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How to choose a story arc for your presentation.

“Our startup could be profitable in three years. Our main obstacle is hiring, but I’ve got a plan to help us staff up in time.”

Let’s try that again: “We’ve got a big challenge ahead of us with hiring. Here’s some data to prove it. But I’ve got a plan to help us. And if we succeed, we could be profitable in three years.”

Or, how about this: “I’ve got a great plan to help us double our workforce, which is what we’ll have to do if we want to be profitable in three years. If we can’t hire up we may go out of business.”

There are so many ways to tell a story. In a business context, it’s just as important as in film or entertainment to think about the way you structure your story and select the right pieces of information for maximum impact. 

Ann Kim , Senior Portfolio Director at IDEO and instructor in our course Impactful Presentations , uses her decade long experience as a filmmaker, journalist, and designer (she served as the Chief Design Officer for the U.S. Surgeon General) to craft interviews, data, and observations into stories that inspire. In this Creative Confidence Podcast episode, she walks through the elements of a story, different story arcs, why and how to experiment with your story arcs, and shares examples from her work in the healthcare and entertainment worlds.

The elements of a story

The first thing Ann does when working on a project is to pull out the beats of her story, or rather the key elements she wants to convey. There are two approaches she uses: 1) Pour over all the data and “turn over every stone" or 2) Tap into your intuition, relax your mind, and ask yourself what the three to five things are that you remember most.

People tend to default to the turn-over-every-stone method, Ann says, but the best approach is a combination of the two. As you’re choosing your story beats, keep your audience in mind. What questions or presumptions are they coming with? How can you address those in your presentation? 

The main elements of a story are often context, conflict, climax, and closure. In the business world, context might mean research and data, conflict could be the challenge you’re facing, climax is the solution you’re recommending, and closure is the vision you have for the future.

“There's a ton of storytelling that's done collaboratively. And that's where it gets really fun.” Ann Kim

Asking “So what?” to surface impact

Before you begin pulling out story beats, ask yourself what impact you want to have. What do you want people to do or think after your presentation? 

An exercise you can use to clarify your impact is the “so what” test, one of the tools used in our Impactful Presentations course . Find a friend or colleague who is comfortable pushing back on you a bit. Give them a quick overview of your presentation and have them ask back, “So what?” Explain why you’re giving this presentation, and continue iterating your answer as they ask “So what?” a few more times. Continue until you get to an answer that embodies the impact you want to have on your audience and what they’ll get out of it. 

Ann likes using the so what test because it’s a way to put into words the stakes of your presentation. It forces you to articulate what you’re trying to convey to your audience and allows you to play around with different wording. “Oftentimes there’s too much to say and people feel compelled to stuff all the words into their story,” she says. How would you summarize the “so what?” of your presentation in just a few words?

Choosing a story arc your audience will connect with

There is no one right way to tell a story . But the way you choose to organize your information can be the deciding factor in getting your audience to take the action you desire ...or not. “The beats are the blocks of the story and the arc is how you pull those things together,” Ann explains. 

The arc is the choreography of your story—how it plays across time and in terms of emotion and how your audience is experiencing your story. “Creating empathy is a huge part of storytelling,” Ann affirms. As humans, we’re very attuned to story arcs. They can create anticipation and engagement, which leads to better retention and understanding. 

Going back to the elements of a story—context, conflict, climax, closure—organized in this order, they are a classic story arc called the 4 C’s. This arc works well if your presentation has a clear problem and solution.

There are several classic story arcs that can be seen across hundreds of years of literature and storytelling. In our Impactful Presentations course , you’ll see more graphics and examples to bring these arcs to life.

Lovesick is a documentary film Ann created about matchmaking for HIV+ singles in India. She used a classic linear story arc with a beginning, middle and end for the film. Chapterizing with title cards established context around the “rules of marriage.” She loved seeing the audience’s reactions to her film. When people in India watched it, the chapters with each marriage rule came across as relatable and humorous—putting into words unspoken rules that everyone knew about. In America, they were more educational, as people didn’t know as much about Indian culture. Keeping her varied audience in mind helped her decide on this story approach.

In a project for the Department of Mental Health for the State of Massachusetts, Ann’s team at IDEO created an illustrated video to help visitors to the site understand their purpose. The video shows what it’s like to be a parent trying to understand what help your child might need. It tells the story through the details of people’s lived experiences, using snippets of audio from real parents as the beats of the story. In this context, building empathy and emotion was critical to getting people to take the desired action—seeking medical help for a loved one.

Combining data and emotion to spark action

For the mental health video, Ann intentionally didn’t lead with lots of data points around wait times in hospitals or the number of children who suffer with mental illness, for example. A good story moves people to action, and data often fails to do this alone. 

“Part of what storytelling allows you to do is get to the why behind the data and provide what it means experientially for people,” Ann says. Data can help set context, but it’s important to show your audience what it means for them, for your end client or customer, and what the ramifications will be from the business side, too. Those takeaways are the beats of your story—not the numbers. 

If you’re presenting to a group of people who expect lots of data, as Ann is familiar with in her work in the healthcare industry, include it, but be selective. What kinds of stories and evidence will move people in the direction you want them to go? Acknowledge during your presentation that quantitative data is what might feel most like evidence to them. 

Experiment with your story to get it right

“You have to abandon the idea of your first draft being your last draft,” Ann warns. “It’s not about getting it perfectly right from the beginning. It’s about going through the motions of trying it.”

People often default to the linear timeline-style story arc—first this happened, then this, lastly that. Just recognize that bias, Ann says, and try out a few other ways of structuring your story before landing on one that feels good.

Here are a few tips Ann has for experimenting with story arcs :

• Jot down notes of all your potential story beats on sticky notes or index cards. Ann leans toward physical paper notes, but you can use slides in a deck as well. Try labeling each slide with what needs to be said and the takeaway, then add in details later. 
• Don’t spend too much time making your first story prototype beautiful. It can be hard to change or critique a presentation you’ve already spent hours and hours making. 
• Organize your story beats into groups to find the hierarchy—the main elements that other pieces will ladder up to. 
• Name your story prototypes, ex. The Frankenstein or The Vision, to differentiate them.
• Reorganize your story beats on index cards into several different arcs. Try them in an order that feels off. 
• Try telling the story from your client or user’s perspective. What did they feel? 
• Force yourself to share your story. You’ll get helpful feedback on how it’s coming across. You may also discover there are certain beats you don’t need.
• Play with your story arc as you’re doing the work. Don’t wait until you’re completely done with a project to think about how to talk about your work. 

Often, a story is not one person’s to tell. “There's a ton of storytelling that's done collaboratively,” Ann says about her work at IDEO. “And that's where it gets really fun.”

If you’re working on a presentation with a group, Ann has a few ideas for ways to work together to find your story beats and the best arc for maximum impact:

• For distributed teams, use a tool that you feel comfortable with that allows multiple users in at the same time. Figma, Mural, Miro and Google docs all came up as favorites for our podcast listeners. 
• Plan for discussion as well as heads-down time to work individually.
• Do an activity where each team member gets to choose seven story beats. Come together to share and see what you can learn from how each person interprets the story differently.
• Assign team members to try out different story arcs with your agreed upon story beats. Present to each other and see what lands. 

Throughout the process of experimenting with your story, give yourself space to get it wrong a few times. “There’s this notion of people going solo into a corner, working it out and leaving the room with the story set,” Ann laments. “And that’s not the way it works.” Take the time to play around with your story now and you’ll have a much greater impact when it’s time to present.

Learn how to deliver presentations that spark a shift in beliefs, behaviors, and mindsets in our online course Impactful Presentations .

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Structure Your Presentation Like a Story

• Nancy Duarte

To win people over, create tension between the status quo and a better way.

After studying hundreds of speeches, I’ve found that the most effective presenters use the same techniques as great storytellers: By reminding people of the status quo and then revealing the path to a better way, they set up a conflict that needs to be resolved.

• ND Nancy Duarte is a best-selling author with thirty years of CEO-ing under her belt. She’s driven her firm, Duarte, Inc., to be the global leader behind some of the most influential messages and visuals in business and culture. Duarte, Inc., is the largest design firm in Silicon Valley, as well as one of the top woman-owned businesses in the area. Nancy has written six best-selling books, four have won awards, and her new book, DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story , is available now. Follow Duarte on Twitter: @nancyduarte or LinkedIn .

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How to Tell a Story in a Presentation, with Examples

July 26, 2018 - Dom Barnard

Keeping your audience engaged whilst trying to clearly deliver your key messages can be difficult. A helpful way of doing this is by telling stories where you take your audience on a journey and appeal to their emotions. In this article we discuss storytelling techniques you can incorporate into presentations.

The benefits of storytelling

Storytelling is used in every culture, passed down through generations, to help with understanding because  humans like narrative structures . It’s now becoming more popular for business presentations – this is the case for Cisco Systems who switched from fact-heavy presentations to presentations incorporating stories and consequently became more successful in promoting their products.

