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Transcript

AIM High: The art of storytelling · Two in Twenty

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to another episode of AI.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Twink Field.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: I am the host of these podcasts, which are specifically for marketers in investment management.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are talking about the art of great storytelling.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have been hearing more and more about telling great stories in our marketing approach, and it absolutely is a crucial part of the approach and success that we take to engage our clients and show our credentials.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really delighted to have two brilliant speakers on this: Laurie Stahl, who is a strategic brand storyteller, and Heidi Bryant, who is a marketing specialist not only in our industry, but also an author.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I will hand straight over to them to introduce themselves and get stuck into this really interesting topic.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Heidi Laurie, thank you so much for joining me today, talking about the art of great storytelling.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you a number of times, particularly recently, that storytelling has come up in order for people to evidence the authenticity of their claims, be it sort of brand level or ESG, etc.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it felt like a really great uh podcast to sort of bring to our listeners.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I wondered if we could just kick off with you each introducing yourselves, um, and then we can get into some questions.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Lori, maybe I'll come to you first and then to you, Heidi.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so my name is Lori Stahl, and I pretty much title myself as a strategic storyteller.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: And that just means that I work with my clients to make sure that the narratives that flow through what they do are based in some sort of logic with some sort of intention, some sort of business goal at the end of it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi DFT.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um hi Georgina, hi Laurie.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so my background is I've worked in marketing in financial services for 24 or more years.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then a few years ago I decided that as a marketeer I wanted to create my own product um and put it out there to market.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: So a couple of years ago I started writing children's books, um, and I now have four that are available globally.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic, and what an amazing story in and of itself.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe maybe uh you know, you could just share with us how, just get into the meat of this conversation, how you thought about storytelling in those in those books, you know, how you sort of took um some principles and put them into practice.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sure.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I mean the purpose, so if I just talk to you a little bit about the purpose of my book, so for me it's really key, I think, that children get to learn um about different people and different places across the world, and also that English is not the only language because obviously that's a the key language you know that's spoken globally.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um the story part of it is um to actually get children to learn without really thinking that they're learning um as well.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: So um for me it was really key to be able to not make it an educational book but a fun book and as if they were there in the actual place where the story is set, if that makes sense.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, sort of engage them with it uh sort of through the power of storytelling rather than kind of through need almost to have to learn.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: I suppose highlight and demonstrate that there's something else out there that perhaps they haven't read in other books or found across other medium, if that makes sense.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Laurie, tell me um, with your strategic storytelling hat on, you know, why why are stories so important and what's the science behind it?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: So it's interesting because and it really reflects what Heidi just said a second ago is you you want to draw people into the stories you tell, whether it's a child or an adult and it's for pleasure or it's it's for something that's business related, you have to bring them along with you, take them on that journey.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason you want to do that is because that gets them engaged.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: And there are a lot of knock-on effects with that, and it's not just theory, there are um scientific principles behind it, basically about the chemicals that we actually produce when we start to um listen to a story.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's cortisol, there's dopamine, there's oxytocin, and there are theories around it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, people have done studies, nobody has definitively proven that any of this is key, but the idea is that like with cortisol, you get the awareness piece of it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Then the dopamine gets you more engaged with what you're hearing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: And finally, the oxytocin really gets you to react a bit more.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you can get people to the place where they are naturally creating chemicals that we know have certain reactions, then it is a natural next step that their level of engagement and therefore memory and interaction follows.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what's so fascinating is that these are things that naturally happen.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's not about an actual strategy to induce these things, they happen every day.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just whether you tap into it, in my opinion, and when you're good at it, you you have you've hooked someone, no matter what that hook is about.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I guess hooking someone, you know, it's um there are different ways to engage different people, and and so I assume, therefore, there are different ways to tell a story and to engage people and provide those hooks.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um what do you do you have uh a sense of the different styles that uh people use to do exactly that, Lori?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there are some traditional styles that uh you know have been used in movies and books and TV shows over time that you you can engage.