9 Memorization Secrets of thePros!

How good is your memory? What would itmean to your business if you had an acutememory? What kind of confidence do youthink that you would have as a presenter if you had a very strong memory. I had thegood fortune of competing against 25,000people internationally for the title of WorldChampion of Public Speaking. One of themain skills that I had to develop in thatprocess was the skill of memorizing a lot of information. What I want to share with youtoday are the nine best memorization secretsof the pros. These are secrets – so you can’ttell anybody because these are things that only presenters aretypically sharing with one another. Whether you’re influencing anaudience of one or an audience of 1,000, you need to be able tomemorize.

So grab a pen and a piece of paper; we’re going to run throughthese very, very quickly.

This is what I call the script.

The script technique is verysimple – it just means writing out your entire presentation.Whether you’ve been in the same job for the last 20 years oryou’re just beginning a new career, I want to encourage you totake a pen and handwrite out your presentation. It will help youmemorize it. It will also help you eliminate a lot of unnecessarywords. That’s called the script.

Technique number two is called the set list.

It plays off of the script because once you’ve got the entire script, you can lookat each paragraph and just take one word that best encapsulatesthe main message of that paragraph and then you write it in theleft margin. This is a technique that I learned from stand-upcomedy. What we comedians do is we don’t remember the entire joke; we just remember the basic words and we remember a listof words and then tie them together in order.

This is what I call the puzzle.

Again, this goes off of the firsttechnique, the script. Rather than trying to memorize your entirepresentation as a whole, just break it up into chunks. You’ll findthat there’ll be natural separation of concepts and ideas. Focuson just memorizing one idea or one main concept at a time. Andthen you can quiz yourself by trying to jump around back andforth through different areas of your presentation.

The next technique is what I call the iPod.

The iPod is agreat technique for you audio learners. All you’re going to do istake a voice recorder, record your entire presentation either liveor by just writing it out and reading your script to yourself. Thenyou can either download it on your computer either as a podcastor you can play it while you’re sleeping or play it in yourheadphones while you’re running or you’re working out.

The next technique is what I call the pain

. And the pain ispainful but this is probably the best memorization technique andevaluation technique and that is to visually record yourself doingyour presentation. I highly recommend recording your salespresentation and, if you’re presenting to a large audience, youneed to be recording everything. Record it with a videocamcorder and then when you go back and watch thepresentation, watch it four different ways. The first time youwatch it, watch it with your back to the screen so that you’re justlistening to how it sounds. The second time you watch it, watch iton mute so that you’re just paying attention to your gestures andyour body movements. The third time you watch it, watch it onfast forward because you’ll pick up any nervous ticks or gesturesthat you have such as twiddling your hair or if you’re licking yourlips or if you’re doing the same hand movement over and over. That is called the pain – oh, and sorry. The fourth way to watchyour video is just to watch it regular after you’ve watched it theother three ways.

The next technique is what we call the physical anchor

. If you’re presenting in a large room, what you can do is make eachsection of the room connect with your mind to a different sectionof your presentation. If you’re presenting on a stage, speakers do