When presenting, two things matter most
The rest gets mushy
After every sales conversation, prospects remember approximately two things about you with clarity. Everything else becomes a blur of “they seemed competent” or “they had good experience.”
You don’t get to choose whether they remember two things, the serial-position effect guarantees it. But, you DO get to choose WHICH two things they remember.
The serial position effect is a memory-related cognitive bias where individuals recall the first (primacy effect) and last (recency effect) items in a series better than those in the middle.
This is where most businesses fail. They present everything with equal weight, hoping prospects will naturally identify their strongest differentiators. That’s not how memory works.
Your job isn’t to present information. Your job is to architect memory.
In Growth Labs, we teach our 15 Growth Engines Framework—a comprehensive system for business transformation. Fifteen engines. Hundreds of concepts.
The challenge: How do you teach a complex system without overwhelming people or having them forget the most critical elements?
Answer: Focus on First & Last. Strategic sequencing of information using the serial-position effect.
We don't walk through all 15 engines robotically. We open with Vision & Purpose (your North Star) and close with The Multipliers (your competitive advantage). We position everything else as the machinery connecting them.
Why? Because when someone leaves that workshop, we want them remembering WHERE they're going and WHAT gives them an unfair advantage.
The middle builds the bridge. The bookends drive the transformation.
This isn’t about simplifying the framework. It’s about respecting how people process and retain complex information.
Think about the last compelling presentation you sat through. What do you remember? I guarantee it’s something from the first five minutes or the last five minutes. The middle? Blurry at best.
Now think about your own sales presentations, your website homepage, your pitch deck. Where are your strongest differentiators positioned?
Here’s the framework:
Open with your #1 value proposition—the one thing that makes prospects sit up and pay attention. This could be a bold claim, a unique positioning statement, or a result that seems impossible. This is your primacy anchor. Everything that follows will be filtered through this frame.
Close with your unfair advantage—the thing your competitors can’t easily replicate. This could be your pricing model, your delivery speed, your proprietary process, or your team structure. This is your recency anchor. This is what they’ll remember when comparing options.
Use the middle for proof—case studies, process details, team credentials, technical capabilities. This information matters, but its job isn’t to be remembered independently. Its job is to support the bookends with credibility.
The serial-position effect isn’t about dumbing down your presentation. It’s about respecting how memory works.
It doesn’t matter what you said. It matters what they remember.