158. Listen To This If… You Want Your Message To Stick

Poured hours into a talk, only to suspect your audience will remember almost none of it? In this short episode, Jen and Michael share how to make your take-home message actually stick. Their advice: your real message isn’t what you say, it’s what people repeat to others afterwards, so decide on the one thing you want them to take away, build your talk backwards from it, and say it more than once (especially right at the end, rather than surrendering your final words to “thanks for listening”). And because people forget facts but remember how you made them feel, attaching that message to an emotion is the glue that makes it last. You can find more great advice here: Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations: Rule 4 says it best: your message is working if people can still recall it a week later. Put your take home message at the top of your slides: Including the “half-life” exercise for distilling your message down to its essence. How to make a scientific presentation: On letting your take-home message drive the whole narrative, and using a “home slide” to reinforce it.