The Power of Storytelling

Patrick Williams, Sliding.ca

At Sliding.ca we create and design slide presentations and provide presentation coaching and training to both individuals and corporations. One of the many tools we tell our clients it’s vital they add to their presentations toolbox is the ability to tell a compelling story.

Stories are memorable. In the 21st Century we are constantly bombarded with data and information. In a normal day the average person is subjected to around 5,000 advertisements. That’s an awful lot of stimuli coming at us. To cope with all that stimuli we’ve developed very efficient filters to keep out anything extraneous to our needs or desires.

In order to be a successful presenter and to have your audience embrace and act on your message you have to find ways to cut through those filters and convince the listener that the information you have for them is valuable and worth tuning in to. Stories help us to do that. By weaving your message into a story you are, essentially, painting a moving picture for your audience and, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures are also much easier to remember than sentences and they remain in an audience’s consciousness much longer than the words we speak. Think of your presentation like it’s an oil painting or a watercolour. Your storyline is the preliminary sketch for your painting. The adjectives are then like the palette of colours you choose from to breathe life and colour into that storyline and give it a vibrancy your audience will respond to.

Recommended Video

How to Present Data

In this excerpt from a seminar, presentation guru, Garr Reynolds, suggests more effective ways to communicate the essence of important data, rather than overwhelming listeners with detail.

Guest Offering

Voice Power presents

Do you want to improve the English you speak?  Voice Power specializes in helping business professionals do exactly that.  Their online English Pronunciation/Accent Softening training program helps Internationally Educated Professionals (IEP) communicate comfortably and confidently with native North American English speakers for business and social purposes. Voice Power experts offer high quality, one-on-one web conferencing sessions anywhere in the world.

Tip

Make it personal. The most powerful stories are those told in the first person. A greater sense of intimacy and connection is created with an audience when you share something that happened to you personally. Let them see who you are.