How to Tell Hollywood-Quality Stories

Start by identifying your main theme or purpose--your plot--as well as any subplots. For example, a Gap executive Ed had just an hour and 20 minutes to work with me on an important speech. He was recently promoted and now was speaking for eight minutes to 500 young store managers at an important, high-visibility, company meeting. His topic was a program to get employees to contribute money-saving ideas. His subtext was, “I deserved to get this promotion.”

In 8 minutes, he had to excite support for the money-saving program. If he did it well and inspired every Gap manager to go back to inspire all their employees, the impact could be incredible. (Seventy-five minutes left of our coaching session.) “We don’t have very much time, so you are going to have to trust me, and do exactly what I suggest,” I said. “First, never say ‘good morning.’ It’s boring, it’s obvious, and the previous speakers have already said it. Walk on stage; look at the audience, and say, ‘We are here to talk about heroes.’ In seven words, you’ve just proved that this is not another dull, corporate speech. “‘We are here to talk about heroes,’ you say, ‘They may be sitting behind you. They may be sitting in front of you. They may be you. In the trenches…Gap heroes.’”

I asked John to tell me a story about someone who had saved the company money. Do you know what he showed me? Statistics! “Statistics aren’t sexy,” I told him. “Numbers are numbing. Where’s the made-for-television movie?” He had no idea. So we phoned the Accounting Department and got the stories behind the statistics. (Sixty minutes to go.) One young man in the shipping department had noticed that seven Gap newsletters had been sent to the same location, on the same day, and were going out in separate packets. This mailroom hero thought, “Why don’t I pack them together with a note asking that they be distributed on the other end?” This worked well, so he urged his colleagues to question similar duplications.

“Look, guys,” he told them, “we own stock in the Gap, not Fed-Ex!” His idea saved the Gap $200,000 that year. Whenever you tell a story, be ready to answer the audience’s next question. In Ed’s case, his audience would be wondering, “What did the Gap do with that $200,000?” So we researched some answers and added interesting factoids: “$200,000 is 18 miles of shelving. It’s designing an additional jean size. It’s a month of ‘The Gap rocks’ commercials.” (Forty minutes to go in our session.) To close, Ed would challenge his audience: “As Gap employees, you have good ideas all the time. Do you write them up and get them in the process so they can be evaluated? Or do you say, ‘What's in it for me?’” This is where Ed would talk about cash rewards. (Thirty minutes to go.)

Ed rehearsed his eight-minute speech, polishing, tightening, and adding more energy with each run-through, until he could do it without notes. (Time’s up!) He concluded his speech by playing David Bowie’s Heroes, which tied the opening into the close in a perfect circle.

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Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE is an award-winning keynote speaker, business presentation expert, sales presentation skills trainer, and in-demand speech coach to executives and celebrity speakers and known as "the speaker's speaker." Meetings & Conventions magazine named her "One of the 10 most electrifying speakers in North America." Fortune 500 companies maximize their investment by engaging Patricia for the keynote, breakout sessions, and to coach their executives on their presentations. Patricia is known for simplifying and demystifying the process of designing and delivering powerful keynote speeches and sales presentations.