After polishing off Rework by the founders of 37 signals and Linchpin by Seth Godin in the past few weeks, I have an even stronger feeling about everyone being a story teller. Your small business or non profit needs all hands on deck. It’s always been a good idea to have all your employees marketing and selling for your business. After all nothing happens until someone sells a product or service right? I love a good cliche. Well if it was remotely true in a world of factories, cogs and the #gotoschoolgetagoodjobwork40yearsandretire mantra, then it’s vital now.

There really is no time to waste. Get your team organized. Let them know that they have a story to tell. The story is the uniqueness of your business. If it’s not unique, interesting or a purple cow (hat tip: Seth Godin once again); then start over with a new vision. Get a new plan. Rework the service. Fine tune the product. Make it remarkable, at least relative to your industry, and then organize your team to be story tellers.

The tools are there now. We can all self publish videos, blogs, pictures, audio recordings and we can all build an audience. No more barriers. That used to be the hard part. Advertising is expensive, even when it’s no longer popular. Even when demand is low. Plus who has the time to interrupt enough people day in and day out. Why not assemble your fans, organize them and let them loose sharing your story with the world- or at least a couple hundred to thousand people. That’ll do.

You can do this yourself if you’re a good listener, learner and have the time. If not we’d love to help, maybe. See it depends. Just like you don’t want just any customer, we’re seeking out remarkable small businesses too. It’s hard to help someone share a boring story. It just won’t spread.