Where Business Leaders Find Their Stories

The hardest workout is the first one in months. You’re starting cold. Nothing feels natural. You wonder if everyone is staring at you. You don’t lift as easily as you used to.

The next workout feels similar. But you go a few times per week. By the second or third week, things feel easier. A couple of months in, it might feel more natural to work out than to skip your workout. 

The same cold-start problem exists in storytelling. 

The hardest way to produce content is when you’ve never published anything before. In the beginning, stories feel rare and difficult to tell. 

When you publish all the time, stories are everywhere and easy to tell. 

You build the habit of storytelling. Then the habit itself makes it easier to keep publishing.

Below, we’ll discuss where executives can source relevant topics and how to push through the painful cold-start problem to build a consistent publishing habit. 

The best story wins 

This is the philosophy of every great media-forward business. 

You must believe in the power of great stories. A great story can change everything in a business, from attracting top talent to closing key sales and fundraising. 

And you also must believe that the only way to find great stories is to first tell a lot of them.

Most executives don’t publish as often as they’d like. And it’s not because they lack quality ideas. The old quantity vs. quality debate is not a problem amongst most busy executives. 

The problem is making the time to act on ideas. When an executive has space to sit down and write or record, the worst position is to sit down with nothing to say. The best executive-led marketing teams have a backlog of ideas to share. 

So, where do you find stories as a business leader? 

• Spot the questions you’re already answering: Executives face hard questions in their work and are asked questions every day by team members. Start a note in your phone where you simply jot down the questions around you each day. The best part about sourcing existing questions is that you know you’re talking about subjects that people are interested in… or else they wouldn’t ask.

• Mine your customer service and sales data: One step removed from direct questions for the executive team is any question asked to the customer service and sales teams. These questions are often about the product or features. It might be about the company's broader trends. This is an excellent jumping-off point for executive topics because you’re starting with real topics your customers care about.

• Contribute to the industry conversation: You can set up alerts for industry topics. I tend to prefer simply reading industry media and following the right people on social media. You can see trending topics and then add to them. Of course, contributing to the conversation isn’t nearly as powerful as the next point…

• Lead the industry conversation: As a business leader, you have a unique vantage point. You are often on the bleeding edge of your industry, seeing the policy that matters for your organization, following the latest technology, and maybe even inventing new standards. Any time you can highlight what you see, you slowly solidify your role as a leader and as a forward-thinker in your industry. People who want to know what’s happening in your industry will gradually follow you.

• Sit down for an interview: I once sat down to interview an executive, and I asked if he already had a story top of mind he’d like to explore. He said, “I don’t, but you seem to always have a way of pulling out stories where I didn’t know there were any.” This is more common than you’d think. Smart executives don’t know what others will find interesting about their company or role. Sitting down with a skilled ghostwriter, journalist, or producer can be a fast track to strong topics.

• Review your conversational media: Conversational media is where companies have light-touch conversations with customers. This could literally be a dinner at a conference. More often, it’s just posting on social media. Pay attention to comments, direct messages, and reposts. Your next story is likely buried in the responses.

Getting past the cold start

So, what can you do to get past the cold start? A few ideas that have worked for clients and me: 

• Create a dedicated time and place for writing each week. Make it a ritual. Take yourself out for coffee every Saturday morning. Pour yourself a whiskey on a Friday night. Set aside 30 non-negotiable minutes to sit with your thoughts each morning. Schedule in time to write. Don’t wait for free time.

• Start journaling. Take the pressure off of publishing by writing absolutely anything that comes to mind each morning. Write about yesterday. Jot down your to-dos. Is there a funny song in your head? Write it down. Sometimes just getting words on a page can expand the mind and unleash the pen.

• Create accountability. Most executives feel some pressure to publish. You’re likely not the only executive you know struggling to write. So, keep yourself accountable with a peer.

• Hire help. You can work with an editor, ghostwriter, or writing coach. This means someone else shares the responsibility for helping you publish and find stories. This is what I do. Think of this person as your producer, a creative vetting point person responsible for helping you source quality ideas. The producer will interview you regularly to understand what you’re prioritizing and thinking about. They also interview various team leads within the organization to understand their goals. 

• Set public expectations. When a writer says they publish their newsletter on the same day each week, they aren’t saying it for the subscribers. Subscribers don’t care. They are saying it out loud and in public because the writers know it’ll keep them accountable to their own deadline. You can borrow this tactic for yourself. Make a public promise and then stick with it.

Setting expectations

The groundwork for a content-forward business is setting the expectations with your team.

Every quarter, I work with a CEO to produce a quarterly report. Every detail of that report is sourced from heads of departments. The first step to writing is sending a massive questionnaire to the company leadership to gather the latest highlights. 

This is a large organization. Every department lead provides data in different ways. Some write long paragraphs. Others provide data with no context. Others run their data through AI, and their contributions contain a lot of fluff that needs to be sifted and interpreted. 

It’s enormously helpful that everyone shares information with us promptly. But you know what would be even better? If everyone shared information the same way.

That’s our future aim. We want to set expectations by providing examples and instructions on what data we need and how to convey it. This makes it easier for everyone because today, we often have to do follow-up questionnaires with most departments just to understand what they sent us. 

What we’re trying to do is set expectations. When your team knows the stories you like to tell and how you tell them, everyone becomes a potential source for fresh topics.

Why executives become public figures

The best executive-led marketing strategies support every part of the company.

Executives have an unfair advantage in storytelling. Everyone wants to hear from the top. Journalists want to speak directly with business leaders. Future employees look to business leaders to understand company culture. Investors want to see inside the mind of company leadership. 

Your team members know this works as well. And publishing can be a strong form of support. If teams are struggling to fill rare positions, having an executive talk about culture, product, and job openings can be a great way to attract the right talent.

It’s hard to begin publishing. But the upside is measured in investor funds, employee retention, and revenue. The good news is, you don’t have to do this alone: tap into your team, talk to your customers, and work closely with your producer to keep stories flowing like water.