Telling and Selling Your Business Story

What Kind of Story Do You Want to Live?

Jen Grisanti may have a phenomenal resume, but she will be the first to tell you that it is the result of a lot of hard work and yes, a few pitfalls along the way.
These failures, however, are an aspect of the human condition and Jen firmly believes that at the confluence of storytelling and business, entrepreneurs need to come clean about their failures and share them with their audience.
What are the benefits of sharing your failures? As Jen can attest from years as a professional story consultant, accessing one’s personal emotional gold, or the humanity behind a brand, creates unique and resonant business stories that invite audiences and customers to engage more deeply.
Jen joins the podcast to share how business leaders can turn moments of personal failure into opportunities to empathetically connect with their audience and be the active hero in their own story, creating the life and brand identity they want to live.

In This Episode

• The importance of finding your voice as a brand
• Failing forward and why your darkest moments lead to your brightest future
• Adding the four-part story structure of trigger, dilemma, choice, and pursuit to your brand planning
• The story lesson found in the “I want to marry you” cookie recipe

Quotes From This Episode

“For the business owner, embrace your failures, talk about them, recognize that they are getting you to where you want to go. With failure we get information of what doesn’t work, and through that information it helps us move forward into understanding what does work.” —@jengrisanti
“As a business owner and content producer, when I post on Twitter or Facebook, it’s all about creating messages that have an emotional impact. Understand what you want the outcome to be, and really write for that.” —@jengrisanti
“Embrace those trials that we all hit. That’s where the gold of every story is, and it’s really where the gold of every life is, when you are thrown into the dragon’s cave, for lack of a more obvious metaphor, and fight your way out.” —@ParkHowell

Resources

• Jen’s books, “Change Your Story,” “Storyline: Finding Gold in Your Life Story,” and “TV Writing Tool Kit“
• “Making a Good Script Great,” by Linda Seger
• “Start with Why,” by Simon Sinek
• “A Passion to Win,” by Sumner Redstone
• “The Motivation Manifesto,” by Brendon Burchard
• “Storynomics: How to Create a Story That Inspires With Robert McKee“
• “How to Capitalize on Niche Story Markets With Justin Trevor Winters“
• jengrisanti.com
• BusinessofStory.com