In summary, summarize more often. It guarantees people will stay engaged longer and remember what you’ve said. Recently I worked with an executive planning a day long briefing on her company. The CEO was going to open up the day and then speaker after speaker would provide updates on their departments. The CEO was given a "high level" but colorless script saying that they are going great guns..but no proof..no examples of success. The executive explained that she didn’t want the CEO to steal the thunder of upcoming speakers. All you have to do is look at a newscast to know that’s wrong. The anchorman opens with a “tease” of what’s coming..a brief preview of top stories to make sure you stay up for another hour. If you look at a graph of audience attention span over the course of a 20 minute business presentation, it looks like a cross between a V and U. It’s highest at a presentation open, sinks gradually over time and then returns as you close. Why? Because you’ve signaled you’ll summarize. Just saying ‘in summary’ or ‘inclosing’ causes people to tune back in because in this information overloaded world, it sounds like you’ll give them the essential take away. What you should takeaway from this is that you should summarize more frequently. If you have 3 points of differentiation, say its your superior people, products and processes..after each, summarize. If you are opening a day’s program give me the highlights without worry of repetition..people can’t remember what was said a few minutes ago let alone an hour ago.
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