Stories tap deeply into our cultural and psychological roots. They are essential to good communication. They are equally vital to effective presentation. PowerPoint and Relational Presentation concepts can augment the usefulness of stories even more by creating what are known as picture stories.

A picture story is a short (usually 1 to 7 slides) linear slide show that sequentially and VISUALLY tells a story. The slides in these shows normally contain full-screen pictures that progressively show a story while it is being told. These miniature visual stories typically are organized by category in a presentation network, so that a speaker can say something to the effect of, “That reminds me of a project we worked on last year,” or “Let me show you the difference between their process/product and ours.” The idea is to quickly pull up any of these stories during normal interactions, show them (a process that may take 60-90 seconds), and then return to the previous content.

Picture stories often follow simple formulas. A common formula in a sales or proposal context, for example, is, “Here was the situation/problem, here’s what we did about it, and here was the result.” Picture stories are enormously helpful for handling objections.