Vanessa Van Edwards shows how to make statistics stick by turning them into stories. Use a four-part structure: setup, conflict, aha moment, resolution. A raw percentage gets forgotten; the story behind it gets remembered.
I'm doing a lot of science. I'm doing a lot of studies, and occasionally I will say, "63% of people believe X, Y, and Z." But you notice that I actually remember my studies as stories. So if you have highly technical things or you have lots of phases in your pitch, I actually would prefer you tell it as a story as opposed to statistics. When I have a study, I think of like, okay, what's the setup? Just like a story. What's the conflict? Just like a story. What was the aha moment? That was the discovery. And then what's the resolution? Just like a story. As opposed to, Professor Steven Sesse had two different classes and he found that 66% 36% of his students were more impressed by the book. Like, that's a study versus Professor Stephen Ceci. He sat down and he verbally scripted his classes. He wanted to know— that's a story tone. If you can take even your technical concepts and make them stories, they don't have to be the typical "he walked into a room and then he—" they don't have to be those kinds of stories. Stories can be made from anything.
