Beginning Your Speech

Your speech opening is the most important part of your speech. If you lose the audience with your first words, you will never get them back

You can use several openings for your speech.

First, you can ask a question that pertains to the subject of your speech. If you are talking about marketing, you can ask, "How many of you want to make money on the Internet?" This question involves the audience, makes them give a positive reaction to your topic and creates the anticipation that you will answer the question you just asked. You should ask two questions to ensure that everyone in your audience answers.

Second, you can make a shocking statement, such as, "Fewer than one percent of those who try to market on the internet actually make money." This will pique their interest and the expectation that you will give the solution to that problem.

Third, you can tell a story that relates to your subject.

Fourth, you can do a song, poem, performance of some type. You can do an introductory powerpoint that gives details on your background.

Whatever you do, make certain it is clear, catchy, and gets a reaction from the audience.

Picking Your Theme

In the last post we talked about speech themes. To amplify on that subject, remember that not just any theme will do. Your theme must be interesting to your audience. If you want to inspire them, you must pick a subject they care about.

For a short speech, a theme should be narrowly targeted. You should be able to illustrate or prove your theme with just a few stories or examples.

For a longer speech, you theme can be broader but again you should be able to prove it with perhaps three or four stories and several examples.

For instance, I often speak on goal setting. For the shortest speeches, my theme might be "how to create action steps." This could open with a sentence such as, "How many of you find it easy to set goals but hard to acheve them?" Almost everyone will raise their hands. The body of the speech will include a few stories illustrating how to pick the next specific action step related to your goal and a few examples of what those steps might be. The final part of the speech will be a call to action based on the examples and stories, will refer back to the opening statement and will answer the theme you set for the speech.

A longer speech might include a theme of discovering your vision and creating goals and action steps from that vision.

So practice picking themes for speeches you may be called on to give in the future and pick stories that will illustrate those themes.

See you next time.

And Now For Some Tips

Ever wonder how great speakers compose great speeches? It's not as difficult as it sounds. Years ago, I used to write speeches from scratch, using new material every time. This is like buying a new car every time you want to go to the grocery store. Not very productive.

So how do you create great speeches?

First, every speech must have a theme. This is not the same as the subject. You may want to talk about birds. The theme is what you want to say about birds. Perhaps you want to talk about why birds migrate. This is your theme. You use this theme to create a statement you want to prove in your talk. Pick an opening based on the theme and a close based on the theme. The middle of the speech is used to prove the opening and closing with examples and stories.

If you build from a theme, you will have a coherent, clear speech every time.

Great Speech Writing

Hi Everyone,

In the coming weeks we will discuss the many ways you can create a great speech whether it is for a toast, eulogy, presentation to a group or organization or for a professional opportunity.