One-Minute Communications Tips Archive
October 2009

Use Anecdotes to Make Your Point

The next time you're trying to persuade someone — say, your boss or colleague or a job interviewer — spice up your logical appeals with a little anecdote.

Well-told stories add an extra dimension to facts and let the listener experience them in the theater of his or her mind. They bring the listener into your world.

Elements of a good story include:

Relevance. Your job is not to entertain but to persuade. Telling irrelevant anecdotes works against you.

Action. The character(s) in your story must take some action. Describe it in vivid words the listener can visualize.

Brevity. Don't belabor the setup. Edit the blow-by-blow details and cut to the chase.

A positive outcome. Again, it should be relevant to your task.

Truth. If your story turns out to be fake, your credibility will collapse. Why make stuff up? Reality is interesting enough.
 

© Arun Sinha, Access Communications. Access Communications is a marketing communications and technical writing firm based in Stamford, Connecticut, USA. Sign up for Access Communications's One-Minute Communication Tip at http://www.AccessConsultingInc.com. Once a month, you'll receive an actionable idea or technique on an aspect of business communications, distilled into about 150 words.

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