how to write a speech for someone you don't know

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Professional Eulogy Writing

Eulogy writing guide, funeral speeches for a work colleague, tribute speech to dad from daughter, funeral speech writing advice, how to write a eulogy for someone you dont know.

• February 18, 2024

Table of Contents

Gather information about the deceased

An example eulogy for someone you didn't know, focus on the impact they had on the lives of those who knew them, organise the information into a coherent structure, include encouraging and comforting words to the grieving family and friends, practice your speech, frequently asked questions.

Losing someone we love is difficult, but eulogising someone you didn't know can be even more challenging. Writing a eulogy for someone you didn't know comes with a sense of responsibility and can feel daunting. Yet, it's important to find the right words to express your heartfelt respect and honour their memory in a meaningful way.

In this article, we will guide you through the process of creating a thoughtful, genuine eulogy for someone you didn't necessarily have a personal relationship with. By following these steps and learning how to listen to the stories of those who knew the deceased best, you can craft a eulogy that pays tribute to their life and achievements.

• Speak to family members and friends who knew the person well. Ask them for stories, anecdotes, and any defining moments they remember that would help shape your speech.
• Learn about the person's background, including their occupation, achievements, hobbies, interests, and any organisations or groups they participated in.
• Talk to friends, family, and co-workers about how the deceased affected their lives and the memories they will cherish.
• Highlight any lasting impacts they had on their community, workplace, or other spheres of life.
• Create an outline that includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. This will help to keep your eulogy organised and easy to follow.
• In the introduction, briefly mention their name and relationship to the audience, and explain your intent to honour their life and legacy.
• In the body, share the stories and insights you've gathered in a way that captures their unique personality and the positive aspects of their life.
• Conclude by expressing your hope that the deceased's memory will live on in the hearts and minds of those who knew them and encouraging others to share their stories as well.
• Offer sympathy and support to the family during this difficult time.
• Emphasise the strength and unity of the community in supporting one another through grief.
• Give yourself ample time to keep refining your eulogy and practice so you feel confident and comfortable when delivering it.
• Rehearse in front of someone who is familiar with the deceased and can offer constructive feedback.

How To Write A Eulogy For Someone You Dont Know Example:

Introduction

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Good afternoon. My name is [Your Name], and although I did not have the privilege of knowing [Deceased's Name] personally, I am honoured to be here today to share a few words in memory of their life, achievements, and the lasting impact they had on those who knew and loved them.

[Deceased's Name] was a talented musician, and during their time with us, they brought joy and inspiration to the lives of those around them. Many people here today have shared stories of their kindness, warmth, and willingness to support anyone who had the good fortune of knowing them.

In speaking with family, friends and coworkers, a recurring theme emerges – that [Deceased's Name] was a tireless worker who dedicated their time, energy, and passion towards creating a better community for everyone. Their involvement with local charities, school events, and volunteering their expertise whenever needed speaks volumes about their character.

As we remember [Deceased's Name] today, it's important to honour the legacy they've left behind and to find comfort in the knowledge that our lives have been enriched by their presence. Let us all keep the memory of [Deceased's Name] alive and well, by sharing our own stories and experiences. In this way, their spirit will continue to touch our hearts and inspire us to live our lives with passion, kindness, and empathy.

What is a eulogy?

A eulogy is a speech given at a funeral service in honor of the deceased. It typically includes fond memories, personal stories, and an acknowledgment of the person's life and legacy.

Why might someone be asked to write a eulogy for a person they didn't know well?

Occasionally, individuals are asked to deliver a eulogy due to their role, family connections, or because there might not be anyone else who can perform the eulogy. In such cases, it is still possible to write a respectful and heartfelt tribute.

Where do I start when writing a eulogy for someone I didn't know?

Start by gathering information from friends, family, colleagues, and any written obituaries or tributes. Listen to their stories and try to form a picture of the person’s character and life.

How can I reflect the person's character in the eulogy if I didn't know them?

Based on the information you collect, look for themes or recurring qualities that are mentioned about the person. Use these insights to reflect the individual's character in the eulogy.

What kind of information is appropriate to include in a eulogy?

Information on the person’s family, career, hobbies, accomplishments, and impact on others is suitable. However, it's important to keep it respectful and avoid sensitive or controversial subjects.

How long should a eulogy be?

A eulogy typically lasts between three to five minutes, but it might be shorter or longer depending on the funeral arrangements and the number of other speakers.

What tone should I aim for in a eulogy?

The tone of a eulogy should be respectful and sincere. While it's okay to include light humor if appropriate, the overall tone should honor the individual's memory.

Is it alright to share anecdotes from others in the eulogy?

Yes, sharing anecdotes and memories from others can add personal touches to the eulogy and help portray the individual through the eyes of those who knew them.

How can I handle the emotional aspect of giving a eulogy?

Practice the eulogy multiple times to become more comfortable with the content. It's also okay to show emotion during the speech; just have tissues handy and consider having a backup person who can take over if needed.

Can I include a poem or a quote in the eulogy?

Yes, including a poem, quote, or religious text that reflects the person's beliefs or life philosophy can be a beautiful addition to the eulogy.

Should I talk about the cause of death in the eulogy?

Generally, the cause of death is not focused on in a eulogy. The emphasis should be on celebrating the person’s life and legacy.

What if I say something incorrect about the person during the eulogy?

If you inadvertently make a factual error, it is okay to correct it later on or apologize to the family privately. People understand that writing a eulogy for someone you didn’t know well is challenging.

How can I ensure that the eulogy is well-received?

Speak from the heart, practice your delivery, and make sure to check the information you gather from others for accuracy. Staying genuine and respectful is key.

Is it necessary to meet with the family of the deceased?

While not always necessary, meeting with the family can be very helpful for gathering personal insights and making the eulogy more heartfelt and personal.

How do I handle conflicting information about the person?

If you encounter conflicting stories or descriptions, try to find a common thread or stick to universally agreed upon facts and positive attributes.

Can I use humor in a eulogy for someone I didn’t know?

Use discretion with humor. If a funny anecdote is shared by friends or family and is in good taste, it might be appropriate to include, but always err on the side of respect.

What should I do if I become too overwhelmed to continue while speaking?

If you are overcome with emotion, take a moment to compose yourself. It’s also advisable to have a backup person ready to step in if you are unable to continue.

How do I conclude a eulogy?

Conclude the eulogy with words of comfort, a final tribute to the person's life, or a message of hope or gratitude. Encourage the attendees to remember the positive impact of the deceased.

Is it acceptable to decline the request to give a eulogy?

Yes, if you do not feel comfortable writing a eulogy for someone you didn't know, it is perfectly acceptable to politely decline the request.

How can I personalize a eulogy if I had no personal relationship with the deceased?

Personalize the eulogy by focusing on the individual's contributions, how they were perceived by others, and the legacy they leave behind. Echoing the sentiments of those who knew them can add a personal touch.

What resources can help with writing a eulogy?

Consider using books on eulogies, online templates, and quotes from literature or religious texts. You may also consult a religious leader or a professional eulogist for guidance.

How should I prepare for delivering the eulogy on the day of the funeral?

Be well-rested and dressed appropriately for the occasion. Bring a printed copy of the eulogy, a backup on your phone or another device, and water. Arrive early to familiarize yourself with the venue.

Writing a eulogy for someone you didn't know is a challenging task, but by taking the time to gather information and listen to the stories and insights of those who knew them best, you can create a heartfelt and genuine tribute. Though you didn't know the person directly, your words can offer comfort to the grieving family and friends and honour the legacy of the deceased. Take comfort in the fact that your dedication and effort will be appreciated by all. If you found this guide helpful and would like to share or explore other eulogy writing resources, be sure to check out Eulogy Assistant .

Looking For Examples? Here Are Some of The Best Eulogies

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How to write a speech that your audience remembers

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Whether in a work meeting or at an investor panel, you might give a speech at some point. And no matter how excited you are about the opportunity, the experience can be nerve-wracking . 

But feeling butterflies doesn’t mean you can’t give a great speech. With the proper preparation and a clear outline, apprehensive public speakers and natural wordsmiths alike can write and present a compelling message. Here’s how to write a good speech you’ll be proud to deliver.

What is good speech writing?

Good speech writing is the art of crafting words and ideas into a compelling, coherent, and memorable message that resonates with the audience. Here are some key elements of great speech writing:

• It begins with clearly understanding the speech's purpose and the audience it seeks to engage. 
• A well-written speech clearly conveys its central message, ensuring that the audience understands and retains the key points. 
• It is structured thoughtfully, with a captivating opening, a well-organized body, and a conclusion that reinforces the main message. 
• Good speech writing embraces the power of engaging content, weaving in stories, examples, and relatable anecdotes to connect with the audience on both intellectual and emotional levels. 

Ultimately, it is the combination of these elements, along with the authenticity and delivery of the speaker , that transforms words on a page into a powerful and impactful spoken narrative.

What makes a good speech?

A great speech includes several key qualities, but three fundamental elements make a speech truly effective:

Clarity and purpose

Remembering the audience, cohesive structure.

While other important factors make a speech a home run, these three elements are essential for writing an effective speech.

The main elements of a good speech

The main elements of a speech typically include:

• Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your speech and grabs the audience's attention. It should include a hook or attention-grabbing opening, introduce the topic, and provide an overview of what will be covered.
• Opening/captivating statement: This is a strong statement that immediately engages the audience and creates curiosity about the speech topics.
• Thesis statement/central idea: The thesis statement or central idea is a concise statement that summarizes the main point or argument of your speech. It serves as a roadmap for the audience to understand what your speech is about.
• Body: The body of the speech is where you elaborate on your main points or arguments. Each point is typically supported by evidence, examples, statistics, or anecdotes. The body should be organized logically and coherently, with smooth transitions between the main points.
• Supporting evidence: This includes facts, data, research findings, expert opinions, or personal stories that support and strengthen your main points. Well-chosen and credible evidence enhances the persuasive power of your speech.
• Transitions: Transitions are phrases or statements that connect different parts of your speech, guiding the audience from one idea to the next. Effective transitions signal the shifts in topics or ideas and help maintain a smooth flow throughout the speech.
• Counterarguments and rebuttals (if applicable): If your speech involves addressing opposing viewpoints or counterarguments, you should acknowledge and address them. Presenting counterarguments makes your speech more persuasive and demonstrates critical thinking.
• Conclusion: The conclusion is the final part of your speech and should bring your message to a satisfying close. Summarize your main points, restate your thesis statement, and leave the audience with a memorable closing thought or call to action.
• Closing statement: This is the final statement that leaves a lasting impression and reinforces the main message of your speech. It can be a call to action, a thought-provoking question, a powerful quote, or a memorable anecdote.
• Delivery and presentation: How you deliver your speech is also an essential element to consider. Pay attention to your tone, body language, eye contact , voice modulation, and timing. Practice and rehearse your speech, and try using the 7-38-55 rule to ensure confident and effective delivery.

While the order and emphasis of these elements may vary depending on the type of speech and audience, these elements provide a framework for organizing and delivering a successful speech.

How to structure a good speech

You know what message you want to transmit, who you’re delivering it to, and even how you want to say it. But you need to know how to start, develop, and close a speech before writing it. 

Think of a speech like an essay. It should have an introduction, conclusion, and body sections in between. This places ideas in a logical order that the audience can better understand and follow them. Learning how to make a speech with an outline gives your storytelling the scaffolding it needs to get its point across.

Here’s a general speech structure to guide your writing process:

• Explanation 1
• Explanation 2
• Explanation 3

How to write a compelling speech opener

Some research shows that engaged audiences pay attention for only 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Other estimates are even lower, citing that people stop listening intently in fewer than 10 minutes . If you make a good first impression at the beginning of your speech, you have a better chance of interesting your audience through the middle when attention spans fade. 

Implementing the INTRO model can help grab and keep your audience’s attention as soon as you start speaking. This acronym stands for interest, need, timing, roadmap, and objectives, and it represents the key points you should hit in an opening. 

Here’s what to include for each of these points: 

• Interest : Introduce yourself or your topic concisely and speak with confidence . Write a compelling opening statement using relevant data or an anecdote that the audience can relate to.
• Needs : The audience is listening to you because they have something to learn. If you’re pitching a new app idea to a panel of investors, those potential partners want to discover more about your product and what they can earn from it. Read the room and gently remind them of the purpose of your speech. 
• Timing : When appropriate, let your audience know how long you’ll speak. This lets listeners set expectations and keep tabs on their own attention span. If a weary audience member knows you’ll talk for 40 minutes, they can better manage their energy as that time goes on. 
• Routemap : Give a brief overview of the three main points you’ll cover in your speech. If an audience member’s attention starts to drop off and they miss a few sentences, they can more easily get their bearings if they know the general outline of the presentation.
• Objectives : Tell the audience what you hope to achieve, encouraging them to listen to the end for the payout. 

Writing the middle of a speech

The body of your speech is the most information-dense section. Facts, visual aids, PowerPoints — all this information meets an audience with a waning attention span. Sticking to the speech structure gives your message focus and keeps you from going off track, making everything you say as useful as possible.

Limit the middle of your speech to three points, and support them with no more than three explanations. Following this model organizes your thoughts and prevents you from offering more information than the audience can retain. 

Using this section of the speech to make your presentation interactive can add interest and engage your audience. Try including a video or demonstration to break the monotony. A quick poll or survey also keeps the audience on their toes. 

Wrapping the speech up

To you, restating your points at the end can feel repetitive and dull. You’ve practiced countless times and heard it all before. But repetition aids memory and learning , helping your audience retain what you’ve told them. Use your speech’s conclusion to summarize the main points with a few short sentences.

Try to end on a memorable note, like posing a motivational quote or a thoughtful question the audience can contemplate once they leave. In proposal or pitch-style speeches, consider landing on a call to action (CTA) that invites your audience to take the next step.

How to write a good speech

If public speaking gives you the jitters, you’re not alone. Roughly 80% of the population feels nervous before giving a speech, and another 10% percent experiences intense anxiety and sometimes even panic. 

The fear of failure can cause procrastination and can cause you to put off your speechwriting process until the last minute. Finding the right words takes time and preparation, and if you’re already feeling nervous, starting from a blank page might seem even harder.

But putting in the effort despite your stress is worth it. Presenting a speech you worked hard on fosters authenticity and connects you to the subject matter, which can help your audience understand your points better. Human connection is all about honesty and vulnerability, and if you want to connect to the people you’re speaking to, they should see that in you.

