The Fast and Easy Way to Tell Stories
Wanted: Storytellers!
Storytelling. Stories. Story-selling. If you’ve been watching the news, you know: storytelling is HOT.
If you are in business, leadership or sales you know the simple secret:
Words Tell… but Stories Sell.
But…
What if you aren’t sure HOW to tell a story?
I’m going to give you the fastest and easiest way to organize your story. You can use right away.
I call it “Storytelling to Win Formula. It is a 3-step no-fail recipe. It is guaranteed to help you tell powerful stories in any presentation.
I bet you have a meeting, pitch or presentation coming up – so let’s get right into it.
Now, I’m going to give you the ’1-2-3-short form’ and then I’ll show you a real-life example.
Step One: Win Aha’s
Grab attention right away. Catch people with a startling fact, amazing statistic or eye-popping picture.
You only have 7 seconds to win attention. You have to be bold. Go for Big, Bold, and Shocking facts.
I know this can be a little frightening. You may have limited time, a very technical presentation and a lot on the line.
But here’s the good news:
Start strong and everything else falls into place.
Step Two: Win Interest
What are people most interested about? Themselves!
Your audience wants to how to save time, make money, and look like a pro.
You will hold interest when you appeal to these strong emotions.
Now, just to review, in Step One, you won attention with a big, bold and shocking fact.
In Step Two, you are connecting. Appealing to ‘self-interest.’ This is why you are speaking in emotional terms. You are connecting to what matters most for your clients.
What happens? You audience is open and listening. They are thinking, “tell me more!” They want to know what else you have!
So the key idea at Step 2 is to connect emotionally and offer terrific value.
Now it’s time for Step Three.
Step 3. Win Action
Simply: Tell your audience what to do.
If you and I were sitting together, we’d plan this together. A specific next action.
It could be a clear decision to Buy. It could be gaining agreement to take the next step. It could be saying ‘yes’ to meet again.
Always have a clear action that you want your audience to take.
Now, you know the 3 steps to tell stories:
- Win Attention
- Win Interest
- Win Action
Let’s look at how this works.
As I promised, let me tell you a personal story using this formula.
(Step One)
I just read in the Book of Lists: The #1 fear of most people is speaking in public. People are more afraid to stand up in front of a group than they are of dying!
(Step Two)
What if you could overcome the fear of presenting — plan your presentations 50% faster — and have fun delivering to any crowd?
My bet is you’d have a lot more free time to spend with your family, play at the beach, and you could enjoy your weekends and evenings — instead of slaving over your PowerPoint deck.
This last weekend, I went to the beach. It was wonderful. I sat on the sand and watched the waves…when is the last time you took some time out for yourself? If you can’t even remember when it’s been, then you owe it to yourself to use this Storytelling to Win Formula.
Here’s what I want you to do…
(Step Three)
Here is the action I want you to take. I want you to get out a piece of paper. I know it’s a little old-fashioned. But it works!
Draw 3 boxes. In box one: write a statistic or fact that will win attention for your audience.
In box 2: write the key content. My advice is to keep it extremely simple.
In box 3: write the action step. Keep this action simple. When you make it easy to take the next action, people will take it
Telling a business story is much easier than you might have imagined.
However, there is a LOT more to learn!
I want you to get really, really good at telling stories. You’ll be able to sell more of whatever you are offering: ideas, solutions, strategies. Words tell – but stories sell.
When your clients connect with your story – they will buy what you are selling.
If you want to get really, really good at storytelling to win, you need to get the right tools and skills.
I wish I had time to go into it all right here – but there’s a lot more to it. I’ve built a specific course devoted to How to Sell More Stuff with Storytelling. It’s a paint-by-numbers system that includes a swipe file of 28 stories, 41 calls to action, powerful story formulas, and blueprints. I know you’ll love it.