These stories inspire their teams and help to ‘sell’ their ideas. If you’re not convinced of the power of story telling and how it embodies a message that can be recalled later, then think of how many times you have been fascinated by a great story. You will recall the broad facts, the message, the purpose of the story and you will recall how it has made you think, act and feel differently. Stories told correctly inspire and can transform understanding into action.

Still not convinced? Then think of the times when you have been captivated by someone speaking, then rewind that conversation and listen to where they offered to ‘let me tell you a story about…..’

Great leaders know how to use stories to illustrate key points and sell their ideas.

If you want to become a persuasive motivator, then think of the type of story you are looking to tell depending on the different circumstances. Are you telling people about yourself? OR why you are there? Are you looking to teach someone something, or share your vision with them? Are you a leader with integrity and showing your own values in action? Or are you sympathising with the listener to demonstrate you understand what they are feeling?

Whatever the approach, learning to speak in public is one of the greatest gifts an education can give you. Hence, if you can’t speak in public, then treat this as a skills shortage and do something about, for example, join your local Toastmaster club.

If you’re looking for some quick key tips to keep in mind when you are telling your stories, then consider the following:

• Be authentic – Talk from your heart and do not fake emotion in a hope of gaining sympathy from your audience. A listener will see through this, and your story will be lost.

• Seek feedback from your audience – Watch the interaction of your audience and ensure that you do not ‘lose’ them. If your story is too long, it will probably be thought of as boring.

• Practice, practice, practice – Aim to be able to deliver the story without a script, or prompts. Practice in front of a mirror ore record yourself on camera and review your mannerisms.

• Create an experience – When you tell a story, you create that experience for the audience. Do not rely on your words, but the other senses as well to articulate the story. For example, if you talk about someone who was stood behind you, then point or turn behind you. If you’re talking about past and present, then use left and right movements to distinguish past from present. Move around and ‘work’ your stage. Show your listeners the picture you’re painting, don’t just tell them. Engage all five senses in every story: taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell. They’ll make your story come alive.

Have your say: Leave a comment below, or tell @Accentis what you think of storytelling or communication on Twitter. Follow us. Engage, Drive and Inspire

Monday brings something to the week that makes it all worthwhile. Another week to do something, to make a difference, to do what we do best. This is our philosophy of Monday. So why can’t it be yours?

Most treat Monday as the start of yet another week, part of the ‘same old’ and hence no different to the last. However, think of it as challenging, embrace each new opportunity and look to make a difference. Treat it as a new beginning, a way to work with the people you like and seek out those you respect or admire. Look in the usual places, your own contacts, the newspapers, but increasingly, web blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter or even Facebook. But do find someone that makes your Monday start with a Boom and seek out that inspiration.

Allow Monday to become a passionate day, use it (like any other day) to remember the cornerstones of your business, your culture, your values, the reason why you do what you do. Look to make a difference and relive those values, use them as a reason to get up out of bed.

Monday is just another day, so don’t let it become an ‘Oh, Monday’. Use it to seek out new opportunities and complete existing ones. Tackle the challenge and find a solution to make that difference.

That is what we do. We work for more than just financial reward. We work in the knowledge that we deliver benefits to our clients. We make a difference to them and this is where we derive our satisfaction.

So think, where do you derive yours?

Have your say: Leave a comment below, or tell @Accentis what you think about Monday morning blues on Twitter.

In an increasingly competitive world, you should aim to give your customer more value. Never fall into delivering functional benefits as they will know how you will bring benefit to their life and compare those benefits to that offered by others, instead involve them in something bigger.

Introduce them to the ‘And/And’ relationship and forget about the ‘And/Or’ relationship. For example, look how large brands have done it, Tesco have embraced this with their ‘every little helps’ slogan, ie, get what you want at the price you want, leaving more for the other things you want. The parent company of Asda, Wal-Mart says it brilliantly with ‘Save money, live better.’ Aston Martin say it perfectly with their slogan ‘Power, Beauty and Soul’. What are the commonalities of these three brands? They have put themselves at the heart of their customers.

Forget about leading with your product or service because someone else will do it, bigger, better and for more value. Instead listen to the customers and put yourself at the heart of what they want rather than putting the consumer at the heart of everything you do.