1. Identify your objectives and target audience

Before diving into the writing process, find healthy coping strategies to help you stop worrying . Then you can define your speech’s purpose, think about your target audience, and start identifying your objectives. Here are some questions to ask yourself and ground your thinking : 

• What purpose do I want my speech to achieve? 
• What would it mean to me if I achieved the speech’s purpose?
• What audience am I writing for? 
• What do I know about my audience? 
• What values do I want to transmit? 
• If the audience remembers one take-home message, what should it be? 
• What do I want my audience to feel, think, or do after I finish speaking? 
• What parts of my message could be confusing and require further explanation?

2. Know your audience

Understanding your audience is crucial for tailoring your speech effectively. Consider the demographics of your audience, their interests, and their expectations. For instance, if you're addressing a group of healthcare professionals, you'll want to use medical terminology and data that resonate with them. Conversely, if your audience is a group of young students, you'd adjust your content to be more relatable to their experiences and interests. 

3. Choose a clear message

Your message should be the central idea that you want your audience to take away from your speech. Let's say you're giving a speech on climate change. Your clear message might be something like, "Individual actions can make a significant impact on mitigating climate change." Throughout your speech, all your points and examples should support this central message, reinforcing it for your audience.

4. Structure your speech

Organizing your speech properly keeps your audience engaged and helps them follow your ideas. The introduction should grab your audience's attention and introduce the topic. For example, if you're discussing space exploration, you could start with a fascinating fact about a recent space mission. In the body, you'd present your main points logically, such as the history of space exploration, its scientific significance, and future prospects. Finally, in the conclusion, you'd summarize your key points and reiterate the importance of space exploration in advancing human knowledge.

5. Use engaging content for clarity

Engaging content includes stories, anecdotes, statistics, and examples that illustrate your main points. For instance, if you're giving a speech about the importance of reading, you might share a personal story about how a particular book changed your perspective. You could also include statistics on the benefits of reading, such as improved cognitive abilities and empathy.

6. Maintain clarity and simplicity

It's essential to communicate your ideas clearly. Avoid using overly technical jargon or complex language that might confuse your audience. For example, if you're discussing a medical breakthrough with a non-medical audience, explain complex terms in simple, understandable language.

7. Practice and rehearse

Practice is key to delivering a great speech. Rehearse multiple times to refine your delivery, timing, and tone. Consider using a mirror or recording yourself to observe your body language and gestures. For instance, if you're giving a motivational speech, practice your gestures and expressions to convey enthusiasm and confidence.

8. Consider nonverbal communication

Your body language, tone of voice, and gestures should align with your message . If you're delivering a speech on leadership, maintain strong eye contact to convey authority and connection with your audience. A steady pace and varied tone can also enhance your speech's impact.

9. Engage your audience

Engaging your audience keeps them interested and attentive. Encourage interaction by asking thought-provoking questions or sharing relatable anecdotes. If you're giving a speech on teamwork, ask the audience to recall a time when teamwork led to a successful outcome, fostering engagement and connection.

10. Prepare for Q&A

Anticipate potential questions or objections your audience might have and prepare concise, well-informed responses. If you're delivering a speech on a controversial topic, such as healthcare reform, be ready to address common concerns, like the impact on healthcare costs or access to services, during the Q&A session.

By following these steps and incorporating examples that align with your specific speech topic and purpose, you can craft and deliver a compelling and impactful speech that resonates with your audience.

Tools for writing a great speech

There are several helpful tools available for speechwriting, both technological and communication-related. Here are a few examples:

• Word processing software: Tools like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or other word processors provide a user-friendly environment for writing and editing speeches. They offer features like spell-checking, grammar correction, formatting options, and easy revision tracking.
• Presentation software: Software such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides is useful when creating visual aids to accompany your speech. These tools allow you to create engaging slideshows with text, images, charts, and videos to enhance your presentation.
• Speechwriting Templates: Online platforms or software offer pre-designed templates specifically for speechwriting. These templates provide guidance on structuring your speech and may include prompts for different sections like introductions, main points, and conclusions.
• Rhetorical devices and figures of speech: Rhetorical tools such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, and parallelism can add impact and persuasion to your speech. Resources like books, websites, or academic papers detailing various rhetorical devices can help you incorporate them effectively.
• Speechwriting apps: Mobile apps designed specifically for speechwriting can be helpful in organizing your thoughts, creating outlines, and composing a speech. These apps often provide features like voice recording, note-taking, and virtual prompts to keep you on track.
• Grammar and style checkers: Online tools or plugins like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor help improve the clarity and readability of your speech by checking for grammar, spelling, and style errors. They provide suggestions for sentence structure, word choice, and overall tone.
• Thesaurus and dictionary: Online or offline resources such as thesauruses and dictionaries help expand your vocabulary and find alternative words or phrases to express your ideas more effectively. They can also clarify meanings or provide context for unfamiliar terms.
• Online speechwriting communities: Joining online forums or communities focused on speechwriting can be beneficial for getting feedback, sharing ideas, and learning from experienced speechwriters. It's an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and improve your public speaking skills through collaboration.

Remember, while these tools can assist in the speechwriting process, it's essential to use them thoughtfully and adapt them to your specific needs and style. The most important aspect of speechwriting remains the creativity, authenticity, and connection with your audience that you bring to your speech.

5 tips for writing a speech

Behind every great speech is an excellent idea and a speaker who refined it. But a successful speech is about more than the initial words on the page, and there are a few more things you can do to help it land.

Here are five more tips for writing and practicing your speech:

1. Structure first, write second

If you start the writing process before organizing your thoughts, you may have to re-order, cut, and scrap the sentences you worked hard on. Save yourself some time by using a speech structure, like the one above, to order your talking points first. This can also help you identify unclear points or moments that disrupt your flow.

2. Do your homework

Data strengthens your argument with a scientific edge. Research your topic with an eye for attention-grabbing statistics, or look for findings you can use to support each point. If you’re pitching a product or service, pull information from company metrics that demonstrate past or potential successes. 

Audience members will likely have questions, so learn all talking points inside and out. If you tell investors that your product will provide 12% returns, for example, come prepared with projections that support that statement.

3. Sound like yourself

Memorable speakers have distinct voices. Think of Martin Luther King Jr’s urgent, inspiring timbre or Oprah’s empathetic, personal tone . Establish your voice — one that aligns with your personality and values — and stick with it. If you’re a motivational speaker, keep your tone upbeat to inspire your audience . If you’re the CEO of a startup, try sounding assured but approachable. 

4. Practice

As you practice a speech, you become more confident , gain a better handle on the material, and learn the outline so well that unexpected questions are less likely to trip you up. Practice in front of a colleague or friend for honest feedback about what you could change, and speak in front of the mirror to tweak your nonverbal communication and body language .

5. Remember to breathe

When you’re stressed, you breathe more rapidly . It can be challenging to talk normally when you can’t regulate your breath. Before your presentation, try some mindful breathing exercises so that when the day comes, you already have strategies that will calm you down and remain present . This can also help you control your voice and avoid speaking too quickly.

How to ghostwrite a great speech for someone else

Ghostwriting a speech requires a unique set of skills, as you're essentially writing a piece that will be delivered by someone else. Here are some tips on how to effectively ghostwrite a speech:

• Understand the speaker's voice and style : Begin by thoroughly understanding the speaker's personality, speaking style, and preferences. This includes their tone, humor, and any personal anecdotes they may want to include.
• Interview the speaker : Have a detailed conversation with the speaker to gather information about their speech's purpose, target audience, key messages, and any specific points they want to emphasize. Ask for personal stories or examples they may want to include.
• Research thoroughly : Research the topic to ensure you have a strong foundation of knowledge. This helps you craft a well-informed and credible speech.
• Create an outline : Develop a clear outline that includes the introduction, main points, supporting evidence, and a conclusion. Share this outline with the speaker for their input and approval.
• Write in the speaker's voice : While crafting the speech, maintain the speaker's voice and style. Use language and phrasing that feel natural to them. If they have a particular way of expressing ideas, incorporate that into the speech.
• Craft a captivating opening : Begin the speech with a compelling opening that grabs the audience's attention. This could be a relevant quote, an interesting fact, a personal anecdote, or a thought-provoking question.
• Organize content logically : Ensure the speech flows logically, with each point building on the previous one. Use transitions to guide the audience from one idea to the next smoothly.
• Incorporate engaging stories and examples : Include anecdotes, stories, and real-life examples that illustrate key points and make the speech relatable and memorable.
• Edit and revise : Edit the speech carefully for clarity, grammar, and coherence. Ensure the speech is the right length and aligns with the speaker's time constraints.
• Seek feedback : Share drafts of the speech with the speaker for their feedback and revisions. They may have specific changes or additions they'd like to make.
• Practice delivery : If possible, work with the speaker on their delivery. Practice the speech together, allowing the speaker to become familiar with the content and your writing style.
• Maintain confidentiality : As a ghostwriter, it's essential to respect the confidentiality and anonymity of the work. Do not disclose that you wrote the speech unless you have the speaker's permission to do so.
• Be flexible : Be open to making changes and revisions as per the speaker's preferences. Your goal is to make them look good and effectively convey their message.
• Meet deadlines : Stick to agreed-upon deadlines for drafts and revisions. Punctuality and reliability are essential in ghostwriting.
• Provide support : Support the speaker during their preparation and rehearsal process. This can include helping with cue cards, speech notes, or any other materials they need.

Remember that successful ghostwriting is about capturing the essence of the speaker while delivering a well-structured and engaging speech. Collaboration, communication, and adaptability are key to achieving this.

Give your best speech yet

Learn how to make a speech that’ll hold an audience’s attention by structuring your thoughts and practicing frequently. Put the effort into writing and preparing your content, and aim to improve your breathing, eye contact , and body language as you practice. The more you work on your speech, the more confident you’ll become.

The energy you invest in writing an effective speech will help your audience remember and connect to every concept. Remember: some life-changing philosophies have come from good speeches, so give your words a chance to resonate with others. You might even change their thinking.

Elizabeth Perry

Content Marketing Manager, ACC

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How to write a good speech in 7 steps

By:  Susan Dugdale  

- an easily followed format for writing a great speech

Did you know writing a speech doesn't have be an anxious, nail biting experience?

Unsure? Don't be.

You may have lived with the idea you were never good with words for a long time. Or perhaps giving speeches at school brought you out in cold sweats.

However learning how to write a speech is relatively straight forward when you learn to write out loud.

And that's the journey I am offering to take you on: step by step.

To learn quickly, go slow

Take all the time you need. This speech format has 7 steps, each building on the next.

Walk, rather than run, your way through all of them. Don't be tempted to rush. Familiarize yourself with the ideas. Try them out.

I know there are well-advertised short cuts and promises of 'write a speech in 5 minutes'. However in reality they only truly work for somebody who already has the basic foundations of speech writing in place.

The foundation of good speech writing 

These steps are the backbone of sound speech preparation. Learn and follow them well at the outset and yes, given more experience and practice you could probably flick something together quickly. Like any skill, the more it's used, the easier it gets.

In the meantime...

Step 1: Begin with a speech overview or outline

Are you in a hurry? Without time to read a whole page? Grab ... The Quick How to Write a Speech Checklist And come back to get the details later.

• WHO you are writing your speech for (your target audience)
• WHY you are preparing this speech. What's the main purpose of your speech? Is it to inform or tell your audience about something? To teach them a new skill or demonstrate something? To persuade or to entertain? (See 4 types of speeches: informative, demonstrative, persuasive and special occasion or entertaining for more.) What do you want them to think, feel or do as a result of listening the speech?
• WHAT your speech is going to be about (its topic) - You'll want to have thought through your main points and have ranked them in order of importance. And have sorted the supporting research you need to make those points effectively.
• HOW much time you have for your speech eg. 3 minutes, 5 minutes... The amount of time you've been allocated dictates how much content you need. If you're unsure check this page: how many words per minute in a speech: a quick reference guide . You'll find estimates of the number of words required for 1 - 10 minute speeches by slow, medium and fast talkers.

Use an outline

The best way to make sure you deliver a perfect speech is to start by carefully completing a speech outline covering the essentials: WHO, WHY, WHAT and HOW.

Beginning to write without thinking your speech through is a bit like heading off on a journey not knowing why you're traveling or where you're going to end up. You can find yourself lost in a deep, dark, murky muddle of ideas very quickly!

Pulling together a speech overview or outline is a much safer option. It's the map you'll follow to get where you want to go.

Get a blank speech outline template to complete

Click the link to find out a whole lot more about preparing a speech outline . ☺ You'll also find a free printable blank speech outline template.  I recommend using it!

Understanding speech construction

Before you begin to write, using your completed outline as a guide, let's briefly look at what you're aiming to prepare.

• an opening or introduction
• the body where the bulk of the information is given
• and an ending (or summary).

Imagine your speech as a sandwich

If you think of a speech as a sandwich you'll get the idea.

The opening and ending are the slices of bread holding the filling (the major points or the body of your speech) together.

You can build yourself a simple sandwich with one filling (one big idea) or you could go gourmet and add up to three or, even five. The choice is yours.

But whatever you choose to serve, as a good cook, you need to consider who is going to eat it! And that's your audience.

So let's find out who they are before we do anything else. 

Step 2: Know who you are talking to

Understanding your audience.

Did you know a  good speech is never written from the speaker's point of view?  ( If you need to know more about why check out this page on  building rapport .)

Begin with the most important idea/point on your outline.

Consider HOW you can explain (show, tell) that to your audience in the most effective way for them to easily understand it.   

Writing from the audience's point of view

To help you write from an audience point of view, it's a good idea to identify either a real person or the type of person who is most likely to be listening to you.

Make sure you select someone who represents the "majority" of the people who will be in your audience. That is they are neither struggling to comprehend you at the bottom of your scale or light-years ahead at the top.

Now imagine they are sitting next to you eagerly waiting to hear what you're going to say. Give them a name, for example, Joe, to help make them real.

Ask yourself

• How do I need to tailor my information to meet Joe's needs? For example, do you tell personal stories to illustrate your main points? Absolutely! Yes. This is a very powerful technique. (Click storytelling in speeches to find out more.)
• What type or level of language is right for Joe as well as my topic? For example if I use jargon (activity, industry or profession specific vocabulary) will it be understood?

Step 3: Writing as you speak

Writing oral language.

Write down what you want to say about your first main point as if you were talking directly to Joe.

If it helps, say it all out loud before you write it down and/or record it.

Use the information below as a guide

(Click to download The Characteristics of Spoken Language  as a pdf.) 

You do not have to write absolutely everything you're going to say down * but you do need to write down, or outline, the sequence of ideas to ensure they are logical and easily followed.

Remember too, to explain or illustrate your point with examples from your research. 

( * Tip: If this is your first speech the safety net of having everything written down could be just what you need. It's easier to recover from a patch of jitters when you have a word by word manuscript than if you have either none, or a bare outline. Your call!)

Step 4: Checking tone and language

The focus of this step is re-working what you've done in Step 2 and 3.

