About Us

We want to tell you a story...

Start-up culture is the new frontier.

A brave new world, full of small businesses with talent and ambition to spare.

But there’s a problem on the horizon.

Every small business has the potential to be enormous, so there’s a whole cottage industry of marketing experts looking to hitch their wagon to the next big thing.

There are lots of well-meaning, highly experienced professionals who’ll sell you search engine optimization solutions and content management platforms.

Unfortunately, without a clear narrative, you’re paying for stuff rather than stories.

It's YOUR story that matters when marketing to customers & Investors

It’s a collaborative, creative process that drives connection between your founders and leaders, and quickly arrives at a consensus that everyone in the company can get behind.

Tried, tested and trusted, this is a transformational approach to story-telling that will change every aspect of your communications, from marketing, PR and pitching, to recruitment and training.

Our Approach

Storytelling is something we all do every day. We learn about stories as kids, and as we grow, they help us relate to the world around us.

We use them to make sense of complexity, and to channel our emotions.

They’re key to the way we communicate and connect with each other.

But stories don’t just happen.

They have to come from somewhere.

When you’ve got a million and one things vying for your attention, it’s difficult to know where to start.

And if your story doesn’t have a beginning, it probably won’t have a middle or an ending either.

That’s why we’ve created a unique workshop process to help you define, develop and deliver your story.

It’s a powerful, productive and inspirational series of exercises that will encourage you to see your business in a whole new light.

Six Stage Process

Planning Your Story

Defining Your Behaviours

Planning Your Story

Building a narrative that puts the audience first.

Unlocking Your Why

Defining Your Behaviours

Planning Your Story

Uncovering the purpose that drives and motivates your business.

Defining Your Behaviours

Identifying the brand culture that differentiates you from the competition.

Drafting Your Manifesto

Editing Your Elevator Pitch

Defining Your Behaviours

Every business with ambition needs a rallying cry, to align employees and engage customers.

Editing Your Elevator Pitch

Crafting a concise, compelling and unforgettable positioning statement.

Finding Your Hero

Editing Your Elevator Pitch

Structuring your story according to the classic mythological structure - making your brand the hero.

What's YOUR Story

Start-Up

Enterprise

Start-Up

For a young or newly established business, story-telling is a compelling and effective technique for defining the kind of organisation you aspire to be.

It’s a chance to determine the change you wish to bring to the world, as well as establishing the roadmap for how you plan to achieve those goals.

A good story should explore the origins of the idea, the expertise you bring to bear, and why investors would want to join you on your journey.

SME

Enterprise

Start-Up

There are a number of ‘pinch-points’ impacting the growth and success of small/medium-sized businesses.

Whether it’s attracting the next round of investment, expanding the company with new products, services and employees, or exploring marketing strategy and Brand, a clear and coherent story can help with all of these issues.

The narrative of your organisation will help candidates, suppliers, investors and partners understand what you need from them, and how they will be instrumental in getting you to the next level in your evolution. Storytelling for business is key.

Enterprise

In a large business, alignment and consistency are essential growth drivers.

The challenge is to ensure that diverse teams enjoy a shared understanding of the organisation’s strategic direction, as well as their respective role in delivering against it.

Collaborative storytelling enables stakeholders to co-create an authentic narrative for the entire business; one that will adapt and flex to reflect the specific priorities of each division.

The resulting business story can also inform every aspect of the marketing mix, from advertising and PR to social media and digital, as well as ongoing internal communications and employee engagement programmes.

Work with us Remotely

One 2 One Private Online Brand Workshop / Consultation

Intensive, non-consecutive five-day process.

Hosted online via private fully interactive video conferencing.

Single day workshop to gather insights.
Three days for development of story materials and rationale.
Final day for sharing of results and feedback.

Process leads to the creation of a definitive brand Manifesto / storytelling bible.

Manifesto outputs – Audience plan, Business purpose, Brand behaviours, Tone-of-voice, Elevator pitch and Hero’s Journey template.

Attended preferably by leadership team to ensure top-level participation and consensus.

Meet the Team

Terry Bower

Gareth Dimelow

The Connector

Connectors are people with an extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances. As our relationship director, Terry puts his natural networking skills to best use, finding new opportunities in personal connections, and creating situations where collaboration can truly flourish.

Terry's mobile: +44 07516 82319 terry@insidestories.guru

Gareth Dimelow

The Maven

Mavens are considered information specialists who thrive on sharing their knowledge with others. As our storyteller-in-chief, Gareth seeks out powerful new stories from everyone he meets, and crafts them into something that will resonate with the widest possible audience.

Gareth's mobile: +44 07590 680175 gareth@insidestories.guru