Latest / Glovisor Podcast / How to Turn Your Story Into a Business That Grows | Aleya Harris [Ep 78]

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How to Turn Your Story Into a Business That Grows | Aleya Harris [Ep 78] · Glovisor Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In a world filled with technology, automation, and constant change,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: leaders who can tell the right stories and communicate with
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: impact will shape what comes next. Welcome to the Glowvisor Podcast,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: where we explore business growth, communication, and personal development through
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: real conversations with people who make an impact. Our guest
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: is an award-winning keynote speaker, former Google executive, and CEO
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of the Evolution Collective. She created the Story Driven Leadership
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Framework to help leaders build trust, communicate with impact, and
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: lead through change. She equips organizations with practical strategies to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: create high-performing cultures in an AI-driven world. Glowvisor welcomes Aleah Harris.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Hello, hello, Joan. Nice to see you. Likewise.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: All right, Leah, so I'm excited. I can't wait to hear.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: What specific problems do you solve, and who do you help?
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I solve the problem of people not knowing how to
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: communicate in a way that actually creates change and transformation.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: I am a story-driven leader, a storytelling framework expert, and,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: dare I say, nerd of And what I do is
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: I have two sides of my business, one where I
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: help speakers and one where I help organizations. The one
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: side where I help speakers, I use storytelling frameworks as
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: blueprints of human behavior to be like, this is.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: How you should talk. This is how you should actually
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: talk to help people.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: And I go all the way from speakers who kind
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: of sort of maybe have an idea in the back
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: left corner of their mind about what they want to
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: talk about.
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  Speaker 2: And we help them figure that out all.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: The way till I've spoken, I speak, I want to
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: speak more.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Can you pitch me?
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: So we have services for all of that. And all
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: of them use story to help amplify the humanness and
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: the effectiveness.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Of their message.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: And then on the other side of my business, it's
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: a narrative-based communication design consultancy. So what that means is like,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: let's say your company has gone through a merger or.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: You're trying to figure out culture. Someone did something they
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: weren't supposed to. You're trying to communicate your way out
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: of that one.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Then what we do is we use the same frameworks
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: on a more enterprise level to help people put together
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: communication plans that everyone in the organization can see, hear, feel, touch,
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: and actually build.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Do the desired behavior.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: So I would like to call myself, this is the
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: first time I've ever called myself this out loud. So Joe,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: you're getting an exclusive here. I would like to call
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: myself a behavior alchemist. That is what I've decided on
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: this Monday to call myself.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: As of now.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: So from now on, or does that change every Monday?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. This is the first Monday. Catch me
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: next week, Joe, and then we'll see. Ask me again
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: what I'm calling myself.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: I've been trying for years now to try to put
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: myself in a little, you know, basket with a little
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: bow on it that everyone can understand because that's like,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I've been a marketer for almost 20 years and that's
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: like marketing 101, right? Like make it so people can
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: easily understand what the hell you're doing and the hell
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: you're talking about. And I realized that some of it's
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: easy and truthfully some of it's not because I'm so
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: far down the rabbit hole that I'm just going to
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: tell you I do story stuff and I'm going to
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: help you make some money.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So come on, girl. Come on, baby.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Nice and easy.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Now, okay.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: So there's two segments to your business and I want
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: to get back to that. But before all that, what
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: was the defining moment that made you choose this path?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I love that. So cute, Joe, that you think I
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: chose this.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: I in fact did not really choose this path.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: It chose me.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: So I, I was working as the head of marketing
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: for North America, so the North American CMO of a
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: large corporate facilities and food service company. And they sent
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: me to become a StoryBrand certified guide.
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  Speaker 2: StoryBrand is a wonderful.
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  Speaker 3: Business that takes the hero's journey and applies it to marketing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: And so I became a certified a certified guide.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: You know, this is $ 10, 000 plus investment, plus travel, plus this.
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  Speaker 2: I was a week in Nashville. And then two weeks
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: after that, they laid me off. So I'm like, all right, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: What the hell am I going to do now?
