The central challenge of the MRS Storytelling conference last week was how to tell better stories.
It’s a pain point in the insight sector. And to be honest, most sectors. All audiences are bombarded with so much content. We need stories to cut through.
I quickly wrote up my top three takeaways from the day on LinkedIn – keeping it simple, humanising stories, and needing to be yourself to tell good stories.
But given the sheer amount of thoughtful content on the day, I couldn’t let this pass without going into more detail on each of them.
1. Stories need to be simple
This was undoubtedly the recurring theme of the whole day.
Whether it was “be clear what you’re trying to land” or “perfection is reached when nothing else can be taken away”. We had the rule of three, using six slides for time-starved execs, and telling a story in seven words.
All of these tips focused on reducing content. But of course it’s also possible to provide something more expansive, just using a simpler concept.
You can use:
- Imagery (like bespoke photography in Madano’s segmentations)
- Metaphors (like Pernod Ricard’s Whiskey Mountain and Gin City)
- Or a clear narrative structure (like Nicola Stevens and I did for our presentation)
But perhaps the best advice for keeping it simple is to ask yourself two key questions before even telling your story. What’s the punchline? And why should the audience care?
If you have clear answers to both of these, you won’t go far wrong.
2. Stories need to be human
Grant Feller from Every Rung asked an important question upfront: why we don’t bring our natural storytelling skills to work?
We’re all natural storytellers after all.
For some reason, we suppress this under a barrage of PowerPoint and data. To tell good stories, we just need to humanise what we do and not quash our innate abilities.
Nicola Stevens (presenting with me) asked why we make estimates in our normal lives – like in the supermarket – and not at work. Matt from BAMM asked people to step out of their own eco-chamber. And Just Eat’s brilliant presentation showed the risks of dehumanised stories – in this case, the story of delivery drivers.
What all this has in common is that it’s about evelating the people in what we do. Given we work with customers every day, this should be easy. But it won’t happen unless we make it so.
3. Be yourself when telling stories
The top six presenting tips from Ed Nash, Kate Benson and the senior team at Sky deserve their own blog. But the one which stuck with me was that people need to be comfortable being themselves when telling stories. Being yourself carries more impact and brings the audience with you.
The range of different storytelling styles on display at this conference perfectly demonstrated there’s more than one way to tell a good story.
As Ed said, if you’re an introvert, be 5% less introvert. If you’re nervous, embrace it. It doesn’t serve you to try to present like a Hollywood star, if you don’t have this level of confidence.
Be authentic. It will give your story more impact.
That said, if you naturally don’t prepare for big presentations, don’t like to keep things simple, or are a psychopath, maybe don’t be yourself.
If you’re interested in telling better stories, check out our further top tips here or get in touch about Shed’s storytelling training programme.