Research suggests that humans are hardwired to listen to stories, for example, after conducting a fMRI study, neuroscientist Uri Hasson concluded that storytelling causes the neurons of an audience to sync with the storyteller’s brain. This suggests that your brain in responding like the storyteller’s so you are experiencing the same emotions.

Storytelling has multiple benefits:

• Grabs attention
• Evokes emotion, especially empathy
• Uses the audience’s imagination
• Relatable e.g. humanises a person, company etc
• Maintains attention because stories are so engaging
• Builds anticipation by having heroes, challenges, adventures and journeys
• Changes beliefs
• Very persuasive

Different ways of storytelling

Monomyth (the hero’s the journey).

In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Using a monomyth is a useful way of showing the audience how you obtained the knowledge/wisdom that you will be sharing in your presentation. When you deliver your presentation you can hold the audience as the hero – they can come on the journey, you encourage them to walk through it and get passed the obstacles. Your ideas delivered in the presentation can guide them to the rewards/wisdom they seek.

An example of a monomyth: professional snowboarder  Amy Purdy delivered a speech  where she talks about losing her legs to meningitis, re-learning snowboarding and finally receiving a medal in the Paralympics.

• Engages the audience by accessing their imagination and taking them a journey
• Universal appeal – has a recognisable and simple structure
• Demonstrates the benefits of taking risks
• Quickly evokes empathy
• Shows how you learned a lesson and how you got your wisdom
• Your audience sees the value of your product, service etc

Rags to riches

This essentially is a story where the main character has various hardships in their life, usually hits rock bottom but then achieves great success.

• Relatable as we have all faced difficult times
• Provides hope

In medias res (into the middle of things)

In this type of story you launch right into the action – providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. You’ll be familiar with TV shows frequently using this technique.

This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

Don’t give away too much of the action when you start the story; you’ll want to explain it in more detail when you reach it chronologically. Consider hinting at something unexpected or strange occurring – just provide the audience with enough information to get them interested.

• Attention grabbing
• Creates suspense
• Focuses attention on the fundamental moment of the story

False start

When delivering a false start, you begin by telling a supposedly predictable story and then unexpectedly reveal something before starting the story again with an altered perspective. This can be used to surprise the audience and it will get them engaged as it disrupted their predictions.

It’s useful for talking about times where you experienced a failure and then you consequently had to start again and what you learnt from this, including whether you had a special way of solving the problem.

• Changes the audience’s perspective
• Relates to the audience by sharing a failure
• Displays problem-solving

The mountain

This is similar to the monomyth – the mountain initially starts by setting the scene, it goes on to include a series of small challenges and a build-up of action, finally ending with a climatic finish. Typically something else will be introduced to the story to overcome the final challenge.

• Highlights how you overcame a series of challenges
• Builds suspense gradually – used in a lot of films
• Provides a satisfying conclusion

Practice Impromptu Storytelling

Practice telling a story with plot twists along the way. Learn More

Sparklines are when you contrast this world to an ideal world. You highlight the problems this world has and suggest what it could be like. It’s very persuasive because it gets the audience to want to make changes. A well-known example is Martin Luther’s “ I have a dream ” speech.

• Emotional appeal
• Evokes hope
• Often leads to action

Your whole presentation could follow the structure of a sparklines story:

1. Presentation beginning  – describe current life as this helps create a connection between yourself and the audience because they will agree with what you’re saying. Go on to introduce what the future can be, for example:

• What is: Our competitors have eaten up 30% of our revenue this year
• What could be: But what if we could fight back with a completely new product line in the same market? We’ve got the in-house expertise and resources to do just this.

2. Presentation middle  – now you have shown what the issues is continue to reflect on the contrast between the present and what the future could be like, for example:

• What is: We missed our revenue target by 30%.
• What could be: We’ve got to perform better next year otherwise we’ll have to start letting people go.
• What is: We’ve conducted early product trials with some of our customers.
• What could be: Over 90% said they would purchase the product when developed.

As you keep switching from what is and what could be the audience will find the possible future more appealing.

3. Presentation ending  – You want a call to action that is motivating, you want to show the audience the benefits of taking on your ideas. For example:

• Call to action: It will take additional work from several of our departments to get the new product line built in time for the launch date and to make up the revenue number for next year.
• The result of adopting your ideas: I know everyone’s working incredibly long hours, we really appreciate it. This is our opportunity to work together and give the company a massive boost. We’ll fight back against the competitors and you’ll all earn bonuses after a successful launch.

This makes it clear to the audience that everyone will benefit from your plan.

Nested loops

In nested loops, three of more stories are layered within each other. An example would be a character in your first story tells another story and a character in that story tells another story etc. The core of your message is in the centre and the stories around it explain this message or elaborate on it.

Each nested story should end in the order it was introduced, for example, the story you begin with is the last story you finish with, the second story you start is the second to last story you finish etc.

• Shows how your wisdom was obtained through a series of interactions/showing how wisdom was passed to you
• Explains how you came to a conclusion

Converging ideas

Converging ideas shows the audience how different people’s thinking came together to produce one idea. This is a good way of showing how a movement started or how an idea was created from various people working towards the same thing.

Converging ideas are similar to nested loops but with converging ideas you can show how stories with equal importance came to one significant conclusion.

• Demonstrates collaborations between people
• Can show how relationships formed
• Demonstrates how a development occurred

Petal structure

The petal structure consists of telling multiple stories from multiple speakers that relate to the main message. This is useful if you have unconnected stories that relate back to the central concept. You can overlap the stories as one story, after it has been completed, introduces the next story.

• In showing the audience how these stories are related they understand the significance of your message
• Provides the voice of multiple speakers
• Provides lots of evidence or emotional appeal around a central idea
• Shows how multiple situations lead back to one concept
• Allows a group of speakers to discuss a main message

Example of captive storytelling

Donald Blake from the Scottish Storytelling Centre tells a tale about being hungry for stories. Great example of how to tell a story during a presentation.

Watch the full video here:  ICH for Everyone: The importance of storytelling

Storytelling tips

Storytelling is used by the  top public speakers , here are their tips:

Understand your audience

You first need to find out who you’re presenting to:

• Know their pain points, values and opinions
• Topics of interest
• Try to find similarities, including any shared experiences, you have with the audience because they can relate and empathise with you. Consequently they will care about what you say.

Frame your story

Think about taking the audience on a journey and work out where to start and finish.

To find a place to start ask:

• What do audience already know about the topic?
• How much do the audience care about the topic?

If a speech is received poorly it’s usually because it was not framed well – the speaker misunderstood the level of audience interest or they didn’t tell a story.

Know your message

Ensure that you understand what you’re trying to tell the audience and how your story is linked to your call for action.

• Think about how you want the audience to feel about your message.
• For example, you might need to share facts and figures but try to deliver this is an engaging way so they will be remembered.

Ensure that you choose a story relevant to the idea you want to support or the point you want to make. The story must be  tailored to your audience  so it relates to them and meets their needs.

Be authentic

• Tell real-life stories to garner trust.
• If your story is not genuine this will work against you and the audience will judge you as dishonest.

Use a conversational tone

When telling your story speak in a conversational tone as this will sound more natural and friendly. To help with this pretend that you’re telling the story to friends or family and avoid technical terminology.

Remember that the audience is the hero

• The audience often needs to view themselves as the hero.
• Let people see and feel what the journey of achieving the goal will be like.

Visual aids increase engagement  and memory retention. Use relevant images, videos, props etc as supplements to your story.

Evoke emotions

By evoking certain emotions in the audience, they will feel more connected to the story which will help with their engagement and persuading them. Emotions also increase memory retention.

Sell your story not your product

Focus your story on the outcome that the audience is looking for and not on your product.

There needs to be conflict, contrast or action in the story; in traditional tales there would be a villain. In a  business presentation  there might be a problem that the characters must overcome. This ensures audience engagement because they want to know what happens next. To increase suspense:

• Tell a story chronologically so you can build to a climactic conclusion
• Consider telling a predictable story and then shock the audience by going a different direction to what was predicted (false start).
• Consider using in media res.

Stories need a beginning, middle and end to create drama and anticipation. Sometimes you don’t have to complete the story as this can be a useful way of making a point in the presentation.

Tell personal stories because the audience will enjoy seeing your human side. Consider telling a story about a mistake you made, for example, perhaps you froze up during an important presentation when you were 25, or maybe life wasn’t going well for you in the past – if relevant to your presentation’s aim.

People will empathise and relate to you as we have all experienced hardship. The more the audience relates to you, the more likely they will remain engaged. These stories can also be told in a humorous way if it makes you feel more comfortable.

Ensure that you plan the stories thoroughly beforehand and make sure they are not too long.

