Storytelling
Updated: Mar 3, 2021
Whether you are a freelancer, work for a boss or you just generally like to express yourself, there will be times when you want to (or even have to) present what you are about, what you have been working on, your companies next product, etc.
Presenting or pitching, believe it or not, is about storytelling. People don’t buy products or concepts, they buy stories.
A good story has:
- a beginning -> a problem or a cause
- a middle -> discussing the problem or the cause
- an end -> solving the problem, or reaching a conclusion.
Your product is there to solve a problem or your concept presents the cause.
In a play, the lead character’s thoughts will have changed by the end of the play, just like your viewers or listeners’ thoughts need to have changed by the end of your presentation.
Sometimes you can tell a simple story.
Problem: A person working in an office is hungry.
Discussing the problem: You sell delicious wraps just outside of their building.
Solution: the person buys a wrap from you at lunchtime, feels satisfied and is back at her desk in a short amount of time.
Probably you had different wraps on offer, veggie, chicken, shrimp. No matter what the person chooses, the outcome still stays the same. She will not be hungry anymore 😊
But what if you can make the story more interesting, so it’s not just about the wraps, but about you and your business.
Maybe your wraps are all healthy, non-processed, within a certain calorie amount and exceptionally tasty, which will make the client feel good. And you buy good quality and local produce from farmers that care about sustainability and using clean energy which again is another reason to buy from your food truck and not the one on the other side of the street.
And if you have an incredible story about how you were overweight, working behind a desk and didn’t care about what you put in your body as long as it was fast and tasted good. Until you turned your life around! And you want to bring that good and fast food to those people that have limited time but still want to stay healthy.
Now you have a Hollywood blockbuster!
And you need to perform this as you pitch. You have to get used to it and be comfortable on the imaginary stage you’re standing on.
You need to be professional. You need to learn your lines. You need to learn to speak them clearly. Everyone in the room needs to hear you.
So practice, practice, practice. Then try it out on someone you know.
The keys to your performance
You need to learn the technicalities of giving a good speech and check you’re sticking with them.
You need to illustrate the problem beautifully and solve it with a bang. A sense of humor in the right places can also add to the story.
You’re not acting someone else. You’re acting yourself. So be true to how passionately you feel about your idea or concept. You want to get your message across and really show what it is all about.
Have a look at our confession tapes in which we tell you why we do what we do!
