BILL WHITLEY’S APPROACH TO GENERATING AND TELLING
STORIES CAN HELP SPEAKERS ON TWO LEVELS
BY JAKE POINIER
It’s fitting to start professional speaker
Bill Whitley’s story with a story.
is career began in banking,
“I had the ability to make a complicated
topic simple, visual and easy to understand,
but I also had the ability to help people tell
their stories,” Whitley says. “In the process,
I became a student of story.”
After starting and selling a second
company in 2006, and with the goal
of becoming a professional speaker,
Whitley wrote Art of the Rainmaker
in 2007. At the heart of his message is
what he calls a client attraction story.
“The basic concept is developing a real-
world story about a client who had a
challenge, where your insight or advice
helped them avoid difficulty or achieve
a goal and they got great results,” he
says. “It creates attraction, but it also
engages clients at a much deeper level.”
