Storytelling Tactics for Entrepreneur Success

In this illuminating episode, Jim James interviews Steve Rawling, creator of the Storyteller Tactics card deck, on powerful storytelling techniques for entrepreneurs. Steve shares how he successfully raised over £100,000 on Kickstarter in just 147 minutes using strategic storytelling. Drawing from his 20-year BBC journalism career, Steve reveals practical frameworks that help entrepreneurs craft compelling narratives without relying on complex hero journeys.

Topics Covered:

• 00:48 - Steve's journey from BBC journalist to storytelling expert
• 05:13 - Making storytelling accessible with card-based tactics
• 15:42 - The "Movie Time" framework: action, emotion, and meaning
• 26:21 - Kickstarter success through serialized storytelling
• 36:13 - The importance of nurturing existing client relationships

Steve's innovative "Movie Time" approach demonstrates that effective business storytelling doesn't require elaborate narratives—just authentic moments that connect emotionally with your audience. 

Listeners can access a free starter pack of storytelling cards at pipdecks.com.

https://pipdecks.com/pages/free-pdf-download#download-teaser

#StorytellingMarketing #EntrepreneurNarrative #BusinessGrowth

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Chapters

• 0:00 00:00 Introduction to Kickstarter Success
• 6:00 The Importance of Accessible Storytelling
• 9:02 Steve Rawling's Background in Storytelling
• 12:11 Curiosity as a Driving Force
• 13:51 [Ad] Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AI
• 14:38 (Cont.) Curiosity as a Driving Force
• 15:47 Practical Storytelling Frameworks
• 18:43 Engaging Your Audience Through Listening
• 24:32 Building a Story Bank
• 26:56 Kickstarter Success: The Soap Opera Approach
• 29:15 Creating Engaging Content with Structure
• 31:36 Authenticity in Storytelling
• 33:44 Learning from Entrepreneurial Challenges
• 36:22 The Value of Repeat Business
• 38:28 Free Starter Pack and Resources
• 2:47:46 The Birth of Storytelling Cards

Transcript

Jim James (00:01)
Kickstarter can be an amazing source of startup capital, but there are literally thousands of other entrepreneurs competing for your money. So how do you get noticed? Well, my guest today raised over $100,000 in a very short amount of time. I'm not going to tell you how quickly because he's going to tell us that. And he's built an amazing business and he's going to share with us how he has used Kickstarter, but also the other marketing strategies that he's built. And he's also going to tell us about

our story and how we can tell better stories. Steve Rawling is joining us just from the Northeast of England. Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Rawling (00:37)
Jim, thank you very much for having me on.

Jim James (00:39)
It's my pleasure. So Steve, tell us about the storytelling and what you've launched on Kickstarter and how you've done it.

Steve Rawling (00:48)
So we had an idea. basically about four years ago, I'm sitting there in the middle of lockdown, delivering a lot of content over Zoom and realizing that, you know what, actually I keep losing my own training material. I've got PDFs, I've got slide decks and they're not organized in any way. And I'm having to rewrite stuff that's already there because I can't find it on my own computer. It's driving me crazy. I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have an index file of like, well, I could just go through and pull out the

the technique or the card I need in that setting, because I've got them organized as a little set of cards. Then I thought, well, if that's useful for me, that could be useful for other people. So I start work on how do I systemize the storytelling training I do with people into a way that's easier to access and has a flow. And I've written a book before, but I thought, no, I actually want to do cards. And as I'm literally mapping out how those cards would organize themselves into a deck,

story arcs, customer focus, character cards, all that kind of thing. As I'm mapping that out, I got a call from somebody I'd worked with a few years earlier who said, I produce sets of training cards for professionals. I'd like to do a set of storytelling cards. Can you help? And I'm going, I literally started on this already. Literally within about a week of the call. Yeah, I'm already working on this. So anyway, that started a conversation which became a project

which about, you know, six months later, we've got a deck of 54 cards, all basically, you may have seen them on YouTube or Instagram, the Storyteller Tactics card deck. So we've got this deck of cards, and now we need to go to market. Okay, so yes, you can see them on the screen there. There's some, okay, these are the basic teaching cards, and we're ready to go to market, and we decide to go to Kickstarter. But of course, as you said, it's a very busy

place Kickstarter. And so we thought, well, actually, what we'll do is we'll in the run up to launching on Kickstarter, we're going to send out a series of emails to people who we think might be interested in these cards. And we're going to treat it like a little soap opera. Because we are selling storytelling advice, we better be telling a good story. And so we basically designed and I then I wrote

a program of about 20 episodes of a little soap opera. And it was great. It was really enjoyable.

