How do you build your dream home? You begin with identifying your basic requirements. The number of halls, kitchens, bedrooms and your garden with few tall palm trees surrounding your swimming pool. After daydreaming for some time, you are bound to face reality. You have a limited budget. Welcome to speech writing! Building your speech is just like building your dream home. You need to plan it in view of your allotted time and your audience’s needs and requirements.
Your Key Message. What is your main message? Once you identify it, your whole speech should support delivering this message to your audience. This will be your reference point when it comes to adding or removing supporting materials. Your message should be simple and focused. Here are three questions for you: Is your message Tweetable? Is your message digestible? Is your message repeatable? If it is not, refine it further to make it clearer. Let us assume that our main message is: A heathy mind is in a healthy body.
Your Supporting Materials. As the name suggests, what supporting materials or points you could use to support delivering your key message? These could be stories, case studies, surveys’ results or your own observations and experiences. For our key message: A healthy mind is in a healthy body. My main task would be talking about how to have a healthy mind by having a healthy body. To accomplish this, I will speak about two main points. First, the importance of nutrition. And second, the importance of exercise. Each of these could be dissected further but I should always consider my main constraint: Time.
Your Transitions. This is the most ignored aspect of speech writing. How do you move from one point to another in a smooth and connected manner to hold the audience’s attention? You should tease your audience about what is coming next. They should be eager to listen to what you have to say next. This is your homework. Listen to radio channels of your choice and see how they tease the listeners by having teasers about their upcoming stories. Think about teasing and revealing your material?
Your Q & A. Your Q & A is one measure on how well your speech went. When the audience is engaged in this session, it is a sign of success. Again, do not get carried away, you should stick to your allotted time and make way for your closing remarks. Indicate to the audience how much time is available for the session and let them know when you are taking the last question to close your speech. As a courtesy, tell them that you will be around after the speech to answer any further questions.
Your Introduction. As suggested in an earlier article, start with a bang not a whisper. Grab the audience’s attention at once by asking a question, a startling statistic or a story. Now, after having decided on your supporting materials to support your key message, think carefully about your introduction. Experiment with few versions of it and try to link it to your first point in the speech. Test it for the transition effectiveness and decide on your best version to use. To continue with our example, you may say: Complete this phrase, a healthy mind is in a healthy … And then, continue your introduction.
Your Conclusion. After you have laid out your key message, supported it with your carefully chosen supporting materials, and you handled your Q & A Session like a maestro, it time to close to drive your key message home to prompt the desired action. It could be this: A healthy mind is in a healthy body. Yes, you know about it. But what are you doing about it? According to a London Business School study, living more than 100 years will be the new normal. You may live to 100, but will your life be normal. Make the right choices today. Eat well, exercise and enjoy the rest of your life.
Building your speech is just like building your dream home. Take the time to plan your speech structure. Think about your key message, supporting materials, transitions, handling the Q & A session, the introduction and the closing. When you do this, you will have a solid speech that will surely achieve its objectives to inspire your audience to take the required action.