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  Speaker 3: So I did what any self-respecting person does that's been
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: laid off. I went and I did ayahuasca in the Amazon.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And then I came back with, oh, no. Kind of
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: sense like, what am I going to do? I'm going
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: to try to do this on my own.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: And that was how I became an entrepreneur for the
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: second time. Before that, like several years before that, I
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: owned a catering company. So I wasn't new to the
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: entrepreneurial world, but definitely in this capacity. And what made
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: me stick with it was the freedoms. But then what
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: made it hard to stick with it was, you guessed it,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: the freedom. Because you have the freedom to do whatever
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: you want to do. But then you also have to
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: do the thing, know what the thing is. And then
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: you have the freedom now to do all of the things.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Because when you're first starting, you're too broke to hire
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  Speaker 3: anybody else.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So that was the beginning of my journey. That was
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: February 2020. And luckily, luckily, unluckily, right around that.
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  Speaker 3: Same time, because I had already been kind of dabbling
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: in this business. So I had booked a conference. And
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: that conference happened to be in March 2020. I don't
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: know if you remember what happened in March 2020. It
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: was a thing called a global pandemic.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: That we were like, it'll be two weeks. It'll be fine.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: It was, in fact, not two weeks. But at that conference,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: I met a woman who had become my publicist. Thank God,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: because then when the poop hit the fan, she was like, here's.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: What we're going to do. You and me, look me
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: in my eyes. You're going to speak. I'm like, yeah,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: of course. No, no probs. Then she said, for free.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: And I said, excuse me, do you understand free means
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: no money in my bank account?
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  Speaker 2: Free means zero dollars. I don't know if I was
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: about that life. But she said, come on, baby, be
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: about this life. We're going to do this together. I said, okay.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: And so I did. I trusted her. And I spoke
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: mostly virtually.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: And then in Florida, because apparently the pandemic didn't happen
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: in Florida, for free. And I did that for three months,
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  Speaker 3: squeaking along, eking.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Along, grumpy about it.
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  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, people started getting these loans.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, people started finding new
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: ways to make money. But they had been hearing me
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: and seeing me on stages, virtually and in person.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And then they started paying me money. And I'm like, oh,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I see it all comes together. It was like a, oh,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I see Master Yoda kind of moment.
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  Speaker 3: And then in six months from there, I made a
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: quarter of a million dollars based on my free speaking.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: And that was when, you know, it was more of
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: a marketing-based agency then and.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I've evolved since.
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  Speaker 3: But that's one of the reasons why I just can't
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: seem to let go of this speaking part of my business.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Because one, it makes me a crap ton of money.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: And two, I love it.
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  Speaker 3: And three, I think more people should use their natural
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  Speaker 3: God-given talent of their voice to make money and.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Grow their business. Absolutely.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Now, so that's section number one, right? That would be the...
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Working with speaking and speakers and all that aspect of it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Who are the ideal clients that you work with?
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  Speaker 2: So because we have a range, we work with anyone.
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  Speaker 3: Who is wanting to, in an ideal situation, build a
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: thought leadership driven business. So you're not just wanting to
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  Speaker 3: like go and sprinkle some words on a microphone somewhere
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  Speaker 3: and call it a day. You're really trying to understand
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  Speaker 3: how to use the ideas, the process, the framework, the
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: stories in your mind as a foundation for either your
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: existing business, a new business, and you're wanting.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: To develop from there.
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  Speaker 3: So you might not know anything about the speaker industry,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: but somebody told you that you should speak to grow
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: your business.
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  Speaker 2: And I agree with that individual.
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  Speaker 3: And so then we will take you and we'll help
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  Speaker 3: develop your thought leadership brand. So we have a service
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: called Spark the Platform where we will help you develop
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: your intellectual property and we'll help you develop your commercial containers,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: what your services, what your products are around that intellectual
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: property before you ever are even developing a keynote. Because
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  Speaker 3: what I don't want people to do is to create
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  Speaker 3: another job for themselves.
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  Speaker 2: We got in this to create a business, not a job.