Jim James (03:23)
Well, Steve, let's hear about that, but we've gone straight into the success and people can find these by the way at newthinking.tools. And for everyone that's being kind of bombarded by all the storytelling frameworks and the podcasts and the books about storytelling, what's great about what Steve Rawling has produced is it's really accessible information because each one is like a card size, right? And you've got, for example, downfall Rolls-Royce moment, you've got cut to the chase, three conflicts.

Steve Rawling (03:28)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Mmm. Mmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Jim James (03:52)
And we're to talk about what some of those are and some of those storytelling techniques that we can

do. But also Steve has got a free trial pack, which he's going to give a link to at the end of the show. So do stick around because it's amazing. Steve.

Steve Rawling (04:02)
Yes, that's right.

Hmm. Yes, so

that basically, those are five PDF versions of the cards that you can basically start playing with right away, start using them right away. And they're probably the five, there are 50 cards, 54 cards in the deck. These are the kind of the five most immediately useful ones you can have. And so you can get started right away, no cost, just get in there and start, look at the card, go, okay, well, there's the story I need, there's the message I need to get across.

This is the way of turning that message into a story.

Jim James (04:39)
And I think that's wonderful because, you know, there's that old thing that, you know, every point has a story and every story has a point, right? And that the challenge with that is that most of the frameworks for telling a story are linear in their approach, right? So most of the models that you, it says you do start here and you've got a story arc and so on. But you might say, you know, I want to get there, but I don't want to start from here, right? So what you've got is an amazingly flexible

Steve Rawling (04:46)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Hmm

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Jim James (05:08)
way for an Entrepreneur

that may not be super creative or maybe is struggling, have a block. You've made it so accessible, Steve, for someone to pick up a card and it can either prompt them with one story or lead them through a sequence. I'm going to talk about some of the different cards in a while.

Steve Rawling (05:13)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Yep.

Yes. Yeah, Yes. Yeah.

I've always been a little bit hesitant and a bit suspicious of 12 stage heroes journeys and resist, know, the hero refuses the call to adventure, the Joseph Campbell model, the hero refuses the call to adventure and goes into the underworld. And I'm thinking, hang on a second. I'm trying to sell cheese. I'm a cheese maker. I'm trying to sell cheese.

Where is the hero refusing the call to adventure? How is that helping me? And it's not, right? And that, so you don't need Hollywood level storytelling most of the time. What you need is little moments of, here's something that happened to this person in this moment here. And little moment stories, these are for example, stories that act as social proof. And that's what you need. You don't.

Jim James (05:50)
Hahaha!

And I think.

Steve Rawling (06:17)
always need it's nice to know your your longer journey story arc it's good to know that and you might use it but i think at 70 80 percent of the time you just need little example stories

Jim James (06:30)
Steve, I think that's wonderful. The reason I'm laughing is because this idea that you've gone through some gargantuan challenge and that that leads you to being in the meeting creates a lot of anxiety and stress, but also you kind of over egg it. But also if you've got staff, for example, working for you and you need to give them an introduction, you know, the ability to open a conversation with a client or a prospect or something, your story cards, your story decks,

Steve Rawling (06:44)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yes.

Hmm.

Jim James (06:59)
will make it so accessible for

them as well without having to go through long, long journeys. Steve, let's just back up just a little bit in terms of you, because we will go into some examples of what stories people can use. And, you know, this is also going to be part of this free trial deck that everyone can get. But before that, let's just set some context about you. You know, who are you?

Steve Rawling (07:07)
Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm.

Jim James (07:27)
Steve Rawling based in Berry, just north of Manchester, to be a storytelling expert. Just tell us a little bit about your background.

Steve Rawling (07:32)
Mm-hmm.

