Stories that Sell: Boosting Business Growth Through Storytelling

I've become a storyteller about the first one. I've always been a storyteller. But I've become identified as one just out of like trying to tell my story and the approach to the intense consistent approach that I have, which I have, you know, do that story of try to sell full gap on Twitter as we did that. I got to the rotation and I've now found myself, you need this where I'm advising other founders who are coming and asking for some guidance, and teams that are to tell the elements to me. (upbeat music) - This is Milton and you're welcome to the Marketing Vibes and in Shalaportcast. I've ever wondered how to take a product from zero to one or how basic and market will you do effectively? If this is something I interest you, then this podcast is for you. We talk about strategies, techniques and hacks that you can use to go from zero to one. Don't be a perfect and get more users and customers. This is the Marketing Vibes and in Shalaportcast and I remain your host, Milton Sussou. - So ladies and gentlemen, this is your host, Milton Sussou, like you already know and today we have the phenomenal, the amazing, the one and only Victor Fartemy as a guest on MBI podcast. And he might be asking who is Victor Fartemy. Victor Fartemy is a brand consultant, leader and identity campaigner. In 2015, he founded Fart Conversed, a strategy led design agency, seven ambitious brands from across the globe. He is committed to finding his voice and identity while helping other people and businesses find just true storytelling. Today, he is the CEO and co-founder of Fulgab, a platform freelancers use for project management, invoicing payments and more. Ladies and gentlemen, please make welcome Victor Fartemy to Marketing Vibes and in Shalaportcast. (audience cheering) Victor, how are you doing today? That's, that's interesting. (laughs) Yeah, I'm doing, I'm doing, I'm doing good. Happy to be here. Yeah, I mean, if you don't know Victor, I wonder who do you know exactly in marketing? If you don't know Victor from Fulgab, who do you know? Where are you right now? Are you in Legos? Are you in Ipadon? Are you in Ife? You know, you travel around the enjoy a lot. Because I mean, Legos, I'm at two, when Legos right now. Okay, how's the weather in Legos? Doing great, doing great. Yeah, it's a bit odd and they have to know but mostly in the end, I'm a bit too contoured the weather, it's okay. (laughs) Okay, then that sounds good. So I mean, a lot of people know you, but there are like so many people that I don't know you right now because we even have like, very listening to this right now. And they would love to know who exactly Victor is. Of course, we write a bio, we've had like a little bit of who you are, but from the causes, now it's who is Victor, what's your story? Even in Nigeria, many people still don't know me, so yeah. (laughs) It's, my name is Victor Fatomi. Co-founder and CEO at FUGAP, project management tool for the freelance economy. And at Fort Canvas, brand design agency, brand strategy and design for ambitious founders. I work at the mostly in the tech space, but also beyond it. I've become a storyteller about the first one, yeah. I've always been a storyteller, but I've become identified as one just out of like trying to tell my story and the approach to the intense, consistent approach that I have between which I have, you know, do that story, try to sell FUGAP on Twitter. Because we did that kind of adaptation and I've now found myself, in this way, my advice in other founders were coming and asking for some guy and some tips and also tell the elements to me, Victor. But some really, the work of my life is sent at Adarant, continuously finding my voice. I don't know if we know that's fine to death. So all of my work at Fort Canvas, most of any part of my work at Fort Canvas has been the designers that have come in, gained experience, grew, gone on to do the things that they're doing. As well as the whole business is fine clarity about that work. And FUGAP itself is too enabling the individual or one-man institution. So everything, the consistent theme in my work is constantly around the voice, identity, expression, so do more and achieve more. Yeah, that's what I'm amazing. Yeah, amazing. I'm amazing for future awards, prize for technology. OK. That's fine. OK. OK. So before we had this version of Victor, that was doing all of these amazing things. Who were you before now? Like what's your journey? How did you start? How exactly did we get this Victor 2.0? Nice. I like how he puts it. There are many versions. So Victor was first an artistic kid who would design-- just like many of the critics, welcome to first time, first 10 of JS1. It's committed all pages in this class notebook to try and use the pen to make a marker of a new beginning. And then creating trophies, subtle wine bottles for my friends, for football competitions on this street. So cutting out for us, like DJ Kocha, we sent a room out from the newspapers, pasting them is something else to make like a magazine kind of thing. That was that artistic kid. And then there was the writer. In the body, I was found to the writing site to me and led the press-- there was the awards guy, Lempwy, that way, because I won and I was president of the press club. Yeah. And also the captain, one of the title titles of the debate club, something that's-- Wow. Well, both big thanks to the major managers, that so of them, really, really, really can help me to find myself. So spoken word, written word, and second, and this quote, that was like Victor 2.0. In that sense, he was like, well, he wants to label it or 1.2. In June, there was then the Victor Ufa, and this time. I never knew that. If you asked me any time before that, what would you like to be when you go up? I never said anything like design. I didn't know the character existed. But I ran a magazine and the people to design webbed on campus together. I was a fan of yours in first year. And then I had opinions on those designs. And I'd like to meet you finally. Now, people actually get paid to this thing. And that was like the journey starting design. And they're falling in love with design so much and trying to do the business side of it, finding knowledge. And they're doing an interesting uni, and then progressively dropping out of uni. A job out of uni? Yes. Wow. I thought they knew that. I hate what you're saying about this. Yeah, so the other uni. And then they grew the end up in the side of things. In terms of like, for cameras. And then the experience inside for cameras led to the idea for full gap in 2020. So there's a lot more details. A lot more key things that first projects in Lagos, with Trudy, Jidon, or regular Africa. And a lot of like on that key moments. Then before today, it's joy, it's a big today. Many key moments there. Amazing. Amazing. It seems like you've-- Joy. Yeah, great. It seems like you've lived like a thousand lives and one. It's been a-- every time I get asked, and I'm traveling down in my mind, it's just like-- And then I have to keep some junk shones. Yeah. I must really get a shit. It was-- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. So let's get into like, spiritelling. I mean, I see that you are really being on spiritelling. There's really like the storytelling part of things, right? For like, startup founders, how exactly you like they can use different spiritelling strategies to drive through their products and stuff like that. So what exactly is spirit selling? And why is this like important for startups and small businesses? OK, first, the story selling. As a makeshift term, it's really just to emphasize you connecting storytelling seeing the fact that it can help you really achieve those original goals of selling the first place. And first, I'd been doing storytelling. We don't know in the last one, it was called. I just realized that with Ford cameras, a lot of our markets in-- now we are attracted to the backline. Except from the fairhouse. It's been the fact that we got attention on social media by just one being there, showing up there often, and expressing ourselves. And expressing ourselves not only just the work we do, but fully experience ourselves. You're really good at this stuff. So let's go deep into more details, especially when it comes to case studies. And that's what we try to do at the marketing vibes and in shell-application. to give examples with different use cases and case studies. So let's say in the next three minutes, can you share some examples of successful storytelling strategies used by different businesses or startups that you've experienced or that you have used yourself to find a list into this right now. So I want to use this exact strategy and how to deploy it in those sea results. Okay. So I think here, the first one that comes to my mind is DS TV, for example, there's a way DS TV effectively takes us back to, so primarily DS TV advertising would be about shows, you know, what is your watch that show with covered football for you. I know that's nice, but then there's a way to take you into the lives of people in the in the entire chain, value chain. I remember watching the story of a guy who began as, you know, like maybe I don't have a car recall something not skewed at all on the sets just maybe just bringing something to the set or just carrying things around on set. And into the story of our, for one of the shows on DS TV, now it kind of rolls around about times becoming director and on its own show as being like signed on DS TV. And sometimes they'll tell you stories of install us, people who are like size of install us, and now they're able to build and raise their family based on that. That's something that they take you into as much as possible. To give us as, you know, the receiver of the month and the highlights, you know, someone and how much they've been able to achieve. Also, they tell the story of how this tell it in the first days, which is, the piggy bus itself started to be on someone's studio in 3Tar, who I said, okay, I was dropping a coin, I was dropping a thousand around in a piggy bank every day for a whole year. And I realized who I have to do that. I got to go to make an actual piggy bank. And they're not shy. They found us, I'm not shy to tell that story. To tell that story every when you get a chance to. That's like a lot more, I mean, for DS TV and the receiver of the month example, that's to be telling from the angle of the users. So from the, which at FUGAP also we, we, we champion our user actively, you know, I've interviews, conversations with our users. In terms of founder, the retailing, it's a growing trend for now. I am trying to look, I'm trying to check to see some examples locally. Look at me, we have a lot more of founders trying to stay behind the scenes. And we just, we see their pictures, when there is money, nice photoshoot. But we don't know enough about a lot of the founders, a lot of the top, yeah, status, we know very little about the founders. So I don't have, I'm sure there must be one or two, I skipped my mind right now. That's because I'm really struggling to recall. But I always like to use public examples like which I brought in, which I brought in of veg. Rights books, shed lights on his past man and journey as a blogger and their web on the veg in the website. Steve Jobs did not do a lot of it while alive or the most active career part of his career, but like. He shot it personally secured Isaac what I said, what I said, what I said to the story, because he knows the purpose, but what I did mostly was that in presenting his products, he used a lot of references. He highlighted a lot of