Humans crave story, with faces they can attach to, and sensory details. According to scientific studies, our brains light up like the fourth of July when we read about smells, sounds, tastes, touch, and sights. It’s what our minds want. It’s these details that keep us grounded and wanting more.

That being said.

On Saturday mornings, Walt and I visit the farmer’s market in town. Located in the municipal lot behind a burnt out church now converted into a restaurant, it attracts not just locals, but also tourists from Dublin and abroad.

There are Germans and Americans and French couples in rain coats buying, among other things, kale and turnips, brownies and burritos, necklaces and scarves, photos of lighthouses and farm houses, colored glass vases and lathe-turned bowls.

There are old men in folding chairs playing ballads on the accordion, and school children scratching away on violins, a hat to throw coins in at their feet. There’s the fellow who smokes hand-rolled cigarettes (at least I THINK they’re cigarettes) selling overpriced greens (if you ask me, anyway), and the dude who sells twisted wizard wands out of the back of his car.

Among the many charms, two cheese merchants sell identical wares from neighboring stalls. There used to be only one, but rumor has it, a kerfuffle arose involving the production of buffalo mozzarella, and the producer of said cheese, salesman #2, said Fuck you to salesman #1, and set up shop in an attempt to eliminate the middleman. I’m not sure I understand the problem very well.

I’ve begun to notice much longer lines at the stall of cheese merchant #2, despite being the relative newcomer. He sells the same damn thing, his prices aren’t any cheaper, but he does one thing merchant #1 doesn’t do. He tells the most amazing stories. And people, well, we all buy stories.

“You’ve got to try the smoked mozzarella. It will absolutely melt in your mouth,” he tells those poking at his samples. He then explains the origin of the cheese. And his story always involves a convoluted hero’s journey complete with intrepid herdsmen, and three-legged water buffalo born in Italy, and a rocky path over the Alps. There are winter storms, and broken legs, and, I don’t know, mouth and hoof disease that must be overcome. (Well, maybe there’s no mention of mouth and hoof disease, because can you imagine telling that to someone with a mouthful of cheese?) Until finally those buffalo are milked, somewhere between Belgium and France, which is pretty hard to do with chilblains, and this amazing cheese gets produced. The very cheese that has just melted in the potential customer’s mouth.

This past Saturday, I heard a slightly different version of the story, and believe me, I’ve heard quite a few. This time, the water buffalo alpha female had been reunited with her triplets, curing her depression, and that’s what made the mozzarella balls on sale this week so creamy and delicious.

If you listen closely enough, these stories don’t even make sense. Yet, the tourists eat this shit up right along with all that cheese, and they can’t get the Euros out of their wallets fast enough to buy more.

Which leads to my point.

Facts and statistics don’t sell; stories do. Rock-bottom prices don’t sell; stories do.

If you’ve got a service, product, or idea you want to “sell”, you better have yourself a pretty good story you can attach to it, otherwise few will “buy” it.

A good story can trump familiarity, and reputation, and all sorts of minor annoyances because that’s how we humans are hardwired to respond.

Which means, cheese seller #1 better get his shit together PDQ, or he’s going to have to fold up shop, or compete against someone else.

Perhaps you need to throw together a few good stories, too.