Recently I provided this contribution to Patrick Stähler’s blog that forms part of fluid minds, a think tank and consultancy for strategic and disruptive innovations. They focus discussions on their very distinctive version of the Business Model and its design.

This was on some thoughts on how to explain your business model through a story or your business narrative. The original post is here

The hard part comes after designing your new Business Model when you have to explain it.
You have come to the end of a fairly long week. You have finally finished your Business Model Canvas. Finally you have a working hypothesis of something that is going to challenge some of the existing business models around. You should feel pleased; it took a lot of hard work to get to that point.

Laid out on one piece of paper is something that could have real business value yet although you can see where the dots connect, you begin to wonder if others will see the same compelling value, to invest in it, to back it, to simply support it and encourage you to continue.

Completing a business model and identifying its critical parts is only that first step, the hard part is getting it off the ‘drafting board’ and making it something tangible and potentially commercially viable for those around you to engage with.

What is the next step in executing this potential game changing business model?

Each new business model needs a compelling story – a narrative.

We really need to learn how to craft a story, to tell the narrative around why your business model idea stands out and is worth other people’s time and consideration.

This business model narrative along with your business model you are potentially better placed to test it, to talk about it, to validate it, to make it ‘sing for others’.

You are out to get engagement and contributions everywhere, from everyone, as you tell the story, describe your potential new business model you gain from their reaction and improve your understanding of the real need for your idea.

So we need to think about the art of narratives and storytelling

So first things first, with setting about building your business narrative, we need to get comfortable, as each of us, in our own way are unique in how we would set about the initial thinking through of the business story.

We can certainly brainstorm, or free write, and it is certainly worth to complete some essential brain warming up exercises. All of these get that brain whirling again around your new business model but in a distinctly different way, as you are focusing this on the best way to communicate your story to others. You do need to really think about this, as it needs to appeal to them, even if you feel it is the best thing ever!

We need to find our own ways of doing this warming up. We are not warming up to figure out the business model, we have completed that; we are priming our brain to start structuring our thoughts to turn them into our narrative (about our business model story).

This can take as long as you feel it is useful. For me I take my time, I like to gather around me lots of my reference papers, all sorts of scribble notes and triggers to make a fairly exhaustive first ‘cut’.

Then I set about circling or highlighting them with a yellow highlighter all the main themes, the important parts of what, why and how my business model came about.

Working through some useful but measured steps is the key

The question you need to ask is: “I certainly have to find within these notes a range of critical aspects that will make my business model story stand out”

Let’s go through these seven steps.

Firstly 1) you have to describe what your business model will do – even if this is still at this stage where it needs to be truly tested, what is it all about. You need to allow for action words that can be understood, keep it simple but on ‘message’ for others to quickly grasp the big idea.

2) What makes this business model special – I mean so special that it can resonate with others; they can see what it is going to do to change or challenge something they know. It needs to address identified needs but all the parts are seen as connected.

Then we move to the customer side
3) who is it for?– who are those customers that will show initial interest, the potential market place you see this addresses and listen to the reaction back- does it resonate with those listening?

4) what does your business model resolve – those famous pain points or jobs-to-be-done you feel that need resolving or will be valued to overcome existing constraints you feel there is within existing offerings. Are you getting that nod of agreement, that confirming back or increasing questioning?

So far so good we are building our story, we are telling our story, we are getting valuable feedback and identification. Now we need to reflect on the part that gives the real growing confidence

5) Why you are thinking beyond the immediate– some of your longer term goals and ambitions and the way you are setting about this and what the listener can do to help.

6) what do you envisage are the resources and actions needed that will get this going and led you beyond just the idea and turning this into something real and valued by others.

If this remains unclear to the listener then you are beginning to flounder, you might be losing their attention. Maybe your business model or narrative is missing some important learning points.

You are testing your initial hypothesis in the real marketplace and getting the feedback you need to stop and rethink or it validates your original thinking.

Then there is one final part, our No.7

As you search through your notes, full of highlighted points being ticked off as you go.

That is the most important one, our number 7) you are looking to summarize why you will succeed
This summary ‘ wraps up’ your solution; it provides the story behind your thinking, the final piece, it brings it all together. It is conveying why the business model you see, is valuable. It transmits the value of your idea, sitting on one sheet of paper.

