Success Advice

Be the Story Not Just the Storyteller

Published

4 years ago

Aug 8, 2021

Genevieve Georget

Image Credit: Unsplash

If you’re asked to give a presentation in the final hours of a four-day conference, then brace yourself, because you’re facing some serious impediments. Your audience members have been on a fevered engagement high for half a week. They’re exhausted. They’re ready to catch flights back home. And they’re tapped out on charts and data.

So what do you do if you’re in one of the more unfavorable positions that a public speaker can face? How do you keep an audience engaged during a presentation? You let down your guard — and you let your audience in.

A Tale of Effective Professional Storytelling

If your immediate response is, “Great idea, but a story won’t keep an audience engaged,” you’re incorrect. I’ve seen how powerful storytelling can be, even if your listeners’ minds seem to be wandering.

Take the case of a presenter at a convention I attended. It was the final dinner. About 1,500 of us were sipping coffee, clanking cutlery, and feeling wary of listening to another speech. Our presenter, seemingly unfazed, walked onto the stage full of confidence.

Her speech began on a typical note: She introduced herself as an employee of an organization committed to helping people who have served jail time successfully reintegrate into society. She shared some alarming statistics on how difficult it is for incarcerated people to get a fair shake on the other side of justice.

So far, her approach had been informative. We stirred cream into our coffee, listening politely (but not totally engaged in her speech). Then, it happened: She went into full storytelling mode. With a notable change in her cadence and demeanor, she began talking about how she became a single parent years ago. After giving birth, she worked three jobs while trying to finish school. She regaled us with stories about school bake sales and late-night essays.

Many of us in the audience could relate to her hectic schedule and inability to juggle everything. That is, until she shared a story about the night that a co-worker offered her methamphetamine to help her stay awake. Within a few weeks, she was hooked. And we were riveted by a presentation that had turned very personal.

When the pills ran out, our speaker told us, she became desperate. She stole money from an employer, bought drugs off the streets, and eventually landed in jail for 18 months. She lost everything — including precious time with her daughter.

No one in the audience breathed. No one moved. No one reached for sugar packets across the table. We were all connected by a brilliant woman who understood how to keep an audience truly engaged during a presentation. She wasn’t just telling a story. She was the story. And that changed everything for the audience.

“There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.” – J.K. Rowling

Using Storytelling to Become a Better Speaker

Now, you might never give a speech under such challenging circumstances. However, if you work long enough, you’ll give some kind of presentation or speech during your career. When you’re preparing, remember that one of the most effective strategies to become a better speaker is to use storytelling.

Why do we love stories? Chalk it up to human nature: Stories are how we connect; they help us belong. And when we belong to something, we feel connected to something.

Consider how many times you’ve turned something that has happened in your life into a story, used a story to illustrate a principle, or told a story to emphasize a point. We rely upon these narratives constantly, but we often forget to engage in storytelling when giving professional presentations. As a result, we weaken our connections with our audiences. But often, it’s challenging to share ourselves as storytellers — especially in professional settings.

Eager to find out the secrets of how to become a better presenter and engage your audience with storytelling? Consider these techniques:

1. Show, don’t tell.

Although nitty-gritty details are important, just “telling” facts isn’t the best way to engage an audience. Instead, use sensory descriptions — sights, sounds, and smells — to invite your audience members into the story instead of just telling them about it. This creates a more visceral presentation for your listeners, bringing them into the moment with you and, in turn, sharing the experience directly with them instead of just talking at them.

2. Remember the ‘why.’

Stories are powerful and transformative, but only if you allow them to paint a complete picture as hers did. In order to do this, you need to know the “why” of the story you’re sharing. What are you trying to tell the audience members? What do you want them to take away from your time with them?

The presenter mentioned earlier in the article had a goal: to help her audience understand the difference her organization could make. She could have spent her time sharing a plethora of statistics, but those numbers wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful or transformative as her story. She found a way to help us connect with her company’s purpose on a deeper level by sharing the “why.”

3. Resist the temptation to read aloud.

One of the biggest mistakes speakers make is reading from a script. Although children typically adore being read to, teen and adult audiences require more engagement. The less you rely on reading off a page, the more you’ll be able to connect physically and emotionally with your audience and create a richer experience. Put aside the cue cards in favor of making eye contact, gesturing with your hands, and conveying emotion through facial expressions.

4. Tether your speech to something personal.

Whenever possible, share yourself and your personality in your presentations and speeches. If you’re naturally funny, add humor. If you’re a golfer, use the sport as a metaphor for your message. Above all, offer personal experiences that tie back to the speech you’re giving.

When you share from experience, you invite everyone’s humanity to the table. And this changes the dynamics between you and your audience for the better. The more heartfelt and authentic you are while telling your personal story, the more memorable the presentation will be.

5. Allow yourself to get emotional.

It’s often thought that being emotional in professional settings is inappropriate. But emotions are the gateway to seeing another human being and the road they’ve walked. When listeners see a genuine tear in the corner of a keynote speaker’s eye, for example, they become riveted with the person’s presentation. Showing your feelings gives audience members permission to embrace their feelings, too.

Stories are an art form in and of themselves. And mastering the art of storytelling is one of the primary ways to become a better speaker. The more you allow stories to organically arise in your presentations — whether that’s in a five-minute speech to the Rotary Club about your newest product or a 40-minute TED-style talk — the more you can create richer and deeper experiences for your audiences.

