There's a lot of places that we use stories, in sales, in conversation, in
speaking. How do you make a story more interesting?
Facts tell, stories sell. One
of the mantras that I've picked up as I've worked with sales teams or customer
service folk. Facts tell, stories sell. Stories are such a compelling way to
convey a message or to summarize an idea or a concept. How do we make those
stories more interesting. As a past president of the National Speakers
Association Mountain West chapter, I've had such wonderful opportunities to rub
shoulders with professional speakers who are also master storytellers and have
picked up a few ideas. Five tips to make a story more interesting. Number one,
show more than tell. Take us there, paint a picture that has us there with you in
your story. An example.. Instead of saying, I was getting on a bus in downtown
Chicago, you might invite the audience to join you there and say, so join with me
as we climb onto a bus in southwest Chicago. It feels different because
you're taking us there. Use descriptive and illustrative words that paint a
picture instead of saying big, you might say oversized or overstuffed or over
stacked depending on what kind of big you're trying to convey. In other words,
instead of the simple small word, use a word that's a little more descriptive
and paints more of a picture. As I was writing my first book, I became much more
familiar with the power of words and how each word needs to pay its own way. This
is true in a story, it's true in writing a book, it's true in giving a speech. Way
out each word according to what it can bring to the
game and then choose the words on purpose. Now the second tip, be authentic,
be real. You've experienced this, I'm sure. I know I have many times where someone's
telling a story and it's really obvious that it's canned that it's maybe not
even their story because you've heard it before. In fact, you know what, this is
almost a running joke with the National Speakers Association where I'm a member
and I really enjoy participating in those vents. We can tell at NSA, we can
tell if someone is a complete novice in the industry because they share a story
that we've all heard. There are a few classics, one of them is the starfish
story. It's actually a really great story about a guy walking along the beach and
he's throwing starfish out into the water and somebody confronts me says,
well, what are you doing? Oh, I'm just throwing the starfish out there because
they're gonna die if they stay here on the beach. The other guy looks around, he
sees that the beach is littered with all of these starfish and he says well you
can't possibly make a difference for all of these starfish. You said, well, but it
made a difference to that one because he throws another one to the sea.
Beautiful story, a lot of meaning to it and it's been very popular over the
years because of that and we know that that's a novice speaker because we've
all heard that story before. A more expert storyteller will take even that
story and find some of their own experience that can illustrate the same
point with their own story so when I say be authentic, be you, look to your own
rich life experience to find the stories and then as you present them, be you. We
don't want to just hear what you have to say, we want to experience who you are.
Being authentic allows you to do that in a powerful way and it really powers
up your story. Combine that authenticity with a
connection to the audience. We want to feel, as your audience, we want to feel
that you're sharing this for the first time. Your enthusiasm about sharing the
story, it's like it just happened to you and that connection. Even though you've
probably told it a hundred times or more, we want to think that we're special so
you connect with us as your audience in a way that allows us to experience that
story as if you're just pulling this aside as a dear friend and sharing
this story with us. Now the third of my five tips for today is to memorize the
story. You want to memorize it but you don't want it to sound memorized. You
want it to sound as if it's spontaneous and just falling from your lips as you
think about it in your head but you've actually rehearsed it enough that you've
got the whole thing memorized and you know what points need to be made at
which times but it doesn't sound memorized. Along the same line is practice.
Practice delivering this story but we don't want it to sound rehearsed so the
one thing that really helps along these lines is recording yourself. Set up a
camera or at least a digital recorder. Tell the story, listen back to it, you'll
notice things that you didn't notice in the delivery of it. The way you pronounce
certain words, the particular words that you choose all of these things will be
relevant and evident to you on the recording even though you may have
missed it in the run-through. Number four, I would encourage you to use just the
right amount of detail. Honestly, this is more of an art than a
science so I can't tell you exactly how much detail to use but if it helps you
to paint the picture, we're probably on the right track
and if it doesn't detract from the story, we're
probably on the right track. What is the right amount of detail? I've got an
example or two from a story that happened to me.. Let's just look at this
and analyze what the detail does for you and what is the right amount of detail.
So here's an example of the detail concept. 2:49 PM, April 15th 2013. Two
pressure cooker bombs explode near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Okay, now compare that to two pressure cooker bombs explode near the finish
line of the Boston Marathon. Right, leaving out the time and date stamp. Does
that have a different effect for you? Yeah, it does. Now how much is too much?
That's going to depend on a lot of things including your audience and what
to point your hand you want to make. If you get the next paragraph of my story to
10 p.m. mountain Daylight Time, which is my time zone, by the way, the caller ID on
my smart phone indicates BYU radio. Dr. Paul, we need you to come in early to
talk about the news, can you help our listeners find a positive way to handle
this? Now that example puts another time stamp
on the story and makes it all relevant because you see that 2:49 PM, Eastern
Daylight Time, these bombs explode to 10:00 PM mountain Daylight Time, I get
a call and that helps you to appreciate some of the timing of the thing. Now is
that too much detail? Is it enough detail? I'll let you be the judge of that
but if the detail adds to the story and helps to create the content and and
bring you there visually or emotionally then probably it's good to include that.
If the detailed the tracks from the story is unnecessary then maybe you
don't want to that, that's just an example that comes
from one of the stories that I've shared. The power of the pause. Occasionally
we're so eager to get the story out that we just keep rolling, we just keep
running with the story line without any breaths. Pause, just take a moment to
allow people to feel the impact of what it is that you're sharing. I've added a
couple of pauses here in the last several seconds of this video. Do you
feel the opportunity that that gives you as a viewer of the video to just sit
with the content for a moment or to let it sink in or maybe to pursue a thought
that you're having about that content. Push the pause button, a good effective
story will create. I think at least three effects. Number one, it will make me think,
trigger some thoughts. Number two, it will make me feel something and sometimes
it's a roller coaster, we take our our listeners up and we take him back down
and we take them up again and we take him back down. You'll always want to
leave them on and up so that your story doesn't become a downer. Leave them on an
upswing. After a little bit of an emotional roller coaster ride through
the story, you want them to feel something and the third thing that I
think makes an effective story is that it motivates me to do something. Change,
adjust, make some kind of a difference because I got to hear the story. I hope
you found this helpful. I'll be back tomorrow. I hope to see you again as well.