Build a Library of Customer Success Stories

Recently we delivered our Influential Storytelling program to a sales team that was interested in the content for two reasons: They understood the value of storytelling in their sales process and wanted to bone up their skillset, but they also saw storytelling as a crucial part of developing internal institutional knowledge about the product, their customer success stories, and more. As the company grew, the sales team was experiencing a lot of turnover. The Director of Sales wanted to capture and codify the institutional stories that everyone on the team should be familiar with and leverage in the sales process

With this objective in mind, we recommended they establish two routines after exploring our Influential Storytelling content.

ArticleStephanie JuddSeptember 29, 2021sales, storytellingComment

Getting to the Point: The Art of Bottom-Lining

Bottom-lining is one of the most effective ways that a facilitator can keep the conversation on task, redirect tangents, stick to agenda and time, and engage participants. If you have a particularly chatty participant, asking them to bottom-line their contribution helps them cut out the unnecessary storytelling and asides. If you or others in the meeting have trouble understanding a participant’s point, asking them to bottom-line will help clarify what their message is. And as a facilitator, by reiterating what you hear a participant say as a single, succinct bottom line will help verify that you (and others in the room) are interpreting things correctly.

ArticleStephanie JuddSeptember 8, 2021MeetingsComment

Bootstrapped Founders - How to Craft the Story Behind Your Business

As bootstrapped founders, we may not find ourselves about to give a formal pitch in front of suited VCs, but we do constantly interact with potential customers, partners and other stakeholders in our networks. Every one of these people should know what you do and most importantly why you do it.

You’ll know it’s time to tell a story about what you do and why when you get questions like these:

Why did you start your business?
What are you up to lately?
Tell me about yourself

Here’s how you can craft a version of your story that will feel authentic and extemporaneous, but also be an influential and powerful representation of you and your business...

ArticleStephanie JuddSeptember 1, 2021Storytelling, entrepreneurship, salesComment

Three Activities to Drive Alignment in a Meeting

Her plan was to pose some questions to the group, and then have a discussion about each one. Stephanie immediately asked her if there would be any implicit or explicit power dynamics in the room, and whether any person in the group was considerably more extroverted than the others.

You see, her big challenge wasn’t identifying the right question to ask. She had good, open-ended questions that were straightforward enough and easy to understand (although hard to answer). Her challenge was making sure that the ideas that surfaced were all given a fair shake, that no one voice dominated the conversation, and that her process guaranteed the best ideas would bubble to the top.

Here are some fun tricks we recommended to her that day, and ones you can consider for your own meetings…

ArticleStephanie JuddAugust 11, 2021MeetingsComment

Critical Stories to Pitch Your Company or Product

Every founder, CEO, or sales person has to pitch their company or product, but to their detriment, not all of them bring a story to do so. The pitch is an obvious structure. It’s easy to meet the baseline expectations here. But if you want to be noticed and remembered, inspire people with your vision, prove your passion, paint a picture and ultimately gain champions, storytelling—specifically influential storytelling—is a valuable skill to have in your tool belt.

ArticleStephanie JuddAugust 4, 2021Storytelling, entrepreneurshipComment

Build Trust and Candor into your Meeting

Our partnership is the foundation of our business. It shapes our work, how we show up for our clients, how we run meetings and what we put out into the world. Leaders watch our partnership in action and notice the trust, honesty, and candor between us and how that creates the space for both of us to be the best versions of ourselves. “How do we do that?” they ask. “What’s the secret?”

The answer lies in two important qualities of how we work together, and these qualities are transferable to any meeting you may have at work. If done well, over time they’ll manifest incredible trust and candor within your team.

ArticleStephanie JuddJuly 14, 2021MeetingsComment

Keep It Real: The Power of Authenticity in Stories

A story that is personally relevant to, and reveals an authentic truth about the storyteller encourages the audience to connect with the storyteller on a human level. This authentic connection is incredibly powerful when it comes to influencing and leading others; it allows for the possibility that the audience will support, root for, buy into, or be led by the storyteller.

ArticleStephanie JuddJuly 6, 2021StorytellingComment

How to Open Your Meeting

When you gather your team for a weekly alignment session, stand up to give a presentation to your board, or plan a conference… No matter how big or small or mundane your meeting is, your attendees arrive with a set of expectations, assumptions, and preconceived notions.

The first 3-5 minutes of your meeting are your opportunity to make sure all those expectations and assumptions are aligned across the group, and folks are motivated to participate. You can do a lot in a few minutes; aim to establish operating norms or ground rules, share the agenda, and perhaps most importantly of all, set the tone. It’s in these 3-5 minutes that your attendees will make a decision about how much or little they will engage as participants and it’s your job to invite them in properly.

ArticleStephanie JuddJune 23, 2021Meetings, OpeningComment

The Secret to a Great Hook

Opening a story or presentation is one of the most difficult yet essential things to nail down in advance. At our Story Hours, or during a coaching session, it’s very common for storytellers to begin with, “Uh... okay,” “My story is about…” or the ever classic, “So…”

It’s common to begin with a half-baked plan, and it’s not surprising because most people are still crafting the story in their heads while they are speaking. The moment may be extemporaneous or just unplanned and the slow start is an inevitable side effect. But it’s time to develop some strategies to avoid showing up like you’re not sure what you’re talking about.

ArticleStephanie JuddJune 14, 2021storytellingComment

Four Things to Remember to be an Influential Storyteller

As human beings, we’re neurologically wired for stories - it’s been the primary mode of information transfer for most of human history, and as a result, we remember stories and the details associated with them far more effectively than any other kind of information. Stories present information in a controlled way, and bring the audience along by having them participate in the story through emotional and intellectual engagement.

However… if you want to use a story to actually influence someone, then we’re talking about taking stories to another level of awesome sauce. When you’re trying to influence, you’re not just trying to get your audience to remember your message - you want them to think or act differently as a result.

ArticleStephanie JuddMarch 21, 2017storytellingComment