The Presentation Storytelling Playbook: Lessons for Better Presentations from Prof G
- Kyle Kartz
- Oct 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 10
Storytelling isn’t a creative flourish, an artistic choice, or even a new insight. It’s a central part of how we communicate, and one of the most reliable ways for business presentations to hold attention, create meaning, and make ideas stick
At VerdanaBold, we’ve long emphasized the importance of presentation storytelling, and recent insights from Scott Galloway and Prof G Media’s research lead, Mia Silverio, only reinforce that point. You can read their original piece here: See What Others Miss: The Prof G Storytelling Playbook.
What makes Galloway and Silverio’s playbook so powerful is the mix of evidence and entertainment. In our experience, too many presenters focus solely on evidence, thinking that the business case is enough to engage the audience. But audiences aren’t business robots: to effectively reach your audience, you need to make them feel something as well as make them think.
In this post, we’ll unpack their core storytelling principles and share how you can apply them to real-world presentations. From building drama and choosing “wow factor” data, to visualizing ideas and tailoring stories to your audience, these lessons will help you turn your next deck into something more than just slides.
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Start Strong: Drama, Emotion, and “Wow” Data
Scott Galloway is famous for opening with a jolt: a provocative question, an unexpected stat, or even a moment of theater. That’s no accident. In presentation storytelling, the first few minutes set the tone for the entire experience. If you can grab attention early, the audience is primed to engage with and retain your ideas.
A strong open doesn’t require stunts or misleading statements used for shock value. What it does require is a dose of drama. That can mean asking a question that challenges assumptions, sharing a surprising comparison, or revealing a piece of data that makes people say “wow.” These moments don’t just entertain — they spark emotion, and emotion is what makes information memorable. Neuroscience research backs this up: audiences retain more when they feel something.
So instead of leading with an agenda slide or a list of objectives, try opening with something that makes your audience lean in. You can still get to those core slides, but they don't need to be the first thing your audience sees every time.
Here are a few practical ways to apply this in your next presentation:
Pose a contrarian question: “Do we really love our customers?” forces reflection in a way “Customer Experience Strategy 2025” never will.
Reframe your data for impact: Saying a company spends $364 billion in capital expenditures is impressive. But showing that it’s more than the cost of building another International Space Station makes it unforgettable.
Add movement or change: A chart revealed in stages, a before-and-after image, or even a well-timed pause can create tension and drama without overcomplicating your slides.
When you start strong, you shift your audience out of passive listening and into active engagement. That’s the foundation of effective presentation storytelling: not just transmitting information, but sparking curiosity and setting up a story they want to follow.
Zoom Out: See What Others Miss
Many presenters assume a data point speaks for itself. But numbers rarely create meaning on their own (even numbers that "wow"). When you add context around a data point and help the audience understand why it matters and what it leads to, a story starts to develop.
As the Prof G playbook smartly observes, skilled storytellers don’t just ask what happened. They ask so what, what made it possible, and what happens next?
This ability to “zoom out” separates reporting from true insight. In a presentation, zooming out means helping your audience see the bigger picture: how a single data point fits into an industry trend, how one decision ripples into future opportunities, or how today’s challenge connects to tomorrow’s strategy.
For example, when GLP-1 weight loss drugs first hit headlines, most coverage focused on impacts to food and beverage. Prof G’s team zoomed out and spotted second-order effects in medical aesthetics, a connection few were talking about. That shift in perspective transformed a familiar story into a surprising and memorable one.
For business presentations, the lesson is simple: don’t just repeat what your audience already knows. Push them to see the implications, the causes, and the next steps. Whether you’re delivering a sales pitch, an investor update, or a leadership presentation, zooming out adds value by showing you can connect dots others miss.
If you want to dig deeper into this idea, check out our post on The Art of Storytelling, where we discuss how narrative structure helps highlight insights rather than just information.
Personalize and Contextualize
Audiences pay closer attention when a presentation feels like it was built for them. Generic slides signal generic thinking , while personalized details make the story more relevant and harder to ignore.
Scott Galloway’s team applies this by tailoring decks with region-specific data whenever he speaks in a different country. Even small adjustments — swapping in a local example, reframing a stat in familiar terms — help the message resonate more deeply.
Context plays just as important a role as personalization. Complex ideas or abstract numbers can lose power if presented in isolation, but when you frame them in human terms, they stick. For example, instead of saying a project is “three months behind,” you might say, “This delay means our customers will go through an entire quarter without the solution they’ve been asking for.” That shift transforms a timeline into a story about impact.
You can do the same with your business data. Saying “Nvidia is worth $4.5 trillion” is just a number. Saying “Nvidia is worth more than the stock markets of the U.K., France, and Germany combined” gives your audience the context to understand the scale.
For presenters, the principle is clear: personalize where you can, and always provide context. It’s not enough for your audience to see the numbers — they need to see themselves in the story.
Want more ways to bring this into your own work? See our guide on How to Add Stories to Any PowerPoint.
Visualize to Amplify Context
A number on its own is easy to ignore. A chart, diagram, or image that places that number in context can completely change how your audience interprets it. The Prof G team builds this into nearly every presentation, and it’s a lesson every communicator can use.
There are two powerful ways to use data in storytelling:
Focus on one data point. Instead of overwhelming your audience with every number you have, highlight the one insight that carries the story forward.
Give that data context. Numbers are only meaningful when we understand how they compare, relate, or scale.
Take this example from Prof G Media: “AI data centers produce 3.4% of global carbon emissions.”
On its own, that figure doesn’t mean much. Or worse, it doesn't seem that bad.But when visualized against aviation, an industry we already think of as a massive emitter, the point becomes clear. The story shifts from a technical statistic to a powerful signal about the future of AI’s environmental impact.
The same applies in business presentations. Instead of presenting a sales chart with endless figures, spotlight the one data point that tells the real story. Maybe it’s a single product line outperforming expectations or a sharp upward trend in adoption. Then add context that makes it resonate: “That one product now drives more revenue than our first three launches combined.”
Good visuals don’t just decorate your slides. They do the cognitive heavy lifting by focusing attention and providing context that makes your point clear, memorable, and actionable.
Looking for more examples? Check out our guide on visual storytelling in business presentations.
Why Storytelling in Presentations Matters
At their core, stories are a service to the audience. They don’t just deliver information — they connect, entertain, and inspire. A good story bridges the gap between presenter and listener, turning data or ideas into something people can actually feel.
This is why great presentations often stick with us long after the slides fade. They give the audience more than facts: they offer context, emotion, and meaning. They remind people that they’re not just absorbing information, but part of a shared experience.
As Prof G puts it, storytelling is how we chart a path forward and create the hope that sustains us along the way. Whether it’s a keynote, a sales deck, or a team training, stories help audiences recognize feelings they couldn’t name, identify challenges they thought they faced alone, and see opportunities they hadn’t considered.
For more on how to put storytelling to work in your own presentations, check out our intro to presentation storytelling guide.
Key Takeaways
The Prof G Storytelling Playbook reminds us that the best presentations aren’t just reports, they’re stories. Here’s what to keep in mind as you build your own:
Start strong with drama, emotion, or surprising data that grabs attention
Zoom out to explain not just what happened, but why it matters and what comes next
Personalize and contextualize to make your content relevant and relatable
Visualize for impact, using charts and images to give data meaning
Remember why stories matter: they connect, inspire, and make ideas stick
At VerdanaBold, we help teams turn these principles into practice, designing presentations that are clear, compelling, and built around storytelling that works for your business and audience.
