Hey there! Do you love stories? Of course, you do! Everyone loves a good story. Think about your favorite movie, book, or even a video game. What makes it so cool? It’s the story!
Now, what if I told you that being a great storyteller isn’t just for books and movies? It’s a superpower you can use in real life. And guess what? It can even help you build an awesome lemonade stand, create a club, or one day, run a huge company! This is called storytelling for business, and it’s one of the most important storytelling skills you can learn.
This isn’t hard. I promise. Just give me nine minutes—one for each big idea—and you’ll see how it all works. Let’s go!
Minute 1: Why Your Brain is Begging for a Story
Close your eyes and think of the number 7. Now, think of a bright red, juicy apple. Which was easier to picture? The apple, right?
Our brains are wired for pictures, not just facts. When someone gives you a list of numbers or tells you rules, your brain has to work hard. But when someone tells you a story, your brain lights up! You see the pictures, feel the feelings, and remember everything better.
So, if you want someone to remember your idea—like why your homemade cookies are the best—don’t just say “they are tasty.” Tell a story. Say, “I was baking with my grandma, and we spilled a little extra chocolate in the mix by accident. It made them so gooey and perfect!” See? Now I want one!
This magic is the secret behind how business storytelling works. It turns boring ideas into exciting pictures in your customer's mind.
Minute 2: The Simple Building Blocks of ANY Story
Every single story in the world, from Harry Potter to what you did today, has three simple parts:
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A Hero: This is the main character. They want something.
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A Problem: Something is stopping the hero from getting what they want. A dragon, a puzzle, or just being lost.
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A Change: The hero figures out a way to solve the problem (or fails trying!), and they learn something or change because of it.
Let’s practice. Your hero is you. Your problem is you’re bored on a Saturday. The change is you decide to build a giant pillow fort, and you learn that your little sister is actually a great fort architect!
For your storytelling business idea, your customer is the hero. Their problem is they are thirsty or hungry. Your change is your amazing lemonade or cookies that save their day!
Minute 3: Be a Superhero, Not a Boss (The Big Mindset Shift)
This is the most important minute. Most people get this wrong.
When you are sharing your idea—your lemonade stand, your school project, your future company—you are NOT the hero of the story. Your customer is the hero.
You are not the star. You are the guide.
Think of Yoda from Star Wars. Luke Skywalker is the hero. Yoda is the guide. He gives Luke the tools, training, and advice he needs to defeat the Empire.
In business storytelling, you are Yoda. Your job is to say, “I see your problem. I’ve been there. I have a tool (my product) that can help you win.” This is the heart of brand storytelling. Your brand (your stand’s name, your logo) becomes the trusted guide.
Minute 4: Your Secret Weapon: The “Before and After” Bridge
This is a superstar storyteller tactic. It’s how you show you understand the hero’s problem and have a solution.
Draw a simple bridge in your mind:
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The Before: On one side, show the hero’s life with the problem. “It’s a scorching hot day, and you’ve been playing soccer. Your throat is as dry as sandpaper!”
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The After: On the other side, show the hero’s life after solving the problem. “You take a cold, sweet sip of lemonade. Your whole body goes ‘Ahhh!’ You’re refreshed and ready to play again!”
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The Bridge: In the middle is your product or idea. “My secret-recipe lemonade, made with real honey and fresh lemons, is the bridge from thirsty to refreshed!”
This bridge is the core of storytelling marketing. It doesn’t just sell lemonade; it sells the feeling of being saved from thirst.
Minute 5: Talk About Feelings (It’s Not Cheesy, It’s Smart!)
Facts tell, but feelings sell. People make decisions with their hearts and then justify them with their brains.
Don’t just list features (cold, sweet, $1). Describe the feeling.
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Instead of: “My cookies have chocolate chips.”
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Try: “Remember the warm, happy feeling of getting a cookie after school? That’s the feeling I bake into every one.”
When you talk about feelings—frustration, hope, joy, relief—you connect deeply. This connection is what makes storytelling in business communication so powerful. It turns a transaction (“I give you money, you give me a cookie”) into a relationship (“You understand what makes me happy”).
Minute 6: The “Why” is Your Superpower’s Source
Why do you do what you do? This “Why” is your most powerful story.
