Pitch Storytelling: How To Effectively Use Stories In Your Pitch Deck

1. Intro Course Storytelling Pitch: Hey guys, how are you? Let me tell you a secret. I'm going to introduce you to the Michael Jordan of venture capitalism. So check this out. Alright, let me try again. Okay. This my dear friends is Bill Gurley one of the sayings is that investors are not solely evaluating your company's story. There are also evaluating your ability to convey that story. So question is, what is a company's story and how do we convey it? This course is going to help you answer these questions. So without further ado, let's jump to it. Let's go. 2. We All Are Storytellers : Well listen, we're all storytellers. It's been like this forever. It's always going to be I'm going to prove it to you. Well, let me tell you this first. Even if you think you're not creative enough. Even if you think you're about with stories, even if you think you are the most analytical person out there, who does everything in the background and who doesn't like to tell stories, blah, blah, blah, whatever excuse you're giving yourself. It's not true. Because you are a storyteller. We all are storytellers and it's been like this since forever. Let's go back in time a little bit. Let me ask you this. Before the Internet, before the radio, before every single tool of technology existed. What was there were fire camps. Camps where they use to gather around and tell stories. But even that by itself, it's not enough to convince you that we all are storytellers, right? So let me tell you this. Through every instance that we go through, through every interaction in our daily lives, through every single moment. What do we do? We interpret things. We love life, we tell ourselves a story. The story of us. Basically that means we're storytellers. Now, how good of a storyteller we are. That depends. You could be telling a story that affect us negatively. You're telling a story that affect us positively. We can interpret things the way we would like to interpret them or the way we do simply interpret them. It could be very bad. It can be very good. But regardless, we're still telling ourselves the story. That leads us to places in leaf. If we tell ourselves the story that we're not really good at storytelling. And that's going to reflect an hourly let in our real life, like in reality. And we're going to end up being bad storytellers. But if we tell ourselves that we're good storytellers, well, then we're going to work on becoming better storytellers. We're going to become basically better. So with that, it's obvious that the ability to tell stories is innate in us. Now let's learn how we are going to use these stories in our pitch. Alright. 3. Data Don't Lie! : Listen, there are many ways that you can create stories. You can tell any story that you want in your pitch. I mean, you can talk about your EBITDA. You can talk about your competitor's analysis. You can talk about your competitive advantage. And you can talk a little bit about your timeframe on your journey, right? But if you don't include storytelling, it's basically, it's not going to connect with the audience. Storytelling is truly important. You need to, you need to use it in your pitch. Otherwise you won't, you won't connect. It just it, it might make sense, but it won't make an impact. So we need to use storytelling. And there are some data to back disclaimer, right? So let me tell you. Researched by half stream has shown that at least if, if people like your brand's story, one out of two of these people will actually share that story online with their friends, with their family, with their relatives. But not only will they share that story, they are also more likely to buy from you in the future. Alright? That's half of the people that actually like the story. Not only that as well, but 15, 15% percent of those people will actually buy immediately. What does that mean? Now, although that data is more from a customer's perspective, your audience, in the case of view pitching or investors. And that same process. These investors, they have to go through it as well. No. So if they like your story, they might share with other investors. And most probably if they actually like it, then they're going to invest. And that is what you want to achieve. 4. Introducing a Character!: There are many ways that you can include storytelling in your pitch. But for this particular course, we're going to learn about a one process that's going, that's going to be done through two steps. And we're going to talk about the first step right now, which is basically to introduce a character. The way you introduce a character. And I'm pretty positive you guys are familiar with this. It's through creating a buyer persona or a persona, generally speaking, the customer persona. Who is your customer? Look, you're telling a story. Basically what you're doing is you have created a solution to a problem that is what your business is about, right? And you're pitching that solution. So technically you are taking us on a customer journey. But who is the customer? Who are they? What do they like? What do they dislike? What do they do? What are their habits? How do they think? Where do they congregate? What can we find them? How do we target them? I mean, that's the essence of your story, it's the character itself. So we want to introduce the character. And the easiest way to do that is by creating a persona. Used to think that, oh my god, like, why would I want to create a persona like this is such a basic thing to do or to define. The reality is you need to create our persona. You need to understand who is that customer viewers. We need to understand. Investors need to understand. So you create a persona. Simple. Now here's the thing. You're not really limited to one person. You can have so many persona's and each could have their own storyline. And depending on who you're pitching tool, you can use the particular persona. Alright, and their storyline. But let's just take an example here. This is a Dora and she's 27. G is a freelance graphic designer. Obviously, a Dora is a customer, It's a buyer persona. So let me give you let me introduce to you The started though we're talking about it's, it's, it's not a real startup. Just came up with the idea. It's called graph you. It's an online platform that allows graphic designers, especially freelancers, to showcase their portfolio online in such an easy way to potential clients. It allows you to also send proposals to these clients through the platform itself. Not only that, but it also helps you look for opportunities. So every week we send a Dora and the different freelancers that we have on the platform. We send them opportunities. Men, perhaps they can, they can create a proposal and then find work. That is graph here. That is the startup supposedly. Alright, so keep that in mind because we're going to learn that, yes, we did introduce a character, but how can we use that character in our story in an hour pitch? That's cool. This is, now we're going to talk about the second step, which is the basically the hero's journey. 