Communication, Storytelling, and Interview Prep –
For MBA Applicants
Communication, Storytelling and Interview Prep – For MBA Applicants
Show Top MBA Schools Why THEY Need YOU
Discover and refine your best stories, create a compelling narrative, and ace the big interview.
Are you…
- Struggling to find stories and responses that will make your application stand out from the competition?
- Looking for a competitive advantage when applying to one of the world’s top schools?
- Eager to improve your storytelling skills before your interview with the AO?
If you answered YES, then we’d love to help you achieve your goals.
The process begins with a discovery call, to get to know you, your challenges, your goals, and your audience.
From there, we can explore what the journey will look like – to provide you with the skills and training you’ll need to massively improve your responses, stories, and confidence.
Every step of the way, we will provide you with the feedback and instruction you need to overcome any uncertainty or anxiety you may have. We take the time to get to truly connect with you and your story – and to help you discover how to best share that story with the world’s top schools.
We’ll be focusing on:
- A.C.E.R. Stories: Audience Centric Emotionally Resonant stories are more persuasive, memorable, and impactful – period. Too often, stories fail to generate strong enough emotional reactions for them to stand out from the crowd. The best stories don’t simply tell about who you are or what you did; they create a powerful emotional response that makes a reader or a listener want to stand up and cheer, share in your struggle, or eagerly celebrate your overcoming of adversity. Ultimately, if your stories can create a strong emotional connection with your audience, you will immediately and significantly improve your application.
- Interview Prep: Regardless of whether or not you’ve already been invited for a follow-up interview, interview prep can be an excellent way to discover stories, narratives, and stand-out moments that you can use to upgrade your application. Coming from a background in public speaking, we will also be able to provide support on your tone, speed, pacing, pausing, and more.
- Embracing Vulnerability: For a variety of reasons, many applicants can be nervous to share their vulnerable side – the challenges they’ve overcome, and the sad or emotional moments that impacted the person they’ve become. Unfortunately, in trying to avoid any “signs of weakness” or “things that don’t matter,” they end up coming across as two-dimensional and “flat” to AOs and interviewers. We will work with you to find a middle ground – to celebrate your triumphs over hardships, and to give a more complete, three-dimensional picture that will connect more strongly with decision-makers.
My Six Core Principles:
- 1) Your openings need to grab my attention and engage me emotionally. Make me FEEL something, whether it’s suspense, laughter, anxiety, anger, or curiosity.
- 2) A huge part of resonating with an audience is authenticity, and a major part of authenticity is vulnerability. As I hear your interview answers, or read your essay responses, I need to be convinced that you’re sharing the “real you,” and not the “impressive” version of you that you think I want to see.
- 3) Storytelling is key. A single well-told story is more memorable and more persuasive than any fact, figure, or data point.
- 4) Your journey should feel…inevitable. Your entire narrative should be woven together so that a reader can’t imagine anyone more “destined” for your goal. That means selecting stories that create a consistence, unified image that shows a clear “origin story” that inspired your career goal, particularly one with struggles, tragedies, adversity, and perseverance. That initial spark should light your path forward, providing you with a clear and compelling “why” while showing your focus and drive toward realizing your calling. To complement that, you should research your schools well enough that you can clearly communicate ultra-specific reasons why a particular program is the best possible choice to make that destiny a reality.
- 5) You need to demonstrate exceptionally good reasons why THIS particular school, and THIS particular program, are the best possible choices for you to achieve your career goal. Too often, AOs read the same copy-and-paste responses about a handful of famous classes or student activities, and generic references to the opportunities their city happens to provide. You need to do better. Excellent applications leave a reader with a sense that getting into the program will massively (and uniquely) benefit your career trajectory – in a way that is specific and exclusive to you.
- 6) Above all else, you need to remember to be human. That might sound ridiculous, but countless applicants submit applications that are filled with generic “corporate-speak” language, painting a picture of robotic candidates with no flaws no weaknesses, and no humanity – filled with sentences that sound like a bad first draft from ChatGPT. Often, this gets combined with equally robotic, nonhuman, ultra-memorized answers to interview questions, making it obvious to the AO that you’re actively hiding the “real you” and that the interview is a complete and utter waste of time. Instead, it’s vitally important that you express yourself as someone who is truly genuine, authentic, and “unfiltered.” We actively work with you to strike the right balance – we know how important it can feel to have “just the right answer,” or to “sound like a leader,” but we can show you how to balance that while still allowing the AOs to see the human side of you, to create a more authentic and relatable portrayal of your best self.
Are we a good fit?
Can you provide a cost estimate?
Communication, storytelling, and interview prep for MBA applicants is provided at $250/hr.
How many hours will I need to finalize my application / interview prep?
The work involved in preparation for MBA applicants can vary wildly – you may already be 90% of the way towards a fantastic application, or you could be starting from the ground up. After an initial discovery call, we will get to know, your story, your career goals, your dream schools, your “why,” and any content you’ve prepared for your application thus far. From there, we will review the content you share with us, and give you a clear estimate of the scale of work and the time involved to best assist you in achieving your ideal outcomes. As an extremely broad estimate, however, an M7 MBA application journey could potentially take from 5 to 30 hours.
Can you write my application for me?
No. We can provide you with detailed feedback, and frameworks to optimize your narratives, storytelling, language, etc. but we cannot write your content for you. Schools understand that applicants will be getting guidance and support, but they ultimately want to see applicants apply in their own voice. Also, be aware that a candidate with a brilliantly written essay, that in no way matches the communication skills they demonstrate in an AO interview, is typically immediately disqualified – so don’t set yourself up for failure!
Can you also help me with my English and pronunciation?
Yes! We will be happy to provide you with help and support for any of your language or grammar needs, as well as coaching you for clarity and pronunciation as part of your interview preparation.
What is your experience ?
In addition to winning a world championship in impromptu public speaking, and publishing a book on content, rhetoric, and delivery, I have also spent nearly two decades teaching communication and offering 1-on-1 coaching to students, business professionals, coaches, media personalities, and more.
Ready to Schedule a FREE Consultation?
The sooner we get in touch, the more time you’ll have to discover your best stories, create a powerful and compelling narrative, write an application that will make you stand out from your competition, and step into your interviews with 100% confidence.