In practice this is very difficult to achieve because you have to become the customer and not just think like the customer, a construct that most companies are not comfortable with.

What are the fundamentals to make this happen? We look at the 6 E’s:

Enthusiasm – Be an irresistible force of nature.
Edginess – Don’t be stable in the centre, be quirky at the sides
Execution – Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast.
Enraged – Never accept normality or ‘it cant be done’.
Empathy – Care about people, and connect with them.
Emotion – Appeal to the mind, body and soul.

As neurologist Donald Calne once said “Reason leads to conclusions, emotion leads to action.”

Embrace your emotions

You may have heard the announcement that James Caan is to be replaced by Pall-Ex founder, Hilary Devey. But what made the BBC seek out Devey and invite her to join the exclusive panel and more importantly does she have what it takes to be a Dragon?

Hilary Devey certainly contrasts the former incumbent, James Caan. Where Caan has a polished, calm persona, Devey is more of a fire-cracker who says exactly what’s on her mind. But does she really have what it takes to be a mentor and investor?

Devey: The business women

Devey’s history is impressive. Having started Pall-Ex (palletised distribution network based in the UK) in 1996, she carved out a new business model in a male dominated industry. Doing this has certainly given her the experience to look for in a mentor; raising finance, potential customers not wanting to engage with the ‘newby’ and how to manage a growing company. She has also won a number of accolades in her own right too, such as the 2007 Ernst & Young UK Entrepreneur Award, Natwest Everywoman of the Year in 2008, Vitalise Business Woman of the Year twice – in 2004 and 2008 and Woman of Worth Businesswoman of the Year 2009

Devey: The investor

Devey is currently involved with two fast-growing young businesses: WOW Table Art and Pronto Sameday Couriers. This may not sound like much of a portfolio but at least it does indicate that Devey is willing to invest in areas outside of her expertise (albeit only once so far). But will this be an indication of her future investor potential? Only time will tell and for those entering the Den for the first time, we certainly hope Davey is there for the right reasons and not for self-publicity.

Devey: The philanthropist

Devey set up the innovative ‘Penny a Pallet’ scheme which donates money to her chosen charities on an ongoing basis and is also patron of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and The Stroke Association. Her previous TV appearances have included the Secret Millionaire where she gave away £145,000 to help families and businesses.

The Den

During tough economic times where banks are failing to invest in British small businesses, it is inspiring to see the publicity of Angel investments and how they can create and shape the next generation of UK entrepreneurs. These investors did it the hard way themselves first, they sold assets, lived a meager existence and worked tirelessly on their idea so remember, there is often more than one way to skin a cat.

Have your say: Leave a comment below, or tell @Accentis what you think about Hilary Devey’s appointment on Twitter. Follow us on twitter for the live commentary during the show use #dragonsden hashtag to follow the latest updates.

But why do they fail? Nearly all fail due to cashflow. It is a simple reason; more cash out than in means the start of the inevitable spiral to business failure. The reason? There are numerous, but ultimately it comes down to only one reason; there are not enough customers who want to buy your product or service at a given price.

If you don’t have enough customers, then start by simply asking why? Some questions to consider are:

• Is the product or service right?
• Does it satisfy a need?
• Is it priced correctly in the market?
• Do the customers know it exists?
• Is someone else doing it better than you?

Whether you realise it or not, these are the first steps towards market research and gaining an understanding of your market. But even if you do understand your market, then you need to ensure that you deliver what your customers want. In the world of start ups, it is often easier to take the last question and reverse it – ensuring that you do things better than everyone else.

One method to achieve this is to ‘Act Big, Act Small’. You should be as professional as the larger competitors, which means delivering what you say you can deliver, when you said you could deliver it by. Return emails and phone calls promptly and act upon requests. Ensure that you have a set of core values and act in accordance with them at all times. This gives customers the knowledge that you will act not according to a rulebook but in the right way. You will start to think on behalf of your customers and create a sense of trust that influences how customers are treated.

At the same time, you need to act small for your customers and purposely deliver a personalised service. Act and be creative, provide a flexible and spontaneous service to focus your effort on building long-term relationships.

