- Today, you are gonna learn five killer tips
to help improve your storytelling.
And we'll be talking with Kelly D. Parker.
If you have not yet met Kelly, you're going to today.
She is a professional speaker, a TEDx speaker
and she works with companies
and marketing departments and professionals
to help them make their storytelling more memorable.
She's also the host of a podcast
called Business Storytelling Made Easy.
I'll put all the details below,
so you can check out her podcast,
her LinkedIn page and her website as well.
Kelly, how are you doing today?
- I am awesome, Alex.
Thank you so much for having me today.
- I'm so glad we finally got you on the channel
and you've come today to us with five great tips
to improve our storytelling.
So why don't you hit us with that first tip
and we'll jump right in.
- Awesome.
Well, the first tip that I would share
is if you are gonna tell a story,
you need to know the point of your story.
So when I say point, I mean, you need to be very clear
on what is it that you want the audience to think,
to feel, to do, to believe after you have told that story.
When I think about knowing your point,
I think about many years ago at church
when we had a guest preacher,
and I don't know if you go to church or not,
but if there's a guest preacher,
so I was a little dicey,
like how is this getting ready to go, right?
So we've got this guest preacher
and he gets to telling a story about a fish.
So I recall that he told a story about a fish.
I don't know the significance of that story about that fish
or where we went once he started talking about that fish.
I don't know.
I just know he was talking about a fish,
but I don't know the point.
I don't know what he wanted me to believe.
I don't know what that had to do with anything.
And so now all these years later,
I'm stuck with the question mark
of what the heck was he talking about that day
when he talked about that fish?
So I contrast that within my TEDx talk,
I talked about a story about a proposal, a wedding proposal.
And what we were talking about was, as marketers,
as leaders, we propose to people, we say,
hey, buy my product.
Believe in my service, come to my event.
And storytelling and building connection is a great way
to make that proposal very appealing, right?
So there's kind of a logic behind
what was the point of my story?
Why did I bring it up?
And so as we're becoming better storytellers,
the key thing that you wanna remember first
is what is that point?
If people have to work too hard to understand
what you're talking about or do this mental gymnastics
to figure out where this story is coming into play,
they're not gonna do it.
They're gonna check out.
And so one way to check yourself on it is,
can you articulate very quickly and very succinctly
what the point of your story is?
- Yeah. - If you can,
you're probably on the right track.
If you can't, you probably wanna pick another one.
- That's a great place to start
because I know exactly what you mean.
Yes, I go to church.
Yes, I've seen guest speakers
and everybody's holding their breath.
Are they gonna go on some long tangent
or are they gonna make a point?
And I think sometimes we tell stories
for the pure entertainment value of it.
But if there's no point behind it for our listeners,
if we don't know why we're communicating this message,
it can really miss the mark.
And so I think that's a great place to start.
You have to know that point that you're driving at
and that becomes the focus of everything you say
and a good way to make decisions
about what to include and what to leave out.
What's your second tip?
- Sure, my second tip is all about
tailoring your content to your audiences,
either their problem or their pursuit.
So a lot of times we wanna know,
well, what story should I tell?
What should I be talking about?
Well, you need to start thinking outward,
not so much about you, but who are you talking to?
And who is your audience?
So once I start thinking along those lines,
it's like, okay, well,
what problems is my audience having, right?
What things are they struggling with that perhaps
I could help them with?
And maybe I could bring in a story
that could illuminate that, right?
Or what are their pursuits?
And I talk about this in my TEDx talk.
It's called Business Storytelling Made Easy.
It's on YouTube as well, but what do they want?
What is something that my audience wants
that maybe I have already gotten or accomplished?
And I can tell that story.
Perhaps you are a professional and you're gonna talk
to a group of college students, right?
So you've attained a degree,
something that they want, right?
And you could talk about some struggles that you had
or you can put some color to how you overcome certain things
in alignment with something you know that they want, right?
Because whenever we talk about folks' problems
or goals that they want,
we're gonna have their attention, right?
And so it's not enough to tell a story.
We gotta know how to tell a good story, right?
And a good story is one that aligns
with where your audience is at that time.
- Right, I love that because, and by the way,
I'll put a link to Kelly's TEDx talk
below in the description below the video.
But I love that because when a speaker does this,
and I'm in the audience, I'm listening,
I feel like if they're focused on the problem that I have.
They understand me.
They understand what I'm trying to get in life
or out of a situation.
And they're speaking directly to my issue.
And it really makes me feel
like they have a lot more credibility
because they understood enough
that I have a problem I want solved
and they're gonna speak directly to that problem.
So I love that.
What's your third tip?
- My third tip is speaking of emotion.
Now, we know that stories are so powerful
because they pull on our emotions, right?
You just talked about it, it really creates that connection.
Like, hey, maybe this person understands me.
They get me.
Let me listen in a little bit.
But with that as a storyteller,
you have to be very careful to what I call
manage everyone's emotional journey.
So you have to understand, as you're speaking,
we are going on this emotional journey with you.
We're taking the highs with you
and we're taking the lows with you.
And sometimes we wanna talk about some very deep stuff
'cause it can be very powerful and very moving,
but you gotta remember you don't wanna end that story
with what I heard Andy Henrique say,
you don't wanna leave folks
in the basement like solo, right?
And then you just end the story
and you just leave us out here,
like, okay, well, what do I do with that?
How do I process that, right?
So I'll give you a for instance,
I worked with the a client not too long ago
and she was hosting a summit for her business.
And she wanted to kind of begin the time
with the keynote with some personal anecdotes, right?
