Communication

The anatomy of the perfect speech

(This post is Part 2 of special series dedicating to giving speeches. Check out Part 1: How to bomb a speech.)

Before you can deliver the perfect speech, you must write it.

Now, before we go any further, let me share with you my philosophy on speech writing: Good speeches must be written first in order to be delivered well. Some may argue with this, thinking that you don’t actually have to write out the whole speech. And, I concede that there are a few natural speakers who can skip this step. However, the vast majority of us must write it out first. Here’s how:

With thousands of types of speeches under millions of different circumstances possible, it’s hard to have a one-size-fits-all approach to writing a speech. After all, a eulogy is going to be quite different from a conference presentation. That said, the basics are the pretty much the same; it’s up to you to make them fit into the type of speech you’re creating.

Preparation

Before you put pen to paper, you must consider your audience:

Who are they?
Get a general feel for who’s going to be there. Are they experts in their fields or a group of 8^th graders?

How old are they?
Different generations have different appeals. If you’re speaking to primarily Baby Boomers, you’ll want a different tone than if you were speaking to a group of Gen Xers. 

What’s their educational level? 
If you’re speaking to freshman in high school your approach is going to be a little different than if you were speaking to college professors.

Why are they attending your speech?
There’s a big difference between audience hanging on your every word and a group of people who are forced to listen to you. If you’re dealing with the latter, you may need to prepare yourself mentally and practice extra hard.

How many people will be in attendance?
The size of the audience can really change the way you approach your speech. For a group of 25, you may want to consider more audience involvement as opposed to what you might prepare for a group of 200.

Understanding your audience will help you determine:

• Tone
• Length
• Word choice
• Amount of research
• Type of support

Once you understand your audience, you need to get to the heart of what you want you to say. You should figure this out before you start writing the actual words of your speech. Answer these questions:

What is the purpose of my speech?

How can I convey my message?

What kind of research do I need to do?

What are a few things my audience may be interested in learning about?

How much personal information should I include?

The Opening

Your audience will decide within the first five to ten seconds whether or not their going to listen to you, making the opening of your speech critical.

Some common ways to open a speech:

Ask a rhetorical question.
“What’s the most important part of your life?”

Involve your audience.
“Raise your hand if you have ever smoked a cigarette?”

Give a statistic.
“Every second a new blog is born.”

Declare a bold statement.
“I used to have an eating disorder.”

Tell a short story.
“In 1956 a boy was born into what he calls “a fractured family.” He lived a confused childhood, in and out of step-families, never quite understanding what family was all about. Today, he has his family of his own, and has managed to find out the meaning of marriage. You may know his name. But, it’s not important. What is important is…”

Tell a joke.
(I’m so bad at joke telling, I can’t even come up with one! Feel free to leave one in the comments.)

The examples above are all about getting the audience’s attention. Some people don’t feel comfortable with these kinds of openings. Maybe they feel fake or cheesy. Pick one that feels natural to you. For me, telling a joke would (obviously) make me feel extremely uncomfortable. I feel most comfortable stating a fact or declaring a bold statement. You don’t want your opening to seem forced; your audience will notice.

After you have their attention, you can go into introducing yourself, if you need to. In many cases, you’ve already been introduced so repeating information your audience has already heard may not be necessary.

The next part of the opening is to briefly explain what you hope they’ll get out of the speech, especially if you’re doing an informative type of speech. You may say something like, “Today, I hope you will walk away with three things…” or “My goal here today is not to convince you that my path is the right path, but to help you find your own path, the one that is right for you.”

Here’s an example of a complete opening:
“Every second a new blog is born. My blog, Girl Meets business, was born on November 10, 2007. And while we don’t usually use a word like “born” to describe an event such as blogging, I find it to be truly fitting. I have watched my blog grow and develop into what it is today. And, in many ways, I feel like my blog is my baby.

Today, I’m going explain to you what blogging is all about. We’ll talk about everything from what blogs are to how they can help you with your own business…”

The Support

The next section is the heart of your speech. While the opening captures the audience’s attention, the support provides your audience with the knowledge you hope to convey. You’ll want to organize your speech so it flows naturally.

For many speeches, the following format will work quite well:

Point #1: “While blogs can be personal, they are not usually personal diaries.”
Explanation (provide supporting facts, stories, etc.)
Transition #1: “That leads me to my second point…“ 

Point #2: “Blogs are business tools”
Explanation (provide supporting facts, stories, etc.)
Transition #2: “With that said, you may be wondering how blogs can help your particular business.”

Point #3: “Your blog can help enhance your brand.”
Explanation (provide supporting facts, stories, etc.)

Another best practice for speech writing is to recap your points. You might say something like, “I can feel the room buzzing with ideas for incorporating blogs into your businesses. You now know: Blogs aren’t just for tweens who want to rant about school, they’re actually business tools that can help you build a better, stronger brand.”

The Closing

A really bad way to close a speech is to say something like, “Well, that’s about it.” It certainly happens, though! Closing the speech can be the hardest part. How do you wrap up everything and signal that it’s over? One of my favorite ways is to “complete the circle.”

Completing the circle means going back to your opening. Here some closing examples using the opening examples listed above:

Opening: “What’s the most important part of your life?”
Closing: “Now that you’ve learned how to work out a complete work/life balance, let me ask you again: What’s the most important part of your life?”

Opening: “Raise your hand if you’ve ever smoked cigarette?”
Closing: “As you know, we haven’t spent the last twenty minutes talking about smoking, so you may be wondering why I asked about cigarettes in the beginning? Well, when it comes to persuasive advertising, what is a better example than cigarettes?”

Opening: “Every second a new blog is born.”
Closing: “Every second a new blog is born. Will the next one be yours?

Opening: “I used to have an eating disorder.”
Closing: “At the beginning of this presentation, I said that I used to have an eating disorder. The key words in that sentence are ‘used to.’ Thank you.”

Opening: In 1956 a boy was born into what he calls “a fractured family.” He lived a confused childhood, in and out of step-families, never quite understanding what family was all about. Today, he has his family of his own, and has managed to find out the meaning of marriage. You may know his name.
Closing: There is hope for your children to have a sense of family in the midst of turmoil and divorce. Remember that young man I spoke about earlier? Well, it’s Tom Hanks.

Other closing tips:

• Avoid ending with, “In conclusion…”
• Avoid signaling that you’re going to end (e.g. recapping), but then continuing with the speech for several more minutes.
• It’s always okay to end with the two little words: thank you.

More speech-writing tips

Keep these points in mind:

• Write out every word as you would like to say it. You can always change it up later.
• Write as you would speak. After all, you will eventually have to speak it!
• If you’re using PowerPoint or other visual aids, write out when you would like to the reference the slides and what part of the slide you would like to point out.

Writing a speech is one thing, but delivering it is quite another! Stay tuned for the next two posts:

• The keys to delivering a flawless speech
• How to deal with an indifferent audience and other problems
• And, don’t forget to check out the first in this series: How to bomb a speech

 

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