Storytelling has impacted our lives in ways you can not even think of. The tale of two cities, To kill a mockingbird, Pride, and Prejudice, and many others, are great stories that have been living for years. We do not get tired of reading them over and over. This applies to your favorite movies and TV shows. No matter how many times you have been through, you still want more stories. The truth is that stories are an inseparable part of our existence. The question is, why do we not use them where we should.
Just remind yourself of the last presentation you had to sit through. Was there anything that kept you on the edge of the seat or made you bite your nails? I assume the answer is NO. Being such social creatures, I don’t understand why we do not imbibe stories everywhere- including work and presentations. In this article, you will learn why storytelling is so impactful for us and how you can use it in your presentations. Making use of storytelling in presentation makes it much more engaging and persuasive.
The Science of Storytelling
Maybe you know this fact, maybe you don’t, but humans have been the slave of stories for as long as they have been on this planet. Stories engage us, persuade us, and help us not forget things. Let’s try and take a deep dive into the science of this magical world of storytelling.
Using storytelling for engagement
Storytelling is a great tool for the engagement of the audience. The biggest reason that can be attributed is the presence of a chemical in our brain called oxytocin. Multiple studies and research are conducted to back the fact that storytelling does induce the secretion of oxytocin in our brain. The production of oxytocin takes place when we show kindness and trust. It also helps us better cooperate with others by heightening the empathy we feel. In a study, it was found that character-driven stories lead to the production of oxytocin. This leads to the subject’s increase in willingness to help others.
Parallelly, it was found that stories that lacked characters and strength that comes did not induce the same chemical effect in subjects. It is not very difficult to apply a dramatic arc to your presentation. Instead of starting your presentation with something boring like where your offices are, start by painting a picture for the audience of what kind of challenges your audience face.
Persuasive Tool
Storytelling sure has huge power to persuade and move people. Two major studies demonstrate it. A study conducted by Penn State College of Medicine found that medical students who listen to the patients’ stories were much more sympathetic and open to help. In another study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, two high blood pressure patients were monitored. One group was treated using the normal treatment method, and the other group was made to watch three videos that told the stories of patients dealing with high blood pressure. It was found that it was the second group that demonstrated better blood pressure results.
Both studies show how storytelling influence our decision making and how we act in different situations. Stories can convince and bring people together. It also involves more of our brain and connects with others on a deeper level. As per pressboard research, when we are told facts and numbers around something, our language processing center gets activated. But when we are told stories, multiple parts of our brain get active- the hippocampus, motor, and sensory cortex.
Make things memorable
Stories help us remember things in a more manageable and effective way. Information that we largely refer to as important in the business world is nothing but some facts and figures. This stuff is tough to retain and keep in mind. Stories, on the other hand, can give these facts and figures some stickiness. Stories manage to hook the information to our memories by attaching emotions to things.
Including storytelling to presentations
Now that we are learning the science of storytelling, the catch is that it is a minority who has been blessed with great storytelling skills. The question now becomes… what can we do to include storytelling in our presentations? The following are some practical ways to leverage the science we have learned and make our presentation much more engaging.
Start with an impactful opening
For anyone who has done a presentation before would agree that attention span is your biggest enemy. It can shift just quickly from what you are watching to what you had for lunch. Or thinking a witty comeback of an argument that you had years ago, in no time. Therefore, you must realize how you would want to start a presentation. This is the sole reason you should not consider opening your presentation with things like… what your team structure looks like, who you have worked with within the past, the number of employees you have, and where your offices are located. If you start this way, then you possibly can not stretch the itch of the audience to hear from you.
Pressboard conducted a study on it. They picked 300 brand articles and compared all of them against set engagement criteria. It was found that if the name or the mention of the brand came too early in the article without or before there was any story, the engagement with the reader was far too less. The reader responded best when the brand was introduced as a character,m in a story.
It is important to realize that you should not jump with all the facts about who you are etc., right in the beginning. Evidence suggests that it puts off your audience big time. You should try and start with a story and introduce our product or the brand as a character in the story.