You identified who you were talking to (Step 2) and in Step 3, wrote up your first main point.  Is it right? Have you made yourself clear?  Check it.

How well you complete this step depends on how well you understand the needs of the people who are going to listen to your speech.

Please do not assume because you know what you're talking about the person (Joe) you've chosen to represent your audience will too. Joe is not a mind-reader!

How to check what you've prepared

• Check the "tone" of your language . Is it right for the occasion, subject matter and your audience?
• Check the length of your sentences. You need short sentences. If they're too long or complicated you risk losing your listeners.

Check for jargon too. These are industry, activity or group exclusive words.

For instance take the phrase: authentic learning . This comes from teaching and refers to connecting lessons to the daily life of students. Authentic learning is learning that is relevant and meaningful for students. If you're not a teacher you may not understand the phrase.

The use of any vocabulary requiring insider knowledge needs to be thought through from the audience perspective. Jargon can close people out.

• Read what you've written out loud. If it flows naturally, in a logical manner, continue the process with your next main idea. If it doesn't, rework.

We use whole sentences and part ones, and we mix them up with asides or appeals e.g. "Did you get that? Of course you did. Right...Let's move it along. I was saying ..."

Click for more about the differences between spoken and written language .

And now repeat the process

Repeat this process for the remainder of your main ideas.

Because you've done the first one carefully, the rest should follow fairly easily.

Step 5: Use transitions

Providing links or transitions between main ideas.

Between each of your main ideas you need to provide a bridge or pathway for your audience. The clearer the pathway or bridge, the easier it is for them to make the transition from one idea to the next.

If your speech contains more than three main ideas and each is building on the last, then consider using a "catch-up" or summary as part of your transitions.

Is your speech being evaluated? Find out exactly what aspects you're being assessed on using this standard speech evaluation form

Link/transition examples

A link can be as simple as:

"We've explored one scenario for the ending of Block Buster 111, but let's consider another. This time..."

What follows this transition is the introduction of Main Idea Two.

Here's a summarizing link/transition example:

"We've ended Blockbuster 111 four ways so far. In the first, everybody died. In the second, everybody died BUT their ghosts remained to haunt the area. In the third, one villain died. His partner reformed and after a fight-out with the hero, they both strode off into the sunset, friends forever. In the fourth, the hero dies in a major battle but is reborn sometime in the future.

And now what about one more? What if nobody died? The fifth possibility..."

Go back through your main ideas checking the links. Remember Joe as you go. Try each transition or link out loud and really listen to yourself. Is it obvious? Easily followed?

Keep them if they are clear and concise.

For more about transitions (with examples) see Andrew Dlugan's excellent article, Speech Transitions: Magical words and Phrases .

Step 6: The end of your speech

The ideal ending is highly memorable . You want it to live on in the minds of your listeners long after your speech is finished. Often it combines a call to action with a summary of major points.

Example speech endings

Example 1: The desired outcome of a speech persuading people to vote for you in an upcoming election is that they get out there on voting day and do so. You can help that outcome along by calling them to register their support by signing a prepared pledge statement as they leave.

"We're agreed we want change. You can help us give it to you by signing this pledge statement as you leave. Be part of the change you want to see!

Example 2: The desired outcome is increased sales figures. The call to action is made urgent with the introduction of time specific incentives.

"You have three weeks from the time you leave this hall to make that dream family holiday in New Zealand yours. Can you do it? Will you do it? The kids will love it. Your wife will love it. Do it now!"

How to figure out the right call to action

A clue for working out what the most appropriate call to action might be, is to go back to your original purpose for giving the speech.

• Was it to motivate or inspire?
• Was it to persuade to a particular point of view?
• Was it to share specialist information?
• Was it to celebrate a person, a place, time or event?

Ask yourself what you want people to do as a result of having listened to your speech.

For more about ending speeches

Visit this page for more about how to end a speech effectively . You'll find two additional types of speech endings with examples.

Write and test

Write your ending and test it out loud. Try it out on a friend, or two. Is it good? Does it work?

Step 7: The introduction

Once you've got the filling (main ideas) the linking and the ending in place, it's time to focus on the introduction.

The introduction comes last as it's the most important part of your speech. This is the bit that either has people sitting up alert or slumped and waiting for you to end. It's the tone setter!

What makes a great speech opening?

Ideally you want an opening that makes listening to you the only thing the 'Joes' in the audience want to do.

You want them to forget they're hungry or that their chair is hard or that their bills need paying.

The way to do that is to capture their interest straight away. You do this with a "hook".

Hooks to catch your audience's attention

Hooks come in as many forms as there are speeches and audiences. Your task is work out what specific hook is needed to catch your audience.

Go back to the purpose. Why are you giving this speech?

Once you have your answer, consider your call to action. What do you want the audience to do, and, or take away, as a result of listening to you?

Next think about the imaginary or real person you wrote for when you were focusing on your main ideas.

Choosing the best hook

• Is it humor?
• Would shock tactics work?
• Is it a rhetorical question?
• Is it formality or informality?
• Is it an outline or overview of what you're going to cover, including the call to action?
• Or is it a mix of all these elements?

A hook example

Here's an example from a fictional political speech. The speaker is lobbying for votes. His audience are predominately workers whose future's are not secure.

"How's your imagination this morning? Good? (Pause for response from audience) Great, I'm glad. Because we're going to put it to work starting right now.

I want you to see your future. What does it look like? Are you happy? Is everything as you want it to be? No? Let's change that. We could do it. And we could do it today.

At the end of this speech you're going to be given the opportunity to change your world, for a better one ...

No, I'm not a magician. Or a simpleton with big ideas and precious little commonsense. I'm an ordinary man, just like you. And I have a plan to share!"

And then our speaker is off into his main points supported by examples. The end, which he has already foreshadowed in his opening, is the call to vote for him.

Prepare several hooks

Experiment with several openings until you've found the one that serves your audience, your subject matter and your purpose best.

For many more examples of speech openings go to: how to write a speech introduction . You'll find 12 of the very best ways to start a speech.

That completes the initial seven steps towards writing your speech. If you've followed them all the way through, congratulations, you now have the text of your speech!

Although you might have the words, you're still a couple of steps away from being ready to deliver them. Both of them are essential if you want the very best outcome possible. They are below. Please take them.

Step 8: Checking content and timing

This step pulls everything together.

Check once, check twice, check three times & then once more!

Go through your speech really carefully.

On the first read through check you've got your main points in their correct order with supporting material, plus an effective introduction and ending.

On the second read through check the linking passages or transitions making sure they are clear and easily followed.

On the third reading check your sentence structure, language use and tone.

Double, triple check the timing

Now go though once more.

This time read it aloud slowly and time yourself.

If it's too long for the time allowance you've been given make the necessary cuts.

Start by looking at your examples rather than the main ideas themselves. If you've used several examples to illustrate one principal idea, cut the least important out.

Also look to see if you've repeated yourself unnecessarily or, gone off track. If it's not relevant, cut it.

Repeat the process, condensing until your speech fits the required length, preferably coming in just under your time limit.

You can also find out how approximately long it will take you to say the words you have by using this very handy words to minutes converter . It's an excellent tool, one I frequently use. While it can't give you a precise time, it does provide a reasonable estimate.

Step 9: Rehearsing your speech

And NOW you are finished with writing the speech, and are ready for REHEARSAL .

Please don't be tempted to skip this step. It is not an extra thrown in for good measure. It's essential.

The "not-so-secret" secret of successful speeches combines good writing with practice, practice and then, practicing some more.

Go to how to practice public speaking and you'll find rehearsal techniques and suggestions to boost your speech delivery from ordinary to extraordinary.

The Quick How to Write a Speech Checklist

Before you begin writing you need:.

• Your speech OUTLINE with your main ideas ranked in the order you're going to present them. (If you haven't done one complete this 4 step sample speech outline . It will make the writing process much easier.)
• Your RESEARCH
• You also need to know WHO you're speaking to, the PURPOSE of the speech and HOW long you're speaking for

The basic format

• the body where you present your main ideas

Split your time allowance so that you spend approximately 70% on the body and 15% each on the introduction and ending.

How to write the speech

• Write your main ideas out incorporating your examples and research
• Link them together making sure each flows in a smooth, logical progression
• Write your ending, summarizing your main ideas briefly and end with a call for action
• Write your introduction considering the 'hook' you're going to use to get your audience listening
• An often quoted saying to explain the process is: Tell them what you're going to tell them (Introduction) Tell them (Body of your speech - the main ideas plus examples) Tell them what you told them (The ending)

TEST before presenting. Read aloud several times to check the flow of material, the suitability of language and the timing.

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How to Write a Speech: Top Tips

Ashleigh Ferguson

Table of Contents

9 engaging speech writing tips, what are the different speech types , how to find help writing a speech.

A great speech is impactful and engaging. It should eloquently and clearly express your ideas.

Whatever the topic, a good speech should showcase your authority on a topic and demonstrate excellent communication and leadership skills.

Many people don't know how to write a speech, so the process seems daunting. But there are a few best practices and tips that can make the writing process easier.

In this article, we’ll discuss some best practices to help you write an effective speech that engages and captures your audience.

Public speaking can be nerve-racking. However, having a well-written speech can decrease some of that anxiety.

Even if you’ve never written a speech before, there are still best practices you can follow. 

An engaging speech should be clear, to the point, and follow a logical order. But how do you ensure your speech follows these criteria? Follow these nine engaging speech writing tips.

Know Your Audience

Analyze your target audience to improve the effectiveness of your speech because different audiences will have different expectations. 

Consider your audience’s age, level of understanding, attitudes, and what they expect to take away from your speech, then tailor your message accordingly. 

For example, if your audience members are teenagers, it’s unlikely that references to the ’70s will be effective.

Start With a Clear Purpose

Decide on the main point of your speech, and make sure all your content supports that point. Choose a topic that fits the following criteria:

A topic that is relevant to your audience

A topic you’re excited about

A topic you have reasonable knowledge about

Organize Your Ideas 

Use a speech outline to organize your thoughts and ideas logically. 

Identify the introduction, body, and conclusion of your speech to help you stay focused and make your speech easier to follow.

Use Strong, Clear Language

Choose your words carefully, and use simple language that is easy to understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms that your audience may not be familiar with. 

Again, your word choice will depend on your audience. For example, you’ll want to steer clear of slang when speaking to an older, conservative crowd.

Use Transitions

Speech transitions are words and phrases that allow you to move smoothly from one point to another. Use transitional words and phrases like “besides” to help your audience follow your thought process and understand how your points are connected.

Add Variety to Speech

A speech that is monotonous or lacks variety may cause your audience to lose interest. 

Including a variety of elements in your speech, such as anecdotes, examples, and visual aids, can help keep your audience engaged and interested. 

Practice, Practice, Practice

Practice your speech out loud to ensure it flows well and you’re comfortable with the material. Read your speech in front of the mirror or before someone you trust to give you critical feedback. Note the points for improvement, and incorporate them into how you deliver your speech.

End With a Strong Conclusion

How would you like to leave your audience members: inspired, informed, or mesmerized? Aim to end your speech on a high note. Summarize your main points, and leave your audience with a memorable takeaway.

Edit and Revise

Proofread and revise your speech to ensure it’s well written and error free. Use a grammar checker, such as ProWritingAid, to correct any grammar issues. You’ll also get suggestions on how to improve your sentence structures and transitions.

How to Write a Good Speech Introduction

The introduction can make or break your speech. It’s where you grab your audience’s attention to keep them engaged and state the purpose of your speech. 

An introduction also gives you the opportunity to establish your credibility. You should aim to give your audience a reason to listen to the rest of the speech rather than tuning out.

Here are some tips on how to create a positive first impression.

Start With a Hook

Begin your introduction with a hook that will grab your audience’s attention and make them want to listen. There are several options for a hook:

A statistic

A personal anecdote

Reference to a current or historical event

When thinking of an attention grabber, consider how appropriate and relevant it is to your audience and the purpose of the speech. For example, if you’re giving a speech to an older audience, you can make a historical reference that they can easily relate to.

Provide Context

Provide context by giving your audience some background information about the topic of your speech. This will help them understand the importance of what you are talking about and why they should care.

State Your Thesis

Clearly and concisely state the main point or purpose of your speech. Your thesis should be easy to follow and clearly outline the main argument and your stance. This will give your audience a clear understanding of what they can expect to learn from your presentation.

Preview Your Main Points

Give your audience a sense of the structure of your speech by briefly outlining the key points or arguments you will be making. They’ll know what to expect, and your speech will be easier to follow. 

Keep It Short

Your introduction should be concise and to the point, so don’t spend too much time on it. It’s important to keep your speech brief, and avoid including unnecessary or unrelated information. 

The goal is to engage and interest your audience, not bore them, so aim for a few well-chosen words rather than a lengthy introduction. Aim for your introduction to be about 10-15% of the total length of your speech.

A speech is just like any other piece of writing. You’ll need to identify your purpose, audience, and intention and then write accordingly. There are many types of speeches, and each type has its own expectations.

Let’s look at some of the most popular speeches and how to write them.

How to Write a Short Speech

Short speeches may be the most tedious to write because of how condensed and concise the information has to be. However, if you ever have to give a farewell, birthday tribute, or just a quick welcome, there are still some tips available to make your speech great.

Start by identifying your topic, title, and the purpose of your speech, which will set the foundation of your outline. Then, determine the main points of your speech; keep it short with two to three points. Remember, a short speech is typically less than ten minutes long, so keep your points concise and to the point.

Since you have limited time to make the most impact, incorporate powerful words or other engaging elements. For example, you could throw out a thought-provoking question or anecdote, which will grab your audience’s attention and keep them engaged.

Finally, once you’ve written your speech, review it for brevity and clarity. 

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

How to Write a Presentation Speech

A presentation speech is used to inform, persuade, explain, or demonstrate a particular topic.

Presentation speeches are well structured and follow a logical flow. They have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Use transition words and phrases to help your speech flow smoothly and prevent it from appearing disjointed.

You can use ProWritingAid to organize your speech and make it even clearer. ProWritingAid’s transition report will show you whether you’re using transitions effectively in your speech.

How to Write a Debate Speech

A debate is a formal argument on a particular topic. Debate speeches are persuasive since the aim is to convince the audience to agree with a stance.

Like most other speeches, a debate speech also follows the introduction, body, conclusion outline. This format helps the audience follow the speaker’s point in a linear and logical way.

When writing your introduction, clarify your stance so it’s clear to the audience. Anyone reading or listening to your speech shouldn’t have any doubt about your position on the topic. Take some time to prepare a solid opener, which can be an interesting fact, a personal story, or even a powerful quote.

The introduction also gives you the opportunity to explain terms your audience will need to understand throughout the speech. You should also provide an overview of your main points, but don’t spend long divulging too much.

