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Many years ago, one of our coaches took a
statistics course at a local community college.
His professor had such a heavy French accent
that he literally could only understand about a
third of the words he said. He learned
everything from reading the textbook.
Most
presenters that use a lot of statistics don’t do
much better than that professor. The numbers come
across to listeners as a foreign language.
Indeed, statistics are the most commonly used
yet least effective form of evidence. But there
are some keys to using numbers and statistics
effectively.
·
Limit the numbers.
If you have a lot of statistics or financial
information, don’t go over every number during
the presentation. Focus on one or two key
numbers and then hand out the rest and take
questions.
·
Show simple relationships.
Say you’re talking about the drop in the cost of
computers over the last 25 years. Rather than
give the actual percentage decline, you might do
a relationship comparison to bring the figure to
life. You might say that if the cost of cars
had declined by the same degree, a Jaguar would
cost only $50.
·
Use an analogy.
An acre is 43,650 square feet. To help your
audience see an acre, tell them to visualize a
football field without the end zones.
·
Tell the story behind the numbers.
Don’t just say sales are down. Dig behind the numbers to
show why sales are down. For example, you might
start by showing how sales dropped five percent
last month because of poor weather. Well how
does poor weather cause reduced sales? Tell a story about a single salesman and his
inability to make his rounds due to the
excessive rain.
Numbers aren’t the best way to bring a
presentation to life. But if you’re going to
use them, use them in a way that connects with
your listeners.
If you’d like to learn how to
communicate in a way that connects with
audiences, call Speechworks at 404-266-0888. Or
check out our website at
www.speechworks.net |
