How to use well-loved stories to make your audience wake up

Article contributed by Sean DSouza.

Let’s face it. When you’re the twentieth person to stand up and do your BNI presentation, you’re the twentieth. (aagh!)

And unless you say something extremely interesting, your message will pass like a ship in the night.
So how do you use stories to create drama? And how do you link the stories back to what you do for a living?

Let’s take an example:
Let’s say you help your customers get rid of chronic back pain. So yeah, you stand up, and say, ‘Hey, I help my customers get rid of chronic back pain.’

Now don’t get me wrong.
A business that is so crystal-clear about their target audience, is easily streets ahead of other businesses. But in a networking scenario, it’s that ship-in-the-night-syndrome. If you really want to wake up your audience, you need to tell a story. And then relate that story back to what you do.

So how would you use a story?
First, take a story that anyone (and almost everyone can relate to).

E.g. Superman.
He’s on the floor.
He’s writhing in pain.
At which point you ask the audience: Why do you think Superman’s writhing in pain on the floor? And guess what? Your audience will revert back to the story they know. And most people will say Kryptonite.

But you reveal that it’s not Kryptonite, but chronic back pain.
That back pain prevents Superman from being Superman.

Now your audience is wide awake, and it’s time to link back to what you do. About how back pain works and makes Superfolk into non-super.
Then you bring up the solution to the back pain. Which is your service, of course.

There are many ways to use well-loved stories to spruce up your presentation, and link it to your business:
1) Goldilocks and the Three Bears:
Occupations:
1) Detective Agency: Hired to find the perpetrator.
2) Real estate agent: Because the bears are sick of people breaking in.
3) Pest control: Because yeah, yeah that Goldilocks is a pest.

2) Red Riding Hood
1) Marketing Consulting: Because you don’t want the wrong advice
2) Travel Agency: Because you don’t want to go into ‘nasty’ areas
3) Car Rental: Because walking can be ‘dangerous’ to your health.

3) Santa Claus
1) Hiring Staff: You want a good employment contract with all those elves.
2) Finance: You’ll need some cash to manufacture all those toys.
3) Gym: Santa’s going to need some help getting down those chimneys (after putting a few kilos)

As you can see, I’ve linked businesses and well-loved stories. And so can you.

So you know what you have to do, right?
Find a three-year old kid. And borrow some of those story books with well-loved stories.
Link them to your business and you’ll find your audience listening, loving and most importantly remembering your presentation for a long, long time.

Stories work really well to get an audience awake.
But nothing quite beats well-loved stories.

Sean DSouza
http://www.psychotactics.com