Here’s an excerpt from an email I received recently:
When I was relatively new in the business, I attended your keynote on Leonardo da Vinci at a divisional conference way back in 2002. I’ve just been asked to lead a group here at my company, and we’re responsible for driving an innovation effort for our department. Can you help us?
I confess that I’m not (yet) a master of social media or email marketing. Fortunately, throughout my career I have focused on making my presentations memorable and on connecting with people. The result is that most of my clients are now direct referrals from someone who heard me speak, sometimes many years ago.
When I first started speaking I thought the most important goal was to get people to understand my message, but I soon realized that understanding was necessary but not sufficient. Understanding must be complemented with remembering.
Why? Because they are two different phenomena, and not necessarily correlated.
No matter how well prepared and poised you are when speaking, your presentation is only effective if your audience remembers what you want them to remember. This is not as obvious as it sounds.
A common pitfall in communication is confusing understanding with remembering. Your audience may nod in apparent understanding, but that does not mean that they will remember your words. Of course, remembering without understanding would not be useful either.
To really understand this point and make it more memorable, please take this 101-word memory test. Ask someone to read the list to you, or just read it once without going back over previously read words. Then write down the words you remember. Ready? Go!
| auspicious | control | read |
| record | maid | Oprah Winfrey |
| mitten | opposite | Oprah Winfrey |
| throw | public speaking | Oprah Winfrey |
| speak | haircut | honey |
| dance | shock | hushed |
| honey | robust | aggressive |
| vest | cub | tub |
| cover | big | powder |
| improve | inflate | tea |
| sample | lean | fast |
| mature | sniff | cope |
| public speaking | limping | knee |
| wide | build | reduce |
| note | nest | show |
| gifted | condition | honey |
| test | purify | cakes |
| shoot | bird | coherent |
| draw | ignite | apologize |
| counsel | fish | public speaking |
| fame | lie | swim |
| mother | honey | pray |
| honey | kneel | own |
| middle | dispensable | cooperative |
| obscene | wind | possessive |
| bereave | army | honey |
| goldfish | festive | hear |
| bomb | button | wanting |
| abashed | approach | wonderful |
| public speaking | draw | warn |
| let | sniff | auspicious |
| fans | parts | record |
| date | kid | mitten |
| loud | trip |
How many words did you remember?
Did you remember auspicious, record, and mitten?
Oprah Winfrey?
honey?
public speaking?
Most people remember the above words.
Auspicious, record, and mitten are the first three words on the list and the last three words as well.
Oprah Winfrey’s name was repeated three times in a row, and it was the only proper name on the list.
Honey was repeated five times.
And, public speaking, of course, is the subject of this book.
As our memory exercise illustrates, five principles organize recall during a presentation. They are primacy, repetition, outstandingness, personal association, and recency, or PROPAR. This acronym will help you remember the principles of remembering!
We tend to remember what comes first. First impressions really are significant. Psychologists call this the primacy effect. Auspicious, record, and mitten were more memorable in our test because they came first. We also tend to remember the last thing that happens in any particular sequence, and auspicious, record, and mitten showed up again at the end. The tendency to remember the last thing is called the recency effect. Unless you’re a trained mnemonist, you tend to forget the words in between the beginning and the end of the list. The exceptions are words that are repeated. Repetition makes things memorable. Allow me to repeat: Repetition is memorable. Right, honey? We also remember anything that is outstanding, and besides being an outstanding person, Oprah Winfrey is the only proper name on our list. We also remember anything that has a special personal association, so for example, you are reading a book on public speaking so that phrase probably stayed in your memory, enhanced further by its repeated use and by its outstandingness, in that it was the only phrase on the list.
What are the five principles that organize recall during a presentation? Just remember PROPAR! Primacy, repetition, outstandingness, personal association, and recency.
Consider the average presentation. What parts of it are you most likely to remember? Most people would say the beginning and the end, and they’re right. People tend to remember the first thing that a speaker says and, if they’re still awake at the end, the last. And in many cases they forget just about everything in between.
How can you take advantage of the primacy and recency effects and raise your audience out of the trough in the middle?
By using these five principles of recall. Taken together, these principles form a simple and powerful strategy for making your message unforgettable. Effective communication requires the integration of understanding and recall. The PROPAR approach holds the secret of that integration. Let’s look at how to apply each element.
If your colleague comes into the office on a Monday morning and says, “We are going on a trip,” the first question likely to come to your mind would be, “Where are we going?” Once the destination is known, your next question might be, “Why are we going there?” You’d probably follow that with, “How are we going to get there?”
