Probably because already they’re drowning in a sea of words.

There are so many words coming at us all the time that we’re desperate for a reason to dismiss yours and move on. But there will be things which are “front of mind” for your audience, and you can use these to hijack their attention long enough to get your message across. This short film will show you how to make your message Timely, Relatable, Unexpected and Emotionally Engaging.

Effective communication means more that just giving people a list of facts and hoping they remember them. Wrap those facts up in a story and you are far more likely to get people to pay attention. Better still, they will retell your story to others if you get it right.

These two videos show how Nike changed their approach to storytelling. Their first TV ad from 1982 is about the company. The people who MAKE the shoe are the hero of the story. The second video from Nike’s 2012 ad campaign makes the people who WEAR the shoe the hero of the story.

Version 1 is your “foundation” story, the story of how you/your company got to where you are today. Version two is your “mentor” story. This tells how you are helping your customers get where they want to go.

Remember, you can only really tell your foundation story once. You can tell as many mentor stories as you have customers. And let’s be honest, nobody likes listening to someone go on about how great they are. We find them boring.

Finally, a word on how to make a presentation work so that what you show doesn’t clash with what you tell. If you don’t get the visual and verbal parts of any presentation working in harmony, you’ll leave your audience bored or confused.

More storytelling advice here and presentation tips here

Click here to download the worksheets for this presentation