Connecting Hearts and Minds: The Magic of Storytelling ??

Welcome to Conscious Marketing Insights! Every other week, I share actionable conscious marketing insights to help you deliver digital experiences that matter. My goal is to inspire brands to adopt a more positive, sustainable, impactful, accessible and inclusive approach to marketing.?

This week, I'm happy to introduce Carol Constant , Jules Harrison-Annear , and Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son , who are speaking at an upcoming event hosted by the Conscious Marketing Movement . They are such an inspiration and I’m so grateful for their participation.?

Event Details

Date: Thursday, 25 January 2024

Time: 6 PM CET (find your timezone here )

Duration: 1 Hour

Why Attend?

Come join our panel to learn how storytelling can help you build relationships. Explore the magic of stories and find out how to engage your audience.

What Will You Learn?

In this 1-hour session, you'll discover how to:

• Tell interesting stories.
• Connect better with your listeners.
• Make a lasting impression.

There will also be time for your questions at the end. ??

Interview with Carol, Jules & Kiki

… And I had a chat with Carol Constant , Jules Harrison-Annear and Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son to give you a sneak peek into what you can expect:

What is the driving mission behind your business or work?

Carol Constant :

Only a few people are lucky enough to love their job and even fewer to love the people they work with. Our goal is to increase job satisfaction and with it, productivity. The driving force behind WhomLab ?? is a belief in a happy workplace where individuals feel valued and engaged.

Many job promotions require giving answers to job questionnaires, but most people answer job questionnaires with the job in mind, making those answers biased and less effective.

Instead, we do not ask any questions, we only ask: PLAY!

At the core of our vision is the creation of personalized leadership skills profiles but instead of boring tests, we use interactive games and AI to identify employees' unique strengths.

Some of the leadership skills on our profiles are:

• *Self-confidence - Identify the risk of imposter syndrome or just the opposite to be able to support your leaders.
• *Decision making - Is the position suited to an analytical thinker or a quick decision-maker?
• *Risk-taking - Essential to build teams that drive innovation. It is key to find the right balance between each team member.
• *Learning rate - When you need to fill a position with a very short onboarding, who learns quickly?

Using AI, we analyze and collate staff answers and provide them and their managers with key insights into top skills and skills gaps, to be able to successfully match employees to jobs and employees to teams to truly increase job satisfaction.

Jules Harrison-Annear :

I run 3 businesses, and I would say that the driving mission behind all of them is to make the world a more ethical, regenerative and inclusive place.

That may sound trite, but at this point in my career and life, I believe we all need to do whatever we can - because we must try and safeguard the planet for ourselves and our descendants, and because life is just better and more fun if we do!

JHA CONSULTING LIMITED supports organisations and leaders to apply those principles in how the organisation works, how teams are structured, how decisions are made and strategies forged. We primarily support organisations that want or need to change – so we employ those principles within both strategic design processes and actual management of change.

humans at work is trying to illuminate, primarily via the podcast guests’ own life stories, how uniqueness, personality quirks and non-standard career progressions are all absolutely fine! We don’t need to hide away, we need to use our uniqueness to have a positive impact and find satisfaction and happiness.

JERICA is reimagining how businesses work - situating them as part of a regenerative, fair and innovative ecosystem that protects and enhances worker rights, promotes community circular economies, protects and regenerates the environment, and builds inclusion in from the start and throughout all practices.

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Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son :

At PlantBaby , we’re on a mission to raise the bar of the packaged foods industry in the US and provide better quality products, especially for children, that don’t cut corners on quality and transparency. Our launch product is a plant milk blend called Kiki Milk that’s allergen-friendly (dairy free, gluten free, and soy free), contains zero additives (no GMOs, no gums nor emulsifies, no processed oils, no preservatives, no natural nor artificial flavors), is USDA certified organic, and glyphosate-residue free certified. In addition to creating the cleanest and safest products possible, we seek to create the right nutrient combinations to support kids’ developmental needs, and we source intentionally, choosing ingredients that can be grown sustainably and regeneratively, and have a lower carbon footprint.

Why is storytelling important to you?

Carol Constant :

Stories are the most powerful tool in the history of humankind. I have always loved TED talks.

For years TED speakers were my heroes. Never, I would have thought, I could become a TEDx Speaker and much less that I would pioneer and organize a TEDx event.

With our TEDx event, we are touching the hearts and minds of hundreds of people, making the impossible seem possible.

A mute-deaf TED speaker? Yes, we did, using beautiful sign language and a voice interpreter. Stories like this inspire us to go for our dreams, telling us that our business ideas however crazy they may seem to others are possible.

Storytelling is a force to make positive change. Stories engage audiences, creating emotional connections, and inspiring action.

Never underestimate the power of a great story.?

