Category: storytelling

A Storytelling Roadmap

When I started my storytelling journey, I faced a common problem: I didn’t know how to begin, where to end, or what belonged in the middle. After working with writers and entrepreneurs for many years, I developed a universal storytelling roadmap. The roadmap ensured that every storyteller could feel confident about where to start, where to end, and what to put in the middle. It also allowed them to identify who might need to hear that story just by focusing on who faced that problem.

Why Build a Storytelling Roadmap?

Building a storytelling roadmap helps you ensure you’re taking your audience on a journey to a destination they want to visit. It also allows you to speak, write, or create with confidence, knowing what to include to be sure you get your audience from where they are to where they want to be. Here are 9 points to hit when you’re building your roadmap:

1. Ask a Relevant Question

Ever felt the frustration of listening to someone ramble on and on with no idea where they’re trying to take you or how long the trip is going to be? Imagine those are your readers or your listeners in the audience. You don’t want that experience for them.

Asking a relevant question, though, perks them up. It hints at where the journey’s going to take them and gets them reacting to you right away. The question should be directly related to what you’re going to talk about or it’s just a tease – and nobody likes those. Your goal: to get them to raise their hand and say “yes” to whatever you just asked them.

2. Prepare Them for the Journey

Identify the problem that you’re going to help them solve by the time you reach the end of the talk. Choose one they want to solve.

3. Reveal Your H.E.A.R.T.

You want to earn their trust right off the bat and reassure them that you get them. You understand where they are and why they want so badly to be where it is you’re going to help them go.

To do that, you’re going to need to share your humanity, your empathy, your authenticity, your reliability, and your trustworthiness – in other words, your H.E.A.R.T.!

Don’t be afraid to share your mistakes and failures. Tell them what it felt like when you first faced up to this problem. What stopped you from getting the results you can now help them get? What biases did you have to overcome or false expectations did you have to reset?

The more vulnerable you can be in sharing this, the more you encourage your audience to be vulnerable with you about their mistakes, their biases, and the things that are holding them back from accepting your solution.

4. Wow Them with the Truth!

Give them an insight, a perspective, or a way of looking at things that they never would have if you hadn’t come along. This truth either allowed you to make progress in getting past your mistakes or it stopped you from failing. That allowed you to finally find the solution. As long as you’re being genuine, this moment of truth establishes your credibility and wins them over to the idea of working with you.

5. Explain the Solution

Sharing the solution you uncovered as a result of embracing that truth helps them take another step forward in their journey. You become, at this point, a trusted advisor and mentor guiding them through the many obstacles they face in implementing that solution.

6. Present Your Obstacles

Don’t think it’s necessary for you to have your life all together in order to gain credibility and authority. The truth is that nobody has their life altogether no matter what the appearances may be. Your audience needs you to prepare them for what’s to come. What pit traps and potholes did you fall into or false roads did you take? What potholes did you hit? Let them about those so they know what to expect ahead of time.

7. Give Them Your Answers

Now that you’ve been on that journey, you know how to get past the pit traps, the potholes, and how to spot the false roads. Share the secrets you discovered that help you do this.

8. Share the Results

What amazing changes came to your life because you went on this journey? What were you able to do or where were you able to go that you never thought possible?

Did the reality match the vision you’d had? If not, was it better or worse? Be honest with these things because your audience needs to trust you. If it didn’t meet your expectations but was worse, why are you recommending they go on that journey anyway? What are they going to gain by it?

Maybe the journey makes them tougher, stronger, or wiser. Those are worthwhile goals they may not have considered.

9. Paint a Picture of the Transformation

Your life changed once you learned to solve the problem and put that solution to work for you. It changed the person you were into the person you are today. You want to give your audience hope that their life can transform just like yours did. The more vivid a picture you paint, the easier it will be for people to imagine it and – more importantly – to want to go with you on that journey.

Storytelling Isn’t Just for Writers or Speakers

There are a million ways to tell stories: with art, music, dance, games, websites, graphic design, fabric and fashion design, architecture, product design…if you create it, you can use it to tell a story. Even your business tells a story. We help you make sure the story you’re telling shows your ideal audience why you’re the B.O.S.S. of your industry so you attract the right customers or clients for you.

Want Help Crafting Your Story Roadmap?

Just reach out to [email protected] and let’s book a free discovery call for you or join our next B.O.S.S. (Business of Strategic Storytelling) workshop.

