GETTING TO KNOW YOU
Getting to Know
Yamini Naidu
What inspired you to start your
business? What are your goals
and values?
When I was 10, my teacher asked us to
write up a sentence that made sense,
but the sentence could only be made up
of ten words, and each word could only
have 2 letters. We tried and we tried
and came up with nothing.
My teacher then wrote on the board “If
it is to be, it is up to me”. That day my
teacher influenced a classroom full of
children to think and behave differently,
not just in that moment but for the rest
of their lives. It was my first lesson
in influence and leadership and I was
hooked! My goal is to make business
owners mega influencers so they can
succeed professionally and personally
through business storytelling. Business
storytelling is storytelling with a
purpose and for results.
What was the driving force
behind your decision to
specialise in this area of
business?
I was always frustrated how data
doesn’t necessarily persuade people
to change. In 2005, I co-founded a
company that did just one thing: it
specialised in storytelling, the oldest
form of influence. To put this in
context, I am an economist by training,
but decided I really wanted to be a
storyteller. Reading Steve Denning’s
40 ModernBusiness
June 2016
The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling, a
seminal work on business storytelling,
I had a light bulb moment: I realised
that for business leaders and influencer
this was the missing link. Data on its
own was not enough; my spreadsheets
needed stories.
What types of customers do you
help? What experience do you
have helping small business
customers?
I work with business leaders and
business owners. I myself am a
small business owner and have over
a decade of working with business
owners helping them succeed using
storytelling.
Do you service other sectors as
well?
Business storytelling is the hottest
business skill for this decade. So
wherever business people want to
connect, engage and inspire their
clients I work with them.
What are the main reasons that
someone would choose you to
help grow/develop/improve their
business?
A key challenge small business owners