The Story Leader is a new monthly newsletter for revenue leaders. We aim to be a source of fresh ideas for applying human-kind's most powerful communication tool to business development.

Your Company Strategy Story

A few months ago I started working with the BD team for a major Australian electricity utility. The first story we worked on was their company strategy story. That's the story that explains how your company came to exist, why you do what you do, and where you are going as a company.

Our objective was to create a baseline story that everyone in the team could tell.

It wasn't an easy task. They had more than a 100 years of operation and a convoluted history of ownership and organisational changes. How to select the most important events for a two-minute story?

We discussed the company history, purpose and strategy in one-on-one meetings with senior leaders and in a team workshop. Eventually, everyone in the team was ready to tell the company story in their own words via video message (our preferred story practice tool).

From my coach's perspective, the story was coming together but I wondered whether the team members would tell the story in commercial situations? It goes without saying that a story left untold is of limited value.

So I was pleased when the team manager informed me that he'd practised telling the company strategy story to job candidates for an open role in his team, and it seemed to go well. That's a start, I thought.

A few weeks later I met the successful candidate and she shared the experience of hearing the company story in her job interview. "It was inspiring! So different from all the other companies I interviewed with. I just knew this was where I wanted to work!"

Its fascinating to reflect on the myriad of ways that stories weave their magic. Influencing clients, partners, investors, competitors, your own staff ...and even job candidates!

Craft the story, tell the story and observe the magic.

The Secret to Sales Storytelling (Its not what you think)

I explain in three minutes the true secret of sales storytelling. Most business storytelling instruction is about leadership and change management. But sales storytelling is different ... <watch the video here>