STORYTELLING: Tales Your Audience Will Want to Retell

By Ken Deeks

Telling powerful stories has never been more important. Increasingly, audiences – whether that’s employees, clients or prospects – want to be inspired and entertained when learning more about what we do as a business.

The best way to do this is through impactful and memorable stories. At the Amber Group, we talk about the power of the retellable story. The idea behind this is that if you tell a story, you should tell it in a way that your audience – reader, listener, viewer – will want to, and feel equipped to, retell.

So, what makes a retellable story?

Firstly, it should be easy to understand.

• Individuals cannot retell the story if they don’t understand it. This can be tricky. You are telling a story that you are familiar with, but the person you’re telling it to could be hearing it for the first time.
• If you are marketing or selling complex solutions, think about the benefit to your client or the outcome they could achieve by using your product or service. Focus on this and build your story around it. Always keep it simple. One of my favourite quotes is: “If you can’t explain it simply enough, you do not understand it well enough.”

Which brings me to my second technique. Every story needs a headline.

• Think about how you digest news. It’s the headline that makes the difference between whether you click to find out more or scroll to another story. Your headline should make the reader want to know more.
• Now you’ve got your audience’s attention, consider how you will keep them there.

My third tip is to paint pictures by telling stories about people.

• You’ve probably heard the saying, “every picture tells a thousand words.” This is partly because we digest and remember pictures in a way we can’t always digest and remember words.
• So, paint a picture. Rather than talk about how your products and services helped Natleys bank, talk about how you and your team first met Jane, the new CEO, and how – when you first met her –  she had her head in her hands, looked up and said ‘help.’
• I bet you’ve just pictured that. You ‘saw’ a different Jane, right? Someone with their head in their hands needing help. It painted a picture. It was memorable.

Use these three tips to give longevity to your stories through others wanting to retell them.

For more information on the Amber Group’s Storytelling and Writing Skills training, click here.