Copy That Sells Marketing Consultancy

22/03/2021

Times are hard. Getting our companies back on track, we can lose sight of what we're here to do. So rather than focus on bad news, here's a happy story I read in the Sunday newspapers…

It’s from Timpson, the shoe repair business.

Their secret weapon according to James Timpson, their Chief Executive?

To hire a Director of Happiness, Janet. Also a Marion and an Elaine. As 90% of the time, falling sales are nothing to do with work.

😁 Janet is their Director of Happiness. She helps colleagues in crisis to get the support they need and is always smiling.
💙 Elaine is a trained counsellor who helps anyone having a wobble
🤝 Marion solves financial predicaments staff may have and helps them come up with a plan

Timpson feels caring for staff, suppliers, and customers is good for business.

Read the full story here https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/meet-my-secret-weapon-a-director-of-happiness-vqkspsj7x

As a business storyteller, those caring values are the heart of the sticky brand stories I help clients write, drizzled like honey through their marketing content.

How about you?

What brand values do you prize, apparent in all you write, say, and do?
What do others say about you when you are not in the room?



Photo credit: Catalin Pop, Unsplash

18/02/2021

Do you find it daunting writing and posting content publicly? When I send my storytelling tips skyrocketing into the ether, as website content or via social media I'll admit, my heart is pounding. Yet if I keep schtum, I feel invisible, a far worse feeling. Here are 5 tips to help to get ourselves over the line:

💡 It's so wonderful sharing stories and opinions! Author William Faulkner wrote, “If a story is in you, it has to come out.” Here’s how we can help each other do that.

AS THE CONTENT GIVER
1. Take the brave step to press 'send'. Then stand by your opinion. Wait for a reaction and be ready to interact back.
2. Avoid a wall of tags, an artificial, irritating way of drawing attention.
3. A direct quote from someone else should be indicated via quote marks or some other visual signal.
4. Invite interaction with a call to action, like a pointer to a helpful blog, question or invitation to connect or follow.

AS THE CONTENT RECEIVER:
5. Like and preferably comment with an encouraging word.
6. Pay it forward, connecting the giver with another in your network.
7. Be gracious and say thank you. It takes courage to put out original content publicly. So take care to let the author know you are grateful.

🤔 See your post as a donation to an important conversation leading you somewhere very beguiling.
🚪 Through the wardrobe on your own exciting personal journey to Narnia. If you don’t go, you will never know!

What do you love talking about? What stops you?
Which of these tips do you already do?

16/02/2021

What floats your boat that would make your clients tear their hair out doing? I've got a confession to make! Teasing a simple, accessible brand story from a deluge of dry facts is what I love to do. Here's why...

💙 Camouflaged beneath those flat facts is the collective warm human heart of the caring people behind the business. They go out on a limb daily to take away their clients' frustrations.
💡 Guiding lights for their brave clients' hero's journeys, I love to sprinkle through their factual content a touch of sparkle.

I don't mean overlaying their story as a thin veneer but running it through the heart of all their marketing content.

When teasing out what you take for granted, why not take a look at the honeyed words drizzled through your testimonials?

Here's one of mine: "Katherine's ability to consume and appreciate large chunks of data is impressive, highlighted in her attention to detail and the ability to interrogate this data and extract what the commercial focus should be" from Jim Ivimey, Google, GSI & Alliance Partner Account Manager at Citrix Systems UK, when we both worked at Ordnance Survey 🙏

What's the secret sauce which you're hiding?
What's the hidden selling point in your story you forget to say?

14/02/2021

It’s Valentine's Day in the UK. Let's write a new customer love story. Not the cold, phoney one, fabricated for faceless target audiences. But the warm story flowing like an armchair chat, chucking another log on the fire, sharing a cuppa together. Here's how:

Let's be inspired by the brand story of Timpson, the caring cobbler and key cutter.

💙 Their ‘Upside Down Management' gives staff the autonomy to change a price or put a mistake right
💙 They're consistently kind, running a ‘happy index’ to check if staff are treated fairly
💙 They're inspiring. Alex Timpson, the Chairman’s late wife, fostered 90 children and pioneered the hiring of ex-offenders and an enlightened staff rewards package.
💙 They don't have a marketing department. Their customers are their marketing department.
💙 Family-owned, they're proud of their 150+ year heritage
💙 Trust is hardwired into their company. They help happy staff perform well, which in turn is good for business
💙 They care for their customers as they do those they love the most.

