Tuesday 29 October 2013

There's too much talk about Storytelling, not enough about how, when and when NOT to apply storytelling structure

You really can’t move within the communication world these days without someone banging on about the importance of ‘storytelling’. What’s generally missing is any real clue as to what you are meant to do about it. Some people are probably a little confused; indeed, it’s possible that there are business executives planning their next inter-office meeting and imagining that their contribution needs to be re-thought and built around a ‘arc’, complete with antagonist, protagonist, conflict and suspense, all divided into three Acts and not forgetting a ‘crucible’.


Those who have started to preach about the importance of storytelling tend to leave the notion hanging, probably in the hope that you will feel the need to seek specific storytelling expertise from the likes of those preachers who appear to be among a chosen few who have had storytelling skills passed down to them in some mystic manner through many generations. So please allow me to try and get things back into perspective.

The first point is that if you are giving a business presentation the very last thing you want to do is deliver it in classic storytelling style whereby you lead them in slowly and build progressively to a big climax. In a business presentation you need to get the big point into the minds of your audience immediately – you want to open with it, you want to close with it and everything in between should serve to bring that big point alive. In Army terms it’s the old ‘tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them again’. If you tried to turn this process into a story you would be giving the end at the very beginning, so ruining the story!

So where and when should you use storytelling techniques? Three places in particular, at least one of which may come as a surprise.

First, and perhaps most importantly, short stories should be used as examples to bring your key points alive. Everything the storytelling preachers tell you applies here and your big point will register all the more effectively. If your story comes from your own personal experience it will be all the more effective, for two reasons. First, it will be more credible. Second, letting a little light shine on yourself has the effect of making your audience warm to you, with the result that you are more engaging and everything you say becomes more convincing. The other great benefit of telling a story, which you are unlikely to hear from the preachers, is that you will automatically go into a slightly different, more conversational tone of voice. This brings the variation in tone that is so important to your pacing and audience engagement.

Second, think storytelling when using PowerPoint. As a general rule bring your bullet points up one at a time or else your audience will inevitably be reading ahead and they will know the end of that slide’s story way before you get to it!

Third, most graphs present storytelling opportunities; and arguably those opportunities need to be exploited if the graph is to work to its fullest potential. The best example I can provide here is that every Fund Manager I have ever coached has built their presentation around one key graph which features two lines, one showing the market as a whole, the other showing how well their fund has been performing in comparison. They beam with pride at the big, positive gap between the two lines, but I say: “Slow down. There’s a story to tell here and you’re giving away the end before you have even begun”. 

The first thing you need to do when presenting any graph is to allow your audience to familiarise themselves with what they are looking at, rather than be bamboozled by an instant barrage of information. So ideally you should start by displaying and explaining just the axes. Then you can start overlaying the meat of the graph, but you should do so gradually, allowing a story to unroll. In the case of those Fund Managers they can probably put up the whole of the line for the market as a whole, talking about the general ups and downs. Now, without any kind of reading-ahead distractions, your audience is all keyed up to hear about the most important element – the performance of your fund.  But again, roll it out gradually. Display it in three or four progressive elements eg: show how you got off to a good start and let your audience imagine ‘did they maintain that?’; relieve the tension and show that you did; now point to the downturn that the market as a whole went into and have your audience fearing for you, as you then go on to reveal that you rode out the storm. Now you have them on tenterhooks for the big finale – did to manage to maintain that performance. Pause momentarily, then hit them with a big triumphant finish. None of this drama – and close attention to the fine details that results - could ever have been achieved by simply putting up the graph in its completed form.

So the preachers are right in certain respects, but you don’t want to simply launch into storytelling without thinking carefully about how to use it and certainly not as the basis for a whole business presentation. Well-placed bite-sized stories, however, can bring life, meaning, memorability and conviction to your messages while also adding a whole new dimension to your pacing.





Extracted and adapted from Nick Fitzherbert's book 

Thursday 17 October 2013

As EE's branding boss quits, I ask: Is this the worst brand name ever?

So EE’s top marketer Steven Day is to leave his role as chief of brand and communications at the end of the year. Could this, I wonder be anything to do with the fact that he was responsible for creating one of the worst brand names in living memory.

Imagine you worked for EE. When people ask you what they do for a living and you respond “I work for EE” what do you suppose they say in response?  Probably “I beg your pardon, I didn’t quite catch that”.  It’s such a ‘blink and you miss it’-sort-of-a-name that when Kevin Bacon says it on TV he seems to find the need to elongate it into “Eeee”. 

When I worked in the drinks trade and we dreamt up new brand names we always posed the question: Is it a good bar call? Is it the sort of name that people will hear properly, understand, be able to pronounce properly and feel comfortable shouting out across a bar? EE, if you hear it at all, just sounds silly.

The irony is that it’s just one letter off being a very effective name.  EDF, DHL, M&S and many other three-letter combinations work well because they exploit the rhythm of the ‘power of three’. Information in two pieces, however, leaves you anticipating a third and being frustrated when it never comes.

So what about AA, you may ask?  That works because we never say “AA”, which again would sound silly. We always say “The AA” because it is an abbreviation of The Automobile Association.



Tuesday 15 October 2013

Uumm....Christopher Bailey errs his way into the top job at Burberry

Burberry took the unusual step today of announcing the departure of its chief executive by posting an interview with both its out-going boss Angela Ahrendts and her successor Christopher Bailey on the internet. 

In a multimedia world this is probably a taste of things to come but was it a good idea? 

First impressions from this Presentation Skills coach is 'no'. The whole situation - which saw the company's chairman conducting an 'interview' inevitably felt a little fake. And while Angela Ahrendts came over as just a little too self assured and full of standard messages, Christopher Bailey looked like a complete novice. In the 120.34 seconds that he spoke he said "er" or "umm" 37 times; that's once every 3.24 seconds!  

