I’ve been part of the National Speakers Association since 2019. I love this organization as it’s a bunch of speakers, helping out a bunch of speakers, to be successful in the speaking business (I know, so meta).
On Saturday I had the pleasure of facilitating a Presentation Workshop session for this year’s National Speakers Academy alongside the talented Johanna Walker. We focused on how to flesh out the big idea, get clarity on what our audience needs and wants, how to find, shape and share the appropriate stories for those presentations and how to put it all together and into action.
We don't often get to hear about how what we’ve coached gets applied in “real life” situations and the impact it has.
On Monday we received this email…
Subject: NSA - Storytelling Example / Thank You
Sharing a quick story through email as a way of saying 'thank you' for Saturday's NSA Speaker Academy session...
Tomorrow, I'm tasked with giving a presentation via Zoom to our leadership team at Electronic Arts (gaming company where I currently work). The topic is Diversity and Inclusion hiring progress and, by necessity, is very heavy on metrics, data, graphs, etc. And it can be sooo dry. Following our NSA session, I wondered if I might be able to elevate the presentation by adding a personal story to demonstrate impact.
Today was my own staff meeting (people who report to me). I used it as a practice session #1-for my team to see the diversity and inclusion data and #2-to practice the story with a Zoom audience prior to presenting to our leadership team tomorrow.
The story is about an intern I met Friday. I have a reason why I am telling this story to this audience today... using descriptive terms - including color of shirt the intern is wearing and a description of the nervousness and excitement from the smile on his face. I added some dialogue on what he might be thinking and what I was thinking. I'm not (yet) a great storyteller, but on the zoom call, I watched people actually stop typing and look directly into the zoom camera. I completed the story, tied it to the metrics and ended the call. One of the attendees said out loud "wow, that was powerful."
It worked - with a Zoom call stage in a company meeting. It really worked :-)
Thank you!
Thanks for being courageous and giving it a try!
Thanks for applying what you learned.
Thanks for communicating through storytelling and thanks for sharing the impact!
At Articulated Intelligence we work with business professionals to help make your everyday meetings more impactful and interesting. Reach out, we’d love to connect.
Comments