Global Leaders Share Insights on Building Successful Businesses Through The Power of Storytelling
Great storytelling—arguably the most underrated skill in business—can make the difference between someone paying attention to you or simply tuning out. In five years of programming, we have continued to advocate that the most powerful way to connect customers, employees, vendors, and investors to your products or services is through storytelling. For this reason, our AWEC Virtual Leadership Summit, held in mid-October, hosted a series of masterclasses, workshop-style learning labs and networking activities all centered around the theme ‘Once Upon a Business...Telling Your Story’.
During the Summit, Fellows had the opportunity to learn from global leaders and industry experts who stressed the importance of telling their business stories and learning the art of crafting a compelling story.
Telling My Business Story!
Along with the chance to network and connect with their peers, Program Advisors, Mentors, and AWEC staff, Cohort 5 Fellows also relished the opportunity to apply their learning on social media. In a short but meaningful campaign, these trailblazers were encouraged to share their stories and engage with online audiences on various social media platforms. Using the hashtags #awecsummit #TellingMyStory, Fellows shared their business journeys and experiences, publically opening up about the challenges and failures they have overcome.
Among the highlights were the Masterclasses and Business Dialogues led by industry experts covering important topics like The Art and Science of Marketing, Storytelling for Entrepreneurs, and Establishing Brand Identity. The closing keynote speech was delivered by AWEC Alumna, Abimbola Adebakin, who has been recognized locally and globally for her work as a Top 20 finalist for the 2022 Africa’s Business Heroes Awards, the 2022 JBS Global Entrepreneur of the Year, a winner of the 2021 Bayer Foundation Empowerment Award, a recipient of the 2021 Google Black Founders Fund, and the winner of the popular vote for the 2021 Naija Person of the Year.
Below is a recap of the Summit with some key takeaways from each session for you to apply to your business.
Successful Brands Cultivate Deeper Connections With Their Customers
In the Masterclass on The Art and Science of Marketing for SMEs, Mzamo Masito, Chief Marketing Officer of Google Africa reminded Fellows that insights for building great products and services only come from going out into the market, meeting and having discussions with customers about how and why they use your products. No one can learn this from sitting in an office. “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world!” - John Le Carre
Here are three strategies that African women entrepreneurs can use to connect with their customers:
Get to know and understand the Marketing Matrix: The term often refers to a common classification that began as the four Ps: product, price, placement, and promotion. You can use the marketing matrix to help you understand what your product or service can offer to your customers and build a successful product offering.
Connect with your customers emotionally: Customers are no longer interested in price wars but in emotional connections. What feelings/emotions motivate your customer to seek out your product/service? Leverage the Three Methods of Persuasion to understand how to persuade people to buy your product or use your service.
Use a multi-medium communications approach: Text-heavy content on websites and in marketing material can cause readers to tune out. Speak the language of your audience by using a variety of mediums - this could be a combination of audio, text, video, voice and vernacular.
Building A Brand is Not The Same As Running Advertising Campaigns
In their masterclass on Establishing a Brand Identity, Former CEO and Chairman Emeritus of Ogilvy (US), Shelly Lazarus and Nadja Bellan-White, Global Chief Marketing Officer of Vice Media Group both shared ways in which to stress test and build a socially conscious brand. Shelly challenged the entrepreneurs in the room to litmus test their own customer services. The experience alone will help you to identify areas that require improvement.
Here are three strategies to establishing a brand identity;
Make your brand efficient: Start by assessing your current brand positioning and spend time surveying your customers to understand why they interact with your products and services. Leverage these insights to further reinforce your brand values.
Let your brand convey trust: Brand trust is the ultimate currency as customers only buy from brands that they trust. Factors entrepreneurs should consider include being transparent, authentic and delivering excellent value and service consistently.
Try moving your brand across categories: This is a fun exercise for any entrepreneur and their team to test the strength of their brand and imagine what it would look like in another category. For example: what would Mercedes-Benz AG look like as a clothing line, or what would McDonald's look like as a hotel? Do the same for your brand, and see what answers you come up with.
Nadja Bellan-White impressed upon the need for business brands to be a force for good and pointed out that “Some brands become change agents and transform entire countries.”
She gave examples of companies that have been transforming lives on the continent with great intention, including Coca Cola, Dangote, Safaricom and MTN, to name a few.
Here are some principles that successful brands have used to establish loyalty and trust in Africa;
Identify the values of your customers: As an entrepreneur, it is crucial that you build relationships with them and align your brand accordingly.
Focus on inclusion: The most successful companies on the continent make sure inclusion is at the center of who they are. They build a community presence in the space where their customers are.
Build credibility within the community: Become synonymous with the heart of a country. Spend time getting to know the community you serve. Speak the local language, understand their challenges and seek to find ways to solve those challenges by building relationships.
The Power of Business Storytelling
One of the biggest highlights for us at AWEC is when an Alumna chooses to give back to AWEC by sharing her knowledge with the community. AWEC Alumna, Uju Obuekwe, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Brand Impact Coaching led our Learning Lab on Storytelling for Entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur and leader, you will often find yourself acting as a storyteller. This could be communicating who you are, sharing knowledge, fostering collaboration, or transmitting values.
There are a number of different archetypes, components and facets that storytelling encompasses. Which one you use at any given time is dependent on your audience. Here are Uju’s tips on crafting stories when pitching to investors:
Industry Story: Curate a story that explores company and industry changes and include where and how your company fits in. This is typically how an investor views the world.
Customer Story: Use this story type to convey how customers find and experience your product. Stories about real people make a product and service more tangible.
Hero Founder: It’s important when using this story type to establish and convey why you’re special and how you will bring something new to the world. How/when did you come up with the idea? This story will help to humanize you and the idea.
Company Journey to Insights: This story allows you to share the pivots and learnings of your company that got you to where you are currently. Describe the key learnings that have led you to the insights that are the foundation of your current and future business offerings.
Seeing Africa Through Opportunity Lenses
Another AWEC Alumnae, Abimbola Adebakin, CEO of Advantage Health Africa (AHA), stopped by to share her business story in the closing keynote speech.
Africa is a hotbed for the sale of counterfeit medicine and is accountable for thousands of tragic deaths. The proliferation of fake medicines in Africa is a public health crisis, and it is for this reason that Abimbola launched her healthcare company, Advantage Health Africa, which uses technology to provide affordable and accessible healthcare to the last mile clients.
Abimbola admitted that while the company has received global awards and recognition, the journey has been tough but rewarding. Here are three key lessons she learnt along the way:
Work on your business clarity: Abimbola started by painting a picture of how she started the business from a problem and built it out with no structures. AWEC helped her gain clarity and build structure as she progressed.
Ensure you have enough cash to run the business: In the beginning, the company was always running out of cash, so Abimbola offered training and consulting services on the side, which helped her fund the business.
Set up the right technology: In building a new company, technology can be a huge challenge. It is important that entrepreneurs know what it is they want and ensure they find the right people to help them build their vision.
A Decision to Bet on African Women Business Owners
In his closing remarks, Chris Caine, AWEC Executive Sponsor and President of The Center for Global Enterprise (CGE), noted that running a business could be likened to a running marathon - both require passion, commitment, dedication and resilience.
He also spoke about AWEC’s own origin story and how the program was created because the founding team believed in people and specifically, in African women business owners. Acknowledging the midpoint of the program, Chris encouraged the entrepreneurs not to give up, to stay committed to the course and to cross the AWEC finish line.
Congratulations to all our Cohort 5 Fellows on completing the first half of the AWEC program. Here’s to an exciting second half, full of learning, networking, and business growth!