Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate with Power and Impact

Simmons has once again shown us the pathway to stories. This book is a great follow up to The Story Factor.
The Story Factor told us what and why. This book moves us down the path of how and where.
One of the hardest things is finding stories and telling them at the right time. Simmons walks the reader through this process. You come away with ideas, inspiration and stories.

This book was very helpful! I picked it up to see what some in the "industry" are doing with storytelling in the workplace.

Those in the church have always known that storytelling was how great leaders led, taught and inspired. But interestingly enough, it is not how we were taught to preach.

Simmons leads you on a step by step process to find stories, tell stories and evaluate how and in what context those stories can be used.

I had been presenting a new employee program for about a year with good results, but never feeling like the audience was fully getting the passion and the spirit for the material that I had, and thought it deserved.

After reading "Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins" (which contains several flat-out hilarious stories as well),I added several short personal anecdotes to my presentation, and a full-fledged 3 minute story as a closing to illustrate my point.

The difference was immediate and amazing. There were more tears and laughter in that auditorium than in Oprah's audience. I was the most amazed of all. What a change! Afterwards, many participants felt at liberty to tell me their similar and highly personal stories.

That's when it dawned on me. Everybody DOES have the potential to be a story teller. Every single person there had their own story. The difference was that I knew how to find mine, develop them, and tell them, all because of this book.

Buy it, follow the steps, you won't be sorry. This is the best money I've spent on professional development in a decade.

This is the worst book I've ever bought from amazon. I strongly encourage people to "search inside" before buying. Scan the first or second chapter for anything of value. You won't find anything. The text (what little there is) focuses entirely on convincing you that you should tell more stories. It does this by making the same few trivial points over and over. Clearly, you don't need to be convinced of this, since you already purchased the book. With regard to actually learning to tell effective stories (the purported purpose of the book) you will be disappointed.

As a point of further irritation, many of the pages in the book are blank. (supposedly so you can write your own stories inside) Do you really need to spend $14 for a hardcover notebook? (Hint: You don't.) Furthermore, the last 7 pages of every chapter are exactly the same. (I'm not kidding.)

This book is content-free.

This book is probably most beneficial to leaders who have not typically thought or expressed themselves in "story." It's encouraging and offers solid ideas for those just starting to craft their own presentations.

But storytelling right-brainers -- who may be attracted by the book's title -- likely will not find this book helpful. This book is very basic.