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: And there, you know, you can, there's something that's called in media res, where you just drop someone in the middle of a story and you're intrigued by it and you want to hear more around it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: There are others that are called like the hero's journey, which are typical, you know, the Odyssey and the Wizard of Oz, where there are all of these um kind of escalating challenges until you finally get to the peak and then it gets resolved.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: And there are probably 15 different obvious uh styles of storytelling that um sometimes again you intentionally follow, and other times you you accidentally come across.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: And it's all about how you um, you know, if you look to structure it to kind of surprise people and then go around it, or if you want to drip feed them along the way until there's some epiphany.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Heidi, and hearing that, was that something you were conscious or or sort of unconscious about in your and how you thought about your books, the catnap stories, or or indeed in your professional life, how you how you go about telling these stories?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I think um what I tried to do is in my first book, it was a bit of an um experiment, I suppose, because you never know if it's going to take off.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I tried to make the book fictional but also factual as well, and not a story that um would people or children or parents would think is a silly story that means nothing, it's got some meaning and it's got some depth behind it, but you have to read into it to really find out what that is.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that was really important for me.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and some people who have read the book have actually worked out what the meanings are, other people just see it as a story, and that's great because you know you don't want everybody to know your innermost secrets, I suppose, even though you might put some of them into a book.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's sort of like delve a bit deeper and find out what's going on.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, I think that storytelling is just it's just a fundamental human experience.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's how we connect, it's how we unite, um, and how you build sort of deeper and stronger connections with people, and that's really the important thing that I wanted to get across in the books that you know, if you travel somewhere else, there's a different language you can learn, there's a different culture you can experience, there's all sorts of different things.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I suppose I wished that when I was a child um I had had those books to hand.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I did travel a lot when I was a child, and I think sometimes you know, children don't often get the opportunity to travel, so I sort of wrote it for you know children who perhaps aren't as um you know fortunate to be able to go and travel.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and also when you think about the UK and the US, I did a piece of research around the types of books in the US for children, and they're very US centric.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And when I spoke to parents, you know, in the US, they said, Yeah, we'd love our children to learn more about the world, so it's different, you know, stories, different places and cultures, and you know, you write something for your audience to help them learn or find something else, find a new meaning, something.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess when we bring that into the sort of the investment industry, which is a bit of a jump, um, but you know, I think sometimes we aren't as focused on our audience as you rightly say.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you think, maybe come to you first, Laurie, uh, around how we use storytelling better?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we talk about it and how can we actually deliver it in this sort of impactful, engaging way in in terms of our marketing strategy and brands?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think it's it's a really interesting point in that part of storytelling is um is telling a story that you you know the audience would have a level of interest in.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, writing children's books, you know, it's because you know, about child traveling and learning new languages.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's not only your desire for the world to know that, it's knowing that you know kids are interested in that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: There are there are sponges, they will absorb things.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, so it's creating something, even if that's you know fiction and reality married, um, it is knowing that there is an audience for it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you take it back to business and and the investment industry, um it is very much, and I've seen this a lot with with clients over the years, and it doesn't need to be just in the investment industry as well, is many businesses want to say what they feel they need to convey, and they don't often consider either their broad audience or even their their stratified audience who want to hear different things.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you're when you're considering your storytelling, and that's not only verbal, I mean it can be in your literature, you know, it's your entire company narrative, it's it's marrying what you want to convey and and how that addresses the needs of your audiences.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: And if you have multiple layers of an audience, you need to think about what those layers are and answer their questions, answer their challenges in what you're offering them.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because again, that comes back to engaging them.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: If you're just telling them what you want to say, they very likely are tuning out.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: But if you're solving a problem or addressing a need, then all of a sudden you have their attention.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's kind of the first step in the equation.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it's essential to listen uh before you start to tell.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and that is somewhat a lost science these days.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're right.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much listening goes on.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: The kind of the research part of people's budgets has been depleted a little bit that sort of to helps them inform perhaps some of the some of the telling.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: But Heidi, how how have you sort of taken some of these principles of storytelling and and sort of increasingly kind of used it as a tool in your sort of professional world to sort of engage and connect better with clients?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's something that I'm always talking about, to be quite honest with you.