Talking About Numbers

When you're trying to communicate information about numbers, you've got to be aware of a couple of things. People's capacity to remember numbers when you're talking to them is severely limited. You can't tell people every single number about every single store, every single quarter, for every single country in the world for the last 10 years. It just isn't going to work as far as anyone remembering it now, you may want to communicate all the numbers in a text document that you can hand out email to people, and those who want it can reference it when they need it. But when it comes to your main opportunity, speaking in a meeting, speaking one on one, speaking on a webinar platform, or giving an actual speech to the board of directors or to investors, you've got to be very focused and limited on what's most important. I find it's very rare for audiences to remember more than one number. You've got to ask yourself out of your entire presentation, what is the one number that is most important? And you got to make sure you really drive that number home, bring it to life, give it examples, make it concrete, show people why they should really care. What's the story behind the number? Why does this number truly matter? You've got to make that come alive before you even start to talk about the second number or the third number. The more you can break the number down to a small number that people can relate to, the better. I well remember my very first job in communications, first really professional job. I was 23 years old and I was a press secretary for a politician in Florida, the state controller, an elected position at the time. And I was trying to help the boss with a speech, talk about the accomplishments. And I had in there, oh, we've eliminated $3 billion of unnecessary spending. We vetoed the spending. We're protecting your tax dollars. And he said, tj, we poll tested this in the last election. Nobody understands $3 billion. It's too big a number. You have to use a smaller number that people can relate to. And they did polling and testing, and what they found is that when you let taxpayers know that the controller vetoed spending on $180 for Christmas cards for a university president, that's what got people excited. That's something they can relate to. The average person has thought, well, I've spent 50, 60 bucks on credit card, on Christmas cards. I had to pay out of my own pocket. I don't want my tax dollars paying for some university fat cat to cover his Christmas card. He should pay for it himself. That was the number that resonated. That's what people remembered. That's what helped communicate the idea that this elected politician, this controller, was safeguarding their tax money much more effectively than the 3 billion total savings. You can make the case that $3 billion is more important than $180. I understand that. But if the message is still the same, you have to look at which example is more powerful. The Christmas card example 1. So always be looking at what numbers are most important. How can you make them more memorable? How can you reduce it to the smallest number possible that people can visualize and relate to?