So I started my career as a journalist when I was 21, 22 years old. And very lucky, I managed to get a job in BBC television news by my mid 20s and then spent 20 years in television news. And it's an incredibly fast turnaround. So every single day of my working life, I would be assessing and pitching and telling dozens of stories a day

some you be figuring out, filtering out stories that didn't work, picking the ones that might work and telling the ones that did work. And that sort of process happened. Oh gosh, so if you think about the number of story assessments I was making, is that a good story or not? Thousands of them every single year. But not only me by myself, surrounded by a team of actually very good journalists based in Manchester. And so you would be putting a story idea out there and then

watching how they reacted and sometimes they'd be going, that's fantastic, what a great story. And other times it's, no, that's not, it's boring. What I found really frustrating as a young journalist and early in my career was, and I was embarrassed to ask, I was thinking, well, why is that a story and that not a story? And I don't know the answer and I don't, these guys know the answer, but they're not telling me and nobody's written it down. It's just they,

if they just react emotionally, someone, that's a great story or, okay. But there's nothing. So that's a gut instinct, gut reaction. And so as you develop in your career, this is in any walk of life, as you develop in your career, you're training your gut so that your instincts are telling you what's good and what's bad. And that's why lockdown is a disaster for young people because they didn't get to watch other people in the workplace and they don't train their guts by sitting on a Zoom call. Okay, by the by.

So by 10 years in, I thought, well, actually, you know what? can do this. My gut is as good as yours now. I know what's a story and what's not. But I still don't know why.

Then about 10 years in, I was asked to work with some charities and to help them tell better stories about their work so that we could get better stories on our programme. So, okay, I'll do that. And I then turned for the first time ever to the theory of storytelling. So that's when, for the first time, I looked at a story arc. Thought, that's interesting. Three act play, that's interesting. Character development, that's interesting. Never done any of this before in journalism, never.

Jim James (09:59)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Rawling (10:13)
So I just got so hooked on this stuff. Absolutely. I've got a bookshelf beside me. It's like stacked with stuff about factual storytelling, fictional storytelling, psychology, advertising. Absolutely fascinating. And start to then go, right, here's something I can use and start to apply this in a training situation or apply this in a coaching situation and see how it goes down. And some of it works and some of it doesn't. And you try again and try again.

So basically, then spent the next 10 years playing with those ideas, finally decided to go it alone and get out of journalism, because it was a bit repetitive, and say, right, I'm now a consultant. And so again, spend many, many thousands of hours in training rooms, trying stuff out, seeing if it works, seeing what works, seeing what doesn't, and developing to the point where, as I said, four years ago in lockdown, I'm sitting there thinking, I've got this

this wealth of stuff I know that works, but I need to organize it in a way that is useful to me and useful to other people. So yeah, it's the emotion here, I guess, if you're looking for what's the emotional driver here for me as a character, I'm massively curious. Curiosity for me is like, it's like a little buzz I get from being curious. And I like to please other people.

I'm a very agreeable person. Like people to like me, like to, you I'm a people pleaser. So how that translates is when I'm talking to a client, say, engineers, I love working with engineers because they think they can't tell stories. So I'm talking to an engineering client and I'll ask him about his work and he'll tell me something and I have to dig a bit deeper and then he'll tell, and I go a bit deeper. And eventually within minutes, I can get to a stage where I can tell his story back to him.

in a way that makes him go, yes, that's what I've been trying to say. And I go, ah, so I love that feeling. That's what drives me. And I've been doing it now for 10 years. And as I say, I love engineers. I love working with engineers because they think they can't tell stories. Got to tell a little story. OK, so first time ever in Estonia. I went to Estonia the first time about seven, eight years ago as a trainer. And I'm working in a room full of Estonian business

Jim James (12:30)
Yeah.

Steve Rawling (12:41)
people and have you ever been to Estonia or have any Estonia? Okay. Well, well they kind of, yeah. Well they kind of pride themselves on being very down to earth, very practical, not remotely extroverts at all, the opposite. In fact, there, you know, there's Italians and Irish people over here and there's Estonians are right over here. Okay. And so I'm talking to this group of Estonians about the importance of emotion in story.

Jim James (12:44)
No, I haven't. I had a client in Estonia actually, yeah, helping her with her story funnily enough.

Steve Rawling (13:09)
So I just told you my emotional driver is curiosity. So I said, look, emotion's really important in story. And they tried to explain it. And in the coffee break, this guy comes up to me, massive bloke, and he comes up and says, Steve, I understand what you're saying about emotion, but I'm Estonian and I'm an engineer. We don't do emotions. So I went, I said, okay, tell me about a time when one of your machines broke down.

He went, it was terrible. And straight away, he was back in the moment dealing with an angry customer about a thing that's broken in Norway that he's meant to be fixing. And he's straight back and he's in the story.

