How are events changing in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, and what does that mean for you if you’re an author?
Award-winning events producer Sasha Frieze talks about how digital events are evolving, what the hybrid event of the future might look like, and the opportunities and challenges for speakers and authors in this new world.
From how (and when) to pitch for a speaking gig to smart tips for selling your book when you can’t sit and sign it at the back of the room, this is every author’s survival guide to the new normal of speaking and events.
LINKS:
The Business Narrative website: https://thebusinessnarrative.com/
Sasha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sashafrieze
Alison on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bookstothesky
PI-Q webinar The Upside of Downturns with Nick Suckley: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/114453734200
See all PI-Q webinars and replay links: https://practicalinspiration.com/pi-q
The EBBC Summer Reading List 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/34626998-alison-jones?shelf=ebbc-summer-reading-list-2020
The Extraordinary Business Book Club on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1447064765612358/
Virtual Writing Retreat: https://pi-q.learnworlds.com/course?courseid=virtual-writing-retreat-summer-2020
Alison Jones: [00:00:00] I’m here today with Sasha Frieze, who was awarded event producer of the year, 2020 by Conference News, a week before lockdown. She leads the Business Narrative, a conference and business events consultancy curating events with purpose for businesses and not for profits using her proprietary Event Narrative framework: seven questions designed to create a coherent narrative, communicating an event’s purpose, and a lot of coffee.
She’s a mentor for the Fast Forward 15, on the board of the event industries event apprenticeships program, and a visiting lecturer in Event Management at Westminster University.
And she’s worked with News UK, the Guardian, Wellcome, the Open Data Institutes, Ada Lovelace Institute, and Informa amongst others. Right now she and her team are working on virtual and hybrid events for 2020 onwards and advising a range of associations, think tanks and commercial organizations on event strategies to deal with the new normal.
Welcome Sasha.
Sasha Frieze: [00:00:50] Hi, Alison. Thanks for having me.
Alison Jones: [00:00:53] It’s a very exciting time for event managers. Isn’t it.
Sasha Frieze: [00:00:56] Yes. I think the event industry is grasping the possibilities of virtual, online hybrid events and seeing how things are going to change and, just like everything, we’re all used to kind of Zoom activities now, I think there are things we’re going to learn from online events that whatever the future holds and at some point, we will hopefully gather in person on a bigger scale, you know, we’ll bring some of this learning with us.
So a very exciting time.
Alison Jones: [00:01:21] It is, isn’t it. That’s the sense I have as well, is that, although we may well start with events as we knew them in the past, they won’t be exactly as we knew them because we’ve learned so much that we can’t now unlearn. And we also know all the possibilities for them, but let’s focus on events for authors in particular.
So, I mean, Practical Inspiration authors. live and breathe events most of the time. So can you just give us a sense of what the possibilities are? You know, why events are such good news for authors in particular, particularly business book authors.
Sasha Frieze: [00:01:47] Sure. No, absolutely. I mean, business books, you know, business events are our speciality. And so I’m really happy to talk about that. I mean, I think the main thing that authors get from an event is that sharing of thought leadership. You know, it’s an opportunity. It’s a platform to be able to speak to an audience that may not necessarily be your audience.
So you’re expanding your reach, you’re sharing your thought leadership, you know, you’re having an opportunity to increase your visibility in your marketplace. And off the back of that, there are lots of positive things. You know, most of the events that we work on, we have quite a complex kind of comms and PR strategy for the event.
And so if authors find that they can sort of build themselves into that, and get some PR opportunities off the back of the event, that can be great. And I also think that there are opportunities depending on the kind of event too, certainly at physical events, to sell books, you know, events where we have keynote speakers, we will very often have the book available in one of the expo booths, for people to come and sign and chat to the author, or use opportunities, you know other opportunities to sell people’s books.
So I think events can have a really big impact on authors. But I think what’s important is to make sure that the message that you’re sharing really connects to the content of the event. And I sometimes find myself going to events where people have said, right, let’s get a keynote in.
