Your Story is Your Most Important Business Asset

Learn how to tell yours at the RIF Workshops on 12/5!

Your story is one of your most valuable business assets.

It reveals the true character of who you are— to your customers, your investors and your employees. An authentic story told well is irresistible: it builds an immediate bond and sense of trust that makes your audience choose YOU (and they might not even realize why!). Yes, data and facts can persuade people, but when someone can peek behind the curtain and hear your story, you capture their imagination and inspire them to act. To create loyalty and attract new connections, you must start telling your story! 

We know that you and your business have an amazing story to tell. But how often do you take time to pause and focus on cultivating it? 

That’s why we’ve created the RIF workshops as part of the 2019 Reel Impact Festival. This series of hands-on, interactive trainings have been created by some of the best Bay Area media professionals, designed to help you master your message and learn how to spread it to the masses with tools like video and digital marketing. 

Learn more below about all of the workshops you can participate in. We look forward to seeing you at the 2019 Reel Impact Festival as we support you and your organization to accelerate the power of your story!

The 2019 RIF Workshops Include:

1) Maximizing & Financing Your Business Impact: What’s Your Investor Story?

Host: Dianna Trembly, Director of Acceleration, ICA Fund Good Jobs & Carolina Miranda, Founder, Cultivating Capital

 Through this interactive session, we’ll explore the different kinds of impact businesses can have, how to access the capital you need to grow your business, and how to tell your impact story to capital providers. By the end of the workshop you’ll walk away with:

• A framework to identify the specific ways in which your business can create a positive impact for your stakeholders

• An understanding of the different kinds of capital businesses can access 

• How to strategically communicate and pitch to mission-aligned capital providers and investors

2) Your Smartphone Can Create Great Videos!

Host: JJ Harris, Videographer, TechBoogie 

Learn the basics on creating compelling videos with your mobile phone & editing your video. You'll learn:

• How to leverage the ubiquitous smartphone to create and edit a compelling video.

• While amazing videos can be created by the smartphone we all carry in our pocket, certainly not all of them are.  How to leverage the simplicity, and potency, of the smartphone to capture video, edit, and circulate powerful stories and messages.
  

3) Video Distribution: How to get your video stories seen by more people

Host: Natasha Deganello Giraudie, Independent Filmmaker & Founder, Micro-Documentaries

Great videos that no one sees don’t create impact! That's why figuring out your distribution plan, and allowing for resources, may be more critical than your production budget. In this session: 

• We extracted the lessons from our most successful films (the ones that reached millions of people, raised millions of dollars, and helped to advance legislation), so that you could know what it takes to replicate their reach.

• We also look closely at the films we produced that went nowhere (the ones that drove us mad!) and extracted the pitfalls for you to avoid. The result is a framework and a methodology that you can apply so that you too can deliver on the promise of video.

4) Building an entrepreneurial Mindset for Black & Brown entrepreneurs + Telling your Stories

Host: Nana Kofi Nti, Co-Founder, 510Media & Ace Johnson, Founder, iVisionary Academy

This session will be an interactive, event-styled, meeting of the minds, designed to remove barriers of communication between black and brown creative entrepreneurs in order to access the resources necessary for growth and exposure. This session will empower participants to freely produce solutions that advance their community, and generate ideas that enhance their personal vision. Learn the 5 key steps of storytelling that will turn every conversation into a captivating narrative of how you turn your dreams into a reality each day.

5) Digital Path to Revenue. Part 1: Creating the Digital Marketing Strategy 

Host: Tushar Prabhu, Director Organic Marketing, Position2 

How to create a digital marketing strategy across multiple channels to drive revenue and achieve business goals. This session will focus on:

• How to create a digital strategy aligned with business goals

• How to identify and prioritize my digital marketing (resources, channels) based on the trends in digital marketing)

• How data-driven content across marketing channels drives business growth

• Case studies

6) Digital Path to Revenue. Part 2: Executing the Digital Strategy

 Host: Philip Verghese, Sr. Director, Demand Solutions Architect, Position2 

Part II of the Workshop will focus on how to execute on your strategy, nurture your lead gen lists and achieve higher ROI. The focus of this session will be:

• Identifying the key success factors in executing a digital strategy and ensuring a positive ROI

• Leveraging content for framing messaging across your buyers’ journey

• Best practices to optimize your lead gen list and steps to more targeted communication

• Understanding how to build and run campaigns and programs

7) Differentiating the Doppelgangers – Storytelling 101: Impact Edition 

Host: Paul J. Lynch, Founder & CEO, Cage-Free Productions 

Capital is important, but story paves the way. The truth is the majority of the products, opportunities, and solutions found in the impact space have doppelgangers in the world. Investors with money can make money in myriad ways, but they choose to invest in the impact space because of the story of the products or services being developed. Similarly, Social Entrepreneurs are attempting to create a more social and/or environmental responsible solution. It may be a moral narrative or imperative, it may be a more sound investment idea, but ultimately, it is the story that distinguishes one financial instrument or idea from an impact investment or social innovation.

This hands-on and interactive workshop introduces Human-Centered Production™ (HCP). HCP pairs human-centered design with the storytelling process (production). Building a culture of storytelling increases engagement, advances the transfer of institutional knowledge, and builds relationships by accelerating trust.