A few years back, I mistakenly agreed to give a speech to a huge group of advertising creative people. I fretted over that speech for weeks, terrified I would put that flighty crowd to sleep. Especially after I found out that I was the eleventh alternate choice for that time slot.
But a veteran speechmaker gave me some good advice. "If it looks like they're dozing off," he said, "start telling a story. They'll perk right up."
He was right. Every time I started boring them to death, I told a story and they perked right up. It worked eight times in a row.
Oddly enough, I found that even a lame or irrelevant story was enough. Boy, did I learn my lesson.
The story animal
Why was a lousy story more compelling than my elegantly crafted address?
I think we humans assimilate and process stories better than any other form of input; our brains are simply hard-wired for it. I bet neuroscientists will find a story center in our brains somewhere alongside our speech and hearing centers. It's that cluster of neurons that lights up when someone says "Hey, guess what happened."
In fact, we tell and seek out stories all the time. It's a reflex, an instinct. Listen to the conversations around you in the lunchroom or at a party. They are virtually all stories, tales, anecdotes. On the train going home tonight, notice what commuters are reading: The Wall Street Journal, John Grisham, Time, Newsweek, Good to Great. All stories. When you think of it, stories are practically the only thing people read voluntarily. Heck, people even pay to read stories. (Who would pay to read that product stuff on your web site?)
And stories stick in our heads like nothing else. Just ask anyone who has tried to shake an old rumor or bad publicity. Me, I can remember stories I heard nineteen years ago, but that seven-page strategy briefing I read last Thursday? Gone.
You and I make our livings trying to sway and persuade people. We stand on our heads hoping to get people to read our stuff. Why don't we use stories more often?
Tales from the front
One of my large technology clients hit on a ingenious way to help their sales teams close the bigger, more lucrative sales.
Whenever they hear of an account executive who has closed a huge, high-profile deal, we interview the exec by phone and ask them to recount how they did it. We get it all on tape: the trials and tribulations, the tactics, little victories, the villians, the nail biting, all in their own words. We then craft it into a 20-minute audio program, available as a CD or podcast.
The scuttlebut is, the sales teams check out these stories first, before opening that other 'stuff' from headquarters. Why? Because they're real-life, they're drama, they're true. And way more relevant than a sterile memo from on high.
Let the customer tell it
Do you use testimonials, case studies, or success stories in your marketing? Consider framing them as stories rather than flat-out endorsements. Let your customers talk.
"The first day we had the new servers installed, people called me from four different offices. 'How come the system is so fast? What's going on?'"
A simple anecdote like that will echo in a customer's mind far longer than the usual "The 123 Server provides us with significantly reduced user response times across all locations."
Wake up a PowerPoint
When you have to give a presentation to peers, bosses, or customers, think in terms of stories instead of slides. How? Make your entire presentation a story. Or build a story into every third slide or so.
Example. You're charged with developing a new system of sales literature and collateral, then presenting your ideas at a meeting. The typical approach is to set up your PowerPoint like this:
- Current architecture- Difficulties, issues
- New objectives and strategy
- Proposed architecture- Expected benefits
Perfectly reasonable. But if you treat it as a narrative, it would sound like this:
"First, we went out to our most productive sales reps and asked them 'How do you use your literature right now. . . what would you like to see?' . . .". . . one rep told us how he downloaded performance graphs from our competitors' web sites, paper-clipped them to our own data sheets, handed it to a customer and said . . .
"We then sat down with customers and asked them if they had ever seen our literature. . . and what they told us was rather surprising. . .
". . . .We then did something a little devious. We visited some competitors' web sites and clicked a few of those 'Tell Me More' buttons. Here's what showed up in our e-mail. . ."
A little suspense here and there, a few neat anecdotes, and some live people make for much easier listening. But does it take too long? I bet you can reach your payoff slide just as fast as you would in the traditional format. And fewer people will be dozing when you get there.
Unlimited storage capacity
I'm not sure why, but people can apparently remember stories far more easily than the typical information we try to convey. (Ever wonder how those tribal elders could commit six thousand years of detailed history to memory? Because they're recalling stories and tales, not agenda items.)
Quite by accident I stumbled on a trick that illustrates this point nicely. In my writing workshops, I sometimes insert a story in the first ten minutes or so, related to the point at hand. It usually takes about 30 seconds to tell. And on purpose, it's not a knee-slapping joke or anything outrageous.
Then toward the end of the session — an hour or two later, depending — I ask the group, "Without looking at your notes, think back to our discussion of the passive voice. What product did we use in our first example?" There is some uneasy head-scratching, then maybe one or two people tentatively raise their hands. And perhaps one of them gets it right.
I then ask, "In our discussion of good openings, I told a quick story about a sales rep. What was he selling?"
Invariably, hands shoot up and people shout out the answer. Most of them get it right.
And even when someone gets it wrong, they are very definite about it. "No, it was adding machines, not typewriters. I know it."
Stories stick.
spot on. in a commoditized world with infinite shelf space, the power of your story will superceed the power of your statistics hands down. Everybody has the compelling stats, but not everyone has the compelling story...
Posted by: BIG SWINGING | February 18, 2006 at 06:40 AM