Personally, I don’t like stories. I wish you didn’t have to use stories in a presentation. I wish we could use our presentation time to cover more message points. Stories take up time and they are an inefficient way of communicating message points. I really wish we didn’t have to use stories.

There’s only one problem: no one cares what I like.

Here is the central fact you need to know about being a foolproof presenter: stories work!

In fact, as I test audiences all over the world (by simply asking them what they remember from presenters) the only thing that routinely stands out are the stories told by presenter.

So that’s the reality, like it or not. Stories are far and away the most effective memory device for your audience.

People get confused when I talk about using stories in their presentations. I constantly hear things like “But TJ I’M a Chief Financial Officer, my presentation is cut and dry. It’s all numbers. I can’t possibly tell a story. I’d be laughed out of the boardroom!”

Sorry, but the most significant numbers in your quarterly report do have a story behind them. Numbers and fact do not speak for themselves, if they did, no one would ever have to give a presentation.

For starters, let’s clarify what is NOT a story in a business presentation:

1.    It’s not a log-winded story about your summer vacation.
2.    It’s not a story for the sake of a story.
3.    It’s not a random inspirational story.
4.    It’s not something you say just to entertain or “motivate” (whatever that is).
5.    It’s not something you need to make up or get creative on.
6.    It’s not necessarily long or overly emotional.

When you are making a presentation, you goal is not to develop a reputation as a great storyteller. Instead, your goal is to communicate messages so that people can remember them, act upon them and tell other people what they are. Stories are simply the most efficient device for helping us get our audiences to remember our messages.

So what characteristics do you need in a good story for your audience?

1.    It has to be about something you care about.
2.    It has to be about something your audience cares about and find relevant.
3.    It needs to be true (fiction writing is hard, leave it up to others)
4.    It needs to be something you can re-live, not memorize and tell.

Specifically, here are the elements you need in a story you tell.

1.    A clear-cut message for your audience.
2.    A setting. Physically describe where you were and what you saw.
3.    Characters. Preferably you and one other person.
4.    Dialogue. What did you say to that person and what did he/she say to you.
5.    Problem. Everyone has problems. What was the conflict?
6.    Emotion. How did you feel? Good? Bad?

That’s all you need. The reality is that all of us tell stories all day long to friends, family members and work colleagues. We do this one on one to make a point or express ourselves, whether it is to talk about our day in the office, an annoying client, or frustrating traffic.

Here is an example of how to use a story in a business setting.

Background. I am giving a media training seminar to a group of executives and it is early in the day. I want to convey the message that the training principles I am about to teach them are not based on brilliant insights that I created out of thin air or from academic research. What I am about to teach them comes from lessons I learned the hard way, through mistakes. And now they can learn faster and easier than I did.
“I’m not standing before you because I was born knowing how to speak to the media more effectively than anyone else. I’ve had to learn the hard way, so ideally you can learn faster than I did. Some of you told me you fear talking to the media because you worry about being quoted out of context. I can relate. Back in ‘91 I was working as a press secretary for a Member of Congress. One day a reporter calls me up when I was working in the House Office building in DC.
‘TJ, what is the purpose of HR 1400 that your congressman is sponsoring?’
I said, ‘Currently the legislation is unclear. But it’s being cleaned up in committee and once that happens, people will see it has nothing to do with …’
I finish the Interview and go home to pack for a trip. The next day I was scheduled to fly to Hawaii for a congressional fact-finding mission. So of course I packed my swim suit, sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt, and lots of sun tan lotion.

The next day, I bring my suitcase into the office and there’s the newspaper. I open it up. There’s the story on HR 1400. And in the first paragraph, there I am ‘the spokesperson, TJ Walker concedes ‘the legislation is unclear’ End of quote. Wait! Where’s the rest of it? I start to panic. After the jump, on page b17 near the end of the story is the rest of my quote talking about how great their legislation will be after it goes through the committee process.

Ugh. I slumped in my chair in my little cubicle in the capital. Then my phone rings. It’s Jim the congressman’s Chief of Staff. He wants me right away.
‘TJ, the good news is you’re packed. The bad news is you won’t be going to Hawaii. But you will be leaving here. The Congressman will no longer be in need of your services. Goodbye.”

Ouch. I just lost my job.

So the lessons we work on today are based on the real world desire that all of us have to keep our jobs. If you follow the techniques I show you, then you won’t be out on the street like I was with your bags packed and nowhere to go.”

Is that a brilliant story? No. Will it win me a Pulitzer Prize for literature? No again. But it happens to be true and I delver it in less than 2 minutes and it is memorable and it makes my point. It works!

It works because it contains all of the elements I outlined above.

You have your own stories. Use them. Your stories might be 20 seconds long or five minutes long.

My clients complain to me all of the time “TJ, I can’t think of any good stories.”

My response is “you are trying too hard. Be lazy. Just think of a time you had someone call you with a work problem and how you worked it out. Where you? Spell it out. Who called you? Give the person’s name and title. What exactly was the problem? How was it resolved? How did you feel about it.?”

The best stories don’t require an ounce of creativity or hard work; they just require you to relive an experience you had that is interesting and relevant to other people. Foolproof presenters make it a habit of having a relevant story for each and every message point they plan to communicate in their presentation. If you can’t find a story, ask someone else you work with for a story and give them full credit. If you can’t think of a story and you can’t find one form anyone else, then maybe it’s not such an important point and doesn’t deserve a mention in your presentation after all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.