Everyone knows how to talk. But not everyone can weave the words in a way that guarantees 100% attention. We get the difference, and that’s why, in a population of billions, we only have a handful of world-recognized orators revered everywhere.
What makes them so unique? What makes their speeches so enthralling that they transcend geography, gender, and race and connect us all?
Precisely, what we intend to find out in the article. These tips will help you create an interesting and captivating speech for your audience that will keep them hooked until the end.
What Makes a Speech Boring?
Before finding what is interesting, let’s explore the other side and learn how you can mess it up.
- You have ruined the introduction. It could be in ways like taking a lot of time introducing yourself, not getting to the point, or starting with your elaborated gratitude list right in the start (should be done in the end).
- Your speech is too long.
- Your message is too complicated for the audience to understand.
- It fell prey to a lack of structure. You couldn’t show the proper connection between your points.
- Your speech didn’t have a satisfactory ending. Either you rushed through it (lack of time) or didn’t take time to draft a proper CTA or ending.
- There is nothing unique or catchy in your speech. People might listen to the entire thing but won’t remember much after it’s finished.
- You haven’t introduced elements like storytelling, anecdotes, etc., in your speech. The techniques help make complex information digestible and keep people hooked.
How to Make Your Speech Interesting and Impactful?
Now that we know what we should avoid, let’s delve into sure-shot techniques to create an enthralling speech like that of our favorite orators.
1. Free-write and Research
Before you sit down to draft your speech, be advised to do the following.
- Free-write whatever and as much as you know on your topic.
- Filter the material to find strong, relevant, and engaging information.
- Figure out your supporting points and information that back your main point and overall idea.
- Research and find credible data and statistics that support your arguments and claims.
2. Build a Solid Introduction
The initial few minutes will decide the fate of your speech for the most part. Give people a solid reason to listen to you. Let people know your goal and what they will learn (preview the main parts, approach, etc).
You can design an effective introduction in the following ways.
- You can start with an anecdote or story.
- Piggyback on another speaker’s comment or theme.
- Explain how the topic is important for people or how you are connected to it.
- State an amusing fact or ask something provocative.
- Relate to something recent.
- Refer to a known character or scene.
- Bring to everyone’s notice something relevant about the setting or the audience.
3. Align Your Content With Your Audience
Have a brief understanding of your listeners’ knowledge level, inclinations, and experiences. It will help you design your speech a little around them.
What you can do is-
- Describe unfamiliar terms and jargon.
- Take the help of concrete, relevant examples to explain concepts. You can also do that with analogies, metaphors, and stories.
- Don’t leave statistics as just vague numbers. Use graphics to simplify them. Explain it to the audience in an easy-to-understand manner, comparing and stating the meaning of those numbers.
- Involve people in the speech. Refer to their experiences and yours whenever appropriate.
- If possible, try doing a meet and greet before the presentation. Meet and greet random people from the audience. That way, you will have friendly faces to refer to based on the knowledge shared prior.
- Evoke emotional engagement from people to make your speech truly memorable. Be open, transparent, and vulnerable – share your dreams, failures, fears, aspirations, etc.
4. Guide People into the Speech
By doing that, you will make the speech easier to understand for people. Also, you can offer people a tangible take-home resource like a resource guide to help them assimilate the information better.
- Previewing will help people understand how the speech will move forward. It will give them an idea about what’s coming next in the speech. For example, you can say, “Now I will explain how we arrived at this conclusion,” and then compare the findings.
- Summaries provide a gist of everything important in the speech. All the more helpful when you have covered a string of supporting details or a fairly lengthy discussion of something.
- Signposts are words and phrases that will let people know where they are in the speech and flag things of importance. For example, you can use sentences like “this is an important issue,” “this is the 2nd most essential aspect of the speech,” etc.
- Transitions are critical to ensure a smooth flow during the speech. It will ensure that no one gets left behind when you move from one part of the speech to the next. It helps tie elements to each other and to your speech and tell people you are moving on. You can use body language, facial gestures, and voice to signal transitions.
5. Speak Clearly
Your spoken words should be clear and loud enough for everyone to hear.
- Avoid filler words or vague references. People will have no option but to look in the text to figure out the words. Also, cut everything from your speech that’s redundant and doesn’t add much value to the overall speech. It will refine your speech and add a greater impact.
- Avoid constructions that require people to remember the earlier parts of your speech to understand the reference later. For instance, words like respectively, former, and latter. Testing them on parts they have listened to only once can confuse them.
6. Your Conclusion Should Be Definite and Effective
A lot of times, presenters miss out on presenting a strong conclusion, which is a mistake. Remember, the end of your presentation should be as impactful as its introduction.
- Reiterate the key points of your speech, the purpose, and the message you want your audience to take home.
- Give people a definite closure and finality. You can also try some of the following ways at the end of your speech-
- End with the same anecdote, question, quote, or remark you said at the beginning, with a twist.
- Define a challenging situation.
- Describe the future.
- Restate your findings and conclusion. However, don’t introduce any new argument or evidence at this time.
7. Practice and Practice
Practice your speech till it becomes your second nature. There is no hard and fast rule regarding how many times you should do it. There are some TED speakers who have reported practicing their speech as many as 200 times, top to bottom. You get the idea!
- Practice in front of the mirror.
- You can record yourself to review the mannerisms and gestures when you talk.
- Take help from peers, experts, and colleagues for their valuable feedback.
- Make simple note cards with references (bullet points) if you have a lot of data and statistics to present. However, it should be as smooth as a single and quick glance to remember the points.
Summing It Up
Thorough research, a genuine connection to the topic, and decent speaking skills are a great concoction to deliver a powerful speech.
Add to the mix certain other aspects like – varying cadence (the rhythm of your delivery), visual aids (comic caricatures, videos, presentation templates), effective employment of language, props, impromptu activities, humor, powerful opening and ending, etc., and you can very well start your journey towards being a favored orator.
We hope the above tips will enable you to deliver a memorable speech from start to finish.
