5 Tips For Writing A
Powerful Speech
As a public
speaker, there's nothing worse than delivering a lifeless, yawn-inducing
speech.
You always want to leave your
audience feeling enlightened, hopeful, and inspired - but that's no easy feat.
Here are the five steps to
writing a powerful speech that will move your listeners:
1. Consider the audience's
needs.
The first rule of great
speechmaking: consider the audience.
"A
great speechmaker possesses great tact," says Nick Morgan, speech coach
and author of "Power Cues: The Subtle Science of
Leading Groups, Persuading Others, and Maximizing Your Personal Impact."
"You have to be prepared to speak to a particular audience on a particular
occasion. Ultimately, then, a great speech is only partially about you. It's
also about the audience and the occasion."
Ask yourself: Who is this
audience? What does it want? What does it fear? Why has it invited me to speak?
What aspect of my message is most relevant to it?
"And then ponder the
occasion," he says. "What's happening right now that will be on the
minds of everyone in the room? What should I not talk about? What does that
audience need to hear?"
2. Catch the audience's
attention.
You need a great hook.
"The idea is to frame the talk in the first one to three minutes, in a way
that draws the audience in but doesn't simply give them an agenda," Morgan
says. "That's boring. No one pays attention during the presentation of the
agenda slide, so don't do it."
Instead, tell a compelling
story - one that shows (rather than tells) the topic you're going to be
discussing.
3. Hold the audience's
attention for the next 15 minutes.
Yes, the very beginning of the
presentation is crucial, and your ending can make or break it, too, but
everything in between is just as important - and it's imperative that you hold
your audience's attention throughout.
Take time to carefully think
about how you'll accomplish that.
"There's only one way
that works reliably, and that involves asking yourself one simple question:
What's the problem the audience has for which the information I'm ready to talk
about is the answer?" Morgan says.
4. Offer a solution to their
problem.
Write a speech that addresses
the problem and solution. "It's an ancient formula for
persuading somebody of something," he says. "Unless you don't want to
be persuasive, it's the best structure for a speech. The Greeks invented it
more than 2,000 years ago, and it worked well for them. It will work well for
you today."
5. Provide a call to action.
The best way to finish is to
give your audience something to do, Morgan says.
Why? "Because you've just
forced normally active people to be passive for the better part of an hour, and
it's time to let them absorb your message actively. In this way, they'll better
remember - and even act on - what you've been talking about."
He says the best action step
he ever saw was at a charitable event, where the speaker asked everyone to
reach into their pockets and grab their loose change. "He said, 'Now hold
it out at arm's length.' Once everyone was doing so, he added, 'Now, throw it
on the floor.' There were 5,000 people or more in the audience, and the sound
was amazing. What's more, the speaker had runners collect the money, and that
audience raised literally thousands of dollars for AIDS in one or two
moments."
Find something relevant and
connected closely to your message. Ask yourself, "What's the next thing I
would want my audience to do after the speech is over?" Then, get them to
do that, or motivate them to take a step toward that. "The point is that
what people do they believe. So if you get them to act, that will reinforce
their belief in your message," Morgan says.
"The step should be
simple, it should only take a few minutes, and it must be relevant to your
message," he concludes.
JACQUELYN SMITH
http://www.businessinsider.in/5-Tips-For-Writing-A-Powerful-Speech/articleshow/40073489.cms?utm_source=ET&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=text_link_5tips
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