0:00:00 A: I’ve been trying and, you know, I’ve been tested. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemimah Ashley. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemimah, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 A: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.
0:00:44 Jemimah Ashley: Hi. Welcome back to another episode of Friends in Business podcast. Hi, Ben, how are you?
0:00:48 Ben Wright: Hello, Jemimah. I’m excellent.
0:00:50 Jemimah Ashley: How’s your day been?
0:00:51 Ben Wright: Good. How’s yours?
0:00:52 Jemimah Ashley: Really, really good. I will say, though, we’re getting towards the end of our. We’re about to wrap up the day. We’ve done a whole busy planning day today. I’m about to head out for dinner and I’m really looking forward to it.
0:01:02 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, I love going out to dinner. What is it that you are looking forward to about going out? Apart from spending time with us, what else?
0:01:10 Jemimah Ashley: You know, one of my favorite things about it is one change of atmosphere and a bit of scenery. And like, don’t get me wrong, it’s not the worst place in the world to be. It’s a lovely place to read, but it is about just sitting at the table, having conversations because we often get consumed on the business side. I think when we sit down together, I’m like, oh, I’ve got this idea. And we two entrepreneurial minds coming together.
0:01:31 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. It’s nice to be able to change your pace. It’s nice to be able to talk with people and share stories. I think is a really big thing for me about, you know, it’s why you often choose to hang out with the people you hang out with is it’s either a joint common interest is really, really common. They’ve been friends since school. Right. So you’re stuck with them, which is really, really common. But people I often like hanging out with are those who also know how to tell really good stories. And not everyone is a good storyteller, but everyone has stories to tell.
0:02:02 Jemimah Ashley: Yes. I remember you said this on a previous podcast. I was like, wow, that has described me so much. It is really true that a lot of people, you know, the storytelling is really important because I always really like, a couple of times I’ve been told, can you tell us that story about that thing that you do at the time that you met Oprah or that moment where you got lost at the airport or those things. And they’re often the things that we tell other people. It’s like, oh, you should meet Ben. He’s the guy that tells stories. Tell stories.
0:02:27 Ben Wright: Or he’s the guy that did this. Yeah, yeah. And it look, it is so powerful for me. I’ve always got a story around business that I can tell. I’ve often got one around sport that I can tell. And not just having experienced the stories, but also being able to tell the stories is really impactful because as that quote says, whilst not everyone is a great storyteller, you’ve got the stories to tell. We’ve just got to help you become a better storyteller.
0:02:54 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:02:54 Ben Wright: Particularly in business.
0:02:56 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah. And I think one of the things that I think is really overlooked, particularly in the business part of this, Ben, is that we often have people who we forget these stories of how we learn. So how do we know the ridiculous amount of blueberries you have in your fridge at the moment? How do we know that they’re okay to eat? And that’s because through the years people went and tried different barriers and someone got sick and someone passed away. And those stories are told to us over time. How we teach children to tie their shoelaces. I’m helping. When Effie learnt to tie this shoelaces also, like, didn’t realize that was a four week event. Didn’t realize we were there. But it’s about the bunny who runs around the tree and throws in the hole.
0:03:33 Ben Wright: Up the rabbit hole. Yeah, yeah.
0:03:35 Jemimah Ashley: And this is. We teach stories because it’s how we learn and it’s how best we understand and comprehend the world around us. And I think storytelling is. I know that’s what we’re talking about today, but storytelling is so interesting because it tells us about our experiences, where we’ve come from, and particularly can also help show how we can help people in my work get them to where they’re going.
0:03:53 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And it has previously been really underrated in business. I would say really underrated. I don’t think it is anymore. I think storytelling has been recognized as something that’s important in business now. People have always told stories. You can go back to the dawn of time and people have told stories. And it’s a very powerful way that people come together. But I don’t think it’s been at the front of mind in business to say we actually need to be good at telling stories. Yet we seem to hang out with those people and do business. With those people who make us feel special or feel important or feel valued. And often that’s through stories.