Let’s say two kids have lemonade stands.
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Kid 1 says: “Buy my lemonade. It’s 50 cents.”
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Kid 2 says: “I’m saving up to buy books for the library at the children’s hospital. Every cup you buy gets us one step closer to a new story for a kid who needs a smile.”
Who would you buy from? Kid 2, every time!
Your “Why” is your reason for starting. Maybe you love baking because it connects you to your grandma. Maybe you want to save up for a new bike to explore. That “Why” is authentic and powerful. This is the foundation of how to grow your business with storytelling. People don’t just buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
Minute 7: Practice on a Tiny Stage
Business storytelling where to start? Start small! You don’t need a big audience.
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Describe your day as a story: Tell your family at dinner not just what you did, but how you felt, what the problem was (the math test was tough!), and how you overcame it.
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Explain your hobby: Why do you love collecting rocks/playing a game/drawing? Make me feel your excitement.
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Pitch an idea at home: Want a later bedtime? Don’t just beg. Tell a story. “Imagine if I could get more reading done at night. I’d be so much more tired and ready to sleep, and I’d learn more cool words! Could we try it for one week as an experiment?” That’s a storytelling for business pitch for your “household business”!
Minute 8: Keep it Simple and True
The best stories are clear and honest. Don’t use big, fancy words. Use the words you use every day.
And never, ever make stuff up to make your story “better.” If you helped your neighbor carry one bag of groceries, that’s great! You don’t need to say you carried twenty. Truth is always more interesting. In the storytelling business, trust is everything. If you lose trust, you lose everything.
Minute 9: Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It
Your storytelling skills are now unlocked! Here is your 9-minute mission:
Think of one thing you care about. It could be:
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Your dog-walking service for the street.
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Your amazing handmade friendship bracelets.
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Your desire to be the family’s official pancake maker on Saturdays.
Now, build your story:
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Who is the hero? (Your neighbor who’s too busy, your friend who wants a cool bracelet, your tired parents on Saturday morning).
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What is their problem?
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What is the “yucky Before” and the “awesome After”?
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What is your “Why”? (You love dogs, you love being creative, you want to make your family happy).
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Put it together in 3 sentences. Practice saying it out loud.
Congratulations! You now understand the basics that experts use. You’ve learned storyteller tactics that work for campfire tales and billion-dollar companies. You see that storytelling isn’t a magic trick—it’s a way of thinking, of connecting, and of sharing your ideas so the world can’t help but listen.
So go on, future storyteller. The world is full of heroes with problems waiting for a guide. That guide could be you. Now, go tell your story.
https://youtu.be/jd6LPsqgcLI
Improve Your Storytelling Skills
Using Stories to Breathe Life into Every Speech
15 storytelling tips for weaving the personal with the universal.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve had some amazing opportunities to speak to audiences about the importance of leadership and presentation skills, and I’ve been fortunate to touch lives around the globe. The main tool I’ve used to accomplish this is storytelling. Storytelling helps both leaders and presenters motivate, inspire, and influence their listeners. It also helps them be remembered.
Here are 15 storytelling techniques I use that can help you breathe life into your speeches and keep your audiences on the edge of their seats.
1 Use a “foundational phrase.”
For each story, develop a foundational phrase your audience can easily remember and repeat. It should be simple to say, audience focused, and preferably fewer than 10 words. For example, one of my foundational phrases is, “Don’t get ready, stay ready.” It sticks with my audience.
2 Don’t start each story from the beginning.
You can start from the middle or even the end. For example, I could start like this: “There I was, standing on stage with the 1st place trophy at the World Championship of Public Speaking. It was surreal! However, it didn’t start out that way. In fact, four years earlier…” You can start at the end and work back to how you got there. Mix it up with each story.
3 Get to your stories quicker.
There’s way too much set-up (what I call “pre-ramble”) for many stories. Get to the story and then go rapidly into the conflict and hook your audience.
