The Entrepreneur’s Story – Planting Seeds
I speak to a lot of innovators, creators and phenomenal people daily. Some are first-time entrepreneurs and others are serial with numerous successes in their portfolio. Regardless of the stage of their BIG idea, I often take them back to their initial bright idea moment to rediscover their story. Why did they decide to start from scratch and grow something new?
It reminds me a lot of planting a garden and being a micro farmer. It is one of my personal passions to plant a year-round vegetable garden. I collect seeds from other enthusiasts, and we share stories the same way entrepreneurs learn from advisors and mentors.
Being from California I have been surrounded by agriculture my whole life. On a bigger scale, I admire people like Farmer Lee Jones who has taken seeds to the next level of entrepreneurship in the agriculture world. Visiting Farmer Lee Jones in Ohio a number of years ago, I found a common thread between farming, storytelling and entrepreneurship. He and I have two things in common: Firstly, he has a passion for John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and, secondly, he takes pride in planting seeds to grow the best product.?
Farmer Jones’ entrepreneurial journey was not an easy route and somewhat unexpected facing many similarities of some of my guests on Before It Happened and clients on a daily level.
In the 80s, Farmer Lee Jones had to reinvent his entrepreneurial spirit after losing the family's 1500-acre commercial farm to harsh weather. Borrowing land from a neighbor, he took a new approach to growing premium crops for chefs and restaurateurs. 40 years later, he serves the Michelin Star and James Beard best from David Kinch to Charlie Trotter. He operates the Culinary Institute and has been seen on major network shows such as Food Network, Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, and even a Jeopardy answer. He’s appeared in coveted media such as Entrepreneur Magazine, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and host of culinary magazines. He wears his white shirt, red bow tie and coveralls daily as a tribute to his passion and commitment to regenerative farming. It’s also a recognizable brand bridging his farm roots to the business world, and he does both well.
So, as we go from summer to fall, I think it’s a good time to regenerate entrepreneurial tales into a new crop of stories to grow your brand and thought leadership.
“Farming is about patience and perseverance. There are many highs and lows.” — Farmer Lee Jones
Planting Story Seeds
My conversation with most entrepreneurs often starts with a napkin talk then leads to a highly engaged collaboration to refine and define the best market strategy. The goal is to develop a relevant and disruptive story narrative using our proprietary Narrative Story Engine digging into unlimited possibilities of company, trends and product/service stories. The process is pretty simple and can be applied to company launches, preorder campaigns, funding rounds, partnership news, and even trade shows.
领英推荐
These are the basic six steps:
Are you:
Once you have answered these questions make a list of potential stories. Even better, take a sheet of paper and or make a wall of Post-it Notes and write potential headlines you can imagine. Do you want to be perceived as an authority in a category, a disruptor or challenger? Do you want to rival a competitor or create a new movement? What makes your product or service unique? Are there other experts you want to bring to the table for industry discussion or do you go rogue?
There are unlimited options in creating stories. Too often, entrepreneurs start with a press release, but a press release is primarily a document of facts announcing something. A narrative story approach allows you to create any micro news bites of stories that can be parlayed to specific news outlets and media. Also, think about what you want the story to do for your business. Is it to attract customers to buy your latest gadget? Then a story in CNET or Tom’s Guide might be great. A story in Entrepreneur, Digital Trends or TechCrunch could attract funding or a story in Time Magazine, Fast Company and Wall Street Journal could take you to the next level if you have all the components.?
There is not a one-size-fits-all story. Early-stage companies and entrepreneurs need to plant seeds and establish presence in media outlets that make sense at each stage. You can’t expect to be featured in an A-list publication like Wall Street Journal, Time or Fast Company if you don’t meet the business story requirements such as revenue, funding and market leadership. You can start smaller and be mentioned in a columnist piece or on one of their podcasts. It’s like crops. Plant story seeds then they become crops. Then the crops grow bigger and mighty until you hopefully have the best in the land like Farmer Lee Jones.
LMGPR works with entrepreneurs at every stage level but our favorites are the pre-series C companies that we can grow from scratch to the marque media headlines, and we do it fast because we are experienced, have weathered many storms, market scenarios, and understand that growing a business is a passion. It’s our goal to be part of the journey in making the field of dreams come true.
Read “Putting Your Narrative to Work” and for more inspiration from entrepreneurs, tune into interviews with Tyler Florence, Carlo Mondavi and Maurcio Carrubba on Before It Happened and learn from their entrepreneurial farming and food wisdom and apply it to your own harvest of stories.?
Schedule a free office-hour consultation with Donna today at [email protected] to see how LMGPR can build your medal-winning PR program with the right agency approach that matches your company.