Read my blog, explaining how love is hardwired into everything Timpson do so their customers love them back https://lnkd.in/eqNDYgD

How much do you care about your clients, partners, staff and loved ones? When did you last tell them?

A love grown cold. Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas and New Year are some of our seasonal festivities with an enormous build-up. We save up for ages and go out of our way to tell our families and friends we love them. We buy over-the-top seasonal gifts which shops then sell off in a half-price s...

18/01/2021

It's that self-awareness day called today. A 2005 PR stunt for a now-defunct company, Sky Travel, it's a silly notion! The real story for anyone struggling mentally is that every day can feel like being trapped in a dark tunnel, especially in these terrible times. Here’s why and what to do...

😥 Depression is a debilitating illness affecting 1 in 6 of the UK population, weekly. It impacts how we think, feel and function, making every day a struggle.
😥 The World Health Organisation says it affects 264m people globally. It's different from short term mood fluctuations, claiming the lives of 800k people annually. Su***de is the 2nd leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.
😥 It bears a huge stigma. Our society doesn’t encourage us to talk openly about it. Mental health charity, Mind, reports that 48% of workers experiencing a mental health issue in their job can't tell anyone.

There's no evidence to suggest one day of the year increases the risk of depression. It’s a terrible, invisible condition that can affect any of us at any time.

So, today and every day, let’s make someone else's mental health story more tolerable by:
👀 spotting any signs they are struggling.
👂 lending a listening ear and helping hand.

I published a short book, the Story of Hope, last year, to show how feeling depressed is like being trapped in the attic of despair. But it is possible to get out of it. If anyone out there could benefit from it, please tell them about it https://thestoryofhope.co.uk/

What do you think about ? Do you know someone who'd value a conversation to talk about how they are feeling?

10/11/2020

Why do people fear sharing their brave hero stories? Half those asked in my recent poll felt theirs weren't exciting or relevant. Those with factual, technical messages often struggle, yet their stories are heroic and creative. Here's why:

🙌They know how to creatively build incredibly tricky solutions by reassembling them so they work better.
⛰ They've overcome conflict in their clients' businesses, moving mountains to find the best solution.
😎 They make their clients look like cool heroes on their quest to guide them to the ideal resolution.

Their stories contain another classic element of a hero's tale: the grit and determination to collaborate towards a successful conclusion.

So why don't you tell those stories of victory through vulnerability to clients? Because they are exciting!

For an explanation on why bringing drama to your heroic story is important, watch my video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFtgEg4IsXs

If struggling to bring your factual story to life, let's connect and cha.,

What hardships have you overcome in your business journey which ideally qualify you to help your client's overcome theirs? What battle scars do you bravely bear?


Picture credit: TK Hammonds on Unsplash

22/06/2020

Carpe Diem! Another Monday in lockdown! Let's seize the day and week and get some going. If you had no fear at all today, this year, what would you do? Being passive won’t cut it. Let's take action. Here's how:

As Dale Carnegie put it “If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy”.

But how, when we are holed up indoors? Let's dig into our inner purpose. Hatch a cunning plan. Here’s mine.

If I had no fear, here’s what I’d do and I’m working on it!

👉 Start a local movement to lift loneliness from those who've suffered from depression by telling their story.
👉Help more technical companies uncover their amazing purpose through storytelling. Find ways to address a larger audience than I’m used to. The truth is public speaking on a very big stage scares me. Yet if I could make more of a positive difference by doing so, I would love to.
👉Travel wider to help more gorgeous leopards, cheetahs and elephants escape extinction through my writing. Maybe balloon across the Serengeti in between!

If you had no fear, how would you change your world and someone else's too?

Why wait for tomorrow? Let's do this, me and you.
What's stopping us ditch the fear of making our dreams fly? Please tell me. I’d love to know...

20/05/2020

It's . Now's the time to talk openly about depression, not today but every day. That's why (scared out of my wits) I talked about mental health on the radio yesterday. Here's what I said...

Here the link to the interview https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08cfhxh
Slide to 2 hours 40 seconds to hear it, straight after the music which is playing.

Though sick with nerves, I spoke out. I had to.

