Storytelling in PowerPoint

We’re all conditioned to think that storytelling is just for shiny, glossy pretty decks promoting VR headsets or pitching concepts worth millions of dollars. Not true! Storytelling can be woven through any presentation, no matter how boring or mundane, long or short, and heavy or light on content. You can find a good story anywhere. You see, when we apply storytelling principles to our presentations, they transform from reports, which basically just inform, into structured, well-thought-out presentations that are guaranteed to not only inform, but also build engagement, and ensuring the audience retains what they just saw. So let’s find out how to build a story.

Building the Story We all know the basic story format by heart since we’ve been telling and being told stories for most of our lives. We learn who the characters are, where the story is set. We’re presented with the Intro, the Conflict, the Climax, and the Resolution. And that’s about it. It really doesn’t deviate much from this, and hasn’t for thousands of years. Presentations can also follow this format, and since we’re so familiar with this format, our brains easily accept this format when we hear it. Let’s look at how these sections relate in our presentations.

The Setting

The setting is the environment in which the presentation is being told in, such as the market, the competitive landscape, inside the company, etc. Establishing the setting early on lets your audience know the big picture, and lets them know what to expect going forward. Focusing the setting will help both you and your audience make sense out of the story.

The Characters

The characters are main actors in your story, such as the audience, the competitors, employees, consumers, etc. You can approach character development in several ways, such as making your audience the hero. Or making your competition the bad guys. Establishing your characters will ultimately make your audience care more about the story. They know who to cheer for and who to cheer against in your presentation.

The Conflict

Then there’s the big one… conflict, which sounds like something you don’t really want in your presentation, but it’s totally necessary to build some friction in your deck. This can be something our company needs to work on, low sales numbers, bad press, consequences for failure, etc. Without conflict, the deck becomes kind of lifeless, gutless fish. We want our deck to have some bite! And the other part of that bite comes from the resolution, where we resolve the conflict. This can be something like how to get a competitive edge in the market, how to increase sales numbers, how to become a market leader, or how to stay on top, etc. So basically we’re building a one-two combo of what is wrong and how to fix it, or what happens if things go wrong, and how to ensure this doesn’t happen.

The Resolution

Lastly we have the resolution, where we wrap things up. But we’re not just simply saying “The End” and sending folks on their way…we also need to make sure we leave our audience with a clear action item, such as working harder to get sales numbers up, going to a website to learn more, or to buy the product or service that we’ve been talking about. Without the action item, you run the risk of your audience not retaining what you talked about, and more importantly, not doing what you wanted them to do in the first place.

Presentation Story Elements

So before you jump into building your story, let’s take a look at what a good presentation should be doing so we can ensure that we’re on track. A good presentation should inform. That’s pretty easy…most presentations do that, but make sure you remember that when presenting or designing a deck, that you’re the expert, and your audience is looking to you for knowledge. Second, it should be memorable. You want people to walk away from your presentation at least remembering something! But especially your big message. Next, it should entertain. Your presentation shouldn’t be a dry, boring report… we have to remember those short attention spans! Lastly, it should support the speaker…not be the main focus. So avoid putting tons of text in your deck and put all that in the speaker notes.

Adding Visual Storytelling

The next step to telling a good story in your presentation is using a concept called Visual Storytelling, which is basically adding photos, illustrations, animation, colors, video, etc. to make your story visually interesting and add structure to your story using visuals. It’s probably what you’ve always been doing in a way, but it’s doing it intentionally to make the story stronger.
So why visual storytelling? In a nutshell, our attention spans are getting shorter, so we need to do everything in our power to make sure that our audiences are engaged and entertained. I mean…goldfish have higher attention spans!

Putting it all together

So once you’ve got all your storytelling elements in place, establishing your setting, characters, conflict and resolution, and making sure that you have you core presentation story elements intact, you can apply your visual storytelling principals to your deck and make everything clean, cohesive, beautiful and memorable. Add transitions and tasteful animation to really make your presentation pop.

And you’ll be surprised how far you’ve gone from taking your deck from a report to a full blown storytelling masterpiece!