Building a Doorway Workshop – doing together what’s too hard to do alone!
Five incredible storytellers are at my house right now, taking the Building a Doorway for New Storytelling Customers workshop. (In the picture, left to right: Cynthia Changaris, Debra Ballou, Meg Gilman, Brian Hetherington, Teresa Whitaker.)
Meg Gilman let me describe her work her as an example. In the workshop, she decided that she loves the challenge of difficult audiences so much that her doorway will be for people who need an entertaining, educational speaker for a difficult audience. “Bring them on!” says Meg. Another participant suggested the title “Presentation Impossible” for Meg. Still another, “Speaking Commando.”
The process of helping each participant build a doorway has been exhilarating. For the first day, we focused on noticing – and accepting – who we are as tellers, as marketers, and as self-employed business owners. What do we each have energy for? What things do we need help doing? What forms of communication energize us? What is the current state of our five-ring communities, of our relationships with those who need our work and who support us?
Then we helped each person decide on a group of people that she or he wants to develop more relationships with. For example, Meg wants to attract those who work for an organization, have been given the task of hiring a speaker or trainer, yet feel that they have an “impossible” or “difficult” group. Since Meg loves varied audiences, varied topics, and lots of challenge, this is a perfect choice for her.
Next, we helped each person imagine a “doorway” for inviting those people into relationship. A doorway is a structure you have created for beginning or advancing your relationships with those who support you financially or otherwise. (Read more about doorways.) For example, Meg’s new doorway will be an email newsletter about (the phrasing will change before launch) “Ways to Make Your Organization’s Speaking or Training Event Succeed – In Spite of a Difficult Audience.”
Finally, we have the work to do of holding each other accountable for carrying out the construction and maintenance of our doorways. We will use the phone and the internet to keep in touch, offer assistance and encouragement, and notice where our plans need to be tweaked in order to succeed.
My personal take-away from this workshop has been the energy generated by focusing the group’s attention on the needs of one member – and then listening intently, asking clarifying questions, brainstorming about the benefits that person’s work provides, and then listening further to the member’s reactions. As this process is repeated, the member has felt empowered around marketing and the group has also felt empowered.
Work like this is too difficult to do alone. After all, it involves describing ourselves as others see us – no matter what internal voices try to undermine or distract us from our value to others. But a compassionate group can be guided to make this work efficient and fun. Having lived this process for three days so far, I too feel surrounded by empowerment. Together we can accomplish what might overwhelm any one of us!