Each body paragraph should cover a main point, whether that’s a key idea or a main claim, and each paragraph should begin with a topic sentence. The topic sentence is an initial sentence that summarizes the idea being presented. 

Your conclusion should be a simple and clear reiteration of the points you made in the thesis statement and body paragraphs. Add an attention-grabbing element to leave a lasting impression on your audience.

Remember to use strong and emotive language throughout your speech, which makes it more likely for your audience to feel emotionally connected to your stance.

Always use transition words and phrases to maintain a logical flow between your arguments. Finally, edit and proofread your work for any potential grammar, punctuation, or spelling mistakes.

How to Write an Elevator Speech

An elevator speech is a brief speech that’s used to pitch a product, service, expertise, or credentials.

You have 30–60 seconds to persuade someone to act how you’d like: the same time as a quick elevator ride.

An effective elevator speech should contain an introduction, a clear value proposition, and a strong conclusion. 

Your introduction should be polite and clear. Briefly explain who you are, what you do, and what you are offering. For example, if you’re pitching your expertise, condense your background into two sentences. Include things that will make your audience remember you.

End your speech with what you want to achieve. What are you trying to accomplish with this speech? Perhaps it’s a job opportunity, a follow-up meeting, or an internship.

Once you’ve written your speech, be sure to revise it for brevity. Then practice and record yourself to ensure you don’t go over the time limit.

Writing a good speech takes time, but these tips are a good start to improving your speech-writing process. If you encounter writer’s block, look up popular speeches for inspiration. Ask someone you trust to give you feedback once you’ve written your speech.

Finally, while ProWritingAid can’t write your speech for you, it can help you write in a cohesive and logical manner. It highlights any grammar, spelling, and punctuation issues. It also shows you suggestions on how to improve your sentence structure, transition, pacing, and readability, so your next speech can be impactful and memorable.

Ashleigh Ferguson is a Copywriter on the ProWritingAid Team. With an affinity for learning new things, you can always count on her to know some random fact. She’s a self-proclaimed ‘Fix-it Felix’ and a newly minted ‘candle lady’.

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8 Opening a Speech: Get Their Attention from the Start!

Get the audience’s attention, or the rest of your speech is a waste. I mean it!  Most people spend the majority of their speech preparation time working on the body of their speech and then they tack on an opening and a closing last minute.

The opening and closing deserve the most attention. Why?  If you don’t get the audience’s attention and get them to pay attention to you instead of…  the thoughts in their heads, their grocery lists, their neighbors, their social media…then all the rest of your brilliant content is wasted because they will never hear it. Lisa Marshall of Toastmasters International stresses the opening words are so important that “I spend 10 times more time developing and practicing the opener than any other part of the speech.”

Look at the description of Person A and Person B and tell me which person you like more.

Person A envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent

Person B intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious

If you are like most people, you have a preference for Person B.  This illustrates a study by Solomon Ashe. He had subjects rate these two people using a string of descriptive words. Now look back at the descriptions. Look closely and you will notice they are the same words in a different order. Most people put the most emphasis on the first three words in determining how they will create the person. Like Asche’s subjects, your audience will be evaluating those first three words. Let’s bring it back around to speechmaking. The first sentence out of your mouth is crucial and the first three words are especially important.

I am sure you are not surprised to know that people form opinions quickly. To prove this, researchers showed subjects either a 20-minute clip of a job applicant or a 20-30 second clip of a job applicant. They were asked to rate the person on likeability and self-assurance. People were able to form an opinion in under thirty seconds. Not only that but they were able to form the same opinions from a 30-second clip as a 20-minute exposure.

The Battle for Attention

Remember that every piece of content in our modern era is part of an attention war. It’s fighting against thousands of other claims on people’s time and energy. This is true even when you’re standing on a stage in front of a seated audience. They have deadly distracters in their pockets called smartphones, which they can use to summon to their eyes a thousand outside alternatives. Once emails and texts make their claim, your talk may be doomed. And then there’s that lurking demon of modern life, fatigue. All these are lethal enemies. You never want to provide someone with an excuse to zone out. You have to be a savvy general directing this war’s outcome. Starting strong is one of your most important weapons. Chris Anderson, TED Talks, The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking.

“People don’t pay attention to boring things,” according to John Medina, author of Brain Rules, “You’ve got 30 seconds before they start asking the question, ‘Am I going to pay attention to you or not?'” It is important to get your audience’s attention right away. In this chapter, I will share with you several ways to win the war for attention and to start your speech right. I will show you the basic opening and closing structure of speeches and give you many examples of what that looks like.  A speech, like an airplane, needs a good take-off and a good landing. Now it’s time to prepare to have a strong take-off and learn everything that goes into a speech introduction. This chapter is full of examples from a variety of talks. I included quotes from those introductions, but I also included links to each of those talks hoping you will be interested enough to want to listen.

Ways to Start a Speech

Chris Anderson likens this to battle. “First there is the 10-second war: can you do something in your first moments on stage to ensure people’s eager attention while you set up your talk topic? Second is the 1-minute war: can you then use that first minute to ensure that they’re committed to coming on the full talk journey with you?”

When thinking about your speech, spend a lot of time thinking about how to win the battle for their attention. Your introduction should make your audience want to put down their phones and listen. Your introduction should be so compelling they stop their wandering minds and turn their thoughts to you and you alone. Your introduction should start with three strong words where they form a strong opinion of you and your speech.  Let me share how to accomplish this. 

Capturing the audience through the story is one of the most powerful ways to start a speech. A story engages the brain in powerful ways and causes the audience’s brains to sync with the speakers. A well-told story will allow the audience to “see” things in their mind’s eye and to join the speaker’s emotions.

Watch this clip by Ric Elias for how he begins his speech with a powerful story. Particularly notice his first four words, “Imagine a big explosion.” 

Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 ft.   Imagine a plane full of smoke.   Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack.   It sounds scary.   Well, I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting in 1D. I was the only one who could talk to the flight attendants. So I looked at them right away, and they said, “No problem. We probably hit some birds.” The pilot had already turned the plane around, and we weren’t that far. You could see Manhattan. Two minutes later, three things happened at the same time.

Ric Elias, Three Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed. 

Consider these other examples and notice how the speaker uses a story.

More powerful introductions using story:

I love you, I believe in you and it’s going to be OK. The three things that I needed to hear three years ago when I felt more abandoned than ever. I remember that day as if it happen this morning. It was Sunday and I had just woken up early at a brisk 12:30 in the afternoon. Ryan Brooks, Honesty, courage, and the importance of brushing your teeth.  When I was nine years old I went off to summer camp for the first time. And my mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. Because in my family, reading was the primary group activity. And this might sound antisocial to you, but for us, it was really just a different way of being social. You have the animal warmth of your family sitting right next to you, but you are also free to go roaming around the adventureland inside your own mind. And I had this idea that camp was going to be just like this, but better. Susan Cain. The Power of Introverts. I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder: schizophrenia. Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight. A few years ago, I got one of those spam emails. I’m not quite sure how, but it turned up in my inbox, and it was from a guy called Solomon Odonkoh.  James Veitch This is What Happens When You Reply to Spam Email. Eleven years ago, while giving birth to my first child, I hemorrhaged and was transfused with seven pints of blood. Four years later, I found out that I had been infected with the AIDS virus and had unknowingly passed it to my daughter, Ariel, through my breast milk, and my son, Jake, in utero. Elizabeth Glaser,  Address to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

Good stories immediately set the stage and introduce you to the place and to the people. Doing this helps your brain can form a structure where the story takes place. It helps you see the story unfold in your mind.  If you need help starting a story, Vanessa Van Edwards suggests these prompts:

• Once upon a time.
• I’m here for a reason, and it’s an interesting story.
• The best thing that ever happened to me was.

There is an entire chapter on the Power of Story that can be found here.

Humor is a rubber sword – it allows you to make a point without drawing blood. – Mary Hirsch

  When Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane spoke at Harvard Commencemen t in the rain, he started with “There’s nowhere I would rather be on a day like this than around all this electrical equipment.” People laughed, people smiled, and the speech was off to a strong start. Humor works because it gives the audience a hit of the feel-good hormone dopamine. That is … if you are funny. If you decide to use humor, make sure you are funny. Test your humor on honest friends. In addition, the humor you use should fit your personality and your audience. Be warned, some groups would find humor inappropriate, do your research.

Watch this clip for how Tshering Tobgay begins his speech with humor. 

In case you are wondering, no, I’m not wearing a dress, and no, I’m not saying what I’m wearing underneath. (Laughter) This is a go. This is my national dress. This is how all men dress in Bhutan. That is how our women dress. Like our women, we men get to wear pretty bright colors, but unlike our women, we get to show off our legs. Our national dress is unique, but this is not the only thing that’s unique about my country. Our promise to remain carbon neutral is also unique, and this is what I’d like to speak about today, our promise to remain carbon neutral.

Tshering Tobgay, This Country Isn’t Just Carbon Neutral–Its Carbon Negative. 

More powerful introductions using humor

I didn’t rebel as a teenager.   I started late and was still going at it the summer I turned thirty. I just became an American citizen, I divorced my husband, I got a big tattoo of a bat on my arm, and I joined a New York City punk band. Danusia Trevino, Guilty I need to make a confession at the outset here. A little over 20 years ago, I did something that I regret, something that I’m not particularly proud of.   Something that, in many ways, I wish no one would ever know, but that here I feel kind of obliged to reveal. In the late 1980s, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, I went to law school. Dan Pink, The Puzzle of Motivation.  It is really interesting to be a woman and to get to 45 and to not be married yet and to not have kids, especially when you have pushed out your fifth kid on television. Tracee Ellis Ross, 2017 Glamour Woman of the Year. I am not drunk …but the doctor who delivered me was.” (reference the shake she has due to a botched medical procedure at birth causing her cerebral palsey). Maysoon Zayid, I’ve Got 99 Prolbems and Cerebral Palsey is Not One of Them .

Salutation followed by humor

Oh boy, thank you so much, thank you so much.   Thank you, President Cowan, Mrs. President Cowen; distinguished guests, undistinguished guests, you know who you are, honored faculty and creepy Spanish teacher.   And thank you to all the graduating Class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover and have splitting headaches and haven’t slept since Fat Tuesday, but you can’t graduate ’til I finish, so listen up. When I was asked to make the commencement speech, I immediately said yes.   Then I went to look up what commencement meant which would have been easy if I had a dictionary, but most of the books in our house are Portia’s, and they’re all written in Australian.   So I had to break the word down myself, to find out the meaning. Commencement: common, and cement, common cement.   You commonly see cement on sidewalks.   Sidewalks have cracks, and if you step on a crack, you break your mother’s back.   So there’s that.   But I’m honored that you’ve asked me here to speak at your common cement Ellen DeGenres, Commencement Speech at Tulane. Well, thank you. Thank you Mr. President, First Lady, King Abdullah of Jordan, Norm, distinguished guests. Please join me in praying that I don’t say something we’ll all regret. That was for the FCC. If you’re wondering what I’m doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well so am I. I’m certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is — is leather. Bono at  the  54th annual National Prayer Breakfast.  

Starting your speech by sharing a little-known fact, can be powerful. For this to fully work, you need to have the audience’s attention from the very first word. Read on for how these speakers started strong.

Powerful introductions using facts

Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat. Jamie Oliver, Teach Every Child About Food. So I want to start by offering you a free, no-tech life hack, and all it requires of you is this: that you change your posture for two minutes. Amy Cuddy, Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are. Okay, now I don’t want to alarm anybody in this room, but it’s just come to my attention that the person to your right is a liar. (Laughter) Also, the person to your left is a liar. Also the person sitting in your very seats is a liar. We’re all liars. What I’m going to do today is I’m going to show you what the research says about why we’re all liars, how you can become a lie spotter and why you might want to go the extra mile and go from lie spotting to truth seeking, and ultimately to trust building. Pamela Meyer, How to Spot a Liar. You will live 7.5 minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.  Jane McGonigal. The Game That Can Give You Ten Extra Years of Life. There are 900,000 divorces   in the United States of America every year.   Fewer than 10% of them   ever talked to anybody about their relationship.   So why would you need a science?   Well, we need a science to develop effective treatment   and understanding of how to make love work.   Why?   Why should we care about having great relationships?   Well, it turns out that in the past 50 years,   a field called social epidemiology has emerged,   and it shows that great friendships,   great love relationships between lovers and parents and children   lead to greater health – mental health as well as physical health –   greater wealth, greater resilience,   faster recovery from illness,   greater longevity –   if you want to live 10 to 15 years longer, work on your relationships,   not just your exercise –   and more successful children as well.   John Gottman. The Science of Love.  This room may appear to be holding 600 people but there is actually so many more because within each of us there is a multiple of personalities. Elizabeth Lesser,  Take the Other to Lunch.

Using a physical object can draw the audience’s attention. Make sure you plan the timing of the prop, and you practice with it. It is important that it is large enough for the audience to see and they can see it well enough that they are not frustrated. Depending on your speech, it may be appropriate to put it away, so it is not distracting.

Powerful introductions using props

Darren Tay walks onto the stage and stares at the audience. He pulls a pair of underwear out of his pocket and puts them on over his suit. “Hey loser how do you like your new school uniform. I think it looks great on you. Those were the words of my high school bully Greg Upperfield. Now if you are all wondering if the underwear that Greg used was clean, I had the same questions. Darren Tay, Outsmart, Outlast. Toastmasters 2016 World Champion of Public Speaking . Mohammed Qahtani walks onstage, puts a cigarette in his mouth … then looks up as if noticing the audience and says, “What?” As the audience laughs, he continues. “Oh, you all think smoking kills? Ha-ha, let me tell you something. Do you know that the amount of people dying from diabetes are three times as many [as the] people dying from smoking? Yet if I pulled out a Snickers bar, nobody would say anything.” He goes on to say, his facts are made up and his real topic is about how words have power. Mohammed Qahtani, Toastmasters 2015 World Champion of Public Speaking

JA Gamach blows a train whistle and then starts his speech as if he were a conductor, “All aboard! It’s a bright sunny day and you are taking a train. You are wearing a pair of sandals you proudly made yourself. As you board the train one of your sandals slips off and falls beside the track.  (J.A. loses one sandal that falls down the platform.)  You try to retrieve it. Too late. The train starts to pull away. What would you have done? I would have cursed my bad luck, mad at losing a sandal. JA Gamache, Toastmasters 2007 World Championship. 

Use a Quotation

Powerful introductions using quotes.

