Having mouthed off last week along the lines of there being too
much talk about storytelling and not enough about how and when to apply storytelling
techniques, I am now going to suggest you tell more stories about yourself.

“In Russia”, he said, “we have all the big brands, such as Amazon,
Facebook and Twitter, except they are not the real thing; they look and act
very much like the real thing, but they are all fakes”. I urged him to talk
about this in his presentation. “But what has it got to do with travel and the
services I am selling?”, he asked. “Nothing directly”, I replied, “but it
provides a little insight into life within the region. People will relate to and
be intrigued by the topic, and they may even go home and talk about it. With
respect, they are not going to home and talk about those extracts from your CV.
Most importantly, they will remember you. Those stories of Russian rip-offs
will fix you in their minds; you will be remembered as the person who really knows
what’s going on in Russia and Eastern-Europe”.

None of this takes anything away from the most important principle
of a business presentation, which is that the more time you devote to thinking
and talking about your audience, the more you will be getting straight onto
their favourite subject. There does, however, come a time when it’s appropriate
to talk about yourself and it often pays to go a little deeper than you might
realise. Compelling content aside, allowing a little light to shine on yourself
makes your audience warm to you; as a result, everything you say becomes that
little bit more convincing.
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