Reflection – Story telling

Challenge

Every year, NITJ hosts an alumni-meet where the alumni of the past 25 years are invited to attend a  conference. This conference is instrumental in bringing about changes in the institute as alumni are  also stakeholders of the institute. The number of alumni attending the conference marks the success  of the event. The challenge is inviting the alumni and convincing them to attend the conference. Our  usual methods of emailing and phone calls were showing minimal results and there was a general  lack of interest from the other side.

Selection

To handle this, I chose to use ‘Story telling’ tool. This tool makes us present our case in a way of  connecting individuals rather than giving a plain monochrome detailing. It gives a means to assign  some meaning there by increasing the value of the proposition that we are about to make. Story  telling is essentially a means to express oneself. In our scenario, we had to make the alumni listen to  us and convince them to form a part of the conference and contribute to the growth of the institute.

Application

The first step we took is to upgrade from emails to calling, so that it makes the whole prospect of  inviting more personal. In the phone calls too, we made sure that we recharged the phones of our  team so they won’t run out of balance and can make conversations without any hindrance. The  team, instead of making a call that would sound equivalent to a system-generated-call, tried to make  conversations. Before talking of the alumni meet, we talked of their whereabouts and how they  were doing in their respective life. And using that information, we turned it into a cause for their  presence in the event. The alumnus would be delighted to hear that he is useful to the students and  be ready to attend the event.

Insight & Approach

The major insight I gained is how a story connects people and how a little opening up from my side  can get a wow from the person I am talking to. Talking about their experiences and how their  experience can help us out is a major contributor for the success of the event. The main thing we did  is to get the angle of pride in re-visiting the college and contributing to the growth. By doing this, we  managed to tap the top most need in the Maslow’s need hierarchy – self-actualization.

From this module, I learned how to define the problem, get ideas, come at an idea that will impress  and checking if it really works. This has made the entire process of dealing with the situation easy.

The learning launch could have been another tool that can be used for this model. The entire  marketing model could have been studied and the leanings could have been implemented in each  and every step of the whole process rather than just the conversation. For example, having fun  activities planned around the conference so that they enjoy it as well and improving the hospitality  standards.

