Everyday Business Storytelling: Create, Simplify, and Adapt A Visual Narrative for Any Audience

by Janine Kurnoff, Lee Lazarus

Overview

A practical, easy-to-use guide to transform business communications into memorable narratives that drive conversations—and your career—forward

In Everyday Business Storytelling: Create, Simplify, and Adapt A Visual Narrative for Any Audience, visual communication and storytelling experts Janine Kurnoff and Lee Lazarus leverage decades of experience helping executives at the world's top brands—including Facebook, Nestle, Accenture, and Marriot—bring clarity and meaning to their business communications. Whether you're building a presentation, crafting a high-stakes email, or need to influence decisions in your next meeting with an executive, Everyday Business Storytelling offers an insightful exploration of how to develop compelling business narratives.

You'll discover how to use a simple, repeatable framework to choreograph your ideas, data, and insights into an authentic, persuasive story. Within this business book, you'll also find clever data visualization and visual display techniques to help humanize your stories and build an emotional connection with your audience, leading to improved presentation skills and effective data storytelling.

Just a few of the things you'll learn from this business book include:

• The science behind why storytelling is the most effective way to trigger emotion in an audience and how to craft a business narrative that makes your ideas engaging
• The four signposts of storytelling and how to identify and weave in your BIG idea to capture attention
• How to craft expert headlines that guide your audience and advance your story

Everyday Business Storytelling is an indispensable guide to making your communications stick in the minds of your audience and drive change. If you're a busy, talented businessperson responsible for executive presentations, one-pagers, emails, or virtual meetings, this communication book is for you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781119704669
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	02/17/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	190,934
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

For over two decades, Silicon Valley-bred sisters JANINE KURNOFF and LEE LAZARUS have helped teams at the world's top brands—including Facebook, Nestlé, Marriott, T-Mobile, and Medtronic—become strategic visual communicators. As co-founders of The Presentation Company, they are dedicated to helping talented businesspeople in all functions, at all levels, bring clarity and meaning to their ideas and influence decisions through storytelling.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Storytelling Is How We Move Business Forward: What two Silicon Valley-bred sisters know about business storytelling (hint: it's pure, irrefutable career gold) 1

Part 1 Once and for all-Let's Unfluff the Reputation of Business Storytelling 6

Chapter 1 Meet the Brain Scientists 8

Chapter 2 Data (Yes, Sometimes Overused) Is Not the Villain 16

Part 2 Ok, I'm in-How Do I Get Started with Business Storytelling? 24

Chapter 3 The Four Signposts 30

Chapter 4 The WHY, WHAT and HOW of Business Storytelling 48

Chapter 5 Your BIG Idea 52

Chapter 6 Putting It All Together: Sample Story 56

Part 3 Thanks, got the basics, What Else Can Help Me? 60

Chapter 7 Push Your Story Forward with Active Headlines 62

Chapter 8 A Simple Path to Building Your BIG Idea 72

Chapter 9 Five Well-Tested Ways to Visualize Your Story 80

Part 4 Let's see the magic/How Does Storytelling Show Up in Everyday Business? 106

Chapter 10 Making a Recommendation 108

Chapter 11 Providing an Update 144

Chapter 12 Crafting an Email 162

Chapter 13 Creating a One-Pager 176

Part 5 But wait! How Do I Flex My Story? 192

Chapter 14 Audience Is Everything: A Manifesto 194

Chapter 15 You've Got Five Minutes with an Executive… Go! 202

Chapter 16 Your Audience Is Diverse… How Can You Please Everyone? 210

Chapter 17 You're Told "Only Three to Five Slides" 216

Chapter 18 Team Presentations: Who Does What? 220

Chapter 19 When Your Audience Is Virtual 238

Part 6 All together now: Building a Common Language of Storytelling 252

Chapter 20 Fostering a Culture of Story Coaches 254

Chapter 21 Five Ways Managers Can Reinforce Storytelling 260

Chapter 22 Ready, Set, Coach! Five Tips for Peer-to-Peer Story Coaching 264

Conclusion

A Final Word From the Sisters 272

Your everyday business storytelling journey starts right now… #nomorefrankendecks

Gratitude 275

About the Authors 276

Notes & Photo Credits 277

Index 278

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"It has always been challenging to find a comprehensive development solution that helps teach employees how to create and share compelling, audience-centric business stories. This approach is grounded in real scenarios and case studies that anyone can relate to. If you're looking to up-level your skillset in storytelling and drive business conversations forward, get this book!"
—Stacy Salvalaggio, Vice President, Retail Operations, Aritzia and Former Global Senior Director, Learning and Development, McDonald's

"There's no greater skill and ingenuity to propel your career than the ability to translate data insights into clear, authentic narratives. This book is the winning formula for any executive."
—Sydney Savion, Chief Learning Officer, Air New Zealand