On top of any nervousness you may be feeling when you have to give a speech or presentation, do you sometimes worry about either failing to get your point across or boring your audience?
In this replay of a Coffee and Coaching Club meeting, I share these scary statistics from a recent study about audience retention of information shared in a speech:
- Immediately after a 10-minutes presentation, listeners remembered only 50% of what was said.
- By the next day, that number had dropped to 25%.
- At the end of a week, it was 10%.
YIKES!
So what characteristics can you incorporate into your presentations to make them more memorable?
- Share stories that support your message.
- Refer to specific examples in your stories.
- Link your ideas to familiar ideas or practices.
- Use repetition to reinforce your main point or points.
Beyond these basic ideas, it’s crucial to organize your thoughts in a way that makes sense to your audience.
The best way I have found to do this is to share a verbal outline with the audience.
- Mention that you are going to share 3 important pieces of information (perhaps strategies as an example), then verbally label them.
- The first strategy is this.
- The second strategy is this.
- The third strategy is this.
- Then, in conclusion, mention that you shared these three strategies, and name them.
If this seems to be a bit much, here’s a quote from one of the greatest orators of the last century, Sir Winston Churchill:
If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time–a tremendous whack.
And the last, and perhaps most important point to make: Make sure that what you are sharing is worth the precious time people give you to listen to it.
I invite you to check out the video for more thoughts about this whole topic of creating a compelling message.
You can also find other presentations from the Coffee and Coaching Club series on my YouTube channel here. Please be sure to subscribe.