Jim James (13:52)
And of course, humans are essentially emotional, whether we decide to block that out or not, right? So, and I think what you've done there as well, which is great, is to just identify that we all have stories, but it doesn't have to be one huge hero arc story, but you can have, for like in the moment stories that are applicable for complete different situations. That's why I love your idea of the PIP DEX, because you're giving people a start of a 10, as I think we used to say. Steve, let's

Steve Rawling (13:57)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Jim James (14:22)
benefit from your wisdom. Tell us a few, if you like, story, you know, like story frameworks that, you know, myself or my fellow UnNoticed Entrepreneur could use in everyday situations. Because I think sometimes now it's become blown up that you've got to tell a story and you've got to have some sort of huge emotional moment. I work with some clients on their stories and it's turned out, for example, that they

Steve Rawling (14:24)
Hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

guess.

Mmm.

Jim James (14:50)
that they learned how to fly a helicopter. And it was amazing, but they thought they were going to get thrown out of flight school. But they'd never talked about this in business settings. But when we go into that, they go, that was the moment I realized I could do what I thought I couldn't do what I thought wasn't possible. Right. So it's often those little vignettes, isn't it? So Steve, you're the expert. I'm simply, you know, the amateur here. So tell us some story frameworks that people could use.

Steve Rawling (14:52)
Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think that the best, what you need are a lot of little stories. It's good to know your big story, your journey story, but you're not really gonna get a chance to tell it very often. And in fact, what you might notice when you launch into that story with someone, you stop because they start going, God, here we go. I didn't want your life story, Yeah.

Jim James (15:42)
Exactly, not your life

story. often now, sorry to interrupt, but what one finds when you listen to some of these people that are sort of famous, you hear their life story repeatedly. And what they're not doing is refreshing it. And what you've got is the opportunity to have multiple stories that are applicable for each podcast interview, for example.

Steve Rawling (15:45)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

And the,

absolutely right. And also there's something which I can tell just as I, when I look at a page of text, I can tell if it's been written by an AI. It just feels like sticky, doesn't work. When somebody starts telling me a story and they're rehearsing a well-known, well-told story, I can tell it, I can hear they're running on rails, like they're on a tram line.

They're just going in and I can tell. it doesn't, I feel like it doesn't matter if I'm there or not. Yeah, they're not really in a conversation with me anymore. It's become a monologue. And that's a really bad feeling. Whereas this is a conversation. Okay, so my guess, tip would be, well, the first thing is in storytelling, it's a conversation. you're trying to, you're talking to people. So for example, you're talking at a networking event, trying to find out about somebody who might, you know.

Jim James (16:39)
Hmm.

Steve Rawling (16:58)
There might be a sort of useful business relationship, you might be to do something for them. So you find out a bit about them. Okay, and the way you're listening for is a point of similarity. So you're listening for the ability to say, okay, so you work in the sector. I worked. So you work in fight in FinTech. Okay, I had a client, Estonian client who worked in FinTech. So you're trying to find a sort of moment of similarity, where you can drop in a law, you've got this problem, I helped somebody with a problem like that

you're dropping in a similar story. Right. And so you're kind of having the conversation first, and then listening to that point, where's my point of similarity that I can drop in?

Jim James (17:38)
Steve, sorry, can I interrupt just quickly there?

One is that remember, Steve's gonna give us all a link at the end of this to free start-up acts, a stick around. But also you just said something I think which people forget, which is you start your story by listening. And I think that's such a key point, because you said otherwise people launch into their tell me my life story. But I just wanna pick that up because there's really a key point that you've raised that we need to listen to the audience

Steve Rawling (17:44)
Yes.

Yeah, totally. Totally.

Yeah,

Jim James (18:05)
before starting on a story, sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to call that out. It's a really important point.

Steve Rawling (18:07)
No, it's quite right. That's quite all right.

I mean, the point, I guess, you think, well, in some situations I'm doing a presentation, it's not a conversation. Well, it kind of is, because before you get up and do your presentation, whether it's a pitch or a conference speech or whatever, your first question is who's in the audience? What do they need from me? What do they know already? What am I giving them that's useful? So you're actually having in your head, you're having the conversation before you stand up and start presenting.

And then while you're presenting, you're making eye contact the whole time with people to make sure that you are engaged in a conversation. Okay, but I'd say that's about 5% of the storytelling we do, whereas 95% is gonna be some sort of conversation where you, yeah, you need to listen. Okay, so in the deck, there are two cards. One's called story listening, right? And the other one is called storyish conversations, which are both about that. And there's a little one called audience profile, which is all about that.

