Just alerted to this article on the Harvard Business Review blog, and it reminded me of a key business bedrock issue - how can an organisation perform if we can't get our message across?
As someone who offers customised sales training as a service, this has been a critical issue for me, particularly since I came across research carried out by Equation Research - on behalf of Sales Performance International - that measures the "half life of sales training" (ie the amount of time it takes participants to forget half of what they learnt). You can find the article describing the research here - and the following graph shows you that 44% of sales training participants forget half the content within the 1st month.
When I saw this I started to wonder - what percentage of attendees at my presentations and training courses remember ANY of what I have to say 5 MINUTES after they leave the room?(!)
I have found 2 resources to be invaluable in helping me to get the message across.
Authors Dan & Chip Heath have written a brilliant book entitled "Made to Stick" that offers a 6 point plan to deliver messages and presentations so that people actually remember what was said.
Their guidance works.
Author Garr Reynolds leads the pack when it comes to practical advice on making effective presentations: he's written a great book and has an equally valuable blog. We've often heard the phrase "death by Powerpoint" - Garr succeeds in providing very practical tips to help us "get rid of those dot points", and use real life photography so that the visuals in the presentation support what the speaker is saying - not take over from the speaker.
His guidance works.
There are lots of other resources - but as someone who sells himself on the basis of being able to develop and deliver effective workshops and presentations, I've found all the advice I need either directly from these authors, or by following the links they recommend.
But does it work? I think I've proved that it does.
One of the assignments my firm undertakes on a regular basis is to help a number of IT vendors prepare and deliver presentations to their resellers at various "partner conferences". Naturally not all presenters take advantage of our services - but we've tracked the feedback scores of those that do, and we've measured that the presenters that follow the methods we offer receive 10% higher feedback scores from the audience compared to their colleagues that do not follow the methodology we provide.
What measures are you taking to ensure you communicate effectively? Do the people you address forget half of what you say within a few weeks?
