The importance of storytelling in business

In today's episode our hosts Brenton Gowland and Ron Tomlian talk about the importance of telling stories in business. Stories help us cut through the clutter that is the marketing and advertising messages we are bombarded with every day and help us connect with our clients in a meaningful way.

Some of the topics covered include: 

• Why stories are so important in business?
• Entrepreneurs tell stories that help bring their endeavours to life 
• Stories not only affect the way we think and feel, but can also affect us physically
• Collecting stories helps us get our message across
• Understand who you are talking to when telling a story
• Know the purpose of your story
• Be yourself, don't try and own other people's stories
• Make your customer the hero of your story
• Make your story component based
• Be the guide for your customers in your story

The Business Builders Podcast is brought to you by SA Business Builders and Nucleus – Creative Agency.

Nucleus – Creative Agency
Specialising in growing business through brand, digital, video, web, print, campaigns and marketing.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Brenton Gowland: 0:00
Today on the Business Builders podcast, we're talking about the importance of storytelling in business. Ron talks about how stories can help us cut through the sea of clutter, that is the marketing and advertising communications we receive every week and I share about the roles that our clients play in the stories that we tell. Well, welcome to the Business Builders Podcast, where each fortnight we bring insights that will help you succeed in business. We're your hosts. I'm Brenton Gowland.

Ron Tomlian: 0:26
And I'm Ron Tomlian. Now, Brenton, I believe you've had an unexpectedly good experience this week with a government department. I want to hear about that.

Brenton Gowland: 0:35
Yes, that's true actually. We received an inquiry from an organisation in Malaysia about a product that we make here at Nucleus called Ideasbank, which is an innovation management tool that enables organisations to collaborate on ideas with their staff, solve problems and work on business growth. So in responding to them, I wanted to make sure that we were relevant, and that the information we sent them was right for the Malaysian market, as you would expect. So I asked people in Adelaide who I knew who had done business in Malaysia before, and they put me on to an Austrade rep in Malaysia. And I got to say, I could not be happier with the way this person helped us. They made sure that everything we did was relevant to that market that it aligned with what they were going to expect. And that person even offered to attend relevant meetings with us. He just could not have been more helpful. So for those of you who are listening in other countries. Austrade is an organisation in Australia that helps us do business with international countries. And to those of you who are doing business in Australia, I’d really highly recommend, based on my experience, that if you're doing business in other countries, if you're not already dealing with Austrade, just maybe give them a go, find out who they’ve got on the ground in those countries and see how they can help you.

Ron Tomlian: 1:39
Nice to hear you know, there's so many bad stories floating out there about how government departments don't help and how they hinder. And it's nice to hear that there seems to be some tendency towards actually adding value now. Let's hope it continues.

Brenton Gowland: 1:56
Yeah, totally. And so far, I'm really, really impressed. Now, in our last podcast, we spoke a little bit about some art that you bought from an indigenous artist. Yes?

Ron Tomlian: 2:06
Yes.

Brenton Gowland: 2:06
And I mentioned the fact that we used an indigenous artist in a Welcome to Country project that we'd done recently. And then I would find out who that person was, so we could give them a shout out.

Ron Tomlian: 2:15
Fantastic.

Brenton Gowland: 2:16
So I have found his name. He is Shane Mankitya Cook, or Shane Cook for short. He's a local Kuarna artist here in Adelaide and does some fantastic work. So if you love art, and you want to see some great examples of Kuarna art then look up Shane Mankitya Cook to have a look at some of is art and see where you can see it displayed.

Ron Tomlian: 2:36
I will like that up

Brenton Gowland: 2:37
Yeah, that's great, because I know that you love art. Now, Ron, before we get into our topic for today, we need to mention our sponsors.

Ron Tomlian: 2:45
Yes. And I'm going to mention Nucleus, a business that helps other businesses grow and achieve their goals by working with them to craft and communicate compelling brand

Brenton Gowland: 2:55
Oh Ron you make a sound so good, I think we're stories, I should say, and connect with their audience, staff and customers and a bit of a spoiler alert, we're going to be talking about building brands and telling stories today. Yes, we are. Now Nucleus do this by delivering strategic communication services that include the whole gamut of al the techniques that are out there. So if you need help selling your products and services, building your brand, educating your market, inspiring community change, or anything like hat, telling your brand story, which is something I think is incredibly important, please visit our sponsor nucleus www.nucleus.com.au. To see how they can help. just gonna have to employ ourselves.

