Julie Ciardi

#414: Why Belief is at the Heart of Every Effective Business Story

#414: Why Belief is at the Heart of Every Effective Business Story

The single most powerful insight I took from Phil Knight’s biography about NIKE called Shoe Dog, is this from its founder, “People, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided, is irresistible.”

How deeply do you believe in what you’re doing?

Does your belief shine through in the stories you tell so much so that your audiences find you and your offering irresistible?

But our values and convictions don’t always take center stage in our communications.

So today, you will learn from a sales professional who made a major career move simply because she believed she had a bigger purpose in life.

And it’s paid off.

Julie Ciardi is a business & mindset coach on a mission to help IGNITE women to design lives they love rather than living life by default.

She hosts the IGNITE Her Mind Podcast and provides a free community called IGNITE Her Society. She also author The Standout Breakout Formula, where she lays out the formula to stand out in the crowded online market and break out in your business.

Julies believes that women start their dream business using her signature NOW Goal™ Formula, which you’ll learn about in today’s show.

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Jim Stengel

#413: How to Build Brand Purpose & Profits With Your Business Storytelling

#413: How to Build Brand Purpose & Profits With Your Business Storytelling

Do you run a brand that has established and delivers on a powerful brand purpose?

If so, then you’re in a good place because studies indicate that up to 80 percent of consumers want to buy from a brand that stands for something bigger than just the product or service it sells.

But many companies with big brand ambitions fall short because they fail to align their values and beliefs with what their customers believe in and value.

In fact, there are three primary factors that derail even the best of intentions when building on brand purpose.

We’ll explore the activities that trip up the best of intentions today with  Jim Stengel, President/CEO of The Jim Stengel Company.

A prolific writer, thought leader and advisor, Jim is the author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies, and Unleashing the Innovators: How Mature Companies Find New Life with Startups.

He is also host of the highly acclaimed The CMO Podcast, an Adjunct Professor at Kellogg Northwestern, and an investor and Board member at BERA.

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Seth Godin

#412: Seth Godin: The Story Behind My New Book, The Song of Significance

#412: Seth Godin: The Story Behind My New Book, The Song of Significance

Six weeks ago, I flopped down in front of the fire on a brisk Northern Arizona Tuesday morning, grabbed my coffee, flipped open my laptop and there was Seth Godin’s daily email.

I opened it and read about his new book coming out this week, The Song of Significance.

I’ve been producing my podcast for eight years and I often toyed with the idea of inviting Seth onto the show. I thought what better time than now when he has a new book to promote?

So I jotted off an email at about 6:45 am my time. Within 15 minutes, Seth replied and said he’d be happy to be on The Business of Story. His quick response took me by surprise, given the stature of this particular marketing consultant and teacher.

I’m delighted to bring you the conversation I had with Seth about his management book for a new era and a new generation.

Seth Godin, a renowned author, entrepreneur, and marketing guru, has captivated audiences worldwide with his visionary insights and groundbreaking ideas.

With numerous bestsellers to his name, including “Purple Cow” and “The Dip,” Godin is a leading voice in business, innovation, and personal development. His latest literary masterpiece, The Song of Significance further solidifies his status as a prolific thinker and influential writer.

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Gregory Shepard

#411: With No Struggle, There is Neither Story Nor Success

#411: With No Struggle, There is Neither Story Nor Success

Napoleon Hill once famously said, “Strength and growth only come through continuous effort and struggle.”

While that may read well on a motivational poster, we go out of our way to avoid conflict and strife.

Or as Winston Churchill put it, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

But it seems inevitable that through our most difficult moments is where we grow the most.

Today’s guest knows this better than most.

Gregory Shepard, a tech superstar who has experienced 14 liquidity events, was diagnosed with seven neurodivergent conditions including autism, synesthesia and dyslexia.

But he believes these so-called deficits are actually his superpowers that have enabled his remarkable success, including selling two of his start-ups to eBay as part of a $925 million transaction. Gregory Shepard says he and folks like him simply see the world a little, or a lot, differently than the rest of us.

“As a Nerodivergent autistic, my story applies to all those who struggle which is all founders. I use my stories of struggle and success to bring knowledge to the founders.”

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Mitchell Clements

#410: How ESPN’s Social Media Team Uses Storytelling to Score Big Time

#410: How ESPN’s Social Media Team Uses Storytelling to Score Big Time

You, like everyone else, are battling in the most competitive arena of communication that we’ve ever experienced.

Social media, where everyone believes they’re a superstar.

Like an Ali jab, if you can get your messages to land right the first time, every time, then you’ll have the impact on the audiences you seek.

But you’re messages aren’t winning because they’re lackluster. Listless. Lathargic, to keep this alliteration going.

Mitchell Clements, Social Media Creative Manager at ESPN is here to share with you some of the most creative ways ESPN tells their sports stories online.

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Brock Swinson

#409: How to Become a Positively Prolific Storyteller

#409: How to Become a Positively Prolific Storyteller

So you think you want to write a book and share even more of your fantastic stories? Or maybe you just want to become more prolific with your blog.

But you’ve got writer’s block. Or worse. Burnout.

