Who are we, what do we stand for
and what do we actually do?

There was a time when a business could hide behind its logo but in the digital age, customers, clients, employees and investors are more demanding. Whether it is sofas or software, insights or education, every business needs to be able to tell its story clearly and consistently in a way that engages their target audience.

However, we are so close to the story that we often can’t see what is most important to our audience. There will be parts that are known by the ‘old hands’ but never articulated, there will be parts your customer has struggled with but never told you and there will be parts that are incredibly cool but you have never thought to mention. Every group I have worked with has overlooked some of the most interesting and relevant aspects of their story, and this process helps you identify them.

Grab the audience’s attention and get a response.

This session is about shaping a particular communication for a particular audience. It usually includes an element of business story because we cannot communicate effectively without being clear on who we are first.

The session can be run as a one-to-one for senior leaders or in a group setting where there are more stakeholders. I ran this session for a media agency, Propellernet, who wanted to refresh their pitch. At their next three pitches, the clients all signed up on the spot. While I can’t promise that hit rate every time, this session will help you structure your content and plan your delivery to get the best possible reaction from your audience.

It is my clients who have helped me get ambitious with this session – together we have planned a book which tells the story of a children’s imprint, a recruitment video, a roll out of a new salary structure, and a campaign to reshape the story of a leading public school. I’ve used it to help CEOs prepare their end of year results presentation (where the story is often what is coming next), with the head of the Art Department at a large publishers who wanted to pitch for a decent design budget for a book (keeping the author with the publishing house by delivering their high-end values was the story here), and for a talent manager planning their first call to a new Head of Channel at the BBC (the story? – “business as usual, I have what you need”).

I can also offer support developing the project after the session.

Who are we talking to
and what do they actually want to know?

Creating or refreshing a website can be a time-consuming and expensive experience if you are not fully prepared. I know, I have just done mine!

Before a single page is written you need to translate the values, voice and benefits of your business into one coherent story, then convert this in turn into visuals and text that will connect with your audience.This session is so useful because it enables you to do all of this before you sit down with your designer. It will save you hours of misunderstanding and wasted effort – and of course money – once the website build actually begins.

I can help with developing and writing text for the site following this session.

Your best business stories are already in the building,
and this session is dedicated to finding them.

Staff stories about how you do business and how that impacts the lives of your clients, reflects the character of your business. These stories are invaluable for recruitment, internal buy-in and telling your story! Most businesses are yet to set up a system to capture these stories so this session is a great way to start. The session unlocks the natural storytelling skills of your team and shows them how valuable their stories are.

Let me give you a couple of examples:-

Transformation: At Milton Abbey School, staff and support staff shared their stories of students whom they had seen transformed by the experience of being part of the school. New staff heard inspiring stories to treasure, existing staff were reminded of the very special place in which they worked and the school had a set of stories to tell.

Culture of care: At Aimia we listened to a great story from a Market Insights employee about her experience following her maternity leave. She was nervous that her pregnancy would jeopardise her career but instead she was given very flexible terms, decided she would like to come back earlier and she was  greeted on her return by the senior staff gathering round her desk to welcome her back. Younger women in the group were happy to hear her positive experience and they all got an insight into how valuable the culture of support at Aimia is when a woman returns from maternity leave.

In this session I teach how to unlock the secret power of stories to achieve better communication in everything we do.

Good communication is rocket-fuel to a business. When teams are aligned, departments collaborate and everyone can articulate the story clearly to the customer, there is more energy and more focus to achieve success.

Every single one of us is a storyteller. What I teach people to do in these sessions is to bring these natural skills into the workplace, allowing them to drop the detail and craft something for their audience. This skill will ensure they get their message across in a simple, accessible and engaging way – meaning the audience is more likely to listen, connect and act. The session also helps teams to address the way they communicate between themselves and externally on a daily basis.

I’ve run these workshops for managers, team members, CEOs and sales people, the skills are the same for anyone whose job involves communicating with other people… which is pretty much all of us.

Clear, compelling and authentic communication is a key component of every leader’s tool kit.

You have a vision and a passion for your business, but your audience can only share that vision once they can feel it, imagine it, and understand it. Effective communication is part of effective leadership. This package is designed to unlock your natural storytelling skills, and give you coaching and practical tools that will help to grab the attention of your audience, keep them listening and inspire a response.

It takes thought and planning to tell the right story to a specific audience, but it becomes a lot easier when you start to use your instinctive storytelling skills. A story is perfectly designed to engage an audience and you can use the model as a ‘map’ to plan any type of communication successfully.

Once you know what you going to say, the next step is to plan how you are going to say it. You will be most compelling when you speak with conviction and confidence, and this starts with being clear about your own professional story and therefore using a ‘voice’ that is true to you. 

This coaching package gives you the chance to collaborate with a skilled story coach to: – 

• reflect and build on your business storytelling skills
• define your own professional story
• work on a key communication within your business

The Benefits

In short, ‘buy in’.
Internally, you will help your employees/team understand what they belong to, what they are working towards and why they are a valuable part of that.

Externally, you can express clearly to partners, investors, clients and even competitors, your values and your value.

You will also save hours of time. The story tools that you will learn in this package provide a methodical way to plan communications and interactions because you can identify the key building blocks of your story very quickly.

The opportunity to develop your message, working with a skilled coach, who already knows your business story and personal professional story.

The Practicals.

Sessions to be planned at your convenience and with your objectives in mind, but there will be eight hours in total and they could look something like this:-

You can then choose to book a quarterly refresh session following this initial package.