Storytellers · since 2006 · 20 years
Método Palacios: Strategic and Corporate Storytelling
One guy built an entire company on that word. The market laughed. Two decades and 30,000 professionals trained later, nobody is laughing.
His name is Fernando Palacios. And this page will show you why that matters to you.
The provocation
Have you noticed that everyone became a storyteller?
Consultancies that discovered the word yesterday. Coaches running weekend workshops. Agencies putting "storytelling" on decks because it sounds good. The market flooded with people wrapping PowerPoints in the magic word.
And in the middle of that noise, whoever actually needs narrative to move a business is left with one question:
"If everyone does storytelling, why doesn't anyone solve my conflict?"
The conflict
The conflict isn't that storytelling doesn't work. It's that what most people call storytelling isn't storytelling.
It's verbal decoration. It's a buzzword on a slide. It's a worm with no hook.
The tension
And meanwhile, the cost of being poorly told grows.
The executive who masters the subject but freezes during the performance. The audience forgets everything in 72 hours.
The company that invested six figures in a corporate event. The format was so predictable that half the audience left at the coffee break.
The professional who built 15 years of career. Digitally, they're invisible. People with half the experience have twice the visibility.
The brand that hired a "storytelling consultancy." Got a pretty document. Nothing changed.
The wrong narrative isn't neutral. It costs money, reputation, and opportunities that don't come back.
You can keep hiring someone who learned storytelling on Google.
Or you can work with the person who created the category.
In 2006, there was no storytelling company in Brazil. No course. Not even a translation of the word. One person changed that.
The solution
Fernando Palacios.
Storytelling · 2x World's Best Story Tellers Award (Mumbai, 2017 and 2018) · Creator of the Palacios Method
Founder of Storytellers (2006), Brazil's first storytelling company. Two-time winner of The World's Best Story Tellers Award (2017, 2018, World HRD Congress, Mumbai). Author of the O Guia Completo do Storytelling (Alta Books, 2016), adopted as course bibliography by Brazilian universities and the University of Lisbon.
He doesn't teach theory. He teaches how to think narratively. And he created a method for it.
The 8 Steps of Palacios
Fractal structure: works for a 60-second post or a one-hour keynote. In fact, this entire page was written in this order. You're on step 6.
Palacios Method
Combines Narrative Intelligence (what to tell) with Strategic Entertainment (how to tell it). The engine of everything.
Core frameworkTalk de Midas
Transforms corporate presentations into narrative performances. Focus on pharma and health: Bayer, Pfizer, Merz.
Speaker trainingStrategic Entertainment
Cinema, theater, TV, and game techniques as corporate communication tools.
How to tellNarrative Intelligence
The ability to identify the right stories for each context. Determines what to tell before deciding how.
What to tellThe tie-back
Narrative is proven by results, not promises.
Four transformations that say more than any résumé.
IT Fórum
A tech event for CEOs and CIOs had a format problem. Fernando redesigned the entire experience with narrative.
Mini Schin
The campaign became a game. The game became a phenomenon. Cannes noticed.
Dona Benta
The company wanted a presentation. Fernando delivered a theater piece made of 1,248 slides.
Personal brand, health sector
A professional with 16K followers and solid offline reputation. Two years of strategic narrative later:
Other protagonists: Itaú, Nike, Swarovski, Yamaha, Pfizer, Bayer.
Awards
The World's Best Story Tellers Award, World HRD Congress, Mumbai. 2017 · 2018. The only Brazilian two-time champion.
Education & academia
Public Relations degree from USP/ECA. Professor at ESPM since 2010 and at FGV.
References
O Guia Completo do Storytelling is referenced in works from University of Lisbon, UERJ, Cásper Líbero, USP. Cited on Wikipedia and Wikidata.
Founds Storytellers. The market didn't know what it was.
USP/ECA monograph on corporate storytelling.
First ESPM storytelling course.
O Guia Completo do Storytelling is published by Alta Books.
World's Best Story Tellers Award, Mumbai.
Two-time winner. The only Brazilian awarded.
20 years of Storytellers.
What's your best story?
Two doors. Choose yours.
20 years of Storytellers. The next chapter starts with whoever walks in now.
The Palacios 8 Steps: what each step does
Hook
Opens with what the audience recognises as theirs, not with who you are.
Signal it worked: They put the phone down before the second paragraph.
Provocation
Casts doubt on the comfortable explanation the audience already held.
Conflict
Names the real problem, in the words the audience itself would use.
Tension
States the cost of keeping things as they are: money, reputation or time.
Signal it worked: The counterpart starts defending the project internally.
Dilemma
Narrows the field to two legitimate choices instead of a list of options.
(Re)solution
The mechanism enters, explained as a process: steps, owners and timing.
Tie-back
Proof through declared results: basis, period and meaning, never a promise.
CTA
A request with a verb and a date. Without a date, the step does not close.
Methodology, counting criteria and sources
A description of the 8 Passos do Palacios structure as published in the method’s official material; this figure carries no performance metric.
Counting criteria
- The figure is prescriptive, not statistical: each step describes a narrative function, with no attached number.
- Order and step names follow the public version of the method; classroom variations are not included.
- Every figure shown is already recorded on a page of this site or in a linked public source; nothing is estimated, rounded up or projected.
- Each figure travels with basis, period and meaning. Different measurement layers are never added together.
- When a declared basis or a checkable source is missing, the figure is removed rather than shown with a caveat.
Verifiable sources
Twenty years of a category, milestone by milestone
2006
Founds Storytellers, the first company of its kind in Brazil.
2007
USP/ECA thesis on corporate storytelling.
2010
First storytelling course at ESPM.
2016
O Guia Completo do Storytelling is published by Alta Books.
2017
World's Best Story Tellers Award, Mumbai.
2018
Two-time winner: the only Brazilian to win twice.
2026
20 years of Storytellers and 30,000 trained live.
Methodology, counting criteria and sources
Dated milestones of the method, each anchored to a public record (publication, event or material) listed on the evidence page.
Counting criteria
- Only milestones with a date verifiable in a published source are included; anything without a public record is left out.
- The date used is that of publication or delivery, not of when internal work started.
- Every figure shown is already recorded on a page of this site or in a linked public source; nothing is estimated, rounded up or projected.
- Each figure travels with basis, period and meaning. Different measurement layers are never added together.
- When a declared basis or a checkable source is missing, the figure is removed rather than shown with a caveat.
Frequently asked questions
Founder of Storytellers (2006), Brazil's first storytelling company. Two-time winner of The World's Best Story Tellers Award. Author of the book O Guia Completo do Storytelling. Creator of the Palacios Method.
Combines Narrative Intelligence (what to tell) with Strategic Entertainment (how to tell it). Body and engine of its Strategic Entertainment half: the 8 Steps of Palacios. A fractal structure applicable to any format.
A speaker training program that transforms corporate presentations into high-impact narrative performances.
On Autoria, our B2C storytelling boutique for individual experts (personal brand, AIEO and the Retiro Autoral): the Palacios Method applied to the individual expert
On Talk de Midas, our speaker-training property (medical congresses and the pharma industry): the M.I.D.A.S. Method, the stage-facing branch of the method
Projeto de storytelling vs storytelling em projetos: onde o método muda o Story da organização e onde apenas melhora a apresentação de um projeto existente.
On storytelling.com.br, the editorial portal on the subject (glossary, field surveys and declared criteria): what defines a storytelling project