And then that keynote is telling their lovely story, their sort of, you know, this is what my book’s about, and this is what I think matters, and it doesn’t always connect. And I think what’s really key for speakers is to take their great content, but spend the time to make sure that it’s really, really relevant for that event audience, because that can make all those other positive outcomes really happen and hopefully happen at scale.
Alison Jones: [00:03:48] Yes. That’s, that’s really good and we’ve all been there haven’t we? Sitting there thinking well this is all very nice, but it has nothing to do with what this conference is supposed to be about.
And we talked a little bit before about how events are changing. I mean, there’s, there’s the shock, obviously, of everything having to go online and people scrambling to get events online.
But as that goes on, as you say, people are getting more used to online events. The online events are getting better. I’ve really, really noticed that as well. How are events evolving and what do you see, as we sort of emerge from lockdown, as a sort of hybrid thing for the future?
Sasha Frieze: [00:04:20] Yes, it’s a really interesting question. I mean, I think, you know, initially there were a lot of people doing Zoom style events. And, I think initially people attending events were very forgiving about the experience they were having with an online event. It was a bit of a kind of community feel, we’re all in this together. As time goes on and as certainly in the UK, it’s not the case everywhere in Europe or globally, but certainly in the UK, the events industry is hoping to have some information, some announcements tomorrow from, from Government in terms of scale of gathering, but in the UK for the rest of 2020 we’re currently not expecting to be able to host any events of scale and scale currently there’s more than 30 people.
So I think that virtual online events are here for the foreseeable future, and possibly into early next year. And so how is that changing events? People are busy, so people are experiencing an event online in their home office, at their kitchen table, in the garden, often with other responsibilities.
And so the nature of the event is really changing. Early on we went to some people’s events where, you know, you just take your two-day content and you put it online. We’re not seeing great engagement with that. So what we think is really important is that the content is what it’s really about.
Content is always King. And so what virtual events mean, which I actually think is great for writers, is that you really need to, it’s just got to be tight and pithy. Whereas people might’ve given a 30- or 40-minute presentation at a live event. And let’s face it, we’ve all been at those events where lots of people are sitting in the audience, looking at their phones, but with a virtual event, people will just log off or they’ll nip into that meeting that they were supposed to be going to.
And so it’s about really, really thinking about the content to make sure that it’s relevant and pithy and tight. I mean, we are curating the content for the events that we’re putting together really, really tightly, so that it’s super engaging. We’re also creating event platforms and working with different event platforms that help build that sense of community engagement, Whether it’s a chat box at the side of the presentation, Q’s and A’s, polls. We’re seeing things with social media, like a social media box at the side of the event, you can see all the Twitter stuff happening. And so for speakers, that can be really helpful, always find out if there’s an event hashtag, and you know, and ask people to tweet it as part of part of your experience.
So I think virtual events are evolving into something really quite slick. I mean, I’ve always felt that events have something of a sense of producing a movie. You know, there can be a hundred people working behind the scenes at an event, but they’re all hidden just to make it happen.
Now I kind of feel I’m a bit more like a TV producer. Great online events have something of a sort of TV broadcast quality to them. And actually we are hiring different people to front the events. Whereas in the past, I’m might have been quite happy to have the client’s chairperson come in and moderate the day, now I’m actually talking to people who are TV presenters, because you actually need that energy to keep people engaged and to signpost them to where in the online platform they can find the next sessions. And to keep people engaged and excited. We’re also seeing quite a lot of really engaging way to do things even though we’re not in person. We’ve seen people do yoga events in the break, we’re looking at doing an escape room, one of our clients, kind of themes to go with the events in one of the breaks. So there are lots of ways that, I mean, ultimately human ingenuity is an amazing thing. And so people are bringing their creativity to the experience of content online.
Alison Jones: [00:08:21] And of course creativity thrives within constraints. We know that, don’t we, you’re given a new situation and you rise to meet it. I know at the Independent Publishers Guild conference in June, we finished with a sing song. Everybody’s audio was off, you know, only the person that was leading it, but it was still a really energizing and sort of community feeling. It was extraordinary.