Rules for using quotes

• Be sure to use the quote purposefully and not just as placeholders.
• Quotes can just take up valuable space where you could put content unless they are not properly used.
• Let the quote be more important than the author. When using a quote at the opening, say the quote first and then the author. When using a quote at the end of a speech, say the author first and then the quote.
• Keep it short and sweet. Use a quote that gets to the point quickly.
• If you must use long quotes–put them on your slide.
• If you project a quote, read it to the audience. Never expect them to read it while you talk about something else. Never say stupid things like, “You can read, I’ll let you read this for yourselves” or “Your adults, I’ll let you process this.”
• Check the authorship and authenticity of the quote. There are so many quotes on the internet that are misattributed and misquoted. For example, who wrote the quote: “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel”?
• Do not go for the overused quote or your audience is prone to dismiss it.  Instead of quoting an overused “I have a dream quote” do as Jim Key, the 2003 Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking did and pick an equally great but lesser-used Martin Luther King Quote: “The time is always right to do what is right!”

Watch Nate Stauffer at a Moth Grand Slam as he uses poetry to start and carry his story.

Watch this clip for how Andrew Solomon opens with a quote to make us think about depression. 

Andrew Solomon, Depression, The Secret We Share. 

Reference the Occasion

Ceremonial speeches often call for acknowledgment of those in attendance or a mention of the occasion. Here is how Martin Luther King Junior set up his famous speech. I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Martin Luther King Junior, I Have a Dream.

Get the Audience Involved

Having the audience stand, raise their hand, or even nod in encouragement can cause them to focus on your message. This can be particularly helpful if the audience has been sitting for a while. Let me show you a few examples of how that works.

Ask a Question

You can involve the audience from the start by asking them a question.

Watch the first few minutes of Amy Purdy’s speech and how she starts with a question, “ If your life were a book   and you were the author,   how would you want your story to go?” 

More powerful introductions using a question

I’m here today to talk about a disturbing question, which has an equally disturbing answer. My topic is the secret of domestic violence and the question I’m going to tackle is the one everyone always asks. Why would she stay? Why would anyone stay with a man who beats her? Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave- Leslie Morgan Steiner Here’s a question we need to rethink together: What should be the role of money and markets in our societies? Today, there are very few things that money can’t buy. If you’re sentenced to a jail term in Santa Barbara, California, you should know that if you don’t like the standard accommodations, you can buy a prison cell upgrade. It’s true. For how much, do you think? What would you guess? Five hundred dollars? It’s not the Ritz-Carlton. It’s a jail! Eighty-two dollars a night. Eighty-two dollars a night. Michael Sandel, Why We Shouldn’t Trust Markets with Our Civic Life.

How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example: Why is Apple so innovative? Year after year, after year, after year, they’re more innovative than all their competition. Simon Sinek, How Great Leaders Inspire Action.  Can you remember a moment when a brilliant idea flashed into your head? Darren LaCroix,  Ouch! World Champion of Public Speaking.

Have the Audience Participate

If you ask a question you want the audience to answer, be sure to give them time to respond. If they raise their hands, be sure to acknowledge their response. You might have the answer by standing, by raising their hands, by speaking to their neighbor. You might call on one member of the audience to answer for the group.

If you ask a question you want the audience to answer, don’t let your presentation slide give away the answer. For example, one speaker had a slide behind him that said, “Lesson 1: Don’t Worry About IQ.” He has the audience raise their hand if they want to improve their grades then he asks, “So can I get a show of hands, how many would say IQ is going to be the most important to get those marks to go up?” Very few people responded because the answer was “written on the wall” literally.

Watch this clip as Allan Pease engages the audience.

Everybody hold your right hand in front like this in a handshaking position. Uncross your legs. Relaxed position. Right hand in front. When I say the word, “Now” here’s what we’re going to do. I am going to ask you to turn to someone besides you, shake hands as if you’re meeting for the first time, and keep pumping till I ask you to stop. Then you’ll stop and freeze it and we’re going to analyze what’s happening. You got that? You don’t have time to think about this. Do it now. Pick anybody and pump. Pump, everybody. Freeze it. Hold it. Stop. Hold it. Freeze it. Keep your hands locked. Keep them locked. The person whose hand is most on top is saying “I’ll be the boss for the rest of the day.” Allan Pease, Body Language, the Power is in the Palm of Your Hands. 

More powerful introductions using audience participation

I have a confession to make. But first, I want you to make a little confession to me. In the past year, I want you to just raise your hand if you’ve experienced relatively little stress? Kelly McGonigal, How to Make Stress Your Friend. So I’d like to start, if I may, by asking you some questions. If you’ve ever lost someone you truly loved, ever had your heartbroken, ever struggled through an acrimonious divorce, or being the victim of infidelity, please stand up. If standing up isn’t accessible to you, you can put your hand up. Please stay standing and keep your hand up there. If you’ve ever lived through a natural disaster, being bullied or made redundant, stand on up. If you’ve ever had a miscarriage, if you’ve ever had an abortion or struggled through infertility, please stand up. Finally, if you or anyone you love has had to cope with mental illness, dementia, some form of physical impairment or cope with suicide, please stand up. Look around you. Adversity doesn’t discriminate. If you are alive, you are going to have to, or you’ve already had to, deal with some tough times Thank you, everyone. Take a seat. Lucy Hone: The Three Secrets of Resilient People.  Advice from Moth Storytelling Club Have a great first line that sets up the stakes and grabs attention No: “So I was thinking about climbing this mountain. But then I watched a little TV and made a snack and took a nap and my mom called and vented about her psoriasis then I did a little laundry (a whites load) (I lost another sock, darn it!) and then I thought about it again and decided I’d climb the mountain the next morning.” Yes: “The mountain loomed before me. I had my hunting knife, some trail mix and snow boots. I had to make it to the little cabin and start a fire before sundown or freeze to death for sure.”  

Arouse Suspense or Curiosity

Watch this clip for how Kathryn Schulz creates curiosity by showing us Johnny Depp’s tattoo and then talks about her tattoo of regret. We hang on to her every word wondering, “Where is all this going and how bad can her tattoo really be?”

So that’s Johnny Depp, of course.   And that’s Johnny Depp’s shoulder.   And that’s Johnny Depp’s famous shoulder tattoo.   Some of you might know that, in 1990,   Depp got engaged to Winona Ryder,   and he had tattooed on his right shoulder   “Winona forever.”   And then three years later —   which in fairness, kind of is forever by Hollywood standards —   they broke up,   and Johnny went and got a little bit of repair work done.   And now his shoulder says, “Wino forever.”

Kathryn Schulz, Don’t Regret, Regret. 

  Saying unexpected things or challenging assumptions can get a speech started off right. A herd of wildebeests, a shoal of fish, a flock of birds. Many animals gather in large groups that are among the most wonderful spectacles in the natural world. But why do these groups form? The common answers include things like seeking safety in numbers or hunting in packs or gathering to mate or breed, and all of these explanations, while often true, make a huge assumption about animal behavior, that the animals are in control of their own actions, that they are in charge of their bodies. And that is often not the case. Ed Yong. Zombie Roaches and Other Parasite Tales. TED Talk

 Keys to Success

Memorize your first sentence so you can deliver it with impact. Memorize your whole speech opening if possible. Make sure your first three words have an impact.

Typical Patterns for Speech Openings

• Get the audience’s attention–called a hook or a grabber.
• Establish rapport and tell the audience why you care about the topic of why you are credible to speak on the topic.
• Introduce the speech thesis/preview/good idea.
• Tell the audience why they should care about this topic.
• Give a transition statement to the body of the speech.

Step Two: Credibility

First, you hook the audience with your powerful grabber, then you tell them why you are credible to speak on the topic and why the topic is important. If they know your credentials, you would not need to tell them your credibility but you may still want to tell them why you are interested in the topic. Here are a few examples of how some speakers included credibility.

Tell Why You Are Credible

I’m a doctor, but I kind of slipped sideways into research, and now I’m an epidemiologist. Ben Goldacre, Battling Bad Science.  I started studying resilience research a decade ago at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It was an amazing time to be there because the professors who trained me had just picked up the contract to train all 1.1 million American soldiers to be as mentally fit as they always have been physically fit. Lucy Hone: The Three Secrets of Resilient People.  What I’m going to do is to just give a few notes,   and this is from a book I’m preparing called   “Letters to a Young Scientist.”   I’d thought it’d be appropriate to   present it, on the basis that I have had extensive experience   in teaching, counseling scientists across a broad array of fields.   And you might like to hear some of the principles that I’ve developed in doing   that teaching and counseling. EO Wilson: Advice to a Young Scientist. 

Step Three: Tell Why it is Important

Early on in your speech, you should tell the audience why they should care. You should connect the speech to things they care about. This is where you answer, so what, who cares?

You know, I didn’t set out to be a parenting expert. In fact, I’m not very interested in parenting, per se. It’s just that there’s a certain style of parenting these days that is kind of messing up kids, impeding their chances to develop.  Julie Lythcott-Haims, How to Raise Successful Kids – Without Over-Parenting

Step Four: Tell the Purpose of the Talk (aka Preview/ Thesis)

“If you don’t know what you want to achieve in your presentation your audience never will.” – Harvey Diamond, author

Tell the audience your purpose, clearly give them an overview of the main points.  MIT professor, Patrick Winston says one of the best things to add to your speech is an empowerment promise. You want to tell people what they will know at the end of your speech that they didn’t know at the beginning. It’s their reason for being here.  His empowerment promise was, “Today you will see some examples of what you can put in your armory of speaking techniques and it will be the case that one of those examples–some heuristic, some technique, maybe only one will be the one that will get you the job. By the end of the next 60 minutes, you will have been exposed to a lot of ideas, some of which you will incorporate into your own repertoire, and they will ensure that you get the maximum opportunity to have your ideas valued and accepted by the people you speak with.” Notice that this statement told you what to expect and why it mattered.

Here are examples of how various speakers accomplished this.

For years, I’ve been telling people, stress makes you sick. It increases the risk of everything from the common cold to cardiovascular disease. Basically, I’ve turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress, and today, I want to change yours. Kelly McGonigal, How to Make Stress Your Friend.   We’ve been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It’s a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you exceptional. Stella Young, I’m Not Your Inspiration, Thank You Very Much

What I’m going to show you is all of the main things, all of the main features of my discipline, evidence-based medicine. And I will talk you through all of these and demonstrate how they work, exclusively using examples of people getting stuff wrong. Ben Goldacre, Battling Bad Science.  I would like to think that we (Arab women) poor, oppressed women actually have some useful, certainly hard-earned lessons to share, lessons that might turn out useful for anyone wishing to thrive in the modern world. Here are three of mine. Leila Hoteit, Three Lessons on Success from an Arab businesswoman We are often terrified and fascinated by the power hackers now have. They scare us. But the choices they make have dramatic outcomes that influence us all. So I am here today because I think we need hackers, and in fact, they just might be the immune system for the information age. Sometimes they make us sick, but they also find those hidden threats in our world, and they make us fix it. Keren Elazari. Hackers: The Internet’s Immune System Try This — Inspired by TED Master Class After you write your thesis, send it to three people with the question, “Based on what you read here, what do you think my speech will be about?”  

Putting It All Together

At this point, you know you need to have a grabber, a preview, a credibility statement, and a so-what-who-cares statement.  Let’s take a look at one of the top TED talks of all time by Jamie Oliver. This speech is a good illustration of everything we’ve been talking about so far and how all this works together.

“Everybody close your eyes.”

I don’t want to close my eyes; it makes me feel awkward and exposed to be in a group of people with my eyes closed. Because of that, I keep my eyes open. The problem is  when I keep my eyes open, I feel like some sort of horrible nonconformist rebel. I feel awkward with my eyes closed and I feel guilty if they are open. Either way, I just feel bad. Besides, half of the time when speakers tell audience members to close their eyes, they forget to tell us when we can open them. If you are wanting me to imagine a story, just tell me to imagine it, don’t make me close my eyes (rant over).

“Can everybody hear me?”

You should plan your opening to be intentional and with power. “Can everybody hear me” is a weak and uncertain statement and this is not the first impression you want to leave. Do a microphone check before the audience members arrive and have someone stand in different corners of the room to make sure you can be heard. Don’t waste your valuable speech time with questions that you should already know the answer to.

“How long do I have to speak?”

You should know that before you begin. Even if the presentations for the day are running over and you are the last speaker, you should ask the MC before you begin. Always plan your first words with power.

“Can you read this?”

You should make your slides big, really big. Test out your slides in advance of your speech, walk all around the room and make sure you can read them. Have a friend check them out as well. You should know they are big enough because you planned for it and tested it.

“Turn off your cell phones and laptops.”

People really hate having things taken away, not to mention that your audience may want to take notes on their devices. Chances are you are speaking to adults, let them determine if it is appropriate to have out their technology.

“I’m sorry, I’m losing my voice.” “I’m stopped up.” “I’m under the weather.”

Stop apologizing! Stop making excuses!  While these lines may be true, they just come of as excuses and can make the audience either feel like you don’t want to be there, or they just feel sorry for you.

“I’m so nervous right now.”

Talking about your nervousness will make you more nervous and will make them look for signs of your nervousness. Just start your speech.

“So, Um, Ok.”

Do not start with hesitation. Plan the first words, memorize the first words, practice the first words.  Do not start with “Ok, so um, now I’d like…” Plan strong and start strong.

Do Not Discuss Your Business with People Watching…Really! I Mean It! Many of us are giving and listening to presentations in an online format.  I have attended numerous presentations this year through Zoom where I have to sit and watch while the organizers engage in personal small talk or deal with the details of the presentation. This is how the speech I recently attended began. “Donna, you are going to share your screen, right?” “Yes. I have my PowerPoint ready to go. Will you push “record” when I give the signal?” “Sure. Where did you say that button is again? Do you think we should wait five more minutes, I think we had more who were coming? Dave, what was the total we were expecting?” “Yeah, we had 116 sign up, but the reminders went out late so this may be all we have. We can give them a few more minutes to log on.” “Donna, How is your dog? Is she still struggling with her cone since her spay surgery? My dog never would wear the cone –she tore her stitches out and broke her wound open. It was terrible. Well, it looks like it is about time to begin, thank you everyone for coming.” If you are organizing an event online, hosting a speech online, giving a presentation online–please keep it professional. Most platforms will allow you to keep the audience in a waiting room until it is time to start. If you have a business to deal with, keep the audience out until you have everything ready to go. Once the audience is in the meeting, you should engage the audience in group-type small talk or you should just start the presentation. In professional settings, you should start the meeting on time. Why punish those who showed up on time to wait for those who aren’t there yet?

A Conversation Over Coffee with Bill Rogers

I asked my long-time friend, Bill Rogers, to write an excerpt to add to the book.  I met Bill when he was the Chief Development Officer for a hospital in Northwest Arkansas and I met him again when he was reinventing himself as a college student getting a Master’s Degree in the theater.  He would love to share a symbolic cup of coffee with you and give you advice about public speaking. 