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: I've worked in a number of different organisations where the initial view of marketing is that we talk about how great the company is and what we do, and how long we've been around, and um you know why we're the best or whatever, and actually people can turn around and say, so what somebody else can say exactly the same thing.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know some anecdotally, which I thought was quite um true a few years ago, is um an organisation that I was dealing with um came out to us and said, Look, we've printed off all this text from all these different asset management companies' websites, but we've taken the company name off.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us, you know, which company it is?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he wouldn't have been able to have told them apart.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I think that's you know the problem, especially in the financial services world.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: You really do need to have salespeople in the business understand that if you demonstrate how what you offer fits into your customer or your client's life, and you tell a story, and you tell that cons that story consistently across the different channels and you make it a journey for them, and this is something that's it's an art or it is a science, you know.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: As you as you say, Laurie, it's um you need to be able to have someone connect in one way, then when they click on something else or go somewhere else, the story continues, and very often, if you don't build a coherent story across your campaigns or your messaging, you could lose someone halfway through because your connectors don't match up.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, um, you know, if you're using different channels like LinkedIn or YouTube or any of these different um, you know, types of channels, you need to ensure that when somebody steps on something or does something, the next thing they do follows on the conversation and seems like a seamless journey, as if you've been programmed or directed to go in that in that way.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it is a real tricky thing to do because markers know it's important, but sometimes the business or the salespeople that you're working with don't necessarily see that's the way you need to you know carry out that storytelling.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I I agree with that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: It can be hard to engage people internally in it uh as a technique and a tool, and to drive that consistency and the pre and post-click being sort of um thought through like that to deliver on the expectations.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um Laurie, what would be your advice there in terms of uh, I guess, positioning it better internally for the wider business to get behind the kind of the power of storytelling?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's a really difficult one to tackle, to be honest, because you need, especially if you're in a larger company, because you need to get you know all of the different businesses, the different teams uh on the same page.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I've worked for you know internal communications companies as well as advertising companies.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: So looking at you know both sides of where you're communicating, and smaller budgets always go to the internal communications piece of it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it's ironic because you're not going to always get it right and you're not going to connect the dots, as Heidi was saying, across all of the channels, if you don't have your own team singing from the same hymn sheet.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: So the most important piece is getting everybody um uh to understand the importance.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, again, that the first piece of it is why is it important that your salespeople are saying the same thing as your executive board, as um, you know, your your social media accounts.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: And um that comes down to training because it's you're not going to learn it, do it, or believe it just.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I think internally you really need to get everybody on some sort of a journey together to embrace whatever the story is.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't need to be hugely involved.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's just that everyone needs to make sure they're supporting all of those steps when the consumer actually interacts with them and then it delivers exactly what Heidi was saying.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's a cohesive story that everyone is is delivering.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because we could be talking about anything right now, couldn't we?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of it could be about brand, it could be about those ESG credentials, it could be about sort of why you're so brilliant in a particular niche or asset class, you know.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think so much of that is is around the how compelling it is, how consistent it is in terms of the narrative and getting everybody behind it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I guess half the problem is unearthing the powerful story.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: The other half is then aligning everybody behind it, isn't it?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: And and it's also not just um getting everybody behind it, you know, to be able to tell it, but it's making sure that it's supported in print, you know, in presentations, you know, everywhere, so that it's it's like a whole repertoire of consistent content.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: And interestingly, when I say consistent, I don't mean repetitive.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: I just mean that it all is eventually leading to the same message and the same point.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: And that's again an important skill to learn, again, to something that Heidi said that you know, there is an art to it.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: There's an art of marrying the strategy and the creative together to be able to do this well.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: And that is something you need to work at.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: There are some native storytellers, you know, natural storytellers, but for the most part, most people need some guidance to get it right.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think it is also about you know the different skills across marketing because a marketeer is not necessarily a writer, and a writer is not necessarily a markier.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you do need to have, you know, within a marketing team, people who are skilled at certain things, um, because you need to make the most of what you can and can't do.