How you tell your story

The way you tell a story is important, if you do it effectively the audience won’t forget it. Consider:

• Using every word and image to help create a clear picture in their mind
• Using visuals to supplement the story
• Providing sensory details – using all five senses
• Using precise verbs and nouns and vivid adjectives.
• Providing short but effective descriptions

Imaginable characters

Create characters that the audience can imagine easily. Characters are significant because it’s their struggles that make the audience react. You must provide enough detail on the main character and identify their unique characteristic, such, as, perseverance.

A common technique for presenting characters in business presentations is to start with “This is…” followed by the character’s name and their job role and their important characteristics/backstory. For example, “This is Sally, a hard-working but over-worked marketing manager etc.”

Shock the audience

Build up to a dramatic event that they won’t forget – this can be a provoking image, shocking statistics etc. For example, in a  2009 speech  Bill Gates, after providing statistics on the issues of malaria, opened a jar of mosquitoes in the presentation room and said “There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience.”

Satisfying resolution

End with a resolution – this can be a piece of advice or wisdom that will help the audience.

Telling stories is a compelling way of presenting because humans relate to them. Stories engage the audience, evoke empathy, increase trust and motivate action. By working on your storytelling skills you will be more effective at persuading the audience the value of your ideas. Make sure you spend the time refining these skills so you can set your company apart from the rest.

Storyteller Tactics Pip Deck Reviewed

Are the Storytelling Tactics cards by Steve Rawling any good? I’ll give my experience showing how I use the cards to impact creative marketing and advertising content. Read on to see the storyteller tactics pip deck reviewed.

You might have seen these decks promoted on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms and wondered if they are any good… Well, I’ve been using Storyteller Tactics for a few months now, and I have a background in brand storytelling and new service/product development. To help you get a sense of whether the Storyteller Tactics deck can help you, I’ll share some of my experience and talk about where these decks fit in with the larger field of brand development, pitching, selling, and storytelling in general.

I’ll also share an affiliate link, so that if this information is helpful, you can get your deck, contribute something back here (I receive a small commission on each sale), AND get at 15% discount on your purchase.

So, here it is – the good the bad and the ugly…

What are Pip Decks?

Each Pip Deck is a set of cards that blend process with activity prompts laid out in a choose-your-own-adventure format. Basically, as your scenario changes, so can your use of the deck. Topics include storyteller tactics (reviewed here), idea tactics, workshop tactics, team tactics and laws of user experience (UX).

To see the full set of decks, click the image above (yes, it is an affiliate link).

The Storyteller Tactics deck is a set of 54 storytelling cards that are broken down into manageable story elements.

The deck is built to influence, educate, build awareness, lead – to basically attain all the big objectives businesses struggle with on a day to day basis – through powerful, well-placed stories.

Storyteller Tactics:

• a “storytelling system” to help identify what elements to develop based on where you are at in the story development journey
• “recipes,” which focus on your story objective (sell, motivate, inspire, explain, and so forth);
• “concepts” which are framing conventions – are you on a heroic journey, are you trying to solve a puzzle or mystery, or are you trying to balance order and chaos to make difficult things more manageable, or boring things more exciting?
• “exploration,” which is about getting the information you need to tell your story, whether through interviews, working together, or by some other means
• “character” cards that focus on roles – are you an expert? Is your customer the hero and you the guide?
• “function” cards that help you position your story in relation to what you are doing – pitching, selling, hunting for business insights and the like. “structure” which digs into story arc options
• “style” has to do with how you tell your story – what you put forward and what you hold back.
• and last, but not least, “organize.” A set of cards focused on how to collect and utilize stories over time.

At a top level, I really like the Storyteller Tactics Pip Deck. It consolidates a vast range of knowledge into quickly digestible bites, and when a card is helpful for your situation you can simply follow the card from front to back, top to bottom and jot down your notes. In my experience just that process adds some new thinking.

I also like the artwork on the cards. It is playful and each image quickly conveys the idea of the card without driving the narrative in one direction or another. They are specific enough to communicate, but general enough the viewer can project their own scenario into the story. In that way, the artwork is like the original storytelling deck: the Tarot. (More on that in future posts.)

The images are also quite playful. That’s an important idea in design thinking – we are most creative when at play. Some problems are so big that everyone freezes up and reverts to reactive thinking. By opening up an element of playfulness through the imagery, the cards subtly remind us that if we feel stuck, to work fast, throw ideas at the wall, and let the insights and story elements help us out of the situation we are in.

How do you use the Storyteller Tactics cards?

At its heart, the main purpose of the storyteller deck is to help you identify and tell the right story – when a story is necessary.

I work with a lot of individuals in the finance and lending industry to transform their work into story-based marketing and advertising content.

When I talk with clients they get excited about interest rates, FICO scores, documenting loan requests with additional notes, and the number of days available to vet a prospective borrower. Great – but all of that is commodity thinking when it comes to the client’s perspective. Cheerios or Joe’s O’s (Trader Joe’s brand Cheerios) – same ingredients, same shape. An undifferentiated product is a commodity My choice of “brand” has to be based on something else.

You’ll hear the same finance conversation, so long as you are speaking with a real professional in the industry, but none of that “loan talk” motivates a business borrower. In fact, it makes most business owners feel like they don’t matter at all in comparison to the interest accrued by the bank on the deal.

What are some stories that could change this perception? Well, maybe talking with a banker doesn’t give me the heart of the story.

If everyone I talk to in a business category tells me the same thing, I can use my Storyteller Tactics “explore” cards to find other approaches to the story. Maybe I start to interview small business owners that were able to get out of a leasing cycle, buy retail property and reinvest in a long-term real estate asset.

The story might not all be roses and cream – it’s still hard work running a business, but maybe the asset has given them choices, like using their owner equity in the property to secure a low-interest asset-backed line of credit that allows them to be more responsive to customer requests.

If I can put that story on my client’s website new visitors can start to see themselves in the story. They might imagine their own “reasons why” getting their own commercial property loan could benefit them over time. Beyond that, if my financial services client is willing to make additional commitments like fast loan approvals or a high level of service throughout the loan process, we are beginning to get beyond the commodity and starting to build a brand.

Without a storytelling system you could be stuck thumbing through the client’s brand book with their logo, color scheme, fonts, mission and values and samples of last year’s ads and social media posts and end up repeating messaging the client has already been using. As a marketer or designer, that’s just providing labor, not advancing the creative messaging in a way that advances the client’s position.

Of course, once I have an insight that could become the heart of a story I need to structure the story and break the story into parts that can be told through various media. That’s when I work through the other topics and identify what elements from each topic will enhance the story.

…but not all products need a story. Generic iodized salt doesn’t need a story. It costs less because it’s the same as the name brand but without the marketing costs added on top.

When is it necessary to tell a story?

Steve Rawling, former TV journalist, current brand story facilitator, and author of the Storyteller Tactics deck says that storytelling is best used when combining facts, emotions, and a narrative arc results in a better understanding of what you are trying to convey than any one of these alone.

The reason that brand storytelling has taken off in businesses around the globe is that spreadsheets, bullet points, key performance metrics, and pressure to perform only get you so far. In fact, they often create burnout. People lose the “why” behind the objective. Yes, money, but what else?

A story, in such circumstances, can demonstrate why an efficiency initiative serves clients and helps them have a better life. Or why revisiting an historical way of doing something might have merit in today’s digital economy.

So, are the Storyteller Tactics good at what they do?

On the whole, yes! I’ve used the cards to outline presentations to City Council meetings to motivate change, with business clients that are stuck in a single narrative that fails to resonate with their clients, and while outlining fundraising campaigns for nonprofit organizations.

But, of course, there is opportunity to grow. For example, in the “character” set of cards, not all of the cards demonstrate characters. The cards do represent the primary roles that businesses take in relation to customers – either the expert that provides information or solves problems or the guide that helps the hero (customer) along their journey.

A protagonist usually has a foil who counters them or helps them grow and change in some significant way. There’s also often a villain, someone or something the hero works against. The villain character is represented in some of the “concept” cards, but with such an important role, it would make sense to have a card dedicated to outlining how these other characters play their parts in the story arc. Other characters add flavor and context.

In a business context, this rich, dynamic tapestry of characters may be too complex, bogging down your story for audiences used to bullet points and metrics, so it makes sense that the full range of characters would be reduced in this deck.

Where does the Storyteller Tactics deck perform the strongest?

The Storyteller Tactics deck is excellent when you need to prepare a presentation, motivational speech, sales pitch, marketing asset, or advertisement and you need to break out of the standard set of ideas in your industry. The deck will help you approach your story in new ways and provide the prompts to discover new insights you can turn into strategic advantage.

Where would you need added resources to enhance your Storyteller Tactics deck?

If you were working on a character-driven book or film script you would need more in terms of the development of multiple characters that interact with one another. You probably would need more in terms of developing plot points to move a larger narrative forward. The Storyteller Tactics deck points toward that complex constellation in the sky but doesn’t map out where all the stars are that create the larger picture.

