StoryMaking Speaking — business storytelling on stage

Think of the session as having two parts:

• there’s an inspirational element (‘cos there’s no point in having tools if you don’t have the urge to use them!) where we’ll look at 
• specific tools and techniques used by professional storytellers to make it look effortless – but so impactful at the same time. (Why? Because inspiration without the tools is frustrating, pointless and eventually counter-productive!)

It’s not a talk-of-two halves though… inspiration, stories and tools are woven together to give the best outcome you can hope for.

And you’ll (travel permitting!) get me for the day of your conference (usually), not just a wham-bam delivery. So if you want me to run something like a breakout session or follow-up ‘hands on, how to’ session we can almost certainly sort something out.

You’ll also get the opportunity to get hold of follow-up materials! Participants can download a customised aide-memoir with your branding alongside mine which gives them all the notes on the presentation that they wish they’d taken but were two engaged to make at the time. Think of it as a mini-book that they can download.

Well there’s the mini-book they can download on the day (see above) – but they can download it any time! Your audiences also get access to a growing library of video mini-trainings called #TalkTactics! These include the tools I include in StoryMaking but also over a hundred others, on everything from “tricks to make your first slide more useful” and “how many questions to answer at the end of your presentation”.

They can also book me themselves of course, at a discount… but that’s going to help me as much as you!

Finally, behind StoryMaking is an in-depth training package that your audience can buy if they want to, as well. I’m working on a hybrid (physical/digital) product that will be available as soon as I’ve finished the beta tests!

There plenty of videos on the homepage for you. And there’s my TEDx. It’s on the TED website here. (Or YouTube here.) StoryMaking is more upbeat than the TEDx though, and more energetic because the TEDx was recorded to a huge-but-totally-empty auditorium because of a Covid lockdown.

Oh, and there’s this promise. I’m so confident that if you don’t think I’ve delivered value because of something I had control over, I’ll only invoice you for my expenses. My time would be free.

There’s a thin line between confidence and being cocky, I know. Forgive me!

There’s not much point in StoryMaking in less than 30 minutes or so. There’s a huge amount of content curated to that duration of course, so it’s easy to expand it if your conference runs sessions of 40 or 45, or 60 minutes! There’s not much point in going below 30 minutes in terms of your value for money and no point at all below 20 minutes in terms of the content I can give the audience. (Hey, I’m good, but I can’t work that particular miracle!)

You can get a PDF of my SpeakerPack here which (I hope!) will answer most of your questions about things like images, marketing and so on.

Every change we make, and every positive change that we’ve ever made as a society, began with the story we’ve told ourselves of how it could be “better if we could only…”

It’s not so much that I’m passionate about this as that I’m… okay, I can’t find another word without rushing to a thesaurus. So yeah… passionate…

The point is, while I do this for a living, I’m doing this for a living (as opposed to something else) because I honestly believe it matters.

You can download more details here. Don’t forget to download the speaker pack for background information. 

Suitable for: motivation/self-development conferences; marketing conferences; sales conferences; company conferences (particularly in the tech sector and the professional services sector); charity conferences; academic conferences.

Prefer to do your chatting on social media? Cool

• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-raybould-presentations/ Don’t forget the last word, it’s important.
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonstorymaking/

Very short bio - click to expand

Simon started his working life as a research scientist after a PhD looking at the causes of childhood cancer. After over two and a half decades as a research scientist he became Centre Manager of what was then the UK’s largest social science research unit.

Alongside this career, he’s worked professionally as a teacher, lighting designer for dance companies, trainer, author, playwright, opera director and fire eater!

Simon started his working life as a research scientist after a PhD looking at the causes of childhood cancer. After over two and a half decades as a research scientist he became Centre Manager of what was then the UK’s largest social science research unit.

Alongside this career, he’s worked professionally as a teacher, lighting designer for dance companies, trainer, author, playwright, opera director and fire eater!

Simon started his working life as a research scientist after a PhD looking at the causes of childhood cancer. After over two and a half decades as a research scientist he became Centre Manager of what was then the UK’s largest social science research unit. That need to look at the evidence, the causes, the relationships is what makes him different from most presentation trainers and professional speakers. His style is to avoid “this works for me” in favour of “the research says this works for 85% of the population – try it this way first”.

But he doesn’t do ‘lectures’… he knows how to engage people, because alongside this career, he’s worked professionally as a teacher, lighting designer for dance companies, trainer, author, playwright, opera director and fire eater!

If it helps, I’ve got a sane wife, two awesome, badass daughters and hobbies that include reading, playing the cajon, bread-making, and cycling. I don’t count things like going to the gym or yoga as a hobbies. They’re things I do to stay fit, so I can be at my best on stage. Does anyone know when Downward Facing Dog stops being painful?!

• Favourite book: Dune, by Frank Herbert.
• Favourite Cartoon Character: Batman. (Obviously.)
• Favourite Food: Italian
• Favourite Wine: Malbec. And thanks for asking

Feel free to download these. If none of them are suitable drop me a line: I’ve got plenty more!

• Formal headshot: https://storymaking.business/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Geetesh_headshot.png
• Informal headshot: https://storymaking.business/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/cropped-Simon-Pic-683×1024-1.jpeg
• Semi-formal performance pic #1: https://storymaking.business/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/edited_For-You-Photography-_-Lauren-McWilliams-3289_websize.png
• Semi-formal performance pic #2: https://storymaking.business/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SBS24-CU-2865-scaled.jpg
• Informal performance pic: https://storymaking.business/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/edited_For-You-Photography-_-Lauren-McWilliams-3289_websize.png