Connecting with TEAP: A Path To Connections™ Success Story

Path To Connections Logo

In 2019, Path To Publishing doubled its revenue from 2018. We planned to do the same for 2020, if not quadruple it. Our annual event brought in 75% of our revenue, and we sold registrations for an entire year leading up to it. During the final board meeting of 2019, a unanimous decision was made to go all-in for the 2020 event, as well as our other interim programs.

By the first week of March 2020, we’d put 70% of our plans, efforts, and finances in place. We’d invested every cent of our previous year’s profit – with the exception of what we needed for company operations – into the event. Again, we left nothing on the table and gave ourselves no Plan B.

The entire crew was all aboard and, like previously mentioned, all in. Besides, 85% of our event attendees became long-term clients of Path To Publishing, forming our tribe that we refer to as Pathfinders.

We invested everything into helping individuals and business owners learn to use their stories to connect with their audiences, bringing awareness to their books and their brands, so they could achieve their own measure of success. We know our team of creative, business, and technical writers and publishing experts could offer event attendees what no one else could. Judging by the ticket sales, it seemed they knew it, too.

The strategy appeared to be paying off. The risk proved well worth it, with more registrations being sold in that short period of time than the entire year’s sales for past events. We anticipated an easy, productive, prosperous, and smooth year ahead.

An Unexpected Storm

And then along came COVID-19.

As we teach our fiction writers, great storytellers know the value of leaving something to the reader’s imagination.

When you pair in-person events with the pandemic, there’s little left to the imagination. Only a handful of registrants felt safe traveling. Their demands for ticket refunds came in left and right, but few refunds were granted to us on the deposits we’d already made. The show went on, leaving us in the red. Tides rolled in high and strong, leaving us doing anything but sailing smoothly ahead as we optimistically anticipated.

The financial damages tore through the hull of our ship. Water seeped in faster than our buckets could scoop it out until it became clear there weren’t enough buckets—or team members scooping—to keep us afloat. This state of affairs forced part of our crew to jump ship and swim to shore while it was still in sight, and we shipped the rest of them off in a dingy.

You know the saying, “Things get worse before they get better?” We thought the end of the pandemic marked the end of the worst. Instead, we found ourselves right in the eye of the storm.

Finding Our Lifesavers

That’s when organizations like SCORE, SBA, Nevada SBDC, J.P. Morgan Chase Advancing Black Pathways, WRMSDC (Western Regional Minority Supplier Development Council) and their initiatives such as their Corporate Ready Program and BGAP (Business Growth Acceleration Program), U.S. Black Chambers of Commerce, Amazon Black Business Accelerator Program, Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, and EmployNV began throwing us lifesavers, keeping us from capsizing.

The storms raging around us began letting up, still, we put a small crew together and held onto hope. Things got better. We developed clarity about our vision, but we grew tired both mentally and physically. During our final quarter of 2023, we questioned if it might be time to jump clear and let the ship sink.

As business owners, it’s important to learn to persevere through adversity, but it’s also important to learn when it makes sense (and cents) to walk away from something. Pet projects, events, initiatives, a branch of business, a service, a product line, or even the business itself, you must know when it’s time to walk away. Or, in our case, swim away. And we stood on the ledge, preparing ourselves to jump.

Helping Us Find Our Bearings

Then along came Clark County’s TEAP.

The Economic Assistance Program promised to provide grant funding, plus one-on-one technical assistance from SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) and ESOs (Entrepreneur Support Organizations). It offered to pluck us out of the water, put back on our captain’s hat, and help us find our bearings so we could chart a course toward our dreams, visions, and goals

Although we’re only a quarter way through the program, TEAP did just that…and then some.

“What I admire most, and what makes TEAP stand out among the many programs, cohorts, initiatives, and small business opportunities I’ve engaged in since the pandemic,” says Joylynn M. Ross, Founder of Path To Publishing and Co-founder of Path To Connections, a division serving corporations, government agencies, banks, nonprofits, and small business owners, “is that they constructed this program with the heart and mind of the small business owner in mind.”

Ross continued, “The 30-minute sessions with our SMEs and ESOs are ideal for busy business owners who—let’s face it—are typically stepping away from revenue in the form of the guaranteed money existing clients bring in, or a prospect with the likely potential of bringing in new revenue, when stepping away from their business. It’s easier, and a more realistic ask, to put on the calendar—and stay committed to—a 30-minute session with an expert over a spread-out time than to commit to two- or three-hour, and on some occasions, half-day sessions.”

