What my son's school has taught me about storytelling during lockdown - and some ideas for how you can apply it to your business.
I went to San Diego Zoo recently. My children watched the penguins being fed and then saw a sleeping polar bear.
How did we do this on lockdown? My son’s school runs a virtual school trip each week. From our sofa we travel the world and explore places they haven’t been before. It’s been delightful, unexpected, and wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been forced to be away from the classroom and unable to travel.
Eh? How does a virtual school trip work?
(And what’s it got to do with business storytelling?)
We get an itinerary laid out in, what is effectively, a blog post. There’s an introduction to what we are doing and then a video where the teacher talks about where we are going and why we are going there. She reads a picture book related to our destination.
Then she gives us a link to find the place we’re going to in Google Earth. My kids love flying across the globe on Google Earth so we type the destination in the box and see where we end up. Then we put the person icon on the ground so we can explore around the outside of the building.
We’ll be given ideas for things to look at on our trip. These are resources provided by the destination. The zoo has webcams where you can watch the animals live and they had recently welcomed a baby hippo so we were encouraged to read about her.
The teacher then provides some ideas for activities you can do. This might be taking inspiration from something we’ve seen and creating our own version, or doing something on the destination’s website. For example, this week we went to Tate Britain which has a game where you can make your own masterpiece. We’d also been introduced to The Shape Game by Anthony Browne and we could play that together.
What’s this got to do with business storytelling?
Taking part in these activities got me thinking about how we can get people involved in our businesses during lockdown.
I believe it’s really important for businesses to remain visible right now and even if you can’t welcome people through the door, you can still give them an experience.
You can:
- Take people behind the scenes
- Showcase your products and services
- Show people how to make use of your products
- Inspire people to get involved
For example, Thirsty sells wine and beer and has a bar in Cambridge. It teams up with food vans to create a variety of dining in options through the week. They also host events. Lockdown is obviously not ideal but that hasn’t stopped the owner, Sam Owens, from continuing to show up for his customers and sell them great wine and beer.
He shares news of what stock he has in and how people can get their hands on it.
You can also break down part of your process and show how you go about it. Krishna Solanki builds websites and she recently shared this post about a new customer and the moodboard she had created for them.
How beautiful constraints create opportunities
Adam Morgan and Mark Barden wrote a book called A Beautiful Constraint about how to make use of our limitations. For instance, you might not be able to manufacture something, or you can only deliver within a 3 mile radius. If you think about it, our businesses are constrained by all sorts of circumstances and these help shape what we deliver to our customers.
These constraints can inspire innovation. Have you developed an online course due to the impact of coronavirus on your business? Or are you delivering your services using video conferencing?
One of our school trips was to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and it has created a range of materials for people to be able to enjoy the works from home including:
Colouring pages
Primary and secondary school lessons
Stories about Van Gogh’s life and work
Collection highlights
Answers to questions
Think around your business and create helpful content
You might think that sounds complicated but all they have done is think about what people are interested in and created ways to serve them.
You can do this too – and the only equipment you need is your smartphone.
- Take photos of your products
- Record videos about your products
- Show people your process. Walk them through how you create a mood board, design a new item, or work through a project.
- Run a challenge – and use it to build your email list. Could you help people achieve a quick win which shows them the benefit of working with you, or gets them ready to work with you?
- Set a project – help people create something themselves with step by step instructions. You can teach them with a series of videos, and if you sell the products they need to make the item, link to your web shop.
- Create a club or a Facebook group where people can talk about their love of what you do. Whether you help people with gardening, books, pottery, or coding, we crave community and a place where we can talk to people who are enthusiastic about the same topics.
Don’t forget that your customers are subject to beautiful constraints as well. They can’t shop and carry out activities in the same way as before. Their outlook may have changed.
Heather McDougall is a garden designer. She realised people were spending more time in their gardens, were enjoying watching their local wildlife, and could do with projects they could manage on their own. She created a series of tips on wildlife gardening.
With many people spending more time enjoying nature here's part one of Welcome Wildlife into your Garden. 🌻#Gardening#Wildlife pic.twitter.com/iZAz0mObFv
— Heather McDougall (@hmgardendesign) April 23, 2020
What can you create that tells stories about your business and ties in with your customers’ stories so you can remain in the forefront of their minds?
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One Response
Hey Rachel, This is a such a great article. I loved hearing of the ingenuity of your son’s teacher creating such a great learning experience for the children in this remote learning environment. You also provided such great examples of how we could use this idea to create great experiences and tell great stories in our own business. You have definitely sparked my ideas of things I can do.
A Beautiful Constraint is one of the best books I ever read, it certainly helped shift the way I look at things.
Leanne