True Storytelling - You must have timing

Principle 4 “You must have timing”* gives a new perspective of timing – and how to use timing when you create your story and strategy.

Before I was introduced to True Storytelling I have always seen timing as chronological. We divide our life into years, seasons, days, hours and minutes and so we move on with our lives.

Now I have just realized how many different aspects of time there actually is and it reveals the illusion that time is only chronological it is so much more.

We move in and out of certain timeframes. One story that you share with one person, portraits a different situation a different person that whom you are with another one.

We can almost stand still in one situation and the perception of it even though we have moved beyond it.

But what about timing when it comes to Entrepreneurship? I see it as such: The best story you can tell is when you have exact the solution that calls for exact the challenge the client has.

This is just in time, perfect match – between when the demand meets the order.

But somehow timing always require that you have gained the experience you needed in order to be able to support your stakeholder. And you can use this experience in a different context to create an optimum solution in another situation.

Or that the market itself has matured or changed to now need what you have. In one of my own projects, the market had not understood that it needed the solution, that we offered. So we had several stories to tell. We had first to tell, that there soon would come requirements where they needed to have a solution ready and then we had to tell that we had the solution they needed. But as no one actually had understood the first story they saw our solution as a nice to have more than a need to have.

We ended up closing the project as the market was not ready – we were before time.

A year later everybody had understood the first story and there was no need to tell it anymore, now there was a demand and the new story was more a focus on how the solution could help them in fast pace.

Going back to plot. The more precise your plot is drafted the more chance you will have to end up in a sweet spot situation. This is when your solution or expertise has exactly what the customer need.

I had a client that sold through a Pharmaceutical chain. This pharmaceutical chain had an idea of something they wished to test and my client had created exactly that solution for their product. It was a beautiful sweet spot and at the same time co-creation as both parties felt that they were innovating. The experience of the test made the relation grow into an even better partnership as they were on the same journey.

The more you can explore the market, the stakeholders, the tendencies, the more opportunities you might find to create the timing as well.

Sometimes it is not always the universal timing but also the readiness to create the timing. You may ask can you create timing and I dare to say that yes, you can. But for you to do so you need to catch the moment.

One of the ingredients in catching the moment is very fundamental. You need to show to the potential customer that you care, truly care about their situation. That you know their long term goal, what they focus on, what are their interest and how you can help them.

Today as a lot of things are being handled automatically, people are craving for the opposite: authenticity, genuine dialogue, sincerity - the timing for being personal in all business relations are optimum.

In my work with European Distributors I have asked them what is a successful Partnership with a manufacturer for you and they all answer exact the same thing.

That you are there. That no long how long time there has been between conversations or dialogues you are there. That you take the lead, initiate monthly calls and that you show pure interest. Not only for your own products but for us as a company.

When the Covid-19 situation occurred, our monthly call was not about how well did their sales go. That would have seemed so wrong and cold. No it was how they felt, what they went through. How did they cope and what was the situation in their country. I met them, where they were in their situation, so we could exchange feelings, worries, concerns and at the same time just show that we cared.

In the same period I also had a large project within an accelerator programme, where 20 young start-ups had enrolled. Even though we should do pitch-training, I found it more valuable to meet them, where they were and asked instead how they had used the time they suddenly had gotten as all their meetings were cancelled. It was remarkable to see that when you put focus on how you spent time, that you actually find out, how you can overcome and appreciate a changed situation and reverse it into something good even though it started from a very negative entry point.

When it comes to timing, we can only do one thing that will always bring us the best result – be in the here and now. Create out from our best possibilities. Take a task and do our very best to perform and create a result we can be proud of. When we know that we have given all that we had to give in a given task we cannot do more – and we have used our time to achieve the best possible outcome.

*The 7 principles are from the book True Storytelling, Seven Principles For An Ethical and Sustainable Change-Management Strategy by Jens Larsen, David M. Boje and Lena Bruun.

Anne-Marie Hall became a certified Trainer by the True Storytelling Institute in February 2021.

Amazing Hall helps Healthcare Entrepreneurs and Executives through a mixture of storytelling and strategic marketing guidance to navigate in their journey.