UpSkill: Win Your Audience Over With Simplicity and Imagery

When you have an important presentation, you always aim to impress. Sometimes we think that we must wow our audience with our intelligence, and that the best way to do so is to dive into technical terms and throw a lot of information at them.

That is often not the right approach. Even if your audience understands the information you throw at them, it doesn’t mean it’s engaging or convincing.

Sometimes, using simple stories can be more effective. In this episode we dive into a case study from Colleen Stewart, author of The Story Compass, on how simplicity can get your point across in a memorable (and replicable) way.

Colleen shared the story of a geologist who attended one of her courses.

He worked for a data-mapping software company in Calgary. Basically, his company produces the maps that would tell the oil and gas companies where to find their treasure.

And at the time — this was about eight, nine years ago now — big companies like Suncor and Shell were trying to produce these maps themselves.

So the geologist was trying to convince the big companies not to make their own maps.

When he would talk to companies like Suncor, his job was twofold.

Number one, he had to convince Suncor to stop trying to do the maps themselves and hire an expert.

He did well on the first part. He kept it simple.

The second part of his presentation had to differentiate him from his competitors; explain why he was the best choice.

He struggled with this part of the presentation. He went into too much detail. Nobody could follow it. Another geologist in the room couldn’t follow it.

However, there was one part he nailed. He told as simple story, with simple (but vivid) imagery that everyone understood.

He told the story of holding an orange. Imagine him holding it in his hand. He squeezes it and the peel pops off perfectly.

In his hand he now has this curved, star-shaped peel.

Then he proposed a question to the audience. “Do you think that peel is going to stay flat when I lift my hand?”

The answer is no. It’s going to pop back up. Then he’d tell his audience that what they need to do to get it to sit flat is make all these little stretches.

For Suncor one of those little stretches could mean spending millions of dollars drilling a well that’s 20,000 feet away from the sweet spot.

The geologist told Suncor that he solved the orange peel problem.

He had their interest. He left them with suspense. They wanted more.

The story was effective because it was simple and vivid, but also showed what the geologist’s value is. He was going to save them money. Ears perk up when people hear that.

They know what the challenge they’re facing is, and you present a clear solution.

As you try to tackle an issue, you may need to deal with complex details and the nitty gritty of technical language.

However, your audience — your potential customers — won’t always be as interested in that piece. They just want the end of the story, the outcome. How will you fix their problems? What do you offer?