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a really important strategic tool to use storytelling across your communications and what you do, because it isn't just a creative approach, it's a different way to get people to enter into your brand story and get to understand what you're about and why you're there and what purpose you serve for you know specific customers.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's also important to note that your story is going to be different depending on who you're speaking to within, you know, so you're working with working in a particular organization, you're going to have three or four or more different types of customers.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: The way you engage with them is through telling them a slightly different story, but with the end of providing them with a service and product that is the same, but you're getting to them through different routes.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not always easy, as you say, and uh and people I guess unpack those stories, need to unpack those stories slightly differently depending on kind of who they're engaging with.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and um I guess I was just sort of thinking uh you know, storytelling sounds like it's right across the marketing mix, really, and it's um uh you know, it doesn't, it's not the sort of the singular tool that I've been referencing, but it's just about um the the broader piece really and integrating the full marketing mix.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Would you would you agree with that?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think the tone of voice that you use has to be consistent across the group as well, because that in itself tells a lot about the organisation and how you then deal with customers.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the things that in some organisations you can have the best storytelling in the world, but if the actual um you know response with customers when something happens tells you a different story, that can also cut the story.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: It needs to be not just the marketing communication.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And communications that when you pick up the phone, how you're addressed on the phone, how you're channelled through the business as a customer, if that story and alignment and tone of voice doesn't match up, that can also detract from the good work that you've done in storytelling, which is why the alignment piece is so key to get right.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, Laurie, what are the other sort of practical tools and tips kind of to uh sort of make storing storytelling as impactful as possible?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think what have we missed?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I I think that it's it's this idea that you've kind of just touched on, which is that it's not some big new idea that you know sometimes I find people say, I'm just not a good storyteller, I'm not a natural storyteller.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it's it's more about thinking about it just as everybody being on the same journey.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: So so a tip is just it depends who you are as to what that tip would be.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: If you have a business and you know that you're not all telling a consistent story, it's stepping back, taking a break.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's almost like a paralleling your your life.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if if things aren't going the way you want it to, just take a breath and realign.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_03: And you you align that narrative that you again you want to tell that matches what your customers want to hear, and then you you start again.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: I think the it's about taking it step by step, just like you would take people on a journey as you tell them a story of sitting back and assessing, are you telling a consistent story?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: Being accepting of the feedback if you're told that people don't understand you.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: I have had clients who don't appreciate or don't want to embrace the research that has come back, telling them that they're not, you know, clear to the customer.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, the research is flawed, right?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, you know, it's it's like anything.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I always say that everything that I kind of come across in business is a parallel to personal lives in so many ways.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, you know, embrace criticism, take the truth on, and then take small steps to realign, to adjust, and and keep testing it along the way.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, it's not a quick fix, but it doesn't have to be a big scary overhaul.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's just about being honest with whether your business is actually achieving what it wants to achieve by telling a consistent story.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: You touched on this sort of assessment point.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe you could both give a sort of feel for how do we go about measuring it, but whether it's sort of understood or or the impact of the kind of stories we're we're telling.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether Laura, you could just before we come to you, Heidi, as to sort of practically kind of how you've gone about this in your in your work.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: But um, Lori, have you got some thoughts there as to sort of how how you assess it or measure it?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, it is uh it is less tangible than than some other deliverables, obviously.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like just how many people clicked on it, but there is a knock-on effect to uh what you're doing.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so what I always try to get my clients to do is um every once in a while to step back and either um have some workshops where we bring in customers and actually assess how things have shifted.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so if you actually look at tracking, um, and if you also do it piecemeal.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: So let's say you you're realigning your social media content to better match the rest of what you're doing, we would do like quarterly assessments where we look at internally what's happening.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we would actually speak to some customers to ask them what's happening.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then we also, dependent on what the business is, we look at how the numbers are reflecting that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's the sort of thing where you you really, in my mind, can't 100% attribute, let's say, an increase in sales or an increase in new customers to the storytelling alone.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: But I do think it's a very um important part of the mix, and that if you do see movement in a direction that you're looking for, you can attribute that to that change in the storytelling.