Build up the tension
The very essence of introducing the core of your presentation (that is, your product or service) as a character in the story creates tension. You can also add another important character to your story. This is your audience. We all are well aware of the fact that stories can generate empathy within us. You can leverage it by making them realize that they are moving in the direction of losses. Or making them realize they are dealing with a great number of unskilled employees. I think you will agree that this is a much better scenario. Otherwise, you would have just gone ahead and started your presentation with a quote from your CEO once they know that you know that they are just millimeters away from hitting an iceberg. You can hand them a way out. Your audience will hear you with all the attention they have.
Tell stories uniformly
I hope you have understood how to make a story-rich start of a presentation. Now we will need to focus on the main body of the presentation. This is where the majority of the people or presenters struggle to keep their audience hooked. You must have stories in place for the middle part of your presentation. You should totally consider having a story in the middle part of the presentation for the following reason. It saves you from the efforts of writing and having a script when presenting. You can go with your stories and ask questions to your audience.
For example, if you want to present a slide on the importance of data protection and maintaining records. You can either list down the benefits and then speak it out loud on the stage. But a better way to go ahead would be to insert a short story and minor animation to talk about ‘before’ and ‘after.’
Making data memorable
If you are making a business presentation, consider it impossible to dodge having data on your slides. Having data and statistics like percentages, line graphs, histograms, and charts makes it difficult for you to tell a story. The question now becomes, how would you tell a story with data? The answer to it is not an easy one. It would help if you asked yourself the purpose of having data in your presentation. “What is it for?” It could be to shock your audience or persuade your potential client. Broadly whatever data you have must fit in the following category; persuasion, shock, dissuasion, and assurance. It would help if you remembered to have a story to complement the data you have. This will help you not use data just for the sake of having data. Therefore, you must build your story and add your stats or data as evidence.
Take the following statement for an example; According to the WHO, there are 1.1 Billion smokers worldwide.
Now 1.1 Billion is absolutely a big number. The statement above must reflect that it’s bad. But if you make this statistic small on the slide and place a bigger number next to it, maybe it won’t look that big a number. If I say there are 1.1 billion smokers in this world out of 8 billion total, it will imply that it is actually good. Basically, the way you represent your data matters, and it can cause your audience to feel that they are being manipulated. Nobody wants that. Therefore, you gotta start with your story and then put out the data as evidence to support your claim.
Telling the stories with plot charts and graphs
Sometimes numbers are not enough in the presentation, and you need to have graphs well woven into your presentation. But you need to ensure that it is there for good enough reason and it is in the right place.
Now all you need to do is build a mini-tale around that particular graph. Give it life by introducing a character or by increasing tension. Also, there are some little things that you need to take care of, like the axis, labels, and titles of your graph. Try and animate your bars in the graph. Make sure you animate the graph in such a way that they are not able to see everything at once. You unfurl and let them set their expectation and get them to invest by building the tension. Still, if you cannot come up with a good story, you need to go back to the purpose.
Call to Action
The thing that is common to all great stories is that they suck you in and leaves a space in you. You are left wanting a little more. In a presentation, you want to make your audience react similarly but not in the same way. You have to get them to take certain actions depending on your story. The catch is that your story should be good enough that the prospect wants to jump right in.
Sometimes, the product is great, but the way you go ahead and sell it makes the whole difference in the world. I am sure you will be able to recall a great product being sold in a pathetic way, which eventually failed. Therefore, no one in their right mind would go ahead and take you on your CTA (Call to Action) if the story is not good enough.
Last but not least, a note for the call to action itself. Make sure it is short. Try and keep it as simple as possible. Make it a little snappy. Draw a parallel between your presentation and writing a book while you are planning it. You are the author, and you have to write it like a chapter in your book. You have to make sure that it is digestible, and it fulfills the appetite of the audience. But not to an extent where they forget what a beautiful story they have read.