Perfect morning for a walk, isn’t it? Join me for a cup of coffee? Wonderful. Find us a table and I’ll get our coffee.

There you go; just like you like it. There’s nothing like a great cup of coffee on the patio of your neighborhood coffee shop, is there?

Now that you’re settled in your favorite chair, take a sip, and let that glorious caffeine kick in and do its stuff. Okay, let’s talk.

So, you were asking me about public speaking.

Well, let’s see. Where do we begin?

One of the first pieces of advice I ever received was to imagine that every member of your audience is sitting there in their underwear! Yeah, right. That never worked for me. I tried it once with a local civic group of community leaders both male and female. If the intent of that tidbit is to make you relax, it certainly didn’t work for me. It just made me more self-conscious…and more nervous. I not only got distracted, but I also lost my train of thought, I started sweating, and, of course, imagined myself standing there without clothes. Needless to say, that speech was a disaster and I’ve never used it again. I suggest you don’t either.

In the early days, I also relied very heavily on my typed-up speech. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that unless you find yourself reading it word for word as I did. Nothing is more boring nor puts an audience to sleep quicker than a speaker with their nose down reading a speech. There’s no connection and connection with your audience is key.

As you know, I love theatre and I’ve done a bit of acting over the years. Early on, I learned that the quicker I learned my lines, the more I could play, experiment, and shape my character. It relaxed me and gave me enormous freedom. It led me to find a mantra for myself: “With discipline comes freedom.” This freedom will allow you to improvise as your audience or situation dictates while still conveying the core message of your presentation. That discipline and its resulting freedom apply to public speaking of any kind and, I think, will serve you well.

Another old adage we’ve all heard is Aristotle’s advice. You know the one. No? Well, roughly, it’s to tell your audience what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them what you just said. That’s the basic formula for public speaking. And it works as a good place to start.

However, effective speaking is much more and, to me, it starts with a story or even a simple sentence.

You know the feeling you get when you read the first sentence of a good book and it just reaches out and grabs you? That should be your goal with every presentation. One sentence to capture your audience’s attention. Something that causes them to lean forward. Something that sparks their imagination.

It doesn’t have to be all that profound either. It can be something very simple. A personal story that relates to your topic. A relevant fact or statistic that defines or illustrates the issue or subject matter at hand.

A couple of classics come to mind. The first is Alice Walker’s, “The Color of Purple.”

“You better not tell nobody but God.”

And the second one is from my favorite novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee.

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm broken at the elbow.”

Both sentences hook you immediately. A few simple words speak volumes. After reading or hearing those words, you naturally lean in. You want to learn more. You want to find out what happens next. Every effective speech or presentation does the same thing.

Of course, make sure that the first and last thing you say to your audience is both relevant and appropriate. I share this out of an abundance of caution. I once worked for an internationally recognized and well-respected children’s research hospital and I was given the privilege to speak at a national educational convention. The room was filled wall to wall with teachers. I thought I’d be cute and add a little levity. I opened my presentation with this line, “You know, I’ve had nightmares like this…” Instead of the roars of laughter, I was expecting, a wave of silence ensued. Not only was the line not funny, but it was also wholly inappropriate and I immediately lost my audience. Not my best day. Learn from my mistakes.

Finally, let’s touch on the importance of approaching a speech as a conversation. You and I are sitting here enjoying our coffee and having a friendly, relaxed conversation. Strive for that every chance you get. You may not always have that luxury. Some speeches and presentations simply demand formality. But even in those cases, you can usually make it somewhat conversational. I always try to write my speeches in a conversational style. Like I’m talking to a friend…or trying to make a new one.

So, to recap: tell a story, learn your lines, hook your audience with a simple sentence, close with a question or call to action, use repetition, keep it conversational, treat your audience as a friend, and give yourself permission to relax.

Above all, be yourself. Allow yourself to be as relaxed as you are with those closest to you. If you’re relaxed, if you try to think of your audience as a friend, then, in most cases, they too will relax and they will root for you. Even if they disagree with what you are telling them, they will respect you and they will listen.

How about another cup?

Key Takeaways

Remember This!

• The most important part of your speech is the introduction because if you don’t get their attention, they are not listening to the rest of what you have to say.
• To get attention, tell a story, use humor, share a quote, tell a startling fact, show a prop, ask a question, reference the occasion.
• In addition to the grabber, a good introduction should establish rapport and tell the audience why you are credible.
• An introduction often includes a “so what who cares statement” to tell the audience why this should matter to them.
• The thesis/preview should be clear enough that someone could read just that sentence or couple of sentences and know what the speech is about.

Please share your feedback, suggestions, corrections, and ideas.

I want to hear from you. 

Do you have an activity to include? Did you notice a typo that I should correct? Are you planning to use this as a resource and do you want me to know about it? Do you want to tell me something that really helped you?

Click here to share your feedback. 

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How To Write A Wedding Speech: The Ultimate Guide For Do’s, Don’ts, and Delivery PART 1/3: Do’s

Holiday Wedding Pros And Cons

How To Write A Wedding Speech: The Ultimate Guide For Do’s, Don’ts, and Delivery PART 2/3: Don’ts

• best man speech
• bridesmaid speech
• how to write a wedding speech
• wedding planning
• wedding speech

how to write a wedding speech dos

Someone you love is getting married, and you’ve just been asked to give a speech at the wedding. What an honor! But also, if you’re not used to giving speeches, what a nightmare! Public speaking can be scary , which is why many people prefer to avoid it. But when your bestie asks you to make a speech at his or her wedding, it’s time to rally. But now you’re wondering if you even know how to write a wedding speech! What makes some wedding speeches fun and memorable, and what makes others cringy and fall flat? We’ve got you. We’ve put together the ultimate guide for how to write a wedding speech, focusing on things you definitely should do, things you definitely should NOT do, and then how to deliver your killer wedding speech like a pro.

If you’re wondering how to write a wedding speech, here are a few “Do’s” to keep in mind.

• Start planning early
• Introduce yourself and how you know the bride and groom
• Thanks to hosts, guests, and wedding party; congratulate the couple
• Make it personal
• Think of 3 traits with 3 stories
• Talk about the couple
• Have a beginning, middle, and end
• Consider your audience
• Keep it short and sweet
• It’s okay to be simple and meaningful

1. Start planning early

If you don’t know how to write a wedding speech but the bride just asked you to give one, this is not a time to procrastinate. Public speaking is one of the number one fears many people have, so it’s likely you’ve avoided giving too many public speeches before this. And unless you’re a performer or a veteran improv comedian, you might not do too well winging this one. If you get nervous in front of an audience (as most of us do), the best defense against freezing up when you take the mic is being prepared. 

As soon as you know you’ve been asked to give a speech at the wedding, begin jotting down notes immediately. Whenever you’re inspired by a thought of the couple or remember an anecdote that might be worth retelling, make note of it. This will help to give you a pool of ideas to draw from when you start writing down the speech.

Begin gathering ideas and writing the speech a couple of weeks to a month before the wedding. You’ll need time to edit, fine-tune it, and make it concise. And as wedding showers, bachelorette parties, and other wedding festivities begin, you might find there are entertaining stories from these events you want to add as well. If you want to write it all at once, you can do that too. However, make sure to sleep on it and come back with fresh eyes. You don’t want just “okay,” you want your speech to be heartfelt and meaningful.

You will also want to begin early to give yourself time to practice and rehearse your speech plenty of times.

2. Introduce yourself and how you know the bride and groom

No matter how large or small the wedding is, it’s likely you will not be familiar with many of the guests on one or both sides. And they won’t be familiar with you either. So don’t leave them guessing! 

Make sure when you start to write a wedding speech to introduce yourself and mention how you know the couple. This will help them understand the context of your speech, which will also help it to be more well-received. 

3. Thank hosts, guests, and wedding party; congratulate the couple

It’s also courteous to take this time to thank the hosts and other members of the wedding party for all the hard work that went into the event, and to thank guests for being there to support the newlyweds, especially those who had to travel far. 

It’s also a good time to officially congratulate the newlyweds and offer them your personal well-wishes for their future. It is imperative that you don’t forget this part, because they are the whole reason you’re there and giving a speech!

4. Make it personal

Whether you are the maid of honor, the best man, father of the bride, or just a friend, you were asked to give a speech because of your close connection and relationship with either the bride or groom (or both). 

And since you know your friend as well as you do, you probably have plenty of stories to share; so the next tip for how to write a wedding speech is don’t hesitate to make it personal and share those stories! This will also help guests get to know the other half of the couple they might not know as well or are just meeting for the first time. And those guests who do know them will love hearing some entertaining stories they might not have heard yet.

5. Think of 3 traits with 3 stories

If you’re finding it difficult to come up with anything, a useful approach for how to write a wedding speech is to think of 3 positive defining traits or qualities of the bride or groom and recount three stories or examples that illuminate a time they exhibited these traits. These stories could be comedic, heartwarming, or both. Just make sure they are relevant and entertaining!

6. Talk about the couple

If you’re the maid of honor and have been chatting up the bride for the whole speech, part of how to write a wedding speech is to make sure at some point it circles around to the groom, too, and to the two of them as a couple.  

Recount the time you met him, or how you remember talking about him with the bride in the beginning stages of their relationship. If you don’t know the groom all that well, talk about how good they are as a couple and about how happy he makes her. 

And If you’re not a fan of the groom, this is not the time to air your grievances. Always keep it positive. 

7. Have a beginning, middle, and end

All good speeches have a good flow and take the audience along with it. 

Don’t let your speech fall flat or jumble together in a haphazard confusion of disconnected anecdotes. Give it the structure of an overarching theme, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. 

We are not talking about a novel here, just make sure there is a direction to where the speech is going, and that the destination, end, or sentiment is achieved. It doesn’t need to be Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, but a three-act structure does help keep you grounded. Most people also follow a story easier when there is a clear direction for a story or speech. 

8. Consider your audience

The next thing to keep in mind when considering how to write a wedding speech is to make sure you consider who your audience is. 

This is not the bachelor or bachelorette party. There will be a wide range of people present from children to the elderly, and from close friends of the bride and groom to casual acquaintances and coworkers. Make sure your speech is free of any crudeness that might not be fit for such a varied audience. Also, this isn’t the time to take a shot at any of the religious cermonies.

Be considerate and keep it positive and use language everyone can relate to. 

9. Keep it short and sweet

You want your speech to be meaningful and memorable; but the wedding is not about you, and yours is not the only speech. 

No one ever complains about a speech being too short, but they do begin to grumble if it runs on too long. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind when figuring out how to write a wedding speech is to keep your speech between 2-5 minutes long. Any longer than 5 minutes and you’ll lose everyone to thoughts of cake and whether or not to Cupid Shuffle later. 

10. Add humor

Don’t be afraid to be funny! Another tip for how to write a wedding speech is that if you’ve got a lighthearted, creative, joking side, use it and add humor to your speech! Everyone likes to be entertained. 

This doesn’t mean you should scour the internet for generic wedding-themed jokes, but if you’ve got some good original material to use that helps relate a story about the bride or groom in a comedic way, do it. As long as you’re not making fun of the couple but having fun with them, jokes are great. Or you can even poke fun at yourself to illuminate a higher quality in your bestie. It’s all about making the newlyweds shine. 

If you’re creative and have other talents, use them! If you are musical, bust out your instrument and/or vocal cords and make the speech in the form of a song! Use props, and get the other guests involved! The newlyweds will feel special because you created something for them, and the guests will love joining in the fun.

11. It’s okay to be simple and meaningful

If entertaining isn’t your thing, that’s okay! Don’t force it – just be yourself. It’s okay to be simple and meaningful with your speech. Always keep in mind when you go to write a wedding speech that what’s important is that you are genuine and speak from the heart.

Hopefully, you found these tips for how to write a wedding speech helpful, and can start writing today! And stay tuned to our blog for the next part in this ultimate guide for how to write a wedding speech where we highlight a few things you should definitely avoid.

Love this content and want more? Read more about weddings on our blog ! Involved in the wedding planning process and the bride is still looking for a venue ? Give us a call today and we’ll help you find the perfect place!

Jennings Trace

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > How To Write a Speech Everyone Will Remember (In a Good Way)

How To Write a Speech Everyone Will Remember (In a Good Way)

Speeches have the power to move, inspire and celebrate some of life’s greatest moments—or make your audience scout out the nearest exit. To keep an audience engaged and deliver a meaningful or persuasive speech—you have to do more than stand up and give an impromptu talk to a room full of people. You need to know how to write a good speech.

Whether you’re speaking at a graduation or a wedding reception, every good speech follows four important guidelines:

1. Keep it short & sweet. One of the best markers of a good speech is that it ends before people get antsy.

2. Don’t make it about you. You may have everyone’s attention, but keep the spotlight where it belongs—on the audience.

3. Practice, practice, practice. Practice with a friend, use a free coaching tool , or record yourself and listen for any parts that venture off topic or don’t need to be included.

4. Watch your grammar. Run a grammar check on your script to avoid embarrassing errors or even possible bias in your final speech.

Different types of speeches have special considerations, too. Here are some of the most common types, along with additional tips to deliver them well.

How to write a best man speech or maid of honor speech :

• Be generous with compliments. Thank the other speakers, congratulate the newlyweds, and say a few nice words about the ceremony, the other guests, and the couple themselves. Convey the warmth that the occasion brings.
• Be strategically funny. You’ll probably have people from different generations and cultures there to celebrate, and possibly even the boss or colleagues of the bride and groom. Humor is great, but don’t cross the line with things like inappropriate jokes, references to exes, or embarrassing anecdotes that could make Grandma blush and give the newlyweds something to fight about on their honeymoon.
• End on a celebratory note. Leave the happy couple and their guests feeling even more joyful. Read a memorable quote or love poem, and then propose a toast or invite the guests to applaud the happy couple.

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How to write a graduation speech :

Gather inspiration. Some of history’s best graduation speeches are posted online as transcripts and videos. Watch them for inspiration on topics, delivery, and overall themes that you can emulate in your own speech.

• Acknowledge the graduates and their supporters. Thank and acknowledge the faculty and families while you name and celebrate the accomplishments of the graduates. Hitting an educational milestone is a team effort that deserves broad recognition.
• End with an inspirational look toward the future. Graduation is an ending that is also a beginning. End your speech with a positive quote or your own heartfelt message about a bright future.

How to write a persuasive speech :

• Describe the current situation in detail. Set the stage by giving context to the idea or argument you’re going to introduce. Describe the current state along with any different viewpoints that are being widely shared.
• Share the drawbacks of inaction. Describe the pitfalls of not adopting an idea, changing an approach, or doing the thing you’d like them to do. Provide supporting facts that demonstrate how important it is to find a solution.
• Introduce your solution. Share your idea or solution and describe why it’s the best approach. Paint a picture of how things will be once the solution is in place. Clearly tie it to the pitfalls you described before. End with a clear call to action.

