One of the professional services that I offer is consulting on honing messaging to be memorable and evocative. By tapping into the ways storytelling works in our psyches, I can help you create a well-honed and moving presentation.
An example of what this looks like in action is to use a typical story arc as a way to order the slides in a deck and to shape the message. Each arc has a different goal in mind, so selecting which arc to use depends upon the audience and the desired outcome.
Begin at the beginning
Before we select which arc to use, you must know the answers to three key questions:
- Who is the audience for this presentation?
- What is the desired action you want listeners to take?
- What information are you looking to convey?
The more you know about your audience, the better. Are they big-picture people who are looking for the bottom line? Are they devil-in-the-details folks who will ask to see the data and cite sources? Is it an unknown audience? Or is it a mixed audience that includes both kinds of folks?
The goal for the presentation should be baked into every decision made in terms of number of slides, layout, and context. This should be agreed upon by every person working on the deck and presenting the data.
With the answer to these questions, you will be able to select the right arc to outline the message you are sharing. (Hint: This is where I come in. My educational background allows me to remember and come up with hundreds of potential arcs to quickly and easily help you select the right one for your goals.)
The Hero’s Journey
Many modern films and stories in the West are recognizably following the Hero’s Journey. It’s not the only arc (and it doesn’t suit every action or CTA). However, it’s a popular and pervasive one for a reason: It works.
The Hero’s Journey arc is useful to use in presentations when:
- You may have to appeal to the audience’s ego
- The desired action can be positioned as “heroic”
- The listener does not know the “back story” of your presentation
It’s great for fundraising decks for start-ups, and less useful for quarterly stakeholder meetings.
Now, you’re not going to overtly mention this arc, or even allude to it in your presentation. You are merely going to allow it to inform your presentation flow and messaging.
What This Looks Like in Action:
The outline below is how it is implemented for a tech startup fundraising deck. (This is more for a series B or later round, by the way – I’d use a different arc for the Series A.)
It’s important to remember that the “Hero” in this journey is not the startup, but rather, the target investor.
| Hero’s Journey Stage | Slide Topic | Gist of Messaging |
| Call to adventure | The Big Idea | The Concept |
| Refusal of the call | Why it wouldn’t work | The Problem it Solves & the Solution |
| Meeting the mentor | Who is doing this? | Other investors, partners, stakeholders, key team members and their expertise |
| Crossing the Threshold | MVPs and Tests | The Product, its features and benefits |
| Tests, allies, enemies | Initial results | Traction and trajectory for growth |
| The approach to the inmost cave | Greatest challenges | Business Model |
| The ordeal | Competitors | Competition and Differentiators / Competitive Advantages |
| The reward | The possible gain | Market size / potential size of opportunity |
| The road back | Next quarter, next year | Basic Financial Forecast |
| The resurrection | Shifting and Evolving | Use of Funds |
| The return | Applying lessons learned | Exit Strategy |
| The freedom to live | Growth! | Thank you and contact info |
You’ll notice that this meets best practices for most fundraising decks. However, the thing that’s important here is the narrative flow. The point is to put the “ordeal” well after the initial set up, and then to show the possibility for growth after the “ordeal” of potential competition.
While this feels silly and extraneous, it is tapping into unconscious elements of how we listen to and understand stories. By ordering your slides in this way, and then practicing the actual speaking portion of the presentation to tap into those storytelling tactics (such as suspense building or carrying a through-line of story), you can engage investors who have seen hundreds of these presentations.
Bringing Your Message Home
Storytelling elements can also be added to each individual slide to bring this home. One of my favorite techniques is to carry the narrative through the headings at the top of the slides, with the “so what” in each one. So instead of entitling a slide “Market Size”, that slide may bear a title that reads “Over 3M Adults are Searching for this Solution, and the Competition Doesn’t Meet Their Needs.” This sets up the rest of the slide for a deeper discussion and has a clear take-away at the top for those big-picture folks.
If you’re interested in learning more about the presentation tactics and slide strategy, contact me.