I often hear this advice to make sure something gets stuck in the audience brain: tell it 3 times. I disagree. This is the approach of the (poor) teacher asking a class to recite the alphabet over and over again. Here are some better approaches:
- Tell a story that stitches the elements of your message together
- Create a memorable visual to highlight the concept
- Give them something they will never forget (see Duarte’s post)
Everything is better than boring your audience with saying the same thing three times.
2 comments
The concept is a good one, but it is often misapplied by lazy people looking for easy rules to follow without thinking.
It reminds me of advertising that has simply two columns of text, one labeled Features and one labeled Benefits. Yes, your copy needs to sell not only the features but the benefits to the user as well, but those columns should be in your outline, not in your final version.
Similarly with the tell them three times, you should tell them in different ways and at different levels.
The first way is to set up anticipation, to let them know what is coming so their imaginations are working and when you get to one of your main points, they recognize that it is what they have been anticipating.
The third way is to remind them of what you have said, to summarize, to give them the memory cues to take away with them.
Using different modalities, a story, visual diagrams, a STAR moment, etc. is fo course an important part of making your point, but that is at a separate level from:
- anticipation
- exposition
- summation.
Those three are the three parts of your title, and they are by all means a DO, if done properly.
However, I think the title is more about structure. First you tell your audience what you are going to tell them so they don't sit there for the longest time wondering what this is all about. It is about letting them know where you are taking them.
Then it is about telling them or taking them there by telling a story, having beautiful visuals etc.
And finally you summarize your presentation by showing them how you got to your destination; how you manage to take them where you told them you would.