Identity, Message, Cadence, Content - your storytelling essentials

This edition of the March Foreword is about the four-part toolkit for storytelling essentials.

Nowadays it is both more possible than ever and more important than ever for businesses and the people running those businesses to take control of their own storytelling.

If you don’t come from a content world, then this can seem rather daunting -and you might be wondering where to start - but I’ve got it covered for you.

The aim of storytelling essentials is to build yourself an operating system which enables everyone in your business to tell the same consistent story of your business. Consistency is powerful because your business’s audience, no matter who they are - investors, customers, or even talent - will quite often hear your business’s story from multiple sources.? Consistency shows confidence on the part of your business and gives confidence to your audience. It sounds like you’ve got your act together.

Storytelling essentials comes in four components:? 1. identity, 2. message, 3. cadence, and 4. content expertise.

1. Identity

The absolute foundation for any of your business’s storytelling is a rock solid understanding of its identity. What is your business's purpose? What does it do every day to achieve that purpose, and what do you as a business believe in and how do you manifest those beliefs in your behaviours?

Purpose, mission & values are like the DNA of your business. People will buy services from your business because they align with them; people will come and work for your business because they align with them.

I once asked a client what the purpose of his business was, and he replied “to grow.”? That is not a purpose.? The purpose lies behind why you want to grow.? People aren’t going to buy from you because you want to grow.? Talent is not going to come and work for you because you want to grow.? Investors aren’t going to invest because you want to grow. There has to be a deeper, more fundamental reason for your existence and that will be linked to your values.

Often values can be difficult to express.? I found an effective way of expressing your values is asking yourself ‘what do you believe?’ and ‘how do you behave?’. Your day-to-day behaviour is how you live and breathe your values.? This will affect how you do business,?how you treat your customers, and how you treat your people. All fundamental building blocks to the DNA and the identity of your business.

Your purpose is also crucial for defining your business strategy because your strategy is the route to achieving your purpose,

You might need some external help to figure out these components of your identity - purpose, mission, values - but you could easily do it yourselves.? Once you have your identity established you can move on to determining what you say to the world.

2. Message.

Your message will depend on the audience it’s aimed at.

Generally speaking a business has three core audiences:

1. clients / customers
2. investors
3. talent - present and future

When I do this work with clients, I get them to think of the top three messages for each audience cohort.? Of course that’s made a lot easier once you have your identity, because that's a foundation of your message.

Once you have determined your top three messages for each of your three audience groups - a 3 x 3 matrix if you like - you can then add an extra set of 3s, which is the top three platforms or channels you’re going to use to communicate those messages to those audiences;? and of course those platforms will depend on the audience. The right platforms for reaching investors will be very different to the platforms you use for reaching new talent.

Channels and platforms can be digital (TikTok, LinkedIn Instagram), but they can also be physical (keynotes, panels, or even exhibition stands at events). Either way, they require a consistency of story, so you are saying the same thing in some form or other across all of these platforms.

A word here too about focus: your purpose, mission and values are going to be relatively unchanging.? The message however is likely to be more specific and more fluid. This will become particularly relevant when we move onto the third component of storytelling essentials which is cadence.

3. Cadence

So you have built a 3 x 3 x 3 messaging grid.? Your three top messages to your three audiences and the three best channels for communicating those messages to those audiences. Now you need to move on to actually communicating those messages, and that’s all about frequency.? Your business storytelling needs to be an always-on affair..

You can’t just say things once and then walk away expecting it to be done.? In fact it’s only when you start getting bored of saying something that other people are starting to listen.

What becomes important again here is consistency and regularity.? The frequency of your messaging has be enough to stay front of mind, but not too much be either annoying for your audience or unsustainable for you.

Different channels and platforms demand different cadences. For example, you’re probably not going to give an industry keynote every week - it might be once every two months.? You probably do want to post on LinkedIn every two weeks or even weekly, however.? So you need to take the contents of your messaging grid and build that into a sustainable cadence you can manage as a business, taking into account the different frequencies demanded by different channels and the resources available to fulfil that messaging.

The end result is a content calendar telling what you need to do week by week, month by month, and who needs to do it.

So inevitably you will get questions about how you are going to repeat your top three messages every week without being repetitious.

Your messages can be themes - like, for example, showcasing the different team members you have working here to give future talent an idea of what it’s like to work at your business. Another theme might be how you serve your clients, and for that you can create any number of case studies.? Another might be showing how you work, which you could fulfil by having a series offering tips and tricks which lift the lid on your approach and how you think.

So now you’ve figured out your cadence it’s actually time to turn to the content itself.

4. Content expertise.

Each of your messages to your audiences will have a channel to which they are best suited; and for each channels a content format will be most appropriate.

A keynote, for example, is a presentation. The presentation could be either just you without visuals, or it could be with (although let’s be wary of ‘Death by Powerpoint’!), or it could be you plus video inserts.

LinkedIn can take posts, little slideshows almost like mini presentations, videos or articles. In order to be effective with your storytelling you need to be able to produce these formats well. Again you can get help doing this, but if your teenage kids can do it, so can you.

Writing words and scripts is made so much easier when you have a clear idea of your identity - your purpose mission and values - and you understand the thrust of the messages you want to communicate to your 3 audiences.

So there you have it - the four part kit to storytelling essentials.

1. identity
2. messaging
3. cadence
4. content expertise

This is the key to you successfully taking control of your own storytelling as a business, and if you need any help with any of these, then you know who to ask! ??

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