Because:

😥 Mental illness is a curse. A debilitating condition leaving us locked up in the attic of despair, covered by a heavy, dark cloak we hide behind
😥 Not only are we afraid to talk about it but it ruins lives
😥 Leading to dashed dreams and years stuck in a horrible half-life we don’t deserve. Depression claims lives too.
I survived that way for years.
❤ Hearts can be mended again. I escaped from the pain.
❤ It’s all in my book, The Story of Hope by Katherine James, my married name, being published tomorrow.

In it, Hope leaves the attic of despair, reclaiming her life from the safety of a beautiful cloak.

I did, changing the course of my whole life, also starting a business. If I can, anyone can!

Let's be the heroes of our stories. Not be beaten by depression. Let's always talk openly and honestly about it. Let’s never surrender!

Have you ever been locked in despair?

Now's the time to rewrite our own stories of Hope. Read about Hope at TheStoryOfHope.co.uk

Trusted local News, information and advice and Make A Difference.

05/05/2020

Do you believe that by writing and working towards our dream life that it could happen? I do. I believe writing can be our saviour. That’s what happened to me. Here’s a story about my story…

About 25 years ago, I wrote a letter to myself about how I’d like my perfect life to be.

I had written a book to help those who were stuck in depression to tell their own ‘Story of Hope’. I am about to publish that book. I had launched a business to help companies with a technical story to show their brilliance through marketing with storytelling. I'm doing that now.

I have found that writing down what we are feeling and dreaming, then persevering, something special happens.

In my book, the hero escapes the attic of depression by writing her feelings and dreams in a diary about her Hero’s Journey. Then using the lessons to help others. It’s being published later this month. I hope it helps those stuck to find a way forwards to grab the dreams they deserve.

If my Hero and I can make our dreams come true by writing them down, we all can too.

Let’s not lose hope in lockdown. What can my Story of Hope encourage you to write and dream about as well as do?

16/03/2020

Having the wrong brand story is a nightmare! It gets you trapped with the wrong clients, not going anywhere. Get unstuck! Read my 7-step guide to the right story, heard by the right clients you deserve!

Here are 7 steps to breaking free:
💡 Be inspired to tell the right story about what you naturally love doing. Taking a wrong turn, I deviated from content marketing with storytelling. After a horrendous accident, I took an about-turn, finding my WHY
🎯 Have the right content marketing strategy achieving the right objective
🦔 Don't work with prickly clients but get the right relationships written in the stars!
❄ Have an authentic story as original as snowflakes or fingerprints. Impress it on all you write, say and do, so it gets found by the clients looking for you
😎 Be happy in your own skin. Don’t obsess about the competition. Make your own lane
✔ Work with the right partners, facing the same direction
📚 Ensure you have a story rather than no business story

Read my blog guiding you through a 7-step process for creating the right story about what you love to do. Then clients will come knocking on your door to ask if they can work with you!

Getting Trapped in the Wrong Business Story is Disastrous! Here are 7 Ways to Get Unstuck to Tell the Right Story to Like-Hearted, Like-Minded Clients

18/02/2020

I'm grateful to the Kindness of Strangers. Yesterday, Simon, a kind train official, paid for my taxi when, wet and shivering, my one-hour train journey was becoming 3 coach journeys lasting 4 hours (due to engineering works). Another time...

I arrived for my train, feeling lonely and vulnerable after a late meeting, hoping to get the last evening home or risk waiting in the train station until the last one, alone.

My pulse racing, I arrived at my platform with a few minutes to spare. The train was not there as expected. We were advised that it was departing from a different platform. Nobody knew which one.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and told me the correct platform. He wasn’t an official and I’m not sure how he knew where I was heading. He could have been an angel for all I knew.

Sure enough, my train had arrived at the other platform, ready to depart. A sense of relief surged through me. I was not in danger and on my way home.

These two kind gentlemen (or angels) saved me from a stress spiral for which I remain eternally grateful, always now on the lookout to pay it forward.

Who has helped you get through a tough situation?

Who can we help through life’s journey to the next destination?

03/02/2020

It’s . It takes courage to tell your story to the world! You feel vulnerable. But now’s the time. If a scaredy-cat like me can, you can. Here’s mine...



Special thanks to fellow braveheart, Karen Bennett Photography, clever photographer, for capturing my love of storytelling in this photograph.