Here are some seven free goodies for you and your ministry from the work of Sean Buvala. (Who is Sean? See below, after the free goodies.)
“Sean (Buvala) promised me that when he was finished with the day, our people would have practical skills to begin their own story telling. Sean was right. Not only did he give folks practical strategies for forming stories he captivated and inspired us all with stories of his own.”
-Christopher Ashby, Youth Ministry Office, Diocese of Baltimore
1. Free 30 session storytelling course via Email. Use the form (with the red arrows) directly below!
Yep. Free. Lessons arrive once a week to your Email box. Your information is private with us. We don’t spam and we don’t help others spam. AND>>> Be sure that once you register that you CONFIRM your registration or you won’t get anything. Check your Email box and click the link to confirm.
2. Free Video: “Gestures for Public Speaking: Three Steps”
3. Free Article: “How to Get Teenage Guys to Talk.” Written for youth workers: daddyteller.com/guytalk
4. Free Article: “Listening Sideways.” About how some teens listen to storytelling. An experience from one of the “bazillion” church camps where I have been the main speaker.
8. Free Coaching. Oh, good. You read this far down the page. How about a free 20-minute phone coaching from Sean Buvala? We can talk about any aspect of your public speaking, sacred storytelling or youth ministry concern. Pick the brain of a youth worker, ministry and trainer with more than two decades of experience? How? If you are interested in working with Sean, please drop an Email to sean@storyteller.net and include the subject line of: “youth ministry coaching” to reserve your spot. Most free coaching takes place on Monday or Friday. You will need to call a “623″ (Arizona) area code for this offer- at your expense, if any. Does anyone pay long-distance anymore? Limited to the first 20 responders.
About Sean Buvala.
Sean Buvala is a full-time, professional storyteller, the author of “DaddyTeller“, and a veteran of youth ministry who presents workshops and training throughout the United States. .
“Sean (Buvala) promised me that when he was finished with the day, our people would have practical skills to begin their own story telling. Sean was right. Not only did he give folks practical strategies for forming stories he captivated and inspired us all with stories of his own.”
-Christopher Ashby, Youth Ministry Office, Diocese of Baltimore
Posted 1 week, 4 days ago at 10:59 pm. Add a comment
Your nonprofit organization will grow both the financial bottom line and staff satisfaction when you incorporate storytelling into your organization’s internal communications.
As a leader of a nonprofit organization, it might be easy for individual staff and volunteers to be focused just on those who receive the services of the organization. However, does your group remember to talk to each other about your own work? Nonprofit storytelling is not just for the outside customers, it is for our very own staff members.
Stories can inspire your staff, improve staff retention and grow job satisfaction. You will see greater nonprofit fundraising. In turn, a happy organization generates deeper satisfaction among clients and benefactors.
Learn to use the power of nonprofit storytelling techniques in your business communications with these five tips:
1. Leaders should know and speak the stories of everyday successes.
Do your nonprofit’s leaders only speak to everyone when there is a problem? Stories are everywhere in an organization and they can be easy to find. I teach several methods for story gathering, but whatever method you choose to use, do something to solicit and find the stories of your company. When using storytelling for nonprofit organizations, the leaders must be the first to demonstrate this communication technique and they should seek to do so for every level of staff.
2. At least once a calendar quarter, have a single department share in-depth stories about their role in the organization.
Are your staff meetings limited to cursory sharing of agendas?
My wife is a gardener. Among other things, I have learned from her is that plants not only need the surface watering on a regular basis, but that they benefit from a “deep” watering occasionally. Much like these plants, your company needs to be “deep” in sharing their stories.
I have been on staff for many nonprofits. In our busyness, our staff meetings were reduced to around-the-table updating, doing not much more than checking in. To grow your staff cohesion, make a monthly gathering where one department shares both the success and challenge stories. As the deep watering that my gardener wife does for her trees, let these monthly or quarterly gatherings feed the roots of the entire organization.
