Storytelling in Business

… Using the power of stories to inspire, persuade and motivate teams and sell your ideas …

Why do stories matter? Storytelling in business is powerful, because stories engage us emotionally. They tell us who someone is and what they care about.

Stories are economical. They can tell us a lot, very quickly. The best deliver powerful and memorable messages that make us sit up and take action. So stories are a great resource for business leaders. And by looking at a presentation, a conversation, a strategy or a brand as a story, we get to core truths succinctly and powerfully.

Our storytelling courses are designed to enable delegates to create, shape and relate excellent client stories. We look at structure and the mechanics of storytelling, as well as connecting the right story to the right person.

Lizzie also runs 1:1 coaching sessions on storytelling for senior executives.

23Red: “Really useful. Felt engaged the whole day! Loads of useful stuff.”

Please get in touch for more information. See examples for other clients below.

23Red are a communications agency whose philosophy is Do, Feel, Think

23Red were particularly keen to bring more storytelling into their pitches and client presentations. We ran a 1-day workshop on storytelling. We took the story of the person presenting, in order to engage in an impactful way. As they say, ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’. We brought to life the need to have ethos, pathos and logos; the structure of story, the importance of showing the struggle. The session culminated in teams pitching to us, using the tools and techniques they had learned.

Feedback

The Planning Shop International – Leading Healthcare Market Brand Consultancy

The Planning Shop international were having an away-day with all of their staff (about 40 people) and wanted a 4-hour session on using storytelling in business. Specifically, to help improve on:

Selling themselves
Communicating internally
Debriefing work to clients

We ran an interactive session using film clips to demonstrate core thoughts such as ‘the active question’ and ‘what is the inciting incident in your story? In groups, the team had to present back on the following brief: ‘How The Planning Shop International will win more business. In teams, participants were asked to brainstorm ideas, agree a plan, and agree a film genre while:

Being willing to improvise
Being prepared to present their completed 3-minute mission using any means available

The team put the tools they had learned into action, and came back with fun, lively and useful ideas on how they could win more business in 2016.

Feedback

Helping the GlaxoSmithkline Leadership Programme

We had run a short session at Ashridge on Storytelling as part of a Leadership Programme for GSK. Following that, one of the GSK team members asked us to help with a team day that they had coming with 50 people (made up of account managers, area managers and trade and category managers) on ‘Pushing the Boundaries’. We used the medium of story and improv practices to explore this with the team.

We got the group to tell stories of pushing the boundaries and looked at the elements that make a good story. We delved into the importance of having detail and emotion in stories, understanding what is the ’tilt’ or inciting incident of your story and getting quickly to what are the key beats of the action. We looked at tools for being present and in the moment with customers. The team left inspired, with new ideas and ways to engage the retail trade in future presentations.

Other Clients

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