St. Louis, MO – December 2021 - What is your story worth? It is fair question regardless of whether the context of the question is personal or professional.

What is your business story worth? What is your personal story worth?

I would add a clause to those questions that will help point you toward an answer. Add “to (blank)?” You fill in the blank of to whom.

For example, What is your mom’s story worth to you? What is your mom’s story worth to her grandchildren?

You get the idea.

Context and specificity should provide access to meaningful answers. Asking these simple questions should have you thinking about the value or worth of your story in a different way.

There is intrinsic value in telling your story. There is also extrinsic value. There is pecuniary value in telling your story. Pecuniary value is monetary value.

What is your story worth from a financial standpoint?

Is your story worth a dollar, $10, $100, $10,000 or more to you or others?

It might be provocative to frame the question in those terms, but it is helpful. If you are thinking about investing in storytelling for your business or yourself, it is critical.

Each person’s story has value. And not just sentimental value. Their story has a real dollar value. It is in asset they can invest in. Good stories are worth money. Consumers buy stories every day in America. You and I are no different.

Just look at your spending. You are buying stories all the time.

If you subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or any streaming service, you are paying for storytelling. If you watch the news, you are paying for storytelling. If you buy a book, you are paying for storytelling.

What is a personal memoir worth?

The value of an individual story is directly related to the quality of the storytelling itself and the audience it is intended to reach.

My personal story is worth something to me and my loved ones. It I write a memoir about my time with the St. Louis Cardinals (“ It Rained On Opening Day ”), it could become a New York Times best seller and be turned into a feature film. Or it might not.

The quality of how that story is told can increase or decrease the value of that story.

If a talented ghost writer like J.R. Moehringer writes my story, it will likely be worth a lot more than if I write it. The fact that J.R. ghost wrote Andre Aggasi’s successful autobiography Open, Phil Knight’s “Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike” and he is now working on a memoir for Prince Harry would likely make my story a potential hit before a single word is written.

Why would an accomplished tennis player, an entrepreneur or a future king hire a professional writer to help them tell their story? Because they wanted to do their story justice and tell it in the most amazing way.

Being a great tennis player, a successful entrepreneur or future monarch doesn’t necessarily make you a good writer. All of these men were smart and could afford to bring on a good writer to write their autobiography.

Both Aggasi and Knights memoirs are high grossing, well-written popular books in part because a Pulitzer prize winning ghost writer helped those individuals tell their story. J.R.’s work for hire increased the value of their story in measurable ways.

Sure, each person had a great story to tell and are celebrities that publishers could market, but J.R.’s writing talent took their stories to a higher level without sacrificing honesty or authenticity. To the contrary – his talents brought out the story from within.

Aggasi and Knight both invested in professional storytelling increasing the asset value of their individual stories.

The same could be true for you or me. Investing in an asset like your story can produce a high return just like fixing up your old house increases the value. You increase both the intrinsic and extrinsic value of the story by crafting into a well-told story by investing in good storytelling.

Think of it this way. If George Clooney plays me in a movie version of my life, my story will be worth a lot more than me doing a YouTube video. The quality of the storytelling will play a big role in the value of that story. I mean it is George Clooney right? He may not be as good looking or as nice as me, but he is bankable in Hollywood and there is a large universe of people who will watch my story simply because they like him.

The quality of storytelling matters. And not just with published works. It matters with film production and video storytelling too.

What is the Beatles documentary on Disney+ worth to them? Their fans? Historians?

I am watching the Beatles Peter Jackson documentary right now. It is well done. I am honestly blown away by the quality of the footage and the fly on the wall access it gives us into their creative process.

I am sure it was sold to Disney for a lot more than it cost to shoot it back in 1969. The work that Peter Jackson’s team did enhanced the value of the original footage by turning into a story we are consuming as part of a miniseries.

Jackson took sixty hours of film footage and over 150 hours of audio stemming from the original Let It Be film project to create the mini-series. Jackson spent almost four years editing what we are watching. His craft, talents and effort add value to the end product.

While I won’t argue that your mom’s story will be the next big streaming hit, I know it has real value. I also know the quality of the storytelling will increase both the intrinsic and extrinsic value of her story. Brining on a professional to tell her story will bring it to life for an audience in the same way that Jackson’s efforts bring the Beatles story to life.

I am confident that if StorySMART reporter Paul Schankmantells your mom’s story, the value will increase because it will be professionally told by a 32-time Emmy award winner who has produced over 7,000 stories in his life. Like Peter Jackson, Paul Schankmanhas a gift for telling a story that elevates the core story in honest and authentic way.

Process and practical elements like visuals matter. Your mom’s video story will be better if she shares family photos and home movies with us. Her story may be even better if we interview other loves ones to share their perspective on her.

Quality storytelling matters in making the most of anyone’s story. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about the Beatles or your brother. A professional storyteller like Paul Schankmanor J.R. Moehringer is more likely to do a better job telling your story than you would do on your own.

Is is realistic to think you could sell your story and make money? For most of us, the answer is no. But if you are a highly accomplished individual like a celebrity or athlete your story might be something you could sell to Netflix or Warner Brothers. It really depends on the quality of the storytelling.

You, your family or your estate could conceivably make millions if your story is turned into a hit movie, Broadway show, streaming series or best-selling book.

But let’s be honest, it comes down to the quality of the storytelling.

I formed StorySMART because we want to help people tell their story in the best possible way while also making sure they own the copyright on their own story. No one should profit from your story but you.

Ordinary people have extraordinary stories. The reverse can also be true. Extraordinary people can have ordinary stories.

As consumers of stories, we want watch well produced stories. It doesn’t matter if it is story about someone famous or some stranger. We want to connect at a human level through the story. The quality of the story turns not on who is the focus of the story, but how well the story is told.

The democratization of media production is a cool thing. The fact that anyone can share a video on YouTube or self-publish a book is truly awesome. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you will do it well.

There is an epidemic of bad videos on YouTube and poorly written self-published books on Amazon.

Andre Agassi and Phil Knight were smart in hiring a Pulitzer prize winning author to write their memoirs. That idea of bringing a professional to tell your story while still owning it is what StorySMART is all about. StorySMART is about empowering people like Andre, Phil, you, your mom, your neighbors and the local small business to do the same thing with video storytelling.

We want you to own your story while also having it told in professional way. Everyone deserves to have our story told in amazing way because we all deserve to be remembered. Our mission is to provide professional storytelling for all.

For me, StorySMART’s mission is personal. I wish someone had told my dad’s story because I’ve spent most of my life haunted by not knowing him. As a youth, I carried around a strong sense of absence. As an adult, I wish I had a video of my dad I could show my son Charlie. I would cherish something like that.

StorySMART is actively working to help families hold onto memories of loved ones who have died. We are committed to creating something beautiful that can be handed down to future generations.

The ability to do that in a profound way comes down to practical issues like do we have enough photographs of the loved one and loved ones we could interview to tell their story? Are people emotionally ready to talk about a loved one who has died? Can we make it affordable?

I am on a mission to figure it out in a scalable way because I don’t want any else to have to feel what I’ve felt over the years. My dad mattered. He wasn’t a big shot who accomplished a lot in his very young life dying before he was 30, but he mattered to me, to my sister and my mom.

I know he touched others like the players on the high school football team he coached on the Air Force Base in Madrid where we lived when he died. Like you and your loved ones, he deserves to be remembered.

My dad’s story would be worth a lot to me.

Only you can answer the question of what your loved one’s story is worth to you.