Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Jargon. You might understand it, but odds are your audience won’t. The best way to ensure that your message sticks is with a story that hooks your audience, uses clear and simple messages, fosters a sense of anticipation, and inspires a feeling of hope or possibility.

Storytelling is one element of effective communication; it is the art of creating a narrative that resonates with your audience. A compelling story will make your audience think, feel, and do certain things. By setting your intentions for what you want your audience to think, feel, and do, you can then craft your story to ensure you elicit that result.

Know your audience

An audience-first approach is the foundation that creates a solid base for your story. Understanding who is the receiver of your message is critical to helping you craft a story that resonates. Remember, an audience can be a single person, not just a group; whether you are delivering a message to your manager, a group of similarly-skilled colleagues, or a heterogeneous group of customers, step one is to learn as much as possible about them. Below are just two simple approaches to researching an audience:

1. Social media accounts: Whether it’s LinkedIn or other social platforms, you can learn a lot about an individual from these sources.
2. If you are speaking at an event: Ask the event organizer for details about the participants.

When crafting your story, think like the writers of a Disney/Pixar movie. What do I mean by this? These writers design a story where the 4-year-old and the 40-year-old are watching the same scene, but laughing for different reasons. Regardless of the audience make up, the Disney/Pixar stories evoke the result that the writers set out to achieve: the audience ‘thinks’ the scene is funny; they ‘feel’ good watching it; and they ‘do’ laugh. The writers succeed in achieving their goals by making the language that they use relevant to all audience members.

Foundation before flair

Have you ever read something and got lost in all of the verbose or flowery language? How was that experience? Did you understand the message? Was the message even evident? To be an effective storyteller, one must be able to answer the following four foundational questions:

1. What: This is the ‘it’ that you are trying to communicate. For instance, are you describing a product or service? Providing information in the form of a notification?
2. So what: Your audience will ask…Why should I care? How does it help me? What’s in it for me?
3. What’s different: Your audience will ask…How is your service/product different from your competitor? Why should I work with you over them?
4. What now: This is the action you want your audience to take. Do you want them to book an appointment? Ask for a demo of your tool?

Answers to these questions make up a solid base on which to build your story. Once these are clearly and concisely articulated, then you can add flair. And the type of flair is based on the make-up of your audience. What do I mean by this? If you are delivering a story to an audience of financial analysts, you might want to add flair that includes staggering statistics or a case study that highlights how a company soared because of innovative financial operations.

Stories boost business success

Compelling stories are a valuable business tool. They can make a human connection; give the audience confidence in you as an expert; catalyze a behavior or action; and can set you apart from your competitors.
Storytelling is an art, and can be used for many situations including seeking funding, inspiring employees, obtaining new clients, and demonstrating a product, among others. Simply put: Upskilling in this area of effective communication can add to your bottom line.

This is a contributed blog post by Susan DiClemente, a communications coach and consultant. With over 30 years of experience in the life sciences sector, Susan has a rich background in strategic communications, project and people management, and professional coaching. Her expertise uniquely positions her to assist clients with strategic communications planning and execution, fostering both personal and professional growth. Susan’s collaborative approach with executives and project teams has consistently transformed goals into clear, actionable plans, yielding measurable success and exponential growth. Her ability to introduce new perspectives and challenge existing assumptions opens up previously unseen possibilities and opportunities for her clients.

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