So, yes, I do want to focus on storytelling today and I want to provide a nice little framework around it. But I think more than that is I just want to emphasize for those people that are listening that if you feel like you’re not a great storyteller at the moment, it’s okay. In fact, I did a coaching session with one of my clients recently And I have eight or nine sales leaders. So they’re a sales team of about 60. A multi billion dollar business. And of these eight or nine leaders, it was nine, in fact, that we did coaching sessions with them. And I really love working with this business. Their ultimate leader is super dynamic. And I think these leaders as well are all wanting to learn. And in those sessions, it was a choose your own adventure. Anything you want to talk to Ben about that’s business related and we’ll go through it. Have a guess how many of them brought up storytelling?
0:05:24 Jemimah Ashley: I’d say no, none.
0:05:26 Ben Wright: And that’s previously what you think?
0:05:27 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:05:28 Ben Wright: Most people would say, look, storytelling’s not on my radar. Six of the nine expressed an interest to become better at telling stories. And this is unprompted a lot of others exactly how.
0:05:37 Jemimah Ashley: Much there’s like, he’s a storyteller. So because it’s not something that you immediately think, especially, you know, particularly in sales, you’re not thinking. But I mean, I think. But again, this is how we learn. Right. And this is the conversation that Ross. Me too. This is incredible.
0:05:50 Ben Wright: Yeah. And to look, to be fair, some of them started with wanting to understand how they could better engage an audience, how they could better captivate an audience. And they moved on. I said, okay, so what does that look like? And they said, well, I want to begin a meeting and being more engaging. And I said, what did that look like? And eventually we’d get to the storytelling. But the point is, six of those nine people actually wanted to learn how to better engage their audiences.
0:06:13 Jemimah Ashley: Huge numbers.
0:06:14 Ben Wright: So, yeah, so what I’m not going to do today, I’m learning today. What I’m not going to do is tell lots of stories, But I am going to look at a framework that works in telling stories and give you a couple of ways where you might be able to use that to your advantage. All right, so this is short and punchy, this framework, me and telling a story. And you know me well that I love to talk in threes or fives. And this is killing me because I’ve got a talking of four today.
0:06:42 Jemimah Ashley: The moment has arrived. Where all the time. So I’ve got four points, and Ben’s like, you have to lose one or you need to gain one. Make a choice. I was like, oh, can I just take one second to save this moment? Okay, I’ve done it. Okay, great. Cool.
0:06:55 Ben Wright: Okay, tell us your fault. All right. So whenever we’re telling story frameworks, for me, what’s really important is above everything else, we actually write down all of our stories. I’m going to pause on that and come back to it because I don’t want people to think I’ve skipped past the really important part. But let’s talk about the framework first. Most people will say, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. And that would have been a nice, neat three things for me to talk about. But I don’t think that actually helps you tell a better story by saying, I need to have a start, I need to have a middle, and I need to have an end. The framework that I work on that is really successful starts with a problem or an opportunity. So, for example, our business has the problem of not generating enough leads to hit our sales target.
0:07:43 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:07:44 Ben Wright: So we start with the problem or the opportunity. We then move into the impact. Impact that that’s having on the business. So to extend this story out, our business has a problem of not generating enough leads, which is stopping us hitting our revenue targets and placing pressure on the bottom line of the business, placing pressure on the salespeople within our team, impacting the culture within our sales team, causing our sales manager to get grumpy. Right. There’s lots of impacts in there, but we need to understand the impact that’s relevant to our audience. So we have a problem or an opportunity, the impact that it’s having. What the impact does is it brings to life the problem and it makes it relatable to the audience. Right. We can talk about someone having an issue with a renovation. We can talk about someone being not sure around public speaking. We can talk about lots of different things. But when we humanize and we talk about the impact, that’s really significant. So problem or opportunity impact.
