Your Training was Great, but Nobody Remembers a Word

People remember stories far better than they remember facts. In an exercise described in Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, students gave one-minute persuasive speeches. When asked to recall them minutes later, 63% remembered the stories, but only 5% remembered any individual statistic.

A skilled trainer, an engaging format, and beautiful slides are all worth having. But without stories, the content won’t be remembered. 

Key Takeaways

• Stories are remembered; standalone statistics usually aren't.

• You can't beat a story with a fact. You can only beat it with a better story.

• Better Said teaches two frameworks in Better Said 1.0: Mine, Refine, Remind and the 3 Cs.

• Sharing stories also builds connections between teammates, which supports engagement and retention.

You Can’t Beat a Story with a Fact

One of our core lessons at Better Said is that you can’t beat a story with a fact, only a better story. The skill of storytelling is what makes people remember the facts woven in. In Better Said workshops, we teach the exact framework to build presentations and conversations that bring storytelling in naturally. 

Another one of our core tenants is “If you want someone to do something, you have to make them feel something.” And data isn’t feeling. While the data is important, we teach how to marry data and storytelling so the feeling can come through and engage memory and connection with information. 

Storytelling Framework

Nobody remembers a word of a presentation without feeling something during it. And if your team is failing to make that connection, it’s likely because they haven’t been equipped with the training to enhance their storytelling skills. 

Our Better Said 1.0 workshop outlines two main frameworks for your team to apply. 

Mine, Refine, Remind

To find good stories, we follow this three step process: 

1. Mine: Go digging for stories. We walk through a story mapping exercise to identify key stories in your life to then pull from in crafting a narrative. 

2. Refine: After you have a running list of stories that stick (the mining phase), it’s time to refine which stories to tell. This is where we encourage the use of AI and provide prompts to clean your brain dump of stories into strong, repeatable stories to use.

3. Remind: The goal of a great leader is to tell great stories over and over again. When you’re leading well, you become the CRO: Chief Reminding Officer. What stories encourage and bring excitement to the team? Tell them again. 

The 3 Cs of Storytelling

Every memorable story has three elements: context, conflict, and conclusion.

• Context: Where we are, who's involved, and why it matters

• Conflict: The tension that holds attention

• Conclusion: The resolution and the point it proves

After our “mine, refine, and remind” exercise, Better Said 1.0 walks through a real-time practice of identifying the 3 Cs. We look at Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and apply the need for tension and resolution to one of your own stories. Better Said facilitators work directly with each team member participating to ensure you walk away from the storytelling workshop with a story ready to share (and be remembered). 

The Team Engagement Bonus of a Storytelling Workshop

While we work through your storytelling skills, we also share our stories in the room with one another. Stories increase cooperation and release oxytocin, leading to your team engaging and connecting with one another. 

Our workshop attendees regularly rate our sessions as 5 stars, leaving them not only equipped to tell better stories in their next sales pitch, board presentation, and team meeting, but also feeling closer with their colleagues. 

Closer relationships result in higher performance, profitability, and retention. A storytelling workshop with Better Said doesn’t only impact your bottom line, it changes your culture. 

Your Team Needs Better Stories and Closer Relationships

Improve your teams’ results through storytelling. Book a Better Said workshop.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why don't people remember corporate training?

  Most training leans on facts, slides, and data without wrapping them in a story. People remember narratives far better than isolated statistics, so content delivered without story tends to fade within minutes.

• Does storytelling actually improve information retention?

  The evidence points that way. In an exercise from Chip Heath's Stanford course, described in Made to Stick, 63% of listeners recalled the stories they heard while only 5% recalled any individual statistic. Paul Zak's research, published in Harvard Business Review, found that character-driven stories with emotional content lead to better understanding and recall of a speaker's key points.

• What is the Mine, Refine, Remind framework?

  It's Better Said's three-step process for finding stories worth telling. Mine your life for stories through a story mapping exercise, refine which stories are the strongest, and remind people of those stories over and over as the CRO (chief reminding officer). 

• What are the 3 Cs of storytelling?

  Context, conflict, and conclusion. A story needs all three to hold attention and be remembered: context to orient the listener, conflict to create tension, and a conclusion that resolves it and makes the point.

• How do you combine data and storytelling in a presentation?

  Use the story to carry the feeling and the data to support it. Data alone rarely moves people to act, so Better Said teaches teams how to pair the two so numbers land with emotional weight instead of getting lost.

• What does the Better Said 1.0 workshop cover?

  Better Said 1.0 covers two frameworks, Mine, Refine, Remind and the 3 Cs, with real-time practice. Facilitators work with each participant so everyone leaves with a story ready to tell. This workshop is 90 minutes long if done virtually, and 3 hours long when done in person.