You know, the listening part. However, in the starter pack, there's one card which is the kind of the most useful. It's not the most useful. It's a very useful card in the deck. It's called movie time. So this is what the cards look like. Each card is kind of two sides, about 200 words on a card. And the first bit tells you what is this technique and why do you need it. On the back, it says, how do you use it? OK. So movie time. So what are doing when you're thinking, right.

Jim James (19:31)
Wonderful, right.

Steve Rawling (19:34)
I've got an important message that I need to tell. So your important message might be, we go absolutely above and beyond to do great customer service. OK, well, that's a great message. But it's generic. And it's actually pretty bland. So what you need to do is rapidly turn that into it. And the next thing you say is two magic words. For example, you say those two magic words, you are

signalling, here comes a story. Okay, so you go for example and what you drop into then is a movie time story. Okay, the movie time story has three ingredients. First ingredient, action. Right, when a Hollywood director is ready to start filming, he or she doesn't shout strategy or mission or values or brand. Yeah, they shout action.

Right, so it's what do you point a camera at? For example, I was working in Estonia for the first time ever and this big guy came up to me and said, yes, okay. When you do that, when you think, okay, here's the scene I could point a camera at. What happens is your movie starts running in, my movie starts running in your head. So because I've given it action, people, time, place, yep,

you start a little movie running in your head that I've put there. And it's very hard. About 3% of the population don't do this. They've got a thing called aphantasia where they don't visualize, but 97% of people do this. Okay. It's very hard for you to refuse to do it. You can't sit there going, refuse to visualize that scene you've just described. You can't do it. This is why, by the way, when you go to the cinema to watch the film of a book that you love,

it's always rubbish because your movie was better than theirs. One exception being Lord of the Rings, but there you go. Okay, so first ingredient, action. The second ingredient, this is the bit that most people leave out, is emotion. So a good movie scene is full of emotion, positive and negative. Okay, people leave that out of business communication because they feel it's not professional. I shouldn't be talking about emotions.

Jim James (21:37)
Yeah.

Steve Rawling (22:00)
Engineers are very good at doing this. They don't talk about emotions. Okay, but most people don't But it tells us so much about you. I told you I'm a curious person Right. I've told you I'd like I'm a people pleaser. So, know, okay, so that's that's telling you what's driving me what's motivating me and you and I are trying to figure each other out in any way in any walk of life anyone you meet you're trying to figure that person out What are they gonna do next? Are they

Jim James (22:03)
Hmm.

Steve Rawling (22:30)
useful or are they a threat? That's what you're doing. Emotion tells you about motivation. Therefore it's very useful. Okay. Also, your emotional reaction to something is you don't control it. Right? So the big guy walks up to me in the training room and says, Steve, I don't agree with you. I don't do emotion. And I'm thinking, my God, he's challenged me. I'm on the spot now. What am going to do? But managed to quickly come up with an answer. And I felt

really clever. Okay, so that's yeah, because I felt an emotion, I remember the moment. And because I've given you the emotion in the story, you'll remember it too. Okay, so you give people action, you give them emotion, final ingredient, you give them the meaning. Why am I telling you this? Well, I'm telling you this because I want you to remember that even engineers feel emotions. And if you want an engineer to tell a story,

ask him about a machine that broke down. it or better still, engineers work that there's two stories engineers can always tell. Right. Here's the thing that broke and I fixed it. Here's a stupid customer who broke it.

Jim James (23:46)
Right. And presumably, Steve, one of the sort of little sort of tricks could be if you're in an industry, you could have these kind of avatars that you know, kind of the for example, as you say, you've got the, you've got the action and you've got the emotion and then you've got your example, that you could even help your team and yourself by starting to sort of collectively remember, you might not have got this experience yet, but we had a customer

Steve Rawling (23:53)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Yes,

Jim James (24:13)
that did this, you know, and you could start to make either case studies, videos and share some of the wisdom in the company.

Steve Rawling (24:13)
absolutely, absolutely right. Yep, yep. Yes, well there's a card in the deck called Story Bank. And basically what this is is how, look, you and I, we work alone, solo entrepreneurs, therefore our Story Bank is all in here. Well, yours is also on your website as well. But you know, the Story Bank's in here, which is fine, but even I forget stuff.

