Storytelling
Storytelling is the most powerful communication tool. Stories enable you to build trust, create connection and drive action. To land your message - whether in a speech, in a meeting, on your website, or even in a social media post - storytelling is key.
We hear hundreds of claims every day, so we are rarely convinced by statements alone. We want proof - that’s where stories come in - they act as evidence, they stir emotions, they bring your point to life.
If you want to engage, persuade and inspire action, storytelling is crucial. Every speaker should understand the science of how stories work and the art of using them effectively.
Octavia can help you to:
Build a ‘story bank’ you can draw on for pitches, meetings and presentations
Learn how to structure a story that grabs attention and delivers insight
Discover what to keep - and what to cut - so you don’t lose your audience
Master a simple formula to weave stories naturally into any presentation
Practise telling stories with confidence and authenticity.
The Power of a Story
At one of our storytelling masterclasses a participant shared this story:
She’s fresh out of uni and working in a clothing store in Soho. It’s late at night. There’s a single customer in the store, deliberating over an expensive leather jacket. She thinks to herself, ‘he’s been umming and aahing for so long, there’s no way he’s going to buy it’.
She walks over to him. Instead of pushing the sale - telling him about the quality of leather or the uniqueness of the design - she tells him a story.
She talks about the Italian designer’s humble roots. He was born in Milan, the song of shoemaker. When he opened his first store in 1970s New York, he decided to do things differently. He handed out free espressos, he had DJs playing and models dancing in the shop window. The store became legendary with the hip and famous, Andy Warhol even launched his magazine there.
The customer says ‘Well, I’ve got to have it now, it’s a little piece of history.’ At the till he tells her manager ‘I wasn’t going to buy the jacket, but then she told me that story.’ So she makes commission on the sale and her manager praises her. But the story doesn’t there.
Two years later, she’s applying for her first job in advertising. The interviewer asks about her relevant experience. The problem - she’s never worked in advertising before. Instead of drawing attention to this, she tells the interviewer the story of the jacket. How she persuaded the customer to buy it, not by ‘selling’, but by successfully communicating the brand’s story.
She lands the job.
And that’s why, years later, she’s sitting in our workshop, in that advertising agency.