How can you use storytelling to persuade and influence others?

Understanding the purpose of telling a story is the most important I think. There's a quote that stays with me - "Facts Tell, Stories Sell". Being in the role of a Sales Manager, I get to share a lot of success stories, but I use it methodologically. 1) For Selling - Purpose is to trigger emotions of trust and build credibility. 2) For Motivation - Purpose is to make it relatable and how to overcome these challenges 3) For Change of Perspective - Purpose is to identify audience's blind side and show them different possibilities. 4) For Taking action - Purpose is to illustrate challenges if actions are not taken on time. 5) For Entertainment - Purpose is to add humor and memorable instances.

Storytelling is an art and not a science. You become better with experience. The more you work and interact with people, the better the content of your stories.

There are ways to carefully put logic and emotions in a story. Best way I like is using sensory language. Rather than saying "He was loud", you can add emotions by saying - "He had a big,?booming?voice." To capture these emotions by making it relatable. Eg - Remember the situation you made XYZ decision, similar situation happened and then ABC happened. - Just like your father, the new boss is strict with rules Use stats and logic to make it memorable. Rather than saying, you will have a 2X growth by next year, you can say - if this growth continues, you will get enough bonus to buy second house in malabar hills by next year mid.

The description above is almost complete! However, stories built around personal & professional events create the ultimate emotional connection as people relate easily to them and to you as a person!

As stated above, I always correlate actual events in my life and connect them with the audience - positive, negative & humorous - since every story / event has a huge learning component attached to it!

Engaging audience is to make them attentive to what's been said, and make it an experience for them. I use opportunities like asking questions, and emphasizing on key points- 1) Where you in a similar situation anytime in past? 2) How many of you will react if happened to you? 3) Raise your hands, if you are from this place. 4) Imagine you are a 10 year old kid, would you think of these things? 5) Adding pause and then emphasizing on the message.

Good story and a good story teller can possibly engage the audience! However a bad story but told by a good story Troy can still engage the audience!

A call to action should never be a harsh promo using the age old technique of FOMO. However, it should be a CTA where people feel that this will bring value to their lives. Results will follow there after.