VIDEOS
Description of Lead with a Story – from the publisher:
Storytelling may be an age-old tradition, but in today’s corporate world, it’s also been embraced as a uniquely powerful business practice. Top organizations utilize it as a means to communicate vision. Forward-thinking business schools now include storytelling courses in their management curriculum. As a leader or a manager, if you’re not using storytelling as a method to rally your troops and convince others of your ideas, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal.
Packed with over 100 ready-to-use narratives organized by different business challenges, Lead with a Story helps you get started . . . even if you think you don’t know the first thing about telling a story. The book shows you how to connect with bosses, employees, customers, and others on a deep and immediate level using the power of story. It includes examples from more than 50 organizations in 30 industries and from 15 countries around the world, including companies like Kellogg’s, Merrill Lynch, Procter & Gamble, Verizon, Dun & Bradstreet, Saatchi & Saatchi, and more.
In Lead with a Story, corporate storytelling expert Paul Smith helps you choose a story tailor-made for your own particular need, adapt the ready-made stories, and even craft your own. You’ll learn how to use emotionally driven narrative to:
- Establish a vision for the future
- Set goals and build commitment
- Lead change
- Make recommendations that stick
- Define customer service success and failure
- Mold your organization’s culture and values
- Encourage collaboration and build relationships
- Move people to value diversity and inclusion
- Set policy without rules
- Energize, inspire, and motivate your team
- Help others find passion for their work
- Teach important lessons
- Provide coaching and feedback
- Demonstrate problem solving
- Empower others
- Delegate authority and give permission
- Encourage innovation and creativity
- Earn respect from day one
- And much more
Stories do much more than entertain—they actually engage your audience’s brains, creating an experience in which they learn a lesson, share a belief, and envision results as if they were there. This enormously practical and inspiring book lets you in on one of the most important leadership techniques that exists, and shows you how to use it naturally and effortlessly in every area of your work.
PRAISE
SPEAKING TOPICS
01
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
Drawing on his exclusive one-on-one interviews with hundreds of CEOs and executives in over 20 countries, Paul Smith, bestselling author of Lead with a Story, shares leadership insights from CEOs at Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Dun & Bradstreet, Kellogg’s, Alltel Wireless, Saatchi & Saatchi-X, and others.
These executive lessons span leadership topics such as setting a vision, holding P&L leaders accountable for results, leading change, defining corporate values, encouraging creativity, inspiring the organization, and influencing new management on the way out.
You’ll also learn why you should be using more storytelling in your work, when you should be telling stories (and when not), as well as actionable tools you can start using immediately to improve the effectiveness of your leadership stories.
02
STORYTELLING KEYNOTE
Storytelling has emerged as one of the most sought-after skills in the business world. Whether you’re trying to set a vision, lead change, sell a product, define the culture, encourage creativity, or just inspire the organization, storytelling can help you do it better.
Paul Smith, best-selling author of the books Lead with a Story and Parenting with a Story and the upcoming book Sell with a Story, will share what he’s learned from his extensive research in storytelling, including in-depth one-on-one interviews with over 250 executives and leaders in 20 countries around the world.
You’ll learn why you should be using more storytelling in your work, when you should be telling stories (and when not), as well as actionable tools you can start using immediately to improve the effectiveness of your storytelling.
03
STORYTELLING WORKSHOP
In this interactive, hands-on workshop participants learn how to craft compelling business stories that resonate with their audience to drive people to action.
Based on Paul Smith’s best-selling book, Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire, topics include the structure of a business story (context, conflict, resolution, hero, villain, plot, etc.) plus the appropriate use of emotion, surprise, dialogue, and how to find exactly the right story for any situation.
Bring a story to class. You’ll need it. Throughout the course, participants are challenged with exercises and follow a one-page story assessment scorecard and roadmap to more effective stories. Plus you’ll be highly engaged with inspiring stories from dozens of leaders and executives at successful companies around the world.
03
STORYTELLING FOR SALES
The selling process starts well before a sales call ever occurs and continues long after the sale has been made and the product delivered. The best sales people use storytelling at every phase of the process and have mastered its use.
Based on the research behind Paul Smith’s book, Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale, participants will discover:
- what is a sales story
- why you should tell them
- the 25 sales stories all salespeople need
- how to craft and deliver them for maximum impact
Time permitting, participants will learn specific techniques for:
- How to choose the right story
- Proper story structure (Hook, Context, Challenge, Conflict, Resolution, Lesson, Action)
- The proper use of emotion
- The element of surprise
- Dialogue, details, and length
- Oral vs. written delivery
- Telling stories with data
- The ethics of storytelling
- Where to find great stories
- How to practice and save stories
ALL CLIENTS NOW GET: 6-month Storytelling Extended Learning Program for all their attendees. It’s a mobile- and video-based program that will help them better learn and adopt the techniques I teach them live. They’ll get 12 new learning modules delivered every 2 weeks for 6 months. Please watch this video for more info on the 60month extended learning…
MEDIA
- In Fast Company: The Top 4 Mistakes That Make Business Leaders Awful Storytellers
- How NOT to present to the CEO
- Five lessons from watching Sam Walton selling an ironing board cover
- How to Tell Your Company’s Story
- Why is Accurate Forecasting Critical to Business Success?
- To Persuade People, Tell Them a Story