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Are You Sitting Comfortably
Then I’ll begin! Story telling is now increasingly recognised as an effective means of business communication. It can really help to bring insight issues to life so that you can illustrate your key points vividly (perhaps even using real people) and your customers can engage with your ideas. It also provides a welcome change of pace within a presentation.
A good story or anecdote will:
- Grab your customers’ attention and enable them to relate to your insights.
- Stay in their memories much longer than facts or figures alone!
- Tap into both the left (intellectual) and right (emotional) sides of the brain
Delivering the goods
So, how do you deliver your story? You need to plan it carefully beforehand:
- Set the scene and the context and introduce the main characters in a way that brings them to life
- Take the audience on a mental journey that involves a challenge that is encountered and then overcome
- Resolve the story by making your key point and end with a memorable phrase or sound-bite.
When you’re telling the story, try to re-live it so that it becomes more real to the audience. Vary your tone of voice and your pace. Move about and use hand gestures. Help the audience to visualise the scene and to really feel what it was like for the person in the story.
Make it personal!
Your own personal anecdotes are the most powerful as you can truly convey the emotions you were feeling - if you can think of any that fit in with the messages you want to convey. You can also pick up some useful anecdotes by observing fieldwork, customers, colleagues etc. Quote some examples of real customers to bring the story to life and to stress a point. Try and get the audience to understand how they feel.
Remember: a good story can enhance almost any presentation. It’s all about getting your audience more engaged with the subject. By involving the right side of brain as well, it helps to involve their emotions, which can be very powerful in terms of making an impact. Story telling can help people to take your ideas on board and remember them. It should also help you to get action as a result of your presentations.
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