? didn? have 3000 pairs of shoes. I had only 1600 pairs. ?Imelda MarcosEverything? relative. A million dollars sounds like a lot of money to someone who

makes an average salary, but it? a drop in the bucket to a Warren Buffett or a Bill

Gates. Running a hundred metres in a few seconds seems like a miracle to ordinary

mortals, but a track and field athlete will work hard to shave even more off that

time. Yet presenters often quote statistics without benchmarks, so the audience doesn?

know how to evaluate them. Is $10,000 a lot of money? Well it is for a bicycle. It?

not much for a house, unless that house is in a small village in a third world

country, where it might be exorbitant. If you quote numbers this way, you will lose

the audience while they try to decide whether $125,000 is good, bad or indifferent

in this context. Your statistics lose their power. In a presentation skills workshop for a group of lawyers, one participant was

practicing his delivery of an address to the jury in an upcoming trial. He was asking

for damages in the amount of $750,000, and hoped the jury would consider it

reasonable. It? quite a large sum, and most ordinary folks think of that kind of cash

as a lottery win. He needed to put it in context for them. He might, for example, ask the jury to suppose they were thirty-five years old and

earning a salary of $40,000 a year. By the time they reached the age of sixty-five,

allowing for reasonable increases, they could expect to have earned a certain

amount. (He would do the arithmetic and insert the actual sum. ) That amount would

be what is called their? xpected lifetime income? However, if they were involved in

an accident and suddenly unable to work any more, that amount now represents

their? orfeited lifetime income? That is what happened to this claimant, and the

amount he would have lost was $750,000. So in fact, counsel was asking no more

than the amount the man would have earned, had he not met with this unfortunate

accident. Don? you think the jury is more likely to agree when given this background

explanation?Here are three ways to put figures in context for your audience. 1. Compare them to something to which they can personally relate, as in the

courtroom example. 2. Compare them to a similar situation. If a new manufacturing process takes fifteen

minutes, mention that the old one took two hours, so we save 1-3/4 hours. For

even more effect, tell them how much time this will save in an average shift or on a

certain number of product units. Go further and translate that time into money and

the statistic will now be a strong argument for change. 3. Create vivid word pictures to illustrate size: That? the equivalent of five football

fields. That? enough to fill ten Olympic-size swimming pools. If laid end-to-end

they would stretch from New York to L. A. and back again. Statistics can be great persuaders, but only when the audience has the means to

evaluate them. Helen Wilkie is a professional keynote speaker, workshop facilitator and author,

helping companies save their money and people save their sanity through better

communication. Her latest book is "The Hidden Profit Center? tale of profits lost

and found through communication. " For more articles and other information, visit

http://www. mhwcom. com While you're there, sign up for Communi-keys and

receive monthly communication techniques directly from Helen.

Author:
Helen Wilkie