Episode 228: Ever Wonder How to Master Storytelling? Ready for James Ontra's Jaw-Dropping Presentation Tips?
James Ontra is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shufflrr. Shufflrr is AI Presentation Management, and gives users a fast, easy way to create and share a presentation.
James joins Erin today to discuss the key components to every great presentation, why emotion is your most vital asset, and the difference between knowing the what of what you’re presenting and the why.
If you’re looking for a refresh on your presentation style – this is the episode for you.
Show Links:
Purchase Erin’s newest book, I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team through Radical Empathy
Purchase the I See You Meditation Album
Get our free 4-Step Consistency Planner here
Did today’s episode resonate with you? Please leave us a review for a chance to win a self-care package from us.
Send a question/voice message on SpeakPipe here.
Want to book Erin to speak at your organization or large-scale event: Learn more here.
Check out Harmony Insights, an organization led by Erich Kurschat. Using the DiSC model of behavior as a foundation since 2006, Erich focuses on natural behaviors and learned adaptability to create roadmaps for the relationships and connections that matter most to us. He facilitates a process of learning that is at once deeply introspective and highly interactive. Whether you’re learning how to navigate and manage personalities, seeking direction in your career, or simply looking to connect more successfully with the person directly in front of you, let Erich and Harmony Insights help you define your own path to achievement… one insight at a time!
Connect with James Ontra:
James’ LinkedIn
Connect with Erin Diehl:
@itserindiehl on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
“I love this podcast and I love Erin!!”
If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing this podcast! This helps Erin support more people – just like you – move toward the leader you want to be. Click here, click listen on Apple Podcasts, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let Erin know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast. That way you won’t miss any juicy episodes! Thanks in advance, improve it! Peeps :)
Episode 228 Transcription
Erin Diehl (00:02.001)
James, welcome to the Improve It podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you. How are you doing today? Welcome, welcome.
james (00:11.454)
I'm doing great, Aaron. Thank you very much. I'm looking to improve it every day of my life. That's why I wake up is to make my day better. And if you don't look at tomorrow as a better day, then why live today?
Erin Diehl (00:23.133)
James, that's what's up, that's what's up. We're improving it left and right, okay? And I love that you said that because we're talking about the theme for this month's show is stepping into your power. So I'd love to set an intention for you. Knowing that theme, knowing that you're here to talk about storytelling and presentations, what is a one word intention that you wanna give our audience today?
james (00:47.554)
Genuine if you can't be genuine no one will fundamentally trust you they will not trust your story They will not test what you're saying and hence they won't act on what you're doing So it makes it hard to really connect and if you can't be genuine you're not allowed to step into the next stages of convincing or storytelling or Commanding attention because as you know, if you don't respect someone you don't care what comes out of their mouth
Erin Diehl (00:49.041)
oooo
Erin Diehl (01:14.521)
I love that. Let me ask you this. And I feel like you're gonna give me the real deal, which I'm here for. What's an example of somebody being disingenuine when it comes to storytelling? Do you have a ready example?
james (01:29.315)
If a ready example, basically, if you don't know what you're saying from your heart and how to explain it, it doesn't happen. Let's just use the world media nowadays. You can wake up and be given five points about any topic. And many people go out and they repeat those points. It's bad because of A, it's bad because of B, it's bad because of C. If that person can't answer why. If they can't say,
I don't believe in tattoos for children because they don't have the ability to make that choice. And since they haven't gone in and they fundamentally don't know the long-term consequences, you don't believe I truly believe it. If I tell you I believe in the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, yet I don't spend time and I don't give to it and I don't contribute to it and I haven't said anything about it, there's really no point in listening to me.
Erin Diehl (02:25.733)
Yeah. Oh, I love that.
james (02:27.582)
And those weren't concrete, but I gave a good idea.
Erin Diehl (02:31.149)
Yeah, no, that's good. And I'll, you know, as an improviser, as a person who stands on stages, as an audience member, you know when the person telling you a story or giving a talk isn't genuine. You feel it, right? And when I was just doing improv for a living, literally not for a living, but as a hobby, I don't do it as a hobby now.
james (02:46.486)
That's right. Yeah.
james (02:53.838)
That's the hardest. If you're doing improv for a living, you're at the highest level of comedy. Because if you're not at the highest level, you're not getting, you can't do it for a living. There's no living in that.
Erin Diehl (02:59.61)
That's right.