She had some very deep stuff that she could have shared.
And I had advised her, let's not go that route this time
because we've got the whole day ahead of us.
And we don't want to take away from the core message
that you're trying to get across by people getting stuck
on these very deep moments
that we just don't have time to unpack, right?
That's not really the point of our time.
And so we wanna be very judicious in terms
of what types of details and what types of stories we tell,
knowing that people are gonna take on that emotional energy
of the content of your story.
So it's just about weighing appropriateness.
- Yeah, I love it.
A lot of times people don't,
speakers don't even think about the emotion.
I worked with speakers who were very professional,
buttoned up and they deliver the content well,
but the emotion was sort of flat and one dimensional.
And so I like how you talk
about the emotional journey that we go on
because there might be different parts of the presentation
or a message where there are ups and downs in the story.
And you have to be aware as a speaker
to bring them along in that journey.
Think about it.
Yeah, you don't wanna be a downer,
if that's really not the main point of your talk.
You wanna think about the emotions
you wanna create and convey.
Wonderful, so in addition to emotions,
what's your fourth tip?
- I think my fourth tip is my favorite.
This is like my thing.
So my fourth tip is leverage the power of concrete details.
So Alex, I'm the type of person
that when you are speaking I'm visualizing.
I see pictures of everything.
If someone is talking to me,
I can actually see the words in my head
and I can see images that go along with it.
As a storyteller, you wanna tap into that, right?
So for instance, it's one thing to say
my dad taught me to ride my bike when I was a kid.
It's another thing to talk about the purple streamers
that were fluttering in the air as I rode
for the first time without my training wheels, right?
So it takes it to a whole nother level
when you awaken the five senses, right?
When you conjure this image in your mind,
what did it look like?
What did it smell like, right?
What did you hear?
So thinking about all of that,
to kind of bring this story to life.
I'll give you another example.
The other day I was writing something
and I was talking about a boy who was in my class
in the fourth grade.
And he was kind of like a goof-off type,
very friendly, very intelligent,
but also wanted to goof off, right?
So I can say he wanted to goof off
or I can say I still remember him
wearing that oversized t-shirt
and the corners of his mouth curling up in delight
as he found various ways to entertain himself
that were off task or whatever the case might be, right?
So helping people to paint a picture,
so that they can come into that detail with you,
they can come into that memory.
They can come into that imagery right along with you
because you've painted it for them.
- Yeah, enough detail so that they can picture
the image in their head.
And they'll remember that story
because of the concrete details.
When you said at the beginning, the general description,
oh, he liked to goof off.
Like it's hard to picture goofing off,
but it's easier to picture an actual instance of him
causing some trouble and the way his appearance.
And I love that, that's great.
Concrete details will really make that story pop.
And what is your fifth tip?
- Tip number five is don't forget the drama.
Yo, every good story has drama.
I'll prove it to you.
If I told you a story, I woke up,
I ate the cheese sandwich and then I came back home.
That's a story, but that's not a good story, right?
- I like the fact that there's cheese in it.
- Right, that was the highlight of the story, right?
So we have to learn how to create drama.
Let me give you some examples, a business example.
Let's say that you're a business owner
or even you work in a company
and you wanna talk about the value
that you bring to the table.
You wanna talk about some shifts
in transformations that you have made.
Yes, you could just start off talking about it.
Like I did this project and these were the outcomes,
but it will be a better story if you create drama.
How do you do that?
By contrasting.
So you wanna talk about what was the before state.
What did it look like before you got involved, right?
And then you can contrast that with what you did, right?
And what the outcome was at the end.
So now we've created a story.
We created some ups and some downs, right?
Some changes, some transformation.
I'll give you another example.
So sometimes we have a story we wanna tell
and we dive right in to maybe the most dramatic part of it,
but really to juice the drama out,
you gotta like back up a little bit and create contrast.
So for instance, it could be,
I worked with someone recently
and she wants to share with her audience
a very challenging time in her life, right?
But I told her, don't start right there.
You gotta start with like your normal,
you gotta start with everybody thought
I had it going on, right?
I was at the top of my game at work,
this, that and the other, but behind the scenes,
it was A, B and C, right?
So now we got a story, right?
So you're building up to that dramatic point
and you're learning kind of how to juice it out
for people and get them invested in it, right?
So if you think about, if you go see a scary movie,
the first scene does not have the boogie monster
out with his knife or whatever, right?
You gotta build up to that thing, right?
And really get people vested to really juice out that drama.
So that's something else
that I just, I love about a good story.
- Yeah. - So don't forget the drama.
- Some contrast, some drama, some before and after.
That transformation takes us on the emotional ups and downs
versus just saying it straight and plain.
I love the example of you could, for example,
you could talk about someone who's a big success.
That's an okay story.
But if they came from nothing
and then they became a big success,
now there's some drama in that story.
Now, it gives us a reason to lean forward
and be like, wow, how did this happen?
It gives, it's a hook to pay
even more attention to this story.
I love it.
So I'm gonna put on the screen now
a summary of your five tips.
These are Kelly's five tips to make your messages,
your stories much more memorable.
So these are the ways you want to think
about any stories you tell in the future.
Integrate these points, double check your stories
to make sure they do all five of these things.
Make sure you click on the links below
to check out Kelly's podcast or TEDx talk
or LinkedIn profile.
Kelly, thank you so much for being here with us today.
- Thank you so much, Alex.
This was a lot of fun.
- Yeah, I agree.
It was great to have you.
And we'll have you on again soon.
Thanks everybody.
Take care, see you soon. - Bye.