As presenters, we know that the audience is the most important thing. We’ve discussed over and over again how the audience’s needs are the most important consideration when preparing a presentation. All content and design should be tailored specifically to them, which means explicitly revealing the benefit of what you’re offering. This can be done with grace and impact through a story– the humble device allows audience members to visualize what it would be like to reap the rewards that would result from embracing what your presentation is offering. Here are some ideas on how to spell out the benefit of your presentation through stories.
Spell it Out
A piece of advice that perpetually rattles in our brains when musing about presentations is Jerry Weissman’s idea of never making the audience think. Each part of your presentation should have the utmost transparency– every connection, every relationship, every correlation should be intuitive– and that also goes for spelling out the benefit of your presentation. What are you offering your audience? Why will this help them? Why is it important? Or better yet, why is it crucial to their lives? Spell it out for them. Don’t expect them to make the connection themselves because often times they won’t. They’ll be too distracted, or they’ll miss a connection that’s important. Either way, it’s imperative to say how your presentation’s material benefits them, and a greatly effective way to do this is by showing it through a story.
Stories make information concrete, realistic and relatable. It’s much easier for your audience to make a connection with the fictional character Sally who has three kids and a dog than with a dense stack of information. If you spell out the particular benefit for Sally, the audience will be much more likely to associate her story with what they can gain from embracing your spiel.
Connect the Dots
Stories also help the audience connect the dots from cumbersome data points to real life situations. It spells out the benefit– as Presenting to Win’s Weissman encourages– in the clearest way because the audience sees themselves in the characters. It gives them the opportunity to concretely visualize how your content can benefit their life.
It’s also compelling to spell out the benefit of the benefit, an idea we first learned from Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick. Rather than conclude with the story of how Sally saved hours of time each day by switching to a new management tool, for example, take it one step further and relate to the audience how she spends that extra time playing with her children. That’s precisely the idea of spelling out the benefit of the benefit: this management tool will save you time– time that you could spend playing with your children. And as always, it’s more impactful to show this extra benefit through a story, giving your audience the chance to say, “I could use that extra time like Sally does. It would be great for me!”
Call to Action
It’s always a good idea to include a call to action in your presentation. Don’t leave the audience hanging. Tell them how they can act on the information they just heard. This is a great way to reinforce again the benefit you’ve already spelled out for the audience. And if you want to leave a memorable and compelling impact on your audience, connect the call to action to your story. It could be something as simple as: “You can use this tool just like Sally and suddenly have more time to do what you really want to do.” Try it out in your next presentation.