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  Speaker 3: So if you are just then exchanging your time for money,
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  Speaker 3: you're just creating another job for yourself. It is a
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  Speaker 3: really hard job with like no job security at all.
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  Speaker 3: So you might as well just go get a regular
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: job at that point in time. I want you to
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  Speaker 3: create like a business where it can eventually your thoughts,
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  Speaker 3: your ideas can survive after you. And so then we
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: talk about that and then we will help you put
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: together your, um, keynote in Spark the Stage. So Spark
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: the Stage, we have our Done For You program. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: then Spark the Stage Signature, we have our, I'm sorry,
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Spark the Stage is our DIY.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: You're doing HCL.
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  Speaker 3: And then Spark the Stage Signature is done for you.
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  Speaker 3: But you will build your keynote. You'll understand the industry
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: of speaking. You'll understand how to pitch yourself, understand how
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: to be on stage. The difference between the two is
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: in Signature, we actually create the keynote for you with
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: the slides and the outline and write your stories and
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: create your media kit for you as opposed to walking
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: you and teaching you how to do it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And then there's spark the pitch.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: So if you are then ready, whether you go through
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: all of that or not, you can come off the
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: street and just be like, nah, I just want to
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: talk more. We'll double check to make sure you are
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: in fact pitch ready. And then we send you out
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  Speaker 3: to 750 places, conferences, events, organizations in your niche every
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: single quarter, which.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Is a volume that you will not be able to
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: do on your own. It's not that I don't believe
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: in you. I believe in you.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: But Spark the Pitch started because I thought I could
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: do it. And I got through like two. My goal
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: was like five a week. I got through like two.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: It was like, this is what is not happening is
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: me finishing the rest of these. So then I hired someone.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I taught them my system. I got booked three times
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: in three weeks. And I was like, all right, let's
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: do this. And then it became a company.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: You see how you build a business? It just happens.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: So now, all right. I'm an aspiring speaker. I connect
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: with you. I already have everything right. I have my slides.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I've been working on it for the last 35 years.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Which is usually what it is, yes. So they're a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: little dated, but they're still there. They're good. So I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: need you to connect me with these people. So do
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you become a member of an organization when they work
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: with you as a client, just as a connection, and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that way you can send those newsletters? No.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: So that's a very good question and a question that
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I get all the time, Joe. So in the speaking industry,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: which I lovingly dub the wild, wild.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: West, there is very.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: opaque very difficult to see like how do you actually
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: get a speaking gig and how much money and how
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: much money you're going to make so I talk with
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of people and so I know that there
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: are bureaus out there who are doing kind of like
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: what you were going to say they make their their
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: you have relationships you know they schmooze they but and
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: so people say well no brainer I'm just going to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: go join a bureau that's exactly what I want people
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: to schmooze and and rub elbows on my behalf And
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: I love that thought process. However, unless you are consistently
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: making somewhere between $ 15, 000 to $ 20, 000 per engagement on a
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: regular basis, you're going to be on that bureau's website
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: along with the other thousands of speakers on their website,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: but they are not going to pitch you.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: They're not going to give you the time of day.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: They're not going to sift through their archives because in
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: their mind, and again, I say this with the most
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: tough love, they can't make money off of you.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: If you're not proven, they make money off of the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: proven people, people that are.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Making $ 20, 000, $ 30, 000, $ 40, 000, $ 50, 000, $ 60, 000, $ 70, 000, $ 80, 000 a talk.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: So if you're like, oh, now I'm sad. How the
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: hell am I going to get into the world?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: That's where we come in.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: We work with people that are pre-bureau ready, meaning I
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: don't care how much you are making per talk because
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not taking a cut. We have a flat fee.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: You can come in never having being paid to speak ever.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: And we will help, you know, zhuzh up your stuff
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: so that you sound as marketable as humanly possible.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: And we pitch you out.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: So, but we don't have the relationships. We work on quality, consistency,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: and volume. 750 is a lot.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: A lot. Think about that for a second. 750 per quarter.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: That is actually one and a half full-time job. I
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: know because I have people that, to do it. So
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: I know exactly how long it takes. Per client, they
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: really basically end up with one and a half people
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: pitching their stuff every single month. And then you get
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: like consistency. These people, since it's their job and they
