Originally published by By Jim Signorelli on Story-Lab
Oral stories told in a business context, make up a unique category within the whole storytelling genre. They fall somewhere between the extremes of your basic TV news story and stories delivered by performance artists. Stories told in business settings are necessarily short, conversational, and only work if they make a relevant point.
Nevertheless, business stories do have one thing in common with all other types of oral stories. If appropriately told, they emotionally engage audiences and have a very good chance of being remembered. Think about it. What's easier to recall from an oral presentation? Three bullet points or a story about three pain points similar to yours? It is for this reason that oral business storytelling can do the heavy lifting when you need people to engage with what your information.
If you want to learn about the application of business storytelling as a management or sales tool, there are plenty of resources available to you, including companies like Anecdote that specialize in business storytelling training. But, whether you are a trained business storyteller or not, here are some tools and resources that will further your skills.
1. The Metaphor -I've lumped similes and analogies into this category. Each has its structure, but these three forms of speech have the same purpose. They all provide new information within a known frame of reference. As such, they create mental pictures that foster more involvement than plain descriptions.
“The boardroom turned out to be a heavy artillery of egos” paints a more interesting picture than “the members of the board all had strong egos."
“His desk was as big as a tennis court,” may be an exaggeration, but it will say something more than “He had a big desk.”
If you’re challenged with coming up with metaphors, there’s plenty of help available. For starters, I recommend two books
Metaphors Dictionary by Dorris Weiss and Elyse Sommers. It contains 6500 comparative phrases and a complete bibliography of sources. Look up a metaphor by subject for inspiration.
The other is The Tall Lady and the Iceberg: The Power of Metaphor to Sell, Persuade & Explain Anything to Anyone. In addition to containing a number of great metaphors that can be used for business storytelling, the author provides a number of techniques that will help you come up with your own unique metaphorical phrases.
2. The "Then, Now and How" Formula.
The "Then, Now and How" formula is something I learned while working with the highly acclaimed speaking coach, Craig Valentine. He writes more about this formula and other storytelling techniques in his bestselling book, World Class Speaking, co-authored by Mitch Meyerson. Here's the gist of how to apply this formula:
First, talk about the way things used to be. Then, talk about what has changed. Finally, explain how the change came about.
eg. Then: "We used to have a problem with employee turnover (really embellish the problem by talking about the setbacks and the frustrations this caused).
Now: " Today, however, we have substantially reduced turnover to _____."(fill in the blank and embellish).
How: "The reason for this change is all due to the system I want to talk to you about today. "
This formula has many applications for selling or presenting case histories.
3. Humorous Dialogue
Too often, speakers try to get audiences to laugh by telling jokes or delivering overly rehearsed one-liners. And they fail. This is because speakers who try too hard to make audiences laugh are a turn off..
Click here to see Senator Rubio's attempt at humor
Witness Senator Rubio’s first debate when, during his introductory remarks, he held up a bottle of water while saying that he’s made sure to bring water this time. This was a callback to the time when a dry-mouthed Rubio embarrassed himself by reaching off camera for water during a nationally televised rebuttal to the State of the Union speech. I’m not sure what was harder to watch, the reach for water or the joke that didn’t get a laugh.
If you're looking for humor, find it instead within the stories you tell. More specifically, find it within dialogue used to tell a story. Consider this example for instance:
“I started out working for a pretty tough boss. He watched over everything I did and was quick to criticize. One day, he told me that he’d love to stop correcting me. “You have my full permission,” I said.
This may not generate a guffaw, but it’s easier to deliver and your audience will appreciate it more than a canned joke or witticism.
4. Your Story Journal
A relevant business story isn’t something that most of us can come up with spontaneously. For that reason, it’s important to keep a journal of some sort that will trigger stories most appropriate for any given situation. You needn’t write out the whole story. A headline and a one or two-line gist will suffice.
Two sources can help you with this. The first is Evernote. Create a category called “My Stories’ in Evernote and tag each story you add to it with words that will help you find them, as needed. You might have a story about a challenge with a weird problem you once encountered, for instance. Simply write a couple sentences that will help jog your memory. Tag them with words that will help you call them up when they are needed - tags like, #weird problem, #unusual challenges, or #creative solutions.
Another source is Day One. Day One is a daily journaling program that also allows you to categorize and tag stories of the days they occur. However, Day One will send you timed notifications with questions like, “What are the best, worse memories from your childhood?” I use this daily by providing short, taggable answers similar to the way I use Evernote.
5. The Unifying Theory of 2+2
This is something I learned from a Ted talk, entitled, The Clues To A Great Story, given by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, the creator of Finding Nemo and Wall-E. During this talk, Stanton explains that audiences don’t like to be told that 2+2 equals 4. "We like to figure things out for ourselves,” he goes on to say.
The Unifying Theory of 2+2 underscores one of the fundamental reasons we are drawn to stories. It's why comedians don’t explain the punch lines to their jokes.
These five tools for business storytelling can be used in sales presentations, speeches or in everyday conversations with stakeholders and subordinates. Use them and you will soon see how more engaged, inspired and motivated your audiences will become.
Click here for more articles about storytelling for business
About Jim Signorelli
