Picture Perfect

Developing My Business Storytelling Skills

Listen to a discussion of the Power of Storytelling in enhancing communication and audience engagement. With emphasis on the impact of Visual Storytelling and tips for crafting compelling business narratives.

 I had been working in IT for 35 years and I thought I knew a lot about technology. I knew my way around a laptop with my eyes shut. Well, not literally, but I think you get the idea about how confident I am with tech. I am comfortable creating presentations and using PowerPoint without, after all, I remember PowerPoint being launched in 1987.

As Chairman of Croydon Rugby Club, a community club on the brink of financial collapse, I knew my business acumen wasn’t connecting with the players. I had to improve my communication skills. So, I joined a local Toastmasters club and a whole new perspective was opened up for me. I thought those business presentations I created were pretty good, but at Toastmasters I found that there were so many aspects about a presentation that I didn’t know existed and I needed guidance. I was given a mentor, a happy, energetic lady called Trudy Khune.

I had to craft and deliver speeches on topics that sparked an interest in me, and it was tough going. As much as my speeches interested me, I learnt from Trudy that the speech wasn’t about me. Trudy is an extremely experienced speaker and with her guidance I realised I had to create a speech that captured the interest of the audience and there was one particular skill that does that, and Trudy does it brilliantly. It’s turning a speech into a story.

This revelation sent me on a quest to research stories and story structure.

Did you know that stories have evolved over thousands of years to be one of our most effective means of communication? From drawings in caves and fireside talks, to movies and dramas on TV and the internet, storytelling has been with us for thousands of years, and it’s not going away.

As I learnt more about storytelling and applied them to my speeches, not only did I connect with my audience, but I realised I could apply storytelling to business, improving my communication skills and ultimately saving the rugby club from financial ruin.

So one of the most important things I learnt, and credit goes to my guide, Trudy, is that it doesn’t matter what facts of data you have a desire to tell, if you don’t wrap it around a story, then your audience won’t be listening.

“We are, as a species, addicted to stories. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” - Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal.

"Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” - Set Godin, author and entrepreneur.

My Story Journey Grows

My storytelling skills have become an integral part of my communication skills by now, when, in the summer of 2018, I land a gig helping adults with learning difficulties to use technology to study for their degrees. Now these students may have ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, Physical Disabilities, this is by no means an extensive list, it’s just to give you an idea of what they’re struggling with. And as we talk, I realise most of these students are struggling with a similar issue; information overload.

They’ll sit in a lecture and be presented with a PowerPoint slide that’s full of text. And here’s what their brains are doing; read the slide, listen to the lecturer, make notes, read, notes, read, listen, notes, listen, notes, read, wait you’ve changed the slide, I didn’t get then, what did you say?

Can you imagine doing that for 2 or 3 hours, sometimes even 4 hours?

And I realise I’ve been there, in business meetings, presentations and training courses. And there are millions of people struggling with this sensory overload. Some of them, decision makers.

“Perhaps my early problems with dyslexia made me more intuitive:when someone send me a written proposal, rather than dwelling on detailed facts and figures I find that my imagination grasps and expands on what I read.” - Richard Branson. Entrepreneur.

What if you could deliver a PowerPoint differently? Imagine taking a business story and crafting it into something more engaging, more informative.

And that’s where my storytelling quest took a slight diversion. I started experimenting at toastmasters meeting with images. I started to tell stories with PowerPoint slides and no text. With research and trial and error, I realised that you can engage peoples minds with pictures.

Think about this for a moment, every time we watch a film or drama, we’re watching pictures that tell a story and it’s something we’ve done since early childhood. Now, if that film you’re watching was just screen after screen of text with someone narrating, would you get bored? I would!

So what have I learned?

Well, images and storytelling go hand-in-hand. And the benefits they have, connect with everyone. Every single person on the planet enjoys storytelling, and whether they create their own images in their head, or they see relevant images on the screen, they’re engaged.

“Visual storytelling of one kind or another has been around since cavemen were drawing on the walls.” - Frank Darabont