You Can’t Persuade Without Connection

The Style of Oral Storytelling

Imagine you’re in an auditorium. The house lights are dark, the stage lights dim save for a single spotlight shining center stage, and an announcer is reading your bio to introduce you. When they finish, the audience claps politely waiting for you to take the stage. You walk from the wings toward the center and stand in the spotlight. There is no band, no music, no dancers, no other accompaniment. Just you and the audience. What do you say to them? 

If the above scenario terrifies you, take a deep breath, inhale for four counts, and exhale for four counts, and remember that when all eyes are on you, the audience wants to hear what you have to say. Your only job then is to tell your story. 

But how? 

There are many different ways and styles of telling a story. The determining factor comes down to audience. The basic facts of your story may not change, but how you tell it will depending on whether you’re talking to fellow organizers at a conference, rapt journalists at a press conference, funders during a pitch interview, or team members during a staff meeting. We communicate by telling stories. We build community and connection by telling stories. Our personal story can persuade people to expand their thinking to include our point of view because a well-told story conveys passion, highlights a problem, suggests a solution, and then invites the audience to converse and discuss the story they heard to work together for an even better outcome. 

There’s no wrong way to tell this kind of story, only different styles. My personal favorite is to begin in scene, but you may prefer a joke or anecdote, or an introduction. 

Introduction 

The introductory style of oral storytelling is just as it sounds. You begin by introducing yourself, perhaps in a more unique way than the bio the announcer previously read. You can make a joke out of the introductory trope, “My name is ____. I’m _____.  I’m a ____. And I like ____.” For example: My name is Nikesha. I’m 38. I’m a Leo. And I like Haagen Daaz butter pecan ice cream with generic Walmart brand mini brownies. 

Whatever your opening line, it allows the audience to get to know you a little more and puts them at ease as you begin to tell your story, which as a changemaker, is probably going to be heartfelt and as hard to hear as it is to tell. 

By putting your audience at ease and introducing yourself, you prime them to listen to you because they can find you easily relatable or quirky or funny just by some small fact you share about yourself. This ease then makes the audience more willing to trust you as you guide them through various events in your life that have informed your world view, shaped your thinking, and led you to the position that you are in today where you are standing before an audience telling your personal story of your life, your life’s work, why it is important, and how they can help support or make the change you’re advocating for. 

The Joke or Anecdote 

Like the introductory style, beginning your story with a joke or anecdote puts your audience at ease while imparting a different level of knowledge about you the speaker. Humor can be tricky because not everyone will laugh at everything, but if you are brave and try to humor the audience–even if you get nervous, offputting chuckles–you have broken through and given the audience some insight into your point of view. There’s a level of intimacy and vulnerability by opening with a joke. At its core, humor is a sticky truth that the speaker is working toward and acknowledging in a way that, at the end of the day, is not funny, but honest.  

An anecdote can communicate that same level of honesty, intimacy and vulnerability. An anecdote is in itself a short story that you can use as a point of comparison or contrast with the deeper notes of your own personal story. It can also serve as a storytelling device, employed as a refrain to underscore certain points you want to make and emphasize. Repeated references to the anecdote and parallels to or juxtapositions against can make your personal story resonate more deeply with the audience. They will remember your story because you’ve carefully threaded the needle from point to point, using the anecdote as the connective tissue. 

In Scene 

While I have coached people using the introductory style of storytelling, and heard talks given that open with a joke or anecdote, my personal favorite storytelling style is to begin in scene. Telling a story “in scene” is how I opened this article: in a theater, waiting to take the stage, and tell your story. What I like about this style of storytelling is that you force your audience into focus. There is no warm up for them to check out on and check their phone to see who DM’d them on Instagram. You’re off in story and they have to keep up. It puts pressure on the audience to keep up with you and give you their undivided attention. 

Starting in scene also paints a picture for the audience where they can imagine themselves there with you or as observers on the sideline. Either way, beginning a story in scene forces the audience to come to you, while the introductory style makes you as the storyteller come to them, and the joke or anecdote makes them curious even amidst their ambivalence.  

As a former TEDx speaker and current speaker coach for TEDxJacksonville I have given and worked with people who have begun their stories with an introduction or in scene. It doesn’t matter how you tell your story, whether you start with a joke, or a question that you plan to answer by the end. What matters is that you speak confidently and authentically, creating empathy with your honesty and compassion with your candor. 

It is through story that we communicate our experiences to people who are not like us. It is through story that we can paint the picture and set the scene to advocate for change. It is through story that we are able to connect with others and persuade them to our point. And how we choose to go about that storytelling is our own personal style.