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: actually like it. I don't know where I found these unicorns,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: but I love my team. Shout out to team Spark
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: the Pigeon.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: They are on it like relentlessly.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I've had people get booked to speak and the people
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: that booked them were like, yeah, whoever your team is,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I had to give you a call because they.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Kept emailing me. And I'm like, yes, that's right. That's right.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: And the reason why that's important is because the average
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: speaker submission acceptance is 2%.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: 2%. That's small. That's a little bit of people. That's
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: only a couple of people and a lot of people applying.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: So what that means is you need to stand out.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: You need to have people for you following up, sending videos.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: I've had people send cards in the mail for places
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: that they really wanted to speak at, right? And then
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: that quality, I'm a storytelling professional. So we make sure
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: that the submissions grab the attention of the event organizer
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: as much as But no, we.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Don't know these people.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: We get their names from the internet, from lists that
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: we purchase, from connections, from places that our speakers have
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: spoken in the past. And we will just pump you
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: out to places that are relevant to you. Not just
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: any old place, places that are relevant to you, but still. Now,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: is there a talk that's in huge demand at the moment?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: So the talks that are going to be mostly in demand,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: AI is.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: still it, but not the, so it's evolved over the years.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: It's not the how to do AI. It's also not
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: the don't worry, baby, humans are not, AI is not
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: taking over human jobs. We've grown and developed to the
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: point where an AI talks somewhere around like how you
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: use AI and stay human. Like now we're starting to
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: blend them together. People have kind of been like, I
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: guess this AI thing's not going anywhere. Now I need
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to figure out how to best leverage it while keeping
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: the soul of me, my company.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: That type of AI talk is going to go over
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: incredibly well.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: A talk that also is niched so that it showcases
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: your individual expertise. So a talk like Joe, the talk
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I would not have you give is, you know, how
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: to grow a business by Joe.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It's like, that tells me. Absolutely nothing, right? Because it's generic.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: What you need to do is you need to go
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: pull from your stories, your unique experience, your framework, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: then overlap it and then talk about anything that has
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: an ROI attached to it. So it's either, yes, growing
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: a business, leadership, retention, and anything with generational value.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Things in it.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: So like how Gen Z works, and then always and
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: always trends.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: But there has to be trends that you genuinely know.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: And see and are taking a new fresh take on.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: It's not like you're just going to go Google some
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: trends and talk about it.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: That ain't going to work.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: If anything, what you want to think about is like, okay,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: what's the middle topic that everyone always is talking about?
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: And then how do I get slightly left of center?
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: If everyone's talking about leadership, I'm going to talk about
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: story-driven leadership.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: It's slightly different. They still know what leadership is.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: They can try to guess what story-driven is, but they're
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: interested to see how you bring that together. Story-driven leadership
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: for 2025 and 2026 were my top talk. It is
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: about what the talk is about, but it's Almost less
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: about that and more about what are you bringing that
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: is actionable immediately and that can actually move the needle,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: help people do something. Gone are the days of you
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: just talking about your life and me being interested. It
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: needs to show how you're going to give them that transformation.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Now, can we talk a little bit more about the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: second segment of your business?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Of course.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Who's your ideal client there?
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: My ideal client there, it's more of an enterprise service.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: So it's not necessarily individual entrepreneurs. However, we do do
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: some communication advisory and consulting for individual people in the businesses.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: But it's primarily businesses who tend to have a minimum
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: of $ 5 million in revenue. Usually they're much larger around
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: the $ 20, $ 30 million in revenue.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And they have had some type of change.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: So let's say they had a merger and acquisition or
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: they have a large culture shift. They have a new
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: CEO who wants to bring in their ideas. What we
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: do is I use my frameworks, my narrative design frameworks.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: To say, okay, what storytelling.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Framework from around the world is useful for this scenario
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: because storytelling frameworks are blueprints of human behavior, like I
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: said before. So they come from all kinds of different
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: cultures and they represent what that culture valued the most
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: for life progression.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: So in some cultures, you have like the hero's journey, right?