In short, have a thin rulebook but strong values.

However, at a recent meeting a company director discussed being let down badly with some critically important items that were needed to compliment their products at a customer event. Asking why, it became apparent that the requests had been delegated and forgotten therefore hoping that they would just materialise when required.

So, how does one keep a finger on the pulse of what is happening when there are so many different things happening simultaneously? The answer is simple; it is all about the art of delegation.

The first hurdle is to acknowledge that you cannot do everything yourself and therefore you need to find the right people who are as good as or preferably better than you to deliver the task. Whether this is internally or externally resourced, doing so will free you up to concentrate on what you should be doing which is naturally, what you do best.

This does raise the question, who should you delegate to? Working with SMEs their leaders tend to be entrepreneurial, hence it is often best to delegate to those who are more managerially inclined rather than entrepreneurially inclined. But ensure that you allow those you delegate to, the flexibility to execute on your ideas rather than merely dictate and control how you want something to be done. This will then inspire them and also free up time for you to concentrate on the idea creation and effective leadership.

Ensure that they have the requisite knowledge and experience to execute on tasks and also be clear of your expectations including timetable.

Make sure they have something to gain in the process as this will motivate them further and ensure that you communicate fully and often, but beware of asking too much too often as this can be de-motivating if over used.

In summary if you want to delegate to others and have an effective outcome ensure you have communicated what you need in terms of:

• The outcome you expect of them (What)
• When you expect the task to be completed by (When)
• The level of authority they have to execute on the task (How)
• What they will get from this (Why)

Simply put, not many managers or owners have the clarity of vision. They do not have a goal of where they would like to be in 5 years time (not that 5 years is the obvious time horizon, but let’s use that to draw a line in the sand).

Ask yourself the simple question, “I’m running this business, but what am I trying to do?” I have seen numerous examples such as the following:

• Increasing turnover
• Increasing profits
• Increasing the number of customers
• Satisfy our customers
• Raise the profile of a social or environmental issue

Great, but how exactly do you do this? Do the managers/owners set the vision? Do they know exactly what there are delivering and to whom? Or is the company flailing around trying to meet the demands of everybody?

However good the reason is, the above examples are merely short-term goals. They never really answer the question “what am I trying to do and what business am I in to achieve this?
Hence, come back to basics, answer the question, what business are you really in? Not marketing or television, PR or consultancy. But what ‘business’ are you really in?

Take BMW for example, their stated Corporate Strategy (their ‘vision’ or statement of what they are there to achieve) is:

“Identifying potential and encouraging growth. Knowing what we represent. Recognising where our strengths lie and making the best use of every opportunity. Following a clear strategy. Goals we have attained are in essence the point of departure for new challenges. This is the philosophy that inspires every individual at the BMW Group. It influences the company’s structure and it plays a vital role in the decision-making process. Our corporate ethos finds its expression in the uncompromising pursuit of the superlative. The result? Outstanding brands with an unmistakable profile. Automobiles and motorcycles which fascinate people all over the world and which win legions of new admirers every day. And a degree of success which sees the BMW Group go from strength to strength.

With the three brands, BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the BMW Group has its sights set firmly on the premium sector of the international automobile market. To achieve its aims, the company knows how to deploy its strengths with an efficiency that is unmatched in the automotive industry. The strategic objective is clearly defined: The BMW Group is the leading provider of premium products and premium services for individual mobility.”

What you will notice is the lack of “we make cars and motorcycles”. In a nutshell, their vision is clear and there business is about creating ‘lifestyles’ by creating demand for premium products and services.

Now whilst this mantra may apply to any business, the skill in management is making these types of statement and then applying them to your business. It drives the business and becomes part of your leadership and you as leader are there to drive strategy and ensure execution. Remember though, this is not exhaustive and that strategy is not the destination, it is merely part of a journey. The idea of leadership is to set the agenda and steer the ship, to empower managers to manage and to ensure that the short term decisions are congruent with the longer term vision. But if you don’t have this vision, then how can you answer the short term decisions?

Hence, ask yourself the questions, “what business am I really in and what am I am doing to lead the team towards the vision?”