When Mark Evans talks about startups telling stories, he doesn’t talk about the founders sitting a client or funder down to tell them the company’s story.

For the Toronto-based communications consultant, the art of storytelling for startups involves a process of investigating and analyzing customers’ needs. Then the startup team has to plot the best way to construct a story that will let key audiences understand why they should pay attention to the company.

And it all starts with talking to your customers – a lot.

“One of the big mistakes that a lot of startups make is they don’t talk to their customer enough,” said Evans in an interview. “They really don’t have a granular insight into who the customers are.”

And he warned that your clients are almost never a nice generic group of identical people. “You have to tell different story to every buyer persona,” he said.

Evens is the founder and namesake of Mark Evans Consulting, and has been working with startups for years, first covering them as a journalist then working with them on their messaging.  He is probably best known for his newsletter The Observation Deck, which goes out to more than 2,000 subscribers each Saturday. But now he has packed his years of experience into a book, Storytelling for Startups.

At 273 pages, Storytelling for Startups makes it clear that no one should meet with clients or investors and just talk about themselves. They shouldn’t even talk strictly about their product, because that usually leads to a discussion of features.

“People don’t buy the features,” said Evans. “They buy products because they have something … that has everything to do with their [the customers’] needs and their interests. Customers are very self-focused so what startups need to do is to talk to the customer and find out everything to do with them.”

The book sets out clearly how to construct the proper messaging to relate to your clients – and more importantly to let them relate to your business. It even shows how to construct a lean canvas for messaging.  And like a traditional lean canvas, there is a heavy focus on the customer.

“The biggest thing many startups do not possess when it comes to messaging and storytelling is perspective,” said the book. “They are so focused on the task at hand - building and selling products - it is easy to forget about the outside world.”

So should founders shy away from telling the story of the company’s history? No way, Evans said. “I do think that stories about how they got started are important to tell. As part of your brand, you want to tell stories that make personal connections. It’s a really important story to tell and you can keep telling that story.”

 When I asked Evans to name a Canadian founder who embraces the storytelling ethos, he cited Michael Litt, CEO of Kitchener-based video marketing company Vidyard. It made sense. When he speaks at conferences, Litt urges his listeners to spend every waking minute talking to their customers.

You can find more information about and order Storytelling for Startups (the book is $24.98; the ebook is $7.98.) at Storytellingforstartups.ca.