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: That's a very Western story framework. The hero, you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: gets pushed into action. They go around through various different trials.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: They have one big trial push and then they save
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the day, right? And throughout there, they've had a guide.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: There was someone who had a plan for them. And
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: it's very much, and then they're learning about themselves. Think
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Star Wars is the quintessential, all of the movies, the
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: quintessential hero's journey framework. But that's not the only framework.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: And that's the framework that I initially was taught and
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: the only one that I knew. And then I started
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: trying to apply it outside of a marketing context to
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: a culture context. And I realized, well, you can't have
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: a bunch of individual heroes running around trying to save
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: the day in an organization. That's chaos. That's not, that
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: doesn't make anything better. So I started looking for what
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: other things could happen. So then I found like the
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Kishotenketsu framework that's, you know, in more of the Asian areas,
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: like China and Japan, they have different varying names, but
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it basically is the same four part framework that is
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: not about a hero saving the day.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: It actually has no conflict in it.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: It's about, a surprise, and going underneath to find deeper meaning, right?
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Deeper truth, the truth underneath the visible, right? Then there's
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: frameworks from the Ifa traditions in Africa that, especially in a.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Bit about Western.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Africa, where they're talking about circular storytelling and how you're
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: then moving and understanding what your ancestors did, then understanding
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: what part of it you play now and what the.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Next iteration of it is. What does evolution look like.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Towards remembering your best and highest self, remembering who you are, right?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Very different. So then I have taken a bunch of
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: these storytelling frameworks from all around the world and kind
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: of smushed them together, sorry, somebody's ancestors, into like five
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: main kind of types.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: And so I choose the storytelling framework based on what
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: is going on in your organization. So are you needing
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: to uncover the truth? Are you needing to bring two
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: people together? Are you needing to build off of a legacy, right?
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: And then we work towards building narrative that gets filtered
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: through people's beliefs. Unlike a lot of frameworks that are
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: out there, like the DISC framework or the Myers-Briggs framework
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: or whatever it is, which I love, but those require
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: the organization as a whole to take a training and
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: to figure out what type they are, like your Enneagram type.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a disc, I am a whatever, right?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: And then it's like, okay, now this is how you
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: talk to eyes. This is how you talk to these people.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: This is how you talk. Ain't nobody got time for that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Ain't nobody got time for that.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Especially with the type of clients that I work with
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: that it's like, no, this strategy is not moving and
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: we are losing thousands of dollars every single day.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: So can you please help us?
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: So instead of trying to figure out what everyone's type
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: is and communication style and how they receive information, We
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: make the assumption that in your organization, you have all
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: of the types, right? And for me, I've then gone
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: across the different Jungian archetypes and a whole bunch of
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: other things, tarot cards.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: It was a whole experience. And I've distilled them down
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: to seven types of the way people communicate through their beliefs.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: And so then I say, okay, we're telling them this
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: particular type of story.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: But then if you're going to tell it to.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: A sculptor, me, my type is a sculptor, meaning I'll
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: look at a chunk of thing and I'll be like,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: this could be better. And I chip away at it
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: until it turns into the beautiful thing that it's supposed
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: to be. So if you give me a piece of
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: information or you tell me that merger is happening, I'll
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: be like, that's good.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: But this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: This would be better. I think I like this.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: And that's how I'm going to process information. A lover
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: type is all about the people, the caring, the nurturing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: So they're going to be like, yeah, but in this
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: merger and acquisition, how do I make sure all of
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: the people are taken care of? That everyone feels like
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: they belong. That everyone has a place in the hearts
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: and the minds.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: That's a lover. You're going to communicate to the two
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: of us very differently.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Even though what you're really trying to do is get
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: us both on board doing our jobs and wanting to
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: work for this company.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Right. We make sure to pass stories through all of
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: the different archetypes and create a final communication plan that
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: takes all of the way people communicate into account, that
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: moves people's behavior towards the desired outcome and allows them
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: to participate in the transformation that's happening by removing their
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: own barriers, by removing their own.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Kind of objections.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: So that they can get what everyone really wants to
