Telling stories through numbers - An interview with Stewart Marshall

Stewart Marshall photo courtesy of Kris Krug

This month we are featuring an interview with Stewart Marshall, self-styled, "financial storyteller". I was intrigued by his description of himself as so often we are presented with numbers that, recently frankly are quite appalling. As we struggle to understand the meaning behind these numbers, we look to financial storytellers to interpret them for us.

The good ones put striking numbers in context and, beyond just helping us to interpret them, get us excited about what they mean for the future. Understanding the past is the first step, understanding what this means for the future and the opportunities it opens up for us personally and for our businesses is the next, key step.

As we are constantly bombarded with numbers and headlines about those numbers that can be misleading, the role of the financial storyteller becomes even more important.

The storyteller these days need not only be an expert at his or her craft but also at intersecting with technology in such a way that the word gets spread efficiently to the key people who need and can use it.

I’ll give you an example of a quote in an article I saw just the other day. "Contrary to popular belief, sales of green products are not tanking in a down economy". While this opening line makes me feel good about the opportunities in the green economy, a few paragraphs later (after many readers would have lost interest) I found the following paragraph:

...sales of green products are up 4.1 percent, driven mostly by price increases, as unit sales in this category dropped 6.6 percent in 2008.

This information, of course, leads one to the exact opposite conclusion, hence the need for not only storytellers, but trusted ones. And as we are all increasingly wired, we look to storytellers who can not only tell our story, but also have the social media savvy to disperse that information across the web using the most effective social media tools to reach our target audience.

As business owners, we all struggle to get our message across in a way that is effective and interesting. Creating interest leads to increased understanding and demand, whether for our product or to invest in our companies.

Using the multitude of new tools available on the web from Flickr and YouTube to Slideshare and Twitter we look to financial storytellers to help us get the message across to our stakeholders in an away that is interesting, creative and above all trustworthy.

Who were your early role models and what were the main things you learned from them?

Sir John Harvey Jones, MBE. He rose through the ranks to be Chairman of ICI and turned it around - proving you can run a successful company and have time and respect for everyone. In fact this is a key ingredient to his success. I remember he talked about riding in a company truck for a week just to learn about the problems his drivers experienced. Later, his Troubleshooter TV series showed me the challenges of being a change agent; what an outsider can bring and what they have to face.

Another person who inspired me early in my career was Sir James Dyson. His story about inventing the bagless vacuum cleaner demonstrated how hard it can be to convince people of your ideas and how important perseverance is in achieving your dreams. In a similar vein I was impressed by inventor Sir Trevor Baylis, who found his inspiration for the wind-up radio in the tragedy that is AIDS.

In more recent times, I've been following the fortunes of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and to a lesser degree, Michelin Award winning chef Gordon Ramsay. Both demonstrate a sense of values which I aspire to and show that the age-old idea of honest hard work can pay off.

Links:

Sir John Harvey Jones: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6285160.stm

James Dyson: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/dyson.htm

Trevor Baylis: http://windupradio.com/trevor.htm

Howard Schultz: http://www.myprimetime.com/work/ge/schultzbio/

Gordan Ramsay: http://www.gordonramsay.com/corporate/theman/biography/

Why do you call yourself a financial storyteller?

The succinct answer is that I help organizations tell their story with numbers. The aim of a successful story is to increase understanding. Numbers on themselves tell you little. It is only when you label, reference and put them in context with words and pictures that they make mean something: witness the rise of the pie chart in the late 1980s and 1990s. If you put the numbers together with the narrative and mix in some imagery, then you have a story which will resonate.

In my experience, many people struggle to make the connection between what they want or see is happening and the numbers they have available to them. Whether it's making a pitch to investors as a start-up, evaluating an investment appraisal, understanding business performance or even understanding your customer; there is a financial story to tell. Too often we can get wound up in the detailed financials and miss the bigger picture.

As a financial storyteller I can help you connect what you need in terms of facts and numbers with the meaning and underlying story to increase your understanding.

What is an example of an innovative company that people have never heard of?

BatchBlue Software out of Rhode Island - makers of BatchBook, an online CRM tools designed for small business. I've been impressed by their use of social media to connect with a growing customer base and the speed this gives them when responding. What's more I love the product!

More locally, Anthony Nicalo of Farmstead Wines is doing interesting things around wine making and farming. Anthony enables you to connect with artisan farmers who make rare, handcrafted fine wine. I had the pleasure of meeting Anthony recently when he described his goal to make farming sexy! How innovative is that?

Links:

Batchblue: http://www.batchblue.com/

Farmstead Wines: http://www.farmsteadwines.com/

What key trends do we need to be aware of?

The online world is in many ways a paradox. Through technology we can connect and reach more people. On the flipside, this can make us more insular and locked to our keyboards instead of getting out in the world and meeting people in person. I see a trend for connecting these two pieces so that one feeds the other. Social gatherings of Twitter users demonstrate this, I don't remember groups of MSN Messenger users or AOL Messaging having such impromptu and informal events.

This leads to an increasing trend of people returning to fundamentals. Technology is exciting and can in itself be exciting. What is more exciting and holds more promise is what use this technology can be put to. The world is in a state of transition and people are either through choice or necessity returning to things which don't necessarily require a constant internet connection. This could be spending time with friends, taking more exercise, growing their own food etc. Where it does involve technology, there has to be more of a specific purpose. Whether it's for business or pleasure, technology is now starting to target specific markets instead of a general populous of early adopters.

List a few of your favourite sites on innovation and business.

It feels like a simple answer but I have to mention TED. A wealth of ideas both inspiring and practical delivered in bite-sized chunks. Apartment Therapy is always throwing up new ideas in terms of design. For business related sites, I've been following Robert X Cringely for almost 20 years and I still find his columns, blogs these days; enjoyable.

Links:

www.ted.com

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

http://www.cringely.com/

Stewart Marshall's bio is available http://www.linkedin.com/in/stewartmarshall