Life before PowerPoint … The art of storytelling

If a picture is worth a 1000 words, what is a story worth?

I can remember teaching in graduate school when there was no PowerPoint.  The only projector was an “overhead”, with hand drawn transparencies. And, if you wanted handouts, you braved the purple ink stains of mimeograph machines.  To grab and hold attention in those “ancient times” required great stories and anecdotes.  This is still true today.

PowerPoint – Crutch or Tool?

Before we go any further, I need to make a full, self disclosure.  I’m the Retail U Prof with PowerPoint decks of over 400 slides.  After teaching in ancient times (the ‘70s) with no tools, I am big fan of using PowerPoint to capture and portray key concepts … especially ones requiring complex visuals. But, I’m probably also guilty of “packaging too much” for “reference”.  In my humble defense, I try to use a lot of photos.

We’ve all experienced “PowerPoint Death”.  The sins of PowerPoint are too numerous to mention, but here are five of my pet peeves:

· Too much detail and information on a slide

· Fonts so small you can’t read what is there

· Since you can’t read it, the presenter reads all slides for you

· So much flash and bling you don’t know where to focus

· No key messages … no “wow” or key take aways

One of the greatest PowerPoint presentations I ever witnessed was less than 10 slides.  No more than 3 or 4 bullet points on a slide, and most of them were single words.  The “presenter”, who held the audience spell bound for two hours, was a master story teller.  No one remembered the “slides”, but they remembered the powerful stories … and repeated them to others, adding their personal reflections.  Now that’s engagement!

I sincerely believe that with PowerPoint we have become lazy.  Just put it all on the slide … they will get it.  With PowerPoint you can package it all up and not worry that the details will be missed.  But in doing so,  haven’t we also lost the art of using the rich medium of telling stories to engage others at a personal level beyond mere facts?

Plea from Retail Sales Staff - More Stories … Less Slides!

I have the opportunity to visit a lot of retail stores and visit with store staff worldwide.  If there is one common outcry, it’s about all of the vendor PowerPoint decks used for staff training.  Many of these vendor decks currently exceed 50 slides or more!  How big is your “training deck”?

Retailers and staff are not looking for more specs and details … most of that is already on the web anyway!  What really makes a difference in staff training is 3 to 5 reasons to buy – backed up with personal stories of how to illustrate benefits and value.  Training is even better if the stories can be aligned with personal demos, which engage consumers.  No, we are not talking about “scripts” or even “talking points”.  The goal is being able to engage consumers in dialog about how the products create a solution personally relevant for them.

What makes a great story

There is something about being gathered around a camp fire that engenders good story telling.   Maybe it goes back to our genetics, or the need for stories to transmit oral history before PowerPoint.  As a sidebar, I guess you might argue that the poor story tellers had to resort to drawing petroglyphs … the first “slide decks” recorded on cave walls.

Something seems to have happened between the camp fire and the corporate hallways.  In the haste for instant communication and “file sharing”, the art of using stories seems to have been lost.  PowerPoint engages the “head” and primarily focuses on the facts.  It is impersonal without a “story” or an emotional attachment.  Great stories engage both the heart and mind in ways that move people to action. 

Great leaders and sales people can boil down the essence of their message in a story of two minutes or less.  The really powerful stories will contain all of the following elements:  

1. Draws on your personal experience and past

2. Draws upon “heart” and resonates emotionally with your audience 

3. Inspires your audience to take action because it’s fueled by passion

4. Illustrates with a vivid, personalized example

5. Engages your audience through lifestyle relationships

6. Teaches an important lesson and/or provides key take aways

7. And describes what it feels like when you have found a solution

Don’t believe in the power of stories at retail?  Go book a studio session at Apple.  Then count all of the personalized stories and examples!

Your Litmus Test:  Can you and your staff tell a compelling personalized story about your products in two minutes or less?

Comments

[Chris Petersen]

Jacqueline, thanks for your comment. I appreciate the feedback from someone who manages to tell great stories of her own. I’m an avid reader of http://www.routes2market.com/newsletter and can’t wait to see what story you’ll spin in your next issue!

Chris

From: typepad@sixapart.com [mailto:typepad@sixapart.com]
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2009 2:12 PM
To: Chris Petersen
Subject: [Results Count ... everything else is conversation.] Jacqueline Franklin submitted a comment to 'Life before PowerPoint … The art of storytelling'.

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[Jacqueline Franklin]

So true, Chris! And, I like the encapsulation in 7 points at the end.

Jacqueline

[Chris Petersen]

John, thank you for your comment on this timely topic and sharing your insights. There is nothing worse than “Death by Powerpoint” in a client meeting. I’m very impressed with your approach of just using about 8 words per frame … it certainly keeps attention on the dialog and not the slide. You are absolutely right about the importance of questions … they go hand in hand with the art of telling good stories. We’ll have to explore the topic of asking great questions in another post.

Chris

From: typepad@sixapart.com [mailto:typepad@sixapart.com]
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 9:14 AM
To: Chris Petersen
Subject: [Results Count ... everything else is conversation.] John Parham submitted a comment to 'Life before PowerPoint … The art of storytelling'.

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[John Parham]

Great insight Chris. Who has not seen the dread on peoples faces as you plug in the PPT.
As an agency we try to pleasantly surprise them with a presentation that last no more than 20 minutes and contains no more than eight words per frame. Even better if our questions and conversation/ stories prior to the presentation, become the presentation.

We can always be better and this article was a reminder how.

Best,

JP