The Secret to Engaging and Converting New Prospects

Well Chris, you and I have been talking about storytelling for a long time and this is my first real exposure to using storytelling as a device for business promotion. And I have to say that the bottom line is very certain to lead to very exciting new angles to my projects. From thinking about the climate and environmental issues, and how businesses can benefit from taking action on that, the big challenge is always communication, creating awareness and persuading people to act. So, I’ve always been looking for new modes of communication rather than the conventional blogs and podcasts and websites and email campaigns, etc, etc.

So to be able to craft a story around some of my experience from Africa, that is from my personal first-hand observations of climate related issues, environmental destruction and so on. It gives me a lot of good ideas that I can utilise in different ways, certainly continuing writing, continuing putting out a pitch in my various networks but also producing some documentaries, which is something I’ve been experimenting with and very excited about as well. So, I think I do have not just a story but stories to tell and this session has definitely helped me clarify, crystallise and look for a way forward for that. So I have to say thanks very much, Chris.

I thought it was really great. I mean it was hard work preparing for it, harder than I thought. It was really worth it in terms of trying to kind of get ideas, very personal ideas over to other people and I think the people who were there, I thought were great in terms of attentive in terms of asking questions that indicated that they’d been thinking about what I’d said. I really think the whole idea of the way these sessions work. I’m really kind of pleased to have been engaged with it really.

I expect to come to others. I’m really now fascinated to hear other peoples’ stories. There was someone here today who's going to be talking the next time and I’m already thinking about things I want to ask him in anticipation of that.

I think that the concept of telling stories to promote ideas, promote your business, promote services that you think that people may want, is really important and it often gets lost in the kind of trying to send smart messages, sound bites, etc and I think that the idea of taking time to tell more of a story and trying to create circumstances by which people can listen to it is really good. And I think that being able to rehearse it with a group of people who are sympathetic and critical at the same time is really good.