It´s great to tell a story. But there might be traps ahead!

Picture it!

On top of that we have also been searching for nice visuals to optically pimp up our presentation. And last but not least we have gone the extra mile and wrapped all this into a really nice story, we added emotions to this totally unemotional topic, and we trust these will help us and our presentation to be remembered.

Now we are very passionate about the topic and our presentation. But all of a sudden we look into puzzled faces during the meeting and hear a lot of questions back from our audience. It appears the great points we have addressed were not understood by anybody in this meeting…

What went wrong?

Let´s have a look at the typical meeting and storytelling pitfalls

Below listed you find in bullet points those mistakes in meeting presentations and stories that I´ve seen quite often. Which doesn´t mean there are not more and other traps ahead waiting for you 😉

• meeting topic not clear, no precise target of the presentation is visible and communicated
• no logic and easy to understand flow, not following consequently a common thread, getting lost in details that are not relevant for the key message(s) you want to address here
• not taking the (professional and personal) interests of the individual audience members into consideration, not anticipating your audience´s questions back
• the story is targeting to wrap the business case and data content into an emotional message, but it is too long and complicated, the analogy too abstract, the images are too “standard” and do not fully visually and/or emotionally support the point(s) you are trying to draw attention to
• the story is missing a clear link back to the underlying business issue
• the data shown is wrong, not consistent, graphs are not illustrating the numbers clearly and easily understandable but are adding confusion and room for mis-interpretation and mis-understanding
• and coming back to what´s been said at the beginning: an outspoken call2action is missing at the end, clarity on the next steps and who will do what until when – so the overall target of this meeting and storytelling remains unclear.

Catch the cheese without the mousetrap…

At the end of the day it´s all about telling a compelling story and onboarding your audience so well that you achieve what you´ve been aiming for, right? Here is a possible 5-step plan to success:

1. Fully understand the context and the content yourself – sounds obvious, but it´s often not truly the case.
2. Get to know your target group, your audience – their individual interests and personalities.
3. Write down your storyboard – to achieve full clarity on the leading thread of your presentation and an outline of the story.
4. Create your design – find appropriate visuals/analogy/story to be the best (emotional) match with your message(s) and your audience.
5. Take your time for finetuning – make sure to have a final very critical look at your presentation with fresh eyes before you go into the meeting

Want more?

Want to avoid potential pitfalls in your future presentations, the typical traps to fall into when telling a story, and the consequent disappointment in your meetings for both your audience and yourself? Believe it or not, many of your colleagues face a similar challenge. Treat yourself to an Upskilling on the topic of data driven storytelling – it’s a highly interactive, fun activity and you will learn a ton! Get in touch at info@ftop.ch and ask for a tailored Upskilling for you and your team. See you there!