However, it’s important to recognize that long-form storytelling is not its goal of the Storyteller deck. It’s a tactical tool that helps you get ready fast when you need to prep your presentation for tomorrow, and your win or loss is going to be based on whether your audience really “feels” or “grocks” your position or not.

The deck can be used to consider your larger strategic position, but it doesn’t provide steps to help you plan “scenes” along the narrative arc of a larger story. Like supporting characters, scenes are implied, but not detailed in the deck.

Storyteller Archetypes

In 2024, Pip Decks released an archetypes deck for character development. The twelve Jungian archetypes are positioned in context of story development, branding, and personal development. Learn more about archetypes at our link below.

How can I get the most out of my physical Pip Deck cards?

Pip Decks are part of a larger trend in design thinking, teamwork, brand, and sales development that has developed since the 1990’s. Yes, the cards can be used quickly to strengthen tomorrow’s presentation, AND getting the most out of the decks means developing some knowledge and experience in the varied disciplines that have led to the emergence of Pip Decks.

Steve and the team at Pip Decks provide a bank of videos and Miro boards (a digital team white boarding platform) that help individuals or teams work through the discovery process to strengthen stories. In addition to purchasing a physical deck, you can get perpetual access to the Vault, an evolving set of tools you can come back to again and again.

What’s included?

• PDF version of the Storyteller Tactics for offline access
• Drag and drop digital cards for digital whiteboards
• Miro / MURAL templates for each Tactic so you can get started fast.
• Storytelling Video Tutorials, featuring 50+ coaching videos from author Steve Rawling.
• Access to all future Storyteller Tactics exclusive content, events and discounts.

Want to deepen your ability to apply story tactics through your brand?

Sign up for brand story tactics coaching to develop communications and channels from the position of brand..

Brand platforms tend to be developed, then slipped in a drawer or stored in a Dropbox folder but rarely used. Through one-on-one coaching, we will develop your communications platform and messaging keeping your brand position in mind. This a-la-carte option allows you to buy as many one-hour sessions as you need. In our first session, we will create an agenda and plot out a timeline for clarity and accountability on both sides.

Storytelling in presentations: Creating compelling content

• Written by: Hannah Harper
• Categories: Sales messaging , Visual communication
• Comments: 1

The Great Gatsby , To Kill a Mockingbird , Star Wars – epic stories that we go back to time and time again. Whether they’re in books, on TV, in films, or even on a podcast, we devour them and are still hungry for more. Compare that to the last presentation you saw. Did it have the classic logo slide? Or how about the one that shows you where all the offices are? Were there walls of text that you needed a telescope to read? Being such story-driven creatures, it’s hard to understand why we don’t imbibe storytelling in all aspects of our lives – work included – presentations included. It’s a mystery. But over the course of this article I hope to get to the bottom of it. We’ll delve into what makes stories so impactful for humans, and then look at how you can include storytelling in presentations to make them engaging, persuasive stories that leave your audiences clamouring to sign on the dotted line.

How to use this article

Much like a great story, we’ve got a great beginning, a compelling middle, and a killer ending, but we realise you might want to skip to the last page to find out who did it. Use the links below to navigate to your favourite section, or start at the very beginning – we’ve heard it’s a very good place to start.

The science of storytelling

Using storytelling to boost engagement and inclusion, storytelling: the persuasive tool, how storytelling makes things more memorable, how to include storytelling in presentations, impactful presentation openings, making your data memorable, telling a story with graphs and charts, crafting a compelling call-to-action.

Humans have been telling stories for a long time, but did you know stories engage us, they persuade us, and they make things more memorable? You probably did – I mean whether it’s Jane Eyre or Air Force One stories have power. But let’s pop the hood and figure out how this works in practice, and then see how we can apply it to our presentations.

Storytelling is a great way to stimulate engagement in your audiences and the reason for that comes down to a chemical in the brain called oxytocin. According to Paul Zak , whose lab is responsible for the discovery and much of the research to do with oxytocin, we produce the chemical when ‘we are trusted or shown a kindness’. It helps us to cooperate with others by heightening the empathy we feel.

Zak and his team did a few interesting experiments with oxytocin. In one they found that character-driven stories cause oxytocin to be produced, which in turn increased the subject’s willingness to help others. In another , they found that character-driven footage (that crucially had no narrative) did not generate the same chemical or emotional response in subjects.

Zak’s conclusion is that in order to generate this empathetic response in us, a story must grab our attention by developing tension. It’s that tension that audiences tap into and that leads them to empathise with the characters. And what do we know about stories that begin with tension? Well they’re like every great and engaging story out there – all that employ ‘the dramatic arc’ : the introduction is followed by a rise in tension, there’s a climax, and it all falls away to an ending.

It’s easier than you might think to apply the dramatic arc to your presentations. Instead of starting your presentation with a list of where your offices are, start by painting a picture of the challenges your audience faces. Immediately you introduce the tension that opens the door for your audience to get emotionally involved in your story. More on exactly how to do that later.

‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for’, instead can I interest you in this great solution we’re offering at a fraction of the price? Wouldn’t it be great if Jedi mind tricks worked in the real world!? Sadly, the force is not with me. But there is a different tool I can use to persuade prospects instead: that’s right, a good story.

Storytelling has huge persuasive powers, as demonstrated by a couple of really interesting studies. Penn State College of Medicine found that medical students were much more sympathetic and open to helping dementia patients after taking part in an exercise whereby the patient told stories based on images they had been given. The University of Massachusetts Medical School monitored two sets of patients at risk of high blood pressure . One set was treated as per the normal method, the other set watched three videos that presented the stories of real patients dealing with high blood pressure. At the end of the study, it was the second group that demonstrated better blood pressure results.

Both of these examples show that our response to certain situations can be affected by storytelling. Stories persuade us out of indifference, they involve more of our brain and make us connect on a deeper level. According to the team over at Pressboard when we read something dry and fact-based the only part of our brain engaged is our language processing centres. But stories activate so many more parts in our brain – the sensory cortex, the motor cortex, the hippocampus – it’s all fair game when you’re telling a story.

We all want to be remembered, don’t we – whether that’s from an Oscar-winning performance many years from now, or just from a highly competitive pitch when the shortlist is being drawn up. But how do we make our content memorable? Well, it could be argued that you can be very memorable with an audacious pitch – just read about this situation our director Joby encountered – so maybe a better question is how can you make your content both memorable and relevant?

We’ve all done the trick where we have to remember a list of items, first by just trying to remember them in order, then by turning them into characters on a journey – think Sherlock and his memory palace. Stories help us remember things much better.

Nick Morgan, the author of Power Cues argues that all the information we class as important in the business world – things like facts and figures – this stuff just doesn’t stick in our minds at all. It’s actually stories that create ‘sticky’ memories ‘by attaching emotions to things that happen.’

So by telling stories in your presentations you better equip your audience to leave remembering what happened and, as we read earlier, more persuaded to buy your solution.

The trouble is that though the science may be true, few of us are blessed with the storytelling ability of J.R.R. Tolkien or Phoebe Waller-Bridge. So just how do we go about including more storytelling in presentations? Here are three practical examples where we can use the science we’ve just learned to make sure our presentations are more engaging and impactful, thanks to a healthy dose of narrative.

As we saw earlier, the attention span is a cruel mistress. It can so quickly jump from the presentation you’re watching to what you had for lunch, or to coming up with a pithy comeback from an argument you had seven years ago. This is why any presentation that starts by telling your audience who you’ve worked with, where your offices are, how many employees you have, and how your team is structured, just isn’t going to scratch their itch.

The team at Pressboard dug into this a little. They studied over 300 brand articles and measured them all against certain engagement criteria. They found that if the brand was brought up too early – before there was any semblance of a story in the article – the reader was far less engaged. Readers responded best when the brand was brought in as a character in the story a little later on.

So if you jump in too soon with all of that ‘who we are’ information, evidence suggests you’re going to turn off your audiences before you’ve even really got started. Instead, if we’re to follow Pressboard’s example we should begin with a story, and then introduce our brand or product as a character in that story after we’ve built up a little tension.

And how do we build up tension? Well there’s another character you can add into your story. Your audience. Stories generate empathy within us – we’re used to putting ourselves in the place of the main character – so you should craft your story so your audience can see themselves sleep-walking into huge losses, or stumbling into an unskilled workforce, or not noticing that change is on the horizon.

I think you’ll agree outlining the imminent doom your prospect is millimetres away from avoiding is more attention-grabbing that showing them an inspirational quote from your CEO.

It feels familiar doesn’t it – unsuspecting person inches from disaster, suddenly saved by chiselled superhero. And that’s exactly how we teach people to craft their presentation introductions. And just to get really meta, we’ve written a story about how it all works. Watch it unfold in the video below!

