As I am learning more about storytelling, it was such a fulfilling experience for me that I was able to attend the keynote of Ty Bennett, an influential speaker and author of the book  The power of Storytelling. He recently talked at the 19th Global Best Practices Conference hosted by People Report/Black Box Intelligence. People Report is now TDn2K. Have a look at their new website here! They host two amazing annual conferences every year: Summer Brand Camp and Global Best Practices.

The purpose of storytelling is engagement. The goal is connection, not perfection! Says, Ty Bennett

We approach communication with a wrong goal. When we do any presentation we want it to be perfect, but we are focusing on the wrong goal here. Our goal should not be perfection but rather connection with the audience.

The purpose of your talk should be engagement. Balance it between credibility on one side and reliability on the other side. Get the audience to buy in and be credible. But if you are not relatable the audience won’t respond. That connection is the key. says Ty.

3 Keys to Story Telling

Place the audience in the scene

How you influence and approach your audience determines how successful you are. Share the influential story. To do that you need to start with the definition of the story. And it is all about the audience you want to connect with.

Create curiosity

“No body cares about your story not even your mother”. Unless this has relevance to the audience. Ty tells us to ask a focus question to the audience. For example,’What stops you from achieving your goal or not having a clear goal of where you want to go?’ that will get the audience curious and they can know why it is important to hear. Questions create curiosity.

Reinforce Reliability

Makes it about the audience. Make the conversation a two way communication so that they can relate to you. Ty says – “Great speakers are very conversational in the way they speak. I am speaking to the audiences like a conversation not a presentation. Nobody wants to be talked ‘At’, they want to be talked ‘With’”.

He adds, “An influential story is: Struggle to solution. Hook them with the struggle and help them with the solution. If you are a leader and want to share your struggle of where you are, what is working and what is not working, that’s great. We don’t want to hear your success stories alone, But we want to hear how your life sucked and now it is amazing. Now that’s the story we are interested in.

You don’t re-tell a story, you re-live a story. Your story is not just a narration your story is an experience.”