5. How To Effectively Use Stories In Your Pitch The Hero's Journey : Now we want to take this character that we've created and we want to merge it with the pitch and want to make it as a whole. And the only way to do that is by using storytelling structures. The most basic storytelling structure as long other than the hero's journey, right? I mean, personally I believe it's the most effective, It's the most one that is used. You can use it literally anywhere, anytime the way you want it. And it's probably, again, most effective one. But we have to learn how to use it. There are many ways that we can use it, but the most ultimate way is by taking that first character of putting it in a certain situation. And that certain situation is none other than the fact that the Dora was a an employee, a nine to five employee at one of the big graphic design firms, NY graphic designers. Alright, that's the normal situation. But then the Dora had problems, right? She wanted more. She needed more. It wasn't enough for salary, wasn't enough. The exposure wasn't enough. She wanted to create her own name, but she had a problem. She didn't know how how she would be able to showcase or portfolio online to potential clients, freelance clients. She also didn't know where to get these opportunities from. And she had to go through tests and trials. She had to look for different platforms. I mean, between Upwork, fever, freelancer, all the different freelance platforms out there. It was very difficult to choose one. But then a friend of her told her about Greenfield. And she told her that brief view is one of those platforms that is solely designed for freelance graphic designers. Not only will they allow you to showcase your portfolio and do all your all your transactions through the platform. But they also send you weekly opportunities. And adore liked the idea. There she had a solution, our startup or business. And she started she started uploading a profile, updating it. She had her portfolio ready within two days and literally within a week or ten days, adore managed to land a client through graphical. That is my dear friends, the new end, the happier. We want to take these, this cost, this persona on a journey. We want to tell the audience and that is the investors that this is the journey that Dora went through. I mean, you heard that right? You heard the story. And then a sentence. We're hooked by it. So don't you want that same feeling to translate into the transport that feeling to your investors. Because at the end of the day, that is what they're going to buy to your solution to a problem. 6. Other Things to Consider : Look, you're not really bound by this particular structure. There are many ways that you can use storytelling in your pitch. And for that, we're gonna, I'm gonna tell you guys a little bit about other ways, other things that you need to consider. First of all, for instance, you can use data in order to input storytelling in your pitch, right? But you have to remember that people don't really remember the data itself. They remember the story behind this data. There's this particular guy that I follow on LinkedIn is called James eagle. And t, he normally presents the data in such a way that is incredible. He shows you the storyline of how the data evolved. For instance, let's say how nuclear heads, Alright. I remember, I still remember that, that representation of nuclear had So how many, how many nuclear hats that each country have? Does each country have, and how that number evolved throughout history. And you can see the story unfolding in front of you from the Cold War between the race, the arms between the United States and the USSR back then. And then at 1 that, that armory stopped and switched to a norm race between or nuclear nuclear head race between Russia and the United States and how that evolved as well. So that's just 11 way of including storytelling in your pitch module. If you do want to give figures, like whenever you're giving figures, try using try using real numbers. If you remember at the start I was telling you one out of two people are going to share your stories. I said one out of two and I didn't say 50 per cent because one out of two is a lot more appealing. I mean, if you can see it right here, it's a little more appealing than saying 50% of people are going to use this. Okay? That's just when it comes to storytelling. Data storytelling. Again, you're also not bound by this. There are many ways that many other structures that you can use. One of these structures, for instance, is the brand's origins story. So in this structure you talk a little bit about your brand and how it came to be, how it evolved, how you started, and then the different trial and errors that you went through, the different obstacles that you had to face. And then you end up where you are right now. And perhaps where are you heading later on in the future, which also brings us to the extraordinary future story variation. And that is when you showcase what you have done so far as a brand, as a business, as a startup. Then you start talking about the future plans, about what you're working on. What are your expectations and your projections for the future and how you, along with your investors are going to change the history of your industry. And that's what we call the extra ordinary future. 7. Practical Exercice: This is a very short course. It gives you the kernel of what you need to know in order to include storytelling in your pitch. And for that, you need to be a little practical as well. You can just take theory and multiply it. So here's what I need you to do. I need you to create a pitch for me. A short pitch, just two minutes. Just two minutes. That's all you need to do. But first I need you to go through the steps one by one. The first thing that you need to do is you need to create a customer persona. Now, mind you not all, everyone has a business, a real business as of yet. So if you don't have a real business, perhaps just find a dummy idea and use it like I did with a Dora and graph here. I just created that doesn't have to be real. So step number one, find the business idea or take your business as it is. Step number two is for you to create a customer persona that you can use in your pitch. And step number three is to use the hero's journey, structure and build, build it through the eyes of the customer persona. So include the customer persona and a hero's journey. And then deliver the pitch and tell us at the end why you think this is the real. Basically you're going to be telling us through the story why you think your business is going to help your customer or your hero. Alright, with that, I basically, congratulations on finishing the course. There's one more video, check it out. 8. Final Words: Hey guys, what is up? This is the final video. First of all, I really want to thank you all for watching the videos, and I genuinely hope that you guys had some valuable information. You learned some valuable stuff and perhaps you took, maybe not a leap, but at least one step forward, right? That is what you need to do at the end of the day. Take that one step forward every single day. And then by the end the year you're going to find yourself on a completely different playing field. With that, I want to thank you again. And I want to tell you that I would love to hear your feedback other than the video quality. I would love to know what you guys want to learn. Everything related to, everything that is public speaking, storytelling, persuasion, everything related to these I would love to help you with. So let me know in the comments how I can help what topics you guys are interested to learn more about. And I also attached a link to a medium article that I wrote. You can use later on. You don't have to go through the videos all over again. You just can use that medium article to skim through the different ideas and just serve as a good reminder for you guys. Alright. Thanks a lot again and see you in the next course. Or perhaps I'm going to add some more videos into this one. Alright, Cheers.