Storytelling has been one of the oldest forms of communication. Even before our ancestors were able to verbally create words, they were telling their stories in caves with pictures and dye. As time went by and verbal communication came into the every day, people of the past sat around fires in caves, in battlefields to discuss the victories of the day. And even today when we go camping, many of us share ghost stories, or stories of humour to bond.

Storytelling is powerful. It does what statistics will never do, which is move people to massive action. Stories allow us to emotionally experience something that a number can not do. Nor will a PowerPoint presentation be the key to ensuring that the people you work with will remember the information. Do you know what a PowerPoint presentation is? It's a text book on screen...and how much do you remember from your textbooks?

Your presentations need to engage your audience. And the best and simplest way to keep their attention longer, to have them remember information longer, and to also ensure that they are moved to action is by stories.

Strangely enough telling stories is a delicate art. This is why though there are a lot of different books out there, not all of them make it as best sellers. So how do you ensure that your presentation is the equivalent of a best seller. Here are the four essential elements to every great story.

1) Keep Your Perspective Consistent. When telling a story either tell in the first person "I" perspective, or the third person perspective of the character. Notice that all great movies will either use the "I" or they will have a third person character involved. They don't go "You did this...or you did that." I've never ran into an excellent story that even remotely used the second person perspective.

2) Details. The details you give the story are very important. They should be rich, and vivid and include as much of the senses as possible. Visual details, sounds, and even olfactory senses if the story does have one. People like to imagine.

3) Emotions. Emotions are keys to story. Or else what happens is that you really don't have a story at all. Evoking emotion either through your tone of voice, or through the use of emotional words will help people understand you more. There is nothing else that we have in common other than emotions. We all have emotions in common.

4) A Conflict and Resolution. What challenge did the character have to overcome? What did the character learn along the way. If you just discuss about the conflict and don't tell people how you resolved the situation, then you're going to leave people feeling miserable. Don't do this unless this is your goal. People like positive endings, and a great ending will leave a great lasting impression to move people to action.

Those are the four essential elements, next time you read a great story, or you see a great presentation notice the story format. Notice that every successful motivational speaker, or sales person also is a great storyteller.

Vincent Ng is a conversation coach. He has taught conversation courses to hundreds of people on how to be more charismatic in social and professional environments. He is the author of the book, Art of Conversation: From Small Talk to Deep Conversations, you can visit his website http://www.practiceconversation.com