talkingDigital

It’s no doubt that companies exist to sell a product. If you think about it, everybody’s selling a product, even if they’re not aware that they are doing it.

Starbucks has a presence through billboard, commercial, film, internet, mobile app and obviously their stores, among many other things. The reason they exist is to sell coffee, and other coffee related products. Just because you don’t own a Starbucks or any other business, doesn’t mean you’re not out there to sell a product.

Everyone’s Out to Sell

When you go to Facebook or Twitter, or Instagram, or when you write a blog, you’re doing it because you want a response. Nobody puts up a social media profile and then says…”Ehhh, I don’t want any friends…or followers.” It isn’t natural.

So in the way that Starbucks is selling coffee, you too are selling a product, and that product is you. The product would more specifically be your words if you were a writer, but the point is-the world is a giant network of cogs all working and moving as a giant commercial machine.

Now that it has been established that this is a natural way of life, let’s talk about some of the different ways that companies are using devices like the mobile phones that everyone owns to sell a product.

Text Messages are Bigger Than You Realize

What may have started out as an innocent way to chat with friends has developed an entire life of it’s own. Text messages are the form of communication preferred by Americans. In other countries, it is still popular to carry out conversation through messaging apps. The reason is because wireless companies in other companies haven’t made texting as affordable.

Today, companies on a global scale are realizing the power behind text messaging. The way that they use it can be very diverse, but it proves to make operating business more efficient, and it also helps to bring in more customers and boost sales.

Convenience Rules All

People are willing to pay a price for convenience, and the companies know this. Businesses that create mobile apps for customers to browse and buy products are generally way more successful. It’s much easier for a person to shop from their couch and have a product delivered than it is to get up, warm up the car, drive to a store, browse and buy their product, pack it up, and get it back home. Convenience wins almost every time.

Look at your phone right now. Do you have the mobile app for Target, Nordstrom Rack, Modcloth, or Kohl’s? This is how companies sell products. They study you intently and know what you want. It can be a little overwhelming to think about, but remember, everyone is out to sell something.

When starting a business, most of us look to banks for financial means of operation.  Bank lending, however, has many hang-ups, can be tricky to navigate, and may be difficult to qualify for.  This makes our means for developing or gaining momentum in our business difficult—it may seem impossible to start or get ahead!

Did you know?  There is another option!

What is “Factoring”?

Factoring is a finance option that offers freedom that bank lending does not.  This means of financing is not so much a loan as a transfer of services.

Typically, a business would need to wait for the receipt of payment for either product or services rendered before financing more product, or funding operations to keep providing service.  When factoring is used, the need to waiting is removed!

A factoring company will take over for your business directly after the goods are sold or the service is rendered.  These companies pay cash to your business up front, then pursue the payment from clients independently.

Benefits of Factoring

Financing from factoring companies can be much easier to obtain than bank loans, because factoring is not based on your business’s credit history—it is based on the credit history of your clients.  This can be invaluable when starting a business from scratch, or building a business with prior credit problems.

With factoring, your business does not suffer from a “lag time” between overhead and profit, thus providing the financial freedom to grow your business and become more efficient.  Having access to the unlimited capital that factoring provides allows your business to grow exponentially without worry of running out of cash to pay your bills.  Some companies even advance up to 95% of invoices within as little as 24 hours.

Imagine, your wholesaler is offering a great discount on product if you act quickly, but you haven’t yet received the cash from all the credit card sales generated over the last few weeks, so you don’t have the capital to take advantage of the wholesale discount.  With factoring, this would never be a problem.

Beyond business growth, factoring companies are beneficial because they act in place of highly skilled employees, or even whole departments of employees, that your business won’t need to hire.  This alone will dramatically reduce overhead and eliminate stress over billing, account settlement, and client credit.  Additionally, your business will be more likely to attract and retain financially responsible clientele because of the factoring company’s collection process.  

Since factoring is not a loan of money, your business credit will appear to be more favorable when buying expensive equipment or making larger investments that do need to be financed.

Factoring provides a great option for small startups to grow quickly without limits.  Consider it as an option if you are developing a business!

The art of storytelling telling is likely world’s oldest form of communication. Before civilizations were populated with citizens who could read and write, all information was passed from one generation to another through storytelling. The Odyssey wasn’t written down for over 700 years after the civilization who believed the tales had faded away. So, the hot new storytelling trend is more of a renaissance than a modern innovation of communication genius.

Stories (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course, the fact that storytelling has been around as long as civilization isn’t going to keep every marketing, communication, public relations, and education conference from featuring speakers who will dissect the science of storytelling ad nauseum. I know, because I have given several of these lectures over the past two years.

If storytelling is such an ancient practice, why has it suddenly taken hold of the professional world? The answer is most likely three-fold. It’s entertaining, it’s scientific, and it’s effective.

I have taught a Multimedia Storytelling course at Colorado Mesa University for five years. For the final assignment, I require students to create a corporate story video using the concept of manipulation. Sounds pretty horrible, right? Nobody likes to be manipulative. Even worse, what kind of teacher asks his students to practice manipulation? I will explain.

The cold hard truth is that manipulation is the essence of storytelling. In fact, Americans have words that refer to stories that aren’t manipulative enough – we call them cheesy, hokey, corny, thin, or lame. These are words for movies, books, or other stories that aren’t capable of sucking the audience. A great story not only makes you forget time, space, and reality, it also transfers a predetermined emotion from the creator to the audience.

The word manipulation, when it relates to storytelling, is generally not about forcing an audience to feel or act against their will. It’s usually about pulling a willing audience out of their reality and placing them into a new dimension. In this instance, the word manipulation is similar to how an artist manipulates clay or paints. The big difference here is that a storyteller manipulates his/her audience and the tools he/she uses are found in the craft of storytelling.

An exhaustive analysis of each tool at a storyteller’s disposal is not possible or appropriate within a single blog post, but there a few basic concepts that all great stories have in common. These include, but are not limited to Freytag’s Pyramid (also called the narrative arch), characters, conflict, cause, context, plot, and point of view. Each of these deserves its own blog post, if not it’s own book. The following video will also demonstrate the importance of storytelling in the world of communication.

Related articles

• Teacher Lesson Plans: Carry on the Storytelling Tradition from Crayola.com