Ron Tomlian: 3:42
I could tell your brand story.

Brenton Gowland: 3:44
Yeah. That's correct. Now, of course, our other sponsor is SA Business Builders. So we are part of the SA Business Builders network, which has inspired this podcast. Now SA Business Builders are a social group that facilitate events that encourage the development of high quality relationships between skilled business professionals in order to inspire friendships, opportunities, initiatives, and business growth. So each month, SA Business Builders run a social event here in Adelaide, where we get together about 50 or 60 people and sometimes a few more. And if you would like to attend, please reach out to either Ron or myself on LinkedIn or through any of the normal channels. And we'll have a coffee with you and tell you more about the events. This is of course for people who in South Australia now if you're listening from abroad or Interstate, and you're coming to South Australia, we'll certainly meet with you and help you out. But we're sure there's heaps of great networking groups in your area. But if you're in South Australia SA Business Builders is one you should have a look at.

Ron Tomlian: 4:40
Absolutely. And it's a it's a fantastic development, I think in the local business scene.

Brenton Gowland: 4:46
Yes, yes, it is. And it's come a long way since we started it. So the way SA Business Builders works is we have about 12 hosts, which Ron and I are both hosts in this group. And the host usually invite five or six people to each event and then we grow organically from that. So it's been a really curated excellent group of people to be a part of. Thus, you know, if you reach out to us, we'll have a coffee with you. And we'll tell you about it. And then we'll get you to come along. So our topic for today, as we indicated earlier, is really about the importance of storytelling in business. And look, I want to start with a question to you, Ron, because I know you've done a bit of research on this, and I guess, as marketers, because I know, you've got a background in marketing, and so do I. Marketers are essentially storytellers. But tell me, why are stories so important in business?

Ron Tomlian: 5:34
Well, I think to a large extent, it comes down to clutter. There are demands for attention of all of our different audiences all day, every day. And when I'm talking about audiences, I'm talking about customers, I'm talking about stakeholders, employees, regulators, whoever we're trying to communicate with, there's a plethora of communication messages that they're getting every day, you know, I've seen research to say the average Australian will see about 3000 to 5000 just marketing advertising related communications every week. I mean, that's a lot. And the question for you, Brenton is, what were those 5000 last week?

Brenton Gowland: 6:23
Well, I don't know I have this internal filter that just filters all of it out.

Ron Tomlian: 6:27
Exactly.

Brenton Gowland: 6:28
So that's exactly why we're talking about stories today, because it's how you connect. But the question is, what do you actually listen to in amongst all that clutter?

Ron Tomlian: 6:35
Yeah. And and so the question for the communicator is, how do I, how do I get my message across in this sea of other messages? So really, what what are you trying to achieve when you're trying to get your communication out there? Well, oftentimes, it's engagement. You're trying to connect with other people, you're trying to get them to listen to your message. And not only hear it, but internalise it, you're looking to build trust with a person or persons and credibility with them. Ultimately, you're looking to inspire action or behaviours. Now that action could be changing an attitude, it could be doing something, it could, there could be a range of things you're looking for them to do. It's not just about getting out the facts and data. Otherwise, quite frankly, we'd all be a little bit like machines. The truth of the matter is, you only get the opportunity to alter opinion, change attitudes, get people to do things, if you connect with both their heads and their hearts, which means you need to engage their emotions. The way to do that most effectively, whether you're a leader, a business communicator, a business person, even if you're an employee talking up and talking to people above you the most effective ways to tell a story, because that's how you engage people. If you think about history.

Brenton Gowland: 8:04
Yes,

Ron Tomlian: 8:04
You know, our histories, the way we had some continuity in knowledge, and in ethics and morals was to be able to tell stories, we didn't write things down, traditionally. We told stories to each other. And if they were compelling and engaging enough, maybe they got altered it a bit, but they would be passed on. And if you look at indigenous communities, here, and in other parts of the world, their entire history is told through stories.

Brenton Gowland: 8:39
That's correct.

