Key takeaways about Storytelling from WIP South Bay Area
It was a fun evening spent at the WIP South Bay Area Chapter’s kick-off event “Elevating your products with impactful storytelling”, held at the Google campus on Jan 15th, 2019. The speakers Cindy Alvarez, Principal PM Lead at Microsoft and an author and Dr. Shubra Jain, Investor and MD employ the art of storytelling at work and in personal life to communicate, inspire, and motivate others, and shared invaluable and actionable nuggets of information. The chapter leads Surbhi Kaul, Vidya Venkatesh, and Hitashi Dhawan differentiated this event by offering a workshop where the learnings of the event were applied by the attendees to craft their own stories.
We have all grown up listening to a spectrum of stories, about multiple topics. It’s amazing how we have always understood the content, the underlying message and the meaning of stories irrespective of our age or intellectual level, we were never bored and 200-page novels would be finished in a day and we would always passionately discuss the content …..Those stories always made sense to us. So, we can reason that our brains, from birth, are wired to relate and connect to stories and we understand information infinitely better when it is presented in the form of a story. The sheer suspense of what happens next, setup, and climax keep the audience interested. Here are some ways that Cindy and Shubra take for telling stories to different audiences:
Pitching your story to the leadership teams on how the proposal at hand can drive revenue:
Leaders in any organization are there to keep it running, and to make sure that what is being built adds value to the organization. When communicating with leadership, be sure to include why building something will add enough value to the customer that they will be ready to pay us money now or at some point in time in the future. If your story can’t demonstrate the value added to both customer and business, then it’s highly unlikely that the leadership will buy-in into your story.
Storytelling effectively with Customers on how you can solving their specific problem:
In today’s world, everyone is very busy and is always multitasking. With such a tight schedule, they will invest their time and money in something only if that something can make their life easier by solving a specific problem they face on a regular basis. At the same time, “The User” will rarely have enough time or attention span to listen to your story when they’re unoccupied. So, to tell the story to “The User” keep it clear, concise and attention-grabbing. Here is a tip to check if your story is good enough: write the story and send it to yourself and reread the story when you are busy doing something else or amidst a lot of distractions. If you are convinced with the message in that short time, the story is good else you are not done yet. Keep going…
Tell “Peers” stories about how supporting your will help them achieve something that they care about
A lot of times our success depends on what others around us contribute in what we do. Tell them stories that elicit what they can accomplish and what is in it for them and talk about the bigger goals that can be achieved by working together.
Tell “Investors” the teasers and not the entire story
When delivering a pitch to the investors, focus on finding the balance in what to communicate, when to communicate and how much to communicate. Be prepared to present while continuously listen to what is unspoken…. listen to the room, the audience, the decision makers. See if they are excited to hear the story and want to learn more, or if they bored and waiting for you to finish. Do they look interested…engaged….look for signs that the audience is sending and steer your story accordingly. Remember, the ultimate goal of giving a pitch is to generate enough interest that the investors want to have the next meeting and not to close the deal.
These are powerful and impactful tips to apply in your next story. So, next time you need to secure buy-in, leverage these guides to craft and build an impactful story to cater to the target audience. Thanks, Cindy and Dr. Shubhra for sharing your valuable experiences and insights. Thanks to the wonderful hosts Surbhi Kaul, Vidya Venkatesh, and Hitashi Dhawan and the awesome volunteers Lisa Truong, Daniela Maldanado, Tanvi Garg, Negar Fazeli, Swati Agarwal, and Sonia Singhal for organizing such a great event. Looking forward to what the next event will bring to enrich the experiences of the awesome community of #WIPbayarea. See you at the next event….
Blogger: Sonia Singhal