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Genevieve Georget

Genevieve Georget is an executive editor at Round Table Companies, the publisher of Conscious Capitalism Press. She is a full-time storyteller whose work as a writer and photographer has been seen on Oprah.com, “The Good Mother Project,” “Love in the Rockies,” “Wedding Bells Magazine,” the “Huffington Post,” and among her online community of 35,000 people. Genevieve’s first book, “Her Own Wild Winds,” was published in September 2016 and her second book, “Solace,” was released in the fall of 2019.

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And way too often, you lose that bet.

You don’t need another list of the “Top 10 Agencies” with five-star testimonials and polished logos. You need to know which marketer can actually drive results for your business. Not in theory. In practice.

This is where entrepreneurs are learning to pivot. And it’s why a new platform called TruthMetric.com is turning heads across the startup world.

Why Most Startups Burn Through 3–6 Marketers Before Finding the Right One

Here’s the hard truth: most startups don’t fail because of their product, they fail because they can’t get sales or sell it fast enough. And in trying to fix that, founders usually go through five or six marketers, burning tens of thousands before finding someone who truly knows how to convert.

You build your product, get your website live, maybe even launch an ad campaign. But when you search for help and look up how to “hire a YouTube ads agency” or “top Facebook ad expert for Shopify”, you get hit with a sea of shiny portfolios, “ninja” titles, and endless promises.

Three months later, you’re still waiting on your first profitable campaign, and you’re most likely out tens of thousands, feeling utterly defeated…and maybe grinning with an affinity for that upcoming boxing class with a picture of that marketer’s fac……nevermind.

If this sounds like you, it’s time for what one entrepreneur called a strategic shift to scale smarter, not harder.

Introducing TruthMetric.com: The Transparent Marketplace for Hiring Marketers Who Deliver

TruthMetric.com isn’t just another freelancer platform or agency directory. It’s the first hiring solution where you can see three years of real, verified marketing performance before spending a dime.

That includes:

Verified ad campaign performance
Actual return on ad spend (ROAS)
Industry-specific experience
Platform specialties (Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Google Ads, and more)

Whether you’re looking for a Facebook ads expert, a TikTok marketer, or a YouTube growth strategist, TruthMetric.com lets you filter and compare based on what actually matters, results.

This level of clarity is something you won’t find on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. And it solves what many founders know too well as the New York Pizza Problem: where every marketer claims they’re “the best,” just like every pizzeria in Manhattan says they’re #1. Often without showing you results, you get sucked into this dream of collaboration, until the nightmare commences the moment you fork that first invoice payment. Hence the deception that leads to many business owners losing their hard earned savings and budget to launch their grand idea.

With TruthMetric, you finally get the data to decide for yourself, BEFORE you hire. Now if only New York Pizza shops had the same transparency then maybe you’d finally find the best pizza in New York, perhaps the perfect post work out after a boxing sesh? I think so!

Why Founders Are Shifting to Results-First Hiring

Most entrepreneurs think they need to do it all themselves, until they burn out or burn through their budget. That’s exactly why this founder had to drop the Superman complex and hire a marketing genius.

What makes TruthMetric so powerful is that it turns hiring into a confident move, not a hopeful one. You’re no longer guessing. You’re choosing from proven performers. You know what vertical they dominate. You know their past client performance. You see the monthly results from the campaigns they ran, and the outcomes they achieved.

It’s not just efficient. It’s empowering.

Scaling Quickly Requires Automation and Eliminating the Noise

Founders who scale quickly understand one thing: growth isn’t just about hustle, it’s about systems. TruthMetric is the system for finding great marketers at speed. No more DM’ing ten freelancers or interviewing agencies feeling like you are asking the world of them to just see some prior results. Instead you get to see the information you need to make an informed decision and plug into verified talent, all ready to perform.

This difference allows for you to match perfectly with the right talent quickly. If you’re building your business to run lean and fast, this convenience plugged in with automation can help you scale your small business right alongside your new marketing hires.

Why TruthMetric Is Also a Boon for Marketers, Not Just Founders

This isn’t just a win for founders, it is a gift for great marketers, too.

If you’re a freelance marketer who’s been quietly pulling 10x ROAS for clients while being passed over for flashy agencies, you now have a stage where your results speak louder than your brand.

TruthMetric is a true meritocracy. No fluff. No sales tricks. Just data.

If you’re tired of being overlooked and ready to stand out based on what you actually deliver, this is your home.

The Secret Weapon for Investors and M&A Operators

There’s another angle here that some of our readers might miss.

Investors, private equity firms, and M&A advisors should be drooling at the thought of having a proven talent pool they can plug and play and the ability to use TruthMetric to revive underperforming companies. Imagine acquiring a business or becoming an active investor, then dropping in a verified operator with a history of explosive growth in that niche.

It’s plug-and-play. Scale on demand.

That kind of insight has never been available before. You couldn’t do this on Upwork. You certainly can’t do it through a friend-of-a-friend referral.

And when it comes to attracting high-performing talent, here’s how to hire top talent and keep them around.

Let’s Really Drive This Home…

If you’ve wasted money on agencies or freelancers who couldn’t deliver, it’s not because you’re bad at hiring, it’s because the game was stacked against you. Trusting dreamy charismatic sales pitches over data was a doomed approach from the start.

TruthMetric levels the playing field by showing you what no other talent marketplace does and that’s proof.

Real marketers. Real results. Real growth.

It’s time to stop guessing and start hiring based on data.
Visit TruthMetric.com and make your next marketing hire the one that actually works.

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