3 Ways to Improve Your Storytelling (in 15 Minutes)

How can you improve your storytelling?

If you’re look­ing to improve your storytelling, then I have three per­fect ways for you to chal­lenge your inner storyteller.

And the best part: 

Neither of these three scripts should take you more than 15 minutes to try for yourself.

Here we go:

Script 1: The Pixar Pitch

The Pixar pitch, made fam­ous by Dan Pink in his book To Sell Is Human, is an excel­lent way to find a nar­rat­ive in your business. 

Emma Coats, a story artist at Pixar, has broken down the key ele­ments of great storytelling in an eleg­ant way that cer­tainly could help improve your storytelling. 

Here’s the Pixar Pitch script for you to try: 

Once upon a time there was _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Every day _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. One day _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Because of that _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Because of that _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Until finally _________. 

Jay Connor gives this example of a plot for Finding Nemo:

Once upon a time, there was a wid­owed fish named Marlin, who was highly pro­tect­ive of his only son, Nemo.

Every day Marlin warned Nemo of the ocean’s dangers and implored him not to swim far away.

One day in an act of defi­ance, Nemo ignores his father’s warn­ings and swims into the open water.

Because of that, he is cap­tured by a diver and ends up in the fish tank of a dent­ist in Sydney.

Because of that Marlin sets off on a jour­ney to recov­er Nemo, enlist­ing the help of oth­er sea creatures along the way.

Until finally Marvin and Nemo find each oth­er, reunite and learn that love depends on trust.

As I tried this for my own freel­ance busi­ness, Spin Factory, here’s what I came up with:

Once upon a time, there was no inter­net.

Every day, com­pan­ies had to rely on a few power­ful mass media dis­trib­ut­ors to mar­ket to their con­sumers.

One day, the advance­ments in inform­a­tion tech­no­logy exploded, and all com­pan­ies had to change their way of reach­ing out, but few knew how to do this.

Because of that, “social media experts” emerged and star­ted mak­ing money from com­pan­ies by advising them to pol­lute the digit­al uni­verse with clut­ter and com­plex­ity.

Because of that, Jerry struggled with the idea that com­pan­ies should strive to be clear­er instead of rely­ing on the same old spray-and-pray strategy.

Until finally, he decided to take a leap of faith togeth­er with a small group of cli­ents, all tired of push­ing one mes­sage after the oth­er with no effect, and so the agency Spin Factory was born.

Script 2: The Rebel Yell Statement

Maybe you work to earn money, put food on the table and hope­fully have fun. 

But is that all? 

Maybe there’s also some­thing more pro­found, a core pur­pose, that drives us to go the extra mile. 

Brand Positioning: The Rebel Yell Statement

Copywriter Kevin Rogers pub­lished this simple yet effect­ive script to improve your storytelling, the Rebel Yell state­ment, named after the legendary rock anthem by Billy Idol.

Here’s the rebel yell state­ment script for you to try: 

My name is _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, I love _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​ but was fed up with _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. So I cre­ated _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​ that _________.

Here’s an example by Rogers on Steve Jobs:

My name is Steve, I love com­puters but was fed up with the snail’s pace of com­mer­cial tech­no­logy. So I cre­ated a user-friendly com­puter that pro­cesses inform­a­tion faster than any­thing else out there today.

Here’s the rebel yell state­ment I wrote for this blog, Doctor Spin:

My name is Jerry, I love PR, but was fed up with “social media experts” giv­ing cli­ents bull­shit advice. So I cre­ated Doctor Spin to share action­able insights based on aca­dem­ic research, hands-on exper­i­ence, and passion.

Learn more: 3 Ways to Improve Your Storytelling (in 15 Minutes)

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Script 3: The Lottery Question

Imagine your organ­isa­tion won the lot­tery; money is no longer a primary motivator. 

You and your co-work­ers are now taken care of fin­an­cially, and the brand has earned notori­ety by hav­ing the win­ning ticket. 

Taking money out of the equa­tion might seem coun­ter­in­tu­it­ive for a busi­ness. I’m all about the bot­tom line, too. Still, this is about how to improve your storytelling.

Here’s the Lottery Question script for you to try: 

With more money than you need in the bank, what would your com­pany do next? 

Here’s how I ima­gine this scen­ario for Spin Factory:

Great minds need time for reflec­tion to grow stronger and hap­pi­er, so we would have more vaca­tion time than the usu­al industry stand­ard.

Each week, we would set aside time to explore new aca­dem­ic research and inter­act with the sci­entif­ic com­munity on beha­vi­our­al research, human psy­cho­logy, and online mar­ket­ing.

I wouldn’t go out on a frantic hir­ing spree but rather invest heav­ily in the people we already have on board.

We would say no to work­ing with cli­ents if we don’t feel pas­sion­ate about their busi­ness object­ives.

Our kick­offs, con­fer­ences and team-build­ing travels would be so epic that it would be ridicu­lous.

We would do pro bono work for import­ant non-profits that oth­er­wise can’t afford our expert­ise.

Despite the suc­cess, we would still work hard because we con­sider hard work a vir­tue and a way of life.

As fol­lows:

What could you do to imple­ment your lot­tery ideas today — even without win­ning an actu­al lottery?

PR Resource: Checklist for Leadership Clarity