Engaging Storytelling Techniques For Sales Presentations

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗴𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗞𝗲𝘆𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗬𝗼𝘂 Ever given a whole speech with all the stats, slides, and preparation and still felt like you were talking to a wall? 𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. We all have, especially when you’re just starting, trying to sound confident but ending up with a flat, forgettable delivery. A few years ago, I spoke to a diverse group of women at a large non-profit. I went through my slides, confidently, thinking I was delivering a gold standard. But I noticed a few blank stares. Like, they weren’t quite getting it. Even though what I was saying was important, it wasn’t landing. 𝗦𝗼, 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻. I paused. 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗽𝘁, 𝗜 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴. ☑️ And boom. The room lit up. People started participating. Questions flowed. It was like I’d flipped a switch. ☑️ Turns out, people don’t remember your slides. ☑️ They remember your story. Want your next keynote to be memorable? Here’s my secret sauce: 1. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 Your audience decides in seconds if they’re in or out. Pick a moment that’s vulnerable, honest, and relatable. 2. 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 4-𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 🔵 Setup: Set the scene 🔵 Struggle: Show the challenge or mistake 🔵 Resolution: Share the breakthrough 🔵 Lesson: Connect it back to your message 3. 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 🔵 Show how failure sparked innovation. 🔵 How personal growth built your leadership. 🔵 Or how resilience turned into revenue. 4. 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘀 ☑️ If they feel it, they’ll follow. ☑️ If they remember it, they’ll believe in you. 5. 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 Your story isn’t just entertainment. It’s persuasive. 🔵 What moment in your journey made you who you are today? Your story is more than a memory—it’s a tool investors, clients, and teams will remember. Don’t be forgettable. Share one sentence from your defining story below. Or tag a speaker who nails storytelling, because we all learn through examples. Make your next speech unforgettable. Or risk being lost in the noise. What’s your go-to story?

Some executives inspire action. Others get ignored. Why? Because facts fade. Stories stick. After a 1-minute pitch, Stanford research found: ⟶ 5% recalled a statistic ⟶ 63% remembered the stories Here’s how storytelling can reshape your career: Too often, leaders default to data dumps: ⟶ Dense board decks ⟶ Endless bullet points in team updates ⟶ Info overload in all-hands meetings The result? Information is shared—impact is lost. After a career in corporate communications, I know firsthand how storytelling makes the message stick. Here are four ways to bring your messages to life with narrative: 🟡 Board Meetings ⟶ Don’t just share quarterly results—frame them as a journey: What challenge did you overcome? What shifted? ⟶ When outlining strategy, position it as the next chapter in a larger story. People engage with progress they can visualize. 🟡 Team Communications ⟶ Go beyond status updates—share moments of resilience, creativity, or lessons learned. ⟶ Instead of reciting company values, illustrate them with real team examples that people remember. 🟡 Customer Presentations ⟶ Open with a real customer journey: their pain point, your partnership, and the change they experienced. ⟶ Before/after stories make transformation tangible—more than any stat ever could. 🟡 Change Management ⟶ Paint a picture of the future state so people see themselves in it—not just the steps to get there. ⟶ Share your own experience navigating change to build empathy and trust. ↓ ↓ Want to start? 1/ Look for the human impact inside your metrics 2/ Use a simple structure: beginning, conflict, resolution 3/ Practice with small stories—in meetings, Slack, or 1:1s 4/ Always end with a clear shift or takeaway Facts inform, but stories move people. Try adding one story to your next presentation using these ideas—then watch what changes. P.S. Have you used any of these approaches already? I’d love to hear what worked. ♻ Repost to help your network lead with more story. (Research: Jennifer Aaker, Stanford GSB)

6 common mistakes people make when storytelling to sell (6 scripts to fix them) ________ She sat across from me, exhausted. Her business was her life. Countless hours. Endless hustle. And yet... the growth just wasn’t there. They had the tools. They had the team. But something wasn’t working. That’s when I realized something important. It wasn’t the tools.   It wasn’t the talent. It was **clarity.** I remembered a time when I struggled too. I was so focused on features, on the what, that I lost sight of the why. I’d tell people about the amazing things we could do, but I forgot one crucial thing:  **It’s not about me.**   It’s about them. Here’s what I learned. 1. Focus on the outcome. It’s not the process that matters to them.   It’s the transformation.   They don’t care how it works—they care about how it makes their lives better. I used to say, “Here’s what I do.”   Now I say, “Here’s how your life will change.” 2. Structure brings clarity. I once told stories that were all over the place.   No clear problem. No clear result. Just noise.  Then I learned to structure it: Problem. Solution. Result. Now, people listen.   They understand.   They follow the journey. 3. Make them the hero. At first, I thought I had to impress.   I’d talk about what we achieved, what we built.  But it hit me one day: They don’t need me to be the hero.  They need to see themselves winning. So I flipped the script. Now, my client is always the hero.   They see themselves in the story.   And they walk away believing they can win. 4. Keep it simple. I used to throw jargon around, thinking it made me sound professional.   It didn’t.   It just made me sound disconnected. Now, I keep it simple.   I speak their language.   And they lean in.   Because they finally understand. 5. Tap into emotion. Facts are powerful, but they don’t close the deal.   Emotion does. When I started asking, “How does it feel to know this problem is solved?”   People smiled.   They connected.   Because they could **feel** the solution. 6. End with action. I used to stop at the story.   I’d say, “Here’s what we do,” and wait.   But waiting doesn’t work. Now, I always end with a simple call to action.   Not pushy. Just clear.   “If you’re ready, let’s take the next step.” And it works.   Every time. --- That CEO I met? She’s thriving now.   Because she learned one simple truth:   Storytelling is about empowering others to win. So, what story are you telling? And is it clear enough to inspire your customers to act? --- If you’re ready to create a story that connects, let’s talk. Sometimes, all it takes is a small shift in how you tell it to make a big impact. #Storytelling #Sales #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #Entrepreneurship

