'Just Tell a Story' is bad pitch advice

In high-stakes conversations, you rarely get a second chance to be understood.

We’ve all heard this a lot.

“Just tell a story.”

We’ve all heard the advice at some point. Just tell a story. Easy to say, difficult to execute. Most founders are too close to their project to know which story will land. They will often default to what feels meaningful to them, not what is meaningful to the audience. Without context, a story feels vague. Sometimes it feels engineered. How many times have I heard a pitch with an engineered story, featuring Alice and or Bob.

In critical conversations, where a decision is sought, a story without structure doesn’t build trust. It creates confusion.

Here are five ways storytelling backfires.

1. Fabricated or embellished stories

Stories presented as personal experience that later prove exaggerated destroy trust fast. Not just in the story itself. In everything that follows. Once credibility slips, the audience starts rereading the entire message with suspicion.

2. Story used to replace thinking

In critical contexts, a narrative without data signals weak judgment. Investors, boards, and senior leaders don’t object to emotion. They object to stories being used to cover gaps in reasoning.

3. Telling a story that isn’t yours

Borrowing someone else’s struggle, especially without permission, feels exploitative. Even when intentions are good, the cost is ethical erosion. Audiences notice. So do the people involved.

4. Tone-deaf to context

Personal triumph stories delivered after layoffs, restructurings, or bad news land badly. What was meant to inspire reads as disconnected. The backlash isn’t loud. It’s lasting.

5. Overly polished optimism

“All is well” narratives in environments where reality contradicts them breed cynicism. Once a story is perceived as propaganda, future communication is discounted by default.

Stories don’t fail because storytelling is bad.

They fail when the narrative is asked to do work that clarity should have done first. What getting answers to questions should do.

Clarity and alignment first. Story second.

Storytelling isn’t a shortcut to trust. It’s an amplifier.

When the room is deciding, not browsing, amplification works both ways. It strengthens clarity. Or it exposes its absence. I’ve seen many empty TED talks go this way.

Before you share an anecdote, get clear on five things:

• What changed as a result of the anecdote?

• For whom?

• Why tell it now?

• What decision does it support?

• What do you want the listener to take from it and do next?

If you can’t answer those points, I’d say leave it.

Clarity first.

Story second.

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