4 Don’t be the guru of your own story.
The guru is the person who gives you the advice that helps you overcome your conflict and changes your life for the better. The longer you work on a story, the shorter it should get. I share a story of how I wanted to leave the company I worked for in order to live my dream of being a professional speaker. The vice president kept offering to raise my salary so I would stay. When I asked my wife what I should do, she said, “I don’t care how much they try to compensate you. Your dream is not for sale.” I left and spoke more than 160 times in one year. My wife is the guru of that story. Having a guru helps you remain similar, rather than special, to your audience.
5 Pause and look.
Realize it’s the look you give before, during, and after the line that really tells the story. The story lives in the spaces between the lines. Don’t rush into your next line. Many of my laughs come from the looks rather than the lines. Therefore, the structure of your speech must allow enough space for you to take your time. Remember, you can’t rush and resonate.
6 Don’t just establish a conflict, escalate it.
Think of it like the Titanic. Hitting the iceberg established the conflict but then what happened? The water started rising on the Titanic. That escalation of the conflict led to a desperate need for a solution. You should show how your conflict escalates too. For example, I share a story about wanting to write a book on the art of public speaking. My friends said it would never work because it would be too hard to find a publisher. The more negativity they gave me, the more the conflict escalated. Finally, my friend Steve called and said, “Craig, if you write that book, I’ll be the first one in line to purchase it.” After a deep sigh of relief, I said, “Steve, that’ll be 15.95.”
7 Invite your audience into your scene.
For example, I say, “Imagine being in my passenger’s seat as I went through the drive-through.” My audience members are now in my passenger’s seat where they can relive the story with me.
8 Condense to connect.
When you deliver a scene with characters having dialogue, don’t tell us everything, just tell us the main thing. Try not to go back and forth between characters more than a few times, because your audience will grow tired. Instead, put the important statements in those few lines of dialogue.
9 Come out of your story and talk to your audience.
Remember, you’re not doing a stage play. You’re having a conversation with your audience. When you get into a story, you don’t have to lose that conversation. For example, I may say: You should have been with my wife and me 15 years ago when we took our six-month-old daughter, Tori, to the doctor. Raise your hand if you have kids. Great, then you know the doctor is going to measure her length and…? They yell out, Her weight! On a side note, I often hear someone answer, “Her height!” At that point I say, “You do know that the length, when you turn her upright, becomes the height, right?” Even though I already started my story, I still looked out into the audience and asked them about their kids. I call this a “you-focused check-in.” It keeps the audience on their toes because, instead of being passive spectators, they become active participants.
10 Make your audience curious from the beginning.
What questions can you plant in their minds that they’ll want answered during the story? I start one story with, “The best leadership principle I ever learned was from the president of the United States in the early 1990s when I shared a golf cart with him.” My audience likely has one of the following questions:
- Which president?
- How did you get to be in a golf cart with him?
- What is the lesson he taught?
Because of the curiosity, my audience anticipates coming on the journey with me. Tease them before you tell them.
11 Don’t keep repeating your message.
When your story is over and you’ve given your foundational phrase (that short phrase that is easy to remember and repeat), don’t ramble on about the point. The story actually makes the point, and the foundational phrase makes the point memorable. If you keep talking and trying to drive the point home, your audience will want the ride to end.
12 Create characters.
When delivering the lines of your characters, use their posture, positioning, and maybe a slight change in your voice to make that person come alive and be different from the other characters. You might have a character that is stern, has a very stiff posture, and crosses his arms and frowns when he talks. Become that character. Remember, you’re not doing a stage play. You’re having a conversation with your audience.
13 Show the emotional change in your character.
After you overcome or transcend your conflict, make sure your audience recognizes the transformation. If there’s no change there’s no story.
14 Be subtle with most of what you do delivery-wise.
For example, you don’t need to speak with a child’s voice when delivering the lines of a child. Instead, speak with your voice (with maybe a slightly higher pitch) but deliver it with the child’s expression. You can also have him or her look up to show that the child is talking to an adult.
15 With a few exceptions, keep your stories short.
The longer you work on a story, the shorter it should get. It’s addition by subtraction. The story gets better not by what you put in but by what you remove. I try to keep mine under four minutes so I can leave my audience wanting more.
Using these 15 storytelling tips will help you touch lives around the globe and become the speaker others sign up and line up to see.
And...take Rotary's Inspirational speech course in the Learning Center.