Telling stories throughout your presentation

Okay, so we’re off to a flying start with your story-rich presentation. What about the main body of content? You can still weave stories throughout these slides. Think of them like episodes in a series. The presentation (or series) might be about saving you from relying on paper records and switching to a digitised solution, and one slide (or episode) could be about the dangers of data protection and maintaining records safely and efficiently.

Just like you set up the challenges and hero over a few slides in your introduction, you can set up the shorter story in the same way, just using clicks and animation to talk about the ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Here’s a video of how the slide story from earlier might play out over a slide.

But often a roadblock for people is data – statistics, bar charts, line graphs, percentages – so many numbers that feel like they’re a key character in your story (often a character the higher-ups want you to include regardless). So how do you tell a story with data? First, there are some things you should know:

Purpose: The first question you should always ask yourself when including data in a presentation is ‘what is the point of it?’ Broadly it might fit into one of these categories: persuasion, dissuasion, reassurance, shock. And then you can take it a level deeper and add your story: we’ve got a number that will dissuade the audience from relying on paper records, let’s use it at the beginning of the slide where we talk about data breaches. This should stop you using numbers just for the sake of it. First build your story, then add your evidence.

But ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Never was a truer phrase spoken about using data to persuade people. Think about this stat:

According to the World Health Organization there are 1.1 billion smokers worldwide.

Hmm… 1.1 billion is a big number. That must be bad, right? But hang on, there are nearly eight billion people in the world, so maybe it’s not so big after all.

Here’s some human nature: if you put 1.1 billion on a slide and make it really big – well that means it’s bad. If you put 1.1 billion on a slide quite small next to a far bigger number – say 8 billion – well that means it’s actually quite good.

Then with a liberal smattering of words like ‘only’, ‘almost’, ‘nearly’, ‘over’ – you’ve totally convinced your audience.

Well, not quite. It all seems a bit manipulative, and audiences don’t like feeling manipulated. To avoid this, you guessed it, you’ve got to start with your story and then use your stats as evidence that support the point you’re trying to make.

Let’s pull back our slide from earlier. We’re talking about how a digital solution helps you maintain records safely and efficiently. A good supporting stat might be the number of companies nationwide that have declared data breaches due to records being kept on paper. Let’s say the number is 64%. That’s nearly two thirds – let’s not just rely on a big number, let’s make this a visual part of our story too.

See how the stat supports the story – it’s much more compelling than just putting a big number on a slide – and it engages more parts of the brain.

But sometimes you just need to have a graph on your slide. A number cleverly woven into your story won’t do. What do you do in this scenario? First, you still make sure it’s there for a good purpose, and that it’s in the right place in the presentation according to the story arc.

Second, you tell a mini-story with your graph. Think of it like a short film: establishing shot, introduce the characters, increase tension, happy resolution. Easy. Grab a graph, and open up the animation ribbon – you’re gonna need it.

Establishing shot: Or context setting. For a film it’s things like location, time of day, season, for a graph it’s your axes and labels.

Introduce the characters: In your graph these are the data points. Animate in your bars. But wait.

Increase tension: If you animated both bars in at once your audience switches their processing power to the graph and ignore you as the presenter. You’ve given them a problem to solve – what does the data mean – and they’re busy trying to reach the correct conclusion. So increase tension. Bring in one data set first and call out a couple of points (the ones you want to direct audience attention towards for the big reveal later on). Pause.

Happy resolution: Bring in the second data set. The points you called out should have the most drastic difference.

If the story isn’t clear, go back to the purpose – try to summarise what the data is telling you in one sentence. Set the scene, create the tension, and then bring in your punchline. If there isn’t a clear punchline, then there probably isn’t a clear purpose for the graph in the first place. Be brutal, don’t bother your audience with it.

But what about your happy ever after? All good stories need great endings and presentations are no different. There are two parts to this: structure and call-to-action.

Novelists don’t often just start writing without a plan: J.K. Rowling came up with the main story arc for all seven Harry Potter books before she put pen to paper with the Philosopher’s Stone . In the same way we need to think about the structure of a presentation before we begin writing speaker notes and creating slides.

Presentations need to be structured around a value proposition – for help with that, head to our guide here – but why has that got anything to do with the structure? Having a tight structure means that your presentation will never fizzle out, and it gives you a great way to summarise your main points and get them locked down in the minds of your audience. There’s no flabby appendix full of the content that isn’t important enough to go earlier. It’s to-the-point, memorable, and leaves your audience eager for more.

Call-to-action

When a good story ends, it leaves a small hole in your heart. You were drawn into different worlds full of heroes and villains and good and evil. You’re left wanting more, but there is no hand reaching out to you from the dust cover to pull you inside. This is where books and presentations differ. In a presentation you finish by extending a hand and inviting your audience to take part in the next chapter of the story. If you tell a compelling-enough story, then why wouldn’t your prospect want to jump in?

A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland is the most boring book I have ever read. Never have I had greater disinterest to visit a place than after reading that book. The ironic thing is that I have visited the Western Isles of Scotland, and I’d go back in a heartbeat, but the book – the story – did nothing to excite my wanderlust. My point being that even if the product is great, the way you sell it – the story – can make or break your sale. No-one will take you up on your call-to-action if your story is rubbish.

And finally, a note on the call-to-action itself. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it snappy. Think of it as a sample chapter of the author’s upcoming novel – enough to whet your audiences’ appetite, but not so much that they forget the great story they’ve just finished reading.

Further reading

If you’re still hungry for insights on storytelling in presentations, check out some of the links below:

• If you’re a fan of books and want to read about the inspiration you can get from flicking through a picture book, have a read of this article .
• If you have your story and you need help turning it into a compelling visual presentation, then check out this how-to guide .
• The Pressboard team did a half-hour webinar on ‘the science of storytelling’ , if you’re looking for something to dig into on your lunchbreak.
• If you want more information on telling stories with data visualisation, we have the perfect how-to for you – check it out here .
• If you’re looking for some extra help getting storytelling in presentations, take a look at our persuasive storytelling training on our Services page.

Hannah Harper

Principal consultant, related articles, how to level-up your presentation visuals.

• Visual communication
• Comments: 2

Relationships are everywhere and if you can crack how to show relationships effectively on your slides then you’ll have your audience swiping right instead of left.

How to improve your data visualization

In our information-rich world, we like to gorge ourselves on data. There are stats and facts for just about any topic you can imagine, just a Google search away. But are data on their own informative enough? When you’re presented with a wall of numbers, are you able to easily decipher the context, background and ramifications of all that information? Probably not – which is why data visualization is becoming increasingly important.

How to write scripts for webinars, videos and eLearning

• Sales messaging / Effective eLearning
• Comments: 3

Webinars, videos and eLearning are excellent ways to push your content out to a wider audience. It’s really important, therefore, that the content we send out is engaging, and your script is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Here are five best practices to create compelling scripts.

Thanks for explaining how storytelling can leave an audience to better remember a presentation and to be persuaded. My wife and I want to do something fun and are looking for ideas on how we can improve our business. We should go to a storytelling presentation sometime, and if we like it we should consider how to incorporate storytelling in our business meetings.

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The video animation looks AWESOME! Thank you sooooo much. I am very happy and proud with the result; this video is really convincing. Really really well done. Elodie Maurer SES

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15 Actionable Storytelling Tips for PowerPoint Presentations

• PowerPoint Tutorials
• Presentation Design
• April 23, 2015

Great storytellers do two things very well. First (obviously), they tell stories.

Second, through their stories, they get people to act.

You might be thinking, “That’s great if you’re Steve Jobs and introducing the iPhone, but what do I do with all of my everyday dry and boring content? How do I turn that into a story, let alone a gripping one?

Well today I’m going to help you out with 15 insanely actionable storytelling tips and tricks to get you into the storytelling mindset, regardless of what type of material you’re working with.

If you are looking for ideas for how to start your presentation, see our guide here.

You might be thinking, “That’s great if you’re Steve Jobs and introducing the iPhone, but what do I do with all my everyday dry and boring content? How do I turn that into a story, let alone a gripping one?

Well today I’m going to help you out with 15 insanely actionable storytelling tips and tricks to get you into the storytelling mindset, regardless of what type of material you’re working with.

Once you have these story telling tips down, you can see  how to start a presentation here .

How to start a story?

Getting your story started is oftentimes the most difficult part of the storytelling process, especially when you are in a professional setting.

You might know what your story is about and the point you want to make during your presentation, but getting it started can feel weird or awkward.

Don’t overthink it, just dive in and get started.

And if you feel stuck, use one of the following lines to jump start your story (and then don’t look back).

“Before we get started, I want to tell you about…”

Great for a smooth start, kick off your story (and the presentation) with this phrase and then tie it into your presentation message.

