Master of Stories
Kenrick Cleveland
'Facts and figures are forgotten. Stories are retold.' -Jeffrey Gitomer
Unless you're a really mathematically oriented person, you're not going to remember the charts and graphs of a presentation, and neither is your audience. If you give presentations to groups of people, while sometimes you may need to get specific, the real core, the real power of your presentation is going to be 'The Story'.
A few years ago I came to a realization. Up until that point, I didn't think I was a very good storyteller. It wasn't a shyness on my part, but a belief that my stories weren't actual stories. But my realization was: my stories are the real deal, the lifeblood of persuasion.
All of us have stories. Maybe it's not obvious, maybe it hasn't presented itself to you yet. It's possible your story is tangential, maybe your parent's or grandparent's story of struggle and accomplishment which triggered you to become what you are.
Your object in telling a story is first to get the listener to agree with you. Once that happens, persuasion is inevitable.
Having a point is the most important aspect of your story. A long, meandering, pointless tale is not going to persuade.
The persuasive stories we're telling have to have a similarity to the situation to which we're presenting, as well as the important aspects of 'The Hero's Journey'. (If you're not familiar with 'The Hero's Journey' by Joseph Campbell, become familiar with it. It is the single most important work on archetypes and stories starting pulling from sources back to the dawn of time, and has had profound impact on my teachings and learnings, as well as the teachings and learnings of millions of others.)
Stories don't have to start at the beginning. There's usually a lot of fluff, wasted words, at the beginning. A writing teacher I knew had a general rule that the first paragraph or two of a story was entirely dispensable. By starting in the middle or mid-sentence even, the audience is compelled to listen. They want to know what they missed.
Another way to do this is to start with 'the point' of the story and work your way back. Since the point, the outcome, or what you want to teach, is the absolute goal, it's most important that this is crystal clear.
One of my coaching club students reverse engineers his stories. The first thing he determines is the outcome. Then he works back through the hero's journey to the point of beginning.
When writing your story, keep in mind that you must start by starting. And once you're done writing, read it out loud. As you read it, you'll see where it needs to be edited just from where you stumble.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent prospects using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion techniques. Click here to get your own http://www.uberarticles.com/home.php?id=15950&b=79 unique version of this article.
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