QuickBites: Are You Trying to Memorize Your Presentations?.

Welcome to Quick Bytes — public speaking tips and techniques you can digest in five minutes or less.

I can't count how many times I've been asked: am I supposed to memorize my presentation? My standard — and slightly confusing — answer is no. And yes. But mostly no. Let me explain.

Why You Shouldn't Memorize Your Entire Presentation

Memorizing a presentation verbatim, especially a long one, takes too much time and is nearly impossible to pull off well. And when you couple that with the fact that most of us go about it in the wrong way to begin with, the likelihood of success is low.

Even if you somehow succeed at memorizing it, when you go to deliver it, your presentation will likely be lifeless — monotone, lacking changes in inflection, tone, and pace. But let's say you're one of the rare few who memorizes it and delivers it well. That's great, right? Actually, no. Here's why. When it comes time to present, your adrenaline will be coursing through you, and you won't be as relaxed as you were during practice. You'll forget a word, a phrase, or a statistic. And when you do, you'll be lost. And when you get lost, you'll get frustrated or nervous — and that benefits no one.

What You Should Memorize

So what should you memorize? Three things: your attention-grabbing opening, your compelling conclusion, and the topic of each point you want to cover in the body of your presentation.

Your opening and closing are often the most critical elements of any presentation. The opening grabs your audience's attention. The closing calls them to action. Because of that importance, you want both to be powerful — not necessarily long, but powerful. And since they're usually brief, they're manageable to memorize. There's also an additional benefit to memorizing your opening specifically: since you're likely to be most nervous at the start, knowing exactly what you're going to say and how you're going to deliver it helps calm those nerves considerably.

As for the body of the talk, don't try to memorize every word. Simply remember the topic of each point. When it's time to present, you only need to remember the topics — then deliver the essence of each one. That's it. That's all you need.

The One Exception: Long Quotes

You might be thinking: what about long quotes or passages? Here's the good news — you don't need to memorize those either. Because you're quoting what someone else said or wrote, you want to be exact. This is where note cards come in. Print the quote in large type on the card. When it's time to deliver it, read it from the card. But — and this is important — practice reading from the card when you rehearse, because even though you're reading, you want to deliver it the way it was originally intended.

One final point: not having to memorize your entire presentation does not mean you don't have to rehearse it. Rehearsing is a key factor in the difference between someone who gets up and speaks to an audience and someone who connects with their audience and truly serves them. Strive to be the second kind of presenter.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Public Speaking with Peter George. Are you ready to be calm, confident, and credible every time you speak in public? Then visit petergeorgepublicspeaking.com and let's make it happen. I'll see you next time.