Sasha Frieze: [00:08:40] I really love that. You know, one of the things that I felt for quite some time, and I think lockdown has really accentuated this, is that the days of a business event being, you know, everybody rocks up and they’re in their business suit and they are their job title. That’s not really been the case for quite some time.
You know, it has been about moving from a kind of a project to a service, to a kind of experience that people have at events but what lockdown has done has really brought people, you know, everybody I engage with at an event is very much their authentic selves. They are so authentic that they are in their living room, or their spare bedroom and, people are much more open and much more open sometimes to doing those kinds of activities that they might not typically have done a conference. I’m finding ways to kind of bring people together, you know, events are ultimately about convening, connection, community and we still want to do that online.
So I love that singing idea.
Alison Jones: [00:09:39] It was terrific. And I think, you know, you say it’s got a bit of the TV production in it. I think that’s really interesting and certainly speaks to as you say, the energy and the quality of the production, but what it’s doing that TV isn’t doing, is it’s constantly reaching out and engaging and providing those kinds of interactive touch points, isn’t it. And the ways that people can connect with each other as well, because you don’t have corridor conversations on Zoom.
Sasha Frieze: [00:10:02] Absolutely. So that’s so interesting. I mean, one of the events that we’re putting together for August, actually a medical conference, we’ve done exactly that. We’ve got a kind of strand of round tables. So there will be the main stage content, you know, where people will be presenting and you will be able to engage live, there’ll be Q and As and polls and people can chat in the box and that will be fed back to the speaker so they can respond to it live. But at the same time, we’re making a series of round tables, which we’re actually calling Corridor Consults, which is exactly that, so you’ll, you know, there’ll be different themed round tables.
So you can go into the pediatric emergency corridor consult or the ophthalmology corridor consultant, and just meet and connect with your colleagues and connections who want to talk about the things you want to talk about, because that human contact is really important. And that you know, what is an event, it’s live.
And so in a very complex event there may, well, of course be some sessions which are prerecorded, or you get Tony Blair to speak and he can only send you a pre-record. But to me, an event is predominantly live so that people, you have to be there. If it’s all prerecorded, it’s actually just a series of webinars and that interactivity and connectivity, it’s human nature to crave that. And we want to offer that to people in their online experience.
Alison Jones: [00:11:32] Yes, that’s so true. And let’s think about it again from the author’s perspective for a minute. Well, let’s say, there’s two things I want to touch on. One is how do you pitch yourself for this kind of online event? You know, is there anything you need to do differently or indeed, how do you pitch yourself for any event, but also, having got the gig.
What are some ways that you can, as an author, do that work of really engaging people with your content.
Sasha Frieze: [00:11:56] Okay, so how to pitch for events is a really good question. There are thousands of event organizing companies and indeed companies who organize their own events. You know, people can go through Speaker Bureau and certainly for Keynote types, people do look to agencies to help them, you know, fill in particular speaking slots.
I think it’s about knowing your world and your marketplace. And so I would encourage every author who’s looking to speak, to kind of build a spreadsheet. I’m a spreadsheet person. In fact, I’m sitting here with my, I love spreadsheets mug, might not be a spreadsheet, could just be a list, but to build a list of the events that you see yourself speaking at, why you’d be a good fit.
And I think that’s really the starting point. So that’s about your kind of outbound reach. In terms of who you might approach and what the ask is. And then separately, potentially through the agency route, there could be inbound routes. I encourage people to have a page where it’s really easy to find out about them. You know, your web page, if you haven’t got a web page, definitely a LinkedIn profile, I would put up a video of you speaking, because I think people love to see what somebody is like live. So if you’ve got video, I would definitely do that. But I think I would encourage people to build that list of all the events they feel they’ve got a contribution to make. And then I guess my initial approach would be to look at who is the decision maker around the program and the content, whether that’s the chair of an association, or is there a conference committee chair, that you could talk to, is there an event organizer? Is there a company, you know, like us an events agency doing it?
