Let’s examine storytelling in presentations by telling a story.
Alex, a customer experience manager for Advanxia, a small life sciences company, was preparing for a meeting with Bella, Brook, and Braxton, a group of decision-makers at Biologian, one of his company’s most important customers.
He wanted to convince them to adopt Advanxia’s new inventory management system and integrate it into their supply chain operations. This would automate and simplify the product ordering process, saving them time and money.
But he wasn’t sure how to go about it. Should he create a presentation?
He took stock of the resources he had to work with.
First, he had good data showing the potential cost savings projected by month, quarter, and year.
In addition, he had a lot of compelling facts about the products. These customers did not need to be sold on the products. Because he knew his customers — a very shrewd group — would have a lot of questions, he needed to be prepared with answers.
After some careful thought, he decided to tell the story of another customer who had recently adopted the inventory management system. Of course, he genericized the story to protect his customer’s identity.
Alex approached the presentation very much like a case study. When told in presentation form, of course, the audience wouldn’t be able to skip to the ending or be distracted by other details.
These are the elements he used for building the story:
By telling this story, he hoped to persuade Bella, Brook, and Braxton that Advanxia could provide value-added support that would help Biologian make the transition to the new system. He wanted to show them, rather than tell them, that by working together they would all benefit from the cost savings and more streamlined processes.
And it worked! Alex made his presentation, and by the end of the meeting, his Biologian customers had agreed to begin the process of developing an inventory management solution. He had successfully brought about a happy ending through the power of storytelling.
A few tips for creating your slides:
For more ideas on ways to better support your story through your slide deck, take a look at this Cobalt blog post, “How to Pimp and Improve PowerPoint,” for a thoughtful discussion of ways to make your presentations more audience-friendly and engaging.
Learn how Cobalt redesigned West Pharmaceutical Services’ PowerPoint template in this success story.
Read the other blog posts in the Science Storytelling series:
To learn more about using storytelling in science marketing for your science-focused business and how Cobalt helps science-focused companies with all aspects of communications, visit the Cobalt services page or contact the Cobalt team.
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Kerry Bennett
The original version of this page was published at: https://cobaltcommunications.com/cobalt-60/presentations-using-storytelling-in-science-marketing-and-communications/
Cobalt works at the intersection of science and strategy, helping healthcare, medical, technology and scientific companies communicate more effectively with their internal and external audiences.
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