Crafting Compelling Speeches

Foreign. Today's three questions are grouped into a general category called Crafting Compelling Speeches. The first question very good question. And here it comes. How do you create a speech that resonates with a diverse audience? This is a very important question. It is likely that in your speaking career there will be times where you are asked to give a speech that is like, targeted really well at a percentage of the audience, but maybe not targeted so well to another segment of the audience. Imagine for a moment that you are invited to speak at a conference on business and entrepreneurship, but you are there specifically, say, to speak to women entrepreneurs. Well, immediately you're in a situation where the men in the audience might not be all that interested in this topic. And so what you want to do is be able to craft and deliver a speech so compelling that even if the topic isn't a direct match, people want to stay in the room. And I can tell you right now the three main keys to making that happen. One, make a promise at the beginning of the speech that will appeal to everybody. Make a promise that makes sure that everybody in the room feels like they're in the right place at the right time. Then make sure that you're using good voice modulation, making yourself sound interesting, uses pauses and silences and talking quietly when you want to sink something in and raising the intention and the energy so that it feels very compelling. And then of course, here's a big part of it. Use stories. Well told stories are relevant even if the conversation or the topic isn't. If you are telling a phenomenal story about something that really happened and has a poignant lesson in it, let, let's say in the realm of women, leadership and entrepreneurship, if that story is good, if it's well told, it won't matter if they're men or women listening to it because you are using something we call broad spectrum appeal. Next question. What are the compelling components of an opening and closing of a talk? Again, a great question. One of the things that's really important to remember is that as much as a speaker might have some nervousness about beginning their presentation, the real nervousness is in the audience, especially if you're not really well known. So if you're an unknown speaker, the audience is sitting there wondering, should I stay or should I go? Should I stay or should I go? You have to know that they're the ones that are nervous that you're about to steal an hour of their life. So you have to think about that in terms of your opening. That means that when you come out, you Want to open with something we call command authority. Your posture should be solid, your facial expression should be confident, and then you should jump in with a confident delivery. One of the very best things you can do at the beginning of a presentation is to make what we call a big fat claim, and that is to say a promise about what they're going to get. What I'm about to do is share with you a topic that will be really intriguing and interesting, and you'll probably find yourself talking about it around the water cooler at the office next week, something like that. Or you could say, I'm going to share with you strategies that are definitely going to improve your investment portfolio. You make a promise that has a tangible impact. It makes them feel like, yes, I'm in the right place. And it can let their nervousness go away because they've got interest. Now we want to talk about how do you make sure you land well? Well, you want to make sure you land well by knowing how you're going to land. Now, what happens with a lot of speakers is they just don't know how they're going to land. They kind of. They know how they're going to start, and they know how they're going to deliver their talk, but then at the end, they find themselves meandering around almost like they just can't find the airport. They don't know where to put this thing down. And. And so one of the most valuable things you can do is to develop a flight plan that includes the landing that you know exactly what you're going to end with. Some people like to end with a particular story that wraps it all up and puts it all together. Other people like to end with, like, say, a really poignant poem or a quote that really wraps it all up as well. Sometimes you want to end with a strong call to action. If you want them to vote for you, tell them to vote for you. If you're trying to raise money, tell them how to make that contribution. If you're trying to sell something, make it really clear to them when they can sign up, how they buy it and what happens after they buy. The stronger your call to action, and the clearer it is, the more likely they're going to take action. So really knowing your start and knowing your finish, that's going to make the whole job a whole lot easier. Another very common question, and it has everything to do with crafting compelling speeches. And it's this. How can you integrate great storytelling into your speech? Well, what I want to suggest to you is that you shouldn't even think of it that way. It's not a matter of integrating storytelling in your speech. It's that your speech should be storytelling that you should be looking at. How to integrate the information among the Stories At Speaker Nation, we talk often about this idea that emotions are both the glue that causes memories to stick and also the key that trigger memories to release. So, in other words, if you tell a really compelling story that makes people think and makes people laugh and makes people realize and makes people cry and makes people just contemplate in any kind of deep way, makes them emotionally respond, there's a really good chance that they're going to remember you and your story for years to come. Equally. Equally. You might find that as you're telling a story, if you tell it really well and you evoke a lot of emotional response, people will walk up to you and go, oh my God, you just brought back all these memories of this time I was with my grandfather. Wow. The emotional state you're triggering in them are bringing up memories for them, which means you're having an impact. So what you want to recognize is that no lecture creates an emotional response in an audience. I mean, that's not totally true. If the audience is really, really curious about a given topic, they have what we would call a cognitive vacuum, and they're really thirsty for the information. Okay, yes, then a lecture might be particularly interesting for them. But even then, even then, a story about those principles will be far, far more powerful than a lecture alone. All of these things integrated together can really help you to create compelling, compelling speeches. As always, I love answering your questions. Keep sending them in and make sure that you share our podcast with everybody that you know that needs to be heard. You can share it@www.unforgettable.com. it's Sam.