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: be is part of a happy, healthy organization that's doing
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: good things, making good money in the world. But often
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: the individuals and our own belief systems stand in the
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: way of us being able.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: To do that.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Interesting to see that because you're bringing it all together.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: But taking that same scenario, you have a CEO, there
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: was a merger and you have a brand new CEO
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: who just came in, calls you, Aaliyah, I need help today.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: By the way, Joe, that's my favorite situation. So if
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: anybody's in that, Really? Call me. For real, call me.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So there he goes. I need you to come in today.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: How long does it take you for you to go
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: ahead and recognize which is the best direction to take
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the company to deliver that message and then get them
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: ready to deliver it?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Well, we start with a strategy drag scan. Which depends,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, how long it takes to do that scan
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: depends on how we can talk to people.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Because we do like about five live interviews that are
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: about like 15, 20 minutes of different members of the organization.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: We also understand like what exactly it is that will
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: make this, where the strategy is dragging in the first place.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: And then how to move it forward.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: So it starts with that and that is usually a
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: week experience. Can be done faster if we have all
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: of the right elements in place. Then we move them
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: into a make strategy move workshop. So you have strategy
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: drag and then you're making the strategy move.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: The make strategy move.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Workshop is a personalized workshop that says, okay guys, this
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: is what's happening with your strategy right now.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: This is what we've seen.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: This is exactly how we are going to enact it.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: And now we're going to go through and make sure
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: that you understand how to communicate this, what your talking
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: points are, what your stories are, what your issues are.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: We have a little bit of kumbaya in there. By
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the time you're done, you will have your personalized strategy. Now,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: could I go off after the strategy drag scan thing?
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: And just make their strategy for them, abso-freaking-lutely. But the
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: workshop is designed to create buy-in and to create co-creation
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: from the people that are going to be leading the strategy.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Without that, one, they have ideas that may not have
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: surfaced earlier, and two, they are not going to participate
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: as actively unless they were part of the creation of it.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: So the whole workshop is designed to have the co-creation
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: happen as well. And then you have your implementation, you.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Have your things. Most of the time, well, about half
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the time, they go with God and they go and
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: merge everything together.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Sometimes after that, though, they keep us on retainer to
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: continue the communication experience. Sometimes it's to continue auditing at intervals,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: or oftentimes.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: It is like, okay, that was... Issue number one.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Now here's our five other issues that we're going to
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: tackle in sequence through communication strategy.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Now, can you share a client's case study that shows
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit of the transformation of the work that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: you've conducted in the past?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: So this is a different scenario. This was a client
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: who I'd worked with in the past in a marketing capacity.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And he had the opportunity to sell his business.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: And he came to me. I was actually.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: out of town working, right? And he came to me
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: and he said, he sent me a message that said, Alea,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: I have an emergency. And I'm thinking to myself, what
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: the heck am I going to do for you?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Like, call 911. Like, what are you talking about?
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: But it turns out that his emergency was The company
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: that was buying him had, you know, done some outside person.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: They evaluated or valued his business at $ 5 million, which
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: to some people sounds good. To him sounded like crap.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: And to me sounded like crap, too, because I knew
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: his business.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And he goes, what am I going to do? Like,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I want to sell, but I don't want to sell
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: for $ 5 million. What the heck? And I said, well,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: what did you tell them about? your business.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: And he's like, he's very, he's a very, very nice guy.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Very nice, very smart, but very matter of fact.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: And also has a very hard time tooting his own
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: horn and seeing his own successes, which a lot of
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: entrepreneurs do.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So he had told them like, Hey, the company you're buying, like,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: this is like the basic info. And I'm like, that's great.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. What you told them is a $ 5 million business,
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: but you forgot about the proprietary systems that like your
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: team hand coded. You forgot about the, the, the success stories.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: You forgot about this. And you didn't position it in
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: a way that they would understand how they could take
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: what you had and run with it in their business model.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: And he goes, Oh, So when are you going to
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: write that for me?