“That reminds me of the time…”  

1. Find your characters and make them the focal point of your presentation

1. Break down your topic into the people (or characters) involved

Look at your material and simply ask yourself “who” until you have some people to work with.

99% of the time, someone’s actions, needs, vision, goal, etc., lies behind the point you are trying to make.

Very little happens in the world without people’s involvement. As such, this is one of the best storytelling techniques for business presentations.

For example:

• Your company’s quarterly earnings = hard-working employees or loyal customers;
• Your new product or service = a new demographic of consumers;
• Your data points = the people who did something to create those data points;
• Your school’s new program = the students benefiting from the new program or the representatives who fought to fund the program.

2. Pick a representative to follow

If you end up with a group of people from step #1 (for example, baby boomers getting ready to retire), try to narrow your group down to a representative individual you can talk more directly about.

Because if you’re talking about retirement products, it’s more interesting to hear about 62 year old John who is looking forward to driving his camper van across the country when he retires (cool)…

…rather than financially stable baby boomers getting close to retirement (yawn).

How this will improve your story

Stories need characters to move forward, and whereas objects and data points don’t have a story, the people behind those objects and data points do.

Simply re-orienting your presentation around the people involved in your topic (who they are, what they are doing, etc.), even if only briefly, will naturally create a story that your audience can begin to follow.

Seriously, the next time you watch a politician speak, see if they don’t break down their topic into individual people whose actions back up their point.

It’s a simple storytelling tip, but it’s one of the most impactful…especially for business presentations which are often data and product focused, instead of people focused.

2. Set the stage by describing where you are now and where you want to be in the future

1. Describe where things are now (the undesired now)

What is (or was) the “undesirable now” about your topic that drove the first action?

Set the stage for your knight in shining armor.

• Are credit card companies preying on college graduates by extending them credit and encouraging them to spend it, even if they don’t have any income?
• Are employees given limited and risky options to build their nest eggs to get to retirement?
• Is it common that people who spent all day on their feet develop blisters between their toes…regardless of what kind of shoes they wear?

Tip:  Make sure your undesired state counts and is something people care about, otherwise you will lose your audience.

Your goal here is to get your audience invested in your topic.

As a bonus, highlight how you might feel about it. How painful would it be to walk with blisters between your toes?

2. Describe where things want to be (the desired future)

Now that your audience is on board about the situation, what are you going to do about it?

Now is your chance to paint the picture of the desired future that we all want to be a part of.

• College graduates are extended credit based on their actual earnings to avoid long-term financial disaster.
• Employees are given multiple options to safely build their nest eggs for retirement.
• People who spend all day on their feet can wear microfiber toe socks that eliminate 99% of all toe blisters.

Paint a picture of what the future would look like where everyone’s needs are met. Describe it in vivid detail.

Again as a bonus, describe how someone might feel about it. Does a college graduate who has avoided a mountain of credit card debt feel ‘just okay,’ or are they ‘pumped up about life’ and exited for the future?

It’s the change and/or transformation that happens within your story that is going to capture your audience’s attention. Typically the change or transformation in your story is based around unmet needs, wants and desires (something that is not as it should be) that then brings forth some kind of action or sequence of events that result in meeting those needs (potentially your product or service).

If you find that your topic doesn’t have a change or transformation associated with it, moving from an undesired state to a desired state, rethink the angle of your presentation topic to come up with something that does.

To learn more about this specific storytelling technique and see how effective it is, see Nancy Duarte’s TED Talk,  the secret structure of great talks  or read a  free multimedia version of her popular book “Resonate ” online.

3. Describe what needs to be overcome and highlight why this will be difficult

1. Brainstorm two or three obstacles or challenges that are in the way

What is it about your presentation topic that is difficult to overcome or why can’t the characters in your story (see Tip #1) have what they want (see Tip #2)?

If there is nothing standing in the way then you don’t have much to talk about.

Common challenges include time, money, connections, proof, education, a competitor, a market, a county, natural disasters, the economy, etc.

2. Narrow down the obstacles to focus on your situation

With a few obstacles in mind, think about how they are unique to your situation or maybe particularly hard to overcome in this specific scenario.

Narrowing down your challenges to the specifics helps to create intrigue and curiosity about your topic, especially if your audience feels that they are already familiar with the broader obstacles in question.

Instead of writing you off, your audience will be interested to know how these obstacles impact your own unique situation, and how you will try to overcome them.

Stories are rooted in conflict and tension, and it’s the process of encountering obstacles and then overcoming them that propels a story forward.

Without any obstacles to overcome (and therefore, conflict and tension), you don’t have the basic foundation of a story.

People want to know what you are up against and what you are going to do about it. This is why including the specific challenges you are facing is such a great storytelling technique for drawing your audience into your topic.

4. Emotionally invest your audience in the struggle (define failure or the status quo)

1. Think about what failure means in your presentation

What happens if nothing works out and you fail at your endeavor? What are the short-term and long-term consequences of failure?

Or what would happen if we stayed with the status quo?

Put another way, think about what you are trying to help people avoid or solve with your presentation and why it should matter  to your audience .

2. Describe that failure in human terms that your audience can relate to

Set the stakes by describing what failure looks like in human terms that your audience can relate to.

For example: If your presentation is about saving for retirement and you are trying to push young people to start planning, paint the picture of what retirement looks like when you are short on cash and forced to continue working?

Bonus Step: Focus on the emotional aspects of the failure

How does your character feel (or should your audience feel) emotionally about that possibility of failure?

What does the stress or regret feel like for having not started planning for retirement earlier?

How painful could it be if it negatively impacted your children, forcing them to take care of you financially when you got older?

Setting the stakes of what’s involved lets your audience know whether they should pay attention to your presentation or get their cellphones out and check email.

If nothing is at stake within your presentation, then you will have a difficult time getting your audience to care and invest themselves in what you are saying.

5. Emotionally invest your audience in the outcome (define what success looks like)

1. Think about what success means in your presentation

What happens if everything works out, the obstacles are overcome, and everyone runs off together into the sunset?

Think of what you are trying to accomplish with your presentation and why it matters  to your audience .

2. Describe that success in human terms that your audience can relate to

Drill down the success you are working towards into human terms, based on your audience’s own goals.

If your presentation is about saving for retirement and you are trying to push them to start planning, describe what retirement looks like (in detail) with all the money you need already saved up and sustaining your lifestyle.

What does it look like to have a well-planned retirement?

Bonus Step: Focus on the emotional aspects of the success

How does your character feel (or should your audience feel) emotionally about that possibility of success?

What does it feel like once the goal is accomplished?

For retirement, how relaxed and thankful would you feel, knowing that you planned ahead and didn’t need to worry about your future?

Or your children’s future?

Emotionally engaging your audience in the success of your story will encourage them to stay tuned and inspire them to take action.

Think of it from your own perspective. If there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, why even bother heading off in that direction in the first place?

People need a reason to take action, which is why investing them in the success of your topic early on is such a great storytelling tip.

6. Challenge your audience’s assumptions by adding a twist

1. List out the obstacles of your presentation

Go back and find all of the obstacles or challenges that you are overcoming within your presentation (see Tip #3).

2. Find an ‘obstacle within an obstacle’ or a chain reaction of obstacles

Looking at your list of obstacles, ask yourself if there is an ‘obstacle within an obstacle’ or a potential hidden twist to one of the obstacles that could jeopardize the entire outcome.

The twist might not have actually happened, but could have been problematic had it not been avoided.

Maybe you’ve convinced 3 members of the 4 member board of the viability of your project (which is already tough), but you need unanimity… and it turns out that the fourth member is your ex-wife’s father.

3. Add the twist partway through your presentation to create uncertainty

Add your twist partway through your presentation to lead your audience to doubt the outcome of your story.

If you are trying to add tension to your presentation, the last thing you want is everyone to know exactly where you are going and feel that they already know the outcome.

Gripping stories have twists and turns that not only raise the stakes of what’s involved, but they challenge the natural assumptions of the audience and make them reevaluate the potential outcome.

You can see this storytelling technique in action in just about any movie…you think you know exactly how the story will play out, but then a new element is introduced that throws you for a loop.

Adding an ‘obstacle within an obstacle’ or a twist, reengages the audience by creating curiosity and a loop with an unknown ending

7. Onboard your audience with an interesting metaphor THEY can relate to

1. Find a hard to relate concept or “thing” in your presentation

Think of what you have trouble explaining in your story.

Maybe you feel that it requires “too much” explanation or that it seems a bit dry or hard to grasp.

2. Relate that “thing” to something that your audience is already familiar with

Think of what you can relate that “thing” to that your audience might already intimately familiar with?

Is your new product or service the “McDonalds of phone covers”?

Or was your ex-spokesman the “Tiger Woods of water polo”?

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks didn’t just talk about the trials and tribulations of the company (a long-winded story) at an investor meeting…

Instead, he related the company’s struggle to the journey of a spawning salmon that has to constantly fight its way upstream.

