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My neighbor found out she was having twins (kids #5 and 6!) the same day her husband was laid off in 2009.
Here’s how the scene unfolded:
Marcy came home from her 20-week ultrasound and made a BBQ dinner to break the news to her husband. He came home from work and found her in the backyard grilling.
He said he had bad news to
share.
She said she had good news to share.
She insisted he go first.
Once he disclosed his news, she turned to him and said: “Everything is going to be OK, because… we’re going to have twins!”
Crazy story, right?
It gets better.
A friend of mine who was visiting the weekend the twins were born and heard the story firsthand.
Marcy’s twins are 12 years old now, and Marcy’s husband has been gainfully employed for years, but never fail, for the last decade plus, whenever I talk to this friend, she always asks about Marcy.
Only, she never remembers Marcy’s name.
But she will never forget Marcy’s story. Neither will you now.
That’s because even anonymous stories are memorable.
In fact, very often, when you name a B2B business in a case study, you often get a watered-down version of the business’ struggles and how your solution helped solve their problem.
That’s because legal has to approve the case study, and you can’t make your client look like their internal processes and systems were a mess or reveal their total lapse in judgement they had for years with significant, unresolved exposures.
I help many of my clients write client testimonials and case studies and we run across this issue ALL. THE. TIME.
Here’s what I say:
If you can get the client to disclose all the juicy info and you have permission to use their name and performance data, great, all the more power to your fantastic case study.
But, when that’s not the case, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Writing it anonymously may allow you to tell the REAL story, the WHOLE story that you would never have been able to tell with their name on it.
To borrow Robert Rose’s favorite phrase: Tell your stories and tell them well.
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