PowerPoint Tips Blog

Helping you with presenting, PowerPoint, and speaking

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Tips
  • E-Store
  • Training
  • About
  • Affiliates
  • Advertise
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Content / Keep your audience riveted by adding anticipation to storytelling

Keep your audience riveted by adding anticipation to storytelling

March 3, 2016 by Ellen Finkelstein 2 Comments

READ LATER - DOWNLOAD THIS POST AS PDF >> CLICK HERE <<

powerpint-tips-storytelling-anticipation-loopFor months, I’ve been wanting to write a blog post about 2 new features in PowerPoint 2016 that are available if you have Office 365 (meaning that you pay a monthly subscription) and you belong to one of these free programs:

  • Office Insider: For consumer Office 365 customers (individuals)
  • First Release: for commercial Office 365 subscribers

But I couldn’t get access to it! It was very strange and I was the only PowerPoint MVP who didn’t have it — although others had difficulties earlier on. I got messages saying I didn’t have access to PowerPoint! Other messages said that my account didn’t exist. Read on and I’ll tell you what happened…

Did that make you want to read on?

When you tell a story, you can keep your audience glued to their seats by starting the story, interrupting it, telling them you’ll finish it at the end and then going on to other material. Of course, the story needs to be relevant to your topic. In this case, my story’s topic isn’t relevant, but it’s a model for the topic of this post.

Perhaps you scanned down to the bottom of the post to read the end! But in a presentation, people have to wait until you finish the story. This is a powerful technique to keep their attention. You can use it for training, sales, and even internal proposal and progress presentations.

Why is storytelling so powerful?

By itself — without an interruption — storytelling is powerful because everyone loves a good story! We’ve grown up with stories and they put us in an enjoyable mood. And once we hear the beginning, we want to know the end.

Stories are also a way to provide a specific example. Generalities are fine, but they’re hard to relate to. You’ve probably heard how fundraisers find that they raise more money when they tell the story of one starving child than when they provide statistics about how many children are starving.

Everyone loves a good story! Click To Tweet

This technique is called a loop

Starting a story at the beginning and not finishing it until later on is called a loop. You can say, “We’ll find out what happened later on” or something like that. The story’s conclusion should make the same point as your presentation. In other words, the point of the story should illustrate the main point of your presentation.

Some storytellers use nested loops, creating 2 or more stories. This is common in TV episodes, where there are multiple sub-plots.

You can use anticipation in many ways. For example, the title of your presentation can be intriguing:

  • How I Overcame Death by PowerPoint
  • Why I Couldn’t Get Access to Morph & Designer
  • What I Discovered When I Asked People on the Street about Their Smart Phones

Then you can start the story, interrupt it, and finish it at the end.

I have an older blog post about how to create intriguing slides that you might also find interesting.

So try using interrupted stories in your presentations and see what results you get!

down-red-arrows

Have you used this looping technique in your presentations? What was your experience? If not, think of a way you can use it in your next presentation and share your idea in the comments! And please share this valuable content using the Share buttons below.

Oh, and you want to know what happened, right? After contacting Microsoft people for months via email, I called support. After 4 hours with 2 people, I was finally able to access the right version of Office 365 but it still wouldn’t update to the version with Office Insider or First Release. Finally, someone gave me a back-door method of installing Office 365 directly from Microsoft servers and that worked! So, a blog post on Morph and Designer, 2 great new PowerPoint features, will be coming out soon. Watch for it!

Share
Tweet
Share5
+1
Shares 5
READ LATER - DOWNLOAD THIS POST AS PDF >> CLICK HERE <<

Related posts:

  1. My training webinar: Present interactively-your audience expects it!
  2. Choose words for your audience
  3. Intrigue your audience
  4. Speaking to inspire

Filed Under: Content Tagged With: anticipation, loop, storytelling

2
Leave a Reply

avatar
This comment form is under antispam protection
2 Comment threads
0 Thread replies
0 Followers
 
Most reacted comment
Hottest comment thread
2 Comment authors
MohammadJoe Recent comment authors
avatar
This comment form is under antispam protection
  Subscribe  
newest oldest most voted
Notify of
Joe
Guest
Joe

Hi Ellen,

I like the idea of looping storytelling. I sometimes unintentionally do it but could look at doing it in a more structured way.

I’ve been lucky to have had Morph since it went beta on office insider on Windows and it’s now come over the Mac, and finally along with the Selection Pane (yes, Mac only just got this). So I no longer need to load Windows up on my Mac.

Morph is very slick and I think it will compliment storytelling very well. It’s pretty much the same as Magic Move on the Mac’s Keynote.

Look forward to your Morph post.

Thanks

Joe

Vote Up0Vote Down 
7 years ago
Mohammad
Guest
Mohammad

Interesting topic, thanks.

Vote Up0Vote Down 
6 years ago
wpdiscuz   wpDiscuz

Free Video Training!

13 Techniques that Will Make Designing Your Slides EASY!

And get the PowerPoint Tips Newsletter with tips and resources for presenters. Plus 5 bonus tips!

BirdSend Email Marketing Tool
4-up-ads PresenterMedia PoweredTemplate High-Persuasion Secrets Power Pointers Quarter Hour


Recent Posts

Recent Posts

  • How do you format your slide titles?
  • Using PowerPoint’s cartoon people
  • Which version of PowerPoint should you buy?
  • Add a customizable, live web feed with Cameo
  • Get a designer look with abstract images to create backgrounds for slides and shapes

Connect with me!

Connect with me! Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Ellen Finkelstein, Inc. · Fairfield, IA · Tel: 515-989-1832

Privacy, Refund, and Other Legal Stuff

wpDiscuz