Five Ways to Tell Stories that Stick

During my latest teach of our Strategies for Effective Stakeholder Engagement course, I related my Babson strategy professor’s admonition that stories are at the core of how humans communicate. Stories are how we conveyed knowledge and memorized facts long before the written or printed word. To that end, here’s the open of a Babson entrepreneurship post on storytelling when selling initiatives or other start-ups:

“Entrepreneurs are constantly pitching, sharing their vision and venture in order to secure funding, make a sale, meet a new contact, and build out their team. Business plans are boiled down to bullets, and financials become memorized statistics.

Although these elements are vitally important to a successful pitch, the real power comes from telling a compelling narrative story.”

Storytelling is a great way to bridge the gap I discussed in my last post, A Leader’s Guide To Deciding: What, When, and How To Decide. In my experience, senior executives are constantly pitching their organization’s story to investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders. A project leader who can tell the story of “how this project makes your story happen” will find herself more strongly aligned with sponsors and leaders. If he has to go for help or guidance, that senior leader is pre-sold on the value of the project. She will focus on solving the issue, not demanding to be re-sold on the business case.

This brief post then lays out five ways to ensure your stories stay with your audience. You know the drill, follow the link.

Source: Entrepreneurship Of All Kinds blog, “Five Ways To Tell Stories That Stick“