He even went one step further and pulled out a frozen salmon from an icebox onstage to create the extra visual impact.

See Bruna Martinuzzi’s short YouTube clip on  Leadership and Presentation Skills Training  to learn more about this storytelling technique.

Warning:  Choose your metaphor wisely as you will inherit all of the negative baggage of the metaphor that you use.

Metaphors are key to anchoring your story in the audience’s mind and can help you quickly summarize long-winded and hard to explain concepts in just a few sentences.

Applying this storytelling tip to your presentations will help keep your story relatable and memorable.

8. Show your audience exactly what you are talking about

1. Find the critical detail(s) about your presentation

Look at your presentation and find the one or two critical details that you want to get across.

These are the points that you want the audience to remember if they only remember one or two things at all.

2. Show your audience exactly what it looks like

Use either a visual image, a video, or better yet, a physical object to show your audience exactly what you are talking about.

Example #1:  If your product is so skinny it can fit into a manila envelope… grab an envelope and slip your product into it.

Boom, point taken.

Example #2:  If your point that the United States debt of over $15 trillion, when placed onto pallets of $100 bills, is taller than the statue of liberty, show your audience an infographic.

To actually see what this looks like, see  a visualization of United States debt .

Seeing is believing, which is why visual imagery plays two vital roles in your presentation:

First, visuals can clearly describe or show exactly what you are talking about…often times better than words.

Second, assuming your imagery is on point, visuals can create an emotional reaction in your audience and get them to really ‘get’ what you are talking about.

Imaging the audience thinking:  “Wow, I can’t believe that product can fit inside a manila envelope, how cool is that!”

9. Highlight the important by cutting out the unimportant

1. Look through your presentation and highlight your most important details and points

Find the meaningful details that help to advance your story (the ones without which your story wouldn’t make any sense).

These are the details you want to keep and highlight throughout your presentation.

2. Evaluate the other details in your story and remove the unnecessary ones

With your critical details in hand, look at the other points you raise and see if you need them at all.

Do they help your audience retain your message or help to highlight your point?

If not, cut them.

Have you ever had someone over-explain something and you immediately started losing interest?

That’s exactly what you want to avoid.

Spend time on the necessary details that prove your point or make your case, and avoid everything else.

Vivid and compelling details (see Tip #14) are critical to the success of your presentation, but too many details (or irrelevant details) will overwhelm and confuse your audience.

You will always have more details and information to share with audience than you will ever have time to speak about…especially if you have been working on something for years (which is what often makes this tip so hard to implement).

10. Use sound effects to anchor important details in your presentation

1. Think of what might have a distinct noise associated with it in your presentation

Look at the details of your story and find one or two items that have a sound associated with it (or a sound you could make up).

2. During the delivery of your presentation, make or play that sound

When delivering your presentation, either make the sound of that object yourself, or play a recording of it to anchor it in your audience’s mind.

Maybe you’re talking about how we’ve come so far from the time of the old dial-up modem, you know, the one that used to go “ca-chink-shhhhhhhhhh”…

Or maybe you’re talking about cracked cell phone screens and you highlight the sound of your $500 cell phone kissing concrete for the first (and likely the last) time (crkkkkkkkk)… whoops!

Story Telling Tip Warning About Sound Effects

• Don’t go overboard here. If you have a lot of sounds you could use, focus only on the important ones (see Tip #10) that would help add color to your story.
• If you are playing an audio track (i.e.  not maki ng the noise yourself) make sure you have everything set up properly before the presentation. The last thing you want to do is get derailed by technology problems.

Adding sound to the details in your presentation will help anchor those details in your audience’s mind.

You can draw them into your presentation, either with a sound that they are extremely familiar with or one they are not familiar with (leading to curiosity).

Even if your noise or sound effect is way off, it can add a bit of humor to your presentation and create some relief!

11. Use silence to create emphasis and draw your audience into your story

1. Find a part of your story that you want to emphasize

This could be an important point or detail that you want to have sink in, a turning point in your presentation, or a self-reflecting question.

2. Pause in order to force reflection

During your presentation when you get to that important detail or point, pause for five or six seconds (it will feel like an eternity), and then continue.

Did you know that there are now more English speakers in China, than in the entire United States? [Pause…]

Using silence in a presentation is a powerful storytelling technique that creates anticipation and forces your audience to rethink what you just said.

It forces the audience to momentarily “fill the gaps” in their minds and creates a potentially crucial time for reflection.

It also helps you to pace out your story (see Tip #13) and create more breathing room for both you and your audience.

Ultimately, a story that draws the audience in and causes them to actively process what you are saying is a successful story.

12. Create a warm fuzzy feeling by sharing a personal or vulnerable experience

1. Think of your own personal story to add to your point(s)

Think of some of the important points you want to make during your presentation.

With a few in hand, see if you can come up with a personal story, either one of your own or one of a friend or family member that you can use to illustrate your point.

2. Tell the personal story as it relates to your topic

During your presentation, insert your own personal experience BUT keep it short and on topic.

While a personal story can create a bond with your audience, a rambling, irrelevant story will take you off topic and derail your story.

A story about the new car model you’re launching can start with an old photograph you found of your grandfather leaning on the hood of his car and how much he cared about craftsmanship.

Bonus Step: Choose a personal story that shows vulnerability

The more your personal story shows yourself as vulnerable or flawed, the more rapport you will build with your audience by telling it.

Adding your own experiences to your presentation will help you in at least 2 ways:

First, it’s a story you are already familiar with and it will naturally come out in a story format (kudos!)

Second, it will help frame your story in personal terms with a real example, which in turn creates a bond between you and your audience that fosters trust.

Warning:  Your personal story might even be the one thing your audience takes away from your presentation, so choose wisely.

13. Pace out your story to allow your audience to breathe

1. Find the natural breaks in your presentation

Look at your presentation and mark out all the different places when it takes a step.

In other words, see if there are natural breaks where you can make a long pause (see Tip #11).

If you can’t find many, think about re-organizing your presentation so that there are more individual pieces that you can pause in between, pacing the story out.

2. Make clear notes of those breaks and force yourself to take them during your presentation

Write into your script (or burn it into your brain) the note to take a pause.

A few seconds can feel like an eternity when you are in the spotlight, but your audience won’t feel that way (guaranteed!).

So pace yourself, it’s not a race.

Good stories have a pace or rhythm to them…everything doesn’t happen all at once, and you should never feel rushed.

Pacing out your story will give you and your audience a bit of brain space to process what was just said and ready yourself/themselves for the next part.

14. Turn your important data points into memory glue

1. Collect the important numbers for your presentation

Find the key driving data points in your presentation, whether the numbers are big, small or medium-sized.

2. Turn your data into something interesting and memorable

With your important data points in hand, think of how you can relate those numbers to something visually impactful in human terms that backs up your message.

Let’s say your data point is that 25 to 30 million Christmas trees are sold every year during the holidays, you could create different visual images depending on your point.

If your point is “that’s a lot”, you could say that if you took all of the Christmas trees sold in a single year, and lined them up tip to stump, they would circle the entire globe (it’s true, I did the math)!

If your point is, “that’s NOT a lot”, you could relate the trees to grains of sand, and say that all of the Christmas trees sold in a single year would only fill up 25 to 30 coffee cups.

Either way, whereas 25 million trees is hard to comprehend, envisioning a line of trees circling the globe, or 25 coffee cups of sand, is a lot easier.

Adding visual cues about your important numbers will help anchor those details in your audience’s minds and give them salient points they can easily recall after your presentation is over.

The more you can relate your data to common visual elements, the easier your data points will be to remember.

The easier your data points are to remember, the more likely someone will be able to remember your main points days, weeks or months after the presentation.

15. End your story with a bang…and then shut up

1. Think about your core message and what you want someone to say about your story

What key point should your audience walk away with knowing or feeling after sitting through your presentation?

2. Make your final statement and make it memorable

Take your key point and make it memorable.

If you are struggling, see if one of the following mechanisms makes sense for your last statement or slide:

• A call to action: “Join the movement”
• A question: “So the question is, can we really afford the status quo?”
• A quote: “And as Quincy Jones once said, ‘a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, ain’t that the truth.’”
• A soundbite: “Yes we can”

For more ideas on ending your presentation, see our guide here .

3. Practice how you’re going to wrap up your presentation

Take the time before your presentation to practice what your last 3-4 sentences will be (yes, say it out loud).

This is will be  your last chance  during your presentation to make an impact and get your audience to take action and/or care…so you want to make sure the ending is as impactful as possible.

If you can clearly envision how you’re going to end your talk with a bang, and if you have practiced, you’ll get it right.

4. During the presentation, say your conclusion and then shut up, get off stage, or open up for questions

And that’s it!

No last rambling comments. No off the cuff stories or tangents. No nothing.

Say your last bit and be done with it.

