The 55 Gallon Drum

How To Use Statistics Effectively

Let’s say in your next speech you plan to talk about "Water." Now that's a topic your audience would love to hear about, we all drink water and use water. Right?

No! No! No! Begin with this premise: No one is interested in your topic unless you make it of interest to them! To help you, statistics are a great tool if you make these statistics interesting and relevant to your audience.

Let’s suppose in your talk you want your audience to conserve water. That's sure a valid issue and an important one. In your preparation, you find lots of statistics to help prove your point. Let’s say you found out that of all the water on planet earth, most is salt water and only a little is fresh and drinkable. SO WHAT & WHO CARES!

Let’s say these are the statistics you found in your research:
There are 325 million cubic miles of water on earth.
One cubic mile of water is 1,000,000,000,000 gallons (that's a trillion).
Multiply a trillion by 326 million and you get a very big number.
SO WHAT & WHO CARES!

Let’s now use that statistic in an interesting and effective way to help your audience go ... "Wow! That's amazing. I got that picture in my mind."

You could say this: If all the water on earth filled one 55 gallon drum (that's like a big garbage can used at a public park) here's how it would divide up:

53 1/3 gallons of our 55 gallon drum is salt water in our oceans

1.1 gallons is frozen in ice caps and glaciers

1/3 of a gallon is underground

1/8 of a gallon is in the atmosphere

1.1 ounce of water is in all the earth’s rivers and lakes

At that point you could hold up a tiny cup with about one ounce of water in it. Then you could say:

“My talk this afternoon is how we can conserve our precious water (pointing to your tiny cup) so you can have plenty to drink, brush your teeth with, wash your dishes and enjoy a wonderful hot bath—and I don’t mean in a 55 gallon drum!”

So next time you're tempted to spit out facts, statistics and dates, think ..."How can I make it interesting? Clear? Memorable? Unique? Vivid?"

*P.S. Yes, the 55-gallon drum example is true. If you don't believe it, go measure the water in all the oceans—and don’t forget to bring your 55 gallon drum!