And then we talk about the solution. Yeah, that comes out of that. So our business has a problem, we’re not generating our leads. It’s stopping us hitting our revenue goals, which is causing a really cranky sales manager. Right. We’ll play a bit silly with this one. The solution is Jenny, a member of our team, took it on her own back to go to two networking events over the last month completely on her own and generated six leads. Yes, that’s the solution. Jenny said, I’m going to step up to the plate. We’re not generating enough leads. I’m going to get out there and I’m going to go and do it myself. And here’s the. Here’s what I got. I got six leads for business now.
0:09:25 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:09:26 Ben Wright: Okay, so look, it’s a story. Now, this is a very bland and vanilla business story. But I think it’s. We keep them nice and bland to be able to focus on the framework rather than get too focused on the example. So we have any problem or an opportunity, we have the impact that it’s having on the business or the person or the group of people. And then the solution that we go for, the fourth part of this framework, and this is the most important is the outcome that it had on that same audience. So if I extend out this example, our business is not generating enough leads. We have a cranky sales manager, and the solution is that Jenny went out and booked six appointments through two networking events this month. If every person in our business was able to do the same thing, we would not only hit our revenue target for this month, but we would exceed it. So what we’re talking about here is how that if that solution can be applied across the whole business outcome that it can have is really significant on the business as a whole.
0:10:28 Jemimah Ashley: Storytelling is so interesting because for me, I so have historically equated this to mean. Just give me a really good example of what it looks like. That’s how I would always really kind of explain, okay, I understand what you were asking us to do, but what does it look like at the back end? What is that solution? Part of it. And it’s just such a great tool to go. But let’s give it the title of storytelling. Like, not that. Give me an example of what that would look like in real life. Because that’s what I’ve historically said. What do we need to do? Oh, Jenny. Okay, so what do we need to do? Because it’s an actionable item. Because I think where storytelling has also fallen down, it’s just, oh, we’re going to hear a fable, a moral idea. We’re going to have a turtle and a hare situation that we’re loosely going to be able to grab hold of and go, okay, I kind of understand how that equates here. Whereas you’re really advocating for let’s go the step by step focus, but let’s tell it as a story and a problem. This, then this, then this. Here is the example.
0:11:27 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And what I like about it is that it’s. Look, it is relatable if you keep it really, really clinical and practical, what you’re talking about. But what it does is it gives you a repeated format to be able to tell that story. Yeah. And we know that as humans, we crave habits and consistency and certainty. So when we’re able to actually say, do you know what? I know how to tell a story, it’s not about a beginning, a middle, and an end, because I could go anywhere with that. It’s about what’s the opportunity or problem, what’s the impact, the solution, and then the outcome that it had for the audience. So when we can do that, what I think we then do is build some confidence to go and say, right, what are my 10 stories that I want to tell?
0:12:09 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah, I love that.
0:12:10 Ben Wright: Right. And you spoke certainly when we were talking about media in some earlier episodes around making sure that we know with our media appearances, what are the 10 things we can talk about. We want to be able to do that from a storytelling point of view. Right. And that’s not just that could be with our customers, be able to have our. For our customers, 10 case studies. In fact, the businesses I work with, we actually do case studies around that same format. Anything that’s got to do with delivering a message, we try and follow that format. Problem, impact, solution, outcome.
0:12:41 Jemimah Ashley: This is what I. Instead of being, oh, Fred had a job. Fred did some stuff, and Fred’s now here. It’s now far more advanced and giving almost a blueprint on how to do that.
0:12:53 Ben Wright: It is. It’s exactly what it is. It’s a storytelling blueprint. So. And for me, my encouragement here is to get out and talk about those or think about those 10 stories that you want to be telling and then start practicing. Now, here’s a little kicker to help those who want to start practicing stories. I am an advocate of AI to help us be better at what we do, but not replace what we do.