So I have a written story bank that I just write down the story and just three words will do it emotional Estonian engineer, I only need those three words and I can go straight back into that story.

Jim James (24:54)
And it brings back,

yeah. I'm a little bit shocked you said that even you forget things, Steve, because I was beginning to think that you've got everything nailed there. But there we are, a moment of fallibility.

Steve Rawling (24:58)
No. Well, I'll you what, here's

the thing I really forget. So if you think of the story as the data, right, there is a whole bunch of metadata surrounding the story, right? And the metadata is, who told you this story? Where did you see it read it? Did they tell you it was confidential? Who have you told it to already?

That's all the metadata, right, around the data. If you get the metadata wrong, you're in trouble. Right, so you go, you'll never guess what happened. You tell a story and that person goes, I told you that story last week. I told you that story and you go, and I'm so sorry. Or you go, you won't believe it you tell a story and they go, yeah, Steve, you told me that last week. And I go, sorry. So,

Jim James (25:50)
Yeah, yeah.

or they heard on the radio and said, that's not your story. Steve, but Steve, these, think just to remind people, you're going to get a free pack from Steve because we can go on about the story which is perfect. So we will include links to this. But Steve Rawling, who we're talking to in very, I also just want to move on from story because you've got an Entrepreneur story as well. And so we've got

Steve Rawling (25:55)
yeah.

Hmm. Yes. Which includes movie time.

Hmm.

Hmm. yes. Well,

we haven't finished the Kickstarter story yet, have we?

Jim James (26:21)
No, so I wanted to go there because the goal of today is to at least introduce you and not to exhaust people's, exhaust you with everything you can share, but to introduce you to my community. So you can tell that Steve's got an amazing intuitive understanding of Estonian engineers and storytelling. But also you built this Kickstarter program, which you raised, you know, 100,000. How quickly did that happen?

Steve Rawling (26:23)
Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm.

Well,

we were aiming to do it in three days and we did it in the end in 147 minutes. So less than three hours. Yeah, because we basically 20 episodes of a story, a soap opera. You know, it wasn't just that. There was also the, know, the kind of the sales marketing funnel of, you know, awareness of the problem, awareness of a solution. But the soap opera, the thing with the soap opera.

Jim James (26:55)
That's astounding.

Steve Rawling (27:15)
So that's episode one of the soap opera, which is a story.

Jim James (27:17)
Yeah. And when Steve

references that, what I'm doing, if you want to go onto YouTube is I'm doing a screen share, but you can find this at pipdex.com forward slash blogs. And I'll put a link to this, but basically there's some beautiful illustrations. And this is from February, 2021 of episode one of the storyteller tactics Kickstarter launch campaign. And it first of all opens up with my mouth went dry. So

Steve Rawling (27:23)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Jim James (27:46)
I will include this because it's a wonderful way that you serialized a story, Steve. Yes, take us through this. Obviously, we've got a limited amount of time. You had like 14 episodes, but let's just talk about how you created this and the benefit of it.

Steve Rawling (27:51)
Mmm.

Hmm, yep.

Well, the process of creating it was basically, was to, okay, so I was using kind of movie time as a way of creating the each story has a character facing a challenge and learning a valuable lesson. So it's a little mini story. But then what we did at the end of the episode, so we tell the story in about 200 words. And at the end of the episode, I then go, okay, these are the tactics I used to tell that story.

So I think that's what you call dog fooding. It's where you eat your own product. So we used our own product to tell the story you've just read. And here it is. So here's the movie time tactic I used to tell that story. And actually, here's a link to it on our website so you can read it. You can read the whole tactic for free. And in fact, all the content on those cards is still available on our website for free.

Jim James (28:55)
and I'll put a link to that,

obviously in the show notes, but also then from an SEO point of view, Steve, just from another dimension, the SEO impact of that valuable content that's being indexed as original content is fantastic.

Steve Rawling (28:59)
Mm hmm. Yes. Yes. Yeah,

absolutely right. So we basically in every episode, we basically said, OK, here's the tactic I used to write this episode. So it's not just a good story, I hope. But the other thing was, was we picked out the characters we picked out. The little mini stories we told were people who we thought were likely to be our customers. So there was a UX designer. There was a data analyst.

There was a project team leader. These are the people who we thought were likely to be customers. So we were telling them little stories about people they knew. Yeah.