How to write an informative speech:

• Create a strong thesis. After you set the context with a brief introduction, deliver a strong, clear thesis statement. Make a note to follow your statement with a pause to emphasize the importance of your thesis statement and allow the audience to fully take it in.
• Consider the audience. Focusing on your audience, decide what type of information and what level of detail they’ll be most interested in. Include stories or anecdotes that will resonate.
• End with a concluding statement. Summarize the information you shared and why your audience should care. End your speech with a strong, concise conclusion that reiterates your thesis statement and leaves your audience with the main takeaway of your speech.

Above all, have fun. A good speech is a gift to your audience that they’ll remember for years to come.

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The Ultimate Guide to Public Speaking: Everything From Speech Writing to Speaking Fees

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a wonderful motivational speaking career that has spanned over 40 years. There are hundreds of public speaking tips I’ve learned along the way.

From best practices on body language to eye contact, I’m going to share as many of them with you as I can.

Whether you’re speaking in a small meeting or to a larger audience, I’ll cover techniques in this post that can help you in any situation, from Ted Talks to business pitches.

Table of Contents

How to pick a speech topic, how to write a speech, how to prepare for a speech, how to book your first speaking gig, how to pitch yourself, how to negotiate your speaking fee, how to prepare backstage, how to overcome your fear of public speaking, how to master stage presence, how to connect with audiences, how to utilize visual aids, how to turn public speaking into a career, how to take it international, how to become a successful public speaker.

The starting point in the art of public speaking is to pick the subject that you will be speaking about.

Now, this might seem obvious, but choosing a speech topic can sometimes feel more difficult than actually giving the speech.

1. Speak About Something You Care About

To pick a subject, reflect back on what you are truly passionate about.

You can speak about almost anything you want as long as you have a genuine interest in it. For example, I began speaking in business, sales, and leadership qualities because I truly believe that is my purpose in life and I love helping others in these areas.

Think about your passions and pick one to speak about – just make sure your passion and expertise on the subject come through in your speech!

2. Focus Your Speaking on a Single Subject

To crave a distinct lane for yourself, you should specialize and always focus on a single subject – especially when you’re first starting out.

What you don’t want to do is try and please everyone, and end up with nothing unique about your personal brand.

You don’t want to give a potential prospect a laundry list of things you’re knowledgeable about or say something along the lines of, “I can give a speech on anything you’d like.”

Instead, you’ll want to demonstrate your specific expertise and how it will benefit your specific audience.

For example, if you’re someone with a lot of business experience and you specialize in increasing company efficiency, you might say, “I show leaders how to get the very best out of each person that reports to them.”

To which your prospect would reply: “Great. All of our managers would like to hear that.”

3. Don’t Stray Too Far Out Of Your Direct Experience

Every subject I ever agreed to speak on was within my direct experience.

It may be tempting to say “yes” to every request, but it is better to be transparent about your skills than to end up scrambling to learn enough on a new subject to “wow” your audience.

Now that doesn’t mean you have to deny every opportunity that doesn’t directly align with your main focus. Look for ways to indirectly merge the two topics.

For example, early in my career I primarily spoke to salespeople about selling techniques. So when I was presented with the opportunity to speak on leadership, I had to pause and reflect. I had been a sales manager in large organizations. I had hired, fired, trained, and managed people for years and I had a bunch of quotes from other leaders .

Although most of my talks had a sales focus, I had years of experience leading a team that I could pull from to craft a well-informed talk.

So, it’s all about finding that middle ground of your direct expertise and tweaking your real-life examples to fit your topic.

4. Get to Know Your Audience

Once you figure out what you want to say, you’ll be able to pinpoint who would benefit from hearing your motivational speaking.

I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say the ability to entertain, inform, and inspire an audience through public speaking is a skill that offers immense value. Because of this, you should know what your audience wants from you.

Whether it is your first speech or 300th, you should know why people are coming to listen to you. Defining your target audience will help you determine what examples you should use to communicate your points most effectively.

Some things to consider:

• What age are the people who need to hear your message?
• What’s their career?
• Where do they live?
• What are their interests?
• What do you and your audience have in common?

These considerations allow you to cater to your audience’s curiosities and interests in your speeches. And when you know your target audience, you’ll also be able to figure out where to find them — such as a marketing conference or another industry event.

Once you have your topic locked in, it’s time to start the writing process! This is where a lot of speakers start to feel overwhelmed.

From how to begin, to what to cover… from how to time your talking points, to how to close it out, – every decision seems monumental.

So let’s break it up into a few smaller chunks to help you tackle the writing process with ease.

How To Structure A Speech

Writing and presenting a speech is just like dialing a phone number. When you want to call someone, you dial the right numbers in the right order, and you’re connected.

When you want to give a successful presentation, the same rules apply.

1. Implement the Rule of 3’s

Structuring your speech outline should be as simple as 1, 2, 3 – literally. No matter how simple or complex the subject matter, the basic flow of your speech should be:

• Your opening
• Your key points
• Your closing

That’s it. Whether it’s a 10-minute presentation, a 2-hour keynote, or a virtual presentation , this basic structure is all you need to write a great speech.

I’ll get into how to start and end your speech in the following sections, but first I want to focus on the structure of your key points, which will end up being the bulk of your talk.

If you’ve done a good job brainstorming, you might have lots and lots of ideas you want to cover. But again, remember the rule of three.

It’s been proven time and time again that there is a little bit of magic behind the number three when it comes to writing.

So try to stick to three main key points. You can (and should) have a lot of supporting ideas and examples, but they should all relate to one of your three overarching points.

2. Use Stories to Link It All Together

Once you have the main three points of your speech, use stories to help further illustrate your points.

The stories you include in your speech act as anecdotes for the points that you are trying to make and help the listener better relate to your message.

You can tell stories that are motivational; that have to do with greater success and achievement as the result of persisting. And you can tell stories that are emotional; that makes people feel a bond with your journey. They can be stories that inspire, persuade or anything in between.

However, DO NOT tell a story just to tell a story. As the great orator Winston Churchill once said, “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”

3. Remember That Less is More

Always aim to be as clear and concise as possible. This will help you get your point across as the audience won’t be distracted by fluff, and when every word carries meaning, they will listen even more intently.

When everything is clear, concise, and related to the point you are trying to make, it’ll be much easier for the audience to understand.

Refer back to that Winston Churchill quote and remember, less is more.

How to Start Your Speech

You have heard the saying “First impressions are lasting; you never get a second chance to create a good first impression.”

The same is true when talking about how to start a speech…

The truth is, when you start your speech, you must focus everything on making a positive first impression on your audience members.

The start of your speech is so important that I have written an entire blog post specifically on techniques to start your speech , but here are my three favorite options.

1. Make A Strong Statement, Then Ask A Question

If you start by making a strong statement and then ask a question, you can then follow with an answer and ask another question. This gets people immediately involved and listening to your every word.

Here’s an example:

“Twenty percent of the people in our society make 80 percent of the money. Are you a member of the top 20 percent? If not, would you like to join the top 20 percent or even the top 10 percent? Well, in the next few minutes, I am going to give you some ideas to help you become some of the highest-paid people in our society. Would that be a good goal for our time together today?”

2. Start Your Speech by Referring to Current Events

Use a current event, front-page news story to transition into your subject and to illustrate or prove your point. You can bring a copy of the newspaper and hold it up as you refer to it in your introduction.

This visual image of you holding the paper and reciting or reading a key point rivets the audience’s attention and causes people to lean forward to hear what you have to say.

3. Make A Shocking Statement

You can start your talk by making a shocking statement of some kind.

For example, you might say something like: “According to a recent study, 72 percent of the people in this room will be doing something different within two years if they do not rapidly adapt to new technological advancements in marketing.”

In this case, I’ve gone with a fear tactic. The people in the audience are quickly realizing that if they are not careful (and listen to what I have to say) they could very well be out of a job.

This is the kind of gripping introduction that you want to lead with – something that surprises the audience and leaves them wanting more.

How to End Your Speech

So, as we know with our rule of 3s, a good speech is like a good play. It opens by arresting the listener’s attention, develops point by point, and then ends strongly.

There are tons of ways to end a speech, depending on what you are speaking about or what your public speaking goal is.

And before we get into a few options, I want to share this one universal tip.

To ensure that your conclusion is as powerful as it can be, you must plan it word for word.

The worst thing you can do is leave the audience questioning what the point of your speech was, so you want to ensure you have a strong closing memorized.

This is especially important if you are someone that gets nervous when public speaking or tends to riff on ideas because it will ensure that you have bullet-proof anchor points to fall back on.

With that in mind, here are three of my favorite techniques.

1. Give A Clear Call-To-Action

Perhaps the best way to end your talk is to tell your audience what you want them to do as a result of hearing you speak.

Ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this talk?”

Your answer should involve the actions that you want your listeners to take after hearing you on stage.

For example, you might say:   “We have great challenges and great opportunities, and with your help, we will meet them and make this next year the best year in our history!”

Whatever you say, imagine an exclamation point at the end. As you approach the conclusion, pick up your energy and tempo. Speak with strength and emphasis.

Drive the final point home.

2. Share an Interesting Quote

Another option is to end your speech with something motivational.

People love to be motivated and inspired to be or do something different and better in the future. Find a quote that is memorable, and even better, make it relatable to your talk.

For example, if you’ve just given an inspirational speech about starting your own business, you could close out with this quote from Steve Jobs:

“If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”

Remember, everyone in your audience is dealing with something, and for this reason, everyone appreciates some encouragement that gives them strength and courage.

Here are a few more of my favorite inspirational quotes that can be tied into most speeches.

3. Make Them Laugh

Another closing option is to tell a joke that loops back into your subject and repeats your main point with a story that makes everyone laugh.

For example, during my talks on planning and persistence, I discuss the biggest enemy that we have, which is the tendency to follow the path of least resistance.

I then tell this story:

Ole and Sven are out hunting in Minnesota and they shoot a deer. They begin dragging the deer back to the truck by the tail, but they keep slipping and losing both their grip and their balance.

A farmer comes along and asks them, “What are you boys doing?”

They reply, “We’re dragging the deer back to the truck.”

The farmer tells them, “You are not supposed to drag a deer by the tail. You’re supposed to drag the deer by the handles. They’re called antlers. You’re supposed to drag a deer by the antlers.”

Ole and Sven say, “Thank you very much for the idea.”

They begin pulling the deer by the antlers. After about five minutes, they are making rapid progress. Ole says to Sven, “Sven, the farmer was right. It goes a lot easier by the antlers.”

Sven replies, “Yeah, but we’re getting farther and farther from the truck.”

After the laughter dies down, I say…

“The majority of people in life are pulling the easy way, but they are getting further and further from the ‘truck’ or their real goals and objectives.”

That’s just one example of closing using humor. For more ideas, check out my post dedicated entirely to tips on how to end a speech.

BONUS TIP: If you feel like your closing is falling a little flat, try this: Sometimes the best strategy for ending with a BANG, is to plan your close before you plan the rest of your speech.

You then go back and design your opening so that it sets the stage for your conclusion.

When someone asks me how they can learn how to get better at public speaking I like to tell them this quote:

“The only way to learn to speak is to speak and speak, and speak and speak, and speak and speak and speak.” – Elbert Hubbard

While it’s true that the only way to become good at anything is by repetition, there are many things that you can do to be more effective in speaking in front of audiences.

Public speaking is a process, and therefore everything from preparation and practice to knowing your audience plays a part in the final product.

Being able to deliver a complete message, from your body language to your word choice, makes all the difference in landing a sales pitch or impressing a live audience.

1. Record Your Practice Sessions

If the first part of successful public speaking is caring and preparing, the second part is practicing and improving your presentation skills.

If you have a tape recorder or, even better, a video camera, record yourself giving the talk from beginning to end. Then listen to it or watch it and make notes on how you could make it better.

If you’re using a video camera, look into the camera and focus on your facial expressions and body language. If you don’t have a video camera, use a mirror to watch yourself while you speak.

When you critique yourself, be very hard on yourself. Remember, the more honest and objective you can be about how you come across to others, the faster you will build effective communication skills for success.

2. Take Deep Breaths

The phrase “take a deep breath” isn’t just an expression, it’s legitimate advice. Deep breathing exercises are a proven way to help reduce stress and can sometimes serve as a sort of reset button whenever you are becoming too worked up over something.

If you feel your stress starting to spiral out of control, pause, close your eyes, and breathe in and out deeply a few times. A welcome wave of calm relaxation should follow.

In addition to helping you relax, when you focus on your breathing, you develop the ability to breathe calmly and focus better during your speech.

3. Practice With a Friend

There are plenty of people you can practice with. Be sure to tell the person to be completely honest with you in their critique.

Speaking directly to another person will help relax you and give you experience with receiving feedback. If they have questions about your speech, it is likely that members of an audience will have the same questions.

Remember, making sure you are prepared and confident in the material you are presenting is an effective way to create an impactful presentation.

We’ve discussed the basic structure of a speech and how to best prepare yourself to present in front of your audience, now onto the next step — how to get speaking engagements. 

A public speaking career can be a lucrative and rewarding way to make a living. But if you’re still trying to book your first gig, you might feel as if you’re never going to be able to launch your career.

1. Determine Your Area of Expertise

Before you start looking for that first speaking engagement, sit down, and define what you bring to the table. All of us have a different skill set and this allows us to bring a perspective that’s unique from anyone else.

When I first started my speaking career, I had a lot of sales experience. So I started off by speaking about sales techniques, which allowed me to capitalize on my experience in the industry.

Think about where you have experience and where your strengths lie.

Ask yourself:

• What kind of audience would benefit from this information?
• Where are they?

The answers to those questions will reveal the types of people and organizations you should target as you look for gigs.

At this stage, you don’t have much speaking experience — and that’s okay! So instead of presenting yourself as a speaker, try pitching yourself as an expert in your field. Framing yourself as an expert can help people take you more seriously. It can also boost your confidence because it’s completely true.

2. Utilize Your Network and Local Venues

As you’re looking for your first speaking engagement, don’t be afraid to be open about your search. Ask your network of coworkers and friends if they’re aware of any opportunities. You never know who has connections, and in most cases, people are more than happy to share with you.

The future belongs to the askers. The future belongs to people who confidently ask for what they want, and especially to speak to a company or organization.

You can call them up and explain that you specialize in this subject and that you’d love to speak to their organization.

The more you ask, the more answers you get.

It can also be helpful to start small and slowly gain credibility. If you’re selling books, you might try a local bookstore, library, or an event at a coffee shop. If you’re building your coaching career, try to find local meetups or conferences in your area.

