Don't Be Concise, Be Memorable

• 00:04 So you've narrowed your key messages down to just five.
• 00:08 That's great.
• 00:09 But we can't just tell people, here are my five messages, gotta go after 30 seconds.
• 00:14 It doesn't work like that.
• 00:16 You've got to do everything you can, in the time you have with your speech or
• 00:21 your presentation, to make those messages not only understood, but remembered.
• 00:28 Now, let me tell you a little secret here.
• 00:30 Now I say it's a secret, every book on public speaking says this and
• 00:33 yet nobody ever does it.
• 00:35 So somehow, it's a basic concept that doesn't sink through.
• 00:40 You need to have a story for every one of your message points.
• 00:43 The biggest difference between great speakers and
• 00:48 awful ones and average ones is that great speakers have a story
• 00:52 to flesh out every single message point they have.
• 00:58 It's not a luxury, it's not just to open the speech, it's not the close,
• 01:03 it's not to be funny.
• 01:04 It's to illustrate the point so the audience can remember it.
• 01:08 Now, here's the other big fact of life.
• 01:11 Every, and I mean every single client I have, who's awful, who's boring,
• 01:17 who just does a data dump, or who's just average, they never use stories.
• 01:24 They just go in a straightforward way, here's a fact,
• 01:28 here's a bullet point, here's a number.
• 01:31 It's straightforward, factual stuff, and it's awful, nobody remembers it.
• 01:36 And it's not interesting.
• 01:38 Now, there's a lot of confusion about stories.
• 01:40 People tell me all the time, well TJ, I love stories but
• 01:44 I'm not a natural storyteller.
• 01:47 Or I'm in finance and I'm just giving the numbers, or
• 01:50 I'm giving a purely technical speech.
• 01:53 Well, let me disabuse you of those notions right now.
• 01:56 There is no such thing as a financial speech or a technical speech or
• 02:00 a PowerPoint speech,
• 02:01 those are all just silly concepts we have in our head when we're giving speeches.
• 02:08 There's only two types of speeches in the entire world.
• 02:11 You know what they are?
• 02:13 That's right, it's either good or it's bad, from the standpoint of the audience.
• 02:17 When you are in the audience, you're not thinking, wow,
• 02:21 I sure am glad this person is giving me a formal presentation, or
• 02:26 this sure is a good financial presentation.
• 02:29 No, that's not what you're thinking of.
• 02:31 The only thing you're thinking of when you're in the audience is, this is good,
• 02:34 it's interesting, it's useful, I'm going to pay attention.
• 02:38 Or this guy is awful, it's boring, it's tedious,
• 02:40 I'll look at the PowerPoint later.
• 02:43 Meanwhile, let me check up on email from the office.
• 02:48 That's the only thing going on in the minds of your audience.
• 02:51 So great speakers adapt to the mindset of their audience.
• 02:57 Now that's what you've gotta do.
• 02:59 So you've gotta figure out what are the ideas you're trying to communicate?
• 03:03 And now, how can you use every tool to make it come alive?
• 03:09 And the number one tool that you have at your disposal is a story.
• 03:14 Now, a story doesn't have to be funny.
• 03:18 It doesn't have to be overly emotional.
• 03:21 The only thing is story is is you recounting a real conversation
• 03:27 you had with a real person about a real problem in a real place.
• 03:35 What was said, what that person said to you, what you said back,
• 03:38 how it was resolved, and how you felt about it.
• 03:42 That's it, that's all there is to it.
• 03:45 All of us tell stories all the time.
• 03:48 You're stopping off on the way home and you fill up with gas and
• 03:50 someone cuts you off and curses at you.
• 03:53 You don't then go home and tell your spouse, at 5:22 I left the office,
• 03:57 at 5:32 I pulled into a gas station, at 5:33, there was a minor altercation and
• 04:02 unpleasantries were exchanged, at 5:44, I left.
• 04:05 I mean, that's kind of how most people give speeches.
• 04:09 Boring, straightforward, fact, fact.
• 04:13 You're going to say to your spouse, I can't believe what happened to me today.
• 04:17 I was pulling into the Exxon, and this guy comes in honking, honking.
• 04:22 I'm looking around, he's like, get out of my way, buddy.
• 04:25 And he proceeded to take the gas pump and put it in as if he owned the place.
• 04:30 I mean, that's how human beings talk.
• 04:33 You might not drive a car, but I think you get my point.
• 04:36 All human beings tell stories all day long.
• 04:41 Now, what's different about a speech is people tell themselves,
• 04:46 I'm now giving a formal presentation.
• 04:49 Let me push away all the stories and just stick to the facts and be concise.
• 04:55 Let me tell you right now, your goal in giving a speech is never,
• 05:01 and I mean never to be concise.
• 05:04 Your goal is to communicate.
• 05:07 You can be concise, stand up, sit down after 30 seconds,
• 05:11 nobody remembered anything you said, you've accomplished absolutely nothing.
• 05:18 But maybe you speak for 20 minutes, 30, maybe 3 hours,
• 05:21 if you're giving people good value, if you're really helping them.
• 05:25 If you're doing something to make their lives better, their jobs better,
• 05:29 their bottom line better, they'll listen to you for a long time.
• 05:32 Now, I'm not saying just go on and on for three hours.
• 05:35 But your focus should be on making your ideas remembered and
• 05:39 making sure you have useful ideas.
• 05:42 Not simply being concise, that is a false goal that many, many speakers have.

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