Meeting Topic
As you think about your 60 second intro this week, consider the following:
- Are you telling the stories you want in your business?
- Do you feel what’s written in and for your business – in your promos, in your social media, in your emails – clearly communicates what you’re about?
- How else could you harness the power of writing and story to help your business grow?
Harness the Power of Story By Jo Morris
People connect with stories. Businesses that utilise this fact prosper, particularly when their stories resonate with customers’ values. Even simple phrases have power – Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign was so effective that people began to contact Nike with their own stories of how they “just did it.” Currently, many businesses are using words like ‘sustainable’ or ‘free range’ to connect their products to stories customers hear about climate change and animal welfare.
Stories resonate with clients and customers, so telling your stories effectively will help you engage with them. Learning how to tell those stories well is an essential part of the growth of your business. To tell your stories, you must be able to write fluently and clearly. Let’s look at some specifics.
Let Clients Know Who You Are
Writing well means that your clients know who you are and what you stand for. You can represent yourself – your beliefs, your moral compass, your intentions, your goals – in a way that will help sell what you have to offer. As well, these qualities distinguish you from your competitors, who are offering their own stories.
Say you’re a real estate consultant. There might be 20 others in your area – so how can your bio separate you from them? How can you compress who you are into 150 words? By writing well.
Look Like You Know What You’re Doing
How many times have you winced when you received an email, or were copied into a colleague’s? Maybe the writer didn’t punctuate correctly, or maybe they were far too chatty in a business communication.
Writing well means that you look like the professional you are (or aim to be!). This is true across businesses but also, if you have staff or colleagues, within it.
If you can write well, it means you lead from the front with your written communication, modelling the company tone and style for staff as well as clients.
Control Your Online Image
Your writing endures where personal interaction doesn’t. Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan has survived long after the 1998 campaign where it first appeared. As well, whatever you post on social media stays there – just a scroll away.
So it’s important to get what you say in those spaces right. Many of us in Venus do our own social media. But how many properly utilise its power? Writing for social media has its own set of rules, its own style.
You might be thinking – ‘but I get someone else to write my social media and marketing materials. Why do I need to be able to write?’
Even if we are outsourcing a lot of our writing, it’s important to know what works and what doesn’t – and how it works (or doesn’t). The more clearly we can explain what we need, the more likely it is we’ll get it.
Write Less, Say More
Clear communication with clients means happy clients. That has two clear benefits. The first is less time spent communicating – in other words, you can stop sending emails and do more of what you’re actually good at! The other is that happy clients are much more likely to come back for more, and to give referrals. So clear communication means growth.
Telling your story will help your business grow, whatever mode or moment you’re in. It will help you connect with clients, express who you are and what your company does.
Get in touch with Jo to find out how she can help make that happen for you!
Next Meeting Topic
INTRODUCTION FOR MEETING TOPIC:
Read the article below before your next meeting and consider with whom YOU could form an ‘official’ collaboration in business in order to GROW – grow your reach, your visibility, your expertise, your credibility…the possibilities are endless!
………..
BEST GROWTH HACK EVER – Collaboration! Contributed by the 90 Day Divas
Near the end of 2021, the three Venus members behind the 90 Day Divas had a glimmer of an idea. It was based on shared values, mutual respect and a similar ‘drive’ to achieve MORE in their businesses. It also helped that each of the Divas was a specialist in a different area, so the synergy they created TOGETHER took on a life of its own.
Fast forward 8 months and what started as a ‘glimmer’ has real potential to become a proper partnership in the coming months. How did they make it happen and how can YOU learn from their experience? Read on.
During Lockdown 2.0, two of the Divas had a RAVE, during which they discovered they had HEAPS in common – values, ‘why’, views on success and a strategy they both wanted to implement to take their own businesses forward – online and ‘evergreen’ programmes. They mutually decided to set up another meeting to discuss how they could potentially help each other take their ideas forward as some sort of collaboration. The idea wasn’t fully formed, but the synergy was already starting to fizz.
- Shared values are a major piece of the success equation, but aren’t enough on their own.
During RAVE #2, one of the first two Divas said – ‘Hey – do you know ______? I just had a RAVE with her, and I think she’d be a GREAT addition to our brainstorming sessions. What do you think about inviting her?’ And the short story is that is when the 90 Day Divas was born.
Each woman had her own successful business, but together they brought over 50 years’ worth of business experience (not to mention life experience!) to the table as a team. Collaboration helps you GAIN CREDIBILITY by ‘borrowing’ it or ‘expanding’ your own from those you collaborate with.
- When you’re considering who to collaborate with, consider what skills or experience or longevity they have that would be a boon to your joint venture in the way of building or enhancing trust with your ideal prospects.
Here’s a caveat: people with strong personalities and heaps of business experience may find it difficult to put their ego aside and listen to each others’ ideas. The Divas didn’t have this issue, thankfully – the respect was mutual and they’ve found it easy to be equal contributors in the many decisions that have been made around brand, content, pricing and delivery. Being willing to compromise in order to achieve the overall goals is key.
Something the Divas discovered early on was that each one possessed a slightly different personality style with unique strengths. This was a total coup, as the blend of styles enabled the trio to translate their great ideas into action! Two Divas are ‘ideas people’ and the third is an ‘organiser’ who helps keep the others on task.
- Take critical stock of your own strengths and challenges and seek out collaborations with those people who have strengths in the areas of your challenges. If you’re an ‘ideas person’, seek out an ‘implementer’. If you are shy and retiring, seek out someone who is happy to be the ‘front person’ and get your joint venture visible.
And speaking of pulling complementary skills together, each Diva was a specialist in her own field; however, all of them worked within a similar market. In other words, they could bring their unique skill sets together for the benefit of the same target market.
- Joint ventures or collaborations become a whole lot easier when the participants are already working within a similar target market because the joint venture simply multiplies the value those target prospects will enjoy.
Sometimes, one business will have a large existing audience which can benefit the joint effort. This could be in the form of a large business network, large social media following or large email list. One of the Divas had an extensive email list that she could bring to the table for the benefit of the new venture. So, each Diva created an email out to their own individual lists and networks to ANNOUNCE their new project and give people the option to follow their progress and engage with this new entity. This helped them start out with an ‘audience’ of people who were switched on to what they were doing and wanted to hear from them.
- In your own collaborations, consider how you’ll build awareness quickly within your market.
This early audience generated the Divas’ first paid clients. The Divas knew they were pulling something totally new together, so they decided to use the first group as a ‘beta’ group that would enable them to test out their content and delivery. The beta group received a reduced rate programme and the Divas got great feedback and input which allowed them to tweak the programme for the next group.
- Whether you’re considering a marketing collaboration or building a whole new ‘thing’ with another business owner, know that you will need to regularly iterate and tweak what it is you’re doing so that you get the results you want – the same as in your own business.
We hope you’ve learned a little something from the story of the Divas collaboration efforts. Pooling resources, skills and assets to create something great isn’t necessarily easy, but it can be a whole heck of a lot of fun and you just might come out the other side with something really special that you never would have created alone!
The 90 Day Divas are Jennifer Myers of Gener8 Leadership Solutions, Carol Reid of Soulpreneurs and Lucy Fritsche of Create Your Online Presence. You can learn more about their collaboration at www.90daydivas.com
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