Speaking in Public? How to Write the Perfect Speech
Don’t! Bill Gove, known around the world as the father of professional speaking, says you should never set out to write a speech.
Doing this is like writing an article. Articles are meant for reading; speeches are meant for saying. Therefore, material written to be heard should be written differently than material to be read.
You want to engage your audience with a friendly, conversational tone and your material should be written with this in mind and not as though it were created to be read from a thick wad of A4 sheets while you stand behind a lectern.
So how do you go about writing the perfect speech? Think about your speech as being made up of small units or modules, each capable of standing on its own. These modules are called vignettes and they are really individual stories as short as three to four minutes or longer depending upon the context of the speech. In this way you can combine eight to ten short vignettes to create a speech.
There are several advantages to constructing speeches in this way. When you build your catalogue of vignettes you can easily shorten or lengthen a presentation at a moment’s notice and if you’re in the speaking business, then at some time you will be placed in this position. Instead of sweating buckets or resorting to speaking like an automatic rifle you’ll be able to say, “No problem.”
Similarly, if you are asked to deliver an entire speech at short notice you will have the means to do so because you will simply need to decide on the points you wish to cover in your speech, select the appropriate vignettes and then combine them in a point then story fashion. This level of flexibility will mean that you will not have to lose out on gaining valuable exposure and or a lucrative fee.
The vignette system makes a speech easy to remember, as you just have to remember several short stories. When you write an article it may seem to flow but try memorising it and it’s another matter!
It also lends itself to a much easier cuing system for those times when your mind goes blank. You can just have a series of small cards each with the salient points on it. You can also just have one card that simply outlines the order of your speech to help keep you on track for those occasions when you go off on a tangent.
These stories will also be easy to remember because, in general, they will be personal to you. In other words, you will know these stories because they are your stories. When you go on stage you will be letting the audience into your world. This is what helps to build the connection between you and the audience.
Actually, your vignettes will be hard to forget because of the length of time you will spend preparing them. Wayne Burgraff said,
“It takes one hour of preparation for each minute of presentation time.”
However, some may consider that to be a conservative estimate. You may think that it a long time but it will be time well spent because your vignettes will become part of your repertoire and you will have the opportunity to use them again and again even with audiences who may have heard you speak before. The greater the emotional impact the more often people will want to hear your stories. It’s all about the way your stories make people feel.
“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Carl W Buechner
Vignettes are lessons in story-form and so need to have a structure. They should all contain the following:
1. Premise
2. Problem
3. Pay-off
Your pay-offs are the number of laughs you can invoke per minute or the number of times per minute you can invoke an emotional response in your audience. Generally, you want a positive emotional response. You can allow your audience to feel low for a moment but you shouldn’t leave them there for too long and you certainly want to end with your audience on an emotional high. As a rule, a good keynote speech, for example, should have at least one payoff per minute.
Hence, you can see why your vignettes have to be carefully crafted and while you allow your words to weave a story, every word you use should either add to your story or be eliminated. In other words aim to say more with less.
It’s advisable to write a draft of your story, leave it and then hone it. Expect to do at least five re-writes. Then, when it’s just about perfect add a few imperfections. Why? Because that’s how we speak and so the imperfections make your speech sound more natural. And by imperfections I’m not talking about ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ – these are not allowed.
For instance, you can indicate where you will pause as though searching for a word. If the audience is right there with you they will be searching for that word too, perhaps even making suggestions because they want you to continue. They want to hear the rest of your story.
So the next time you have to prepare a speech don’t sit down and write an article:
1. Decide what lessons you wish to communicate;
2. Select a series of vignettes or short stories to convey this story; and
3. Organise your material so that it flows in a lesson then vignette or point then story format.
Finally, remember when it comes to delivering your speech talk to the audience rather than read to them. Leave reading to an audience for bedtime stories and you know what that leads to.
Nickolove Lovemore is a Life Coach and presenter. For other public speaking resources visit http://www.Mastering Presentations.com. Also, for a FREE report on public speaking send an email with your name to masteringpublicspeaking@getresponse.com.
How to Find the Best Sources of Stories, Anecdotes and Quotes for Your Speeches and Presentations
When you make public speaking your “magnificent obsession” you will find material for your speeches and presentations all around you. As a speaker you need to become an observer of life and not just people – all life. You can learn as much from observing nature and inanimate objects such as buildings as you can from watching people.
A news story, an incident, a casual remark in a conversation among friends or even with strangers can all provide inspiration for a story or vignette that can form material for your speech. If you are a speaker you need to carry a notebook and or recorder with you at all times so that you can immediately capture these moments of inspiration. If you don’t they are likely to disappear into the ether.
If you are a speaker then it follows that you are also an avid reader and as you read certain combinations of words will leap off the page or screen and will resonate with you. These phrases and sentences will form some of the quotations that you will use in your speeches. Some of these quotations will be so powerful that they will generate stories of their own. There are also several online sources of famous quotations.
So that you don’t have to spend time scouring newspapers and the like, you can sign up to a service such as Google Alerts so that you are notified of news stories that relate to your subject matter. You just need to select your key words and choose how often you wish to receive alerts. You will then have an automatic way to keep abreast of the latest news stories on topics of your interest. In this way you can keep abreast of breaking news stories and have fresh material to incorporate into your presentations.