Jules Harrison-Annear :

Stories - reading them, listening to them, telling them - have always been such an important part of my life.? I was a voracious reader from an early age - it was an escape, a chance to explore my curiosity and expand my empathy.? As an adult, I realised the power of stories - a power that can be both positive and wielded negatively.

For example, I worked for a few years with asylum seekers and refugees in the UK, when stories abounded.? Everyday there were media articles and coverage about how many asylum seekers and refugees were entering the country, the houses they were ‘taking away’ from ordinary British people, the money they were costing.? Working directly with asylum seekers and refugees, I heard the personal stories of trauma, loss, fear, abuse, travel, destitution, loneliness, desperation, exile and exclusion.? Two types of stories about the same people, both with incredible impact - just different audiences and spheres of influence.

Stories can illuminate darkness, can help us feel less alone, can give inspiration, and invoke joy and sadness…and they’re tech and media agnostic.

Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son :

Storytelling is how I make sense of the world and make meaning out of my experiences. It’s how I relate to others and how I discover myself. It’s important to share our own stories and to listen to others’ stories because that’s how we expand our ideas of ourselves and deepen our acceptance of each other. It’s how we find shared truths and construct a shared reality to live and work within together.?

I think storytelling is both a creative and a vulnerable act. It can inspire people, and also move and disarm people. It creates the space for people to relate and connect on an emotional, human level and I think it’s important in a business context for that reason.

Why should entrepreneurs and marketers care about storytelling?

Carol Constant :

Marketing is storytelling and we need to be aware of what is the message we are sending.

Stories are the “why” behind our business, our jobs, behind our core values.

Entrepreneurs and marketers craft narratives that resonate with the audience, creating a connection between a product or service and the customer to influence their purchase decisions.

But the story does not end there. Our purchases shape the world we live in.

We need to create awareness about the consequences of our purchases, the positive and the negative because, with every single purchase, we are forever changing the world around us.??

Which business are we supporting? Those aligned with our values, with our view of a kinder world?

We as entrepreneurs and marketers need to find and connect those clients who ultimately will help us make that vision a reality.?

Jules Harrison-Annear :

For entrepreneurs, the story of ‘why’ is so critical to your business strategy and your value proposition.? It shapes who you market to, how you market, what you count as ‘success’.? Success is so often narrowed down to revenue or numbers of customers.? But if your ‘why’ is wider than that, your measurements need to relate to the why.? Your story also shapes who you partner with (other organisations and suppliers) and who you employ.? Being able to explain your ethos to a partner agency clearly with a story that provides depth and colour, ultimately forges stronger and more lasting alliances.

For marketers, the same is true - but often you’re relying on people within the business to have a strong and resonant story of why and for whom that you can leverage for shaping your marketing.? Marketing can be an extremely ethical activity - given the right conditions.? Knowing who the customers are, why engagement would be beneficial for them and the company, how collectively that relationship with have wider positive impacts - those are all critical for marketers to shape and influence.

Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son :

It’s important to be discerning of stories as well, both the ones we’re told and the ones we tell ourselves. As much as stories have the power to bring people together, they can also be the source of disconnection. They can carry truth and also deception, and we see this in the media and in marketing all the time. Conscious marketing is not about manipulating an emotion to inspire a desired outcome (e.g. buy this product because it will make you feel better, look better, do better), rather it’s about sharing the authentic human origin story behind a business, brand or product, and being a resource to others who may share that story and whose problem or question you can help solve.?

If your story doesn’t come from an authentic place, people will feel it!

Can you share an example of a memorable storytelling experience you've had, either as a storyteller or as a listener?

Carol Constant :

When I went on to deliver my TED talk, I had just started my journey as a speaker. I had little experience and the organizers of that event were new too. So many things didn’t go as planned, and to make things worse, the microphone broke just before it was my turn. I had to shout my talk.

Even while still delivering my talk I felt so disappointed I just wanted to finish it and go home, but just as I left the stage a woman rushed to me. She had tears in her eyes and was saying that my talk had given her so much hope to keep supporting her daughter.

You see, in my talk , I tell the story of my husband and how for him I started creating the games that later would become WhomLab ?? . Her daughter had a similar story to my husband’s and my TED talk gave her hope that one day her daughter would also succeed.

At that moment, I realized that if only I would make a difference in one person’s life it was all worth it. That is the power of a story and that is why your story is worth sharing.?

Jules Harrison-Annear :

Storytelling, and the people behind the stories, has always profoundly shaped my life.? A couple of quick examples:

• Hosting the humans at work podcast interview with Claudia Guerreiro fundamentally changed my marketing approach, led me to cancel my Insta and Facebook accounts and turn my marketing completely on its head.
• Talking with Jay Naidoo , a guest on the first season of the humans at work podcast, introduced me to the concept of 7 generations thinking.? My partner and I have adopted this as a driving ethos behind our personal life as well as serving as one of the inspirations behind establishing our company JERICA.
• I was recruiting for a job at the Refugee Council office where I was Deputy Manager, and we interviewed one of the asylum seekers that had previously been one of our clients.? I called him later that night to tell him that we were offering him the job and I would talk to him about the details the next day.? When I spoke to him the next day, he told me the story of the celebration that he, his family and fellow asylum seekers had all night in the hostel where they lived - celebrating that one of their group had properly begun the journey to independence and belonging in a new country, by securing a job.? This taught me so much about the value of jobs as identities, and how much displacement and exclusion can impact on individual lives.

Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son :

Working with the Center for Humane Technology to support the release of “The Social Dilemma ,” I was blown away by the storytelling approach to the documentary, which effectively illustrated the business model of social media and demystified the behind-the-scenes advertising machine that’s responsible for the social harms we’ve seen over the past decade, that until then only media and technology professionals had insight into. Through graphics, animation and visual effects it shows, fairly accurately, how social media platforms harvest personal data to target users with ads, and resulted in global interest in regulating these platforms from students, parents, teachers, technologists and congresspeople, to create safer online environments. It was an inspiring example, too, of how popular forms of media like Netflix can be used purposefully to create widespread awareness of important issues using the power of storytelling, and result in lasting change.

How do you determine if storytelling is having an impact on your business?

Carol Constant :

Storytelling always has an impact on your business, whether you are aware of it or not. Are you using your story to your advantage? Is your message clear? That is the challenge.

I am the speaker coach, every year for all the speakers of our TEDx event, I help them write their talks, and create beautiful stories, and yet for the life of me, I am not able to create my own business story. Why not? Because it is my story, and the trees do not let me see the forest.

I am unable to look at it from a distance and create my brand story. For many of us, the same happens.

We need the help of others to look at our business storytelling and evaluate its impact. I am fortunate to have a great team around me and wonderful friends like Claudia Guerreiro who are expert storytellers.

Be aware that crafting your brand story may be a long-term project. Test your brand storytelling and do not be afraid to make changes.?

Jules Harrison-Annear :

Storytelling can be part of how you talk about your business, and it is also about how others talk about you and your business.? We know that reputation, or brand, can make or break a business.??

A great business story is one where customers are able to generate stories themselves about your business - they interact with your messages, you and your services, and they tell that story to others which keeps your storytelling alive.??

And if that matches the one you’re telling internally and externally, you know that you’ve got strategic alignment - where what you are aiming to achieve, what you do, what you do, and how it is received by customers all matches up.

We often work with organisations who’ve paid no attention to the stories others are telling about them - they believe that their narrative is what is being heard, felt and internalised by their customers…and they don’t know why they’re not getting the buy-in or response they’re expecting.? Or, what used to work isn’t landing well now, and they don’t understand why.? They often think thats a marketing problem, when its likely to be a strategy problem.

Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son :

When we see our customers leaving reviews on our website or responding to our content on social media, sharing their own stories of navigating health conditions and struggles to provide the best nutrition for their children, and expressing gratitude for our products, we know that we’re doing the job we set out to do. The rule of reciprocity comes to mind here. When you’re willing to share more intimately what brings you to do the work you do, people can relate and resonate more deeply and join you on that journey as both an advocate of your mission and a customer of your business.

If someone is just getting started with storytelling, what resource(s) would you recommend?

Carol Constant :

Just a chosen few that will certainly help. Enjoy!

2 TED talks:

• The clues to a great story by Andrew Stanton.
• ?The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a classic.

2 articles:

• How to Tell a Great Story , by Carolyn O’Hara for the Harvard Business Review
• How to Use Storytelling in Business to Build Captivated Audiences , by CXL

2 podcasts:

• The Business of Story , by Park Howell.
• The Business Storytelling Podcast , by Christophe Trappe.

Jules Harrison-Annear :

This is a really interesting question.? I think storytelling is a skill that you can hone by listening and learning from others…but its only really achieved when you’re able to elicit and partner on stories with other people.? And the best way to learn that is by doing it.

Kathryn (Kiki) Van Son :

To become more familiar with the power and art of storytelling, I recommend for conscious marketers and entrepreneurs the “How I Built This ” podcast. The Patagonia episode is a great one! “The Moth ” is another great podcast consisting of live storytelling on a stage in front of others where there’s a theme and people get up on stage and share a story related to the theme.?

Interested in Attending This Event? Here's How.

If you're part of the Conscious Marketing Movement , you can join this event for free. Go to the community to get the details. ??

If you're not a member, you're invited to contribute €25 EUR for your ticket to attend. And remember, we give back 1% of all sales, not profits, to 1% FOR THE PLANET. ?? Click here to register!

Become a part of the Conscious Marketing Movement

The Conscious Marketing Movement is a global online community shaping the future of marketing for a better tomorrow. We bring purpose-driven entrepreneurs and conscious marketers together to learn, connect and grow so that we can create social impact and profits.? ?? Learn more here

That's all for today!

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See you soon ??