Back story sells. People want the inside scoop. The why and how, not just the what.

 I was talking with a woman who built a thriving graphic design business of twenty employees and then sold it.  In fact, she's sold two businesses. She started a new career in health care, working as a physician administrator. Along the way, she went back to school to get  a master's degree in medical informatics, which combines electronic medical records with workflow analysis. While it's a hot area now, with federal stimulus money rewarding providers who can streamline their medical record keeping, Jane has found it difficult to break into the field. It seems consultancies and hospitals and physician groups all want people with experience.  Photo by MC4 Army

I asked Jane how she decided to go into this new field. "Oh, that's easy. I have an undergraduate degree in biology. I was always interested in medicine, but I kind of fell into the graphic design business after I graduated."

She went on to explain the seed of her passion for medicine. "When I was a child, one of my family members was in the hospital, for something minor. I remember my Italian grandmother, speaking in broken English at the hospital, that we needed to stay there with our family, that it wasn't safe to leave them there alone. My grandmother watched was going on and she observed how mistakes could be made." Photo by Frenkieb

Jane's childhood experience had stayed with her for decades and now she wanted to make the system better. That was the why behind her career change. She went on to say, "I've been the CEO. Now I just want to give back."

I asked Jane about her LinkedIn profile. Jane didn't have a back story, the one that said why she took the trouble to get a second degree or how experience as a successful serial entrepreneur put her ahead of many candidates with big picture thinking, business judgment, and tenacity. Without experience in her new field, the back story was even more important.

A friend of mine, Dave, is a writer. He delights in finding the quiet story that gets overlooked and bringing it to the forefront, if only for a few moments. He recently ended an email with the thought that "…some tales are more easily told and it's a lesson about finding the means of raising the stakes within the telling to make sure all great stories are heard."

What's your back story and how are you telling it so that it's being heard?