How to Make Your Public Speaking Message More Memorable

- You're going to learn five public speaking tips
to make your message more memorable.
The idea is you take whatever existing message you have
and you're gonna enhance it
so it's more likely to stick with your audience.
Be sure to download the free PDF
of my seven instant tips
to make you a more confident speaker.
And now the five dos and don'ts
to make your message more memorable.
Number one, get your audience to do something physical.
Your listeners will remember your message
if they are actively involved in it.
You have very likely seen speakers
ask their audience to raise your hand if you have ever,
and then they fill in the rest of the question.
That's a little basic.
But instead of just asking a question,
you're asking your audience to get physically involved
by simply raising their hand.
And that enhances the message a little bit.
But you can do it in a way
that ties more directly to your message.
My good friend, Julien Mirivel,
is an excellent public speaker.
In his TEDx talk, one of the points
that he made is about staying open while listening.
And you can do this with me right now as you watch.
He says to his audience, "Do this for me.
Take your right hand and make a really tight fist.
I want you to feel that pressure, the tension there.
Now, all I want you to do is open your hand
so the palm faces up."
This is what it means to listen.
Listening is all about accepting.
Listening is all about opening your hand.
He gives his audience something to do
that directly connects to his point.
They are participating in the message itself
and that makes it more memorable.
David Copperfield, the world famous magician
opens his show by directly getting his audience involved
in a really quick trick.
He asks them to extend their hands like this,
cross their fingers over this way.
And I don't know how he does it, but then he's able
to then rotate his hands back into a normal position.
And he asks the audience to do this,
and of course they can't do it
because it's a trick, it's not really possible.
But the point is he gets them involved physically.
He asks them to do something and it's very memorable.
Now, it's purely coincidence
that we're talking about using our hands
in these past examples.
There are lots of ways to get your audience involved.
Ask them to do something like write something down,
take something out of their pocket, stand up.
You're only limited by your imagination.
The key is that whatever you ask them to do,
make sure it reinforces your message.
Don't make it random.
Now on this topic, let's talk about some don'ts.
I don't recommend making your listeners uncomfortable
with what you're asking them to do.
I don't recommend, for example,
asking your audience members
to turn to the person sitting next to them
and turn to the person on the other side
and ask them to say or do something with that person.
This will turn off almost all your listeners.
And then they're gonna be focused
on how awkward they feel
instead of focusing on your message.
So, yes, get them involved, but not in a way
that makes them want to roll their eyes.
The second way to make your message more memorable
is to word your main idea in an interesting way.
This means using vivid and creative language.
Alliteration is one way to do this.
That's where you make sure that some of the words
in your message start with the same first letter.
You see this in some of these superhero names
like Wonder Woman, Sorcerer Supreme,
Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy.
The best place to use alliteration
is in how you word your overall main point of your message,
the main theme that drives your whole presentation.
In school, we call this your thesis statement.
And that's because you'll likely repeat this key message
a few times during your presentation.
And alliteration will make your message more memorable.
And that's why you see alliteration
in a lot of corporate or marketing slogans,
like for Jaguar.
Jaguars tagline is don't dream it, drive it.
That's three Ds.
Or Intel, the computer chip company,
their tagline is Intel inside.
In addition to alliteration, you could use a clever turn
of phrase or wording that can have more than one meaning.
Journalists do this for their newspaper headlines,
and that makes them catchy.
And again, you see this in marketing.
I was driving near my house the other day
and I passed a John Deere farm equipment location.
And right there on the sign,
they have a really clever marketing slogan,
nothing runs like a Deere.
That's memorable wording.
It's a double meaning.
Deere is the guy's last name who started the company,
and the company's logo has a deer on it.
Deers run really fast, their tractors run really well.
It's about as perfect and catchy as you can get.
They packed a lot of catchiness
into just five words by being a little more creative.
And if you want an awesome public speaking example,
I recommend looking at the reaction video I did
to Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech.
He used every technique in the book
to make that more memorable.
He used alliteration, metaphor, analogy, parallel structure.
I'll put a link to that video
in the description below this one.
The tip is take your main point, your thesis statement,
and look for ways to use vivid language
to maximum advantage.
Here are some warnings, some don'ts.
Don't overdo it.
Don't use these techniques everywhere,
in every part of your message.
Too much wordplay can get confusing or distracting.
Just use them enough to spice up your message a little bit
and make it more memorable.
Number three, tell stories.
They are so memorable that I will often remember
a good story, but I'll forget
who told me this story in the first place.
Have you ever had that happen to you?
I've been telling stories during this video too,
like my friend Julien's story
about unclenching his fist,
I told the story about driving by John Deere
and seeing their sign.