Erin Diehl (03:03.473)
That's absolutely right. And I found a way, yeah, to make it a living, but not necessarily by doing it as the act of the art. But I will say when I was performing all the time and when I knew I was being disingenuine with a character choice or when I wasn't fully committed to a character, my scene partners knew that, which then the audience knew that.
james (03:12.567)
Okay.
Erin Diehl (03:32.749)
And I think when you're talking about effective storytelling and any capability, genuine is such a good word to, to put in front of that. So let's keep that going.
james (03:38.187)
Yeah.
james (03:42.806)
Think about it. Think about people who went through very challenging events in their life. You sit and listen to them because what they're saying is genuine. The people who are on the front line of a war, or someone who their house burnt down and they ran in and saved their kids, and they told you.
Erin Diehl (03:49.146)
Yeah.
james (04:01.374)
I went through the door and the smoke was there and it hit my eyes and they started watering and I couldn't even understand what the hell was going on. But I knew my daughter was upstairs and those stairs were burning hot. And when I stepped on it, it cracked. I thought I was going to fall through. As I went up the stairs, I knew she was there. I closed my eyes because I've been down that stairway 22 times. But those seven steps were the most important in my life. I grabbed her by the arm and I grabbed her by her hair. It was the only thing I can get. And I dragged her out. We got out of the house and it was fucking wonderful.
Erin Diehl (04:31.633)
Oh, I love it. I love it! That was genuine. I know, I was like, is this a real story? Kudos to you for improvising that.
james (04:32.822)
That was genuine. I've never done that, by the way. I've never saved, I don't want to. But without the ability to A, A if I came on the show and the news anchor said, James ran into his house and saved his little daughter, what did it be? It makes every one of those correct. It makes the water coming out of the corner of my eye that I couldn't see real. And it creates an image in your mind because it is real.
Erin Diehl (05:02.673)
Hmm.
james (05:03.286)
Verbal imagery is a critical component of storytelling. And that helps if you read a lot of books, you can do that well, by the way.
Erin Diehl (05:07.994)
And what I.
Erin Diehl (05:11.353)
Yeah, well, and what I love too, just hearing you say that entire dialogue was the specificity of the choices that you made, pulling her by the hair, you know, the door was hot or where I touched it was hot. Like you've said very specific words, which in improv we also have to do is be extremely specific to tell a story. And the more, I always find the more, instead of saying candy bar, if I said Snickers.
the audience lights up because maybe Snickers is their favorite candy bar, and they can really see that candy versus just saying candy bar. I don't know why I said candy bar this first thing that came to my mind. Maybe I'm hungry. But I really love that. And I love this going into this month talking all about stepping into your power because genuine people step into their power. There's no other superpower other than being you. So let's just.
james (05:49.378)
That's okay.
Erin Diehl (06:08.277)
start with your journey that got you here. Yeah. If you could give us the cliff notes, what led you to this journey of helping people craft better stories and get out of Presentation Hill?
james (06:26.27)
presentation, hell, I've been there 25 years. I understand that whole component of it. Really, it goes back to my young days as an entrepreneur and starting businesses to pay for college and school and stuff like that. And I had a t-shirt printing shop. And every t-shirt, now I know, was basically a meme. Because if you can't look at it and get an idea, so I was designing memes at the time. And I realized that if you don't
capture the moment with some sort of realism of what's going on, you fundamentally can't sell it. If I stand up and show you a t-shirt that says, you know what I mean, the Broncos for Super Bowl, there has to be some reason behind it. Or I made shirts for oil messes or for fraternity events, school things. Here, I'll give you my number one shirt that I made in college.
Erin Diehl (07:20.573)
I was gonna ask, I'm very glad you're doing this, okay.
james (07:23.178)
Okay, it's called, are you familiar with college football? Your audience might be, okay. There's something called the Heisman Trophy, which is the number one football player of the year. And I went to the University of Houston and early in the year, the quarterback was a gentleman named Andre Ware. And like the third game, I was making t-shirts because I want to make money. I made a shirt that said, beware of Andre. And I brought it to him and I gave him some and I gave his roommates and they brought it to play, to their practice and they wore it and...
Erin Diehl (07:27.341)
Yes, I'm a Clemson, Clemson Tiger.
james (07:52.246)
The Houston Post took pictures and the Chronicle did, and then it was in the newspaper. And then the NCAA got freaked out. And they said, you can't use his name and likeness, which is a big issue today. His name and likeness and make money, you're jeopardizing his ability to play. And it turned into a big deal on campus that these shirts were jeopardizing his ability to actually go out and play the game, because we were winning. And...
