There are typically 3 categories that a presentation will fall into, the great, the ok, and the bad. The bad ones are the presentations where the audience ends up playing a game on their phone or they are yawning throughout. The okay presentations are not sleep inducing, but they are almost boring. The great presentations are those that will stick with you for a long time. These are the ones that the audience will laugh through and actually learn from. These are the types of presentations that you want to give.

Many people do not realize that the way to keep their audiences engaged throughout their presentation is through storytelling. If you turn the presentation into a story that the audience can relate to, you are not only going to keep them engaged, but you are also going to wow them. Here are a few tips for incorporating storytelling into your next presentation.

What Story Should I Tell?

You already know what your presentation is about before you even start trying to put it together. This is the time you should think about a story that relates to the topic of your presentation. Instead of writing down the slides that you are going to use, write a story that has a start, middle, and end, and speaks to the audience about what they care about.

Building Tension

Every good story has a hero and a villain. You need to introduce these people at the beginning of the story. Who are these people and what is important to each of them? You can then build the story from there using some type of conflict. Use numbers and statistics to show the importance of fixing the problem. You may even want to flash forward to a world where the problem still exists and speak of what that may look like.

Solution

The end of the story offers a solution. This is what you are working for. If you have built enough tension during the middle part of the store the audience will be engaged and simply waiting for you to pull them in with your ending. Remember, your audience wants to know how you can help them.

Know your Story Well

If you are using slides, you can incorporate them into your story. Make sure that they are just used as supplement and that they do not overpower your story.

It is important that you know your story extremely well. This works best if you use something that you have actually experienced. You should be able to tell your story without looking at any notes as this makes it much more authentic. Practice telling your story over and over again until you is comfortable with it. Practice changing your tone at different points in the story to keep the audience fully engaged. Once you have it down, practice it some more. This is the best way to make sure that you are giving a presentation that your audience will remember.