Master the art of epic communication
StorySelling helps leaders and executives, sales teams and organisations tell better stories, inspire their team and close bigger deals.
“I really enjoyed our StorySelling session last week. It's the kind of thing I've avoided my whole career, having severe anxiety of such things. But it was one of the best training/development days I've ever had in my 25 year career.”
General Manager, Fulton Hogan
The truth about selling in today's world
Every day in business, you're selling something. It could be a product or service. An idea in the boardroom. Your vision to the leadership team. Your strategy to stakeholders. Or your mission to your people.
Your success in these moments comes down to one thing: can you move people to take action? Can you get them to see what you see, believe what you believe, and do what needs to be done?
That's selling. And in New Zealand's most successful companies, the leaders who move people to action are the ones who tell the best stories.
What Kind of Speaker Are You?
Are you holding yourself back as a speaker? Take this quick assessment to discover if you're an anxious or avoidant speaker—and how to break free from the cycle that's limiting your speaking success.
The biggest problem with being overly anxious or avoidant is that both come at the cost of charisma. You don’t look or sound like a leader.
Break free from what's holding you back
As a leader or sales professional, it's easy to feel trapped by expectations—constantly second-guessing how you should present yourself and what others think of your message.
Many executives tell us they have great ideas but struggle to express them in a way that moves people to action. You already have everything you need to succeed—it's about learning how to step out of your own way and communicate with confidence.
Preparation challenges:
Content and structure issues:
Delivery difficulties:
Confidence barriers:
Even the best ideas fail if they're not communicated well
You might have a game-changing strategy, a powerful solution, or a compelling vision. But if your message doesn't land, nothing moves forward.
Sales opportunities slip away because presentations focus on features instead of customer success.
Strategic initiatives stall because leaders struggle to get true buy-in from their teams.
Change programmes fail because the vision isn't communicated in a way that inspires action.
Justin Watson
CEO of Christchurch International Airport
“Awesome session. Michael gave us really useful tools and techniques and made us feel comfortable being uncomfortable.”
The two communication problems holding you back
When business leaders and sales teams struggle to get results, it usually comes down to two key problems.
Your audience isn't the hero.
Most presentations put your company, product, or idea at the centre of the story. But your audience cares about their own success, not your solution. When you make yourself the hero, they tune out.
Your delivery doesn't inspire action.
Having a great message isn't enough. The best ideas fall flat if they're delivered without confidence and charisma. Many leaders know what to say, but struggle to say it in a way that moves people to act.
Success stories
We coach and train CEOs, celebrities, sales executives, tech giants, best-selling authors, professors, PhDs, and start-up founders to achieve outstanding results.
Michael helped the team at Evnex to develop our story and pitch for a live product launch. Michael was fun to work with, refreshingly direct and helped us to raise our game significantly.
Michael helped the team at Evnex to develop our story and pitch for a live product launch. Michael was fun to work with, refreshingly direct and helped us to raise our game significantly.
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What you'll learn in StorySelling
This practical one-day workshop is tailored to help you get real results, no matter your role.
For leaders and executives
You'll learn how to inspire your teams and get everyone moving in the same direction. We'll show you how to take complex ideas and present them with clarity and confidence. By the end of the day, you'll transform your team meetings and presentations into moments where real change happens.
For sales professionals & teams
You'll master the art of crafting customer success stories that close deals. We'll help you build deeper connections with clients and handle objections with confidence. You'll walk away knowing how to turn every sales conversation into an opportunity to win trust and drive results.
For your whole organisation
Watch as your team becomes more confident and skilled at communication. They'll learn to coach and support each other, share ideas more effectively, and create presentations that actually inspire action. You'll build a culture where great communication drives better business results.
We’ll show you how to structure your message
You’ll learn our proven framework for building stories that resonate. It’s the same approach that helped one business owner turn a 5-minute presentation into a million-dollar deal. We’ll help you find your own powerful stories and shape them to connect with your audience.
We’ll teach you how to deliver with impact
You’ll master 6 of the 12 Charismatic Leadership Tactics used by the world’s best communicators. These aren’t just presentation tricks.
They’re science-backed techniques that help you speak with genuine confidence and authority.
That was the question that a bunch of researchers in Switzerland at the University of Lausanne asked, they asked “Can Charisma Be Taught?”
To find out they asked 41 MBA students to present a 3 to 4 minute video presentation to camera then over 6 weeks they spent around 80 - 90 hours teaching them the 12 Charismatic Leadership Tactics.
They asked the students to include as many of them into their 3 to 4 minute videos as they could. They then redelivered to camera and then both their first and last videos were reviewed and compared by 135 independent assessors.
On average they measured a staggering 60 percent increase in perceived leadership scores. They discovered that the more Charismatic Leadership Tactics they included in their presentations, the higher the score.
The StorySelling workbook
Take your learning beyond the workshop.
Every participant receives our comprehensive workbook that helps you put StorySelling principles into practice.
You'll use it during the workshop to capture your insights, craft your stories and develop your delivery style.
Then it becomes your ongoing guide for preparing presentations that move people to action.
The StorySelling coin
At the beginning of the workshop, everyone receives a handcrafted StorySelling coin.
This coin is a tactile tool that stimulates and subdues the anxious nerves that can be present in stressful situations.
As it’s used throughout the day, while recording videos and presenting it becomes a positive anchor that can be stored in your pocket and reached for in times of need.
Meet NZ’s #1 speaker coach and communication expert
Michael Philpott is an expert in storytelling, stage craft, charismatic leadership, and business storyselling. He is renowned for helping people achieve powerful results from their keynotes, sales pitches, capital raises, and formal presentations.
Michael has a resolute belief that mastery of ourselves is forged in the fiery crucible of practical application, self-analysis, self-discovery, and self-management.
No other coach offers his credentials, experience, and singleness of purpose.
How StorySelling transforms your communication
StorySelling is a one-day workshop that teaches you how to craft stories that put your audience first and then deliver them in a way that inspires action.
Join NZ's best communicators
Our workshops are filled with energy, laughter and real connection. You'll learn powerful communication skills in a environment where trying new approaches feels enjoyable.
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What's included?
Private Workshop
Public Workshop
100% 5-star Google Reviews
Three simple steps to start your StorySelling journey
Apply now
Let's chat about your communication goals and see if StorySelling is right for you. We'll have a quick conversation about the challenges you're facing and how we can help you overcome them.
Choose your workshop date
Once we know StorySelling is a good fit, we'll find a workshop date that works for you. We keep our groups small to give everyone personal attention, so you'll want to book your spot early.
Start StorySelling
Join us for a day of practical learning where you'll discover how to craft better stories and deliver them with confidence. You'll leave with skills you can use in your very next presentation or sales conversation.
Got questions?
We're here to help
We've answered the most common questions about StorySelling, but if you need more information, we're just a message away.
This workshop is for anyone who wants to improve their public speaking, pitching, and presenting skills. It's ideal for people who demonstrate, inform, and persuade their audience whether internally, externally, in-person or to camera.
For example: A CEO who is presenting at a Senior Leaders Forum, an employee who is pitching a product or service to potential customers at a conference, Project Managers providing updates to stakeholders, or Managers translating strategy into actionable work for all staff.
Investing in your people to gain the skill and confidence of a great communicator is an investment in your company brand.
- Confident speakers who are skilled and trained to represent your company
- Improved internal and external communications
- Developing a culture that promotes good communication and engagement
- Instilling a culture of fail fast and learn fast with a growth mindset
- Employees who can sell an idea with excitement
- Passionate and enthusiastic communicators
- Employees who are charismatic in their public speaking personas
- Technically skilled in the knowledge of public speaking, pitching, and presenting
- Communicators who can simplify communications internally and externally
Until recently it was believed that charisma was a “gift” a god given talent reserved only for the few, something that people were born with.
Fortunately for leaders research and study into the “gift” of charisma demonstrates charisma as a set of skills that can be taught. The results from becoming more charismatic is that people will be drawn to another, to like another, to trust another and to respect another.
We know that the neuroscience indicates that neurotransmitters release neurochemicals that either make us feel good about someone and their intentions; to be moved towards them, or not good about someone and their intentions; to be repelled from them.
We also know that these are snap decisions made by our reptilian brain, and we know that once someone has made that unconscious decision it can be difficult to win back their trust, especially when we are either speaking to people we don’t know or speaking via a channel that puts distance between us.
In our training workshops we learn charismatic leadership skills that give us the ability to recognise firstly what repels people, and then what moves them towards us.
And then focus on developing the foundations that allow a person to build messaging that resonates at a deep level with their audiences and deliver them in a way that magnifies that resonance for lasting impact.
The StorySelling workshop is designed from research undertaken by John Antonakis, Marika Fenley, and Sue Liechti at The University of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In one study, 41 MBA students were asked to record a three to four minute video presentation. They were then trained in the 12 Charismatic Leadership Tactics (CLTs) over six weeks, averaging 80 - 90 hours of work and preparation.
They redelivered their presentations to camera, with the addition of the 12 CLTs, the videos were reviewed and compared by 135 independent assessors.
On average, they measured a 60% increase in individuals leadership scores.We’ve incorporated the following techniques and tools into out training workshop:
- The 12 CLTs
- Accelerated adult brain based learning techniques from extensive training in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and USA with Dr Rich Allen
- Neurolinguistic Programming techniques and principles from practitioner level training with Dr Richard Bolstad; and
- Marketing principles and practice from internationally renowned marketing expert Donald Miller
The growth each individual will experience is relative to the degree that they are willing to push themselves to try new things and get way outside their comfort zone.
The more a person pushes themselves the more growth they will see.
Not at all, the essence of the training workshop is for everyone to develop their talks together at the same pace and learn from each other through open dialogue that we facilitate.
The only preparation needed is to bring the essential items that you will need on the day such as headphones to listen to your video recordings privately.
The room is usually vibrant and full of ambient noise when you’re delivering most of your customer success stories to camera, so the best way to hear your video when you review it is through headphones. That way, you can have it as loud as you desire without disturbing others who will be listening to their recordings.
There is no required level of experience needed to come on the workshop.
However, it is good to have a goal in mind for where you want to use the skills you will learn and put them into practice as soon as possible.