How many ideas can you get across in a speech?  To judge from many business speeches — and the President’s State of the Union address — the answer to that question is "lots."  Speakers have some information, they’re eager to share, and so share they do — one idea after another. 

We call this approach to public speaking the data dump, and while it feels good to the speaker (I’m delivering lots of value!  This is what they hired me to do!), it’s overwhelming for the audience. 

It’s a tough feeling to fight against.  Good intentions steer you wrong here, because you naturally want to tell the audience everything you know, in an effort to do as much good as possible.

In fact, though, audiences remember something like 10 – 30 percent of what they hear.  That’s not much, and so if you think your job is to hand out information like cookies, you’re bound to disappoint yourself (why are their eyes glazing over?  This is important!) and exhaust the audience.

Instead, realize that you can only get one idea across in a speech.  That’s essential, so I’ll repeat:  you can only get one idea across in a speech. 

That’s all people will remember anyway, so ruthlessly eliminate everything in your speech that doesn’t support that one idea.  Ruthlessly.  That’s if you really do want to communicate with an audience.  Some speakers just want to hear themselves talk, but you’re not like that, are you?