from commuters who fear the hassles of dealing with rush hour traffic at busy intersections and working up a sweat on their way to work.

On the other hand, by appealing to their dislike of sitting in rush hour traffic, I might be able to persuade more of them to join me. I wrote a similar post last year, where I included the view of the road from my bike and asked readers to compare it to the view from their windshield that day. The “so what?” was implied by the image – take your bike to work and avoid sitting in rush hour traffic.

If you’re looking for a way to avoid sitting in rush hour traffic on May 20th, have I made the bike to work journey relevant to you?