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Most PMs aren’t natural storytellers.
In 2006, I had an opportunity to present a business case to the C-level. After listening to my rehearsal, my boss decided to take the lead and have me play backup.
Brutal. My ego was bruised and my confidence took a hit. But, looking back, it was 100% the right call.
Because, although my business case was solid in the facts, my storytelling skills utterly sucked. It was a humbling and eye opening lesson.
Because storytelling plays a HUGE part in product management.
Done right, it creates buy-in, attracts investment, opens job opportunities, rallies teams, wins customers, and super charges your ability to get things done.
The Classic PM Presentation Trap
You’ve worked hard on your presentation. Triple-checked the numbers. Got your talk track down.
You settle in. A bit nervous, but confident in your proposal. You greet each of the attendees warmly and engage in some light-hearted banter. Mainly to ease your own nerves.
And then…
From slide 1, it unravels.
People interject. Your numbers are questioned. You feel the skepticism. No one is buying.
Or worse, there's dead silence. A polite, “Thanks for sharing,” and the meeting ends.
Sound familiar?
It happens because you’re not telling a story.
Why Most PMs Struggle
Most PMs come from technical or analytical backgrounds, trained to lead with logic, data, and rationality. Not emotion. Most of us weren’t communication majors in college.
This was me in 2006.
And even when PMs try to tell stories, they either share too much of the wrong detail or don’t know what to share at all.
Storytelling is a Game Changer for PMs
Think about famous (and infamous) leaders in history. Why did so many people follow them?
Think about a leader or someone you personally follow. Why do you follow them?
Because they’re great storytellers.
Stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts and figures alone. Stories engage multiple parts of the brain, creating stronger neural connections and making the information easier to recall.
Stories are more effective in motivating people than relying solely on facts, because they trigger the listeners’ emotions.
Stories shape how others perceive us and, as a result, are a powerful tool for persuasion.
Studies using fMRI scans have shown that storytelling can synchronize the brains of the storyteller and the listener, leading to better understanding and connection.
Storytelling allows people to connect with information on an emotional level, fostering empathy and building trust.
A good story creates a shared experience by evoking emotions. It’s the emotions that help us understand different perspectives, and make complex ideas more engaging and memorable.
It’s no different in business.
Every business case, proposal, and product plan is a story about customers and money.
The people you’re trying to influence are human too, subject to the same emotions as you and I, regardless of their title, rank, or role.
That’s why today I’m going to teach you about the 4 most essential stories you need to absolutely NAIL and have ready in your back pocket. And how to creating them.
1. Your Origin Story
The is the story of YOU. Your superhero origin story.
You tell it all the time: in job interviews, customer meetings, intros, networking, and social settings.
Think about it. We're always being asked, “Tell me about yourself.” Or, “Tell me about your background.” Or, “What do you do?” Or, “Please, introduce yourself.”
This is our opportunity to shine. And most people fumble this badly.
Because most folks haven’t really thought about this. So they wing it. And, as a result, they end up either way too short (“I’m the product manager for TechX. I’ve been here for N years.” — boring!) or long-winded, going chronologically through every job they've had in a monotonous reciting of assignments. (Super boring!)
Instead, tell your journey:
What problem or challenge did you face?
What internal and external struggles did you have to overcome?
What was a change event in your life? What was the spark or aha moment that caused you to think different or make a decision?
Who or what guided or motivated you?
What was the result? What led you to being here?
This is a FAR more engaging story than a bland recitation of historical jobs.
Keep it contextual and adaptable. Versions for a job interview, customer meeting, social setting, webinar. etc. And in different timeframes — a 5-minute one, a 2-minute one, a 60-second one, a 30-second one, a 15-second one.
That way, you’re prepared to tell your story in any situation and setting.
2. Your Customer Story
This is the most important story.
Our products exist to solve customer problems. You need to tell that story.
Who uses your product?
Why do they use it?
What problem does it solve for them?
One of the best ways to tell this story is to pick an actual customer who represents your ideal customer and tell their story. The framework is simple:
Here’s Anna.
