These are the slides I used for my Storytelling for Product Managers session at the Silicon Valley Product Camp on March 30, 2018.

1. Storytelling For PMs
Nils Davis
The Secret Product Manager Handbook

3. Storytelling - Critical Skill
● For selling your products
● For selling your ideas
● For selling yourself

4. ● True
○ “Directionally”
● Emotionally compelling
● Exciting
○ At least not boring
● Compact and leaves ‘em wanting more
How do we make this happen for “our customer used our product and got more
sales?”
A Good (Sales) Story Is

5. Story Structure - Basic
● Beginning
● Middle
● End
For sales stories
● Beginning = Problem (or Opportunity)
● Middle = Solution
● End = Results
“PSR” for Problem-Solution-Results

6. Example - Live From Audience
Who has a story?

7. Making It A Better Story
● Find a “vertical takeoff”
○ A bad thing was going to happen until I stepped in
○ (Or, a good thing wasn’t going to happen until I stepped in)
● Work on concrete results - both quantitative and emotionally grabby
○ “Pay off” all the challenges mentioned in the problem
○ Quantitative results and business results are NOT emotionally grabby
○ Emotionally grabby are “I was promoted,” “I become the expert,” “I got a nice pat on the back,”
etc.
○ Also, to some people, “we crushed the competitors” is emotionally grabby

8. Storytelling Coaching (1 of 2)
● People struggle most with the problem and the results
○ Note: “Problem” section could be an opportunity
● To find the real pain, and the real emotional content, some good questions are:
○ “What would have happened if you hadn’t solved the problem?”
○ “How much would that have cost?”
○ “What was the business impact of doing nothing?”
○ “What would that mean for your job?”
○ “Tell me more”
○ Help them find a “vertical takeoff”

9. Storytelling Coaching (2 of 2)
● For the solution, some good guidance is
○ “Leave them wanting to know more, so they can ask questions”
○ 4-5 key actions that you took, or that you led or guided
○ What did you do
● For the results
○ “Did you get recognition for this?”
○ “Did it make your boss look better? Help him/her save face?”
○ “Did you get a raise or a promotion?”
○ “Did it change your reputation in the company? Did you become the expert in that?”

10. Using Stories
● Customer success stories
○ “Our customer had problem P” - meaty, emotionally grabby, and business-significant, with a
vertical takeoff
○ Solution = “They tried other things and failed, then got our product because of X, Y, and Z”
○ Results = “Their problem was solved, our champion got a raise, and they started taking market
share from their competitors”
○ Since they are longer, you will need to spread the story - and the results - out
● Job interview - “Tell me about a time…”
○ Aim for 90 seconds for the whole story - ¼ problem, ½ solution, ¼ results

11. Using Stories
● Pitching a new product idea
○ Problem is market problem with significant impact to the customer
○ Solution is “They tried all these things and they didn’t work” or “they are using spreadsheets
and it’s causing all kinds of problems”
○ Results are “If we do X, our market will have results Y”
● Bullets - use “R, by S” - “results by solution”
○ Customer story: “Let me tell you how one of our customers achieved massive market share
growth using our product.”
○ Resume bullet: “Turned sales around, and sales team achieved quota for three quarters in a
row, by driving a change in how we demoed the product”

12. Advanced Topics
● “Two problems”
○ Initial problem was presented
○ During solution found real underlying problem
○ VERY effective story structure (almost all Hollywood movies have this structure)
● Setup
○ Sometimes you have to set up the situation before getting to the problem
○ This is OK, but be quick about it!

13. What Questions Do You Have?

14. Contact
● Nils Davis
● nils@nilsdavis.com
● Website: secretpmhandbook.com
● Slides: secretpmhandbook.com/svpcamp
● Book: The Secret Product Manager Handbook
○ On Amazon as paperbook or ebook