Introducing Prologue, a Strategic Storytelling Company
Dec 19, 2024
Hey, I'm Brad Luttrell, the Founder, CEO of Prologue.
Stories are 13 times more memorable than statistics.
(Which means you should bookmark this post because you won't remember that stat.)
Consumers don't retain a brand's stats about efficiency, speed or quality, yet that's where so many brands lean in. They compare their product to the competition or they stat vomit all over potential customers (which is as gross as it it is useless).
But brands that focus on story?
They build community, fans, and loyalty.
They build brands that stay top of mind.
They build organizations people care about.
They win.
I'm building Prologue to help brands do all of that through story.
What is Prologue?
Prologue is a strategic storytelling company.
This is not an agency or a tech product—it's a tech-enabled service company. We help brands and leaders learn how to control their own narrative with our tech platform and content.
Prologue creates powerful storytellers via fun content, 1:1 coaching, or deeper strategic engagements. (I'll be sharing more about these services and products later.)
Why focus on storytelling?
This isn't my first go at building a company. I've started several in the past, but the one that took off and left me clinging to a rocket ship was the one where I leaned into storytelling.
That rocket crashed and burned in the aftermath of COVID (a good story for later). While sifting through the rubble, I started consulting simply to pay the bills while I figured out my next company.
This experience was eye opening.
I didn't really know what I'd even do as a consultant, but a lot of companies stepped forward to ask for help. These organizations had great stories beneath the surface, but they were failing to tell them. Some were excessively complicated with technical jargon. A few were overwhelming customers with mind numbingly dull details of their story. Others were telling the wrong story altogether. I actually had a few that hired me just to figure out what the story even was.
I spent three months consulting while working on a totally different startup concept. Along the way, something didn't feel right. Starting that company felt harder than it had in the past. I felt like I was forcing it.
Then something clicked—I am good at storytelling. I was not an expert in the subject matter for the other company.
I should be focused on stories.
With that, I abandoned the other company altogether. I immediately started working on what would become Prologue.
One thing I realized in my consulting was that busy, under resourced teams could really benefit from learning fundamentals. It's common for people to be handling 3-5 roles in a marketing department, and they may not have a background in copywriting or strategy (fundamental to nailing the story). Their companies had great, but sometimes complex, stories. In order to scale to the next level, they needed to unlock a better narrative.
This was the opportunity—creating a company that could take my knack for stories and turn it into a scalable product.
I wanted to go bigger than just storytelling consulting. Through a few months of work, I decided to pursue three things:
1) Content
2) Coaching
3) Strategic engagements
My vision for content is not available just yet with Prologue, but here is what I'm thinking:
My content can scale well, and by offering it in a cancel-at-any-time subscription, I can provide flexibility for Prologue's clients. People can use a Prologue subscription to build their skills and cancel when they feel they've "learned to fish," or if they stay subscribed, my goal is to continue providing great lessons every month that help you continue to sharpen the skill of strategic storytelling.
Even better, and my ultimate differentiator from the guru course creators is that I am going to offer time to ask questions. Every subscriber will also get an hour of consulting per month, allowing them to ask for refinement. From my research, this is a huge gap in the content space.
This product aligns with what I want when I look at these kinds of offerings. It's one thing to be able to research and learn from content, it's entirely another to be able to ask for help with application. That is where I find myself—always learning, reading and digesting ways to get better, but also appreciating a mentor who can guide the way.
Prologue will do both.
Recently I was reading the book, "Made to Stick." Authors Dan Heath and Chip Heath found that stories were 13X more memorable than statistics in speeches longer than 10 minutes.
Only 5% of the audience could recall a single stat after the speech, but 63% remembered the stories.
I've seen the power of solid storytelling in my own career.
Storytelling took me from a nobody in an industry to:
- Speaking at national conventions
- Being a guest on some of the industry's largest podcasts
- Working with multi-billion dollar brands
- Eating hot dogs with the owner of a major league baseball team in his private suite (yet another good story for another day)
The best part? These wins didn't require paid media or marketing budget.
Great storytellers build their own audience, shape their own narrative and create their own impact.
With Prologue, I'm going to teach companies you how to do it.
