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Storytelling in Business Presentations

“Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century.” This is how Carmine Gallo, an American author, columnist and keynote speaker, starts off in his book titled Talk Like TED: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Mind. Nancy Duarte, an American writer, speaker, and CEO takes the concept further with her analogy. „Presentations are the currency of business activity because they are the most effective tool to transform an audience, yet many presentations are boring.” (Source: Duarte Nancy, Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013)

So what can make a presentation stand out? The narrative. Data, information, facts—all of this can be found with ease online. It’s the story that can captivate.

  1. The Power of Emotion: Lessons from Bryan Stevenson’s Presentations
  2. The Power of Storytelling in Business Presentations
  3. Examples of Storytelling in action

The Power of Emotion: Lessons from Bryan Stevenson’s Presentations

The French writer Guy de Maupassant once wrote, “The public is composed of numerous groups whose cry to us writers is: ‘Comfort me.’ ‘Amuse me.’ ‘Touch my sympathies.’ ‘Make me sad.’ ‘Make me dream.’ ‘Make me laugh.’ ‘Make me shiver.’ ‘Make me weep.’ ‘Make me think.’”

While this quote comes from the XIX century, it seems timeless as human nature is such that it is the emotional appeal that makes stories so powerful in presentations. We don’t have to look far for examples. For instance, the TED talk that received the longest standing ovation in its history was when a man named Bryan Stevenson delivered his 18-minute speech called „We Need to Talk About an Injustice.” Twelve of those eighteen minutes were spent on telling stories. He used no visuals or slideshows; it was just the story and the emotional appeal that had captured the crowd.

We are all storytellers and as stories are, arguably, the most powerful form of art out there, we should use that to our advantage in our presentations. In a professional setting this can be a challenging task as an inherent part of creating emotional appeal is also opening yourself up; this in turn, can make us feel vulnerable as speakers. On the flipside, people like stories of change, of success, and challenges—even more so when they are their own struggles and experiences. This creates a sense of connection. After all, every one faces numerous challenges in their life. We are all people with stories to share. 

The Power of Storytelling in Business Presentations

How can we craft a compelling narrative? There is no one-size-fits-all solution for this. 

Here are some simple pointers to consider:  

1. Use the present tense.

Instead of saying, “I was walking down the street and encountered an odd situation.” say “I am walking down the street and I encounter an odd situation.”

This creates a sense of immediate action, and your audience will be visibly more engaged in the story.

2. Provide names of the characters. Allow your audience to feel part of the story.

If you’re telling an anecdote about your workplace, give your characters names (real or unreal). The fact of the matter is that without names, in the minds of your audience, they are as blurry as a mime’s explanation of a plot twist (gasp!).

3. Be descriptive.

Whenever someone asks us how to create a compelling story, we tell them to use their senses. Each of our senses is unique in the way feelings are perceived and information is gathered. But together, they form experiences which are unique — to the individual and to us as a collective. In speech, using descriptive adjectives is a tried-and-true method to stimulate our audience’s imagination so that listening to us becomes a multidimensional experience. There have been countless studies which tried to answer the question whether „[…] a sense of shared embodiment can form the basis of a common understanding of art as a universal human expression.” (Source: Bacci Francesca and Melcher David. Art and the Senses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Examples of Storytelling in action

We argue that language is the ultimate form of art. Allow us to demonstrate two simple examples and you will be the judge here.

Example 1:

❌ Without descriptive language:
“Sarah sat by the lake and read a book.”

✅ With descriptive language:
“Sarah settled herself on the soft, grassy bank of the serene lake, its surface shimmering under the warm afternoon sun, as she became engrossed in her novel, the pages rustling gently in the breeze.”

Example 2:
❌ Without descriptive language:
“The city was busy.”

✅ With descriptive language:
“The city thrummed with life, bustling streets filled with honking cars, throngs of people hurrying along the sidewalks, and the constant hum of chatter and activity echoing through the air.”

How did you feel reading these examples? 

4. Try the beginner’s mindset.

In the ever-changing world of language learning there is a concept that we call a fossilized error. In simple words, it can be defined as “a mistake that a student makes often and that has become a habit that is difficult to change.” The role of the teacher is to help the student notice and rectify this mistake. It is not easy though.

When someone is a true beginner in learning a language then this problem does not exist. 

Treat this example as an analogy to making a presentation. Most people have some sort of experience related to presentations. Reynolds proposes an interesting take on this in something he calls the Zen approach. „Part of the Presentation Zen approach to presenting well is learning to give up what you’ve learned about making presentations in the PowerPoint era with its cookie-cutter method of design and delivery. The first step is to stop allowing our history and conditioning about what we know—to keep us from being open to other ways of presentation.” (Source: Reynolds Garr. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, 2nd ed. New Riders: 2011)
To learn about more steps you could take to enhance your storytelling, we encourage you to take Eklektika’s comprehensive e-course on Business Presentations – intermediate or Business Presentations – advanced.