“TEAP handpicked subject matter experts to match with the grantees based on our needs and business model. These perfect matches are possible thanks to the one-on-one introductory call the grantees receive with Kaitlyn Schwantes, the Grant and Project Manager and Business Advisor,” Ross stated. “And it’s not just one call. Kaitlyn encourages the grantees to do a monthly check-in, sharing the link to her scheduling calendar and inviting grantees to schedule a time to talk whenever they might have the need.”

Ross is not on this journey with TEAP alone. Co-founder of Path To Connections, Brandy M. Miller, is right there in the wheelhouse with her. Ross decided that two captains—be it a captain or co-captain— are better than one and would help maximize their time in the program.

“Juana Hart with J-Hart Communications has taken us from vison, idea, and concept with our C.A.P. (Contract and Application Preparedness) Program (TM) that fills in the gaps of funding, programs, and other opportunities and initiatives designed to connect small and disadvantaged businesses with the corporations, government agencies, banks and other entities who want to work with them,” Miller shared, “to fully fleshed out proposals that speak to each of our targeted audiences.”

Ross agreed, stating, “Juana requires the small business to do prep work before their calls with her, but what makes these sessions so impactful is that Juana does her prep work as well. When she gets on those calls with grantees, she’s ready to make it as effective and efficient as possible. And she has an onboarding system and process not to be rivaled!”

Miller added, “Joylynn and I did a lot of the groundwork for our vision before we started working with Juana, but she helped us to ask ourselves the right questions to get us to solidify that vision. Juana challenged us to ask ourselves, ‘Who’s the ideal client or clients?’ and then go beyond that to put the research into figuring out how to connect with them. I know we wouldn’t be as far ahead as we are without Juana’s guidance.”

Monica Coburn with Nevada Business Advisors is someone else who is holding the crew at Path To Publishing and Path To Connections™ accountable for staying on course.

“My sessions with Monica have eerily piggybacked off whatever professional advice, system, strategies, tactics, and techniques any of my other TEAP team members have shared,” Ross says. “But the common thread between them all is the connection between building relationships and achieving success.”

And Miller couldn’t agree more, as this
concept is right in alignment with the mission and goals of Path To Connections™.

“We’ve made ‘connect for success’ our motto at Path To Connections, because we’ve seen so often the way that forming strategic partnerships allows you to accelerate your success and amplify your impact,” Miller explained. “Nothing we’ve been able to do or accomplish came about when we worked in isolation. So many small business owners fail because they haven’t learned that lesson yet.”

This lesson was so impactful that Brandy and Joylynn were led to create an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for connecting and building relationships. They even wrote a blog titled “Building Relationships Vs. Bartering” to further emphasize the importance of connections and relationship building.

“Our TEAP team have not only equipped and empowered us with the names of people and organizations who could possibly and potentially help us achieve our goals,” Ross said, “but they have made personal introductions, which have led to face-to-face virtual and inperson meetings. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the power of connection is something our company has in common with TEAP. My heart tells me this was a divine . . .well . . . connection.”

If grantees weren’t already working with the Nevada SBDC, in addition to the team of experts and advisors they get access to with TEAP, they are also connected with a Nevada SBDC Business Development Advisor to assist during and after the program.

“In addition to having already been connected with Lisa Tolliver and Amanda Elliott, I’d also worked with my appointed Nevada SBDC Business Development Advisor, Brenda Bryant. And I still have access to Brenda’s expertise while involved in TEAP,” Ross stated. “With TEAP, small businesses aren’t just given an opportunity, they are given a team to help them maximize their opportunity and realize
their business goals.”

Clearly, connections helped get Path To Publishing back on course, and the strength of the connections formed with the help of TEAP
allows them to navigate the still choppy seas ahead.

“If I could only use two words to describe TEAP thus far, it would be access and connections,” Ross states. “They’ve provided us not only access to the funding and experts needed to grow, rise up, accelerate, scale, and soar (G.R.A.S.S.) in business, but that the grass (pun intended) truly is greener on the other side . . . of the storm.”

“While not even halfway through the program yet, the successes Path To Publishing, Path To Connections, and its C.A.P. Program (TM) experienced so far because of TEAP makes us eager to share our expertise and experiences with the next round of grantees— by hopefully becoming TEAP subject matter experts ourselves—so we can end up as next year’s success stories.”