CASE STUDY
Helping Box build storytelling capability across sales enablement and the wider business
SECTOR: Technology / Enterprise Software
AUDIENCE: Sales teams and wider employee groups
GEOGRAPHY: EMEA.
GROUP SIZE: Sales and internal employee cohorts
FORMAT: Live training, recorded learning resources, methodology development, and internal Speaker’s Club programmes
PROGRAMME LENGTH: Multi-part capability programme
CORE CHALLENGE
Helping Box strengthen storytelling as a practical commercial skill, so salespeople could communicate with greater agility and influence
The Challenge
Box engaged Hoopla through its sales enablement team to help develop the organisation’s storytelling capability.
The business need was clear. Box wanted its salespeople to be better storytellers so they could connect more effectively with prospects and customers. There had already been some exposure to storytelling tools, but the challenge was moving from awareness to real capability. A single session or light-touch introduction was not enough to build confidence, change habits, or make storytelling feel natural in live sales conversations.
Salespeople needed help with the content of stories, how to tell them well, and how to adapt them to the person in front of them. Box also wanted to turn existing case studies into stories that salespeople could actually tell and use in conversation.
More broadly, the business wanted to improve storytelling capability beyond sales alone, using internal Speaker’s Club programmes to help employees communicate with greater clarity, confidence and impact.
What Hoopla designed and delivered
Hoopla worked with Box’s sales enablement team, including Emily Drew, Director of EMEA Sales Readiness, to design and deliver a broader storytelling capability programme.
The work included live training, recorded learning resources with worked examples, and the development of a storytelling methodology that Box could scale and leverage internally. This meant the programme was not limited to one-off workshops. It was designed to build lasting capability and give the business tools it could continue using beyond the live sessions.
At the heart of the programme was the goal of helping sales teams use storytelling more effectively in customer conversations. Storytelling in a sales environment is not just about following a framework. It is about using stories in real conversations, with real customers, in moments that are often fluid and unpredictable. That requires more than structure. It requires presence, agility, listening, responsiveness and the confidence to adapt in the moment.
Applied improvisation helped Box build those capabilities in a way that felt directly useful. It gave participants the chance to practise not only how to shape a story, but how to land it well with the person in front of them. That meant combining the discipline of storytelling with the improviser’s skill set: thinking on your feet, staying connected, and responding to what is happening in the conversation. This approach also helped position storytelling as a serious business skill rather than a presentation extra. The goal was not performance for its own sake. It was to help people engage and influence more effectively.
A particularly valuable part of the work was helping the sales team turn Box case studies into tellable stories. Instead of treating case studies as static documents, Hoopla helped shape them into something salespeople could actually use in live conversations with prospects and customers.
Alongside the sales enablement work, Hoopla was also engaged more broadly across the business to deliver internal Speaker’s Club programmes, both in person and online, to strengthen employees’ storytelling capabilities more generally. This extended the work from a sales-focused intervention into a wider communication and influence capability programme across Box.
The Outcomes
A broader storytelling capability offer, combining: live training, recorded resources and internal methodology development
Support for sales teams in turning Box case studies into tellable stories that could be used in customer conversations
Broader engagement across the business through internal Speaker’s Club programmes, delivered in person and online. These received a 5/5 participant rating.
Most importantly, the work helped Box move storytelling beyond theory. Instead of treating it as a framework people had been shown once, the programme helped turn it into a more practical and repeatable skill - one that could support stronger customer connection, greater influence and more agile communication.
“Hoopla helped us move storytelling from theory into practice. Their work gave our teams clearer tools, more confidence, and a more usable methodology for bringing stories to life in customer conversations.”
— Emily Drew
Director of EMEA Sales Readiness, Box
Planning something similar?
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