Always Be Creating Clarity:A workshop for strategic storytellers

Turn your team into persuasive advocates within your organisation.

You know this moment: you're explaining an important issue to the bosses. But you get lost in the details, you're talking too much… you get the feeling they're listening but not understanding. All you get back is blank stares!

Let's turn that confusing mess into clarity with habits, not theory. Come learn the ABCC's of strategic storytelling, and start influencing hearts and minds.

Engage and explain with attention-grabbing stories
Create well-structured communication that makes people listen, not shrug
Craft headline statements so memorable, people will repeat them back to you
Turn key points into narratives and metaphors for faster understanding

Format

In-person or remote.

Length

In-person: one whole day

Remote: one day, split into two half-days

Size

Up to thirty participants

Ready to book?

Contact ben@bensauer.net or book a time to discuss.

"Ben has the rare ability to both captivate and educate an audience, leaving them happier and smarter in the process."

—Andy Budd, Curator of Leading Design and UX London

"Remarkable. Really the best workshop I’ve been to. 10/10!"

—Ece, Attendee at PUSH UX 2023

"This workshop completely wowed the design team at Monzo! The team loved it."

—Heldiney Pereira, Lead Designer, Monzo Bank

Enjoyed by teams at...

A taste of the workshop experience

What we cover

We'll cover four topics key to strategic storytelling, each one full of lessons in creating clarity.

1. Stories and metaphors

Stories and metaphors are a better bridge to understanding than facts. In this part of the day we’ll look at why that is, see some examples, learn the process, and practise using them.

Engagement: when to use stories to hook your audience into listening to you
Themes: how stories can introduce a theme that you want your audience to understand
The process: how to connect stories to themes and usage
Metaphors: practise making metaphors to explain, engage, and name or replace concepts

2. Structuring communication

Storytelling professions are obsessed with structure. Rather than cover the deep theory, we’ll learn the most practical elements of structure for anything you're communicating.

Outlining horizontally: a method for outlining for engagement
Using strong story-glue: how to make sure your story holds together
The contents: essential topics to cover for stakeholders who need context

3. Give good headlines

Memorable, persuasive communication rests on the words, not the design. In this section, participants will learn about how to craft a great headline that sticks in people's minds.

Making ideas stick: why headlines are the secret weapon of influence
Distillation: finding the right summary in a sea of detail
Patterns: how to generate ideas for headlines using patterns

4. Explaining with story

In this section we'll cover methods that help you to turn fuzzy facts and findings into a story that holds attention.

The story: how to put the audience into the desired point of view
Managing attention: keeping your audience focussed on the right details at the right time
Framing: how rethinking the point-of-view is critical to clarity

Participants will end the day equipped with methods of influence that they can use daily. They’ll also walk away with a free copy of Death by Screens!