A presentation is a journey of communication. An audience wants to know where you plan to take them, why they should go with you, and how you are going to get them there. So, in the first few minutes of your presentation:
Make contact with your audience. If your colleague is a skilled communicator, she will take time to establish personal contact before announcing the trip. A simple, sincere, “Good morning, how are you?” accompanied by natural eye contact, sets the stage for cooperative action. It is the same when you are presenting to a group.
In 1980 Tony Buzan and I led a three-day seminar for five hundred children in Soweto, South Africa. On the first morning, I walked onstage and said, “Good morning.” The children, who were used to being taught by rote, responded with a lifeless, “Good morning, sir.” So I said, “No, you didn’t understand me, I really mean it. GOOOOD MORNING!” A constellation of smiles appeared before me as five hundred giggling children, their minds and hearts now open to learning, howled, “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING!” When we connect with an audience at the beginning of a presentation, we set the stage for ease, flow, effectiveness, and memorability. Sometimes this can be challenging.
I recently gave a keynote speech for an audience of more than a thousand people in Ankara, Turkey. The speaker before me was a senior government official who went well over his allotted time and, although he was speaking in Turkish, it wasn’t difficult to discern that he was a boring presenter. When he finished, the emcee went to the podium and introduced me in Turkish. As I walked onstage the government minister and his entourage of about twenty people sitting in the front two rows stood up and shuffled out. I waited for them to depart, and when they had all filed out I paused for a moment, looked out at the audience, and said, “Merhaba” (Turkish for hello). The audience applauded, and we were now connected. Here’s what I said next:
I want to tell you about a miracle that happened on my way here. When I flew from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to New York City on an American air carrier last week, I wasn’t served anything that any of us would call food. After a few days in New York City I flew to Rome on an Italian air carrier, and I have to say the food was disappointing. But yesterday I flew from Rome to Istanbul and was served a delicious meal on Turkish Airlines. Then we had to change planes for the short flight from Istanbul to Ankara, and this was the real miracle. We were served another amazingly delicious meal on the short flight. Slow-cooked lamb and imam bayildi (which means “the imam (priest) fainted” and is a yummy eggplant dish). Wow. Thank you, Turkish Airlines!
Yes, Turkish Airlines was the sponsor of the event. And it doesn’t take too much research to learn a simple greeting in Turkish, and you don’t have to be a scholar of Turkish culture to know that food and hospitality are important. Saying hello in Turkish created a positive primacy effect, and as I told my story the group relaxed and we connected, and they were open to my message.
Once you connect with the audience, let them know where you’re going and how you’re going to get them there. Communicate your key points in the beginning. And frame your key points in the context of benefits for the audience. As you clearly relate your message to the audience’s concerns, you capture and keep their attention.
If your presentation is longer than twenty minutes it’s a good idea to give an overview. When you share the structure of your presentation, you mentally set the audience to remember your message. When you show them the path you’ll be traveling, they will be much more willing to accompany you.
I recently gave a keynote speech to a group of nine thousand at the Future Medical Leaders conference in the hockey stadium at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. When I walked out from behind the curtain, I saw that the crowd was wedged up around the edge of the stage, and it looked like a rock concert with a perfect takeoff area for a stage dive and crowd surf. I spontaneously ran forward and pretended that I was going to jump out into the crowd! Then I asked, “Will you catch me?” and the audience cheered and laughed. Now we were connected and in rapport. My topic was How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, the title of a book I released in 1998. Here’s what I said next:
Buona sera [Italian for “good afternoon/evening”]. When I was a child Leonardo da Vinci was my hero, along with Superman. I remember when I discovered that Superman was only a comic book character, but Leonardo da Vinci was real. The more I learned about him the more amazing he seemed to be. I went to the place he was born. I went to the place where he died. I literally walked in his footsteps and looked at the world from his point of view. I read his notebooks over and over again and visited the great museums of the world where I contemplated his masterpieces. I interviewed the great da Vinci scholars. All this with a question in mind: What can we learn from him? What’s he trying to teach us? I started dreaming about him. And from those dreams, seven principles emerged.
Then after a bit more background I completed the introduction by saying, “We are going on a journey into the mind of the greatest genius who ever lived. At the end of this talk, you will be able to draw on the wisdom of Leonardo to help you in your greatest life challenges. You’ll learn his approach to being more creative and living a more beautiful life. Are you ready?” (Audience cheers and affirms their enthusiasm.)
I share these examples to inspire you to think about how you can take advantage of the first few critical minutes of your presentation — the primacy effect — by connecting in your own most authentic way with your audiences and then by delivering your key message in the framework of the benefits for them.
