Story Systems

On this episode I speak to Roberta Ravella about finding joy in your story. Roberta is a friend and former client, and founder of 'The Joy Experiment' podcast. We discussed seeing value and significance in your story, and why joy really does matter in the telling of it! For more about my work head to https://wiseechoes.com/ Roberta's podcast is at https://thejoyexperiment.live/

Conflict is inherent in life and one of the tools in your storytelling toolbelt to keep people reading. We remember the conflicts that challenged us and forced us to grow. Including conflict in your story is a natural way to engage your audience and make them wonder what the outcome will be! (In this way, conflict is the flip side of suspense). This episode looks at simple ways to include conflict...

Whether you're primarily a verbal or written storyteller, you can never take the attention of your audience for granted. Every sentence should make them want to hear the next. Suspense is one of the tools in your storytelling toolkit to achieve this. By my book, intrigue and suspense are different levels of the same thing: making the reader curious to know what comes next. This episode offers prac...

It’s a bold step, putting your story out in front of relative strangers. I used to think the main story blocker was inspiration – knowing what to say or write. But I now think the key blocker is being seen. If you regularly set an intention to publish only to stall or second-guess yourself, this episode will offer specific pointers to help put your story out into the world. After all, if you don't...

We get writer's block when we've failed to sufficiently research story ideas. But in recent years, I've discovered that up-front and ongoing research is only part of the story... The flip side of the coin is developing the confidence to share your story on an ongoing basis. Sharing develops your requirement for ongoing conscious research, so you're never scrabbling around at the last minute for id...

Editing is the final human step in the story production process. Editing itself is a trap because a story can easily enter editing and never emerge on the other side! I originally covered editing back in 2021. This episode reshares that content, and provides some updated thoughts for 2026 (and beyond). The key editing question remains: how can we make our stories as interesting and well-written (o...

You've had a story idea. You've planned the story and selected a ' One Idea '. You've created a Spoken First Draft and got hold of the transcript. Now it's time to make sensible use of technology to grease the wheels of editing that transcript, which is what I call the 'AI Second Draft'. This is a refinement, not a generative step. You're leveraging technology to assemble a good quality second dra...

You've got a story you want to tell. You've planned it on a timeline ( see EP24 ). You've established a clear 'one idea' to finish your story on and bridge into your message ( see EP25 ). Now comes the hard part: writing it! Or does it? For a long time, my first step in the story production process was the 'Speedy First Draft'. But with recent developments in AI, the first step in assembling a sto...

Stories are how you show, rather than tell. You're telling your story to illuminate and showcase your message. But in practical terms, how do you bridge between story and content, without making the story feel forced or crowbarred in? Ideally, your audience will never notice the shift from story to content. The answer lies in the "One Idea" bridge concept. The One Idea is the final point of your s...

A small degree of planning goes a long way when you're telling a story. The main story planning technique I use with my clients is the 'timeline' technique, where you plan the sequence of events on a page, napkin, post-it note, back of an envelope, or whatever else you have to hand! (Maybe your arm?) The timeline allows you to select events in the telling that lead to a clear, single 'bridge' idea...

The final stage of the 'Hero's Journey' story structure is 'The Resolution,' in which the story is resolved. Of course, in real life, you're bang in the middle of your story. You don't know what the ending looks like! Which is why The Vision is such a powerful story prompt: it allows you to set an intention and communicate your mission to potential clients. Unlike previous Core Story prompts, the...

What would you say is the biggest U-Turn in understanding you've had about your market or audience? What's the biggest insight you've picked up that your ideal client needs to hear? And how did you discover that insight? Answering those questions is the basis of Core Story prompt #4: The Key Insight. The three ideas I discuss in this episode are the surprise, the experience, and the U-turn. Gettin...

Every archetypal story is characterised by a turning point in the middle called the "central crisis". As story is simply a metaphor for life, your life likely contains a central crisis, too! This central crisis serves as the basis for Core Story prompt #3: Self-Understanding. This is the story that in some respect broke you, but allowed you to understand yourself at the deepest possible level. Dee...