possibilities and he typically will also tell you about a lot of the efforts that went behind the scenes to make it happen. And I was to continue to also then what I would do, have different parts of the team, engineering lead, design manager, different people, a part of this product, we are about to use. And seeing their faces, you see them in the environment, telling you about what inspired what they're building, sometimes you see a user. Again, the last, the different ways, the different ways in which different things are using the power of to it. Yeah, so it's a long continuous list, but we were seeing. And even I, like I said, I'm learning and looking forward to more and more cases of sweeps out this Africa, they connect clean up with opportunities and they also actively by again, I said that's the popular what's popular is stories of users right. And which can inspire other users, but I have been coming more from the angle of users also want to hear stories of you people, the founders as well as team members. You know, you months of this company that's a thing that's also growing in trend. So I feel like there's several examples, but founders are the ones who have done the lists in terms of telling the honest, this, telling the stories of, you know, why they're doing what they're doing and sharing different pieces from time to time on, on different ways they're fulfilling that mission daily. And sharing memories from from their journey, I feel like founders can do more to attract more trust and believe because that's in our works very well, if you look at religion, for example, the concept of church, so it's the, it's, there's a lot of respects for the past, those of the leaders in that sense. And it's a lot of times of it is past process, not respect and all just for this is not a from a narcissistic point of view, but it's like people want to be led. It applies in governance too, right, we vote people because we're like, Oh, this person, you know, yes, we can do it. It's a bummer. This person can really do it. This person, because this person is there, I can believe that I can do it. So the idea of an inspiring trustworthy leader is not something which I have of shy away from and stories are some of the ways in which leaders can can build that can inspire that effect over time. But I feel like more loyalty kind of home from the founders to retail and fund a lead to it. Amazing, amazing. Again, Victor is that guy. Victor Victor is that guy. Okay, so I have like some questions for you before I let you be the first question, because you know, we tried to make this conversation very fun. We don't just talk about marketing and growth and stuff like that. We're trying to, you know, get to like, no, the funny part of you. And I mean, you love dancing so much. I love dancing. And I love that so much, but that's all the question is about. So the question is, what is your favorite that joke or cheesy part? What comes to mind the recent one I saw it's more like a redo my favorite and it's like the Tetsi cows right and 28 chickens 20 chickens. How many didn't something like that 20 cows and the 30 cows. Okay, she can. Okay, how many didn't. And then we are looking at like how many didn't what's like we're just so confused. So I'm just 10 because 20 chickens, 20 chickens was really like 28 chickens and then 10 chickens. I see that's definitely that joke. That's definitely that joke. Oh my god. Wow. Okay. So now let's give up to the conversation right. So, um, storytelling is great. You know, right. It's really phenomenal. So, you know, one major challenge most people might have is how can they track this thing? Understand. How can they measure the success of like, you know, the storytelling efforts and stuff like that. For instance, if I'm running like a campaign online, right. I, you know, it's much more easier to like, you know, measure the things. But when it comes to storytelling, how exactly do you think, you know, people like businesses can like measure and like track the success of the storytelling efforts. Okay. So I think share ability would be one. So direct marketing kind of we're trying to inspire direct action. So, I've just a city. and you click it. But storytelling, the more stories we tell, the more we infuse storytelling, what one major thing we're going to see more of is conversations and a lot of curiosity, questions. So the degree to which people are curious, intrigued doesn't matter to them, the wild factor, the degree to which people are curious and intrigued can be something to watch out for. And also share ability because I see and are as there it is, speaking to me, say, question of either selected and go by, or I don't. But when it's when we're talking about stories, first one of the effect that stories would do is that stories would reach an audience, like I said direct marketing kind of goes in the route of if for every other season, it's like, I need this, or I don't, or I cannot for this, or I don't. So it's like black or white. Post-Tuita and then creates, there's one more group in the middle that is like grayish color, right? They don't necessarily need that thing immediately. Yeah. They might not be 40s immediately, but they are engaged by it. And they share it a lot of times what they do is shared with their friends, right? So the impact of the internet again, you can't separate it completely. And say, okay, this is clearly only the complete responsibility for this. But the number of the internet will come from, I mean, people are sharing this. How many people are asking, are intrigued by this? Intrigued and how much is being shared is because I said, if it's like, I need it, I go by it. I don't need it. I know it's ignore or act. That's that's to get more in time. Or with stories, you get a medium ground of those who are not ignoring it. They are also not acting immediately. They