• One key message to people, which will not work on its own
  • Find a story that the audience is easier to receive
  • Help audience navigate through challenges
  • End goal is behavioral change
  • What your audience’s problem?
    • What is their unhealthy reaction to it?
      • Don’t do anything - avoidance
    • What is their potential them? Put them to arena to shine
    • What ideas do I need them to embrace?
      • Open up to new ideas. Taking risks
    • What objections could they have to my suggestions
    • What do I want to transform them into
  • Analogy: likely need a few iterations to find the best analogy
    • What the audience already knows or reason with? Open a business
    • Your main topic - analogy with sports
    • the problem - not as easy as it seems
    • The key message or call to action - go to the field
    • The unhealthy approach - going unequipped
    • The recommended approach - find a coach
    • The result
  • The story of their potential future
    • customer, problem, solution, benefits, acquisition or implementation, vision of the future - ideally something we all care about
  • Personal story is most effective in persuading people
    • Context, action, results
    • How was your life before adopting the behavior? Expose your fault or vulnerabilities
    • What makes you change your behavior? Ideally one key event
    • How did you life change after that?
  • Voice
    • tongue twisters
    • Speak with a pen in mouth to warm up before the speak
  • Flow of the story
  • narration, action, break, action, narration
  • Appeal to senses
  • Transformation and belonging. Important to let them have a sense an agency and do them themselves
    • Take a step back and let them make decisions. Reward is them managing to do themselves instead of you getting thanks
  • Transformational customer strategy
    • customer’s top 10 problems, e.g., interviews
    • Educating customer. Build the trust
    • Call to action - buy my product
    • the purchase
    • using the product - turn customers into brand ambassadors
    • problems and errors
    • engagement and connection. e.g., BMW user group
    • brand ambassadorship
  • Human is geared to understand stories rather than data.
  • Data is the story, not your personal story
  • We were always required to find the story behind the story. The story wasn’t the hurricane; it was the person who rescued the dog in the middle of the flood. The story wasn’t the Super Bowl; it was the guy who spent all day lining the field or sewing the football. Look for the story behind the story.
  • Whatever you’d like to get across to your audience needs to provoke some kind of emotional reaction. Otherwise, it won’t get too far. Analyze what emotional hook your story has, find the heroes in the story and create a piece worth reading or watching, even if it’s an ad for a “boring” service or product.
  • add details to enrich story to > 30s
  • For example, say your company is launching a new product. You can share details about when your team came up with the idea, which is more exciting than telling customers you’re about to release the best new product. Talk about the roadblocks and small wins; make your audience feel part of your process.

Stages of storytelling

Exposition

  • Why are data important for the audience
  • Curiosity even though not relevant
  • Related to each person’s personal interest
  • Capture the attention by the story of one person - people would like to connect with them. But don’t solely rely on them because they are misleading

Rising action/Conflict

  • build excitement
  • generate conflict
    • two view points
    • one viewpoint with uncertainty
    • it also makes a happy ending even more uplifting
  • Start with the main message to takeaway and then work backwards, remind yourself of it all the time
    • e.g., back to the conflict, and the first 2 stages of the story telling
  • Tell audience what they are about to learn but not yet
    • Audience see the bomb, but not characters
  • build suspense around the problem through conflict, and then use data to resolve the conflict . “Good storytellers understand that a story needs conflict,” says Morgan. Is there a competitor that needs to be bested? A market challenge that needs to be overcome? A change-resistant industry that needs to be transformed? Don’t be afraid to suggest the road ahead will be difficult. “We actually like to be told it’s going to be hard,” says Morgan. “Smart leaders tell employees, ‘This is going to be tough. But if we all pull together and hang in there, we’ll achieve something amazing in the end.’” A well-crafted story embedded with that kind of a rallying cry means “you don’t have to demand change or effort,” says Sachs. “People will become your partners in change,” because they want to be part of the journey.

Climax

  • key findings
    • big pictures first, details appropriates
    • Reminder on the key hypothesis, main purpose of the data point
    • most important piece of message, “up means better”
  • how can the data can resolve the conflict
  • inconclusive data is ok - leaves suspension
    • Story isn’t over
    • let your audience excited for the resolution in the future and sequel

Falling action

  • details, context, interpretation
    • covers other conditions, go into more details
  • One of the biggest mistakes you can make is “putting in too much detail of the wrong kind,” says Morgan. Don’t tell your audience what day of the week it was, for instance, or what shoes you were wearing if it doesn’t advance the story in an artful way. But transporting your audience with a few interesting, well-placed details — how you felt, the expression on a face, the humble beginnings of a now-great company — can help immerse your listeners and drive home your message.

Resolution

  • key results, importance, action
  • Every good story has a closing. Your resolution should wrap up the story, give context to the characters and conflict(s), and leave your audience with a call to action.
  • Your objective and call-to-action (CTA) are similar, but your CTA will establish the action you’d like your audience to take after reading.
  • What exactly do you want your readers to do after reading? Do you want them to donate money, subscribe to a newsletter, take a course, or buy a product? Outline this alongside your objective to make sure they line up.
  • For example, if your objective is to foster community or collaboration, your CTA might be to “Tap the share button below.”

Techniques

  • 30 - 90 sec stories, better many short ones than a long one
  • one story, multiple meanings. same story to reinforce multiple points
  • Don’t start with “let me tell a story”, use transition phrase
  • Ease in
    • by the way
    • this reminds of a time
    • you know, this is life
  • Ease out
    • back to the point
    • where were we?
  • Pausing w/o answers will help grab audience’s attention
  • ask audience to participate in the middle of the presentation is a high risk/high reward
  • Humor is super high risk
  • For instance, if your target group is opinionated, the typical currency is charm. If your target group are thinkers, the currency is logic and numbers to make a point. For target groups that are meant to be inspired, try testing different images—images with one person versus images with a family, for instance—to accompany your story
  • You can be a central figure, but the ultimate focus should be on people you know, lessons you’ve learned, or events you’ve witnessed. And whenever possible, you should endeavor to “make the audience or employees the hero,” says Morgan. It increases their engagement and willingness to buy in to your message. “One of the main reasons we listen to stories is to create a deeper belief in ourselves,” says Sachs. “But when the storyteller talks about how great they are, the audience shuts down.” The more you celebrate your own decisions, the less likely your audience will connect with you and your message.

References

  • How to tell story with data
  • Storytelling to influence
  • Storytelling for Persuasion and Transformation