What are your creative ideas, tips, or resources that can help to improve storytelling skills?

Hey - Thanks for the question! 

In my opinion, the best way of telling a great story is to really have an understanding of everything you're talking about - especially the heroes of your story. And to do that, it comes down to meeting with the people who are going to use the product you're planning to tell stories about; learning their pain points, learning what they do every day, learning how your new thing can make their lives better - and building empathy around them as a human and what they're trying to accomplish. 

With that, there are many frameworks you can apply. Every good story follows a relatively simple framework... You set the stage, introduce the hero of the story, detail the conflict they face, and how your thing leads them to a resolution or better place. 

As a starting point, here's a simple flow you could use that goes through every piece of a great story. Play around with it, add more to it, and make it your own! 

Andrew is a...

Right now, he struggles with...

It's challenging for him because... 

And it creates a lot of issues, like...

It would be so much easier for him if he could...

That's where our product comes in, it helps Andrew...

Because of this, it's increased/improved metrics like...

Now Andrew's life is so much easier!

Also, we've helped others with this too, for example...

I think the basics called out here are nice building blocks, but a few more tactical examples to help:

• Listen to customers. "Know your audience" is too broad of a term, but actually listening to what they have to say - and most importantly - what they react to is key to a great story. Stories evoke emotion and emotions can be visible positive feedback that your stories are resonating. Great storytellers aren't born that way, they learn through that positive feedback on what resonates and what doesn't. 
• Try storytelling "hacks." There are mechanics and structures of storytelling that help break through the noise - one of my favorite is inserting things that are unexpected. An example here is taking an existing struture or belief and changing the perception. On Eats, we had an early insight that food delivery was broken forks and plastic bags (which we heard from listening to customers!) Our whole story became breaking the stereotypes of food delivery - where, how, and what you could get from a food delivery business.
• Rinse & repeat. Use very opportunity possible to tell stories and practice doing so. Stories can be big - company presentations, press releases, product launch videos - or they can be small - headlines in emails, kickoffs for a meeting, even telling friends stories about your day. More practice, the better!

For a good book on storytelling, I highly recommend "Made to Stick" which really helped me understand structure of story too.  

The best of the best on this topic is Andy Raskin: https://raskin.medium.com. Highly recommend reading a bunch of his stuff, especially his now-famous Zuora sales deck deconstruction .

Other books you can consider: ‘Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs’ and ‘Creativity, Inc.' (and I second the recommendation of 'Made to Stick'!) 

There are two aspects of storytelling you'll want to address to really build this skill. They can happen in parallel if you're in a time crunch.

1. Applied storytelling in a business context. Andy Raskin is a top contributor in this space and has a lot of available content on the topic. Donald Miller, the author of Building a Story Brand, is also worth checking out.
2. Storytelling theory. This is the step most marketers won't take, which means it's also the one that will set you apart. There are endless resources available on the craft of creating stories. Robert McKee and Joseph Campbell have written extensively on the topic. It's also worth participating in some workshops if available. One of the best things I ever did in this area was take a sketch comedy writing class at a local improv theater. Almost all of the concepts applied to a business setting, and I got significantly more "practice reps" than I would have at work.