A great myth about communication is that if you say something and your audience seems to understand it, they will remember it. If you want your audience to remember your message, you must repeat, you must repeat, you must repeat it. Tell your audience what you are going to tell them. Then tell them. And then tell them what you told them. Many of the finest speakers pause and review their key points as they make them.
Of course, intelligent use of repetition requires avoiding monotony. Use visuals and other creative means to reinforce your points. A creative and effective approach is to find a phrase that summarizes your message and rhythmically repeat the words in the manner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (“I have a dream”) or Muhammad Ali (“I am the greatest”).
Be sure to repeat all your key points. I once shared the stage with a speaker who was trying to generate support for a new educational program. In his enthusiasm for this project he repeated the phrase “It can be done!” innumerable times in twenty minutes. His passion and commitment were unquestionable, and the audience was clearly energized. Later, I asked someone what the speech was about. He replied, “I’m not sure, but whatever it is, we can do it!” So be careful and intentional about what you repeat.
I sometimes speak to groups about improving the brain as we age. Most people don’t know this is possible. One of my main objectives when I speak on this topic is to open the audience’s mind to this notion: Your brain is designed to improve with use. I present plenty of scientific evidence and engaging stories to support this contention. And depending on the amount of time and the particular interest of the audience, I then focus on the best ways to use it in order to improve it. When the audience enters the room they see the phrase Your brain is designed to improve with use on my PowerPoint slide, or on a flip chart if it’s a smaller, less formal presentation. I repeat the phrase multiple times throughout the presentation, and my goal is that if you ask someone what they learned in my talk they will say, “I learned that my brain is designed to improve with use.” Followed by “and I learned the three most powerful ways to use it in order to improve.”
And a special magic takes place when we share and repeat our message in three key words or phrases, known as triads. Roman orators were inspired by the maxim Omne trium perfectum, which means “Everything that comes in threes is perfect.” From Julius Caesar’s “veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) to Steve Jobs’s introduction of the iPad 2 “thinner, lighter, faster,” the thoughtful use of the triad makes your message memorable.
If you want your audience to remember your message, you must make it outstanding or unusual, and the easiest way to do this is to tell a story. Do you have any tchotchkes — odd, random objects also known as trinkets, gewgaws, baubles, curios, or miscellaneous junk in your home? The kind of stuff that just seems to accumulate over the years? Have you ever considered selling any of it at a yard sale (or on a contemporary electronic version of a yard sale)?
About ten years ago journalist Rob Walker purchased two hundred items like this on eBay for an average price of less than $3 per item. Then he contacted the same number of authors and asked each writer to craft a fictional story about one of the objects, creating something like an online J. Peterman catalog for knickknacks. Playwright Neil LaBute wrote about a candle shaped like a bunny rabbit. LaBute’s “Rabbit Candle” story is short and captivating and includes these words: “I knew the truth — perhaps I alone — that it was made of real gold and that there was an actual bunny buried deep inside the wax....One day, if I was very good...we would light it together and set the bunny free.” The Bunny Candle, purchased by Walker for $3, sold for $112.50. In many cases items accompanied by stories — and it was always made clear that the stories were fiction — were sold right next to the same item without the story. The storied items outperformed the nonstoried items by almost 3,000 percent!
A well-told story dramatically enhances how your audience perceives the value of whatever you’re selling. And it isn’t just more engaging for the audience; it also engages the storyteller, making it easier to deliver a presentation in a more natural and stress-free manner. Over the years many of my clients who started out with paralyzing stage fright discovered that the surprising secret to overcoming fear was to craft and deliver outstanding stories and creative demonstrations.
One of those clients, an internal corporate pension investment fund, set themselves the goal to become an independent business. To accomplish this they first had to convince the corporation’s pensions and benefits committee to give them operational control of the company savings plan, which at the time was under the stewardship of an outside firm. The director of the fund challenged each of his team members to generate a compelling story or demonstration that would convince the committee that his team had a better understanding of their investment philosophy (they were value investors) than the outside firm and that they could manage the investments in a more cost-effective way.
In our strategy session it was clear what we wanted the audience to know: we understand value investing better than the competition. We can manage the money in a significantly more cost-effective way. We wanted them to feel: a sense of comfort with and trust of our team. And it was vividly clear what we wanted them to do: transfer control of the assets and ultimately let us spin off our enterprise.
