TJ Walker breaks down how to build a speech that sticks: narrow your message to five core ideas, attach a story to each one, use slides with just images, practice until you love it, then test with real people and refine based on what they remember.
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So you're going to give a speech, a presentation. You've already determined what you want your audience to do. Well, I want to share with you a guaranteed five step process that will guarantee not that they'll do everything you want, but that you will have in fact communicated and you've increased the odds of getting what you want to happen from your audience. So step number one, brainstorm on every possible message you could say on this topic, thinking all along, what messages are going to motivate your audience to do what you want. Whether you're trying to make a sale, a recommendation, a budget approved, what messages are going to have the most influence on your audience to motivate them to do what you want. So that's the first step. Brainstorm on all of these message points and narrow it down down to just five. Don't be greedy. Pigs get slaughtered. Do not try to communicate a gazillion points. Narrow it down to the top five. That's your first step. The second step, come up with an interesting, relevant story to flesh out every single one of your messages. Human beings simply do not remember things. Facts, data. They need a story so they can see your message. They need to visualize it. They need to taste it, touch it, experience it. That's what a story will do. So it's not about opening your speech to be funny, not about a compelling close. It's every single message that you want people to remember. You need to package it with a story. That's step two. Step three. If you're going to use PowerPoint slides images, then you need to narrow your focus on each slide to one idea and convey that idea with a picture, with an image. Don't use text. Let me say that again. Don't use text. Don't use text. Don't use text in a PowerPoint slide that you're projecting. If you want to give people a lot of text, fine, email it, hand it out, but don't project the text. Project one image at a time. That is what will increase the odds that your audience actually remembers your message. That's step three. Now for step four. You need to practice. Oh, you're not going to like this. Tough. Guess what? Your audience doesn't care what you like. You've got to practice your speech on video. Watch it, figure out what do you like, what do you not like. If you find your speech boring, guess what it is. The solution isn't to not look at it. The solution is to change your speech until it's interesting. Keep practicing. Keep watching on video. Keep doing it again and again and again until you love your speech. That is step four. Now the final step. Step five. This is the advanced step. Few people do it. It's not hard. People are just too lazy to do it. The fifth step is practice your speech in front of one or two people. Or take that video of your best speech and email it to a couple of people and then ask them, what do they remember? If they remember your messages, guess what? You've succeeded. If they remember your images, guess what they work. But if they just tell you, oh, great job, good speech, nice, smooth, professional delivery, that means you failed. You've got to go back to the drawing board. Keep practicing until your test audience can tell you exactly the messages that are most important to you. When you've done that, you have done everything in your power to make sure your speech is a success, that you will communicate, and that you will influence the audience. TJ I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. For more regular tips daily, please like my Facebook page, it's facebook.com tjwalkerinteractive.
