The young man stepped to the microphone, asked the audience a question to draw them into his topic, and then delivered an opening story. “Perfect,” I thought. “Nice opening.” For the first 20 minutes of his presentation, his points were supported by nicely-designed PowerPoint slides and anchored with word pictures and stories. His structure was flawless. For me, the problem came during the next 20 minutes. Structurally, he followed the same pattern as the first half. But by now, my brain was exploding. By the time he delivered points five, six and seven, I was drowning in information.

What could he have done differently? In my opinion, it would have been better to stick to about three points and spend his time expanding them. Is there something magic about three points? Not necessarily – although it does seem to work well and be memorable. If the material warrants, two points or four points are probably fine. But seven points in 40 minutes was just too much and prevented my mind from retaining portions of his information – all of which was quite good.

Narrow your information to about three points for a 30 to 45 minute speech, develop those, and you will make your presentation more memorable for your audience.

I have some new tips for you today on how to make your story more clear and memorable.  When you are telling a story, giving a speech, or making a presentation it is best to use specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives instead of general words like “things” or “stuff.”  Using concrete terms as opposed to abstract terms causes your story to become more vibrant and memorable and your listeners to become more engaged.

This video tells you how to streamline your plot and characters to make a clearer, more powerful story.  You want to be good at what you do, but no one ever prepared you to speak.  These tips can help you prepare a better story.

I sat listening to a 30-year-old speaker.  His enthusiasm, energy, and meaty content immediately grabbed my attention.  But five minutes into his speech, my mind began to wander.  After ten minutes, I had definitely lost focus.  He never lost his energy.  His volume didn’t wane.

At about the twelve-minute mark, he told a personal story, complete with the vocal nuances and inflections you would expect in a story, and he once again had my full attention.

What happened?

Enthusiasm is good.  Energy is good.  So is content-rich material.  But when there is no variation, the audience tires of it.  It is difficult to stay focused.  If you want to hold your audience’s attention, you need to vary your delivery–volume, pace, and tone.  Above all, you must intersperse your material with examples, video clips, skits, STORIES–something that will spice it up, break it up, and reinforce your content.