70 62
JULY 2, 2020 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Mind Y
ur Business
James Rosebush: “Storytelling is critical to communication” By Yitzchok Saftlas
E
very Sunday evening since July 2015, Yitzchok Saftlas, CEO of Bottom Line Marketing Group, hosts 77WABC’s “Mind Your Business” show on America’s leading talk radio station. The show features Fortune 500 CEOs, CMOs, and top business leaders where they share their business knowledge and strategic insights on how to get ahead in today’s corporate world. Since Q2 2017, the 77WABC Mind Your Business show has remained in the coveted Nielsen “Top 10” in New York’s highly competitive AM Talk Radio market. Guests have included John Sculley, former CEO of Apple and Pepsi; Dick Schulze, founder and chairman emeritus of Best Buy; Beth Comstock, former Vice Chair of GE; and Captain Sully Sullenberger, among nearly 200 senior-level executives and business celebrities. On a recent 77WABC “Mind Your Business” broadcast, Yitzchok sat down to speak with James Rosebush about the keys to becoming an effective corporate communicator. James is the founder and CEO of GrowthStrategy, Inc., an international company that advises many corporate clients with the goal of accelerating their growth. He worked as a senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan and was the longest serving Chief of Staff to Nancy Reagan. James also launched impactspeakercoach.com to help coach other leaders in effective communication techniques. He is the author of three books, the newest of which was released on April 7, 2020 and is called Winning Your Audience: Deliver a Message with the Confidence of a President where he identifies key points of communication learned from President Ronald Reagan.
Yitzchok: Tonight in the show we will talk about how you can become an impactful public speaker, how to properly communicate your message, and of course, corporate storytelling. Your new book is called Winning Your Audience: Deliver a Message with the Confidence of a President. When did you decide to communicate your lifetime of experience, lifetime serving the U.S. president, and put it into a book? James: It dawned on me that I had to do this when I listened to a big corporate CEO try to explain what was going on in the disruption in his industry and in his company. He spoke on a Saturday afternoon. On Monday morning, the equity value of his company, a huge global conglomerate, dove ten percent. This was attributed to the fact that the CEO was not able to effectively communicate his strategy to take his company into the future. There are two things that are necessary for speaking. You need to have content and you need to have the ability to drive it home. 75% of people have a fear of public speaking. I wrote this book because I wanted to help people gain dominion and freedom over this fear. You don’t have to be afraid. If you get trained, you can find out how to
overcome fear. If you learn about the power of storytelling, you can find success. When you look into the audience, people will be shaking their head, nodding. Ronald Reagan had this ability. He had the ability to visualize and tell a story. If you tell a
“You have to be more interested in your audience than you are in yourself.”
story, what do you visualize? The results. The best method for strategic thinking and communication is like a GPS. If you want to use a GPS to get to your destination, what do you need to do? Put in your destination! Then the GPS can take you there. But, if you don’t have an address, the GPS can’t bring you there. You need to know what you want to say.
As I said, the two things that are necessary for speaking are content and ability. YS: You are one of the leading experts that help executives craft their corporate narrative. How critical is corporate storytelling? Is it really necessary? JR: There is no question that every company, large or small, needs to have a contingency plan in case something happens. If there is a dip in sales or revenue, or there is some kind of catastrophe, you need to know who your spokesperson is going to be and what your message is. If you don’t know your message, you really don’t know yourself or your product. I think this is increasingly important today. I had some millennials tell me they can’t relate to other people. I told them I can give one strategy to address that. Go up to someone and say, “Nice to meet you, tell me your life story.” I guarantee the person will respond and say: “Oh, I work in Bloomberg, or Goldman Sachs...” And then you’ll say: “No, tell me where you were born?” This starts something interesting because it will usually be a place you have visited or know someone who lives there. This is how you start a relationship. Tell me your life story. Storytelling is critical to communication.
