In the fall of 1997, I was sitting in my home surrounded by books about a 16th-century martyred poet named Anne Askew. I was juggling two college programs, writing papers, and managing a McDonald’s restaurant full-time. The last thing I needed was another responsibility.

That’s when my phone rang.

One of those old, clunky plastic phones.

I answered, and my friend Bengi said the words that changed the course of my life:

“Do you want to be a wedding DJ?”

It was a ridiculous question.

I’d attended exactly two weddings in my entire life — one of them was Bengi’s.

I didn’t know music beyond ’80s metal.
I didn’t know weddings.
I didn’t even know “wedding DJ” was a job normal humans had.
I had zero desire to do it.

So, naturally… I said yes.

That’s what I do. I say yes, knowing full well I can always turn that yes into a no later. I’ve said yes to many things I eventually abandoned — but I’ve also said yes to things that shaped my entire life.

This was one of those yeses.

Bengi and I decided to “launch” a wedding DJ business — despite having no idea how to do anything related to weddings or music. We went to a place called DJ World and bought equipment from a man named E-Man, who was astonishingly unhelpful. We grabbed some CDs — because that’s what DJs used in 1997 — and we threw a practice party at a local VFW.

It was a disaster.

We couldn’t keep one song playing long enough to cue up the next. We were absolutely not DJs.

But three months later, one of Bengi’s coworkers got engaged and — for reasons I still cannot explain — hired us.

We muddled through that wedding, and then it was time for our first bridal show — our first real chance to pitch ourselves in the same marketplace as actual professional DJs.

Our competitors showed up with:

• massive light shows
• fog machines
• thousands of songs
• equipment that looked like it belonged on a spaceship

Bengi and I showed up with:

• a small table
• one red flyer we printed ourselves.

No lights.
No fog.
No fancy anything.
We knew we couldn’t compete on music. We couldn’t beat-match. Our catalog was tiny. Our equipment was embarrassing.

So we fought with story.

Bengi and I had been friends for more than a decade. We met as teenagers working at McDonald’s. We hated each other at first, but bonded over our mutual love for Disney’s The Gummy Bears — a

Saturday morning cartoon whose theme song we could both sing by heart.

That was our edge.

We didn’t try to impress people with tech. We tried to make them like us.

Our flyer was intentionally ugly — a simple red sheet with black text, nothing else — because we knew everyone else would be trying to out-design each other. While their booths looked like miniature nightclubs, our booth looked like… a table.

But when couples approached, we told stories.

Stories about that first wedding — told as if it were our hundredth.
Stories about how Bengi and I met.
Stories about our friendship.
Stories about our own weddings and the things we’d learned.

Our goal was simple:

Become the kind of humans you’d want at your wedding — except you’d be paying us to show up.

And it worked.

It worked better than anything I’ve ever tried in business.

The first 37 couples who met with us booked us less than two weeks after that first bridal show.

Then we booked the first 100 out of 100.

Then the first 150 out of 150.

We built one of the most respected DJ companies in Connecticut. We did hundreds of weddings every year. The company ran for more than 25 years — and it still exists today.

It wasn’t the music.
It wasn’t the gear.
It wasn’t the flyer.
It wasn’t the website (which was also terrible).

It was the stories.

When a bride told me she didn’t get along with her father and dreaded the father-daughter dance, I didn’t give her tips. I told her about Janet — a bride from a year earlier who felt the exact same way — and how she navigated it.

When couples were nervous, I told them about moments from my own wedding.

When they asked how we’d handle tricky situations, I told stories about what we’d seen before.

We weren’t selling services.

We were establishing trust — the kind you only get through storytelling.

That business grew almost entirely through word of mouth and human connection. Not a single dollar of advertising. Not a single billboard. Barely even a functioning website.
Just stories.

The Lesson: Storytelling Is a Business Strategy

If you’ve ever wondered whether storytelling really matters in business, here’s my answer after 25 years of doing it:

Yes — because stories make people feel like they know you.
And people hire people they feel they know.

When you’re competing in a crowded marketplace, your features won’t separate you.

Your resume won’t.
Your gear won’t.
Your price might — but not in the direction you want.

Story is what differentiates you.

It humanizes you.
It builds trust.
It makes people feel something.
It transforms “a service provider” into “the person I want to work with.”

That’s what Bengi and I figured out before we had any right to call ourselves DJs.

And it’s what I want to help you figure out in your business, too.

Because once you can tell stories intentionally and strategically — not as entertainment, but as a tool — everything changes:

✅ Sales conversations become easier
✅ You stand out in a crowded field
✅ Customers remember you
✅ People feel connected to you
✅ Your business grows without shouting, convincing, or chasing

I learned this standing behind a DJ booth with a stack of CDs and an ugly red flyer.

I’ve used it ever since — in teaching, in consulting, in writing, in leadership, and in every corner of my professional life.

And now I’m going to teach it to you.

Because storytelling isn’t something you sprinkle on top of your business.

Storytelling is your business strategy.