How to avoid the data dump and be persuasive

Business presentation is all about persuasion.

I recently worked with a client who had a tough sell. He needed to persuade his leadership team and board to spend a lot more money on a project they’d already sunk a lot of money into. He faced scepticism and hard questions. He had minimal amount of time to get his point across.

His answer: use more data! Rely on the numbers. More graphs. More statistics.

You won’t be surprised that I suggested another approach. Sure, we need the financials and the metrics. But if you want people to change their view or get excited, we need to engage their emotions. We need to think of our audience first, and us, second.

How storytelling persuades

Business presentation is all about persuasion. A company presents itself to a customer to persuade them to buy their product. A project leader presents plans to the management to persuade them that the strategy will work.

But when you use slides laden with bullet-points these aren’t focused on the audience. Instead, they’re supporting the case of the presenter. And audiences know this.

They also know when they aren’t being shown the complete picture – but cherry-picked figures. Audiences are more likely to listen if you take a narrative approach, relying on logic and emotion, while building your case. Make your story come to life, bring in colour.

If you’re talking about a future project you often need to describe the present (where you are) and the future (where you want to be) and shift between the two – all the while showing what’s at stake if you do nothing.

5 reasons to combine storytelling with business presentations 

  1. Storytelling can show the audience qualitative information that cannot be laid out through bullet-points and numbers.   
  2. It can paint a full picture of both the positives and negatives of any business challenges. Not just the good ones. 
  3. Narratives show a complete process of a business strategy. From its inception to the final implementation plans. 
  4. Storytelling appeals to how we think. According to Princeton’s Uri Hasson, ‘By simply telling a story, a person could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners’ brains.’ 
  5. Through storytelling, the teller and listener synchronise their mindsets in an extraordinary process called neural coupling. 

Any business presentation’s ultimate goal is to convince the audience. This is why we need to harness the power of words not just numbers.

Photo by Evgeny Atamanenko

Why narrative memos focus the mind and mean strategies stick

Narrative memos help focus the mind.

We know the drill. A meeting starts with the presenter taking charge and facilitating bullet-point discussions from powerpoint slides. Or worse, reading directly from the slides that are crammed with too much text and numbers.

Inwardly, there’s a collective groan. A slow death-by-powerpoint.

Amazon takes a different approach. In the 2018 Annual Shareholders report, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, admitted they’d scrapped the use of powerpoints during meetings. As he puts it, ‘We write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of study hall.’ 

Imagine the scene, the execs are sitting quietly, as if about to start an exam. No-one talks. Kinda defies belief.

Here’s why.

  1. Narrative memos help focus the mind.Participants in meetings are usually distracted by their long to-do list. Often, they bring issues with them as they take a seat.  Yet, when they start to read the memo, they shift their attention to the common agenda at hand.  
  2. Everyone starts on the same page. Bullet-points tend to lead to diverse interpretations. As a result, arguments can dominate meetings instead of a collective goal. 
  3. Narrative strategies stick. Neuroscientists show how the human brain is wired for stories. In our everyday life, we recall and retain events and information because of the stories we hear. This is mirrored in the narrative memo approach. It allows the audience to remember the strategies that management wants its people to remember.

Of course, careful thought needs to go into these narratives.

As Jeff Bezo says,  ‘Great memos are written and rewritten, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind. They simply can’t be done in a day or two.’

So, when you wonder why nothing happens after your next meeting, why not give it a try? Start small. You don’t need to scribe 6 pages. Try with one narrative page, find the person in your team who enjoys writing and using language. There’s always one. Then introduce it – once a fortnight perhaps – as a pilot and see if you get better results.

Given that Amazon is one of the most successful companies on the planet, there’s likely to be some wisdom behind the approach! 

Thoughts?