One good anecdote is worth a volume of biography.
William Ellery Channing
Undoubtedly, you’ve heard more than your share of speakers who delivered a dry, fact-loaded speech. While there’s nothing wrong with facts, of course, it does beg the question: why am I here? Just give me the report, for crying out loud, and I’ll read it for myself.
Most presenters are so focused on the information – getting the facts right, showing the slides, doing a brain dump – they neglect a very important part: making the information real and meaningful and contextual by “humanizing” it.
Dale Carnegie, the “father of public speaking,” once said that “one of the most interesting things in the world is sublimated, glorified gossip.” He was promoting the use of human interest stories in a presentation to make it interesting, entertaining and attention-getting. His advice is as true today as it was 50 years ago.
Your job as a speaker is to make your content interesting and memorable. Facts, statistics, numbers or raw data alone won’t do that. The audience wants your take on the information, your spin, your interpretation. They want to hear the story behind the numbers, what your information means for them. As a speaker you want to make your information real for the audience. You can do this by humanizing your talk. This means anything from giving an example, telling a story or making an analogy. It could be showing a chart or graph, it could be using a prop or doing a demonstration. This is what makes content interesting and memorable.
Here are some examples of humanizing elements:
* Use a prop
* Do a demonstration
* Make an analogy
* Tell a story or anecdote
* Show a visual aid – photo, chart, graph
* Use humor
* Give an example
My training clients see that humanizing a speech makes it much more meaningful, interesting and memorable. This is a potent ah-hah.
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