How often have you had to deliver a pitch, convey a message or empower an audience with only one chance to get it right? Perhaps a job interview, an important sales presentation, or the announcement of major changes within your organization? Have you ever had a powerful idea that was never adopted because your peers didn't recognize its value? Storytelling is a powerful, analytical approach to frame and deliver a message. Whether delivered verbally in a meeting, documented in a report or built into a presentation, it provides a robust approach that's critical in situations where the stakes are high. It enables you to convey a complex idea quickly, win the acceptance of others, speed-up decision making and demonstrate your contributions as a thought leader. The storytelling methodology described in this book is well-proven. It has been developed based on years of experience building business-critical stories around multi-million-dollar sales opportunities, strategic change initiatives, the introduction of new business models and the launches of ground-breaking technical ideas. This book is organized as story in itself. It will take you on a practical journey illustrated by real-world examples and case studies. Be sure to apply the new ideas that you learn quickly. What you apply successfully will become a habit. Mistakes that you make along the way will become useful lessons. Both will become valuable assets for the future

• InDefining the vision
• Understanding your audience
• Framing the problem
• Constructing a story framework
• Preparing an engaging delivery
• Visualizing data
• Delivering the story