However, your first port of call in finding material for your speeches and presentations is your own life. Scan your life and you are sure to find amusing anecdotes and life-defining moments. It is these stories and experiences that make you unique and, what’s more, no one can tell these stories like you can. Even if others may later tell your life story, only you can tell in the first person.
At first, it may be a little disconcerting to expose yourself and your life in this way, and perhaps revealing your foibles, but it is this which helps you to build a connection with your audience. Your audience is not listening to you to judge you. They are listening because they too have their stories but they don’t want their past to become their future. They are looking for a guiding light, for inspiration, and they will receive your message more readily if it is seen to have come from someone who isn’t perfect because this gives them hope that if you can overcome your limitations and then they too can overcome their obstacles and achieve success.
Material for your speeches is within you and all around you and, as you become consumed with the desire to become an eloquent and insightful speaker, it will reveal itself to you.
As Marcel Proust said,
“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
Nickolove Lovemore is a Life Coach and presenter. For other public speaking resources visit http://www.Mastering Presentations.com. Also, for a FREE report on public speaking send an email with your name to masteringpublicspeaking@getresponse.com
Don’t Let Stage Fright Make You A Bad Speaker
Just because you have to deal with stage fright does not mean that you have to be a bad speaker. I don’t know anyone that does not have a difficult time speaking in front of an audience to one degree or another. In fact, a healthy amount of fear while giving a speech will help you to be a better speaker. So you have a choice to make, you can either fall apart because you are afraid to speak in front of an audience or you can use your fear to help you to be the best speaker possible. Here are some typical problems that many new speakers face that can make you a bad speaker and can easily be overcome with a little practice.
Some people that have anxieties tend to take their problems to the opposite extreme. For example, if somebody is dealing with stage fright they may overcompensate by becoming overly relaxed. This will not come across as you being relaxed and poised to your audience. What it will do, however, is to make you a poor speaker. One classic example of this is that many new speakers that are nervous will overcompensate for their nervousness by leaning on the podium or becoming overly familiar with a strange audience. It is necessary to maintain your composure by standing up tall when you’re speaking and to build a relationship with your audience during the course of your presentation. Do not allow your nervousness to make you seem arrogant.
Another problem that many people have is that they let their nervousness show up by using unnatural body inflections. I once heard a talk that was given by somebody that was supposed to be experienced yet the entire time that they were speaking they were jingling their keys in their pocket. This was not only distracting but it also showed that the person was nervous and was difficult to concentrate on the information that they were trying to convey. Nervousness can also show up in over gesturing or facial tics. One of the best ways to pick up on this kind of a problem is to have somebody videotape you giving the presentation in front of a group of trusted friends. You can then watch yourself for any body movements that come across as being unnatural.
The most important thing in dealing with stage fright is that you do not allow your audience to know that you are nervous. Many speakers will feed off of the emotions of their audience and if they are able to control the situation they’re stage fright will disappear quickly after they began their presentation. This is something that is very important to remember because if you are dealing with severe stage fright you need to handle yourself correctly from the beginning in order to overcome it. Once you realize that you are in control of the situation it will be much easier for you to relax and to go through your information in a logical and comfortable manner.
For more public speaking tips to help you overcome stage fright please visit http://www.overcomestagefright.org
Public Speaking Techniques – Grabbing Audience Attention
To grab the attention of your listeners during public speaking, public-speaking techniques must always be employed. It is not easy to catch your listeners.’ interests; you need public speaking skills to do it. But the question is, how can you do it?
Mastering public speaking techniques takes time; however, it is something that is really worth for everyone. If you are a good speaker, you will be able to influence other people; you can encourage them to believe on what you are pointing to. It can not be mastered overnight.
There are lots of public-speaking techniques which you can employ to grab the attention of your listeners but not the one that seems to be talking in one-to-one conversation. You need to employ public speaking skills that get them into your talk- to make them really participate. You can be certain if your listeners are really in your speech by asking them questions, if they can really reply, with the right answer, then you can conclude that they are really participating.
Effective public-speaking techniques do not end on making them to be ‘ in to’ you speech, you will also need to make them more interested on the subject matter that you are discussing. Your public speaking skills shall always include more on personal approach, the more your speech a personal the more people can relate it and therefore more people become interested in it. Therefore, when you speak, do not just pay attention on few individuals, make it to the point that everyone is tapped.
When you are to speak in just few people, make it to be in a place like in the round table. By doing so, the feeling of ‘every one is in the circle’ dominates and every one pays attention and every one feels that he is of importance.
Also, public-speaking skills include of being sensitive of your audience feeling. You have to determine your audience feeling by simply looking at their gestures. By that, you are able to divert your strategy to revitalize the atmosphere. For instance, you know that your audience feel asleep, then you may inject or divert your strategy to bring them back and to make them refocus on your subject delivered.
Also, significantly, as part of your public speaking techniques, you have to monitor yourself. Being aware of, of you are in the right track in speaking before them. Your total personal showcase really matters including your body language. Your gesture must conform on your voice; if you sounds excited then you must also act excited.
More importantly, before you go to deliver your speech before the public, make it sure that you were able to relax before the speech. Be sure also that you have even basic public-speaking skills in you and that you have studied some public speaking techniques before you do the speaking before your viewing public. With that, surely, you’ll be able to grab their attention
Stephen C Campbell (Master NLP Practitioner) has published more information about effective speech-making and public speaking at http://www.speechmaking101.com/