The second of our 'Core Story' prompts is the 'False Start'. For anyone pursuing meaningful work, finding your path is rarely straightforward. The 'False Start' prompt is designed to explore and share some of the journey you've been on. Chapters: 00:00: A sample of my False Starts! 17:09: Idea 1: External Influences 25:48: Idea 2: The Ugly Duckling 30:44: Idea 3: Marathon Runner Energy To get star...

Our first Core Story prompt mirrors 'the call' in the Hero's Journey story formula and asks: what really drives you? What questions do you try to solve in your work? And more importantly, WHY? The 'Wounding Event' prompt is designed to get raw and real with people as they enter your world. By answering this prompt you are saying: this is who I am, and these are the problems I am here on Earth to s...

This episode continues the discussion about story selection. I introduce the concept of the 'storytelling boomerang', which illustrates how to transition from problem-focused messaging to personal storytelling as the audience becomes more familiar with you. I also share my top five core story prompts to help you connect authentically with new prospects. These are: grounding principles, controlling...

Full disclosure: this episode was originally meant to be about story selection. The point I wanted to make was that story selection doesn't matter as much as people think it does, and often you should tell the first story that comes to mind... However, as this episode demonstrates, some stories can bully your content into unexpected corners! The story I share in this episode, about how I was recen...

Facebook ads have changed a fair bit over the years. (Not least because they're not called 'Facebook Ads' any more! In this episode, I offer a 15-year reflection on how Meta ads have changed, where the platform is headed, and how to use it to achieve the best results on a small budget. Chapters: 02:29: The Evolution of Facebook Ads 04:52: Understanding Meta's Advertising Landscape 07:37: The Impor...

Google Ads is perhaps the fastest way to drive qualified clicks into your story systems. I've managed ads for a LOT of different products and services over the years. I've seen what works, what doesn't, and what's changing. In Episode 15 of Story Systems, I discuss the importance of understanding the various components of Google Ads, the significance of identifying market demand (the 'bleeding nec...

Rob discusses the evolution and effectiveness of LinkedIn ads, sharing insights from his experiences from more than 15 years of ads management. Learn about the importance of lead quality, the pay-to-play nature of EVERY ad network, and the need to nurture leads with consistent and authentic storytelling. Prefer to read?  Download the PDF Companion Takeaways: LinkedIn ads have evolved, offerin...

No matter how good your storytelling, every business needs at least one consistent source of new leads. For many of the businesses I work with, that source is paid ads across Google, Meta, or LinkedIn. Which brings us to the 'Ads Manager' role. If your business relies on ads to generate new leads, the ads manager is one of the first roles to get help with. But what should you look for in a prospec...

Marketers used to live under the illusion that bigger profits could always be unlocked by uncovering the right combination of words. "If only I could create the ideal sales page, all by business problems would go away!" Perhaps I'm giving copywriters a hard time. After all, finding the right words to move people at an emotional level is still the foundation of every sale. For the words and stories...

There are two colossal, evergreen problems in marketing: Knowing what to do to move the sales needle Getting stuff done Even today, in the age of 'AI Will Do Everything' getting stuff done is as big a problem as ever. You can't work on any single part of your marketing without realising it comes attached to everything else. You can't edit a sales page without updating at least one email sequence,...

Doing  anything  in marketing always raises at least seven unexpected questions. For instance, what sequences need to go out? What landing pages will you need? What automation needs to happen when a contact clicks through to the landing page? Do you need a bump or upsell offer? Consequently, you can never disentangle the messaging from the technology, so you need somebody on your team to...

In the last episode, we introduced the role of the 'Conversation Partner': the person who helps to extract content and stories from the business owner. The next step in the content creation process is then to analyse the conversation and determine what will be used where. I call this person the 'Conversation Analyst'... Takeaways The conversation analyst's role is to distil meaning from informatio...