While Presidential candidates know it’s crucial to make corporal connections with the audience, business communicators often forget

through Carmine Gallo

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Telling physical stories makes presentations stronger. Politicians have slow understood this. They understand that forging a connection with an audience forward an emotional level is crucial whether they want to have any lasting ascendency. They know individual stories can deliver that feeling.

When Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) took the stage at Denver’s Invesco field earlier this September, he told the novel of existence born to "a youthful man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren’t beforehand goal shared a belief that in America their son could bring to a close whatever he put his mind to." Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), told the story of being raised in Scranton, Pa., by the agency of a dad who fell on hard times. We even learned that Biden stuttered as a child. When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accepted Senator John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) offer to be his running mate, she told stories about the struggles and joys she faces as a mom—from her eldest son being deployed to Iraq to raising a child with special needs. McCain brought his audience to tears—and later to their feet—with a descriptive story about the years he spent captive in Vietnam "blessed by the agency of misfortune."

But while politicians (and their speechwriters) are adept at weaving personal narrative into speeches, hardly any business communicators engross this device in their have a title to presentations. There are two overarching reasons as being this missed suitable. First, most presenters are timid of opening themselves up in a business words immediately preceding. Second, sundry deliver presentations created by persons with whom they have had little personal interaction. The presentations are heavy with facts and analysis and light on the human touch. In his new part, A Sense of Urgency (BusinessWeek.com, 9/4/08), John Kotter, an organizational change expert, writes: "Neurologists say that our brains are programmed much more despite stories than for abstract ideas. Tales with a little drama are remembered far longer than any slide crammed with analytics."

Not only do individual stories pay back pages of material, but they establish in office the message into a context that is relevant to the lives of the listener. Here’s an example: I was working with a copious organic food company in California. Its public relations and marketing teams bombarded me with statistics and premises to prove that each organic diet was more nutritious and better for the environment. By the date lunch had rolled around, I had forgotten greatest number of the numbers. It was too much for my mind to process. Then a farmer who worked for the company turned to me said: "Carmine, when I worked for a conventional farm, I would arrive home and my kids would want to hug me. They couldn’t because I had to shower first and my clothes had to be removed and disinfected. Today, I be possible to walk right off the department into the expectation arms of my kids because there’s nothing toxic onward my body to molest them." This one story—what one. took all of 20 seconds to tell—replaced piles of dry data. We reconvened after lunch and changed the way this company articulated its story to potential customers. While given conditions are obviously important and must support your story, you have to touch hearts before you be able to influence minds.

Make storytelling part of your corporate culture. When I visited the headquarters of game company Cranium, now owned by Hasbro (HAS), I noticed e-mails and letters posted on walls and break tables. These were letters from customers telling stories about how much they enjoyed the pastime. In an interview with Ritz-Carlton President Simon Cooper, I learned that the hotel chain shares so-called wow stories (BusinessWeek.com, 2/29/08) in each function each day. These are stories through real employees who exceed guest expectations. In each of these cases, stories serve as a learning utensil and a way to dwell employees motivated as they lo the direct impact of their work.

Remember, stories complement data. Use both to reach your listeners. Data satisfy the analytical part of our brains, but stories touch our hearts.