Presentation Tips

“During presentation sessions where decision has to be made, how would audiences judge? Would they think and judge ideally? or would their decision be influenced by emotions?”

In most of the cases, you’d think they will think and judge ideally and make decisions, but a research shows that 85% of audiences make decisions being influenced by ’emotion’.

This means that we need emotional presentation if the purpose and goal of the presentation is ‘persuading audiences’.
This is why we need ‘storytelling’ factor – the emotional key to touch and move audiences’ heart and mind.
 

■ Emotional Key that moves audiences’ heart – Storytelling

 
Storytelling is a combination of word ‘Story’ and ‘Telling’, and has a meaning of delivering contents to audiences in more fun, exciting and live stories.
Storytelling is started from a literary term and is now being used as a marketing method.

Storytelling not only contains the meaning of delivery-‘telling’, but also contains ‘overall process’ of creating, forming and delivering stories.
It’s a effective message delivering method utilizing the power of story structure.

■ Persuasive Storytelling, power of story

Before we talk about ‘structure factors of storytelling’in earnest, we’d like to briefly talk about how important the power of story is.

An owner of a shop in ‘China’- the heaven of bicycles had a concern because of ‘so many illegally parked bicycles’ in front of the shop.
It was serious enough to disturb business, so he made signs saying ‘No Bicycle Parking’ but it was no use.
But, soon the issue was solved clearly.

How will the [No Bicycle Parking] words get power with storytelling?  
Would there be any storytelling phrase that can persuade people who park their bicycles illegally?

“Bicycles for Free. Available for anyone who needs.”

■ Presentation meets Storytelling

 
Giving presentation is ‘telling’ and ‘story’ is the heart of presentation.
The core topic of story has to match with the goals the audiences want in order to prepare persuasive power.
 
● 4 elements of Storytelling
 
① Message(theme)
② Conflict
③ Character
④ Plot(structure)

❶ Message(theme)
: Story must have only one message. The destination that audiences will land through the story must be one. If you want to include more messages, you need to prioritize messages.
But, it can’t be more clear than having only one message.
(i.e.: A message from a fairy tale ‘The body who cried wolf’ – if you keep lying, people won’t trust you when you tell the truth.)
 
❷ Conflict
: ‘No conflict, No Story’. Conflict is driving force for good stories and the best ways to maximize the goal achievement.
Because people tend to find solutions by instinct when they face conflict.
 
❸ Character
: In order to express successful conflict, we need characters who claim different opinions. Characters do not always mean people. Anything capable of including desire towards something, behaving and taking responsibilities for the outcome can become characters.
 
❹ Plot(structure, flow)
: Plot means works and method that connects story lines or various cases into one.
There are various ways to form a story. In general, we need formats that can hold the story flow well.
 
Let’s plan a presentation based on the 4 elements of storytelling.
If we consider the fact that people’s knowledge and memory structure are formed as ‘storytelling method’, we should be able to go one step closer to persuasive presentation.
 

1. Think about what s/he wants to hear first.
2. Start with giving assurance that I agree with your thoughts.
3. Understand his/her characteristics accurately and appeal to his/her emotions.
4. Provide simple opinion and appropriate basis to back up.
5. Polish up your skill to express even negative messages positively and to tell hopes before despair.