Storytelling: The Art of Audience Engagement

It was an odd reaction. I was in the middle of a leadership development training session when my entire audience put down their pens, leaned back in their chairs and looked up at me with smiles and childlike innocence. It was as if a switch had been flipped in the room and all of a sudden the room was warmer.

Up until that moment, the eighty people that were gathered in our chilly hotel room were listening to me, some more intently than others, while at the same time writing notes in their workbooks. They were listening, but they weren’t really with me. I knew this because when I’d ask a question, it would take a minute for people to respond.

But when I said those magic words, “let me tell you a story about a customer that I had...” and I began telling a personal story, they all looked up and paid attention. They were right there with me hanging on every word. The only thing I can relate it to is a school of fish. You know how an entire school of fish turns left and then right and then left again at the same time as if they all have one brain? Well the minute I started telling my story, it was as if we were all one. All of a sudden and without warning - we were connected.

At the end of that day, a number of people came up to me to thank me for the training. One lady commented on the story that I told and then launched into her own story about a particularly difficult employee she supervised. I didn’t think much about it at the time – but it kept happening time and again at every program where I told that story. My story reminded her of her story, but now she understood her story better.

The same thing can happen for you when you do a seminar for your target audience. You can tell stories that illustrate what you do and how you do it, or you can be boring and talk about numbers and percentages and products. If you tell stories about the people who have chosen to put their trust in you, your audience members will come up to you afterwards and ask to make an appointment. That’s when you can run the numbers and talk about your products.

Have you ever channel surfed on the TV? You’re sitting there on your comfy couch with your trusty remote in your hand and you’re just flipping channels. There are hundreds of channels to choose from and they’re all sitting out there hoping you’ll pick them. And you, you’re looking for something that catches your attention.Are you aware that your audience is doing something very similar while you’re talking? They’re sitting there a few feet away from you and they’re listening to what you’re saying but in their mind they’re flipping channels, waiting for you to say something that catches their attention.

That’s why you’re not finished talking ’til you’ve told a story. When you start telling a story, and you really get into it by having fun and letting yourself go, they will listen with full attention. The story activates their imagination and stimulates what I call a “sympathetic experience.”

So what’s your story? What are the stories from your life and experience that people will immediately relate to. Depending on what you want to use the stories for, you have two options:

• Simply look for moments of crisis or obstacle in your life where something memorable happened. Then ask yourself, “What did I learn?” That’s your point.
• If you want to use stories to sell, identify the objections you hear on a regular basis and craft stories that overcome those objections. (read Doug Stevenson’s The Story Theater Method)

Strategic storytelling can be worth millions of dollars to your bottom line if you understand how to choose and tell stories correctly. There is a science to the art of storytelling that make stories your most effective tool for creating rapport, overcoming objections and closing sales.

When you’re sitting across from a customer, trying to explain all of the intricacies of estate planning, trusts or succession planning, it’s far more effective to tell a story about another customer who had a similar situation than it is to focus solely on the facts and figures. It’s the imagery and emotion of a story that will create the context for what you’re discussing. First you need to create rapport, then you can sell something.

Doug Stevenson is the Guru of Storytelling in Business. He speaks, trains and consults worldwide to corporations and associations who want a competitive presentation edge through storytelling mastery and Emotional Eloquence leadership skills. He works with salespeople, leaders, professional speakers, trainers and fundraisers.

Doug is the author of Doug Stevenson’s "Story Theater Method", creator of Emotional Eloquence® and the author of a home study course on how to create a motivational speech titled: "How To Write and Deliver a Dynamite Speech – 21-Step Dynamite Speech System".

Learn more at www.storytelling-in-business.com or call 1-719-573-6195.

Copyrighted by Doug Stevenson. All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.