Help Your Audience Retain Your Message

I’m writing to you early on a Sunday morning from my hotel room in Perth, Australia, the sun still hiding behind the eastern horizon.

My colleagues and I are blessed and grateful to have a client base that takes us all over the world, with active relationships on five continents. And while that means we spend a little too much time away from home, it also means that we bring to every client opportunity a truly global perspective on business communication.

And here is today’s point from Perth. Everyone we work with in the business world, everywhere, regardless of culture, gender, or generation, is asking for the same thing. Everyone craves communication that is clear and easy to retain. I know, I know… we write about this all the time. But we are going to keep making the point until the problem is solved. As a global business culture we waste an unconscionable amount of time in meetings, conversations, conference calls and presentations that lack clarity, brevity, context…

So how can we help you solve the problem? Here is a way to think about it…

Break down your performance into three areas: your message, your visuals (when you need to have them) and your delivery skills. And in each of the three pillars of your performance, look for ways to make your message pop out for the audience.

When thinking about your message, make sure you know what the key elements of your message are. If you don’t know, your audience won’t either. Keep it simple. Make sure you can explain it easily. They won’t remember everything, so help them retain the most important things.

When thinking about your visuals or slides, make sure those key messages are obvious in the appropriate places in your deck. Make sure your key messages are easy to recognize and retain. Think about word economy, and think about stripping away everything that is not necessary.

And when thinking about your delivery, make sure your toolbox is filled with techniques that will help your audience latch onto those key messages. Think about techniques like the pause and repeat, like speaking in bullet points, and many others. Don’t be afraid to use your skills to help your audience remember things. They will love you for it.

Keep things simple. Make it easy for the key messages to be recognized and retained. Your meetings, phone calls and presentations will be more effective and you will have competitive advantage.

Good luck, and enjoy your day, no matter where your travels have taken you.

Dean

Photo used under the following license.