This week’s guest storyteller is Sabine Harnau, founder of From Scratch Communications, a company committed to helping businesses change the world through sustainable and responsible copywriting! In this episode, we discuss Sabine’s take on the 5 act story structure, why it pays off to be vulnerable in your business communications, and how the biggest factor holding you back can often be yourself.
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I kept getting notifications on Twitter from the same account.
The account name was “From Scratch” which, admittedly, made me scratch my head with a bit of curiosity.
She kept coming back -- liking our posts, retweeting them, and even commenting.
Her comments were all very thoughtful. She really understood what message we were trying to spread and obviously shared a love of stories and storytelling.
I had to reach out to her.
The woman behind "From Scratch" turned out to be Sabine Harnau and she also uses storytelling to help people in their marketing efforts. But more importantly, she also uses storytelling to make change in the world.
At the time, Sabine was compiling a comprehensive guide, “Storytelling For Change: The Supermassive Ultimate Guide,” and the reason she had been so active on our tweets was because she was featuring our show in the guide!
To be honest, I was surprised (and proud!) because it’s usually us researching how people use storytelling and the fact that someone was writing about how we used storytelling means that we were doing something right!
When we chatted, I learned that even though we both have the same mission, we approach it in different ways. That excited me because it’s one of the points I make often to my workshop attendees:
ALL of us are unique and our stories should be as well.
And if we listen to our hearts when crafting our stories, they always will be.
Needless to say, we hit it off. One of my favorite things about this podcast is the new friends I make all over the world. Sabine is now one of them.
“Connecting the dots, not collecting the dots.” Right, Seth Godin?
Sabine is founder of From Scratch Communications, a company committed to helping businesses change the world through sustainable and responsible copywriting!
In this episode, we discuss Sabine’s take on the 5 act story structure, why it pays off to be vulnerable in your business communications, and how the biggest factor holding you back can often be yourself.
Some highlights of our conversation:
Vulnerability in storytelling (and in life)
Storytelling For Change: The Supermassive Ultimate Guide
Storytelling as a buzzword
Why Sabine thought she was a bad storyteller until she started telling real stories -- if you can’t come up with a fairy tale, try telling a nonfiction story or personal narrative
Don’t feel bad if you can’t come up with something original! Judging yourself will only limit your abilities!
How to build trust you must be vulnerable! It's important to not gloss over your bumpy parts - in the marketing world, it feels safer to never mention the mistakes, BUT the mistakes are completely normal and help your audience relate to you
There’s a difference in oversharing and being vulnerable
A list of aspirations is another way to be vulnerable with clients/ as a company -- “we’re not doing everything perfectly yet, but this is what we’re working towards…”
People love a good comeback story
The inspiration behind From Scratch Communications - Sabine’s company
Only taking on a project if you're excited about it
Why your decision making shouldn’t all be cost based
The many different stories that a company can tell. People often think the only story they have to tell is a brand story, but that’s not true. You have an origin story, an impact story, an employee story… you could tell a story about anyone/ anything that has been affected by your company
You could tell a story about your competitors - why are they different from you? Your company could be the perfect fit for some people, while your competitor’s company could be better for others.
Why it's important to figure out who you serve well and target those people
How storytelling builds empathy & makes us better humans
And of course, Sabine’s take on the 5 act structure. It has the same arc as the 3 act structure (that we normally use) but helps to define the middle of your story
Act 1: The ‘what if’ - this is kind of like an inciting incident, but more about the driving thought behind your story. Think of the ‘what if’ as the big idea of the story.
Act 2: The part of the story where things are looking good
Act 3: There are challenges but you’re pushing through them - this act is all about vulnerability!
Act 4: The roadblock - where things are going very wrong or something unexpected happens
Act 5: The resolution - sometimes there is a final battle, maybe an emotional battle. There should always be a realization.
As always, I hope you enjoy the episode!
Peace and Love,
Rain
Follow From Scratch on Instagram @scratch_posts
Follow From Scratch on Twitter @scratch_posts
Check out their website: from-scratch.net/
For more storytelling tips and tricks,
Follow us on Instagram @sixsecondstories
Visit our website sixsecondstories.com
Hosted by Rain Bennett (@rainbennett | Twitter) (rainbennett.com)
MORE related content:
Storytelling For Change: The Supermassive Ultimate Guide
3 Word Rebellion: Create a One-of-a-Kind Message The Grows Your Business Into a Movement by Mazur Ph.D., Dr. Michelle A.
Seth Godin's marketing advice