So finding the right person and kind of, putting together a short pitch, but I think the pitch is about what they’re trying to achieve and how you can help, rather than ‘ this is my flagship talk that I give, do you want it?’ So I think, you know, much like when you’re trying to place articles in magazines, it’s about understanding what the needs are.
Alison Jones: [00:14:09] Like a PR pitch. Yes, exactly. And if you’re writing to a journalist, or particular magazine or publication, you’d look and see, who’s the audience for this, what’s their angle and you tailor your pitch to that. So it’s exactly the same. Isn’t it?
Sasha Frieze: [00:14:23] So I think, yes, it’s about a tailored pitch and about flexibility.
Alison Jones: [00:14:27] It’s also about timing in a way that it isn’t so much for publications, isn’t it? But there’s a call for speakers. There are deadlines and so on. So, are there, I mean, I don’t actually genuinely know this. Sasha, are there places that you can go where you can see, you know at a glance, deadlines for different events?
Sasha Frieze: [00:14:41] If only, how wonderful would that be for all our speakers? That would be amazing. I mean, it’s a very, very fragmented industry and each sector will have its own events. So no, but I think there are those call for papers and that’s one way to approach things and I would certainly, you know, fill out an inquiry form for any calls for papers.
But I think that direct approach can also be really helpful, just as a thing to know about lead times. It very much depends on the event, but business events typically have, I mean, anywhere between a 20 and 8 week kind of promotional lead time and so much of the content theoretically ought to be ready at the start of that lead time, although often isn’t. So you do want to be approaching people ahead of time. You know, if you see an event in two weeks time, probably they’ve got that program together. In six weeks time..
Alison Jones: [00:15:36] Well they’d better have got their program together!
Sasha Frieze: [00:15:38] I mean, having said that, the first speaking gig I ever had, I chaired an event for a magazine about conferences.
And I can’t remember how the connection came about, but someone had let them down and they came to me at three weeks’ notice and said, ‘Would you chair the event?’
Alison Jones: [00:15:53] I’ve had a few of those.
Sasha Frieze: [00:15:54] So, you know, you never know, but it’s also about building relationships. You know, if you make a great connection with someone, like stay in touch with them, find out what the next event is, keep talking to them about how you might be able to help them.
Alison Jones: [00:16:12] Yes. It’s about being top of mind, isn’t it, as much as anything.
Sasha Frieze: [00:16:14] Yes, no, absolutely. I mean, I do believe in connecting people with LinkedIn, putting useful stuff on LinkedIn, that’s genuinely useful, but not too ‘hello. Look at me’, but ‘Hey, isn’t this interesting’.
Alison Jones: [00:16:26] Yes, absolutely. The content strategy principle, isn’t it. And so brilliant tips there on how you might pitch and sort of be on the radar of people who are selecting speakers. Having got the gig, then what, how do you change your approach? I guess at the moment for that engagement piece that we talked about, but just generally, also there is sort of tips for authors in preparing their content for a conference, beyond checking who you’re talking to and what they’re trying to get out of it.
Sasha Frieze: [00:16:53] I mean, I think it’s about having a really clear message in terms of what you’re talking about. If we’re thinking about kind of online events right now, making sure that’s really tight, it should always be tight, but it absolutely has to be really tight and focused now. In some ways I’m sure lots of people know this already, we’re going to be looking at three key things today. You know, I think it’s really important to consider the strategy when you get to execution. And when, so really walk people through the shape of your talk to make it easy for them to stay with you. If you’re going to use PowerPoint, so, what we’re finding with virtual events is that there’s quite a lot less PowerPoints and a lot more kind of humanity and faces, which may not be a bad thing, but if you are using PowerPoints, keep them really simple. keep them really simple. I mean, I would much prefer a keynote speaker turns up with a PowerPoint of six great images that are the kickoff points for their key talking points, than a 20 page deck with a lot of bullet points.