Each team member designed and delivered a presentation involving a story or demonstration that helped make these points. Steve, the group’s director of venture investments, was, like most of the team members, an introverted analytical thinker who was initially uncomfortable as a public speaker. But motivated by the desire to fulfill the team’s dream of being an independent enterprise, he rose to the occasion. Steve helped close the sale by convincing the board that the savings plan was an undervalued asset that would be better managed under his group’s stewardship. After greeting the board members and giving them a brief overview, he tossed a handful of nickels, dimes, and quarters onto the boardroom table, right in front of his boss’s boss’s boss. He asked, “How much is the change on the table worth?”
The board members counted up the coins. One of them said, in an impatient tone of voice, “One dollar and fifty cents. So what’s the point?” We had prepared Steve for this moment and he paused, rose to his full stature, smiled, and said: “May I respectfully suggest that you examine the coins more carefully?” At which point one of the board members, the company’s chief financial officer, noticed that one of the quarters was silver. He exclaimed, “Well, this one here is silver, and we don’t see those very often these days; it’s probably worth five or six times its face value.” Steve then handed that gentleman a magnifying eyepiece and suggested an even closer look.
“Wow,” exclaimed the CFO, “this coin has an unusual mint mark and is also an antique. This is a rare coin worth many times its face value! Where did you get this?”
Steve paused and then after passing the rare coin around so that everyone could see it and touch it, he collected the change and put it back into his pocket. After another well-timed pause he said, “This quarter [borrowed for the occasion] is just like our savings plan, an undervalued asset just sitting in our pocket. Let me show you how we can take better advantage of it.” He then took them through the numbers and made a logical, compelling case. His presentation made the value message unforgettable, and his poise in presenting it built a sense of confidence, trust, and connection that captured the audience’s attention and ultimately control of the $7 billion savings plan.
Demonstrations, stories, humor, and drama are especially important in more technical, complex, and detailed presentations. More than just entertainment, a well-told story raises your audience’s attention, engagement, and retention. The key is to link the story to the most important point you want people to remember. In the case of the pension fund, the link to the surprise discovery of a silver quarter and the message of an undervalued asset was simple, immediate, unforgettable, and effective.
Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University explains why storytelling is so important: “My experiments show that character-driven stories with emotional content result in a better understanding of the key points a speaker wishes to make and enable better recall of these points weeks later. In terms of making impact, this blows the standard PowerPoint presentation to bits.”
Zak adds, “I advise business people to begin every presentation with a compelling, human-scale story. Why should customers or a person on the street care about the project you are proposing? How does it change the world or improve lives? How will people feel when it is complete? These are the components that make information persuasive and memorable.”
The key to making this work is to find, as Steve did, a story, demonstration, metaphor, or joke that feels natural for you to share. This is one of the reasons it’s so important to think of yourself as a professional presenter, because it’s just natural for professionals to look for these kinds of stories in the flow of everyday life.
You are chatting with a friend at a party when suddenly you hear your name being spoken across the room. Until that moment, you had heard only a general din. But now your attention is captured. This is the power of personal association.
People hear and remember things that are relevant or meaningful to them. They tune out and forget things they don’t care about. Having tailored your message to be relevant to your audience, you must now deliver it in a manner that maximizes their involvement.
Steve’s silver coin presentation was dramatic and outstanding, but the other secret of its success was his skill in getting his audience involved. By throwing coins on the table and asking engaging questions, he transformed his audience from distant judges to co-explorers of his work.
How can you maximize audience involvement? The simplest way is to ask questions, both real and rhetorical. Did you know that asking an audience a rhetorical question dramatically raises their attention and recall levels? If I ask you about something you are interested in, what does it lead to? Thinking, participating, connecting, and forming personal associations.
Take every opportunity to get your audience involved. Try beginning a presentation by inviting the audience to engage in a task, test, or challenge related to the message. This instantly brings them fully into the present moment and into the role of cocreator. For example, in my presentation on improving the brain with age I usually ask the audience, “Is anyone here over thirty?” I raise my hand, and then many in the audience raise their hands. Then I ask, “Anyone under thirty?” Hands go up. Now everyone is involved. Then I ask, “What happens to your memory as you approach, or pass, age thirty?” People are now answering this question in their minds, usually with some idea that memory declines with age. The presentation continues with a series of rhetorical questions, followed by evidence-based answers and then a memory quiz in which the average score is 4 out of 10. This is followed by about ten minutes of coaching on how to improve memory, which is then followed by another memory quiz in which the average score improves to 10 out of 10. In other words, instead of just presenting the data on the possibility of memory improvement, I invited the audience to experience improving their memory, making the data much more meaningful and memorable.
So whenever possible, create a context, through the use of exercises and questions, that allows the audience members to discover the message for themselves.
The word education comes from the root educere, which means “to draw forth” or “to lead out.” However, many of us were raised in an environment in which educere might have meant “to stuff in.” As a presenter and leader you are responsible for guiding the process of drawing forth, not stuffing in.
