Power of Words
How to create an experience for your listener during storytelling to take your audience on journey of imagination and most importantly to form an emotional connect with them: Use vivid language –Vivid language consists of the descriptive adjectives that bring your experience to life for your audience & it makes your ideas unforgettable.Example: Imagination of a child, faded ambitions Use sensory wordsSensory words help to connect to the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) to create an image or description.Example: Thumping defeat, market came crashing down. Use Metaphors –Metaphors helps in comparison of two things, describing it more accurately.Example: He is a shining star of this quarter, as bright as sunWriters use metaphors to make writing more interesting. A metaphor expresses meaning that literal words cannot. Metaphors also make writing more concise. Storytellers use metaphors when they want to express a comparison but do not want to directly state that comparison. Metaphors allow for interpretation and layer meaning intext. Metaphors add layered meaning and interest to writing which reflects in script and in story narration. Choose a metaphor when you want to add greater significance to the text. Figurative language adds details and appeals to our senses. Use Oxymoron –An oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as cruel kindness). Oxymoron allows us to be creative in our descriptions. At times it also adds humor to our storytelling or our content. An oxymoron is a figure of speech that puts together opposite elements. The combination of these contradicting elements serves to reveal a paradox, confusion, or adds to humor elementExample: Organized mess, Jumbo shrimp, adult child, gorgeous monster, deafening silence, seriously funnyHow to make stories stand out, memorable & engaging?By infusing powerful words – add metaphors, use sensory words & use vivid language.Words have power, choose your words wisely! Published by – Monika Tandon
5 Techniques to Deliver Engaging Business Presentations
How to deliver engaging presentations: “Surprise your audience with a novel and emotionally engaging message. Build an experience by telling them something they didn’t know about before.” – Monika Tandon It’s the story, not the power point slides that will entice your audience. – Monika Tandon Create a story: Keep power point aside and take a pen & paper to script down a personal story or a business story that goes with the theme of your presentation. Script a story with a compelling hook and with a defined objective. Easy to understand: Make sure your content and language is relatable and easy to understand. Avoid using complicated words, jargons or acronyms. Simple sentences are easy to understand and easy to recall. Master the art of public speaking: Maintain eye contact with your audience as it is associated with confidence and your passion as a subject matter expert. Energy: We all love people who has a smile on their face, always full of energy and vibrant. You can’t inspire others with dull expressions. Persuade the listeners with enthusiasm and light up the room with the energy you bring in! Rehearse: There is no parallel to practice, it takes hours of hard work to rehearse and improvise your content and delivery. To be an effortless presenter one has to make efforts before the presentation to internalize and rehearse the content. One thing that distinguishes a mediocre speaker to a great speaker is how much efforts you are ready to invest to script, plan and pace your presentation. Published by Monika Tandon
Storytelling in Business
In today’s corporate world the ability to tell stories has been identified as a powerful business practice. Purpose driven stories helps us to land our message in a relatable manner. Storytelling helps us in structuring our thoughts and presenting them with warmth of emotions by forming a connect with the people at our workplace. In today’s time the importance of communication by harnessing the power of stories and tools of storytelling to enrich the way we interact cannot be understated. Good communication skills always come handy in communicating our ideas and stories helps us to package those ideas in a meaningful way. Share your personal stories at workplace. As your own personal stories gives you a way to stand out from the crowd. They connect on an emotional level because you have experienced it and it is authentic! Your story tells a lot about you, your struggles, failures, and achievements. It tells people why you do what you do. Stories inspire and engages the mind and therefore helps in building more meaningful bonds with the listeners. Sharing your own journey from trial to triumph also encourages your team to open up and share their journey and they also look up to those stories as a survival guide with a light of hope to motivate them to keep trying to accomplish their dreams. Stories have the power to reach to people’s hearts by touching their emotions. The most critical part of using stories in business or at workplace is to find the right story for the right situation. Storytelling is immensely powerful tool in sales. To make a sales pitch and convert it, especially in B2B context, storytelling really helps in giving proper context, helps in highlighting the client/customer problem it is resolving, and how the features of the product or service actually fits as the solution for the client/ customer problem. People don’t buy what you sell, they buy what you believe in, and that is why conveying trust and confidence to people is an integral part of selling. Storytelling is a tool that helps you right from infusing a purpose driven story in your presentation building up to how you plan to deliver the story and the content of your speech or presentation to the listeners. Always focus on why the audience should care about what you say. What problem does your product or service solve? Deliver actionable solutions in your presentation. Every story has a central theme and a plot, and so is your business presentation. Always focus on sharing just one idea, the main point with a crisp headline in the presentation. Add more substance to it by sharing all the relevant details that circle around the main orbit that is the one main idea of the business presentation. Summarize by presenting the challenges in the implementation of the idea and how do you plan to resolve them to create a happy picture of success by creating a value for your client. There is a lot to leverage from the world of Storytelling at our workplace, right from sharing stories to create an understanding and forming a connect with the people to structuring our thoughts in the business presentation to present our ideas in a meaningful way. Start sharing stories and connect through storytelling at your workplace. Published by Monika Tandon