Alison Jones: [00:18:05] We’d always prefer that to be fair, wouldn’t we?
Sasha Frieze: [00:18:07] No, absolutely. And I think I’m probably preaching to the choir on that one. I think there are ways that you can engage with the event that both help in advance of this and during the event that both help you and help you then organise the company that you’re working with. So one is really shout about it on social media once you’ve been hired as a speaker, if they don’t give you them already ask them for some social media assets, a Twitter card, a LinkedIn card, so that you can kind of talk about it and put it up there.
Use the social media tags, tag them. So I think sharing the information, I love it that people are always honored and humbled to be asked to speak, you know, but fair enough, people are making curatorial decisions and it’s great that you’ve been selected, but whatever is your authentic voice, to share that.
Definitely share it up front and that helps promote the event for them and keep doing that afterwards. One of the things that, I think I would probably ask people to do, especially if someone’s doing the keynote, is that I’d ask them to think about having a social media person just for that half an hour of their keynote.
So somebody who is taking images on their phone or screenshots on their phone, sharing key talking points, having a quick look of the questions or comments and retweeting them, because you can create quite a lot of social media activity during the talk and immediately afterwards. So bringing someone in to support you on that, because however smart people are, it is quite hard to do two things at once, but I think that can be really helpful.
Alison Jones: [00:19:48] That’s a brilliant tip and I guess potentially filming it, if you can get permission to do so as well, for your speaker page.
Sasha Frieze: [00:19:56] So I think a thing I’d probably do is ask the event organizers in advance, are they filming it and would it be okay to have access to their video, to use that? And if not, you could bring someone in to use that. I mean, most people will probably be happy for you to certainly for you to have it to share on social media.
Many organizations nowadays are putting their content online after the event. So typically, we might take 40 talks that happen during an event and top and tail them with the event graphics and put them on whatever, you know, either the client’s website or on YouTube or whatever’s the appropriate channel.
And so most people are doing that. And you should ask them if they are, because you can then promote that and you don’t have to have it on your website. So it’s not costing you money hosting it. But if you want to do more with it, turn it into a showreel then you’d need to ask their permission and it might be worth asking them that in advance, once you’re all kind of signed up.
Alison Jones: [00:20:57] Yes, excellent advice. And of course, if it is on YouTube, you can simply embed it, can’t you, with a widget on your site? Yes. Excellent. And one of the the elephants in the room here is that one of the reasons people do talks and events as an author is to sell books. It’s a great way, you know you rock up with a trolley load of books and you sit at the back of the room and sign them all.
And it’s great. And you can shift, you know, a hundred on a good day. Can’t do that online, can you? Have you any thoughts on how authors can use virtual events to sell books?
Sasha Frieze: [00:21:26] Sure. I mean, I think it can be tough to sell your book at a virtual event, but I think if you’re on Amazon, you could certainly have your social media person put your Amazon link in the chat during your presentation.
Alison Jones: [00:21:43] And if you’re not on Amazon, frankly, you probably haven’t published a book. So that, yes, that makes sense.
Sasha Frieze: [00:21:47] Yes. So whatever online channels you have to sell the book, you could have somebody put that live. I also think, I mean, I think events speaking does two things. Of course you can sell books, but you can also build your own community. So I do encourage people to find a kind of charming, a non salesy way to basically get people’s email addresses, because you want to find a way to carry on engaging with the people who like what you’re saying.
So that might be, somewhere in the presentation you say, here’s our top 10 tips about strategy and pricing in the pharmaceutical sector. Oh, if anybody wants this, ping me an email, you know, here’s my email address, or if you’ve got a website with any kinds of CRM system on it, you can say, you know, Oh, go to this page, go to the front of the website, click on this image, put your name in the box, if you can automate it all the better. So I think I would definitely think about creating some valuable giveaway that’s relevant to the talk, that people might want, so that they can go and download it. And then that will hopefully give you, obviously you’ll have to permission them for GDPR, and that will give you an opportunity to carry on engaging with them and telling them about what you do and potentially selling a book.
