To make the effort we put into creating and delivering a speech for everyone worth it, we need to get something out of the presentation. Yes, if you get paid to speak, then you are getting something, but even so, we speakers want more. What we want is for our audience to move into action because of what we have told them. How to make this happen during your next speech is what we all want to know how to do.

The challenge of trying to be remembered

If our audience cannot remember what we have told them despite the importance of public speaking, then whose fault is it, theirs or us? Yes, it may be ours, but your audience won’t help you much. When we use too many slides as part of our presentation, we tend to overwhelm our audience. Several studies have been done on audiences to determine exactly how much of what we told them they remember after they are finished. The results are pretty lousy. Just 48 hours after a speech, the audience was able to remember only about 20% of the slides that were presented.

So what is going on here? Are we really that boring? Fortunately, the answer is no. One of the biggest problems our audiences face is the simple fact that we have selected a common appearance for the material we present to them. What this usually does is end up making everything we present you look the same. When the presentation is over, they will have a hard time distinguishing between anything that has been presented to them.

Finally, sitting in a dark room listening to a person speaking to you from the stage makes it difficult for anyone to remember what was said. This is not an environment conducive to memory retention. If we are not careful, what will happen is that our audience members will be distracted by other things and we will lose them and will not be able to remember what we have said to them.

How to help your audience remember your message

The good news about this auditory memory retention problem we face is that there are solutions. First of all, we have a responsibility to keep shaking our audience. The only thing we don’t want to do is present you with too much of the same look for our material. We have to give them the unusual: our material has to be different from what they expected. This means varying the graphics, colors, font sizes, etc.

Next, we must take steps to involve our audience in our presentation. If we only present slide after slide of material that we develop ourselves, then our audience goes to sleep because they are not involved. However, if we take a different approach and leave some material out and force our audience to fill in the blanks, then suddenly they have made a contribution. Studies have shown that when you engage your audience in this way, their retention of what you said increases.

Finally, we must understand that the way we remember things is not just about what we hear or see. Instead, a large part has to do with how we feel during the presentation. This means that you will have to consider how your material will make your audience feel. The more emotional response you can get from them, the more likely they will remember what you told them.

What does all this mean to you?

It’s not easy to put together a speech, practice it, and then deliver it in front of a live audience. However, as long as we are going to make all this effort, we want to be able to achieve a measurable result; we want our audience to move into action to do something. However, all too often this does not happen. What should a speaker do?

There are several different reasons why our speech might not make our audience understand the benefits of public speaking and then want to stand up and go out and change the world. Chief among these is our audience’s inability to remember what we said, even just 48 hours after our speech ends. What we have to do is take steps to make our speeches more memorable. The first thing we can do is introduce the unusual into our material: the unusual is remembered. Also, getting your audience engaged by filling in missing information can increase your retention. Lastly, how your audience feels during your speech can have a big impact on how much they remember. Build your speech to elicit the greatest emotional response possible.

As speakers, we are in the unique position that our speeches can change the world. However, they are not going to do that if our audience cannot remember what we have told them. For your next presentation, switch things up a bit and make sure what you’re presenting is so bold and so unique that even days after you finish your speech, your audience will still remember and be talking about it.