As your presentation draws to a close, you have one last opportunity to achieve your objectives — to make certain that the audience knows, feels, and does what you want them to know, feel, and do. Now you must “close the sale.” As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow emphasized, “Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending.” And comedian Jerry Seinfeld observed, “The biggest laugh has to be at the end.”
Repeat your key points (review your overview), and issue a call to action. Even better, maximize personal association by asking your audience to review the main points and to explain how they will apply what they have learned. If appropriate, ask participants to make a specific commitment to applying their new knowledge.
The recency effect applies not only to content but also to emotion. Great presenters finish strong, building energy to a positive climax. End on a high note. Many speakers sabotage their recency effect by going on too long. Discipline yourself to finish on time, or a bit early. It’s always better to leave them wanting more rather than wishing the presentation were over.
The PROPAR principles are always operating, consciously or unconsciously, and for better or worse. The “for worse” happens when speakers create a negative primacy by beginning their remarks, for example, by apologizing for not having enough time to prepare or by unskilled self-deprecation: “I’m not really qualified to speak to such an esteemed audience.” Then instead of repeating a carefully crafted key message, they repeat um, ah, like, and you know over and over again. So later when someone asks, “What did you get from that presentation?” they respond, “Um, ah, like, you know, I’m not really sure.” When the message of a presentation isn’t made outstanding in some compelling way, it’s all too easy for audience members to forget, especially if they don’t feel engaged personally through questions, exercises, or stories and examples. Boring, forgettable presentations often end with a negative recency when speakers finish by apologizing and self-deprecating again at the end: “I’m sorry we didn’t get to cover all the material. Thank you for bearing with me, and thank you for your time.”
To understand the power of PROPAR, consider the strategies employed by the high-stakes communication of advertising. What happens when you are watching television and a commercial comes on? The colors on your screen get brighter and the volume gets louder, a primacy strategy designed to prevent you from muting or channel surfing.
On the internet you’ve probably noticed that whenever you look up something, targeted ads start appearing everywhere you go, repeating product names incessantly. Why? Market research shows overwhelmingly that many people buy purely on name recognition. And based on your overall search history and the algorithm’s analysis of your likely buying preferences, you’ll be presented with enticements designed to target, via careful personal associations, whatever your perceived weakness, fear, or desire may be. If the algorithm thinks you’re single, you’ll get dating ads tailored to what it is programmed to calculate are your preferences; if it thinks you’re old, you’ll get incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and assisted-living ads.
But despite the increasing sophistication of electronic seduction, old-fashioned media still works, too. On route 95, outside Wilmington, Delaware, stands a huge billboard with just two words on it: BUD LIGHT. The billboard has no pictures of ecstatic models or messages extolling the product’s virtues. Just those two words. People on their way to work drive past it day after day. Anheuser-Busch knows that simple repetition of its product’s name will result in greater consumption.
Advertising and public-relations firms wage a continual war to find new ways to implant their clients’ products in your brain. They capture your attention and your business by making their message outstanding.
Many advertisers make their message outstanding by exploiting sexual desire. Seductive models, both male and female, hawk everything from beer, coffee, and cigarettes to health clubs, deodorant, and toothpaste. Advertisers rely on creating the following conversation in their audience’s minds: “Me see sex, me see product...me want sex, me buy product.”
Some of the most sophisticated commercials emphasize personal association. Companies like McDonald’s and AT&T specialize in creating heartwarming, deeply human scenarios that reach out and touch their audience’s wallets. And all major companies engage in targeted marketing, tailoring their message to varying demographic profiles, pandering as shamelessly as possible to whomever they think might buy more of their stuff.
And how do commercials end? Usually with one last repetition of the name or phone number, or with a close-up of a celebrity’s head, just centimeters away from the product. Sometimes they conclude with a call to action — “Text us now!” “Click on this link for massive free stuff forever” “Pick up your phone and call now” — accompanied by an attractive model texting, clicking, or punching in a number, just in case any viewers forgot how to make a phone call.
Why do advertisers spend billions using PROPAR principles to create commercials that are often moronic and insulting? Because these ads are effective. PROPAR works, whether we like it or not. It can be used for evil or for good. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, as well as Churchill, King, and Gandhi all intuitively applied the PROPAR approach.
Please use PROPAR for good and to protect yourself from being manipulated by evil. In our media-intensive age, advertisers, politicians, and social and religious groups are waging a constant battle for your mind. Use your understanding of these principles to keep your mind free and flexible as you develop your gifts as a presenter and leader.