There’s another thing that you can do at online events if people are open to it. And I think, if a keynote speaker asks me to do this, I’d probably say yes. I think if one of the regular speakers asked me, we would need to talk about it a little bit more.
But most of the online events we’re doing have virtual exhibition booths. So, you know, it might be that the client organization itself wants a kind of landing place within the event for people to go and chat. There might be partner companies who are supporting the event or relevant media in that industry.
And so on most of the platforms we’re working with, they get a kind of virtual event booth. And so that might have a little video, an opportunity to chat, download something in exchange for your email. And so if it’s an event that looks like it’s got a virtual exhibition booth set up, I think it’s a possibility to say to people, Oh, do you have any kind of virtual expo?
Would it be possible to have one of my team in the booth?
And that way you could do a kind of virtual author signing, or you could come up with something that you could do in the booth, depending on the technical setup. Some people are kind of, it’s a short, it’s a 30-second video, other platforms let you do live video in the virtual booth room.
So you could, let’s say you’re a keynote at nine o’clock. You could say, if anybody wants to talk further, I’ll be doing a little bit of a kind of talk later on in our virtual booth at two o’clock. So come and have a chat there and there’ll be an opportunity to consider the deeper implications of negative oil pricing
Alison Jones: [00:24:51] Or, whatever.
Sasha Frieze: [00:24:52] Whatever it is.
So I think asking for a virtual booth is a possibility. You’d probably want someone to staff that with you, and have digital giveaways that you can put in there, and you could certainly have a link directly there to selling your book. The other thing that I’ve noticed people do online is personal dedications, so there’s a fabulous poet up in Manchester who after the bombings did that amazing poem.
so I’ve noticed that online, he says, when you buy my book, I’ll do a personal dedication, just pop your dedication in the box. And so I think you could replicate that experience that people can have – if you’d like a personal dedication pop along to the booth and my colleague, John will organize all that for you. No problem.
Alison Jones: [00:25:45] And of course, if you’re selling direct yourself, then it’s very simple for you to sign that, that’s a dedication actually in the book, and mail it out. But that doesn’t scale terribly well, but it’s certainly something to consider. I guess another thing I should just to mention is it’s hard to give a voucher. on Amazon for a particular product, but your publisher for example so at Practical Inspiration we can give people bespoke codes, and then they can buy the book from our site and then they get a discount on it. And it’s a discount that’s bespoke to an event, for example. so that’s another thing thing.
Sasha Frieze: [00:26:13] So that’s brilliant. I mean, I think something where you say, and you have to find the right term for saying it, you know, been great talking to you all, for those who might want to follow up and take a look at the book because we’re online and I’m not able to kind of sign books for you personally, my publisher has actually given me a code just for people who are here today and then that flashes up on screen.
So you could find a nice way of doing that. And that would be brilliant. And also you can then track which events really work for you. So then, you know,
Alison Jones: [00:26:44] You can pitch them next year.
Sasha Frieze: [00:26:46] I guess I will go back to that one.
Alison Jones: [00:26:49] That was really worth it.
Another thing that we’re struggling with at the moment, I think we are nearly there now, is in the past, we’ve had people who have booked our authors as speakers. And they’ve bought a job lot of books to give to everybody in the goodie bags at the conference. And that’s brilliant.
That’s a bulk deal. Everybody’s happy; really hard to do that online with a print book. So we are struggling at the moment with somebody who wants to buy a thousand copies, but they don’t want us to send them to them because they’re going to have to mail them out to everybody and they don’t want that job, but equally they won’t send us the people’s data to say that we can send it out because of GDPR….
Sasha Frieze: [00:27:22] You know, that’s interesting. There probably is a solution because one…
Alison Jones: [00:27:27] oh, there is. We’re on it at the moment. We’re setting up a little shop front where people can buy their own, but yes, it hasn’t been easy.