Now this is not the easy part, it is the ‘call to action’, the real identification you are asking of others to value and invest into your business model, to identify with it.

The tighter the story, the faster you get feedback and identification
This narrative needs to be a really compact synopsis, the real kernel of your business model, it forms the basis for the narrative and why your story is valuable to the one listening.

Irrespective your business narrative need to spark action
It is the story that makes the sense of your business model. It conveys its value, its sense of mission, your personal visions, it offers the place where you communicate and connect the business model with the listener.

By talking about it you are generating and testing a market-making narrative, to hone your thinking, to win over others to your solutions and ideas. You are testing your business model in the real world.

Your story narrative will be significantly tested and will change I am sure.
Each step or new iteration is a ‘smart’ step forward if it builds and learns from the last one. It becomes more and more compelling until it resonates and translates into a new, valuable business.

Your business model is closer to filling a real market need from this consistent telling of your evolving story.

The business narrative is essential to your thinking.

The post Getting the Business Model Story Right. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I have found that narratives are becoming increasingly important to explain ‘things’. I’m re-learning this ‘art’ to tell a compelling story.

Our stories can combine much, communities can identify or reject, we can begin to explain complex stories by presenting a well-designed narrative that presents the arguments. It can explain the connections and outline the issues, both in terms of risk and opportunity.

I think business narratives will become essential for our organizations to use to explain where they are and what they see as their future.

A good business narrative should fill a real knowledge gap

Organizations by making this move to open up, to spend more time explaining their ‘fit’ in the world will gain.  Those that stay closed down, secretive and selective in what they reveal will continue to ebb away and not valued as important for our future.

The business narrative is argued as the way to seek increased identity, allows a broader community to enact, to extract better cues for their sense of identity and offer a better way to draw them into this greater sense of identification.

I wrote about visualizing the innovating future through narrative reporting here and placing the business model as central to this narrative movement here.

We are in a constant state of being adaptive

We live in such a fluid world where we are all being forced constantly to be adaptive. It seems nothing is standing still and if it does it simply gets knocked down. We are all learning this new practice of being nimble and increasingly adaptive. Part of the growing complexity we all are grappling with daily is in the multiple voices that are competing for our attention.

Social platforms and having available the so many easy tools to participate are everywhere.  This has liberated these millions of voices wanting to express themselves. Cutting through these competing voices to sort out those that are relevant to you or the ones that will move you to action are tough. We need to go one step further.

We all feel the effects of this ‘sucking of time’ out of our days. We need to build a greater sense of connection, understanding the broader connectivity to put ‘things’ in context.

The story or narrative will increasing make the final connection and cut through this growing distraction noise. Getting more focused on the context and explaining this through a good narrative or story is becoming essential to go beyond ‘just a connection’ into prompting real identification and even action.

Anchoring ourselves through stories will help us regain that lost middle ground.

What we need to do, is anchor all these seemingly competing voices into our stories to explain where we are, where we believe we should be going and what, as we presently know it, will help us get there.

Learning the art of good narratives is becoming essential to tell our story and its place to help reduce conflicts and misunderstandings and help us all to navigate a little better in this more complex world.

We can tell these organizations stories in so many compelling ways, through the business model, and through sustainability reporting. A well-structured business narrative can offer the organization vision, it can enhance communication, it can highlight where the organization is critically capturing knowledge and putting it to work.

We need to spark more.

Narratives can spark our thinking in how this can encourage innovation and growth, so as to build a growing sense of community and identification, of engagement and identification. As new knowledge comes into us we need to increasingly sort it, to identify the relevant ‘tags’ and assign them in importance to us, our community and to the broader context.

Mastering the business narrative is becoming critical, in helping to connect the innovations we need to build our future and these need to be more connected by the power of the story.

Moving beyond just the sound bite or tweet

Our lives must move beyond the ‘sound bites’, they give us a feeling of engagement but this can be fleeting, lost in microseconds, we need to gain a greater sense of community and that comes from connecting the fragments of a story and piecing them together to give more lasting meaning. We need the ‘greater’ context, not just fleeting moments.

Business leaders need to practice the art (and science) of describing aspects that might be complex, into good narratives so we can identify with these and recognize ways we can contribute and support.

The post Describing the future by using the business narrative first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.