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is, I mean, with social media nowadays, there's certain things that you can do to provoke engagement and to provoke responses and to provoke, you know, interaction, which actually enables you to engage with the audience.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some companies are more comfortable to do that than others.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think probably in the investment management industry, you need to be a little bit careful as what you do.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: In other industries, you can be a little bit more provocative, and you know, if part of your story is to ask questions to generate the next part of the story, that's an ideal sort of starting point, I think.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um you can see where that takes you through other people's comments as well when you when you do that, it's certainly something that I think is important in as part of the storytelling process.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you know, have taking the time, as you say, to sort of really look at the results.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, kind of why was that particular story so successful and show so much engagement and um and dwell time or whatever the other metrics people might use, and sort of think why why did that work versus this other story and and sort of how um can we kind of optimize our thinking and strategy off the back of some of those inputs, I guess.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Umly grail for marketing and marketeers is saying the right thing to the right person at the right time using the right channel, and you know, if you knew what that was, it would be very rich.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: But you there are tools in which you can you know measure that, but you do need to be able to get those more points nailed, really.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that and I think to to your point, Laura, about taking a step back, it isn't always necessarily in our um, we don't go there very quickly, do we?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a there's a perhaps a a tendency, whether it's in the marketers or more broadly, just to be very execution focused.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're all very busy, we're trying to think get things out the door, we're thinking about the next thing, the next milestone.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just pressing pause isn't always a very natural step, but it can be the bravest and most useful step to reset, recalibrate, assess what's working, and and realign yourself, as you suggest.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm conscious, Heidi, that sort of perhaps to not leave our listeners with that big conundrum because I think you're absolutely right that is the holy grail.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Would you have any either of you have any um pointers or sort of final thoughts for our listeners around how they might try and go about achieving that?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think the first thing is really get to understand who it is you're talking to.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: The the most important thing is understanding your target audience why they need or why they need what you're offering them, what their pain points are, um, and when they need it, and how you solve that and how you get that message to them.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um is the most important thing.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: I also think that authenticity in that.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: So um, you know, not trying to over-engineer how you're communicating with someone and what you're saying, but just being human, which again comes back to the fact that storytelling is, you know, the the oldest form of communication.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so um, I think you can't underestimate the power of authenticity in you know, delivering on all of the things that Heidi just mentioned.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so, as a sort of final hurrah, because I'm cultures at times just evaporated on us.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are any other sort of final comments or thoughts just to leave people with around sort of why sort of storytelling is such an impactful way.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like you, as you rightly say, Laurie, it's sort of one of the old oldest ways of communicating and sharing and engaging uh within our communities.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so just just kind of thoughts on sort of how people can think about their storytelling techniques.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll come to you, Laurie, and then finally, Heidi.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, put you on the spot.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think that it's it's really about thinking yourself, uh, what has impacted your life, where where has your life changed, and then what what stories were were behind that?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Because also things come from personal experience.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, even if we're talking about work, you're affected at work even by things that have happened personally.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so if as individuals, we start to see the effect and the power that stories have had on us, and just in everyday life, think about what the story is that's happening around us, then you start to see the importance in how you personally react to the stories.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: And then the knock-on effect is understanding how how much of an effect and how important it is in how you then want to communicate yourself.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really looking at that knock-on effect that I think will invest you in it in the first place.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then even if you're not good at it or you're you know you're not doing it well, you at least have that desire to learn more and see how you can start to implement it in what you're doing.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, that I think there's four key components to it.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: You want to communicate with people, you want to educate them, you want to connect with them, and hopefully they share that content, you know, and become ambassadors and or you know, referrals for your business.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if they believe in the story, then that's the ultimate result, isn't it?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's in such a compelling way that they feel compelled to pass it on.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, listen, that just leads me to thank you both very, very much for sharing all your thoughts in and around this really important subject.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you very, very much for your insight and expertise.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Julian.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.