3. Be sure volunteer training includes stories from other volunteers.
Do you assume your volunteers (or those seeking nonprofit jobs) are present because they really understand your group? As a nonprofit leader, I have seen how quickly some volunteers can burn out, especially in jobs requiring a great deal of face-to-face interaction. It is easy to assume that volunteers completely understand your mission statement. Of course, that is false. When your volunteers know the joys, challenges and reasonable expectations of your group, they will be more inspired to stay longer with your group. Mixing in a generous portion of stories (fun and serious) to your training will have long-term benefits.
4. Invite, rather than require, staff to create stories of the organization.
Mandatory story sharing results in low quality stories. Gathering stories is a natural process but sometimes your staff needs to be reminded how to do so. Rather than mandate to a group, teach them skills. Your stories will be much more genuine as they grow out of desire to share and not a requirement to meet a quota.
5. Never be afraid of negative stories.
I have found that negative stories (complaints) are a more effective gauge of staff satisfaction or job issues than any comment box will ever be.
In any organization there will be moments of success and sometimes challenge. Learn to listen carefully to all stories you hear. What are the trends and patterns? Before a staff issue becomes a major problem, it first appears as a few whispers. Are you listening to these stories? In thinking about your own work history, what problems might have been avoided if management had been carefully listening rather than defending or suppressing issues?
Strive to implement these “internal customer” tips for the health of your nonprofit group. Thinking of starting a nonprofit organization? Make these steps an integral part of your initial plans.
*** K. Sean Buvala is a national leader in the communication skill of storytelling for business. An award-winning veteran of nearly two decades in storytelling, he uses his experience in the non-profit industry to help you grow your bottom line and increase staff satisfaction. His website for nonprofit organizations is at http://www.getmorefunding.com . For daily tips, follow him at Twitter @storyteller .
Knowing storytelling techniques is not a “fluffy” or soft skill for your business. Just as your accountant needs to have strong skills in numbers and laws, so must all your staff and volunteers learn storytelling, both creating and listening.
As good accounting can be a barometer about your company so does storytelling give you a picture of your organization’s health. Like the ledger, business storytelling reveals truth about your organization. No matter if your company has just a single entrepreneur or a payroll of thousands, pay attention to these revelations.
1. Storytelling reveals what your customers really think. Gathering customer stories tells you what is truly happening. No matter what organizational myth you might have, the real truth comes from your customers. There is a reason the “Emperor’s New Clothes” is such a popular story for so many generations. Are you going to be caught naked someday because you did not truly listen to your client’s real stories?
2. Storytelling reveals who is really paying attention. Your company should make it a point to conduct regular sessions of story gathering from employees and management. Processes like my “Intentionality”(tm) activity help anyone in any company create stories about everyday experiences. Like a Board that cannot tell you about the company ledger, be very afraid of any upper management that never has new stories of the company. Stories of how the powerful are deposed are very common in world folktales. Is your CEO paying attention- even if the CEO and the janitor are the same person in your small business?
3. Storytelling reveals your organization’s ability to adapt to change. For survival, your ledger needs to show some reserve funds for your metaphorical “rainy day.” So, too, stories of change show how your company has the readiness and acceptance of the inevitable shifts in the market. Are you prepared for everything to change tomorrow? Are you stuck in the same old ways? Can you make a list, right now, of the stories that show how your nonprofit or business has adapted to change? You do not have past stories of change management and adaptability in your company? You are in for a rough future.
Corporate stories and skills in business storytelling, yes even storytelling for financial advisors, are as valuable to your group as good accounting. Are you giving storytelling the attention it deserves?
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago at 12:14 pm. Add a comment
Episode Five: “The Elevator Speech is Dead”
Sean talks this week about the archaic concept of the elevator speech. The elevator speech: when you learn a singular “speech” to talk about your business with new clients and customers. Rather, Sean talks about learning the power of your story to be used in different time frames. Sean also tells you the obscure Grimm tale of “Not Much.” You’ll also hear from a listener who called in to tell us his reaction to these podcasts.
Listen in: Episode Five
Posted 10 months, 1 week ago at 4:06 pm. 4 comments
Non Profit Leaders: Do your volunteers know your story?
