Even if They Didn’t Intend to, Get 'Em to Recall What You Say

Here’s four ways:

One. Imagine that the brain is like a wall with clothes hooks on it. 

For the brain to catch and retain a detail, that detail must hang on one of the memory-inducing hooks that are already in the brain. The biggest hooks are the three universal and core life experiences: 

1. Family. 

2. Hometown or town where you have lived or are living. 

3. Past or current kind of work. 

For family, relate what you're saying to a family situation: yours, theirs, someone else's, or even a metaphorical family of services. Or relate your topic to the listener's work situation or work with which she is familiar. People also remember landmark places where they live, have lived, or have visited or well-known places. For example, our business is in Sausalito, which evokes pleasant by-the-bay memories for most who've visited here.

Two. Motion makes memories. 

Whenever people are moving or see movement, they remember more and are more emotional about what they remember. Get customers in motion with you in a positive experience and they will be more fervent, vivid, and believing fans, more likely to evoke their bragging rights and likely to share their experience with others. That's why we literally move to offer samples, getting people to reach out, so they feel the experience more deeply.

An experience is most memorable when you and the other person are both in motion, such as when you shake hands, walk together, or reach to exchange something. Pick those ripe moments to say the most vivid, specific detail you want the listener to remember and repeat to others. Times are next most memorable for the listener who is in motion even if you are not. Ask the person to reach or turn for something while you're saying your tasty tidbit to remember. The next most memorable movement is when you are in motion, even if your listener is not. A final valuable way to evoke a memory is for you both to watch motion from something or someone else.

Warning: Movement is a two-edged sword -- it is never neutral. 

The listener who experiences something negative where motion is involved will also remember the experience longer, and more intensely. As to a vibrating pole, we hold on sooner, longer, and more strongly to the negative incidents of life than to the positive, because the primitive triune part of our brain - wired to help us survive - causes us to respond to appearances of danger more strongly than to those of delight.

Three. Speak first of the other person's most current, pressing interest. 

Just as those in the market for new cars are most likely to hear car ads on the radio, all people listen sooner when you first speak about what is most on their mind at that moment. Sadly, in fewer than five percent of interactions when we want something from someone else do we first speak about what matters most to them. We are more likely to speak about our own interests first.

Four. Speak in vivid, specific details that have a high emotional value for the listener.

The good news? If you practice speaking first about the other person's interests, then about what you share in common, and only then about how that commonality relates to your interests, four amazingly powerful changes occur in how that other person relates to you. The person listens sooner, listens longer, remembers more, and assumes you have a higher IQ than if you first speak about your own interests.