Now, to make your stories more memorable,
you can do things like act it out a little bit,
get animated, put yourself into the action of the story
as you tell it to bring it to life.
Speak in the voices of the people in this story.
My wife was once telling a quick story
when she was doing announcements
in front of the whole church one day.
And for some reason she was describing a golden retriever,
I can't remember why.
But just briefly, she started visually wagging around
a little bit and panting (pants)
as if she were the golden retriever.
She acted it out a little bit and brought her story to life.
Her words told the story, but her actions brought it to life
a little bit more.
Now, she was being humorous, but you can bring your stories
to life in lots of ways that keep your listeners engaged.
Just be sure to throw yourself into the story
rather than tell the story as if you're a distant observer.
I hear a couple of qualifications about telling stories.
Don't tell long, dragged-out stories
especially if you're new to this.
Aim for one minute for each story.
That's your goal.
Practice until each story you tell
in your next presentation is about one minute.
Number four, let your personality shine through.
Your personality is one of your biggest
public speaking assets.
And there are a few ways
to let your personality shine through like this.
One of them is to first give yourself permission
to be yourself.
So, sure, you have a professional role to play,
but nobody wants to see a robot do a presentation.
So if you're a little bit fun and goofy,
let that shine through in appropriate ways.
If you have something interesting or playful
that you'd like to add, then do it.
As long as it fits in, even a little bit,
keep it in the presentation.
Another way to let your personality shine through
is to prepare your speaking notes
in a way that allows you the freedom to adapt and adjust.
I was once working with a speaker,
we'll call her Tammy,
and she was really smart
and had a great personality in conversations.
But when she presented, Tammy wrote out every single word
and directly read her entire presentation.
And that meant most of her personality
faded to the background.
So I coached her to prepare an outline of just keywords
and to practice conversationally enough
so that she only needed to glance
at her notes to refresh her memory.
And that gave her the freedom to adapt
and connect with her listeners
and let her personality shine through more and more.
Tammy was an instant before and after story.
And she became the most memorable presenter
in the group simply by limiting her notes
and letting her personality shine through.
Another way to let your personality shine through
is to express your emotions.
Now, in professional settings,
there's much more room than we often realize
to communicate our sincere emotions.
If you show your excitement and passion, for example,
listeners are more likely to get excited
and passionate about your message.
If you show concern, listeners will pick up on that.
As the old saying goes from Maya Angelou,
"People will never forget how you made them feel."
Emotions are memorable.
Now here's some advice about limits to this.
Don't let your emotions become the main point,
the main part of the show.
Don't get so swept up in your personality
that you lack substance,
or your emotions become a distraction
from your core message.
And don't fake your emotions.
That won't work.
Make sure your content is king,
and let your genuine personality shine through
to the extent that it enhances your message.
Number five, add a call to action.
This technique is hiding in plain sight
at the end of most presentations.
A call to action is where you ask your listeners
to do something with the message that you've just shared,
some simple next step.
And this almost guarantees that your message
will be more memorable
because they're going to live it out a little bit.
They're gonna take what you've said
and experience a small piece of it.
You'd normally see a call to action
at the end of a persuasive presentation.
But it works really well
in a normal, informative, workplace presentation
like training sessions, or job orientations,
or any kind of how to presentations.
Even though it was 15 years ago,
I remember almost like it was yesterday
when I attended the employee orientation
at the college where I still teach.
The human resources trainer asked us each
to take one simple action, make a decision.
That's all it was.
He asked me and the other new employees
to choose either the state pension program for professors
or the 401(k) program.
He didn't try to persuade us.
He just shared the information
and asked us each to pick one.
So I filled out the form and I circled the 401(k) option.
That small call to action,
that decision somehow helped me remember
the entire experience very clearly even years later.
A call to action requires us to weigh our options,
make a decision, take some small action.
And that's a hundred times more memorable
than just letting information go
in one ear and out the other.
Now, one quick warning about a call to action.
Don't ask listeners for too many action steps.
Be sure to donate, and sign this petition,
and join this group, and pray about it,
and tell your friends, and invite people too.
If you ask your listeners for all of that,
they're gonna say, "Oh, that's too much, forget it."
So keep it simple for your listeners
and don't overwhelm them.
It's best to just ask them to do one simple thing.
Now, let's look at these five tips again.
Which one of these is your favorite?
Let me know in the comment section below
which of these that you think
would help make your message immediately more memorable.
And don't forget to download that free PDF
of those seven instant tips to make you
a more confident speaker.
Until next time, thanks.
I will see you soon.