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Martin here. I’m getting ready to head off to PRSA Counselors Academy’s spring conference and thought I’d catch up with one of the presenters, Rob Biesenbach. Rob is a communications expert, speaker, writer and actor who is ‘fighting to end dull ordinary communications in our time’. (But he doesn’t have a cape.)
At Counselors, Rob’s going to be talking about how to Unleash the Power of Storytelling to build trust and win business.
He says most people play fast and loose with the definition of story and don’t understand its distinct structure: a character, in pursuit of a goal, in the face of some sort of obstacle.
Stories aren’t a quote from Winston Churchill or a customer testimonial.
Rob likens our job as communicators with acting: both require you to connect with your audience, tell a story well and express yourself. Too many businesses compare themselves to other businesses – when they should be looking to and learning from show business, where the most powerful stories in our culture can be found.
Rob is also doing an Ingnite style presentation based on his new book, 11 Deadly Presentation Sins.
He talks about the three he thinks are the worst:
- Failure to connect with an audience
- Failure to focus
- Doing a data dump rather than a story that’s filled with emotion.
And when it comes to PowerPoint, he cautions us that when you see ‘insert text here’ on a slide, it’s a suggestion, not a command.
Want to hear more? You can catch Rob at Counselors Academy or check out his website.
And if you’re interested in Counselors Academy and the other presenters, you can follow the hashtag on Twitter #CAPRSA.
Gini and Joe will be back next episode.
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