There’s a moment most analysts know all too well. You’ve spent hours maybe days pulling numbers together, running queries, building pivot tables. You send the spreadsheet across. And then..silence. Or worse a reply that says, “Can you just tell me what this means?”
That moment is the gap between data and understanding. And it’s not a numbers problem. It’s a communication problem.
In my experience working with teams across industries, the biggest barrier to better business decisions isn’t a lack of data. It’s that the data arrives without a story raw, stripped of context, left to the audience to interpret however they like. Storytelling with data is what bridges that gap. And it’s a skill that far too few professionals are taught.
Why Excel Defaults Are Quietly Undermining Your Insights
Excel is an extraordinary tool. I’m not here to bash it. But here’s something I’ve noticed again and again: when people reach the “visualise” stage of their analysis, they let the software make the decisions. Default bar chart, auto-generated axis labels, maybe a colour scheme chosen by an algorithm. The chart gets dropped into a slide deck and the presenter moves on.
The problem? Software doesn’t understand your audience. It doesn’t know whether the sales director cares about year-on-year trends or regional breakdowns. It doesn’t know whether your stakeholders need to act urgently or simply stay informed. Excel draws the chart. You have to tell the story.
This is the core principle behind effective data storytelling: you are the narrator, not the software. The chart is a prop, not the performance.
How to Present Data Clearly: A Step-by-Step Approach
Step 1 — Start With the Insight, Not the Data
Most people build their presentation backwards. They gather all the data first and then figure out what to say. Flip that.
Ask yourself: what is the single most important thing my audience needs to understand or decide after seeing this? Write that sentence down before you open Excel or Tableau or Power BI. That sentence is your headline and your entire presentation should lead the audience toward it.
Data analysis storytelling at its best works just like journalism. The headline comes first. The evidence follows.
Step 2 — Know Your Audience (Really Know Them)
A CFO and a marketing coordinator are not the same audience, even if they’re sitting in the same room. One cares about margin implications; the other is thinking about campaign reach. The data might be identical, but the story you tell should feel tailored almost personal.
Before you build a single chart, think about: What does this person already know? What do they worry about? What decision do they need to make? When data visualization is built around audience need rather than data availability, everything shifts. People lean in instead of zoning out.
Step 3 — Choose the Right Chart for the Right Message
Here’s where most presenters lose the room. They use a pie chart when they should use a bar chart. They display fifteen variables on a line graph when three would do. They choose “impressive-looking” over “actually clear.”
A simple rule I use: if your audience has to work hard to read the chart, the chart is wrong. The best data visualizations don’t require explanation they are the explanation. Choose chart types based on the relationship in the data: comparisons call for bar charts, trends call for line charts, proportions call for simple bars or waffle charts (not pie charts, please).
Step 4 — Lead With a Narrative Title, Not a Descriptive One
Compare these two chart titles:
- “Monthly Revenue by Region — Q1 2024”
- “Southern Region Revenue Fell 18% in March, Here’s Why”
The first describes what the data contains. The second tells the audience what to think about it. That shift from descriptive to narrative is one of the highest-impact changes you can make in your data presentations. It sounds small. It isn’t.
Step 5 — Remove Everything That Doesn’t Serve the Story
Gridlines, unnecessary legends, redundant axis labels, decorative 3D effects all of this is visual noise. Every element on a chart or slide should earn its place by helping the audience understand the insight faster.
Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic’s widely recommended Storytelling with Data book explores this principle in depth, and it’s one I return to regularly. Subtraction is often more powerful than addition when it comes to data presentation.
Step 6 — Structure Your Story Arc
Great data presentations follow a narrative arc just like great writing does. There’s a situation (what’s the context?), a complication (what’s the problem or opportunity?) and a resolution (what should we do about it?). When you frame your data inside that arc, audiences don’t just understand the numbers they remember them.
Comparing Common Data Presentation Approaches
| Approach | Clarity | Audience Engagement | Decision-Ready? | Best For |
| Raw spreadsheet dump | Low | Very low | No | Internal data archiving |
| Default Excel charts | Medium | Low | Rarely | Quick internal reviews |
| Designed data visualisation | High | Medium | Often | Reports and dashboards |
| Full data storytelling | Very high | Very high | Yes | Leadership presentations, stakeholder comms |
| Interactive data dashboard | High (contextual) | High | Yes | Ongoing monitoring and exploration |
The gap between a default Excel chart and a well-crafted data story isn’t just aesthetic. It’s the difference between data that informs and data that drives change.
FAQs
What does “storytelling with data” actually mean in a business context?
It means presenting data in a way that has a clear narrative a beginning, middle and end. Rather than simply showing your audience what the numbers say, you guide them through why those numbers matter, what caused them and what should happen next. It’s data analysis storytelling built around human decision-making, not just statistical reporting.
Do I need to be a designer or a data scientist to tell stories with data?
Not at all. In my experience, the most effective communicators in this space are people who understand both their data and their audience and those skills can be developed. Data storytelling training programmes (like those offered through Selena Fisk’s workshops and keynotes) are specifically designed for professionals who aren’t designers or statisticians but want to communicate insights more powerfully.
Is there a good data storytelling book to start with?
A few come up again and again in professional circles. Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic is perhaps the most cited. The Functional Art by Alberto Cairo is excellent for understanding data visualization more broadly. And if you’re looking for a practical, Australian-context lens on this topic, Selena Fisk’s work including her speaking and data analysis courses brings the principles to life in ways that feel immediately applicable.
What’s the difference between data visualization and data storytelling?
Data visualization is the craft of representing data visually — charts, graphs, infographics. Data storytelling wraps that visualization inside a narrative with context, meaning and a call to action. You can have great visualizations that tell no story at all. And you can tell a powerful data story using relatively simple visuals. The story is the goal; visualization is one of the tools.
The One Thing Most Data Trainers Won’t Tell You
Here’s a perspective you won’t often find in textbooks or data analysis courses: the biggest obstacle to storytelling with data isn’t technical skill. It’s permission.
Many analysts and professionals hold back from drawing clear conclusions because they’re worried about being wrong, being challenged or overstepping. So they present the data neutrally and let the audience interpret it. That might feel safe but it’s actually a disservice. Your audience hired you, trained you, or brought you into the room precisely because you understand the data better than they do. Your job isn’t just to show them numbers. It’s to guide them toward understanding.
Claiming that narrative, with clarity and confidence, is one of the most valuable professional skills you can develop.
Your Data Deserves a Better Story
If you’ve ever sent a spreadsheet and wondered why no one acted on it, the answer is almost never “they didn’t care about the data.” It’s that the data didn’t give them a clear reason to act. That’s what storytelling with data fixes.
The steps are learnable. The frameworks exist. What’s needed is the decision to move beyond default chart settings and start communicating with intention.
If you’re ready to make that shift whether you’re an analyst, educator, marketer or business leader Selena Fisk’s data storytelling training and keynotes are a brilliant place to start. She works with professionals and teams across Australia who are done with data that sits in spreadsheets and ready for insights that actually drive decisions. Your data has a story. It’s time to tell it properly.