Ron Tomlian: 8:41
And that's because we relate to stories. It not only tells us some facts about the world around us, but it engages our emotions. And so we remember them. And if you think about the last couple of days, how do we talk to people in our everyday social life, we don't go out there and give them facts and figures about what we've done in a chronological order. We tell them stories. Tell me what you've done. We've just did it before you told me a story. And that's because it's a way to easily relate to other people. And we have to I think we have to as business people understand that the best way to communicate with other people is through telling them a story.

Brenton Gowland: 9:24
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And if you think about us as a people, we're just so wired to collect stories and to relate to stories. Go back to when you were a kid and your parents were putting you to bed and you're begging them to tell you a story. I know I did, because stories would inspire me they'd give me a reason to actually get excited about things. And you know, I used to get excited about superheroes. I think I've mentioned that before. And they help you, stories help you change opinions and challenge the norm and they challenge you and with me the big thing about stories is they would fire my imagination and they still do. When you think about, for example, entrepreneurs, one of the hallmarks of an entrepreneur is the fact that they can imagine something and bring it to life. And a big part of that is being able to tell the story about their dream or their initiative or their movement so that they can bring us on that journey. And get us involved in you know, collect capital to get that idea rolling. Stories are so powerful. There's is saying, you know, 'We can speak things into being because words are powerful.' And if you look at this around a business kind of perspective, have you ever heard that term people say, you know, what's your narrative? That's just really a fancy way of asking, what's your story? What's the story around this product or service? Or what's the story about you?

Ron Tomlian: 10:41
And I think the other thing too, is that when I broach this subject with people along the way, they say, oh, no, we don't tell stories. That's you know, crafting mistruths. It doesn't have to be...

Brenton Gowland: 10:53
That's politics Ron!

Ron Tomlian: 10:54
....ok, you got me there. But the point is, we already do that in business. If you think about how do I get this message across about what happened in a business as an example? A case study.

Brenton Gowland: 11:07
Yep.

Ron Tomlian: 11:08
Yeah, we already tell stories. And a good case study takes people through a journey, you were talking about a journey just before. And if it, you know, if you want, if you look at the whole process of change, and there's plenty of research on as people go through stages. And a story helps them go through those stages and get to the point that you're trying to make, so that they are more conducive, or more open to the ideas of change that you're suggesting. So storytelling actually follows. Not only the way we deal with change in life, it also deals with our physiology. You know that in there's plenty of research, neuro research at the moment that talks about the limbic brain being connected to our guts.

Brenton Gowland: 11:54
That's right.

Ron Tomlian: 11:55
Yeah. And there's, again, plenty of research that shows that we make decisions on the basis of emotion. So we talked about gut feeling on the base of emotion, before we post rationalise that with logic, the prefrontal cortex. Now, I'm not going to pretend I understand everything there is to know about neurobiology here. But I do know that if I look at myself, and I'm honest with myself, I look at the decisions that I've made on the basis of how does this make me feel before you know that is this the right thing, and in a rational sense.

Brenton Gowland: 12:29
And stories can affect the way we think and feel, for instance, the way we think can physically affect us. So there's this psychologist that I know that tells a story about a case study where they got two groups of people into a theatre, and put them through a stress test, the idea was to measure the effects of stress on the body. And they told the first group one story, and the second group a different story. So the first story was basically, you know, we're going to, you know, get you guys to do a whole heap of performances and rate you on your performance, etc, etc. So these people got on stage, and they, they did their performances, or, you know, whatever it was that they were going to present. And then the people who were the scientists were, they just ripped them to pieces, no matter how good they were, they basically said you were rubbish and, and they really drove into these people, just in a vicious kind of way. And the point was, I put them through all these similar kind of tests, and it had a massive effect on their vitals at the end of the day, when they measured it. Their blood pressure was all up, their heart rates were through the roof, they were stressed, etc. and very interestingly, their blood vessels, their blood veins were constricted, it was physically affecting their body. The second group of people, they told a different story, they said, we're going to put you through a stress test, but it's just a game, it's all fun. We're just measuring the effects of stress on the body. And we're just gonna, we're gonna really rip into you guys. And we just want to warn you ahead of time. So they put the second group through exactly the same scenarios did all the same things to them. And the difference was palpable, that okay, all the vitals at the end of the day, were apparently through the roof, like their blood pressure was up, their heart rates were up, but it didn't constrict their veins. In other words, it didn't affect them physically, because they knew the story was that this was just a test. So it just proves that stories can actually and the way we perceive things can affect the way our body reacts. So when I hear stories like this, I keep these stories because they become handy even in situations like this. And part of my arsenal has stories to share with people.