With a clear-cut and well thought-out ending, your audience will sit up and take notice as your presentation comes to an end, and they’ll know exactly what you want them to do.

This is a particularly good storytelling technique for business presentations as it puts you light-years ahead of other presenters who unconsciously ramble on and on, as if they are afraid to end their presentation.

Ending with a bang additionally highlights how well organized and knowledgeable about your material you are.

How to tell a story?

Now that you have these storytelling tips down, you might be wondering how to bring it all together.

You may be sitting there with a pile of data and a number of different story angles to work with, but now you are wondering how you are going to bring it all together.

Well, in the same way that your presentation needs an outline, so does your story you tell.

According to Christopher Booker, author of  The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , all stories follow one of seven basic plot lines like the Quest, the Rebirth, the Rags to Riches story , etc.… plot structures that we are all familiar with.

By organizing your storytelling around a well-known plot like this, you’ll ensure that your story is easily recognizable and easy for your audience to follow along with (increasing the success and impact of the story you tell).

At the end of the day you can tell your story anyway you like, but following a standard plot structure will dramatically improve the effectiveness of your story when incorporating the storytelling tips mentioned above.

Now it’s up to you!

Those are 15 storytelling tips and tricks you can use to take your everyday material and begin crafting a story.

Some are simple, others take some time to figure out. But if you use even just one of them in your business presentation, you’ll be  one step ahead of 90% of presenters out there !

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This Post Has 6 Comments

A valuable list that every presenter should refer to before they step in front of an audience.

Thanks Ian!

Fantastic information. Thanks for sharing so freely. I’m a newbie at this and can hardly wait to apply what I have learned before I forget it.

Thanks Charlotte! Let us know how you do and if you learn any other new tips along the way! Cheers, Camille

Lots of novel and useful tips here, so thanks for sharing. I especially like the advice about being vulnerable – but to date I’ve found that too hard to do! It’s interesting that you suggested using sound effects, too. I gave that same advice ( here ), especially for webinars, because novelty draws people in (and sticks in their minds so well).

Being a good storyteller is extremely difficult, but I just love it when speakers know how to choose the right words and run a smooth but interesting story. I think that you should use all of these techniques that you describe selectively considering the audience and the effect that you want to have. I prefer to focus on the visual component – presentation and interesting eye-catching visual techniques. But at the same time, I have weak speaking skills (worse than I would like to have to make great presentations). Here is a good list of resources that I use to develop my speaking skills: https://www.thoughtleadershiplab.com/Resources I think this list will be useful. There are some examples of how to use the techniques that you describe.

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Find your story (fast) with these 3 card combinations.

Here are three super-simple combinations of Storyteller Tactics, when you need a story in a hurry.

1. I need to tell a story in this meeting

This is spontaneous, off the cuff storytelling, in a conversational setting. You’ve got about a minute to make your point.

• What’s It About?  to focus on the change, new information or personal benefit you need to tell people about.
• Cut to the Chase , to give them a memorable moment of action, emotion or meaning.

2. I want to add a story to this presentation

You’ve got a series of points you want to make, maybe it’s your OKRs. Pick one point that you can tell a vivid story about. This will help your audience remember the rest of what you said.

• Data Detectives , to go from big picture (the trends) to little picture (“for example…”)
• Movie Time , to bring the little picture to life.

3. I want to write an effective email

Don’t just say something, and watch your words disappear into the ether. Get people to DO something.

• Story Hooks , to get people’s attention.
• Social Proof , to show that other people are doing the right thing.

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Stories That Work

New thinking tools, 30 years of storytelling experience, in a box.

Yes, that’s what you get with my latest guides – check out Storyteller Tactics here .  

Download and print these photo cards that I made back in 2015. You can use them in lots of different ways:

RANDOM IMAGES: a deck of over 70 random images – they’re perfect for idea generating techniques like Lateral Nudge and Metaphor Mash , or you can use them to tease out motivations behind an action (see What’s My Motivation). Finally, you can use them to inspire your presentation or storytelling (see Make it Original and Six Step Storyboard ) (file size 12.6Mb)

THE SHOCK OF THE OLD technique. You can use these as an alternative to taking a field trip to a museum or gallery (file size 4.5Mb).

Use for the GIVE ME A SIGN! technique to help you weed out bad ideas (2.7Mb).

Credit: all pictures are by Steve Rawling or taken from Pixabay.com

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > Using storytelling to engage your audience

Using storytelling to engage your audience

How do you keep your audience on the edge of their seats while you present? Learn how plot structure and other storytelling techniques can help you deliver a presentation that’s memorable, unique, and captivating from start to finish.

What is storytelling?

At its core, storytelling means giving your audience a plot or path to follow that is both compelling and satisfying. The best stories connect to something universal, spark curiosity, and enhance the way we see the world, all while pulling us forward with a natural momentum that lands us somewhere meaningful. This is what storytelling can do, but how does that translate to a presentation?

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

How to use storytelling in a presentation

No matter the topic, storytelling techniques add life and intrigue to your presentation. Try these tips to create an engaging experience for your audience:

Set the scene

Most stories happen in a physical space. Find a way to start your presentation with this same sense of place to ground your audience and draw their attention away from all that might distract them. How can you drop your audience into the world of your presentation? What do they need to know at the start so they can join you on the journey? Consider how visuals, audio, or a few words can set the scene and give your audience context and backdrop for the adventure ahead.

Take them on a journey

At its simplest, story structure has three sections—beginning, middle, and end—but at its best, each section serves a powerful, distinct purpose:

• The journey begins. In addition to setting the scene and providing context, this beginning is where we give the audience two key story components: the main character and the problem to be solved. What problem does your presentation address? What is at stake? Who stands to gain or lose? Draw viewers into your presentation by making them care about someone or something, and make sure they know what hangs in the balance.
• The winding way forward. In the middle, dig into the complexities of the plot-driving problem as you work your way through it and lead viewers toward a new understanding or way of being. This section is about deepening the sense of need and/or widening the promise of possibility as we cross the terrain from where we started to our ultimate destination. Let your viewers experience the challenges and obstacles at the heart of the problem and give them a fuller picture of what can be won or lost.
• The road ends, but the journey sticks with us. As the journey concludes, we reflect on what’s been lost, gained, and learned. What do we know now, and how does that change our perception and actions going forward? We’ve made it through the complexity, through the dramatic feats. We arrive at this new place or understanding, finally resolving the problem that drove us on the journey and seeing the new landscape and opportunities around us. Make the journey stick with us well after you’re done presenting by ending on a resonating image, line, or idea that amplifies the main takeaway or action you want them to do next.

Hit on universals

Great storytellers know that audiences delight in connecting to universal human experience. We’ve all loved, lost, and faced challenges. We all know what it is to triumph, feel like a stranger, and show up for someone in need. When you connect your viewers to these types of universal experiences, they see themselves in your topic and feel more invested. Consider, what are the universal themes at play? How can you bring a relatable sense of human endeavor, need, joy, love, etc., to your presentation? Just a little bit of universal relevance goes a long way to keeping your viewers deeply engaged.

By using storytelling techniques in your presentation, you can draw viewers in, keep them interested, and leave them with a resonating, action-driving takeaway. To strengthen your presentations even more, use these presentation design tips next.

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Creative Resources for ESL/EFL Teachers

Storytelling Cards: Imaginative Speaking and Writing Activity

I’ve decided that you deserve a little treat. Read on and find all about it. It’s almost Christmas after all and you’ve been working hard.

We love stories. We have always loved them.

When our ancestors sat by the fire they told stories of mighty warriors, immortal gods, or wicked witches.

Stories are fascinating. And they are a powerful teaching tool.

This storytelling activity will save you tons of prepping time!

Storytelling Cards can be used as a fun and imaginative speaking activity for groups or for creative writing assignments.

There are thousands of possible variations and no two stories will be the same. The recommended level of English is A2-B1 and it is suitable for students aged 12+.

With Storytelling Cards they will be able to create hundreds of wonderful stories.

The aim of the game is to tell(or write) a story using the prompts on the cards . There are five types of cards:

• 12 Character cards
• 12 Activity cards
• 12 Object cards
• 12 Place cards
• 12 Problem cards

I’ve mentioned a treat before, haven’t I? Well, you deserve one. So here you go. You can get the Storytelling Cards with a 25% discount.

Click below to reveal the discount code. The code is valid until December 24th.

[spbcta_sc id=1]

Other resources:

Improvisation Cards: ESL Speaking Activity

ESL Speaking Activity: Conversation Cards

Fluent English: Effective Tips on How To Speak Fluently

ESL/EFL Speaking Activity: Role Play Debate

12 ESL Negotiation Role-plays: Real-life situations

ESL Reported Speech Speaking Activity: Gossip

ESL Video Lesson Based on Netflix Docuseries “The Mind, Explained”

Modal verbs: Use, Examples, and Conversation Questions

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