Financial Storytellers Pillows

"At last they paid off their sub-prime fairy-tale and lived happily ever after."

"Although technically it's a profit and loss statement, the narrative is admittedly rather one-sided."

"Unfortunately Daddy already owes the government about 500,000 Pokemon cards."

"So, you want to work at our firm, Eh?"

'This merger will cut jobs 40%, reduce salaries 30% and increase the work hours 25%. Your job is to make this look like the best thing that ever happened to our employees.'

"He'll never win this negotiation. He's saddled with numbers...but we have anecdotes."

Of course, we have to begin with certain assumptions. Let's assume I'm right and you're wrong.

Wall of Office Memories

"Now the board will hear from Todd from Accounting with his free verse composition 'My Mistress, Brash and Beguiling – the Third Quarter Numbers.'"

'My office is always open to you Charles, at least until maintenance repairs the door lock.'

'There's a bear on line one and a bull on line two. Who do you want me to put through first?'

Pandora's box.

"This is the deluxe edition Annual Report Director's Cut with restored graphs and alternative endings."

Confident Business Team - We Know We Can

'I hired a motivational speaker once, but unfortunately all of my employees left to get better jobs.'

Dollars Press Conference

Those who fail to learn from the past will be forced to relive it.

'I eliminated all the platitudes and cliche statements, from your mission statement, and I'm left with this blank sheet of paper.'

'Figures can be misleading - So I've written a song which I think expresses the real story of the firms performance this quarter.'

Turning a business graph around to get a positive reading.

'Tech stocks tumbled on news that Alan Greenspan's computer was down.'

'...but then the Dow rallied and the blue chips began to rise...'

'It's good to be back, Ms. Norton.. did anything important happen while I was away?'

'I can't take all the credit. My childhood imaginary friend picked a lot of my stocks.'

'That was one of my all-time great rumors.'

When Sales and Marketing Do Not Communicate

'It's is the feeling of this board that you are overdoing the 'lead by example' thing.'

"Once upon a time, gold was 60 pounds an ounce."

"Well, that's not a good market indicator."

'The global economy is fragile and mysterious, folks... kind of like Tinkerbell in 'Peter Pan.' When people stopped believing in the magic, Tinkerbell almost died. So it's up to us to invent a better supernatural creature to believe in!'

You think you have feelings of worthlessness? You ought to see my portfolio!

'If you kiss me, I'll cause the Dow Jones Industrial Average to soar, manufacturing and trade data to re-accelerate, and housing to rebound significantly throughout the remainder of this and the next quarter.'