0:13:20 Jemimah Ashley: This is a tool that’s not going away. We need to now integrate it into what we’re currently doing to make our jobs more obsolete.
0:13:25 Ben Wright: That’s right. And where this can work really well is if you’re not confident in taking the facts you have. So if you had a fact around your story, let’s work off another story. So if you factor your story around, customer has a financial problem.
0:13:40 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:13:41 Ben Wright: That is causing significant stress to the business. And the solution needs to be to Buy better. With the outcome being that if they bought better across eight of their categories, their financial stress is gonna. Is gonna disappear. Right. We put those examples into our storytelling format. You roll that into a chat GPT or something similar and you can see your story come out. Yeah. So it has prompts along the lines of please pull together 200 word motivational story directed at my target market, directed at a manufacturing facility that focused on them having a financial problem around blah that was causing deep stress to the business. However, the solution of better procuring 8 of their key products would result in them having this impact on their business. What happens is that ChatGPT will actually cut. Punch you out of story. Now it’s going to sound a little bit computer driven still. I can pick up an AI driven piece of communication versus a human written piece of communication in about two or three seconds. But what it does is it gives you that framework and context. So all you need to do is just personalize it and tweak it. Tweak it.
0:14:53 Jemimah Ashley: And one of the other things, I’ll say, I’m just following the chat thing here. Chatting is getting so good. And I know we’re talking, I know there’s tons of other ones out there, but what I find really interesting is that if we can teach it, this is what’s so interesting. I’ve just found out. And it’s one of like, you know, when you unlock a life milestone that maybe you weren’t prepared to have. A girlfriend told me she was a client of a lab for a long time and become really good mates through that process because you become friends with your clients as well eventually. there was this beautiful moment where she said, did you know that you can type into chat in the voice of Jemimah Ashleigh? Actually popped me out a couple of social.
0:15:30 Ben Wright: Yeah. Wow.
0:15:32 Jemimah Ashley: I have enough content out there now and podcasts and blogs and books and that sort of stuff. She’s in there. Yeah, she’s living in there. And it’s really incredible because the other things we can teach her, we can teach chat to go and learn about us. And I know the paid version’s way better at this, but you can actually get it to ask you questions, learn your business and. And then continually get her to learn about that stuff. So if you. This is a really good tool for you. You can actually teach her story after story, time after time.
0:16:00 Ben Wright: Yeah. Cool.
0:16:01 Jemimah Ashley: And have a really solid voice about what the business does as well, to add extra on top of that.
0:16:07 Ben Wright: Love it. Love it. All right, well, let me recap framework is problem or opportunity. The impact it’s having, solution and outcome.
0:16:15 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:16:16 Ben Wright: They’re your four parts to the framework. I really encourage people to give it a go. What’s your number one piece from today?
0:16:21 Jemimah Ashley: Bullet today for me, just the impact that changing the language, I guess from like telling the story and educating through that storytelling process because it’s how we learn really does impact the bottom line quite dramatically. Humans learn by storytelling and we don’t use enough in business.
0:16:41 Ben Wright: Okay, so yours just don’t get out and tell more stories. Absolutely, yeah. And look for me it’s use the framework. Yeah, it’s a very simple framework. Practice it. Give it 10 or 15 goes before you judge yourself on it. It takes time.
0:16:53 Jemimah Ashley: Right.
0:16:53 Ben Wright: Be kind to ourselves. We are our harshest critics. I am absolutely in that camp. But get out. Give that framework a go. Right. Because if there’s one thing that I’m really confident with around stories is it’ll get your business, but it’ll also make you friends.
0:17:11 Jemimah Ashley: Things are getting worse and worse and I’m so here for it. Ben.
0:17:16 Ben Wright: Well, we’ve been your friends in business.
0:17:17 Jemimah Ashley: Yes, we have.
0:17:18 Ben Wright: Can’t wait for next week. Talk to you soon.
