Hi everyone, I’m excited to relaunch The Story is the Strategy.
Like a lot of people, the pandemic changed my plans, and I had to shelf this newsletter. But I think now is a great time to pick it back up. With so many people working remotely, good, clear communication is more valuable than ever.
Going forward, I’ll be co-writing it with one of my best friends, Nick Lembo. He’s the head of Americas Growth for TransferWise and a seasoned communicator. Between the two of us, we have a lot of expertise to share with you.
But here’s the rub. Your inbox is full already - why would you want another newsletter? So we thought a lot about what we would like to read and how to make it super valuable. The brief we gave ourselves was: “Let’s say a busy person came to us and offered to pay us $500 to teach them to be a better business communicator. How would we help them?” From there, we came up with a few guiding principles:
Fast and fun to read. You should be able to read this newsletter in less than five minutes and look forward to it.
Actionable. You should learn something actionable in each issue and get exposed to the fundamentals over and over again in different ways so they stick.
In-person help. You should be able to get live feedback and free in-person coaching.
So that’s our mission: make you a noticeably better business communicator in ways that help your career.
Why is this worth your time?
Understanding how to communicate well is a secret superpower. It doesn’t matter what you do. Whether you’re a software engineer, a data analyst, a product manager, a plumber or the President of the United States, being a good communicator separates you from the pack.
Being a good communicator makes your technical skills more valuable. You can persuade people, inform them more clearly, help them understand tradeoffs and guide their decision making. This is a useful ability in every role in every organisation of every size. And even if you aren’t the best coder or the best analyst, pairing decent technical skills with good communications skills is a powerful combination. It beats technical skills alone.
Good communication skills are teachable. None of us need to be as good as a professional writer to get most of the benefits. Anyone can learn the fundamentals and gain an edge.
Thanks for being one of the first subscribers to the Story is the Strategy. Excited for this journey. Feel free to reply with any questions.
Last thing, you can sign up for free in-person comms help here - come with challenges, drafts that need to be polished or questions on how to communicate more effectively.