How Key Points and Stories Work Together

You've made some mistakes in your life, you've had some embarrassing moments, and surely you've endured everyday conflicts. You've also learned in spite of yourself, made lemonade from lemons and been uplifted by others.

These life experiences make for memorable stories that will help you instill your points. Key points and stories work together and your audiences are better for them.

As you know, I teach that every speech must have a call-to-action: what the audience should do after listening to you. And you must have 2 or 3 key points that drive to the call-to-action. You inspire and persuade your audience with high-impact content. And that's where stories come in.

"Joey is a powerful horse: one look at his strong, upright neck supporting his regal head and intelligent eyes; his legs and hooves that evoke thunder; and his flowing mane and tail, and you'll respect him. When I ride him, I ask and he answers, moderating his strength under me. Except... when his instincts tell him there's a lion lurking in the trees or behind a trash can or around a corner...and he leaps to get away. This is when I must remain more calm than ever, becoming the steady alpha horse that will lead him to safety."

"Have you ever worked with someone who gives so much and yet there's a streak of resistance within him? Nine times out of ten, she'll go the extra mile for you, but that tenth time you wonder what's going on? That's what Joey does. And I've learned that getting angry and punishing him is not the answer. Just as getting angry and punishing your colleague is not the answer."

"Joey and the colleague do what they do because there's something going on internally that you need to listen to. With horses the something going on is their flight instinct. Horses have survived essentially intact for millions of years because their flight instinct is much stronger than their fight instinct. When the prey animal comes near, they get going. Once I learned that about horses I became much more capable of dealing with the occasional spook, startle or leap. The proper response is reassurance and focus on the goal."

"Find out what is going on with your colleague before you react. What do you need to understand about him or her that's not obvious? Is the response so built in that you just have to accept it and formulate your own better reaction?"

Key point: understanding what is within others will help you respsond more appropriately.

Now you have an example of a story and a key point working together.

What story and key point can you work together? Share your examples through our comment box.

 

Comments

[Susan Trivers]

Craig,

Your thoughts about including a call-to-action following a short "ice breaker" or networking speech are exactly right. Instead of ending with "thanks for listening" or "that's all" you should invite the person or audience to follow up with you.

I suggest tweaking your suggested calls-to-action a bit to make them more audience focused: "Visit my blog" could become "When you need a tip about speaking with slides, visit my blog and get one you can use now."

At a networking event, your call-to-action could be "Let's talk afterwards so you can tell me about your business."

With both of these calls-to-action, the focus is on the other person/audience and when they do what you've suggested you get to engage them in a conversation that could help you find out more about them--which is of course the only way you could ever begin a relationship that leads to business.

Thanks for participating in this conversation!

[Craig Hadden - remotepossibilities.wordpress.com]

Thanks Susan, I really like how you’ve illustrated this concept with a concrete example.

I’ve a related question: Like you, I believe every talk should have a call to action. Recently I’ve joined Toastmasters though, and I’m preparing my first speech, which is the ice-breaker where you get up and speak about yourself for a few minutes. Being a strictly informational speech, it seems like an anomaly. So I’m considering adding a call to action (“Visit my blog”) to give it more direction.

What do you think? As an analogy, if a businessperson was asked to introduce themselves in front of a group, do you think an explicit call to action is necessary (like “Please come and see me in person afterwards”)? I’d appreciate hearing your perspective.