are just like, this is cool. And they share it. All the excel, the degree to which people is expressed their intrigue, the walls and the that really upon, oh, this is a inspiring. And once you see any of those two, you realize that you are building a tribe, you're building a farm base. And that's really what's that's like Western returning. That's the directs in part of the economy. And we found that we now lead to a lot of paid media. It's a lot of water. Of course, many things contribute to water. Just to be satisfied by service was also contributed to water. But you know that there's a lot of mouth by people who have not used the product before, right? Yeah. People who blocked that they have not yet used. So the water is not based on all my friends. I use this product and it was good. No. I think that's a cool. I think they are. You check them out. I think even though the person speaking has not used it before. Stereotinin can probably go greatly to the degree of that. So intrigue as well as the rate of shareability. And then air post achievile of the bomb paid media, which is a lot of on paid on paid at bus. So they had who carries the matter of faster than founders and it's not a paid relationship. I'm so bought in. I'm so sold on. Yeah, I'm a lot of. Yeah, a lot of. Of this business leader or this business. So that's the tracking for storytelling. It's very difficult for two side of things we have to look out for. I'm watching trick to the reason how much on paid promotion and sharing is up in for us. Yeah. Well, you're amazing, amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for doing just a question. I mean, you seem to love storytelling marketing a lot. What exactly is like the most variety about this for you? Like what brings you for women from this? Okay. Nice. I think it's that. It's it's it's it's depth. It's fulfilling. Yeah. Direct. All of us from marketing can be this again, this is the past. Because everything is important. I like to work at an explain its role. But just for me preference point of view, why I love it like you rightly said, I'm not in love with other forms of marketing. It's a mystery like it needs to be done. Well, the difference. I love to see aspect of markets and is that. There's depth and fulfillment to it's the other forms of marketing can feel transactional for me. It's really just that's okay. I get to find what people are when I put my stuff in their face. And I give them 56, 7, 8 exposure. And they buy and I also make the greatest love like, you know, this is very transactional. It's full with the tactics and techniques to these get attention, convert them. It's too trapped enough for my liking. It's good. But storytelling on the other hand feels like it feels like service itself. I'm trying to say service. But it feels like I am giving the user something. It's like I'm already saving them because stories are what they go pay the same amount for stories are what a already good gist with their partners for gossip with their friends on stories are like. I'm good for so. So if I'm selling the product or myself, but I'm doing it by sharing a lot of stories, I'm already saving you. Sure. I'm using the feeling also I feel like when people react based on stories, they just know there's this through or no remorse they don't feel like they don't feel like objects in a transaction. They feel like they become a part of the foundation. They feel invested. You know, as opposed to some other effective include marketing that can give you feeling I was tricked or I was they got me you know you pay with your car. They catch me exactly don't catch me. Yeah, but you you prefer they don't catch me of I don't this guy they don't make me for that. That feels more like it. So yeah, but again, very important. We're talking skill for startups and all you need everything. Sure, you need everything through my answer is maybe fast source thing is not. So, you know, I'm asking you know everything about that for the skill. Yeah, yeah, well amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Thank you so much Victor for actually in a showing up and doing justice to all the questions and using storytelling to answer the storytelling questions. That's that's that's really amazing. So how can I what did you say? I thought what answers like cool. I listen to my kids. Okay, okay, how can we how can we find you on social media? Victor is everybody has got Victor. Fatal is F. C. A. N. M. I. Nigeria. Awesome, awesome guys. So if you're looking for him, he wants to talk him. You want to learn more from him. Just you know, use the handle at Victor fat on me to find him on you know all social media platforms and he's no handle will also like the jobs and the corruption section on whatever platform you listen to this right now and thank you guys listeners, the needle movers for listening to this episode of the marketing vibes and inshallah podcast. And I remain your host me to to buy hello guys. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the marketing vibes and inshallah podcast and I do hope you learned a channel too that can help you take your marketing from weight is to where you want it to be. If you had something in this podcast today that can actually you know that sounded interesting that you know other people will want to hear don't forget to tweet it on Twitter using the hashtag hashtag MVI podcast with muting to do and tag us on Twitter at MVI podcast and also follow us on all social media channels at MVI podcast and if you'd love to give back to the work that we do here at marketing vibes and inshallah podcast and you'd love to support us or so that we can bring you more amazing episodes don't forget to tip us using our show love link which is b it dot L y for slash see MVI podcast thanks for listening to this episode and we'll see you in the next episode bye.