Strategic Storytelling Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D.

Entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and small business owners often get advised, "Tell the origin story for your business." 

In this podcast we analyze 3 examples of business. origin stories - 2 from medium-sized companies and 1 from a solopreneur. You'll discover how stories work to highlight your advantages and what pitfalls to avoid when sharing your story, so you'll get more clients and avoid sending the wrong message.

Business consultants sometimes advise small business owners, especially professional services, "Make your mess your message." 

This advice backfires when entrepreneurs answer the "What's your story" question by talking about their "mess." You can use storytelling to support your entrepreneurship profitability - but you need to be strategic with your storytelling.

If you liked this episode, you'll also enjoy my kindle book on Amazon - Grow Your Business One Story At A Time.

Entrrepeneurs and small business owners often hear that "What's your story" really means, "Tell your origin story."

But business storytelling has a purpose. So you can choose from different kinds of origin stories, depending on what you need to communicate to your ideal clients.

What makes a good origin story? And what are the pitfalls of origin stories for business storytelling? That's what we talk about here.

This episode draws from my book, Grow your business one story at a time. 

Business storytelling experts tell you to share your journey story -- a story of your journey to successful entrepreneurship 

But what if you didn't go through a struggle? Or what if you actually turn your audience away by sharing Too Much Information?

That's what we cover in this episode, with examples of strong journey stories as well as stories that did nothing to help the storyteller's business.

Small business storytelling begins with your strategic purpose. It's absolutely not a fairy tale!

So forget about finding the arc of the story. Entrepreneurs can't look to the movies for models of business stories.

In this episode, we take a close look at Cinderella. We see what a business Cinderella would look like and how to turn the original Cinderella story into a marketing story that would work.

From Grow Your Business One Story At A Time - an Amazon kindle book.

Your most important story isn't about you. It's about how you work with clients to bring them success.. 

The story's 4 parts:  hero, crisis, solution, and outcome. You'll see how they come together for lead generation.

You'll also hear success stories that miss the mark but are easily transformed into strategic marketing tools.

Based on my Amazon Kindle book, Grow Your Business One Story At A Time. http://mycopy.info/kbstory 

Learn more about stories on my website, cathygoodwin.com