Presenting dry data? Put it into story form

Did you know that of the 500 most popular TED talk presentations, stories made up at least 65 percent of the content?

There is simply no better way to compel your audience to action and make your main point memorable than to use the emotional punch of a narrative. You know it in your gut, and science backs it up.

What if you don’t have a story to tell? What if you just have a list of numerical data, and that’s it? You can still tell a compelling story, even if all you have are a few charts and some bullet point statistics.

Here’s an example narrative to give you some context.

Let’s say you work for a company called PrimoTech, and your company manufactures GPS software for automobiles. Your boss has assigned you to deliver a presentation that shows how many units have been produced, how many have been sold and what that means for the yearly profit. All you have are numbers. You are struggling to see how a compelling, TED-talk story can be built from these facts and stats.

Start with ‘how’