Earlier this week I was gobsmacked by this visual.
It is brilliantly simple, isn’t it? Stories trump statistics. All. The. Time.
I am sharing this because far too many of us, myself included, get stuck in certain parts of our business or professional lives.
See, technology has given us way more data than we could ever imagine. And every time we are coerced into diving into more rabbit holes, squirrelling away to make something even more perfect, caught up in our underwear, or unable to see the forest for the trees, we are really just stuck in the data stage.
How it might work for you
Some people are absolutely amazing at sifting and sorting the data. The trouble is, that’s as far as they go. And are annoyed when others don’t ‘get’ them.
Still, others can arrange all that data into neat piles. The effort to get those piles arranged is often huge and the end result is effective, especially for the OCDs in the crowd. But, unfortunately, artfully arranging something too often fails to lead to the right conclusion or path.
Many of us love graphs. Graphs are the linear representations of where we have been and perhaps where we are going. The wretched part about presenting visually is that the process we must endure from start to end is fraught with difficulties. Not the least of which we generally lose the audience after 30 seconds.
Your Power, Your Story
When we tell a story, we use lots of emotion and feeling and lightly pepper it with logic (facts or data). We ignore the sorting and arranging stages and may or may not address the visual presentation. The story allows us to share the objective, the beginning, the endpoint and all the important points in between. Talking down, talking jargon, and talking to oneself fall away. We are merely telling a delicious story and bringing the audience along for the ride.
Can you see all the possibilities you have available to promote yourself, your business, idea, product, team accomplishments and passion project by telling a story? Engage us from the beginning and tell us your story.
Need some help figuring out what your story is? Reply to this, and I’ll help you.
