Introducing the Three Tells™

Our new method for effective storytelling, launched last March, was developed on the basis of our experience with over one hundred clients from dozens of countries and cultures.

We named it the Three Tells™, to express the idea that great storytelling is a combination of three complementary elements:

Visual Telling, Data Telling, and Speaker Telling.

Speaker Telling is the most crucial element in this model. It is also, the most challenging one for the majority of speakers we work with. We’re not sure why. commitment to old-world business practices? A rearing that teaches we should not  boast about our accomplishments? Our anxiety of exposing ourselves too much, if we do not play it safe and hide behind numbers, data, and charts?

Whether you are out to recruit an investor, gain your boss’s approval, or enlist your colleagues for your cause, remember that they’re ultimately making a commitment to you. The person. Not to the numbers on the page. If you persuade them to follow your lead, they’ll back your idea and your product.

Data Telling is all about the information you want to get across. We all try to stuff as much information as possible into a presentation. The trick is to turn this information into easily identifiable messages and arguments. How can you tell if your presentation is persuasive or merely good enough? Simply follow out 3X3 model, which guides you to limit your presentation to no more than 3 messages, and support each message with 3 arguments.

Visual Telling covers the use of visual aids. We’re talking about more than just slides and whiteboards. Is your start-up company swimming in patents? Half a dozen 6” binders slapped on the conference room’s desk will paint a clear picture. Do you want to defy your audience to throw the rules out window? Take off your jacket, or enter the room wearing a pair of boxing gloves. Are you a technologist with a keen eye for innovation? Get up on stage dressed like Spock from Star Trek. (We’ve tried it. It worked like a charm).