Writing Professional Speeches - Some Thoughts
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By :
Steve Wilson
Submitted
2007-11-13 03:43:58 |
The ability to write and deliver a good speech can help further your business interests and can do much to enhance your business image. You will have the opportunity to state your ideas convincingly, and if you strike the right chord with your audience, you may find that there are many new business opportunities coming your way.
What is the Occasion?
There are many occasions on which giving a speech is appropriate, especially if you belong to the corporate world. You may be addressing a sales team, at a sales conference, or, perhaps, you are playing a key role at a new product launch. These are good occasions when you can sound off, give a pep talk or advertise the benefits of your product, or service. If you are, for example, a management consultant, there are likely to be many people waiting to hear “words of wisdom” from an expert. Whatever the occasion, there is a plethora of inspirational quotes, motivational sayings, and information to be disseminated, on the Internet, depending on the people who are gathered to listen to your speech.
Getting Started
1) Make a rough estimate of how long your speech should take to deliver. Even if there is no time limit, the ability of people to listen, and absorb what you are saying, will be limited. So, try to keep your speech brief, yet informative and compelling.
2) Start with an introduction about yourself, what the objective of your speech is, and, perhaps how long you are going to take. You may want to include a joke, anecdote or interesting fact to grab the audience's attention.
3) Write your speech from the audience’s perspective. People tend to “switch off” if they cannot relate to what you are saying, or if the content of your speech is too wordy and involved. Avoid jargon and long rambling sentences.
4) Organize your speech so you cover three to seven main points and ensure that they are covered in a logical sequence. If you want to emphasise one, or two of key points, use repetition to reinforce your ideas. Express ideas in a different way, so that the audience does not become bored.
5) Corroborate your ideas with some statistics, anecdotes or examples. These will go down well with the audience besides lending credibility to what you’re in effect saying.
6) Give a call to action, and spell out how your audience can attain their objectives by following the course you have outlined.
7) Weave together the different points you have made, so the audience is able to see the “big picture”. Summarise your points quickly, and reiterate your main purpose, so that you leave a lasting impression on the audience.
Conclusion
You too can write a compelling speech even if you have never attempted one before. All it takes is to be clear about the message you want to convey, to keep the audience’s perspective in mind throughout, and to narrate your own experiences in a telling manner, so that the speech, as a whole, carries weight with your audience. List the main points that you wish to include, and add some relevant humour, anecdotes and inspirational quotes, to start off with a “bang”, and conclude with a flourish. |
Author Resource:-
Steve Wilson is an independent researcher and author on financial and business matters.
See additional information on Professional Writing Skills
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