Ron Tomlian: 14:30
You've just highlighted one of the things that people in business and to help their business should be doing is collecting stories.

Brenton Gowland: 14:39
Yeah collecting stories.

Ron Tomlian: 14:40
And we'll talk a little bit later about how you can use that. But everything that you know, the experiences we have are incredibly valuable because they they give us the capacity to relate real life events to a context where we're talking to somebody and trying to get a message or a point across and if we can, you know, leaders can draw upon that. And relate those to the situation that you're in the moment, I think you're going to talk about this later. Now, then it becomes an incredibly useful tool to get your message across.

Brenton Gowland: 15:14
Yep. So let's bring this back for the people who are listening. And of course, we're trying to bring insights to people about how they can improve in business this year or succeed in business. So how can stories help us in business?

Ron Tomlian: 15:27
Well, I've got some points that I'd like to get across.

Brenton Gowland: 15:31
I'd love to hear your points.

Ron Tomlian: 15:32
So number one, we will always do six I like that. It's something that people can relate to.

Brenton Gowland: 15:38
Yeah I don't bother to put it in the podcast title anymore, because it's always six.

Ron Tomlian: 15:42
Understand who you're talking to. And this is just a 101 a basic communication. And it's true for stories as these for a fact sheets, but understand who you're talking to the message will change and contextualise according to who that is. And when I say understand who you're talking to, I'm talking about thinking, from their perspective. Who is this person? What are they? What need do they have at the moment? What are they looking for? And how can my story help get across the message that I'm trying to to that person. So it might be that you need to change that story. Depending on the person that you're talking to, you might need to meet some of their needs of the person who's looking for facts and figures, incorporate that into the story, but still use the story as a mechanism for getting that information across. If the person who's looking to make a decision, help them make that decision by engaging with their emotions, as well as the facts and figures.

Brenton Gowland: 16:38
Yep,

Ron Tomlian: 16:39
If they're a person who's looking for knowledge, or looking for insights, then understand that that needs to be more apparent in the story you need, you might need to drag that out of the story and make it more apparent, rather than just leaving it at the at the as an implied. So think about number one, think about who you're talking to, and how to modify your story so that it meets their needs.

Brenton Gowland: 17:05
Yeah, I like that, I like the modification bit.

Ron Tomlian: 17:07
Second one. And, again, it's marketing 101 or communication 101, is think about what's the purpose of telling this story? Why am I telling this story? What's at the core of what I'm trying to get across? Am I trying to convince this person that their behaviour is in some way errant? Am I trying to convince this person to buy something? Am I trying to convince this person to believe in the future that we're creating in this organisation as a leader?

Brenton Gowland: 17:40
Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 17:41
Am I trying to inspire this person to go above and beyond? And put in more effort? What am I trying to do? And how will this story help me to do that? And of course, go back to who they are and how to how to craft that. So what behaviour? What action? What attitude am I trying to change as a result of this? And help use the story to help create the journey towards that ultimate goal of yours.

Brenton Gowland: 18:07
Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 18:07
And the final one, again, it might seem obvious is be yourself. Be authentic.

Brenton Gowland: 18:14
Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 18:14
You know, don't tell stories that you might have heard great stories from other people. And you might think, well, I can use that. And that's fine, as long as you acknowledge where it came from. But tell your own stories. And that means at times being vulnerable. You know, I think, and this is true, in the the TEC Groups that I run as much as it is in other aspects of business life that I've encountered. When people share their failure, and the mistakes they've made, it often provides a better story than all the successes. So people being able to admit I made this mistake, don't you make it! Yeah, but here's what happened. And here's the consequences of it, you can avoid it.

Brenton Gowland: 18:59
Because they've had real life experience around that.

Ron Tomlian: 19:00
Because I've had real life experiences and they're willing to share that with special people. And that being you or I. Then it's a greater sense of connection and intimacy that can be created by sharing bad stories as well as good ones. So be yourself.

