Your strategy is brilliant, but your audience is checking their email.

If your story doesn't connect in the first three minutes, the rest of the presentation is just expensive noise.
We help leaders stop losing their audience and start driving action that moves business.

Where is your story losing its power?
Help for Organizations, Teams and Individuals

Keep Those Phones Down

Conference Keynotes, Panels & Sessions

You are competing with every smartphone in the room. Information is free, but attention is expensive. If you aren't architecting a story, you are just providing background noise for their scrolling.

What if your talk earned a "phones down" response? We move beyond slides to build narrative architecture that keeps your audience gripped from the opening hook to the final call to action.

Bridge the Internal Alignment Gap

Stakeholder, Sales, Operations & Staff

Internal friction occurs when the boardroom’s mission feels like "more work" to the sales team and staff. When departments read from different scripts, energy is wasted on clarification rather than execution.

What if your internal strategy created a shared mission instead of a jargon-filled chore? We align your narrative so every employee understands the "why" behind the "how," turning corporate strategy into a collective mission.

Skip the Jargon, Get the Approval

The Business of IT

Technical leaders are often viewed as "cost centers" or "utilities" rather than strategic partners. You have the solution, but the Board hears "expensive technical risk."

What if your IT strategy was the most anticipated part of the quarterly review? We help you strip away the jargon to secure funding and prove exactly how the business wins through technology.

Secure the Deal and Integration Day One

Mergers and Acquisitions

Numbers get people to the table, but a lack of narrative clarity kills the deal or the integration. If buyers can't "see" the future of the combined entity, the deal stalls.

What if your CIM didn't just report the past, but promised a future buyers couldn't ignore? We architect M&A stories that build unshakeable confidence in the vision and ensure post-deal cultural alignment.

Move from Project Cost to Asset Value

PropTech Consulting & Analysis

Building owners see an expensive bill, while you see an asset-value multiplier. The gap is the language. Owners are tired of "tech for tech’s sake" that doesn't impact the bottom line.

What if you could translate technical specs into a direct line to tenant retention and pro forma growth? We frame tech as a business imperative that even the most skeptical CFO cannot ignore.

Cut the Complexity with a Clear & Compelling Story

Enterprise Software Consulting & Analysis

Complexity kills buy-in. Massive implementations stall when the strategic vision is buried under 500 pages of technical requirements. People don't use what they don't understand.

What if you could explain a three-year digital overhaul in a three-minute story everyone believed in? We strip away the technical noise so the software’s strategic value becomes the star of the show.

Let's build your Story

Critical Perspective

AI can generate the words and pictures, but it can't craft the narrative. It's a powerful tool, not a powerful storyteller.

Words and images are the raw materials of storytelling. They are the bricks, the paint, the cloth. But raw materials alone don't build a house, paint a masterpiece, or tailor a suit. They need vision, purpose, and a human hand.

Large language models like ChatGPT can create endless combinations of words and images in seconds. That is powerful, but speed and volume aren't the same as meaning. What they produce is material, useful and often inspiring, but still unfinished.

Think of AI as the best monkey with a typewriter the world has ever seen. It can produce words faster than any person could. But Shakespeare doesn't come from the monkey. Shakespeare comes from the storyteller who knows what to keep, what to cut, and what to shape.

Generative AI is like a search engine that writes. It's fast, but it lacks context, stakes, and human insight. Only you know your audience and the specific change you need to create.

AI can help with the raw material; we help you turn that material into the persuasive, high-stakes story you need.

Let's fix your Story

Let's Connect

Stop losing your audience. Tell me which story is losing its power and we will get to work on recapturing your audience.

Speaking from Experience

Expertise is not about time spent; it is about the specific fires you have had to put out yourself. My perspective is built on a 35-year career, including decades as a leader in high-stakes environments.

I have spent a lifetime in the seats you are sitting in, using clear communication as the primary tool to drive business results.

Keynotes, Panels & Conference Sessions: As a leader and moderator, I have built and delivered thousands of presentations. I know how to earn an audience’s attention because I have had to do it on global stages where the first three minutes decide the outcome.
Stakeholders & Staff: In my leadership roles, I was responsible for aligning teams across teams, departments and divisions. I have seen firsthand how story power is lost when teams pull in different directions. We bridge the gap between conflicting functional goals to turn departmental silos into a unified force.
Mergers & Acquisitions: I have navigated the high-pressure reality of M&A from the inside, having evaluated 100+ targets and completed 50+ integrations. I have seen how a clear deal story secures a "yes" and, more importantly, how a unified narrative ensures the integration actually works once the ink is dry.
Business of IT: As a VP of IT, I did the internal work of translating technical roadmaps into business value. I know what it is like to sit in the boardroom and fight to prove that IT is a strategic engine rather than a line-item expense.
PropTech & Enterprise Software: With over 20 years leading in the PropTech sector and over 35 in enterprise software as a whole, including my time as a Gartner Analyst, I have bridged the gap between technical "capabilities" and the hard ROI that stakeholders and buyers actually demand.

I don’t just offer advice. I provide the communication frameworks I used to secure funding, close deals, and build alignment when the stakes were highest.

BZ's Storyteller Insights

How to Be the Panelist Everyone Remembers

Most people view a conference panel as a low-stakes speaking engagement. They think they can show up, sit in a comfortable chair, and wait for their turn to talk about their business. Because they haven't prepared a script, they assume they can just wing it. The result is usually a "zombie panel." Four people sitting in a row, staring at the middle distance, waiting for the moderator to throw them a bone so they can recite their bio one more time. If you want to be the paneli

14 hours ago3 min read

The Art of the Panel: How to Not Be the "Coffee Break"

We have all been there. The lights dim, four experts take their seats behind a linen-draped table, and the moderator begins with the dreaded words: "Let’s start by having everyone introduce themselves and tell us a bit about their background." Suddenly, forty-five minutes feels like four hours. The audience has already checked their watches, synchronized their phones, and mentally checked out. Panels are often treated as the "easy" slot in a conference schedule, but they are

5 days ago3 min read

The Delayed Introduction: Moving the Org Chart from the Start to the Heart

We’ve all been there. The lights dim, the presenter clicks to the first slide, and there it is: a sprawling org chart or a list of bios with headshots. The energy drains from the room instantly. Faces drop, and the quiet rustle of people checking their phones begins. The conventional wisdom says you must introduce yourself and your team at the very top of your presentation. It feels polite. It feels professional. It is, in fact, the fastest way to lose your audience. Before y

Jan 263 min read

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The Coach

I'm Brian Zrimsek, call me BZ!

As the Principal Coach and Founder of BiZStoryGuru, my mission is to help leaders and professionals tell stronger, higher-stakes business stories.

I bring strategy and storytelling together, using metaphor, structure, and a forward-looking perspective to make content not only clear, but worth remembering.

Let's fix your Story

Proof Points

Rick Haughey

Vice President, Industry Technology Initiatives

National Multifamily Housing Council

Brian has been a go-to panelist and moderator for NMHC for over two decades. He brings panels together in a way few others can, while always providing relevant content and ensuring the panel tells a cohesive story that resonates for our audience.

Richard Jirjis

VP Finance and Accounting

The Irvine Company

Brian has a unique ability to bridge the gap between Business and IT. As part of our annual governance process, Brian was always able to find the story lines that best organized and explained what the IT team planned for the coming year making projects easier to understand and investments easier to approve.