Wires Uncrossed helps technical experts and cross-functional teams connect and deliver more value through better communication. The company is run by Eithne Sweeney and Myles Heneghan.
Table of contents
What story did the client want to tell?
“We launched our business with a website that was good enough at the time but we always planned to update it,” explains Eithne. “The motivation for telling our Origin Story was we had an About Us page to fill and we didn’t know what we wanted to say. Previously, Myles and I had separate About Us pages but we had never sat down to work out Our Story as a business.”
”Our business revolves around the two of us. One of us represents the problem and the other represents the solution. The idea of working with someone to help us tell our story really appealed. It hadn’t emerged organically from us and while we didn’t know we needed an Origin Story, when we first heard about the concept, we realised ‘this is what we’re missing.’”
”It would have taken us hours or more likely we’d never have gotten around to doing it ourselves. Like a lot of small business owners, our first instinct is to think we can do that ourselves but we’d been in business for a couple of years and hadn’t done it so it when we heard Robert had done it for other people we felt that he had the skills and expertise to help us extricate the story from our brains. The trigger was the website but we also felt it would be a cool thing to do and it was something we didn’t realise we needed until we did it.”
“It’s often hard to figure out what your Origin Story is because as a business owners you’re so busy surviving day to day, week to week and month to month. A business starts with an idea but the Origin Story often kicks in before the idea. Ideas don’t come out of nowhere, they’re a product of lots of things that happen to over the course of a life but I think for a lot of business owners, their Origin Story is something they’re not conscious of and wouldn’t be able to identify themselves.”
What was the process?
I sent Myles and Eithne a questionnaire and then we had a 2-hour Zoom call where we did a deep dive on their answers and why they were in business together. I transcribed the interview and sent them a first draft. They gave me their feedback and I edited it and made some changes to make sure it captured their voice and their journey.
“The process was very straightforward,” said Myles. “The bits were all there but they were a bit jumbled. You made us stick our head out a bit more than we would normally do but we got to a place where we were really happy with the end result.”
What was the result?
According to Myles:
Sometimes we can be haphazard about how effectively we explain what we do in a short space of time so getting our story straight as part of the sales process was very helpful.
Eithne said:
“I’ve changed what I’ve defined as a successful outcome from the Origin Story. Initially, it was about having something to put on our website. We used it on our website and our LinkedIn profiles but looking back, before we did our Origin Story, we weren’t sure how we fit together as a business.
While we had set up the business as a team of two halves, I was a lot clearer on my role and my contribution than Myles was. The process of doing the Origin Story, even if it never saw the light of day, had a great impact on aligning us and helping us to figure out why we’re doing this, why we’re doing it together, and what stories from our past make us the best people to do what we do.”
How did the client feel after telling their story?
Eithne said:
“Finding and telling your origin story by yourself is like licking your elbow. It sounds simple but when you try to do it, you find it’s harder than you think. We stopped straining our necks the moment we started working with Robert. His straightforward and short process to discover our story was easy and enjoyable. When he sent through the first draft, we couldn’t stop nodding as we read it – he captured our story just as we would have done ourselves, were we not so emotionally attached to it. Highly recommend Robert if you’d like to find your Origin Story.”
“I would recommend the Origin Story process to anyone who is starting a business but wait for a year or two. You don’t need to do it at the start, because you don’t know who you are or what you’re doing. But after the first couple of years and you’ve worked with a few clients it’s a great thing to do to get clarity on who you and why you’re in business.”