It’s a gorgeous spring morning. Sun’s finally out and everything—but me and the other nerds of Keswick are hunched over our clipboards in the Derwent Pencil Museum, completely obsessed.

That clipboard changed everything.

Because, let’s be real.

The only reason my husband and I decided to visit a museum about pencils was because we were killing time until we could pick up our laundry and continue on our bike tour of England’s Lake District.

But then, the cashier handed me our tickets—along with a pair of free Derwent Pencils.

(Ooh! Free gift!)

“These are for completing the scavenger hunt,” she told us, and handed me a clipboard.

On the clipboard was a printed list of questions to answer as you walked through the museum—clearly a cheap trick designed to engage squirrel-brained children. I looked at it with suspicion.

“If you get all the answers right,” she continued, “you might win a prize.”

(Wait. Prize???)

She gave Robert and I a big smile. “Off you go, then. Just head through the cave, and mind your heads.”

(Hold on. Cave?)

The door to the left of the register looked like it had been carved out of solid rock. We ducked into the gaping maw to find ourselves in a replicated graphite mine, and proceeded to have our minds blown about pencils.

A random selection of things we learned:

• Graphite was first discovered in Cumbria in 1550, by shepherds who used it to mark their sheep
• It was originally used in weapons manufacturing, and was so highly valued that there was a huge black market trade
• In fact, the term “black market” comes from the black-marked hands of graphite smugglers with whimsical names like Black Sal and the Dandy Wad Stealer
• During WWII, Derwent pencils were secretly manufactured with hidden maps and tiny compasses to help soldiers stranded behind enemy lines
• The men who manufactured those pencils took the secret of how they did it to their graves.

As we explored the museum, I was immediately absorbed in answering the scavenger hunt’s questions.

(Don’t underestimate my love for being Good At Tests.)

I thought I’d be the only nerd excited about the scavenger hunt. But as more people stumbled out of the dark replica cave into the main portion of the museum, I saw that they all carried clipboards.

And all of us grown-ass adults were filling out our scavenger hunt sheets with relish.

Hoping to win that prize.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

How did a museum with a relatively boring subject (pencil manufacturing) manage to engage us so thoroughly?

I’m marking it up (ha!) to a combination of things:

1. The welcome gift: A pencil is simple. It might be easily forgotten—except that it becomes an immediately useful tool when the cashier also hands you a challenge to fill out.

2. The challenge: We could have simply wandered through the museum and read what struck our fancy, but the scavenger hunt forced us to slow down and engage more fully. It triggered our sense of competition—and was gamified by the promise of a prize at the end.

3. The prize: Complete the challenge and get a mystery prize! Who doesn’t love a prize? Who doesn’t love a mystery?

4. The initiation story: The final step of immersion was the cheesy entrance tunnel. The museum wasn’t large, or fancy. But ducking through that twisty-turny faux mining tunnel (complete with creepy miner mannequins sitting in alcoves along the way) invited you to leave the outside world and immerse yourself in the story for the duration.

I don’t know about you, but I spend my days overstimulated and skimming along the surface.

Even things I want to enjoy—favorite books, interesting courses, conversations with friends—end up feeling rushed and shallow. My attention is buffeted on all sides by intruding thoughts, notifications, obligations.

It took a pencil museum, of all places, to engage me so thoroughly.

And I wasn’t alone!

Literally every group I saw was using their gifted pencils to fill out that damned scavenger hunt.

The Derwent Pencil Museum achieved this by following a few basic principles:

• Welcome your customers with a gift they’ll actually use
• Give them a guided path through what you have on offer
• Up the stakes by gamifying the path
• Anchor them in the moment with an experience that initiates them into your story

What would it take to build your own customer journey around those four principles? How would it make the story you’re telling more coherent—and compelling?

If you want to go deeper into storytelling in your business, this week’s blog post is about what makes a good story vs what makes a good selling story. Basically, how to tell stories that not only move your customer, but move them to take specific action.

​Read it in full here.

And if you’re ever in the Lake District, don’t miss the Derwent Pencil Museum.

It’s good stuff.

I hope this sparked some ideas for you! If so, hit reply. I love talking about this stuff.

Talk soon,

Jessie

P.S. By the way, my husband and I won the scavenger hunt prize: a pair of Derwent fineliner pens! (Perfect timing, too—my travel journal pen has started running low on ink.)

The final prompt on the scavenger hunt was to demonstrate your artistic talent with a sketch. In an act of complete and blatant pandering, I sketched a Derwent pencil and sharpener: