Picture Your Numbers

Most business presenters give tons and tons of numbers because they think they have to.

Quick! Name three numbers from any presentation you've seen in the last month.

It's hard do, isn't it?

Numbers are abstractions and are, therefore, hard for the memory to latch onto when hearing them. It's not that you or your audience doesn't understand numbers; it's just hard to remember them. But if your audience doesn't remember your numbers, what good have you accomplished? Nothing.

The first thing I advise my clients to do is to drastically cut down the numbers they present during a speech. Become a more selective editor. If a number is not critically important, then put it in the paper handout, but don't feel the need to articulate it or to put it in a PowerPoint slide.

If you want people to remember a number that you give out during a presentation then you must do several things to make it stick.

1. Give an example using the number.
2. Show a picture or image involving the number.
3. Tell a story using the number.
4. Explain why anyone should care about the number.

If you can't or won't do these things, chances are no one will remember your numbers, no matter how smart your audience is.

In the world of politics, challengers never find it helpful to their campaign to attack an incumbent for wasting millions or even billions of dollars of tax money. People simply can not picture a billion dollars or a billion anything.

Early in the Clinton Administration the President's detractors planted a story of how Clinton allegedly held up traffic at the Los Angeles Airport for an hour so that he could get a $300 haircut from a fancy Beverly Hills hair stylist. The story turned out not to be true, but it was a number that stuck throughout his presidency. Why? Because the number of 300 was associated with money and people and conflict. It had a whole story that was visual, emotional and filled with intrigue.

I'm not suggesting that you make up stories. But if you want people to remember your numbers, you had better figure out real, tangible and visual ways to make your numbers come alive.

 

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