Stories move people—and people move business.
In Story Business, Gavin McMahon takes you on a journey from ancient cave paintings to billion-dollar tech unicorns, revealing how storytelling is a powerful—and undervalued—tool for driving business success. Drawing on vivid examples of the rise and fall of real-world companies, McMahon exposes a timeless truth: It’s not the best ideas that win, but the best-packaged ideas.
From shaping strategy and launching products to leading teams and building culture, McMahon shows that storytelling isn’t just a marketing tool or a way to dress up facts—it’s a force that transforms ideas into catalysts people can see, feel, and rally behind.
In this book, you’ll explore six essential genres of business storytelling—value, product, brand, sales, leadership, and culture—each with practical tools to help you connect, persuade, and inspire. You’ll learn how to shape a compelling hook, turn numbers into narratives, and rally teams around a shared vision.
If you’ve ever tried to spark change or rally a team—only to be met with blank stares—this book is for you. It’s about breaking through using the same skill humans have relied on for tens of thousands of years: telling a better story.
With his signature straight talk, Gavin McMahon cuts through corporate jargon to reveal the fundamental truths of storytelling. Page by page, Story Business will teach you how to captivate, persuade, and lead—all by telling stories that stick.
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“Informing… inspiring… an absolute delight to read.”
—Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager
“Story Business is both blueprint and battle cry for leaders ready to wield humanity’s oldest and most powerful technology.”
—Jimmy Soni, bestselling author of The Founders
Gavin McMahon is a co-founder and CEO of fassforward, a leadership and storytelling consultancy. An engineer by training and storyteller at heart, he has spent over 30 years helping leaders turn strategy into action across industries like tech, defense, and finance. A former British Army officer and Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow, Gavin believes great ideas need great stories-and has made a career helping leaders tell them.