Sasha Frieze: [00:27:33] But I’m seeing at a lot of events. And it’s certainly something we’re considering for our events, that there are elements of real life things that we might want to deliver people, whether that’s, you know, small bottle of champagne and champagne glass, for everyone who is going to go to the drinks at five o’clock or I’ve seen people send people afternoon tea but actually everybody is either delivering it themselves or getting a third party to deliver it. and I think that if there’s a solution to the GDPR piece, that’s a great way to carry on delivering real value and for people to kind of hold something physical while they’re enjoying the virtual event.
Alison Jones: [00:28:12] Yes. So if you have the ability to order copies relatively cheaply for yourself, and I know not every author does particularly if you’re publishing traditionally, that’s something to consider, isn’t it, in lieu of a fee perhaps: they buy a certain quantity of books from you and then they get sent out to delegates.
Yes. Brilliant. I could talk to you all day about this Sasha, but we’re running out of time. So I’m going to ask you for a book recommendation. Is there a business book, or it doesn’t have to be a business book, but you know what I mean, a book that you’ve read that you think is really relevant for business people, and particularly for people listening to this podcast?
Sasha Frieze: [00:28:42] So I’ve actually got two on my desk here and I still haven’t decided which one to go for.
Alison Jones: [00:28:50] Oh, do them both go on. Why not?
Sasha Frieze: [00:28:53] I really massively enjoyed James Wallman, who wrote Stuffocation and Time and How to Spend It. Both of these books are about experiences and how we, as people shape our experiences and how to maximize what it is we do and what we get out of it.
But they do it in different ways. And so Time and How to Spend It is a really, really fascinating look at transforming your life and, you know, abilities to turn off. It’s a really clever way to look at the story of your life and what you’re trying to achieve.
Alison Jones: [00:29:36] It’s a brilliant title
Sasha Frieze: [00:29:37] But he uses a lot of the hero’s journey, which you and I’ve talked about quite a lot, as a kind of narrative of how you might shape your personal story and the experiences that you want to have. And it’s really, it’s a really, I don’t want to say it’s an easy read, it’s a very thoughtful and insightful book, but it’s very readable.
Alison Jones: [00:29:59] I love the sound of that and I don’t know it. Thank you. Brilliant.
Sasha Frieze: [00:30:01] It’s great. But I think my winning all time favorite is The Power of Moments. Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Alison Jones: [00:30:10] Yes. Wonderful.
Sasha Frieze: [00:30:11] Yes. So they wrote Switch and Made to Stick. And this is about, you know, this is about what events are about, creating experiences with real impact. And they’ve got lots of fabulous little anecdotes about how to create magical experiences, kind of how to break that script, how to build those peak experiences also whilst an academic book, extremely readable.
So I’m delighted to recommend both of those.
Alison Jones: [00:30:40] Yes, brilliant. And yes, I thoroughly endorsed that – it’s a terrific book and they do, they’ve got that rare gift that they bring all that academic research, it is so thoroughly researched and evidenced, but it’s so readable. They write really, really well. Good, wonderful.
So Sasha, if people want to find out more about you, more about the business narrative, where should they go?
Sasha Frieze: [00:30:59] So we are the Business Narrative. The first place to go is probably to go to the Business Narrative website. You can find out more about the events that we organize and the services we offer. And you can find out a little bit more about me and my fabulous team. It definitely takes an army to put together events.
Alison Jones: [00:31:16] Not a village. It’s a whole metropolis.
Sasha Frieze: [00:31:20] So yes, I think the Business Narrative.com website is the starting point.
Alison Jones: [00:31:25] Awesome. I’ll put that up on the show notes, at extraordinarybusinessbooks.com, along with the full transcript of this in case you’re frantically taking notes and you’ve run out of paper, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Sasha, thank you so much. Lots and lots of really, really useful insights.
And I’m sure that it be hugely valuable to so many people listening. Thanks for your time.
Sasha Frieze: [00:31:42] A pleasure. Thank you.