Stories Mean Business - Nick Warren
Business:Marketing
A good story can save or make your business.
Here’s a true example.
It’s three lines long, but it changes reality…
Back in the late 1990s, I had a problem. I'd quit my IBM job in a temper tantrum and accidentally started a web agency.
In reality, "agency" was a pretty grand title for what we had. The company had just two employees.
For most of the brands we wanted to work with, this was a problem.
"How big is your team?" they'd ask.
"Two."
"Two?" The inevitable tone of surprise.
"Uh... yes."
"Well ... thanks for coming in."
It was a classic catch-22. We needed clients to grow our headcount and headcount to grow our clients.
Or did we?
In the end, I stumbled on the story that reframed the whole thing.
Before IBM, I'd worked at a TV production company. The advert had sounded glamorous, but most of the time, it was two or three of us sitting in a basement.
Zero glamour.
Then some project would come up and BOOM ...
Camera operators. Lighting people. Sound engineers. Actors. Make-up artists. Runners. Floor Managers. Caterers. Editors.
The list went on and on.
But the company only hired people it needed to do the job on the day. No wasted time. No wasted money.
There more I thought about it, the more this seemed relevant to my micro-agency. The next time we met a prospect, I tried something different.
"How big is the team?" they asked.
"Two full-time – others as needed."
"Isn't that risky?"
"It's the business model I used when I worked in TV production. Rather than paying for people you don't need, we put the money where it matters."
"Well ... thanks for coming in."
The last line was the same, but the result was hugely different.
We won the account of a major UK theme park. Then another. Then another.
By 2018, when I sold the business, we had clients in the UK, Europe, Asia and America.
By then, we had graduated to a whole different set of stories, but I'll get to those another time.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about an aspect of this that's critical, but easy to miss.
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The Stories Mean Business podcast with Nick Warren.
One Idea A Day, Every Day.
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