Image Credit:
Laughlin Elkind
Every time that we give a speech we are doing it for a reason. We understand the importance of public speaking and we want to connect with our audience and we want to change how they view their world. All that we have to accomplish this with are the words that make up our speech. This means that we need to have a good understanding of how to create a speech that can change lives. If we take the time to listen to what people who get paid to write speeches do, then we can learn from them and adopt their techniques.
It’s All About What’s In Your Speech
When we give a speech, we need to understand that our audience is under no obligation to pay any attention to us. They’ve got neighbors to talk with, mobile phones to play with, etc. That’s why as speakers we need to make sure that our speeches win our audience over early on in our talk. We need to view every speech that we give as a form of performance. We need to make sure that we are “present in the moment.” If we can realize that our words contain movements and gestures, then we’ll be able to make our presentations unforgettable.
Humor is a key part of many of the speeches that we give. Humor can be a tricky thing to use well. We need to understand that a speech that contains humor is not all about getting laughs out of our audience. One of our goals when we give a humorous speech has to be to become liked by the audience. If you need to include a joke in your next speech, write out 10 jokes. Then test those jokes before you give your speech. This will show you both what works and what does not work.
If we want to connect with our audience, then we need to be able to play on their emotions. While we are giving our speech, we need to lead, encourage, harmonize, admonish, and highlight the various parts of our speech. When we are creating our speech, we need to take the time to map out what emotions we want to get from our audience at different points in our speech. We can get applause, tears, sadness, and laughter all from the same speech.
How You Deliver A Speech Affects Its Impact On Your Audience
One of the big questions that we all face these days is to determine what style we should use when we are making a speech. The two major choices that we have are the formal speech that we are all familiar with and a more folksy conversational style. A conversation may only require you to bring a few notes in order to manage it while a formal speech may have undergone multiple revisions as you worked to get every word just right. It is generally agreed that a conversation style presentation does not have the same intensity that a formal speech has.
One of the reasons that we are sometimes unable to connect with our audience is because we are experiencing our own battle with our nerves. This can take on many different forms including performance anxiety and panic attacks. One way we can conquer these issues is to include one-liners in our speeches because they allow us to focus on what we are saying. Additionally, in order to gain control over our nerves during a presentation and connect with our audience, we always need to remember to breath.
The best speeches that we give are the ones that we come prepared for. We need to understand who we are going to be presenting to and what is currently going on in their lives. What are they expecting to hear from us? We may not be able to give them exactly what they came looking for, but if we understand what their needs are we can at least address them during our speech.
What All Of This Means For You
The process of connecting with our next audience starts long before we take the stage. It all begins when we sit down to create the speech that we will be giving in order to share the benefits of public speaking with our audience. As good as we may be at doing this, it can always help to get some insights from the people who create speeches for a living. Their tips can make our speeches even better.
The speeches that we create have to grab our audience from the start. We need to understand that there is movement inside of the words that we say and we need to tease them out and then use those movements as we deliver our speech. Humor makes any speech better; however, we need to be careful here. We want to be liked by our audience and so we need to create multiple jokes and then try each one out before we give our speech in order to determine which one works the best. Tapping into our audience’s emotions can transform a ho-hum speech into one that is memorable.
The speeches that we give have the ability to change the lives of the people who are in our audience. We need to do the best job that we can when we put together the words that will make up our next speech. If we get advice from professional speechwriters, then we can do a better job of creating speeches that will make an impact. Listen to what they have to say and then go and create the best speech of your life!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: Do you think that you should only make your audience cry at the end or at the beginning of your speech?
Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Communicator Blog is updated.
P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Communicator Newsletter are now available. Subscribe now: Click Here!
Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
Every time that we give a speech we are doing it for a reason. We understand the importance of public speaking and we want to connect with our audience and we want to change how they view their world. All that we have to accomplish this with are the words that make up our speech. This means that we need to have a good understanding of how to create a speech that can change lives. If we take the time to listen to what people who get paid to write speeches do, then we can learn from them and adopt their techniques.
If you are like most of us, every time that you get up in front of an audience you are desperately hoping that this speech will be a good speech because we understand the importance of public speaking. We’ve all given speeches that were not good – we didn’t connect with the audience and they didn’t really get anything out of our speech. We’d prefer it if that did not happen again. Instead, we’d like our time spent giving a speech to have an impact on our audience and once we are done to have them agree that their time spent listening to us was time well spent.