Master Storytelling: Short & ENGAGING Techniques

Sherri is writing in talking about her story, saying her story is too long every time she tries to tell it and she's having a hard time cutting it down to the essentials. So when you're telling your story to people, how do you make it impactful without talking for too long?

Probably the first thing is think about the audience you're trying to serve. So, you know, I mentioned that word empathy. You know, what problem are you trying to solve? What pain point? And if you can tell them your story reflecting against their needs and really speaking for their hearts, then I think you're on a winner. And then make it really simple. Use language that's simple, understandable, compelling, exciting, evocative, and you are absolutely on a winner. And I just think when I look at, you know, the companies that have been turned down for money, some of them because they probably had to refine their stories. There's tons of, you know, like I just mentioned, people like Tangle Teaser, you know, revenues now $23 million. They got turned down another chunky revenues like $10 million. All these companies have been out there either at a stage where they've gone through friends and family, angel investing, trying to raise money. And the key thing was their pitch had to be evolved and shortened and crisped. So it is really good. The other thing actually around this, I think it was fair to say, just give them enough of the story to tease them for the next chapter. Don't try and read the whole book at once, just tease them. And what you really want with a great story, you want the foreword, which is whatever elevator pitch, whatever you want to call it, but it's compelling, evocative, audience-centered, and it just gives them enough to say, wow, I want to go to the next stage and then the next stage is the next stage. And then they open the rich fabric of the whole, whole book chapter by chapter.

Yeah, just like being a good salesperson, you know, the best salespeople use their ears more than their mouth. You want to be a good storyteller. It starts by listening before talking, understanding who they are and what they need, because you have 1,000 stories you can tell. Steve and I could tell 1,000 stories about different things from our past. But it's picking the 3 out of those 1,000 that's going to make an impact on this person in front of you. And so if you have no idea who you're talking to, it makes it harder. You could pick your most effective story, but if you have a little bit more context on who they are, what they're going through, then you can select the right stories from your past that will have a meaningful impact on them so you don't go too long and get really boring.

Yeah. And then just a final thing, Evan, on that is I always love to listen to stories that tell me about how customers have been successful. So if you're at a stage where you got some early customers, go and listen to Evan's point, to those customers, and they will tell your story better than anybody could in the world. And then you want to bottle that. And if you can tell the customer story of your product or your service, how it's changed their lives, how it's made their lives easier, you're on a winner. You're absolutely unstoppable. Get customers to tell your story for you.