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Cheryl Miller Houser
Award-Winning Director, Writer & Producer
Cheryl Miller Houser
Award-Winning Director, Writer & Producer
Biography
Cheryl Miller Houser is an award-winning director, writer and producer who makes documentaries, commercials and brand videos that move audiences deeply. Codifying her insights from decades of filmmaking, she has developed a proprietary storytelling framework grounded in craft and science that’s adaptable to all platforms. She shares her tactics in keynotes and workshops to inspire and empower participants to drive results in marketing, sales, leadership, team building and personal development.
Cheryl has been called a “unicorn among storytellers who works magic with her ability to dial up humanity.” She approaches everything and everyone through this human, emotional and empathetic lens.
Some of Cheryl’s directing credits include feature documentary GENERATION STARTUP, funded by PwC and UBS, which follows six young people for a year and a half launching startups in Detroit; videos for Presidential candidate Andrew Yang to capture his slogan “Humanity First;” hit web series for Food & Wine magazine nominated for two James Beard Awards; and national brand campaigns. Cheryl’s credits as producer earlier in her career include David O. Russell’s first movie SPANKING THE MONKEY, winner of the Sundance Audience Award, CHILDREN OF DARKNESS, a documentary about children with mental illness nominated for an Academy Award and hundreds of hours of top-rated shows for Nat Geo, Discovery Channel and other major outlets, for which she also built and led large production teams.
As a sought-after speaker, Cheryl has been invited by SXSW three times as a featured speaker and by leading corporations including LinkedIn, Morgan Stanley, American Express and Microsoft. She has also delivered talks and workshops at startups, nonprofits and universities throughout the US and globally, including traveling with the State Department to give inspirational Entrepreneurship talks and workshops around the world.
Speaker Videos
Marketing: Risks That Pay Off
How to Find Your Story
Sales: Crafting a Compelling Story
How to Build Emotional Connection with Your Audience
The Science of Storytelling
Leadership: How to Be Relatable
The Power of Empathy
The Science & Craft of Storytelling: How to Make People Care | SXSW 2024
Q&A: Storytelling to Drive Sustainability
Cheryl Miller Houser: Storytelling & Empathy in a Purpose-Driven Economy | SXSW 2019
The Science of Storytelling with Cheryl Miller Houser | Andrew Yang | Yang Speaks
Storytelling with Impact Cheryl Miller Houser
Speech Topics
Story-Selling: How to Tell Stories That Drive Sales
Drawing on the science and craft of storytelling, Cheryl Miller Houser provides actionable insights and tactics to drive sales results, whether you're selling to individual customers, a business, investors, your team or other stakeholders. People do business with people they like and trust. And studies show that 95% of buying decisions are based on emotion. Her storytelling sales approach fosters genuine emotional connection between people. That's because it's grounded in empathy: understanding and being responsive to the needs and feelings of others. Audience members leave inspired to use Cheryl's storytelling framework to differentiate themselves, tailor their offerings, create engaging marketing materials and, most of all, build meaningful, authentic and long-lasting relationships with their clients, investors, teams and the wider world.
AI in Storytelling: Innovation With Heart
Increasingly, companies are using AI in their sales and marketing storytelling. Some campaigns have been groundbreaking, driving positive engagement, while others have spurred a backlash against the brand. In this keynote, Cheryl Miller Houser shows how companies can maximize AI tools to conceptualize and create innovative brand marketing while still preserving human creativity, originality and emotional engagement. Cheryl draws on successful brand examples combined with a humanistic storytelling approach to provide tactics participants can use in their brand storytelling. Audience members leave inspired to embrace new technologies in service to building deep human connection.
Emotionally Engaging Storytelling: How Great Leaders Communicate
Most successful leaders are also excellent storytellers. They communicate in ways that engage people emotionally, inspire them and mobilize them to act. In this keynote or workshop, Cheryl Miller Houser shares storytelling lessons gleaned from some of the most inspiring leaders of the past decade. She interweaves clips of them and insights from the craft and science of storytelling to provide tactics participants can use to inspire, motivate, sell, drive loyalty, fundraise and build a positive culture. Cheryl’s learnings apply across all forms of communication: presentations, written posts, sales decks and more.
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