Storytelling

Stories are an effective way of presenting your imagination, thoughts, feelings, and ideas to other people. They have the power to inspire, motivate, and change your opinions. Telling stories have always been proved to be the most efficient way of communication. Storytelling became the business buzzword since the eruption of advertising, but now, this skill is not limited to sales and marketing only.

Business storytelling is used to stay connected to your colleagues, staff, suppliers, partners, and your team members. It is the inspiring way to change opinions of your employees or help them achieve the goals which are considered to be impossible by them.

The only way in which business stories differ from other stories is that they have got some motivation, vision, and objective at the end and they are not for entertainment, unlike other stories.

The Importance of Storytelling in Business

• Storytelling technique can be used by team leaders to lead and encourage the team members. Successful leaders tell inspiring stories of their lifetime experiences to their teammates. They portray a picture of the ups and downs of their lives in a beautiful story form and boost the confidence level of those coworkers who have lost hope due to some failure.
• A new member of the organization can help achieve the trust of his colleagues by this useful technique. He can talk about his past life, achievements, his hobbies, personal information using storytelling skills and slowly he will be no longer a stranger to the organization.
• Sales and marketing people master the art of storytelling and conquer the hearts of their customers. For instance, a sales representative trying to convince a new client to buy a product can tell him the story of another customer who purchased the same product and was quite satisfied after using it.

How to Improve Storytelling Skills

• If you wish to become a good story teller, you have to become a good listener first. Try to improve your listening skills and concentrate on other people’s stories; then you will be able to develop excellent storytelling skills.
• If you rehearse and practice the story before you present it to someone else, that will do no harm to you. Practice makes a man perfect.
• Consider all the W’s while telling the story. What is the purpose of telling the story? Who is the main character? What does he want to do? When did the story take place? With a proper context and background, you will be able to capture the audience’s attention in the start.
• The story should contain some message in it. A team leader should consider the objectives he wants to convey to his team members. First, decide upon a particular goal of your story then think of ways to achieve that purpose.
• The main character of the story must be engaged in some activities. He must make some endeavors, take a risk, achieve success, experience a failure. The more the story is full of actions, the more lasting impact it has on your listeners. They will also learn many positive and negative things from the heroes experiences.
• The story should end in such a way that it leaves a mark on the minds of your audience. The business stories always have a moral at the end. Some use them to convince their customers, some use to motivate their team members, and some try to convince their superiors in a meeting through storytelling.
• In the end, keep it simple. You don’t need to make confusing situations with your complex stories.

Job profiles that require this skill