In this episode of The Business of Story, we’re joined by Brock Swinson, author of Ink by the Barrel: Secrets From Prolific Writers and host of the Creative Principles Podcast.

Brock has interviewed some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, including Aaron Sorkin, Ethan Hawke, and Judd Apatow, and is now sharing his insights with novice writers.

One of the most effective ways Brock helps his clients is by exploring sub-genres and niches within their niche. It’s amazing how many parallels you can draw between your own experiences and those of your audience when you take the time to dig deep and find the common threads.

But one of the biggest challenges is coming up with stories about yourself that feel valuable and meaningful.

Brock believes the stories that feel too obvious or too personal are often the ones that resonate the most with others. They’re the stories that help you connect with your audience on a deeper level and build trust with them over time.

So don’t be afraid to share your own experiences and let your personality shine through. It’s what sets you apart and makes you unique.

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Bernadette Jiwa

#408: How to Use the Power of Your Everyday Stories

#408: How to Use the Power of Your Everyday Stories

Have you ever thought that you had to tell big, sweeping stories to capture attention?

If it’s not epic, it’s boring.

But what if your small, everyday stories carried an even greater impact than you had ever imagined?

You are about to learn from Bernadette Jiwa, the creator of the Story Skills Workshop, who has taught thousands of people to harness the power of their everyday stories.

Her eight bestselling books are modern classics on mastering the art of storytelling to persuade, influence and inspire.

Named by Smart Company as one of Australia’s Top Business Thinkers and listed as one of the Top Branding Experts to follow on Twitter, Bernadette is trusted by leaders from the likes of Disney, UNICEF, Louis Vuitton, Adidas, United Nations, Red Cross, Microsoft, Google, LEGO, and more.

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Aransas Savas

#407: How to Design Transformative Customer Experiences With Your Business Storytelling

#407: How to Design Transformative Customer Experiences With Your Business Storytelling

A beautiful thing happens when you place your customer at the center of your brand story and then deliver on the promises you make to them.

But man does it get ugly fast when you don’t.

That’s why today we’re focused on how you can use business storytelling to create transformative experiences for all those you serve.

Aransas Savas is an experience designer and coach at Stone Mantel, an experience strategy company, and the co-host of the Experience Strategy Podcast.

Drawing on her over two-decade career, Aransas combines behavioral science and coaching to partner with experience strategists at leading consumer brands, including Weight Watchers, Best Buy, Truist Bank, and Clayton Homes to create meaningful, and often, transformative, customer journeys.

Based in Brooklyn, Aransas is a 20-time marathoner, a wife to a newscaster, and a mother to a 200-year-old sourdough culture, a fluffy pup and two spirited, creative girls.

She uses storytelling as a central theme in their work to unify the complimentary, though often competitive, disciplines of marketing strategy and experience strategy. When we talk about promises made and promises kept, we are talking about storytelling that delivers on meaningful and valuable experiences and builds trust. Conversely, many brands degrade trust by telling stories that they just can’t deliver on.

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Rand Jenkins & Michael Gass

#406: How to Find Your Riches in the Niches With Your Brand Story

#406: How to Find Your Riches in the Niches With Your Brand Story

My friend Greg Head, a guru in the start-up and hi-tech marketing world, and host of The Practical Founders podcast once told me that “Specialists eat generalists for lunch.”

I’ve seen that in my own work from running my ad agency Park&Co as a generalist agency back in the late 1990s and then finding a core niche of sustainable marketing starting in 2008.

But my services became laser focused in 2016 when now all I do is consult, teach, coach, and speak internationally on the power of storytelling in business leadership.

The wise master who initially helped me niche-down Park&Co and whose guidance has helped me refine my Business of Story offering is Michael Gass. He has been helping agencies internationally find their focused purpose through his company Fuel Lines.

Today, Michael joins Rand Jenkins, co-founder and director of marketing strategy for Mountain Mojo Group, a Flagstaff Arizona-based ad agency with a focus on serving independent, mom & pop hardware stores across the country.

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Dr. Randy Olson

#405: ChatGPT Meets the ABT: Friend or Foe for Your Business Storytelling?

#405: ChatGPT Meets the ABT: Friend or Foe for Your Business Storytelling?

Artificial intelligence, especially with the introduction of ChatGPT, is an earth-shaking development in content creation and business communications.

But many people fear that the bots are going to rise up and dominate the human species. Is an AI apocalypse at hand?

Lately, we’ve been asked if AIs like ChatGPT will render our Business of Story training obsolete, especially our work with the ABT (And, But, Therefore) agile narrative framework.

So we put ChatGPT to the test.

In this episode, you will learn what I and Dr. Randy Olson, the Harvard-trained evolutionary scientist-turned-Hollywood filmmaker have learned working with ChatGPT and the ABT.

Randy and I co-wrote The Narrative Gym for Business, which is a crisp 75-page guide that helps you understand narrative form versus content and how to craft the ABTs on three primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

We have learned that you have to understand the ABT agile narrative framework from a very human perspective if you are going to prompt ChatGPT appropriately and recognize if the AI is actually taking you where you want to go.
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