September 30, 2022

A Conversation with Janine Kurnoff & Lee Lazarus

50 minutes

Janine Kurnoff and Lee Lazarus are the Co-Founders of The Presentation Company and Co-Authors of the book Everyday Business Storytelling. In connection to the basic elements of stories, sellers almost always focus on the resolution without even building the foundations and actually understanding their prospects.

Today, Janine and Lee share their 4 basic elements of a story and why every story needs a big idea. They talk about applying these principles not only in presentations but even in some things as common as emails. They dig deep into the magic of storytelling in that you could even integrate data to deliver the best narrative for your prospect.

HIGHLIGHTS

Start with the customer and their needs and build a story from there

The 4 basic signposts for creating a story

Who is responsible for creating stories?

Applying the storytelling principles in emails

Data is good but you have to wrap it in a story

QUOTES

The basic signposts help sellers build a story - Janine: "To me, it's like giving people a common language. It's letting them learn how to speak a new language, it's called story. And if we all talk the same language especially as we work and collaborate with teams, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to put together narratives and iterate and collaborate with others."

Empowering people to realize that they are the storyteller - Janine: "When you get these playbooks, templates, and scripts, that's awesome as a starting point. I think salespeople need to feel empowered to ultimately own the story. Because every time you get in front of that audience, the story may change a little because time has passed, things have transpired, and developments have been made."

Your storytelling should support the buyer/prospect's journey - Lee: "Let's take the methodology but let's package it up with some storytelling fundamentals and even some visualization concepts. Because if I'm going to weave data into my story, then where does that data live and how do I unpack that data in a way that it's digestible and isn't just firehosing my audience?"

Find out more about Janine and Lee in the links below: