Storytelling in Presentations.
Fun fact: stories are 22x more memorable than facts.
Did you know … stories are 22x more memorable than facts?
When presenting to an audience, having a pre-prepared story can bring authenticity, attention, and urgency to what you have to say.
What makes a great story?
Cast your mind back to your favourite album, movie or book.
Why did it capture your attention?
Why can you recall it, now?
Chances are, it had a protagonist (main character) you could relate to in some way, that mirrored your own deepest feelings or desires.
Perhaps it included an impossible feat, overcome by unlikely characters in unbelievable circumstances.
Maybe it had a compelling ‘before’ and ‘after’ which made it impossible to forget.
Perhaps there was a celebrity who experienced something similar to you.
Using the foundations of great stories.
You don’t need a life-changing story to include one in your presentations.
Each of the facets above (relatability, overcoming challenges and transformation) are the foundation for your memorable story.
Looking at these three elements, which could you encapsulate in your work-appropriate story?
Relatability
Do you have a lived experience that mirrors the journey of your stakeholder or buyer?
Do you have a personal story that brings to life the themes of the product or service you’re talking about?
What experience can you recall, that mirrors the experience you’re wanting your audience to understand?
If it’s explicit, how can you edit it to include just the appropriate moments? Remember it's not detail people need; it's the true emotion that resonates most.
Challenges
Think of the most unbelievable stories you’ve ever heard. Chances are the character (maybe it was you!) overcame a huge hurdle.
When applying this formula to your work presentations, consider the following:
What challenge does your customer, or stakeholder need to overcome?
What would life be like (e.g. paint a picture) if they embraced your solution or suggestion?
If they were successful, what would they gain, and avoid losing?
Fun fact: we are more wired to take action based on what we could lose, vs what we could gain.
By being real and upfront about the challenges your audience might face, in greater service of what they could gain, they are more likely to remember and trust what you have to say.
Before and after
We are all suckers for a memorable ‘before and after’. It provides instant credibility.
If your audience were to be successful with your suggestion, what would their ‘after’ experience look like?
What real life examples can you include (e.g. case studies) to paint a picture of the reality of them using your product or service?
Illustrating a very clear and succinct ‘before’ status, and matching that with a specific ‘after’ status as a result of your work, is one of the quickest ways to get people to trust you.
How to craft a memorable story?
Let’s step through the 5 P's of storytelling:
Problem
Proposition
Picture
Proof
Push
What’s the problem?
It sounds counterintuitive, but when you’re explicit about the problem, you can get to the truth of what you want to share more readily.
If you’re presenting a new idea, you need a compelling reason to implement it. That means you need your audience to be in some form of pain or discomfort, to consider a different way of doing things (as we don’t change when we’re in our comfort zone, it’s too cosy).
For example, if you’re selling a digital product, you’d outline the pain of doing things manually and how it costs the business money.
If you’re pitching in additional support, you’d highlight the cost of projects overlooked due to the lack of resources.
If you were simply sharing an update on your project, you could use this ‘problem’ storytelling tool to outline a ‘before you’ and ‘after your work’ example.
Problems are irresistible and set the stage for what’s next: a solution, right?
What do you propose?
When we teach our presentation workshops, we encourage you to always think about what your personal point of view is on the topic you’re presenting.
As in, if you have a point of view, you can with confidence talk about your opinion, on the spot, without double guessing yourself.
As Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney says, you always want to be explicit with why you’ve called a meeting. The same is true of presentations: be clear on what you propose, then spend the rest of our time outlining why it benefits your audience.
Examples:
We have a problem with X. It’s like the story of David and Golliath. I propose Y.
The challenge we have is X, not dissimilar to how Madonna continually reinvents herself. I propose we look at X and I'll outline why in this presentation.
You don’t need to pitch an idea. You can propose that things stay the same for example.
But what you need is a strong point of view. That’s how you add value at work.
How can you paint a picture?
Time to get creative. You can approach this one of two ways:
If you were to compare your presentation to a story you admire, what examples would come to mind?
What would life be like for your audience if they embraced your idea?
Think back to the stories that captured your attention for the following reasons: relatability, challenges, before and after, celebrity connectedness…which could be relevant for your presentation?
Equally, you might consider what life could look like, by painting a picture. Here are thought starters:
Imagine a future where….
Picture a world where…
Imagine if we didn’t need to do….
I wonder what could be possible if we ….
A small risk for a big pay off could look like ….
What might your version look like?
Proof = credibility.
Time to bring it home. Adding credibility to your presentation helps your audience take you seriously and trust what you have to say.
It’s the idea that your audience never wants to be the first person to try something, as it’s too risky. What’s less risky is being reassured what you are proposing actually works and gets results.
Credibility = proof. This could look like:
Including a case study.
Sharing a testimonial.
Doing a pilot.
Sharing results from a meta-analysis.
Quoting research that proves your point.
Including a perspective from a subject matter expert.
What might your version look like?
If you don’t have any proof, you may need to go out and create some before you can pitch your idea. Or be honest and ask people to take a risk with you.
What’s the push?
We don’t make decisions unless we need to.
How could you amp up the urgency in your ‘ask’ in your presentation, by outlining why it’s important right now?
Examples of push storytelling:
If we don’t act now …. (losses)
If we do act now … (more gains than losses)
It’s not urgent, but if we don’t….
It’s urgent because …
What will you lose if you don’t?
You can call this push (what you can lose) or pull (asking people to opt in).
Which sounds most relevant to you?