Jim James (29:38)
Very smart, very smart. And

was that an expensive project? And we haven't got that much time, but in terms of making it accessible, because most people wouldn't necessarily think that they could afford to do that or implement it.

Steve Rawling (29:46)
The,

The I mean, obviously, there's a writing there's there's time to write, which is my responsibility. There's the illustrations which are done by an illustrator. So, yes, it does take time to write good content. People mustn't mustn't think that I can do it for them. It can't. I I can tell a story, but it can't tell your story. So, you know, it's a it's it's very, very clever, but it's but it's not going to tell your story.

Jim James (30:17)
Let it

Well, and in a way, Steve, the sanctity of what you've created with your PIP decks, with your storyteller tactics is that we don't need to rely on AI because AI is becoming something where people go to in the absence of a skill set. But what you've got with your deck is don't worry so much about the skill set. Let's just think about your action, your emotion, and your example. And that's a framework that people can speak, write,

Steve Rawling (30:31)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Hmm.

Jim James (30:50)
draw

whatever medium they're comfortable with.

Steve Rawling (30:53)
Yeah, well,

I was listening to Donna Griffith on one of your previous episodes and she was talking about the thing that makes a pitch from an Entrepreneur stand out is authenticity and character. And that comes from your direct experience and how you felt and what you did. So basically it's an embodied thing. It's in you. But authenticity is embodied in your actions and your feelings and your gut instinct.

Jim James (30:59)
Yes.

Steve Rawling (31:23)
and AI doesn't have a body, right? Therefore it can't do that for you.

Jim James (31:29)
Yeah, ultimately, Donna Griffith, by the way, was talking about raising money. And she specializes in helping founders to raise money. And a big part of what she talks about is having your story, but having it in a structured way. And Steve, that's what's so wonderful about what you're helping with is because the structure, people get lost on these huge long journeys. And they're standing in front of VCs or clients or suppliers who have kind of lost the reason why they were in the room in the first place because they're

Steve Rawling (31:33)
Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm?

Jim James (31:59)
pre-possessed by the story. Steve,

we've got a link that you're going to share at the end to this, but before we go there, we've talked about how you raised the money. We've talked about the cleverness really of the product in terms of helping people, enabling people to tell stories. So far, it sounds like a bit of a textbook case in building a brand. Has there been something that hasn't gone quite as planned, maybe not to embarrass you?

Steve Rawling (32:05)
Yes.

Yes.

Hmm.

Hmm. Hmm.

No,

Jim James (32:29)
But it's always useful to learn from other people's experiences, both good and bad.

Steve Rawling (32:29)
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Jim James (32:41)
Congratulations.

Steve Rawling (32:58)
it's like it's after about six months of answering effectively the variations of the same question over and over again I'm thinking and the so the question people are asking are like repeatedly is yeah but how do I actually get started using them I see there's 50 cards there and now some people just dive in and it's like a tarot card session they love it they just spread the cards out and they just absolutely love it but other people go look I just wanted you to do step one step two step three step four step five

just give me the steps I need to do. And as you've said, it's not that, it's much more open than that. It's much more flexible than that, which is great for some people, but not for others. So my moment really has been, well, why didn't we anticipate, why didn't I anticipate that? And think some people really need their hand holding every single step of the way while they get started. Other people would dive in.

some people just need a proper hand holding experience. I guess that's my, so how we fix, what I do about that, my learning from that is, well, we've written a lot of blog content about getting started. We've done lots of case studies where we've interviewed people, or I've interviewed people and done their step-by-step process. So as I said, I'm on the Slack channel, we do webinars

which are free to customers to join in and ask any question they like that's, and I guess reality is no matter how you structure the, how to use the deck, no matter how you structure it, there's always gonna be someone who goes, yeah, but how do I do it?

Jim James (34:41)
Yeah,

and I think that's so in terms of a, it's not really sort of a fatal mistake, but you've created a product with one, if you like, learner experience. And then actually some learners are approaching it differently, probably culturally. But Steve, I'm going to ask you then for a final tip, your book or podcast, and then we're going to get from you your generous offer of a free starter pack. Number one tip, as an Entrepreneur, not necessarily on the storytelling side, but as an Entrepreneur, you've gone from journalism and

Steve Rawling (34:50)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Yep.

Mmm, yep.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Jim James (35:11)
just as disclosure, Steve and I actually both worked in the BBC. I produced a radio show at the BBC in Manchester as well as a student, we've passed in the corridor, probably sat there editing on that same EUR machine that we had at the side. So we've got some common history there, Steve. What would be your tip to my fellow UnNoticed Entrepreneur as an Entrepreneur? Because you've made that transition very successfully.

Steve Rawling (35:13)
Yes.

Hmm, we've probably passed through the corridor.

Hmm.

Hmm

Hmm.

Hmm. I mean, from a purely financial point of view, obviously what you're trying to get to is a steady state where you go, well, I need to make that much a year. they, guess it depends on your outlook. A lot of entrepreneurs are very curious and optimistic and they like exploring by nature. And I think my tip would be don't forget where you've come from. Right? So it's

it's very exciting to find a new customer. Right. And therefore it's tempting to be constantly pushing and trying to find new customers. But actually, the easiest money you're ever going to make is repeat business to an old customer. And I think or record on the second easiest money you're going to make is getting an old customer to recommend you to somebody else. Right. So look backwards as well as forwards will be my tip to anyone starting out.

It's very exciting to find new customers, but it's actually very time consuming and expensive to get a new customer. There's a lot of value in what you have done with people and they're much more likely, you know, it's an easier pound or dollar to make by going back to old customers.

Jim James (36:50)
Steve, that's great. I'm working with a client who, we asked him if he had a mailing list, he found he still had over a thousand former clients that he had as patients and he just hadn't written to them. So sometimes we have this amazing asset that we're moving forward from. Speaking of moving forward, Steve, you kindly offered a link to a starter kit. Can we share that? And then we're going to share Steve Rawlings contact details.

Steve Rawling (37:03)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Yes.

Hmm. Yep. Yes, of course.

Yep, sure. So there's a PIPdex page which I've put in the chat, which will take you to a five card teaser pack. So this is digital version of five of the cards from the deck, comes straight into your inbox. And they're the easiest ones to use. And the idea is you get them, you download them, you start using them.

Jim James (37:42)
Great.

Steve Rawling (37:43)
So

there you go, there you can see, and there's a teaser pack of storyteller tactics. There are other tactics available on the same publisher, the strategy workshop team tactics, innovation tactics, negotiation tactics is just a new one that's out recently, co-written with a metropolitan police hostage negotiator who has successfully freed nearly 400 hostages in real life kidnapping situations.

So she's co-written negotiation tactics with us. I mean, that's the

Jim James (38:13)
Well, it's kind of you to give a shout to another one, but for now it's at pipdex.com and I will obviously put a link to this, but you can get the free teaser pack for that. So Steve, I'm sorry. Yep.

Steve Rawling (38:16)
Hmm. Yes.

Hmm. Yes. yes. Yes. And best way to contact me would be direct

through email, steverawling@gmail.com

Jim James (38:34)
And of course I will put Steve's contact details. Steve, we've run over my normal 30 minutes because we've had no no on the contrary because you've got a great story and so many stories about how to tell stories as well. And every time I think about Estonia now, I'm going to think about engineers. So you've done your job. Steve Rawling, thank you so much for joining me on The UnNoticed Entrepreneur today.

Steve Rawling (38:37)
Yes.

Sorry.

Hmm.

Jim, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Jim James (38:59)
Well, we've been listening to Steve Rawling. I will put all of the links in the show notes, of course. And I think one of the key takeaways for me is that every situation requires a story, but not to have pressure on yourself to tell some superlative blockbuster, but to listen to the person that you're trying to engage with and find out what you think you have in your story archive that might help you to build a connection with them because,

stories are really about how we connect with people that we care about or we're interested in doing work with. So the deck that Steve has created can give us a prompt, can be so reassuring and give us a starting off place for all of those stories. I really, really encourage you to download those and practice and have fun with them. You've been listening to me, Jim James. I have my own stories and you've got your own stories. If you've got one as an Entrepreneur, do come on the show and tell me about it. You can find out

how to do that at theunnoticed.cc. And I'm also gonna tell you that you can access the wisdom of all of my guests, nearly 400 entrepreneurs that I've introduced, including Steve Rawling, through my website, because I now have a digital avatar. So I've encoded all of my shows, and you can have a conversation with Steve about your story when you go to theunnoticed.cc. You'll see there's a free to use avatar, my digital twin, Jim too

jump on there and have a play. And until we meet again, I just encourage you to keep on communicating

Steve Rawling (40:39)
that. It's very good. I enjoyed that.