How to avoid the data dump and be persuasive

Business presentation is all about persuasion.

I recently worked with a client who had a tough sell. He needed to persuade his leadership team and board to spend a lot more money on a project they’d already sunk a lot of money into. He faced scepticism and hard questions. He had minimal amount of time to get his point across.

His answer: use more data! Rely on the numbers. More graphs. More statistics.

You won’t be surprised that I suggested another approach. Sure, we need the financials and the metrics. But if you want people to change their view or get excited, we need to engage their emotions. We need to think of our audience first, and us, second.

How storytelling persuades

Business presentation is all about persuasion. A company presents itself to a customer to persuade them to buy their product. A project leader presents plans to the management to persuade them that the strategy will work.

But when you use slides laden with bullet-points these aren’t focused on the audience. Instead, they’re supporting the case of the presenter. And audiences know this.

They also know when they aren’t being shown the complete picture – but cherry-picked figures. Audiences are more likely to listen if you take a narrative approach, relying on logic and emotion, while building your case. Make your story come to life, bring in colour.

If you’re talking about a future project you often need to describe the present (where you are) and the future (where you want to be) and shift between the two – all the while showing what’s at stake if you do nothing.

5 reasons to combine storytelling with business presentations 

  1. Storytelling can show the audience qualitative information that cannot be laid out through bullet-points and numbers.   
  2. It can paint a full picture of both the positives and negatives of any business challenges. Not just the good ones. 
  3. Narratives show a complete process of a business strategy. From its inception to the final implementation plans. 
  4. Storytelling appeals to how we think. According to Princeton’s Uri Hasson, ‘By simply telling a story, a person could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains.’ 
  5. Through storytelling, the teller and listener synchronise their mindsets in an extraordinary process called neural coupling. 

Any business presentation’s ultimate goal is to convince the audience. This is why we need to harness the power of words not just numbers.

Photo by Evgeny Atamanenko

5 Ways to Spice Up Your Stories

5 ways to spice, to spice up your stories

When my first book, Last Seen in Lhasa,was published I had a publicity schedule as long as my arm. The first 60-min interview was with the ABC radio host, gravelly-voiced Richard Fidler. The first thing Richard advised: “use word pictures”.

It’s advice I’ve never forgotten… Nor should you. And nor, it seems, has Steven Lewis from Taleist the Australian copywriting agency. Steven just sent me a re-mastered interview I did for his podcast sharing my top novelist’s tips to make business storytelling memorable. 

[bctt tweet=”[bctt tweet=”‘Good stories surprise us. They make us think and feel.’ -Joe Lazauskas and Shane Snow” via=”no”]

5 top storytelling tips to keep listeners awake:

  1. Bring your stories to lifewith the 5 senses.
  2. Make your characters realby including their names and titles. 
  3. Use ‘word pictures’– so your listener can see, feel and imagine what you’re describing. 
  4. Use genuine dialogue because real people speak in real sentences. 
  5. Surprise! Add something unexpected to your story. 

And, I got a surprise myself when I re-listened to the interview. A former journalist, Steven knows how to capture attention with a strong hook.

That’s exactly what he does with this interview about storytelling with… erm… me talking about bosoms. Enjoy! 

Click here to listen to the podcast 

Click here for a copy of my book ‘Last Seen in Lhasa’