Telling the story of your business is not only a matter of business

This is an amazing piece of video work, but also a great example of how a story well told can promote a small business. When I say "promote" though I do not only refer to the product itself or creating demand to shop there. No, on the contrary. I think what I really miss nowadays are small businesses serving as community hubs. This is one of them:

Made by Hand / No 4 The Cigar Shop from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

On the other hand I think telling your stories though video and blog does drive sales - providing the product is value for money. This summer I have experienced it myself. We were looking for good deal on paints for our son's room so you can imagine that we had plenty of choice. However living in a small town we have decided to look around small shops first and came across chalk paint. You see I would probably not pay that little extra for a can of chalk paint if it were not to the fact that it's extremely practical (you can use it for all materials, so I can also paint furniture, pipes and other details), cool (my son can now draw all over his walls and re-design his room anytime) and healthy (smells of..well...chalk, obviously;)), but also because I know the owner of the business and I have read her blog. Annie Sloan is a person known in Oxford even if you just pass by her shop on the Cowley Road on the way to one of the good restaurants in her area. I happened to see her workshop too on the way to the photo shoot recently (studio is just at the back of her shop). I also read her blog and watched her video story:

I miss personal stories in retail and I see that social web is changing it. We are now able to make our purchasing decisions wiser. We can now discover amazing people and community hubs just behind the corner - those little family histories hidden in our very own town or on the other side of the world. Isn't that amazing?