Now, when I am coaching business executives with this problem I explain that the main reason is that they don't know what they are going to say. I am all for an open, natural approach but why did Burberry put out a pre-recorded video of its incoming chief executive looking nervous and like he doesn't know what he is saying? 

Polish issues aside, the trouble is that it serves to exacerbate many of the awkward questions that the announcement has thrown up, including: why has the super-successful Ahrendts moved to a lesser position, even if it is at Apple?; did Bailey threaten to leave if he didn't get the top job?; is he capable of doing that job?; even if he is, can he really combine it with creative duties?

Have a look and judge for yourself - below if you can see the screen - or via this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNPrdIvCnJk



Sunday 13 October 2013

Say it. Then Shut up. Dave Trott nails the essence of good construction for business presentation

I wrote recently about my excitement at finally getting to meet advertising legend Dave Trott and soaking up some of the street-wise wisdom that he generously blogs, then compiles into his books Creative Mischief and Predatory Thinking. 

It was on re-reading the latter that I was reminded how closely he hits the spot on two big, related issues in business presentation: 1) the difference between conversation and presentation and 2) the need to be ruthless in editing yourself.

When making a business presentation you almost certainly want to adopt a conversational style, but this does not mean you simply make it up as you go along. If you were to record a genuine conversation you would find it so full of superfluous words and general meanderings, let alone umms and errs, that you would certainly want to do a major edit on yourself before repeating that particular topic in a more formal manner. As Dave Trott says in Predatory Thinking: if we wrote the way we talk, the page would be covered with so many words it would be illegible.
 
Trott goes on to say:

Why don’t we talk the way we write?
In writing we work out what’s essential and just say that.
Why don’t we do that with talking?
Work out the most important, powerful thing to say.
Then say it.
Then shut up.
In writing, we know words are more powerful with lots of white space around them.
Words need room to breathe.
So we’re more sparing with them.
We only use what we need.

That – as long as you avoid defaulting to the ‘cloak of formality’ that some people still do when writing - is the essence of good construction for a business presentation. And the point about ‘…say it. Then shut up’ needs reiterating when you are thinking about how to close. A strange paradox that afflicts many business presenters is that they are often nervous about getting up to speak, but having done so they never know how to stop! Having made their big point they keep trundling on, gradually running out of anything to say and getting further and further from that big point. 


So: Say it. Then shut up!














Thursday 3 October 2013

Ad legend Dave Trott proves you don't need hi-tech aids for a winning business presentation


Last night I finally got to meet one of my communication heroes – the legendary ad man Dave Trott, who was speaking at the LSE on his favourite topic ‘Predatory Thinking’.

As a keen disciple of Trott’s books and blogs I was looking forward to hearing lots of familiar stories – straight from the horse’s mouth.  What intrigued me as a Presentation Skills coach, however, was whether be could be as compelling in front of a live audience as he is in print and through various advertising media. And what would he use in the way of presentation aids?

The answer to the first question is that Dave Trott educated, inspired and charmed every one of the 500 or so people who had come to hear him and he stayed very late into the evening signing books and engaging personally with every purchaser. As for his presentation aids, he announced: “We’re going old school” and proceeded to scrawl a series of little doodles on an overhead projector!  Admittedly it was probably actually a ‘visualiser’, but it was about as far from PowerPoint as you can get. And it worked perfectly in terms of amplifying the topics he was communicating.

Now, in my book Presentation Magic I referred to a discussion with a friend many years ago when we theorized about what would make the perfect presentation tool. After much debate we decided on the flipchart because you could appear to be making up the content as you went, enabling you to tailor your content directly to feedback you were receiving from your audience, so making them feel they are truly a part of all that is being discussed. Of course, nobody actually does this because flipcharts are old tech and I have even see text books that say ‘flipcharts have no role in presentation’. Here, however, Dave Trott was putting the principle into action, albeit with a tool that can reach an audience in excess of 500. 



You can see some of Trott’s doodles here. What would your marketing department make of those? Believe me, though, they were perfect as a tool for supporting the speaker on this occasion.  And that is how we must perceive presentation aids of all types – as a tool to help you as a speaker to get your point across.  I often show the people I am coaching videos of Steve Jobs and I point to the way he never puts anything on the screen unless it is actively helping him at that moment. Dave Trott takes the principle several stages further by bringing real personalisation to the process.

While we are on the subject of Dave Trott, I urge you to read his book Predatory Thinking. Essentially, it is Trott’s take on the concept of ‘Disruptive Activity’ that has become the by-word for securing an advantage and getting ahead. His favourite story of a ‘powerful strategy to out-think the competition’ goes like this:

Two explorers are walking through the jungle. Suddenly they hear a tiger roar. One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his backpack. ‘You’re crazy, you’ll never out-run a tiger,’ says the other explorer. ‘I don’t have to out-run the tiger,’ he replies. ‘I just have to out-run you.’

The pages of Predatory Thinking are full of stories like that, with Trott telling them straight from the heart is his own distinctive style – very much as he speaks. I describe it as ‘street wisdom’ because it’s all about people and, woven in amongst classic examples such as Churchill, Einstein and Jobs you find actors, guitarists, racing drivers, football coaches and people as diverse as Vietcong soldiers and a plumber.

Predatory Thinking – and its predecessor Creative Mischief – give you the distilled wisdom of a lifetime and it’s too good to be confined simply to the creative community that usually follow Dave Trott. You will find yourself choosing your favourite stories, telling them at your next meeting and wanting more. And the brilliant thing is that you can feed the habit because these books are essentially compilations of Dave Trott’s regular blogposts.  Which means you can find more on a regular basis at these sites:





Predatory Thinking can be found in print and on Kindle by clicking on the book: