Want to Make Your Ideas Stick?               Follow Six Steps, New Book Says.

A buddy of mine swears this actually happened to a friend of his.  The guy walks into a bar looking for a good time when a beautiful blond woman shoots him a gorgeous smile.  He walks over and introduces himself.  She responds, “Can I buy you a drink?”

Blown away by his good fortune, he says, “I’ll take a martini with two olives.”

He took a few sips and the next thing he remembers, he wakes up in a hotel bathroom tub, naked with a long stitched-up wound on his left side.  It turned out that the woman had drugged him, carried him to a hotel, and stolen his kidney!

Ah yes. The stolen kidney story!  Along with alligators in New York City sewers and the idiot who tried to dry his wet poodle in a microwave, it is one of the most famous “urban legends”, one of those stories that many of us have heard in various forms but can’t possibly be true.

The interesting thing about urban legends, however, is that they are amazingly “sticky.”  They’re tales that we can all remember and replay with relative ease.

What makes these myths so “sticky”? The answer to that question is important if you want to be the kind of communicator who can get listeners to remember ideas.   It is also the subject of a fascinating new book called “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.”

In the book, authors and brothers Chip and Dan Heath use fascinating stories and psychological studies to detail six keys to making ideas sticky: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories. And if you want your next presentation to have impact, you should consider heeding the Heath brothers’ ideas.

Simplicity sticks

First, sticky ideas are simple.   Alligators in the New York City sewers.  It’s a simple idea. 

And, if you want your listeners to remember your ideas you need to keep your presentations simple. The Heath brothers talk about the importance of focusing on “core ideas.”  When we work with our clients, we often ask them the following question: “If your listeners were to remember only three things, what would you have them remember?”

We remember the unexpected

The next key to stickiness is unexpectedness. Urban legends are notoriously unexpected.  You can use the same unexpectedness principle to get your listeners to remember your business presentations.

Let’s say that you are an advertising director for a chain of appliance stores and you want your merchants to try a new direct mail strategy. You might start with a startling fact: “If you invest $2,000 in the direct mail advertising campaign I’m going to discuss, you can expect to get over $50,000 in new orders.”  That’s unexpected and therefore “sticky.”

Be specific

We also remember things that are specific.  It wasn’t just a dog that was put in the microwave.  It was a wet poodle.  The same principle applies to business presentations. 

If you’re highlighting the importance of complying with anti-trust laws, try saying something like: “In 1996 Federal marshals arrested the head of a marketing company while he was hosting a barbecue in his Cleveland backyard. He was charged with bid rigging and eventually spent 10 years in prison.”  The specificity of the backyard barbecue and the 10-year prison sentence makes it memorable.

Credibility and emotion help

Of course credibility also enhances stickiness.  A health warning from the Surgeon General of the United States is more sticky than from a lesser-known doctor.

Emotional appeals are sticky .  Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” said, “Greed works.”   Appeals to greed are also sticky.

Stories cement your ideas

Finally, regular readers of our newsletter know that stories are a great way to get people to remember your ideas.  Urban legends are always told in story form.  Great business presenters constantly rely on stories to connect with their audiences.  Don’t just tell me that revenues are up.  Tell why revenues are up by relating a story about a specific sale and why it was successful.

Whenever you stand to deliver a presentation, your goal is to get  your ideas to stick. The Heaths' new book will help you achieve that goal.

Joey Asher is President of Speechworks, a selling and communication skills coaching company in Atlanta. He has worked with hundreds of lawyers and with dozens of firms helping them grow their business and connect with clients. He is the author of “Selling and Communication Skills for Lawyers” and “Even A Geek Can Speak.” He can be reached at 404-266-0888 or by . His website is www.speechworks.net.