Yesterday Hasan and I met Sarita in Canterbury. We walked around the city, sat down for a while by the river and had lunch at The Old Buttermarket pub. It was good to see Sarita, she seemed well and said that the lockdown had been good for her to take stock and recharge. Sarita got the train back a little after 6pm and then Hasan and I went back to my house where we had one of our business chats that we used to do in London. Hasan helped me come up with some ideas on being “customer obsessed” (a Microsoft term). He helped me define my goals, the process of achieving them and understanding my why. Our discussion also featured heavily around story telling and how it is so important to engage customers. Hasan has spoken to me about this before but I understand it better now for two reasons: when interviewing with 17 companies a couple of months ago I realised that I had perfected my pitch/story which covered my journey, how I have developed (including humorous/humbling anecdotes) and what I wanted in my next role – this gave the interviewers an overview of me and my personality and allowed them to connect with me in a way that listing my stats would not. The other reason for understanding story telling is from reading the Perils of Perception book which emphasised that to connect with anyone, you need to tell them a story and whilst facts are still important they do not work on their own. This was evidenced in the “This Girl Can” advertising campaign for Sport England. Hasan advised that all stories should start with a shock to get the audience’s attention and then the story shows how you can overcome the problem. I am going to put all the notes I made from our conversation on another page.
It’s overcast again this morning and I’m enjoying drinking my green tea, writing this blog and looking out the window. I could do with getting myself a laptop so might ask Dulcie if she wants to go shopping with me to get one. I also want to do more prep work for the new job on Monday.
Vic's Blog 