Show and Tell
What is the Show & Tell story tactic?
Keep people's attention on you while you make a presentation. Make your Show and Tell work together.
There are two ways to get show and tell wrong. Tell us exactly what you're showing us. Or show us one thing while telling us about another. You leave your audience bored or confused. Control their attention instead, by treating your Show and Tell like a washing line.
Try Icebreaker Stories to get you thinking visually.
How to use the Show & Tell story tactic
Draw a timeline for your presentation. Above the line is Show (your images); below the line is Tell (your script).
Boring: If your script follows your images too closely, we're bored. When you put 50 words of text on the screen, then start reading it out, we're thinking "yeah, I know, I've read it already!".
Confusing: If your script strays too far from the image you're showing, we're confused. Should I be looking at that or listening to you?.
Engaging: Here's how to do Show and Tell like a washing line. Show us an image, tell us what it is, then you can tell us stuff we can't see. Then, introduce a new image. Refer to it immediately, to renew our focus on what we can see. You are "pegging" our attention back to the image-like pegging washing to a line. Repeat to create an engaging presentation.
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Show and Tell is one of 54 storytelling recipe cards inside the Storyteller Tactics card deck.
Ditch dull presentations and tell great stories that influence and inspire your team, stakeholders and customers.