Storytelling is ingrained in our culture from the day we are born.
Storytelling has the ability to command the attention of an audience and once you’ve hooked them in, you can take them in any direction you wish to lead them. As a HR manager or marketing executive, does this not sound appealing? Learning to communicate is one thing, but mastering the art of conveying information without fault with high chances of engagement takes both a fair amount of practise and a box full of tricks.
At All Good Tales, we can actually help you with both. However, today we want to highlight some handy tools and tricks to help you become a better storyteller in the workplace.
Photo editing software
The key to telling a good story in your presentations or pitches is to build your own custom slide deck. When I say custom, I don’t just mean taking random images from online and bunging them into one slideshow. By custom I mean personal. If there is a specific topic which you are going to talk about, you don’t want to confuse your audience by having irrelevant images or too much text displayed on screen. You want to be able to say as much as you can but with few words with each slide. This can be achieved with some practise on even the most basic photo editing software. Using free tools such as Canva or Pixlr, you can add personality to your slides and in turn, tell a better story.
Infographics
Charts and graphs are cool, but only if they’re made simply. Nobody in the front row of your presentation is going to have the time or the patience to keep up with your complex diagrams overcomplicated charts. These need to be kept simple, attractive and most of all, engaging. The facts and figures should jump out and strike the audience. They act as suspense builders and turning points for your story. Tools such as Piktochart or Infogr.am are free to use and extremely user-friendly for those of us who don’t necessarily have graphic design in our wheelhouse.
Audio Clips
Stories don’t have to be solely visual. Back in the 1920’s and 1930’s, radio storytelling
was a common feature on some of the biggest broadcasters all over the world. Since then, this tradition has transcended into the modern age in the form of podcasts. We listen to storytelling podcasts and audiobooks all of the time, getting lost in fantasy worlds created for our entertainment. Why not apply this to your storytelling strategies? With one click of a button, you can transport your entire audience into a world you’ve created. A world where you make the rules and everyone else must obey. This dynamic can be extremely effective for your presentations. Not only does audio act as a break from the visuals, you are also telling a story across multiple mediums, snatching the attention of those who want to hear what you have to say.
Slideshow Remote
This is quite a specific requirement, but one worth investing in. When one of us here at All Good Tales delivers a talk or course, we always set up our slideshows in a way which allows us to move freely around the room. We do this through a slideshow remote. This way, we are not stationary at the computer, nor are we stuck behind a podium which can block us from the audience’s view. This helps establish command of the audience. We become a dominant force within the room, able to pounce on an unwary audience without warning.
Here at All Good Tales we are doing great work for brands like Kingspan, Ancestry.com, and the DAA, to name just a few. We are building brand newsrooms, executing exciting PR strategies, and training key staff how to source, structure and tell great stories. For more information please click here or call Gaye on (01) 254 1845.
