While our clients vary from sole traders to multinationals, selling anything from chocolate bars to big tech installations, they’re all confronted by a similar task. They need to tell the story of their product or service. We used to start the process with what was called a script meeting. Now we lead the conversation. We run a Discovery Deck workshop.
When we first speak to clients, they often flood us with details. They know their product inside out, and want to tell everyone everything. From our experience, this isn’t the best approach.
Over the years, we’ve developed our Discovery Deck workshop which combines coaching, agile methodologies and gamification to unlock your ideas. Our clients find this a dynamic, efficient and energising way to reveal the heart of their story, often with a different plot line than they expected. Far more effective than a script meeting.
What happens in the Discovery Deck workshop?
The process is hard work and often not quite what the client expects. They often come with an idea they’re going to be looking through words on a page to build the script. Instead, our first question is “How do you want your audience to feel about this project?” It’s amazing how the mood in the room changes when clients start talking about wanting their audience to feel intrigued, excited, and involved.
Laying out the elements
When we held a script meeting people would be focused on a piece of paper, usually with a draft script on it. We found this actually was a hindrance, because people focused on what was wrong with the script, instead of what they wanted to include. Instead, we now use a set of specially designed cards and stickers to make this workshop a physical experience, and we’ve seen clients really get active, walking around the room, interacting, laughing, and bartering over story points.
We start by identifying all the key elements of the project, the what, why, who, when and how. Then we look at their audience, and double check their needs have been addressed. We then start to structure the elements, using classic storytelling techniques and typical user behaviour to balance content with impact.
Minimum Viable Video
We then cut this story flow back to the Minimal Viable Video – the shortest possible video that will have the greatest impact. This is often a relief; the results show what we can achieve with something quite simple.
If you’re planning a marketing push, and you want help in building your story, then let us join you for a workshop.
What do people think of our Discovery Workshop format?
Ian Miles and his team took part in a Discovery Deck workshop for their product demo video.
What a revealing process! For a subject matter I knew inside out and with pre-conceived concepts and storytelling strategies in place ready to roll-out, a couple of hours’ evaluation with Napoleon not only sent the baby out with the bathwater, but the bath tub too!
Part one of the workshop set the scene. Not ‘what is the subject matter’ but more the psychology, from both the selling and buying points of view. Easy to jot down but invigorating as Napoleon got to grips with what it really meant. Their ability to listen, comprehend, evaluate and challenge was enviable.
Part two took us back to the drawing board. Those pre-conceived concepts were long gone. With our challenge now presented in a new light, some deep thinking followed; propose, challenge, justify, amend / proceed. With Napoleon’s objective independent view, there were no short cuts to take here. But, in relatively quick time a new storyboard was born. One that bore little resemblance to draft one, yet made perfect sense; justifiable sense, not just within the setting of the discovery workshop but later to my peers too.
Ian Miles, Sales Director, Schawk!
