One specific, well-chosen example persuades more than a stack of general claims

"This will improve customer satisfaction" convinces almost nobody. "Sarah's team cut response time from four days to six hours, and her complaint volume dropped by a third" convinces people who were skeptical thirty seconds earlier.

What the research found

Chip Heath and Dan Heath's research into why some ideas spread and stick while others are forgotten, detailed in their book Made to Stick, identified concreteness as one of the core traits shared by ideas that actually land. A specific, vivid example, one customer, one number, one moment, is processed and remembered far more easily than an abstract claim, even when the abstract claim is technically more comprehensive. Concrete language also has a practical advantage the Heaths point out directly, it means roughly the same thing to everyone hearing it, where an abstract claim gets filled in differently by every listener.

Why the vague version asks for more trust, not less

A general claim, "this will improve efficiency," asks the room to trust your judgment about what efficiency means and how much it will improve. A single, specific example asks the room to evaluate one concrete fact, which is a much smaller and easier request. Paradoxically, the smaller ask is what tends to build confidence in the bigger claim behind it.

Where to start

Before you present a broad claim, find the single most concrete, specific instance of it, one person, one number, one moment where it was true, and lead with that instead of the general statement.

Save the general claim for after the specific example, as the takeaway, not the opener.

Reading which specific example will actually resonate with a given room, versus which one just feels compelling to you, is a judgment worth checking with someone close to that audience first. What this gives you is the shape of a persuasive case, concrete first, general claim second.

There is a specific way to find the one example strong enough to carry an entire argument, and it is worth digging for properly rather than settling for the first one that comes to mind.