Civiello Communications Group Blog

Stories that Sell

In his new, best selling book, "Tell to Win," Hollywood dealmaker Peter Guber says "if you can't tell it, you can't sell it." You have to be able to give examples, tell stories to prove your point, get the job or sell your service. Stories are attention getters. Think about the speakers you've heard. When they say, "okay, let me tell you a little story," you listen up, right? The key here is "little." If that speaker goes on too long you tune out. Here's the formula for the short story that works everytime: Situation, Problem, Solution. With the situation you conjure a picture. With the problem you describe the conflict or status quo. In the solution you describe what you do that makes life better..Aim at a 30 second telling. I'm tellin' you, it works.

Conferences that Keep your Attention

Everyone battles with keeping an audience's attention. Fortune magazine had to capture and keep techies attention! Here's 3 ways they succeeded at FORTUNE BRAINSTORM TECH in Aspen:

1) Great line up of speakers - Big names in the tech business and beyond and they were interviewed in different groupings in different parts of the room. 

2) Reinforcing takeaways - They immediately captured a speaker's best thoughts, best quotes on a monitor beside the stage.

3) Working WITH the audience - They encouraged you to tweet...about what you were hearing onstage..everyone in the audience read your tweets in a crawl on monitors placed throughout the audience. 
 

Prepare to be Surprised

I just heard an NPR reporter ask an author what suprised her in her research on shoplifters. The author umm-ed and ahh-ed for too long and the delay risked the listener wondering if there was anything truly new. As a long time reporter for NBC, asking what surprised didn't surprise me. It's standard...a way of prompting an expert to edit their volumes of information and give the rest of us a reason to make room on our cerebral hard drives! I understand how the author or any expert could have trouble quickly identifying one thing out of reams of data but as a communication coach, I urge all of my clients to think in advance what surprised them before any interview or business presentation. If you don't, you rob yourself of the opportunity to make sure people remember your message.