Good evening everyone

My name is Favour Godwill and I’ll like welcome you to today’s

class.

First, what do you know about storytelling?

Let me know your knowledge and ideas in 2 or 3 sentences.

As of last week Saturday, I urgently needed a white sneaker. To

avoid stories that touches the heart, I decided to reach out to

the WhatsApp vendors on my contact list. Aside that sef, they’ll

always be my go-to-plug for anything first before I start

searching Instagram, Twitter or even Facebook sef. Charity will

always begin at home biko.

All of the vendors I reached out to didn’t have and I was

surprised. These people used to post white sneakers every time

but the day I needed it, they didn’t have. I was fine with it sha

and I decided to keep reaching out.

Where the main gist lies is when a particular vendor joined me

in my search for white sneakers. Before I knew it, this beautiful

lady has flooded my DM with pictures of beautiful white

sneakers that if I wear any of them ehn, you must comment on

my lovely feet. I was amazed. I didn’t expect her to go all out for

me but she did.

She had contacted different vendors across in Lagos, Abuja,

Enugu and other places just for my white sneaker meanwhile, I

was somewhere in a training. Funniest thing is that she wasn’t

the one going to make a sale but she was helping me like that.

Till today, I’ve been waiting for a selling master piece to come

out of that encounter but I’ve not seen any. That was a really

good story to sell but I didn’t see any. God bless you sis for your

help.
OUTLINE

1. What is storytelling?

2. Creativity as a major element in storytelling

3. Characteristics of creativity

4. Stages of creativity

5. Why do we create stories?

6. Where do we find stories?

7. Characteristics of a story that sells

8. 4 P’s of storytelling

9. How to boost your creativity

10. Hack models of creativity

 11. 5 reasons you should not sell yet

12. How to tell a good story that sells

WHAT IS STORYTELLING?

Storytelling is an art as old as time. It is the combination of

knowledge, creativity, vision, emotions, fact, skill, experience

and practice to pass across a message to an audience.

Storytelling is an emotional & engaging interaction between you

and your customers where you let them know who you are, what

you stand for, your beginning, the crises you’ve gone through

and how you resolved them. It is you communicating your core

message to your audience.

Storytelling is not about your brand or the number of words you

write. It is not a sales pitch nor an advert about the cool stuff

you do.

Storytelling in business is the way brands share their messages

to engage their audience and make them to take desired action.

Businesses uses storytelling to strike an emotional connection

with their customers. Companies use storytelling in knowledge

management of their audience or in training employees to

communicate their values, goals, data. Advertising, public

relations and marketing use various forms of storytelling to drive

their message home by exploiting the emotional effects of

stories. Stories crumble complex messages to simpler ones.

CREATIVITY AS A MAJOR ELEMENT IN STORYTELLING

Creativity is identifying a problem and the ability of providing

possible solutions. It involves thinking and making actions to

create newness and originality in solving a problem. Everybody

is creative but not everybody can be creative. It is very easy for

you to get creative by doing the right thing.

Children are more creative than adults, a five year old possesses

a creative ability of about 98% and 12% at the age of fifteen. The

younger a person is, the more creative ability he or she

possesses and as an adult, you must boost your creativity. Why

is this so? Being younger, a child has zero worries about the

rules and regulations of the world and its systems, and they

explore their thoughts. As the child grows, the consciousness of

these things begin to set in thereby limiting the ability to think

creatively. With creativity, you can create the right kind of future

for yourself. Creativity is a highly sought after skill every

individual must have to thrive in the 21st century. The 20% rule
of creativity in the professional space allows workers to properly

allocate 20% of their time to creative thinking.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CREATIVITY

 Originality

 Innovative

 Problem solving

 Beauty

 Human capacity

 Motivation

 Realistic

 Usefulness

 Explorative/Open minded
  Spirit of curiosity

 Fluency

 Result oriented

 Perception

STAGES OF CREATIVITY

The process of getting creative is in stages. Each stage is a

stretch of creativity.

1. Discovery/Preparation stage: This is also the research

stage where you find a problem, gather information about

the problem and put your mind to work in disentangling

thoughts.
 2. Incubation stage: In this stage, you are explorative and open

minded. Your thoughts travel far and wide to solve a

problem.

3. Illumination stage: Let there be light and light comes! You

gain insight and get answers to a problem.

4. Implementation stage: This stage is testing the novelty of

your solution and if it fits the problem.

WHY DO WE CREATE STORIES

1. To sell

2. To entertain

3. To educate
 4. To inspire and motivate

5. To make complex messages simple

6. To bring people together

WHERE DO WE FIND STORIES

1. Your life and business everyday experiences

2. The experiences of other people

3. Behind the scenes of your businesses

4. Your relationship with sellers, customers, suppliers,

delivery persons, sales persons etc.

5. Books

CHARACTERISTICS OF A STORY THAT SELLS

 1. It educates

2. It entertains

3. It engages

4. It handles objections

5. It has or motivates to action

6. It is not difficult to understand

4 P’S OF STORYTELLING

Plot: It defines the story and sets up motivation and challenge.

People: These are the characters in your story.

Place: Where did your story take place?

Purpose: Don’t forget the reason you are telling the story.

HOW TO BOOST YOUR CREATIVITY

a. Give time to thinking and meditation: Don’t limit your

thoughts by thinking selectively, reactively or based on

assumptions. Allocate a good time to think in all ways and

engage in the school of meditation.

b. Trust the process: Creativity is a process. Trust yourself

first then trust its stages. Take time to assess your

creativity.

c. Proselytize your creativity: This is advertising your beliefs

(religious and non-religious).

 d. Be passionate: Be determined about getting creative, have

fire in the belly.

e. Allow mistakes: No one is perfect, allow yourself to make

mistakes. Remember that practice makes perfect.

f. Make use of your strengths: Have you maximized your forte

in getting creative? You should try testing every one of

them.

HACK MODELS OF CREATIVITY

These are models to apply in creativity to make it more

productive and efficient.

  3RL MODEL

Repeat – Doing it again is the first step in this model. Repeat

every creative process and make it a part of you. Do it over and

over again till the process becomes a habit. Write every day,

draw every day, design every day, build models every day, and

create dance routines every day etc.

Rethink – Think again. Be flexible with your thoughts in multi-

dimensions, brain storm as a person and with your team if you

have one.

Re-strategize – It’s time to develop a new plan of action in

delivering creative value.

Launch – New strategies have been set, launch. Put them to

actions.

5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT SELL YET

1. You are broke

2. Your audience do not know you yet

3. You do not have an irresistible offer

4. There is no perceived value for your solution

5. Your solution is inaccessible

HOW TO TELL A GOOD STORY THAT SELLS

1. Identify and understand your story: What message do you

want to pass across? Why did you launch your business?

What stands out for you? Who are the people in your story?
 What are the people in your story trying to achieve? What

challenge are they faced with? What do you want your

audience to go with? How do you do things differently?

What does your solution (product or service) do that no one

else does? Where and when is your story taking place?

2. Know your audience: Are the age group of your audience.

Do you need to address them in a friendly or professional

tone? Will your story be published on another platform?

What is the budget of your audience, luxury or budget

friendly?
3. Get creative: Make your audience curious to find the

missing link in your story. Don’t bore them by turning them

into crime fighters.

4. Show: Don’t always talk about “10 reasons why you are not

making sales”. Show them why they are not making sales.

Tell them how you’ve helped a client to make more sales.

5. Use your stories to answer important questions that may

be troubling them. Answer FAQs through stories.

6. Be authentic: Try to gain your customer’s trust through

storytelling. Don’t tell tales. Customers will know. Be

transparent.
7. Make your audience a part of your story: Let your story be

relatable that your customer can say ‘this is me’.

8. Be consistent: Stop changing your social media handles

anyhow. Be consistent with your message. Don’t be a

personal development coach today and a fitness trainer

tomorrow. Today you have a particular colour. Logo or

slogan, tomorrow you don’t. Stop eeeettt! Don’t be slim

queen on Twitter and jennys_closet on Instagram.

9. Evolve: Don’t be boring. Let your story evolve. Update your

audience and let them know what’s happening with your

brand. How you turned a prospect to a customer even to

how you lost a business deal because of a mistake.

10. Let your stories have an outcome: Your stories should

provoke your audience to an action. Don’t tell them stories

and go. Whether it is to grow your audience, make a sale,

get new customers or engage existing customers and even

look out for deals and collaboration. Your story should be

compelling.