We all need to become storytellers.As some of you may have seen from my post on LinkedIn this week, I had a big revelation that I had to share.I was on one of those "virtual happy hour" Google Meets when the topic of "best sales movies ever" came up.I shared some of my thoughts and ideas on this topic before, so I won't list mine here, but there were some good new entries. For instance, I had never thought of "The Pursuit of Happyness" in that realm, but it totally fit.Then someone mentioned that they would impress us with what they thought was the best sales book ever: the Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham.My mind was blown. How could I have never seen it? The persistence, the overcoming obstacles, and Sam-I-Am getting his subject to like the green eggs and ham....if you read no other book about sales, this simple story shows you the way to success. And the best part? Just about everyone has already read it!What makes Dr. Seuss books so good? It's the storytelling.Hopefully if you read my intro every week, you can sort of tell that I like storytelling. I enjoy taking a thought and crafting it into a piece that people find relatable, entertaining and/or thought provoking.As we get bombarded from all angles with an increasing amount of visual and audio content these days, being able to tell a story is critical in order to stick out from all of the noise.And as we learned from Green Eggs and Ham, the best stories are usually those that are actually very simple. So how do you become a great storyteller yourself?First, you need to think about the end value of the message you want to send, and work backwards from there. What's the payoff?This admittedly take a bit of thought up front. It also requires you to put yourself in the shoes of the reader or observer, understand what it is they find valuable, and commit to making your message fit this ideal. An effective storyteller knows is never about them -- it is always about the audience.Next, understand that every story usually has an arc -- one that builds interest from a beginning to an apex in the middle and then a descent to an ending or conclusion. How you take your audience on this journey is up to you, but the best stories, no matter how you tell them, take care to engage the audience throughout each stage.This part is important because no matter how good you think your story is or how intricate it might be, you will lose the audience if you don't keep them in mind as you guide them on the ride. And it can happen quick.Always strive to keep it simple -- your word choices, your sentences, prose, etc. A good storyteller processes their ideas for the audience and delivers them in a way that is easy for them to receive and picture in their mind. This is especially true when people are reading on a smartphone, by the way.It takes work and practice, but it is huge, especially now with people having much shorter attention spans. Dr. Seuss books are so effective at taking a nuanced, sophisticated, more mature topics and boiling them down into very short, rhythmic sentences that young children can understand.Finally, if you want to become an effective storyteller, I think you need to passionately believe in the value of the message you are trying to convey. The story is vehicle for you to essentially sell your idea to someone so they can see it the same way that you do.People tell stories they do not believe all of the time. But the best, most convincing stories have feeling, heart, emotion and/or purpose baked into how they are told.If you get good at telling a story, you can evoke that same feeling in people and get them interested in anything. And if you are lucky, maybe even interested in trying green eggs and ham. So thank you...Thank you Sam-I-Am.Have a great weekend everyone!XOXODave