Brenton Gowland: 19:19
Yeah, agreed. And I think Australians in particular, and probably other cultures too, but Australians are known for, you know, being able to smell if something's off. So you can tell if someone you know, is telling you a story that might not be the actual facts. You, you start to doubt it. But I think the whole point when you're being authentic, it's very hard to challenge someone who's speaking from the heart.

Ron Tomlian: 19:41
Absolutely.

Brenton Gowland: 19:42
And, you know, learning to speak from the heart is actually about practising Ron.

Ron Tomlian: 19:47
Oh yeah. It's not something that we, we often put masks on, and it's often difficult I think, for people to take that mask off when they're communicating with other people.

Brenton Gowland: 19:58
Yep.

Ron Tomlian: 19:59
And look, there's no question you have to consider what the people that you're talking to and whether they're worthy of your trust. But.... Yes. ....we talked about it before. Stories often increase that trust and credibility with other people.

Brenton Gowland: 20:15
Yeah 100% because they can relate with us.

Ron Tomlian: 20:16
So being a little bit vulnerable, being a little bit open about these things, increases the level of trust between individuals.

Brenton Gowland: 20:23
Yeah. 100%. So I want to take this from a similar yet different angle, because of course, a lot of what we do at Nucleus is actually helping people grow their businesses and achieve their objectives and whatnot. And what I mean by this is that there might be a business objective where I think you mentioned this earlier, where we go and work on a community change project, or we work on a project where we helping people stop gambling, where we want to educate people about how to wear a mask during COVID. So whatever the objective is...

Ron Tomlian: 20:51
I just want to emphasise that's a different type of mask that I was talking about.

Brenton Gowland: 20:54
Yeah, I understand that I was specifically relating to our COVID climate, and that we have to wear one of those masks to protect other people from us, speaking moistly as Justin Trudeau, who said... did you see the Prime Minister from Canada say that?

Ron Tomlian: 21:09
No, I didn't no.

Brenton Gowland: 21:10
Oh you got to look up that gaffe, if anyone's listening, look up on Google speaking mostly, where Justin Trudeau came out of his residence to give a public address, and he kind of got his words mixed, a bit mixed up, it's very funny.

Ron Tomlian: 21:23
According to my wife, the only use of the word moist should be applied to cakes. That's it.

Brenton Gowland: 21:29
That's correct. But look, I want to talk about the importance of stories. It's massive, because every business has got a story in every individual. So if you've got a personal brand, that personal brand tells a story, think about social media, think about what we do on LinkedIn. I mean, we could talk about Facebook, where people portray themselves as having these happy, wonderful lives, you know, through taking photos and you know, posting, they're having drinks, they're on the beach, or they're doing things in, with their friends and they're telling these, you know, wonderful kind of scenarios.

Ron Tomlian: 22:00
It's telling a story, it's just not necessarily an authentic one.

Brenton Gowland: 22:04
Or sometimes it is, you know, we build our own stories, right. And we project something, say, on LinkedIn, where we're essentially doing the same thing like you would do on Facebook. But because business people spend their time on LinkedIn, that's where we tell our stories about our businesses, and so forth, and how we want people to relate to us. But that's a whole nother subject. But my point is that stories help us to achieve our objectives. And so I want to focus on, let's say, selling, for example. So if we want to win a new client, there are some things that are important. So I'll give you three things that I think will help you. Now a story if we think about a movie or something similar. Movies have always got a certain number of characters, they've got a hero, a villain, someone who's a guide, like a sage, like maybe Yoda from Star Wars, or whoever it might be, who's guiding the character, etc. And then there's romantic love interests and there's conspirators. And there's all sorts of other characters, right? Who do you think Ron, that the customer is interested in, in those stories?

Ron Tomlian: 23:02
The hero.

Brenton Gowland: 23:03
The hero.

Ron Tomlian: 23:03
Because they're always the hero in their own stories. I mean, I'm, I'm the hero in my stories.

Brenton Gowland: 23:08
Correct.

Ron Tomlian: 23:08
Sometimes the villain I have to admit, but

Brenton Gowland: 23:10
I must admit, when I was a kid, I was always dreaming of, you know, rescuing the beautiful woman on a big white horse and coming in and saving the day in some kind of way. But the point I want to make is that people are interested in their own story, they're not really interested in the story of Nucleus, or the story behind whatever your business is, they're interested in their story and their business. So my first piece of advice is make the customer the centre of the story. Now, they don't necessarily need to be the hero, but they certainly need to be able to relate to the hero, because the customer has to see themselves in the story. Because if you don't see yourself in the story, why would you listen? Yeah?

Ron Tomlian: 23:45
I mean, then that relates back to that whole question, or that whole piece of advice that I talked about is understand who you're talking to.

Brenton Gowland: 23:52
Correct.

Ron Tomlian: 23:53
And understand how the story you're going to tell will help them. Now you know you're relating it more to selling I might have related more to influencing. Same thing really. Because we're all salespeople of our own idea.

Brenton Gowland: 24:07
Correct. But I want to make a point, that in telling and developing stories, there's not a lot of difference between an individual and a business because both have stories. And we call it the brand story. Brand story for a business and brand story for a person and when we're in a business, our individual story should relate to the bigger story of the business. So they should be aligned stories. And that's how we sell etc. So when I meet people, what I've learned over the years is I used to talk to way too much. Now I still talk a lot but I tend to ask more questions. So I very much try and get a good understanding of who that person is, and the story that they have and how they fit in with that bigger business. So I asked a bunch of questions. And if they don't ask any questions back, I don't say anything.

Ron Tomlian: 24:50
Well, here's the interesting thing. And I think it's true of communication in general, but storytelling in particular, the most effective organs that you'll use in telling a story or your ears. It just happens to be that listening is probably the most underrated yet most important aspect of communication.

Brenton Gowland: 25:13
Yep.

Ron Tomlian: 25:15
Because everything that comes up after you've collected your information should be contextualised by what you've heard. If you haven't heard anything, well, then what do you, you know, whatever you're saying might fall completely on deaf ears.

Brenton Gowland: 25:29
Yeah, 100%. And that brings me to my next point. And you've already touched on this when you were talking about, you know, thinking about who you're talking to. But my next point, or my second point, is to build your story in a component style fashion. So what I mean by this is that if your story is based around components, you can fit it to the person you're talking to. So if I'm talking to someone who's from defence, let's say, I will tell my story in a way that relates to the defence industry. But the core of the story or the, you know, the focus of the story will still kind of be the same, in that it will be about my businesses and the services we provide, and how we can help them and how we're going to make their lives easier. But I'll tell that story again, in a way that relates to whatever the industry is, I'm talking to if it's defence, or medical, or law, or whatever the industry is, I'll focus the story on being able to make it relatable to them. So when we're talking, or when I was talking about listening earlier, the reason I do this is to kind of pick the plot points of the story and work out what that person's challenge or point of conflict is, because everyone's got that point of conflict that they're or that challenge that they're looking to solve, whether it's, you know, they've got a cybersecurity issue, or they've got a sales issue or whether they've got a, you know, an expense issue where they're trying to reduce their bottom line, whatever it is, as long as you can listen to them and find out what it is, you can then fit your story, and craft your story to make it relatable to that person. So that's why it's important to have your story based on components so that you can change it on the go. And look, you mentioned case studies earlier. And they're a beautiful thing. If you've got a number of case studies that you've got in the back of your mind from different industries, when you're telling that story, you can then demonstrate it by talking about this is what we did for this business who is similar to you. And this is how we help them solve their problem. And that then just demonstrates your capability. But it puts the person you're talking to right in the centre of that story.

Ron Tomlian: 27:31
And I think that gets to the core of why storytelling is such a good technique is because it often it's difficult to give people an understanding of some concepts without giving them a story to wrap those concepts around.

Brenton Gowland: 27:45
Yes.

Ron Tomlian: 27:46
And I know, in my work with MBA students. Often times trying to get across difficult concepts or concepts that just aren't necessarily easily relatable. Yes, a story, either from my experience, or from other people's experience really helps bring that aha moment, I understand that now. And I've, you know, use stories in my lecturing. And people have come up to me years later and said, you know, anything that was in their code, but I do remember that story.