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: And he said, you got 48 hours.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I was like, great.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: And so I created this entire packet, this communication design
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: where it was for the other team, it was for
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: his lawyers, the other team's lawyers, the company itself, the
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: sponsor for the company, and working through all of those
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: different elements.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: To touch the head, the heart, and the.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: Gut, and then also the various different communication archetypes.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: And he sent it. First, they were acting shady.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Then he sent some other stuff that we put together.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: And in the end, they closed the deal for $ 51
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: million because we were able to articulate The difference, like communication,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: it doesn't sometimes even matter what is there or not there.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: If you can communicate in a way that people will
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: find value and they're craving what you have.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: That is the point.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: That's why I like, yes, we're doing for that was
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: kind of like internal, external communication. My primarily now I'm
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: doing a lot of internal communication, but I bring it
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: in my marketing hat because it's still trying to convince
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: people to do something. And that is marketing. So it's
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: just internal marketing through a more refined lens. So, I mean,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I will take going from five to $ 51 million any day.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, huge win.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Now, what is the single most important takeaway that you
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: want our listeners to remember this conversation?
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: A single one? Having a single one is so hard.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: We'll go to two if you need it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you so much.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: If you must. Yes, I must.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: I must. The first takeaway I want people to understand
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: is if they don't have a structure to what they're saying,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: they're wasting their breath. You need to not just have
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: something good to say, not just have a good idea.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: But if you want your $ 5 million idea to turn
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: it into a $ 51 million idea, you can't just try
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: to wordsmith it with Grammarly on your Google Docs and
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: hope for the best.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: You have to have a structure.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: If you want your keynote to go from $ 0 when
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: nobody's buying it to $ 15, 000, $ 20, 000.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: $ 80, 000.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: You have to have a structure. That was note number one.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Note number two is being an entrepreneur is hard.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I understand. I get it. I am one.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: However, being an entrepreneur that trades their time for money
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: is the worst. So if you're at a place right
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: now in your business where where if.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: You take your fingers away from your.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Keyboard or your computer and that means that you're not
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: making money, I would encourage you to think about a
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: different business model and have it be a business model
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: around intellectual property or a framework or an idea that
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: other people can own and run with so that you're
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: not just.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Building a job, which could be a lucrative job, right?
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying that that's a bad way of making money,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: but if it all rests on you taking that sales call,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: it's a very precarious position to be in. And I
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: encourage you to look at how you can either build
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: other revenue streams or take your main revenue streams and
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: codify your magic so that you have a true shot
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: at not only financial freedom, which is great, don't get
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: me wrong, I love money, but one thing that I
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: realize the more and more money I make is that
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: that time freedom, that's irreplaceable. And people think that financial
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: freedom automatically buys time freedom, and that's not true. You
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: have to build them both intentionally and sometimes separately.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: In order to get what you want.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: That's a fact right there. I'm glad you mentioned two
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: because we needed a second as well.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you for the allowance, Joe. Thank you very much.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Now, where can people connect with you? Find out more
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: about your work and continue this conversation.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I'd love for you to schedule a call to
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: speak with me.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: If you're a speaker, want to be speaker at aleaharris.com, A-L-E-Y-A-H-A-R-R-I-S.com. Also,
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: while you're there, you can click on the navigation. I
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: have a bunch of free resources and lovingly stalk me
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: as much as you want to there. If you are
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: a company and you're looking for enterprise level communication design
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: that actually changes behavior and moves the needle, then you
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: can go to Evolution Collective, evolutioncollective.com.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Go ahead and schedule a call with me there.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: You can also see the outlines and the descriptions for
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: our strategy drag scan and make strategy moves. Awesome.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Now, Aliyah, thank you so much for joining us. We
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: really appreciate your time and the value you shared today.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Joe.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: You're welcome. Thanks, everyone, for listening. If this episode inspired you,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: make sure you share it with someone. And don't forget
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: to follow the Globalizer podcast for more conversations that make
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: an impact. Till the next time.