Financial Storytelling. Communicating Through Numbers

Posted on | June 10, 2010 | No Comments

I first met Financial Storyteller Stewart Marshall at the New Ventures BC seminar series in Vancouver. He impressed me immediately with his wit and charm — perhaps I’m a victim of my own stereotypes, but it’s rare that I find a guy who understands numbers and communicates like a champ.

Stewart’s work revolves around making sense of numbers for business. For many businesses, telling a persuasive story with numbers is precisely what’s required for backing up a business case, analyzing areas of opportunity and winning over investors.

Stewart has posted a compelling white paper explaining how financial storytelling works for businesses and other organizations. You can find it on the Financial Storytelling blog. Here’s an excerpt:

One examples of is Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. Over a number of years his keynote addresses have demonstrated many examples of Financial Storytelling. Unhindered by the world of tradition investor relations, his keynote addresses are a rich illustration of combining numbers with story. Whether he is talking about a new product launch, market share or music downloads (to name a few), Jobs blends in the numbers to illustrate, validate and communicate the success of the
business.

For instance at the launch event for the iPhone OS4 on April 8th, 2010; Jobs used half a dozen slides to present Sales of the iPad product launched a few days earlier. Each slide had one number in very large type with a short comment beneath. These included: 300,000 sold the first day; 250,000 iBooks downloaded in first 24hrs; 1 Million Apps downloaded in first 24 hrs.

What was most interesting though was that Jobs then went on to say: “Beyond all the numbers what it was really about for us was this …”

He then showed a slide with three pictures of an excited young girl receiving her iPad, opening the box and then clutching the device to her heart!

Apple is a marquee brand which continues to thrive. It’s success is communicated by it’s CEO through storytelling. Jobs has made the important emotional connection between the company’s products and its customers, shareholders, employees and even it’s critics. Financial Storytelling has helped Jobs back up his highly effective presentation style with the authority of real numbers.

“Why You Need to Become a Good Storyteller” by Camp Connelly

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