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So just exactly what is a title? It is how we choose to introduce our speech to the world. This is how we go about luring an audience into wanting to hear what we have to say. However, despite just how important a part of your speech you title is, all too often speakers overlook this critical part of speech writing. What we really should be doing is spending time coming up with title ideas that are both thoughtful and creative. What we really need are techniques that we can use to create a great title for our next speech.
It’s All About Intrigue
As speakers what we really want to be able to do is to create engagement in our audience so that we can share the importance of public speaking. One great way to make this happen is to add some intrigue to your next speech. What you are going to have to do is to take a look at the topic that you will be speaking about. What you are going to be looking for is one idea, one result, or one observation that you believe is especially interesting. Once you have identified this item, you are then going to want to incorporate it into your title. Your biggest challenge when you are doing this is going to be trying to make sure that your title remains relevant to the topic that you’ll be talking about. You’ll run into problems if your title does not have a connection to the body of your speech. If this happens, then you may be accused of using curiosity as a marketing ploy to get people to attend your speech.
Use The Power Of Questions
Every audience is seeking answers. This is why if you can work a question into the title of your next speech, you will be implying that if the audience attends your speech, then they will learn the answer to the question. What you are going to discover is that most people have a deep need to resolve things such as unanswered questions. They will get a great deal of satisfaction out of having a question that they did not have the answer to resolved for them. When you work a question into the title of your speech, you are letting your audience know ahead of time that their time spent with you will turn out to be both satisfying and gratifying for them.
Don’t Be Afraid To Enumerate
As speakers if we want to be successful, we need to understand how our audience’s brains operate. It turns out that your audience’s brains will operate at their optimum if you feed them chunks of information for their brains to digest. What this means for your next speech is that if you work a defined number into the title of your speech you will be giving your audience a promise of what they will get if they listen to your speech. You’ll be able to capture your audience because you will have predefined the outcome. What you need to understand is that your success will not be defined by the quality of your content, but rather by the quantity of the content in your speech!
Get Your Audience To Laugh
When you are working on creating a title for your next speech, you might want to remember that humor is something that connects all people together. Humor is something that can cut across all ages and all professions. No matter how controversial the topic that you may be talking about is, if you can work some humor into your title then it will draw more people to hear your speech no matter how they feel about what you have to say. Do be careful to make sure that your humor is appropriate for your material. Don’t try to get your audience to laugh at something that is not funny.
Call Out Your Audience
What speakers need to understand about their audience is that they like to feel special. What you will want to do is to go to the effort to create a speech title that will appeal directly to your audience. Do this by incorporating their profession, hobby, or interest into your title. You do need to be careful when using this technique that you don’t alienate people who would otherwise come to hear you speak.
What All Of This Means For You
As speakers we have taken the time to invest our energy and passion into creating the best speech possible so that we can share the benefits of public speaking. We would like as many people as possible to come and hear us present our speech. In order to make this happen, we need to take the time and create the right title for our speech. If we can do this, then we’ll be able to get as many people as possible to come and hear us speak.
When we are creating a title for our next speech we need to consider using our speech title to create intrigue. This will pull our audience in because they will want to know how the mystery is resolved by our speech. We can use the title of our speech to ask a question. People will come to hear you speak because they will want to know the answer to the question. If you work a defined number into your speech title then people will show up because they want to hear the outcome. Humor is a powerful tool and if your speech title can make people laugh then more people will show up to hear you speak. If you can work your audience into your speech title then they will feel obligated to come and hear you speak.
The title that we choose to give to our speech is how we will get people to come and hear what we have to say. Don’t leave this as an afterthought, instead make sure that you take the time to correctly create a title for your speech. This will be your one chance to reach out and grab your audience’s attention and get them to come and hear what you have to say!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: How long do you think a title should be?
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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 speech that we give is special for us, but is it special for our audience? Does the speech that we give change their lives? Do we allow them to see things differently? Will our speech use the importance of public speaking to have a lasting impact on them? If you are like me, you sure hope that your speech will do all of these things. What we need to understand is that powerful speeches can act as a defining moment in someone’s life. Now all we need to do is to find out how we can create a speech that will make this happen!