Brenton Gowland: 28:20
What a powerful point that is. I still remember when I was a kid, I used to go to this horse riding camp at Strathalbyn called Wirraway. And each night, they'd bring the campus together and tell them stories. Now the stories were designed to influence us as young people to build, you know, good lives growing up. And I still remember those stories to this day, 30 years later, because they were exciting stories. They were stories that fired up our origination, and what a powerful thing that is. I remember most of them word for word. And that's a real challenge for us as business people who are telling brand stories and stories to help us, you know, win clients etc, etc. If we tell stories that people will remember and people can relate to, they might come knocking on our door 6 months, 12 months later, when they have a certain challenge because they remember our story. So how powerful is that? Anyway, that brings me to my third and final point. And that is, I was talking earlier about there's certain characters in a story like a hero, a villain, etc, etc. Now, I believe we really need to position ourselves as a guide in our customers story because customers, or the hero in the story. They're looking for a guide to help them develop to help them overcome their challenges. And that's a really strong position for us to be in. You certainly don't want to be the villain like a company that happened to cut everyone's news services off recently.

Ron Tomlian: 29:38
You mean a certain unnamed company.

Brenton Gowland: 29:40
Yes, I do. A certain unnamed company and then they had to backtrack really quickly. And that's a different kind of story. It's called spin, I think, yes?

Ron Tomlian: 29:48
Another type of story altogether.

Brenton Gowland: 29:50
Yeah. 100%. Now, as I was talking about we really you know, if you want to position yourself as the guide, everyone wants to develop, everyone wants, you know that extra bit of help to get themselves through and, and we spoke about mentors earlier, that mentors help people develop and they help people grow, and there's a lot of trust put in a mentor. So if we really want to win trust and you know, build confidence with a client, then we need to be able to show them, that we're the guide, and that we're the guide in this story, and that we've worked with other companies to, you know, guide them back to that case study story, you know, we can say that, you know, we've helped X company that similar to you, achieve this, this and this, and we were able to help them by guiding them along this particular journey. You know, that then kind of adheres ourselves or, you know, builds a kind of rapport with us and that person, because they want to see if they, we can really help them develop along the way. So I think it's really important that we, you know, build ourselves into stories in such a way that people see that we can guide them to overcome their challenges. So, you know, I think we should actually do an episode on how to build your story, because it's obvious here, there's elements that we're talking about, but, you know, what do you do with all those elements?

Ron Tomlian: 31:05
And quite frankly, I think that's the, that's a topic about good communication.

Brenton Gowland: 31:10
Correct.

Ron Tomlian: 31:12
Because a story is nothing more than a mechanism for communication, it just happens to be so important because people relate to it.

Brenton Gowland: 31:21
Yeah. 100%. And, you know, it's a real privilege being part of a communications company like Nucleus, and, you know, we do advertising and web and whatnot. But because the stories that we find they're already locked up within the client, or within the people within the business, etc. and we can come along, and we get to ask questions to really get the jigsaw pieces of those stories on the table, and then help them assemble them in such a way that, you know, makes sense to their clients or, you know, builds them in a component style fashion. And it's a real privilege to be able to be able to do that with someone and help them develop their story to get cut through in the market. And that's what it's really all about right.

Ron Tomlian: 31:58
People often take what they have for granted, because it takes someone from outside with a different perspective to see the gold that's sitting there within their own organisation.

Brenton Gowland: 32:08
That's right, and it is gold and it's usually locked up inside of that company. And look, I think we've talked about a lot here, but I think it might be time to wrap up. Otherwise, we could be here for hours yet again. Anyway, I think we should probably thank our sponsors, again, that is SA Business Builders....

Ron Tomlian: 32:26
and Nucleus.

Brenton Gowland: 32:27
That is correct. And if you've enjoyed listening, please leave a comment. We've been getting a few people giving us feedback. And we've been finding that very helpful. So please give us your feedback, if you have any. And feel free to give us a rating on any of the channels that you listen to us on. We're always looking for good ratings.

Ron Tomlian: 32:44
And we're looking for good ideas that you want to hear.

Brenton Gowland: 32:46
100% so we've got a list of about 20 different episodes of topics at the moment now which have come from other people who have been listening to us and so if you've got topics you want us to speak about, please send them through.

Ron Tomlian: 32:58
So it's good night for me.

Brenton Gowland: 32:59
And it's good night for me even though it's like 1030 here in the morning. Anyway, Ron, we'll see you next time.

Ron Tomlian: 33:05
See you next time Brenton.

Brenton Gowland: 33:06
Bye for now.