Conferences can be boring, and sometimes totally unproductive.
But ‘Against All Odds’ startups conference by Freshworks was different. It was filled with power-packed sessions and gave attendees the opportunity to have meaningful interactions with each other.
As usual, I was on the lookout for interesting stories. The conference didn’t disappoint on that front either.
The one session that really stood out for me was ‘running the success marathon’ by Vineeta Singh.
Vineeta is at the helm of Sugar Cosmetics which offers makeup products for millennial women. It is reported that 65% of their sales come from lipsticks, and they are rapidly expanding their product portfolio. They did over 100Cr INR in sales in fiscal 2020 and are poised to step up the gas as online commerce continues to grow in significance with the ongoing pandemic.
Vineeta’s presentation was more than just that. It was a message wrapped in a story.
The story was of her experience with Ironman, especially about the fear of swimming.
Vineeta had always trained in swimming pools. She was scared out of her wits when she had to swim through a lake in Austria during her first Ironman attempt. She was unable to spot the bottom of the lake while swimming and that added to the challenge.
Despite that, she did not give up. She kept telling herself(and the rescue team) that she would swim a little farther and give up if she was unable to after that.
Eventually, she made it to the shore.
And she also completed her Ironman attempt successfully.
But that fear of open waters motivated Vineeta to go back over and over again. She used fear as fuel to get better at swimming in open waters.
And that was the same strategy she applied with Sugar Cosmetics as well. After a failed first startup, both Vineeta and Kaushik had many questions about starting up again, and probably even felt some fear. But they jumped in any way.
Through the presentation Vineeta also gave micro pieces of advice about running experiments, finding a support system, building a team, etc.
I am certain that the personal story made her message a lot more impactful and easy to understand.
I was left wondering what it is that the rest of us can learn from Vineeta. That made me reach out to her for a chat.
She mentioned that she shares personal stories even with her team, and encourages them to do so as well. The result is a connected team that understands the overall vision of the company.
Vineeta’s success at connecting with her audiences points out the power of a contextual personal story.
Here are my quick tips on how the rest of us can use personal stories to communicate better:
1. Identify: there is a thread between your life stories and your startup/job/leadership role. But you will need to identify that. It may not come easily. It may take some thinking, conversations, and time. But it is time well spent.
2. Structuring: one thing that many of us miss is that a story isn’t a plain narration of a series of events. It is a narrative that is structured deliberately to deliver a message to an audience.
Vineeta spoke directly about her startup only 30% of the time during the session. But that was enough for us to absorb messages that she wanted to deliver.
3. Narration: Practice makes perfect. Vineeta has narrated this story to different audiences. That makes her narration of it so impactful.
So test out your stories. Don’t wait for a big opportunity to arrive to put in the work. It is better when you have tried and tested stories that can be structured and narrated as the occasion demands.
When you narrate stories from your own deep experiences, your voice conveys excitement and all the emotions you feel. Those emotions get transferred to the audience.
It is said that stories are the best way to connect with audiences.
Not that I ever doubted this, but Vineeta’s ‘fear as fuel’ story made me realise this all over again.