Yesterday, on my way into the grocery store, a woman sitting at “animal rescue” table asked me if I would like to donate to their rescue shelter. As I made my way into the store, I had both the time and the inclination to listen to her ask for a donation as my family has been connected to the work of rescue shelters for more than six years. (You can see the website at 3lostdogs.com.) As well, we have three “rescued” shelter dogs in our life. So, I am open to the idea that these volunteers were promoting. I also know that these impromptu tables are an important non profit funding source.
I asked her, “What does your shelter do?” The volunteer was not ready to answer my question. She did not know the story of the shelter she was representing. Her only answer was, “We do the adoptions at the (name of pet store).” Outside of that, she did not know what to say.
So, unlike most people passing her table, I stopped long enough to actually talk to her. I was a prime-candidate to donate money to her cause. However, she had not been trained in how to talk to potential donors. Either she did not know the story of her group or she had not been trained to speak about her organization.
This, of course, is not her fault. Her lack of preparedness was the fault of the director of her non-profit organization. It is possible that she had been trained on where to find the table that she needed, what to do with the money she collected and where to turn in the forms at the end of her shift. She was not trained in talking about the mission of her organization.
How about your volunteers and employees? Have they been trained to tell both their story of why they volunteer as well as the story of your organization? I am not talking about elevator speeches here. These elevator speeches, also know as unique selling points, are static anecdotes used to snare others. Rather, knowing the multiple stories of your organizations and how to adapt them to both casual and formal situations is a key skill for your staff, both volunteer and paid.
Here are three steps you need to follow to prepare your staff to use the power of story in your non-profit organization.
1. Collect the stories of your group.
There are a variety of techniques available to aid any organization in the collection of their stories. However, the best method is the oldest method: listen. Train your staff to think about stories. Ask them to think: what is happening/has happened that others need to know about? Find a way to share these stories at regular gatherings. Never make story sharing mandatory in any setting. Although many trainers advocate this, the pressure of “I must have a story” results in poor stories shared when your staff is under pressure to come up with anything. Stories should always be gathered in an organic or grass-roots process.
2. Train staff in the essential skills (the how-to) of storytelling.
The best investment you can make in your organization’s future is to enlist the help of an experienced storytelling coach to teach your staff and volunteers to tell stories. You want your team to be able to know and tell your core or essential stories in a variety of time formats. For example, the volunteer I encountered outside the grocery store might have known the 20-minute story of their organization but had not been trained to tell it to me in a two-minute setting. She would need to know both the long and short versions. You also want your team to be able to use stories as frames for presentations that require quantities of data and shared information. Teach storytelling techniques first and save the high-level theories of storytelling for advanced classes once your staff has had success with storytelling.
3. All non-profit leadership must use stories at every gathering.
In every public speaking setting, from formal board meetings to casual walk-arounds, the leadership of the organization must fully immerse themselves in the use of story. Despite the glut of storytelling-for-business consultants available, the idea of storytelling for adults in a business setting remains challenging for many. Your leadership team, from the top on down, must clearly demonstrate the importance of story in all settings.
In even good economic times, a non-profit organization must have a strong command of their past, present and future stories. Your potential donors are interested in what their money can do in your organization, assuming your mission aligns with their values. Are your volunteers ready to speak your mission statement, not in overused mission “statement-eese,” but rather in the geniune stories of your group’s daily experiences?
Expressing your organization’s story should be a skill for all of your staff. It is a requirement for business communication today. Consider everyone in your organization to be public speakers. Your experiences, expressed in story, are the unique features of your group. Be sure your donors can understand them.
I did explain to the volunteer outside the grocery store about my family’s history and thanked her for the good work she was promoting in defense of abandoned animals. Her work was important and I hope she had some success in collecting funds for their rescue project. However, I knew that she was unprepared for real conversations about the work and mission of her group. I hope that the leadership of her group soon gets a chance to teach their staff to tell the real stories of the challenges and successes of their charity.
Good stories, willing listeners and a staff trained in public speaking skills are tangible assets for every non-profit group must have.
