Tell Me a Story...please

The next time you have the opportunity to give a business presentation in front of a group – coworkers, colleagues, professionals, clients, employees, etc – tell them a story.

It’s an overcommunicated society. Your audience is bombarded with messages from morning til night. The odds are radically stacked against you if you are hoping to just dump everything you know on them.

Most people will remember 1 or 2 things from your presentation (if they remember it at all).

It’s up to you to decide what those 1 or 2 things should be, and then present those key points in a way that makes them memorable for the audience.

The day after a presentation, when people head back to work or to their business, the lasting effect from your presentation will be the feeling you created when talking to them, not the content you told them about (since they’ll only remember 1 or 2 things).

So, how do you get people to remember what you want them to remember – and how do you create that feeling that stays with the audience long after your presentation is over?

Give them a "mental anchor" – that’s a (poorly thought out) term I use for anything that helps the audience anchor the knowledge you are imparting to something they can actually remember when they wake up tomorrow.

By anchoring your facts and figures and brilliant thoughts to something they can remember and recall whenever they need to, you’ll be giving your audience a chance to keep your key messages in their memory for a long period of time.

A "mental anchor" could be:

A story – "Let me tell you an amazing story about a lady named Jane Smith that will change how you look at retirement planning."

An analogy – "Fixing this problem is a lot like building a new house – it starts with a strong foundation. Let me tell you about the foundational improvements we’re going to make this year to turn the business around…"

A piece of uncommon logic or a surprising fact – "As the economy slows down and companies look for cost saving opportunities, you should maintain or even increase your spending on marketing and advertising...here's why..."

An unusual comparison – "Our company is the Microsoft of the mouse trap business."

A Well-Told joke – (you’re on your own here!)

An Observation – "With these changes, our company now has the largest R&D department in the industry – twice as big as our larger competitor. It's like having double the horsepower under the hood at the Daytona 500."

Your audience’s capacity to remember numbers and facts is very limited – and facts and figures alone don’t inspire feelings or emotion.

You need to anchor the numbers and facts to something far more interesting in order to be remembered.