Erin Diehl (08:04.581)
Yeah.
james (08:19.57)
Lord knows you don't want that, but that lights it up. That lights up the intensity and everyone's interested in it. And the NCAA literally, well, it was the school football office brought, brought me in and sat me in front of a chair and they're thinking, I swear to God, I think the chair was like eight inches short. It was like a school, like a kindergarten chair. And I felt like I was sitting there looking up at the desk and they're saying, you can't do this. And they gave me a letter that said, and it's from, you know, the legal department.
You can't use his name and likeness, his word, Andre, and you know, and that was a blueprint for making the next shirt that said, where is the Heisman? And it was W-H-E-R-E, and we put an exclamation point. So it was grammatically challenged. It was, it was actually challenged in the way it was a homonym versus what's going on. And by the way, that's the way the internet works nowadays. It's Flickr, it's this, it's that. No words are real. You made them up. So we were doing this a long time ago.
But they flipped out. They said, didn't we tell you, no, no? And I said, you actually gave me a blueprint of what I can do because the legal lawyer did. It went through. Finally, it was approved. And I think we sold 3,000 or 4,000 shirts in a week. And in 1989, 3,000 shirts at $10 apiece to a guy working out of his garage is a lot of cash.
Erin Diehl (09:43.801)
Yeah, that's awesome.
james (09:45.474)
So that was the very entrepreneurial. And you can see the story at the University of Houston website or on LinkedIn. And it's just one of those things. But that's just one way of storytelling and retelling the story. I actually told the story that he is the Heisman. I did it. And purely, I want to make money and pay my rent. But the storytelling is what took the whole process through and got everyone involved and everyone online.
Erin Diehl (09:54.221)
I love it.
Erin Diehl (10:15.509)
I love it. So that was sort of the catalyst for you to realize there's something with storytelling, using words as puns, making these memes before memes were a thing. And you wrote a book called, Presentation How, and in that book, you talk about the art of engagement.
And I know that the people who listen to this show are people leaders, they lead teams, they're giving presentations internally, sometimes externally. I know a lot of people who listen to the show who want to be speakers, who want to be a keynote speaker, right? So is there a game changing technique that you have from the book or just from your own experience that you use that helps you captivate any audience? Is there one technique that
sticks out in your mind that somebody listening today could latch onto.
james (11:09.734)
Um, okay, it's captured in the word emotion. Emotion creates motion. So you launch out in your meeting and go emotional. You say this little girl won't eat unless you give 50 cents. And then you talk logic after it. And whatever that emotional charged slide is in the beginning, the person makes their decision. Oh, I want to help that little girl.
Then each of the slides that are logical, they will take that data to reinforce their emotional decision they already made at the beginning. So it's a balance of emotion and logic. Start with emotion. Do one slide, picture one slide as a meme for whatever your presentation is. Make it up, put it up there. People will see it and they'll make an emotional response, then go into your numbers and logic and what's going on. They will have made the decision on the first slide and they will use all your numbers to reinforce it.
Erin Diehl (11:46.931)
Mmm. I love-
james (12:09.502)
Now think about it. If you decided I want to help that little girl, you're going to look at the numbers and go, well, I spend $5 a day on coffee. That's a little bit. I'd rather serve them. If you didn't want to do it, you would look at it and say, $5 on coffee. That's $1,500 a year. I could take my kid to piano lessons and that kid, and they can take care of me. Forget that. But notice it was the emotional decision on the first slide.
Erin Diehl (12:09.849)
Mmm.
james (12:35.83)
that allowed me to use the logic to reinforce where you already had me. Politicians do this all the time. The numbers are all the same, but they take you emotionally on the first step. Once they got you emotionally, anything they say reinforces that emotional decision you made in your own brain ahead of time.
Erin Diehl (12:40.973)
I love it. Yes, they do.
Erin Diehl (12:54.137)
I love it. Okay, so, because as a speaker, right, I always think about, there's two types of learners, people who learn with their head, the more data analytical types, and then people who learn with their heart. And so I try to play both of those into what I do. I also have a ton of clients. Start with the heart. Yeah, that, oh, I like that. Okay, start with the heart. The other question that...
james (13:13.629)
Start with the heart. And then go to the mind.
Erin Diehl (13:21.661)
even rings true from this conversation, I know a ton of data analysts. We work with a variety of different companies and industries and one in particular are this group. It's a, let's just call it emerging leader group of data analysts. And one of their biggest challenges is telling stories with their data because their go-to
james (13:43.484)
Yeah, listen to the name you just gave me. That's the most boring name I've ever heard.
Erin Diehl (13:47.009)
Right, right. So, but what they are charged with is telling a story to the leadership team about the data, right? And so do you have any go-to tips that they could incorporate into their presentations when all they have to give is data? Is there a way to pull emotions from data?
james (14:07.766)
Well, yeah, but it's a this is where the genuine comes from. If you brought the data, if you're genuine in understanding the data, you will be able to point out what's relevant. Meaning I have a bunch of charts, but I want to draw your attention to the people who only spend three, three seconds on our website. In three seconds, can I communicate anything to you?
Erin Diehl (14:20.643)
Mm.
Erin Diehl (14:35.277)
Interesting. No, you can't. No, no.
james (14:35.798)
Obviously not. And unless I punch you in the face and then I'll communicate a lot in a split second. But do you see what I'm and it's the knowledge of it to bring them through and ask a question that causes the audience to question what's out there. And then you've actually brought them into the data because you can look at numbers and numbers and numbers and numbers, but they're going to they're going to go to the one thing that you made them think.
Erin Diehl (14:55.948)
Totally.
james (15:04.278)
I'm not just telling you something like, like this goes to the what versus why. If you know what to say, you're going to lose credibility. If you know why you're saying it, you're going to draw them in and bring them through. Just giving numbers and stats is what you're saying. Bringing in a focus as to why they're there. That's when you'll bring them in and get their brains working.
Erin Diehl (15:04.473)
And that...
Erin Diehl (15:17.703)
Hmm.
Erin Diehl (15:29.065)
Oh, I love it. Okay, all my data analysts out there, listen up, because that's a great tip. And I mean, it's really the why also is emotional, right? That usually has a tie to emotion or the mission.
james (15:39.37)
Yeah. Well, it's about prediction and who you are and what's going on. If you don't know why, if you can't get on a stage and be passionate, you can only be passionate if you know why. If you're just saying what, I'm just repeating words off of it. Think of think of poetry. I can read you the words of a poem means nothing. If you can sense that, you know why I'm saying it and the feeling behind it and the heartbreak in the words that are coming out.
Now you know that I know why I'm saying it because I really live those heartbreaks. And that's, and that's, that's just a good way of doing it. I find, and this is, this is, I find, oh God, this is horrible. 80% of the people out there don't know why they're saying anything. They're merely saying what they're merely going NBC told me to do this and I'm repeating that, that it's going to be that and everyone's going to be hurt and democracy is going to end and we're all going to die.
Erin Diehl (16:14.13)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and people feel that.
Erin Diehl (16:24.837)
Say it.
Erin Diehl (16:28.139)
Totally.
james (16:40.47)
but people fundamentally just don't know why and how. And if they know why, they'll go, oh, I have a solution. If they don't know why, they just bitch about the problems and ask for money. If you know why, you can actually try to solve it.
Erin Diehl (16:44.154)
Yeah.
Erin Diehl (16:54.429)
Totally. No, I mean, and it's... Yeah. Always the actor's dilemma, you know? It's always interesting to find the why behind a character. You're given a script that the product that you're talking about, right, means nothing to you, but you have to find the why in that character, why that character cares and make a choice. So it's so interesting, the parallels, because all of it is storytelling. All of it is presenting.
james (17:08.886)
That's your motivation.
james (17:17.838)
Mm-hmm.
james (17:23.31)
Let me bring this to something that we say, every presentation is a story and every slide is a scene.
Erin Diehl (17:30.809)
Mmm, I like that. That's great.
james (17:32.678)
If every slide is a scene, think of yourself as Scorsese and every actor on that screen, what are they doing? Why is that red box in the upper right-hand corner? What is it being said with this text? Does that text enter the stage from the right and then exit through dissolving? Think of every asset on your screen as an actor.
Erin Diehl (17:57.952)
Mmm.
james (18:02.686)
And what is their why? What's the purpose for that word? What's the purpose for that image? How does that actor enter the screen? How do they make you feel? How does it perform when it's on it? Does it play a video? Does it turn into an animation? How does it exit? Does it blow up and then disappear? That causes emotion. Think of presentations and storytelling. Each one, it's already broken up for you. When these people make movies, they break down every single scene, and then every single scene is in individual blocks.
Erin Diehl (18:12.946)
No.
Erin Diehl (18:21.022)
so true.
james (18:32.398)
And they go close up. Think of every cartoon. It's like, how about this? Every sitcom starts with the outside of the building or the outside of Cheers or the outside of the Brady Bunch house. And you get perspective of where it's happening. And then you go into the kitchen. And then it's in the kitchen. And then you go closer to the stove. And the next thing you know, the person cut their finger and it's a close up of their finger. Through those three scenes in a split second.
I got you right to detail that you know where you are, the big thing, you're in the kitchen, you're doing this, you're probably presuming people are hungry or there's some event going on. All that thing plays into it and the great storytellers do that well. And everyone who does a presentation has an opportunity to be a great storyteller.
Erin Diehl (19:15.473)
Oh my God, I love that. I love that. I'm just thinking of my own keynotes now and I'm thinking about each slide. And they really do like transitions, animations, how text parlays, how you have music, if you have a video like it does, it brings us back to emotion and or genuine, genuine conversation, genuine storytelling. I wanna ask you two questions and I'm gonna start with the worst one first.
james (19:35.276)
Mm-hmm.
Erin Diehl (19:44.789)
Is there a case study? And this could be your own, you don't have to name the person. Is there a case study of a human being that you witnessed that was a horrible example of storytelling? And you don't have to say the person, but you can tell us about it.
james (20:05.527)
I'm going to move to a different example in a corporate environment. I will name the company in place, but not the specific person. It wasn't about horrible storytelling. It was about elevating the storytelling. Okay. Now in, I'm not a kid in the late nineties, I was doing sales presentations for NBC to help them sell their Olympic advertising. There's one of the slides for up there.
Erin Diehl (20:19.069)
Mmm.
james (20:30.87)
They had just spent three billion dollars to air the Olympics and they wanted to get that money back through advertising. And there we were discussing it. And I happened to be in the beginning. I wasn't discussing. I was sitting there on the side listening to the way the NBC sales executives were discussing how they were going to sell. And they were talking about emotion. They said, what's the difference between and I'm throwing this out there. They didn't use this name Coca-Cola spending 10 million dollars or spending 100 million dollars.
They said emotion. Because the Olympics are much bigger than just 10 million people watching. They could have given you, we've got 10 million viewers. That's at 10 cents a piece. The ad spend is going to be a million dollars. Let's buy it and go. And that's it. But they said, let's give them the Muhammad Ali video, where Muhammad Ali stands up and shakes with Parkinson's and he lights the Olympic torch. And you can just feel.
this human being who was the killer of the ring and the number one Olympian in his sport is suddenly human barely lifting something to the top. And he said, once they see that, the hair on the back of their neck stands up and that same sponsorship isn't $1 million for 10 million eyes, it's a cultural moment that's worth $100 million.
So if you start losing them with data and numbers, give them the Muhammad Ali video.
Erin Diehl (22:03.665)
And so, okay, and that to you. So when you watch that, yeah, okay, I like that. I like that. So for you.
james (22:07.138)
That elevates. Yeah. Go ahead. I don't know if I answered your question well enough, but I gave you a story that is worth listening to.
Erin Diehl (22:16.161)
Now that's, that is a very cool story. And I want, and so that also kind of ties into a story of strengths, because I wanted an example, I wanted to give our audience an example of a story, a storytelling opportunity that they could never do and a storytelling opportunity that they could do tomorrow. And I think that fits the bill for both. I really think both of those do fit. And I remember, you know what's crazy? I actually saw Muhammad Ali.
in the Atlanta Olympics when he was there. He wasn't actually in the Olympics, but I went to the boxing Atlanta Olympics. I think it was 96, which is a fun fact just to share there, but you can really see when you were talking about.
james (22:54.914)
Connected with you emotionally with that you see that that's in it That's a cultural event that affected people now that Advertisement for coca-cola is more relevant because if it was there at that time it might have affected you to this day being Atlanta Being a coca-cola home
Erin Diehl (22:57.87)
Yeah.
Erin Diehl (23:09.977)
Right? And it is a co, I mean, I used to live in Georgia. Yeah. And here, like, and to add specificity to that story, I was young and I was wearing jelly sandals. Okay. You know, those like jelly sandals little girls wear. And so I literally walked all over Atlanta in these jelly sandals. And then I got the biggest blister on my foot. I couldn't walk anymore. Of course I was like 10, so I didn't have a stroller.
james (23:23.036)
Yeah, yeah.
Erin Diehl (23:35.825)
So my parents had to take me to the infirmary at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and we spent one hour filling out paperwork for me to get one bandaid. Just a fun story for you to add in there, but very specific.
james (23:48.286)
I want to add something here. I want the audience to recognize, I brought up a story that was culturally relevant and just drilled right through my host where she's going to remember it for the rest of her life because she had an event associated with it that was moving for her whole life. Now hearing the story brings it all together. Now my story is 3000 times more relevant, personal to you, Aaron.
Erin Diehl (24:13.397)
Oh yeah, and that to me, I just wrote a book, you wrote a book. You just want people as a storyteller to hear your words or read your words and do exactly that. You wanna take them to their own emotional moment. Yes.
james (24:28.598)
Mm hmm. They want it to be real. Like here, I'll give I'll give a brief story that's very simple and it'll touch a lot of people, a lot of people who are as old as I might be. Remember 9 11 and when it happened, it was a big event. People know where they were. And I can tell you, I lived in New York City and I was on the 18th floor and I got up that morning and I was I was late. I was in my kitchen and I'm looking in the phone ring and I picked it up. And my mother said the World Trade Center is on fire.
And I turned to my right and looked out the window and said, yes, it is.
Erin Diehl (25:01.402)
Mm.
Mm.
james (25:04.406)
You see how simple and real that is? You can almost see looking out the window. You've got a vision of the World Trade Center on fire and you can almost imagine my view going out there. I connected with a cultural event, but I made it very personal. My mom called me and said it is, and she alerted me and I was burning out the window. I didn't even know it.
Erin Diehl (25:06.778)
Yeah.
Erin Diehl (25:24.641)
Yeah. And I know that particular cultural event, everyone has their version of where they were if you were, you know, old enough to know. And that is such a great example of how storytelling can evoke emotion with genuine, authentic connection. I love that. James, that's so good.
james (25:32.011)
Yeah.
james (25:40.622)
That's right. The genuine, your mom calls you, she calls me. I hope she still calls you, my mother's passed away. I wish she was calling right now. But different issue altogether. But it connects things that are very human, the little act of mom calling and looking out the window. We all do that type of stuff. But you don't always see the World Trade Center on fire like someone took a cigarette and put it backwards in the ground and it was burning at the top.
Erin Diehl (25:51.868)
Mm.
Erin Diehl (26:06.973)
Totally. Oh, I could go down this rabbit hole with you of emotional storytelling. I think this is so good for everybody listening because like I said, I have people who are master storytellers who listen to the show and I have people who want to become better. And I think there's tips in this for everyone, myself included. I've been standing on stages for the past 10 years and this helps. So let me ask.
james (26:09.518)
talking in visual.
james (26:31.362)
Well, for example, I'll give a little business example of where this came from. Now, I wasn't born a master storyteller except when I destroyed my room and my mom walked in and I was five years old and I said, a dragon flew through the window and destroyed it and it wasn't my mess. That was my early storytelling. But when I, in the 90s, I was doing CD-ROM technology, which are...
Erin Diehl (26:49.839)
Yeah.
james (26:56.21)
a background image with text and video and stuff like that. And it's basically a slide. And each component on the slide was an actor and everything like that. And we helped make presentations for presentation systems for big companies. And if you look behind me here, these are my clients from NBC and ABC and James Bond and Mercedes Benz, Paramount, Warner Brothers, the NBA. It goes down the line. The
best storytellers in the world used our services to tell their stories to the corporate investors, to advertisers. And I was just doing technology. I was a technology geek more than anything else at the time. Yeah, I was full of hot air and crap like that, aren't we all? But their basic premise is that we are great storytellers. How do we tell our story to sell sponsorship for these stories?
And what they did was we need a slide library that says who we are, what we, what we do, how we do it, case studies, having them all available, different scenes in a movie. There might be 200 of them. They might have ratings. They might be a Muhammad Ali video, Carrie Scrugg video, a history of, of the NBC, whatever it might be, they're all available. And what you should be able to do is take these sides and shuffle them into a new order.
or into shuffle them into a new deck so that you can tell a better story quickly and easily with all the effect and precision of your whole marketing team. That basic structure is what I've kind of put my career on and what Shuffler is, my company, manages presentations on a global level that way that you build a published library of who you are, what you do, how you do it. And then anyone in your company can go there, pick slides, reassemble a presentation. They save time. They're better compliance.
Erin Diehl (28:33.102)
Mmm.
james (28:52.078)
on point, on money that you can track who said what to whom, when and where. And it's a whole communication channel on the globe that hasn't been managed. That's what we led into. So these companies taught me how to the best storytellers in the world taught us how to tell stories through presentations when you're going to get sponsorship and advertising. They were very successful. You can see they're the most successful companies in the world.
Erin Diehl (29:18.085)
love it. And just for anybody, because this won't be on YouTube, the full thing for anybody just listening, he has a full set, like I will call it a wall mural of these slides on his background imaged and they are all framed. It looks very cool. And you see Paramount, Warner Brothers, NBC, his company, Shuffler. So it's so cool that led you here. And I know people listening are going to take away so much.
james (29:43.331)
Yes.
Erin Diehl (29:48.025)
I wanna just shift really quick because I think this is so important today in 2024 in this virtual hybrid world. Is there anything that you do differently when you're telling a story or giving a presentation over a virtual format versus in-person? And this is a virtual format, but let's say you're presenting something where you're trying to get sponsorship or you're doing a sales pitch over Zoom.
Is there any type of engagement that you do differently virtually than in person?
james (30:21.91)
Um, yeah, I think the, the platform by what you're doing it, when you're in person, you, you have a, a much more encompassing approach, your, what you're dressed in, how you, how you're on stage, where they see you before and after, what, what it's going on that really affects what's going, how you're going to deliver stuff, are you in a conference room? Are you in a hotel conference room? Are you in, you know, on the run?
what have you, because your presence has a lot of component to it. Online, much more difficult, because people can zone out and pretend they're listening when they're not. I go back to, if I really want them, you capture them emotionally in the very first frame. If you don't do that, you run a risk of not hooking them properly. I'll give you an example. We've all seen.
people who give speeches, great speech writers, even public figures, don't they start with a joke to loosen up the crowd? You've always heard about that. You step up there and you say some simple joke and it loosens up the crowd and then you go into what's going on. It's the same type of thing. You're getting a little emotional. I'm getting you connected and going on. So I'm not saying give a joke, but I'm saying start it with something that captures the emotional attention so that they go through it.
Erin Diehl (31:45.838)
Yes.
james (31:45.986)
Think about any ad you see on social media, Facebook and stuff, all designed to evoke emotion in a split second. If they get your emotion, you'll click on it and start reading through the whole article or go through 22 slides or whatever it might be relevant to your life.
Erin Diehl (32:01.681)
That's right, that is so right. Yeah, it really is. And we see it every day, but this is just a great reminder of breaking it down. So we know how to now get their attention, capture it, evoke emotion in the beginning, give them stats set, back up that emotion. Is there anything at the end of our presentation that you would recommend as a strong call to action? Is there any specific tip to close that you would give our audience?
james (32:03.135)
It's right there in front of us.
james (32:29.762)
Don't be weak. Have the courage to say what you want and how to do it. Don't be shy in making your request because if they've gotten that far, they're expecting that. And if you don't do it, then you don't seem genuine again. If you're genuine, you have the courage to say, I want two scoops of ice cream, not one.
Erin Diehl (32:31.362)
Yeah. What do you mean by that? Tell us.
Erin Diehl (32:45.562)
Yeah.
Erin Diehl (32:55.117)
Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah.
james (32:56.31)
You know, and if you're like, well, I kind of like it, one or two, whatever you feel, you're being wishy washy and people don't like wishy washy. They don't trust wishy washy. Wishy washy doesn't know to jump off the Titanic or not.
Erin Diehl (33:08.258)
so true.
Erin Diehl (33:13.641)
Mm, mm, yeah, and I will tell you yes.
james (33:14.306)
Just as an example, people like real leadership. And when you're in that position, you need to give that. In my opinion, this is just the way I take it, because I'm in sales, and I like to close, and I like to bring people through. I'm not here just to hear myself think. I'm not just here just to talk it out. I'm here to educate and move us along. I'm here to sell you something. I'm here to.
get you to act and respond and do something, whether it's donate or buy my product or better understand what's going on.
Erin Diehl (33:51.833)
I love it. And I agree with that. I think a lot of times people who are giving a presentation, you're giving it for a reason, whether it be sales, whether it be you want them to sponsor you, or you want them to donate, whether you want them to book you as a next speaker. Yes. So I love that. Don't be weak. Know what you're going for and don't be afraid to say it. I love that. Is there...
james (34:04.839)
Onboard training
james (34:14.294)
Yep. Yeah.
Erin Diehl (34:16.309)
Anything else when it comes to storytelling that you wanna give our audience. Is there anything we left off that you're like, I gotta give this to this group of people before we close? Anything that comes to mind.
james (34:28.65)
Not really. I think it's the key thing. If you remember the emotion comes from the Greek word motion. Emotion creates motion. And if you miss that, you don't do it. I'll give a little analogy on that. If I give a flat story to you and I just go through it and there's no emotion, there's no highs, no lows, and you go through it, at the end, you're bored. If you've watched a great movie, it starts with
Oh my God, I'm scared. It was horrible. It comes in, oh look, it's sad, it's hurt. And then you're like, oh my God, it's a chase scene. It's getting better and better and better and better. And then like, oh, he's fighting, he's gonna die, but he lives, yay. And you get to the end. And because it took you through those emotions, you feel fulfilled like you went on a journey, like you were there with them. If you don't have that, you'll be forgotten.
Erin Diehl (35:23.353)
Hmm. That's so true. Yeah.
james (35:24.482)
I'll give I'll take this to dating. How about this for dating? If, if you can't move the person you're talking to emotionally in some level, the whole thing about going on a roller coaster and you get scared and you're like, ah, you grab each other, whatever. That was an emotion that caused a connection to go on. If you're boring and flat and trying to be nice and all these things and guarding yourself, it's not going to work. You need to do that. You need to, you know,
Erin Diehl (35:51.281)
So true.
james (35:54.754)
go on something, whether it's through art or on a motorcycle or eat food that you've never done or all that emotional thing makes a difference and human beings have five senses and if you hit all five senses I can almost guarantee you won't be forgotten. Think about the best hotels you've walked in. They smell good. The lighting's beautiful. They look good. There's great music going on. The food is smelling beautiful.
Erin Diehl (36:12.005)
Mmm.
Erin Diehl (36:15.745)
Oh yeah, they do. Yeah.
james (36:24.13)
When you touch the chair, it feels beautiful. Think of going to a shitty place. It doesn't smell like anything. You go in there, you don't hear the sound. The music isn't right. If you're not walking through a department store kind of bopping and dancing, chances are you're not gonna buy as much.
Erin Diehl (36:39.889)
That's right.
james (36:41.442)
So affect as many senses as you can and bring them through highs and lows. That's the journey if you want to catch someone's heart.
Erin Diehl (36:50.093)
Oh my God, I love that. What a visual picture. Thinking of my favorite hotel right now in Vegas. I can't remember the name, but it's like, it transcends me. Yes, the Cosmopolitan, yes! Every time I walk in, I'm like, oh my God, this is elegant and glamorous and beautiful and it smells good and I want everything in here. So, okay, genius marketing moves.
james (36:57.474)
I was gonna follow, but what is it?
james (37:10.902)
The audience, do you just see what all five senses did to Erin? It moved her. She exposed it in a genuine way. And now you're thinking, God, the cosmopolitan is that good? It's also viral. It was viral through human and you just radiated it.
Erin Diehl (37:22.541)
It really is. It really is. Yeah.
Erin Diehl (37:28.385)
Yeah, that's right. Heck yeah, James. Okay, we have done some great chatting today. I feel like we're giving all the tips. Y'all needed a pen and paper for this one, okay, because this was awesome. Where can our audience find you? We call ourselves the improvement peeps. Where can the improvement peeps find you?
james (37:50.086)
Okay, you can find me at shuffler.com, S-H-U-F-F-L-R-R dot com. You can look for the book, Presentation Hell, the book is available on Amazon. I have another book called Presentation Management that's available on Amazon. This is more academic for implementing a program. This one's more anecdotal. So Presentation Hell or Shuffler and all the things we spoke about.
you can actually integrate into your own sales process.
Erin Diehl (38:22.874)
I love it. Or your onboarding process, or whatever internal process that you're working on, all of these tips and tricks apply. James, I wanna thank you so much for being on this show. This was a genuine conversation. See what I did there. And it's so, that's right. And I'm walking away with some new tips and tricks too. So thank you so much for being here.
james (38:36.15)
That's what it should be. That's why people will enjoy it.
james (38:45.602)
Thank you for having me, Aaron.