Telling Stories: Making Business

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.

Very very useful. It’s what I would refer to as a safe environment to try something out and it was the first time that I’ve shared certain aspects of my background. The title was “Flipping Adversity”, so it was interesting to put forward three different versions of what that actually meant and then through my story to challenge them and see whether they still felt the same definition was relevant to them at the end. But only they will know that because I believe in transparency but I also believe in confidentiality and I also backed that up with no obligation.

But a couple of the feedbacks were great, we even had a visitor from France, which was fantastic, not just the UK, very nice lady but the phrase that kind of like stuck to me was structured and also the fact that they actually got “Flipping Adversity”. So, it meant something to them, it had obviously resonated and the tools that I gave as a way of handling that, potentially, were very well received and lots of note taking was done, which is what I was hoping for.

So, yeah really really worthwhile Chris and thank you for the opportunity. Your feedback as well, you know as always, People on these kinds of things are always worth listening to and I like to hear someone listen to them and understand what it is they’re saying. And then if I’ve got any questions for it to derive my answer, it’s up to me to ask the questions and your structure, of how you run these Telling Stories sessions supports that. So, yes really impressed and grateful. Thank you.

It was great. It was a really lovely group. Everyone was very engaged and interested. I got some very valuable feedback from yourself and some of the other participants today. So, it was a really, really great experience.