She had this problem.
She used our product.
Now her life is beautiful.
A great customer story helps other customers, and your own team, see the value you deliver.
3. Your Product Story
You need to be able to tell the story of your product.
Most PMs butcher this by reciting features, functions, workflows, and technical details. Don’t do that.
Instead, you want to talk about why your product exists and the value it brings.
Here’s the problem we found customers are having.
Here’s our vision for the solution.
And here are the benefits or outcomes they get by using it.
With your listener now hooked, you have license to go deeper into the mechanics of how your product works.
Even if someone starts by asking, “How does your product work?”, always begin with the customer problem you’re trying to solve.
Note that both the Product Story and the Customer Story are stories about the customer. The difference is the perspective from which you’re telling it.
The Customer Story is purely about the customer and their journey. In this telling, our product helps make them the hero of their own story.
The Product Story is about why your product exists and makes the world better for your customers. It’s the response to the question, “Tell me about your product.” Even here, we always start with the customer’s problem and use that to paint our vision and how we make our customer’s life better.
4. Money Stories
This one’s second only to the customer story. And the hardest one PMs find to master.
Every product decision, trade-off, or proposal needs to be framed as a story about money.
“Money stories” are internal narratives that you use to articulate the business value of your work in economic terms. Unlike user stories, they focus on the internal impact on the company's bottom line.
They’re essential for executive buy-in and protecting your agency as a PM.
This topic is so important, I ran TWO Street Smart Product Manager Live! events on it:
With PM legend, Rich Mironov, defining what money stories are and why they matter. 👉 Watch it here.
With Michael Smart, former NASDAQ product executive, sharing a framework for connecting product work to business outcomes with real-life examples. 👉 Watch it here.
If you want influence, master telling money stories.
Taking Action
After being sidelined by my boss, I thought, “You know what? If I want to be more effective, I need to learn how to speak.”
So, I reached out and got advice from an expert who gave me the simplest and most profound advice.
The conversation went like this:
Me: “How do I become a better speaker?”
He said: “You really want to know the answer?”
Me: “Uh, yeah, that’s why I’m calling.”
He goes: “Always say yes.”
Huh?
What did that mean?
“If you want to learn how to tell your story,” he explained, “any time you have a chance to do it, always do it.”
Mind blown.
I was expecting this elaborate, detailed 17-point checklist or framework.
Instead, he simply said, “Always say yes.”
It couldn’t have been better advice.
It’s like learning to ride a bike. The only way to learn is to get on it, fall down a few times, get back up every time, and keep peddling.
So, now that you know the 4 stories you need to nail, your next step is to TELL THEM as often as you can…
Inside your company
To your teams
To executives
In job interviews
At events
To anyone who’ll listen
The more you tell them, the more natural they’ll start to flow, and the more impact they will have.
At the end of the day, team members, stakeholders, customers, investors, everyone intuitively wants to connect to you and your product.
Your job is to make that entry point so damn exciting that it lures them in and never lets them off the hook.
You do that with a powerful story.
And you get better by telling it again and again and again.
This Week’s Goal
Commit to adding at least one of these stories to your daily conversation and just start practicing with other people.
Solidify it by replying back to me: Which of these 4 stories will you plan to starting using NOW?
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
Here are 4 ways I can help you today:
Strategy Design Workshop: Transform scattered priorities into clear, actionable direction. I’ll facilitate your team through a customized workshop to align stakeholders and create strategies that actually get executed instead of forgotten. Book a call.
Product Management Audit: Get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s holding your team back. Through a systematic analysis, I’ll evaluate your strategy, processes, roles, metrics, and culture. You’ll walk away a practical set of findings and actionable recommendations to strengthen your product organization. Book a call.
Corporate Training: Elevate your entire product organization. I’ll teach your team how to think and act strategically, craft outcome-driven roadmaps, and dramatically improve how they deliver measurable results that matter to your business. Book a call.
Improv Based Team Building Workshop: Boost creativity, trust, and collaboration through improv. Your team will problem-solve faster and work better together. Book a call.
Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers
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