Here’s the proposal template that helped me close over $100 million in enterprise sales: It’s also helped my clients close more than 50% of their deals when they use it. And until now, I’ve never shared it publicly. Most sellers are great at pitching features. But the ones who consistently win big deals? They know how to tell a great story. The truth is, executives don’t buy products - they buy confidence. They buy vision. They buy a story they want to be part of. If you want to sell like a top 1% seller, you need a proposal that doesn’t just inform… it moves people. Here’s how I do it 👇 The Story Mountain Framework for Sales Proposals: 1. Exposition – Introduce the characters and setting. Start with them: → “You’re trying to expand into new markets… to grow revenue… to unify your tech stack…” Set the vision. Make them the hero. 2. Rising Action – Lay out the challenges and obstacles. → “But growth stalled. Competitors moved faster. Customer churn increased.” Quote discovery calls. Surface real pain. Build emotional tension. 3. Climax – Introduce your solution. → “Then you found a better way…” Now show how your solution helps them overcome the exact obstacles you outlined. 4. Falling Action – Ease the tension. → “Here’s our implementation plan. Here’s the ROI. Here’s how others in your industry succeeded.” Give them confidence that this won’t just work—it will work for them. 5. Resolution – End with clarity. → “Here’s our mutual action plan. Let’s get started.” Lock in buy-in, next steps, and forward momentum. This structure has helped me close some of the biggest deals of my career—including an $8-figure enterprise deal at Salesforce where I used this exact approach. I broke it all down in this week’s training—and for the first time ever, I show you the actual proposal I used AND tell you how to access my Killer Proposal Template for free. 👀 Watch the full training here: https://lnkd.in/gPY_cvv5 No more boring product pitches. No more ghosting after the readout. Just proposals that close.

How I Closed More Deals After 30 Nights of Pain A few years ago, I was drowning in migraines. I’m talking every night at 1:30 a.m. like clockwork. I’d tried it all. Acupuncture, chiropractors, brain scans, veganism. Nothing worked. Worse? The meds that helped me function during the day were causing the migraines at night. And this was while I was running a business, parenting, and flying around the world to speak on stage. I felt like I had two choices: Poison myself to get through the day…or fall apart completely. Then I found Aimovig. One injection. No migraine that night. Or the next. Or the next. We stress tested it with wine, cheese, chocolate, and sushi. (Don’t judge.) And I got my life back. In fact, Aimovig asked me to do a video testimonial where I shared this story. And when I shared it publicly, people cried. They shared it. They didn’t remember facts I shared with the video. That 18% of American women suffer from migraines. Or that 90% of migraine sufferers have a family history. They remembered a story. My story. And here’s what that moment reminds me every time I teach StorySelling: 1. You need a character, not a product. People don’t connect to dashboards or data points. They connect to people like them facing real pressure. If your story doesn’t center a relatable human, it’s not a story. It’s a product demo. 2. You need a struggle that mirrors theirs. A good story doesn’t just entertain. It surfaces the same doubt, pressure, or chaos your buyer is feeling, but hasn’t said out loud. That’s what creates urgency. That’s what makes them lean in. 3. You need structure or you’ll lose them. Great stories aren’t long. They’re tight. And they follow a 5-part arc: → Setup (Who, what, where, when) → Beginning (Action kicks off) → Middle (Things get hard) → End (A choice is made) → Punchline (The takeaway that sticks) Miss one of these and you’ll ramble, repeat yourself, or talk right past the close. Hit all five and your story becomes a tool your buyer can retell inside their org, which is how deals actually move forward. #sales #salesstrategy #salesenablement #storytelling #storyselling #bemoresellmore -- Big news. I’m opening up a limited number of strategy calls this month for sales and enablement leaders who want to: → Build a story bank their sales teams actually use throughout the sales process → Use AI to tighten messaging without losing the human spark → Coach consultative conversations, not canned scripts Feel like you? Drop “Story” below or send me a DM and let’s tighten things up before Q3 hits. And if you’re a solo seller or in the early stages of building your team, I'd still love to help! Send me a message and I’ll hook you up with some great StorySelling resources.