You won’t be able to jump into nationwide events right away, but if you start building now with small local venues, you’ll be able to speak at larger and larger events over time.

3. Have Realistic Expectations

You might have to reach out to multiple places regarding a speaking engagement before you get a yes. And that’s okay! Don’t lose your motivation. Remember, the more you ask, the more answers you get.

Have perseverance, stay consistent, and follow up with your leads if your initial message doesn’t get an answer.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your first speaking engagement might not be a paying engagement. And that’s okay, too.

Zig Ziglar, who is one of the great and legendary motivational speakers, used to say that he gave 3,000 talks before he was paid for the first one.

I worked with Zig for years, traveling and speaking together. I finally found out that what he meant was that he started off in sales and then trained salespeople for a decade or more.

Every morning he would give a little sales talk to his people. He would tell little stories and give little motivational and sales tidbits, and that was his beginning.

You’re building the blocks of your speaking career, and once you nail down your first speaking gig, things will get easier and easier.

If you are to become a public speaker, you have to convince people that you are worth their time and worth listening to.

This is why, as a public speaker, being able to pitch yourself is one of the best skills that you can have. It is key to getting bookings and getting the people who come to your events excited.

1. Set Yourself Apart

Similar to speaking about a subject you truly care about or are passionate about, you need to be distinct from other people or speakers.

Whether it is your topic, or if there is a way you go about your speaking, you need to set yourself apart from others and make it clear why you are unique. Creating this “unique selling point” immediately makes your pitch stronger and at the least, different from the rest.

2. Speak Slowly and Clearly

Talking about yourself is never an easy thing to do. And normally, when pitching yourself, you aren’t exactly given all day. This can lead one to feel pressured, talk faster, miss important points, or hurry through significant points.

While you don’t want to speak like you’re listing bullet points, you should speak slowly and clearly so that your audience can absorb all the information you are giving them.

Lastly, remember to speak naturally. Speaking slowly doesn’t mean you should talk like a robot, speak as you would in any conversation. This will not only put your audience at ease but through speaking normally, you can also put yourself at ease.

3. Finish with a Call to Action

When pitching yourself, you should know exactly what your goal of the pitch is. Make it clear to the other party what you want to happen or what you expect to happen next. This could be anything from a follow-up meeting to confirming a booking, but make sure that the final call to action is an actionable step that makes your intentions clear.

When you do this, you are confirming that you and the other party are on the same page. Now you can walk away from the pitch knowing if you did or did not achieve your goal, instead of wondering how it went.

After you pitch yourself perfectly to your prospect and they are interested in having you speak at their event, the next step (and often the most uncomfortable) is to negotiate your speaking fee.

But you don’t have to dread this conversation. In fact, it is essential for your speaking career.

The truth is, knowing how to set speaking fees can accelerate your success. Yes, it can be awkward, but you need to know how to do it…fortunately, it gets easier with practice!

1. Estimate Their Budget

A bit of simple math can help you estimate your client’s budget.

Start with the cost of each ticket as well as how many tickets the client expects to sell.

Multiplying these two numbers gives you the client’s gross budget.

Next, divide this number by four—this roughly accounts for the cost of the venue plus the cost of any additional overhead your client will need to cover (e.g., security, refreshments, etc.). The figure you’re left with is a fair estimate of how much your client has in their budget for speakers.

Finally, you’ll need to know how many speakers the client will have at the event. Then, simply divide the estimated budget by the total number of speakers. The result? A decent estimate of how much your client can pay you.

2. Discover Who They Have Worked with Before

Knowing who your client has worked with previously gives helpful context when figuring out what they are prepared to pay for guest speaker fees.

Are their prior guest speakers well-known personalities or industry-leaders? Or, are they lesser-known individuals who are earlier on in their public speaking careers?

Whether you’re speaking at an annual conference, an academic institution, a corporation, or some other engagement, learn about who came before you. You may be able to find this out online or by asking the client directly.

3. Look for Averages in Your Niches

Do some research; talk to other speakers in your field, who share your level of experience, to figure out what they earn. Their figure doesn’t have to be the exact same as yours, but determining what the “going rate” is can help you establish a good ballpark figure in your mind.

Ask for some time to think it over. Most people actually have a range in mind when they offer you a certain fee. Whereas they probably want to pay you the lowest amount in that range, however, your goal is to get the highest!

Now that you’ve negotiated your fees and booked yourself a gig, I’ve included a few tips below that will help you mentally and physically prepare to speak with confidence publicly.

Your speech is a product of the practice and preparation that you put into it. When people think about preparation for public speaking, they’re usually referring to memorizing your speech or the key points within it.

However, when done properly, these 6 tips to improve your public speaking voice, along with the exercises (both mental and physical) below, have the ability to bring your speech to the next level.

1. Get Organized

Take a moment to breathe and collect your thoughts. When you organize all of your thoughts and materials it helps you to become much more relaxed and calm.

When you have clear, organized thoughts it can greatly reduce your speaking anxiety because you can better focus on the one thing at hand, giving a great speech.

2. Visualize Your Speaking Success

All improvement in your outer performance begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. Once your thoughts are focused and organized, visualize yourself on stage.

You should ‘‘see’’ yourself standing calm, confident, relaxed, and smiling as you address your audience. See the audience leaning toward you, smiling, laughing, enjoying, and hanging on to every word you say as if you were amazingly intelligent and entertaining.

Here is an important discovery: Your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between a real event and an event that you vividly imagine.

If you visualize and replay a positive speaking experience 10 or 20 or 50 times in your mind, the subconscious mind records that you have just given 10 or 20 or 50 successful talks, all ending in standing ovations and happy audiences.

3. Use Voice Exercises

The human voice is like a muscle. It can be made stronger with exercise and use.

For example, memorize a piece of poetry and recite it regularly as you drive or walk around. Imagine that you’re making a dramatic presentation on a stage, in front of a large number of people.

Put emotion and strength and emphasis and energy into the words. Go slowly. Change the emphasis on each word in the line of poetry, thereby changing the meaning of the line.

Many people with weak voices have become powerful, confident speakers by building their voices over time with exercise. Use your voice consistently to make it stronger.

4. Eat and Drink Well

Energy is essential for good speaking and voice projection. What you eat and drink before a speech can impact your performance.

Before a short talk , eat lightly. This ensures that you are bright and alert when you start speaking and that your brain is functioning at its best.

Before a long talk, it’s essential to eat well. A solid, high-protein breakfast or lunch will give you the energy to burn for four to five hours.

Only drink room temperature water prior to and during your speech, this will ensure that you have the best possible voice. Cold water can chill your vocal cords and decrease the amount of warmth in your voice.

When you have a sore throat, it can be difficult to speak clearly and project your voice. If this occurs, drink hot water with lots of honey and lemon juice. This miraculous combination has saved me on several occasions.

If you’ve ever had to give a speech – whether it’s to a thousand people or just a few, you know how nerve-wracking it can be.

The fear of public speaking is very real for a lot of people. In fact, more people fear public speaking over dying.

Thankfully, there are many ways that you can learn to overcome your fear of public speaking… and here are some of my favorites.

P.S. None of my tips include having to picture the audience in their underwear.

1. Avoid Thinking About the “What ifs”

“What if my audience hates my speech? What if they boo me off stage?”

Try to eliminate all of your fears of rejection. The audience is there to listen to you for a reason.

2. Work on Your Breathing

When you focus on your breathing your voice will have more resonance and you will be able to relax. Breathe calmly and focus on getting into a rhythm.

Although this is a public speaking exercise, breathwork will help reduce stress and improve clarity in all areas of life.

3. Take Public Speaking Classes

One of the best ways to improve your public speaking skills is to take a class. You may be able to find a class offered nearby every once in a while. These tend to focus on a few particular lessons, techniques, or strategies.

After attending a few of those, you’ll understand how to give a great speech and, better yet, how to get paid for doing so.

It also helps to find a great coach or mentor. There are many groups that you can join to learn the art of public speaking. A group such as Toastmasters is a non-profit and helps people get over their fears by having them practice speaking on subjects over and over. These groups may be a great place for you to find a mentor.

4. Further Your Expertise with a Public Speaker Course

If you can dedicate enough time to your training, enrolling in a course is one of the best ways to fully immerse yourself in the matter. Some programs even offer degrees or certifications, but these aren’t necessary to get started. The important thing is that a  public speaking course will teach you to engage and entertain any audience.

5. Be Prepared to Improvise (A little bit)

Ernest Hemingway wrote that “In order to write well, you must know 10 words about the subject for every word that you write. Otherwise, the reader will know that this is not true writing.”

Personally, I feel that, in speaking, you must know 100 words for every word that you speak.  Otherwise, your audience will have the sense that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

This also helps if you have a mental block on stage. When you know 100 words for each word, you can easily pivot to a different way of getting your point across, without being affected by the mental block.

6. Make Your Nervous Energy Work for You

Learn to channel your nervous energy into positive energy. Being nervous is a form of adrenaline.

Use this energy in a positive way to help give an impassioned presentation during public speaking events.

When you get on the stage, it feels like everyone’s eyes are on you. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone is paying attention.

As a speaker, you want to truly capture the attention of your audience so that they can really absorb what you are saying. The more your audience absorbs, the more likely they are to learn, which means the more likely they are to come back, and the cycle starts again.

Your stage presence is a huge part of your public speaking, and truly having a solid stage presence comes with a lot of experience. However, these tips below may help speed up the process a little bit.

1. Slow Down

When you speak more slowly, your voice has more power and authority. Your listeners have an opportunity to absorb and reflect on what you’re saying.

A speaking voice that exudes confidence will give your words greater importance. All powerful people speak slowly, enunciate clearly, and express themselves with confidence.

When you speak too rapidly, your pitch increases, often to something squeaky and child-like. This decreases the impact of your words and your influence on the audience because listeners downgrade the importance or value of what you are saying.

So, remember, a loud, confident speaking voice presented at an even pace will lead to a powerful and moving speech.

2. Speak to Win

Your job is to speak to win on every occasion. Your goal is to be seen as an important player in every conversation. Your aim is to persuade others to your point of view and to make an impact on your world.

You will achieve this by thoroughly preparing for every meeting that you hold or participate in, and by making others in the room feel important.

The more you can involve the participants in the discussion, the better sense you will have for how they are thinking and feeling, and the more likely it is that they will agree with you at the end of your presentation.

3. Create Mental Images

A picture is worth 1,000 words, even if that picture is in your head. Creating mental images for each major point in your speech can serve as a great reminder for you while you are on stage.

As you shouldn’t aim to memorize a speech word for word, this technique can be equally as helpful.

Visualize the point you are trying to drive across happening, or things that are associated with the point, so that when it’s time, you can relay what you are “seeing” to your audience.

4. Take it Seriously

No matter the size or the purpose of your speech, you should always treat it with the utmost seriousness.

Whether, consciously or subconsciously, your audience will continually upgrade or downgrade their opinions of your personality, ability, competence, and level of confidence based on your presentation. For this reason, you must think of your speeches as important events in your career.

Do your best to avoid distractions while giving your presentation . Your ability to speak well and persuasively can have an extraordinary impact on your life and career.

A lot of your success in public speaking will come through knowing your audience and what your purpose is in speaking to them.

Are you trying to motivate a large crowd? Inspire results within your team? Persuade a potential business partner?

Each one of these scenarios requires a different approach in order to best achieve your goal. From preparation to execution, every speech should be tailored to the audience that it is being delivered to so that it can have its greatest effect.

1. Use Storytelling in Your Presentation Wherever Possible

The key to keeping an audience engaged during a speech is with personal stories. Stories are the most important part of a good presentation.

They make your audience feel like they know you and can trust what you are telling them. You can tell very short stories, and they can be your stories or someone else’s stories. If it’s your personal story, that’s even better.

Start by saying, “I heard a story just the other day.” And then you tell the story.

Or, “Let me tell you a story,” or “This is something I heard recently that really moved me.”

The truth is, in order for your presentation or speech to have its greatest effect you need to be able to wow your audience. When you’re giving facts and figures they will pay a certain amount of attention.

But when you tell a story, your audience will listen intently.

2. Connect with Emotion

Sometimes when I’m talking to my audiences I will say, “Tell me, what percentage of people’s thinking is emotional, and what percentage is rational or logical?”

And people will guess for a while, and then they’ll finally say, “Oh, well it’s 10% logical and 80% or 90% emotional.”

I tell them “No. People’s thinking is 100% emotional.”

What does this mean? This means that people think emotionally and justify logically. The subconscious mind, and our emotions actually function at several thousand times the speed of logic.

For example, you may meet a person and instantly like them. You may find later that there are a lot of reasons for you to instantly like that person. Your emotions acted like a switchblade, instantaneously, but your logic followed after and you figured out the reasons.

3. Relate to The Audience’s Self-Interests

What motivates people to be really interested in your talk, aside from the subject, which many of them may have to be there for?

Many people have told me that they were forced to come to my seminar. They didn’t want to come, because they didn’t think they would learn anything.

The question you have to ask is, what are the motivations that you need to appeal to so that they will really listen?

Truthfully, I’ve found that one of the great motivations is self-interest.

That’s why I ask how many people would like to double their income. They all raise their hands simultaneously.

Then I say,

“Well, in the time we spend together I’m going to give you several ways that you can double your income. These are ways that have been tested and proven by people all over the world. They’ve done these things over and over, and I’ve used them myself to go from rags to non-rags. I’ll give you those same ideas. Would that be a good use of our time together today?”

And they all say, “Yes! Yes!”

I have their total interest.

4. Tell the Audience EXACTLY What They Are Going to Gain

The desire to gain is a great motivator. If you can convey to your audience that they’re going to gain things from your talk, like time, money, or greater success, then they will be listening, and they’ll want to know how they can do that.

For example, a wonderful way you can open a talk is by saying: “There are three things you need to do if you want to double your income in the next 12 months.”

Then you pause.

When you pause, do you know what happens?

People lean forward and say to themselves, “I wonder what it is.” They wonder what the three things are.

Then you say, “The three things are these. You have to be able to do this, and this, and this.”

And then the question they ask in their mind is, “I wonder how to do that.”

Now it’s almost like fishing…

You just reel them in.

The Power Of The Pause is a technique that everyone should be using in their talks.

5. Bring The Audience Into the Conversation

In this age of technology, one of the most common and effective ways to speak to your audience is virtually.

There are many methods for how to conduct an effective online presentation,  whether it is through a Facebook Live, a YouTube video, a webinar, or even in video lessons.

It is one thing to get your audience to tune in but another to keep their attention. Try bringing them into the conversation. This will engage your audience and keep them coming back for more.

Public Speaking Tips for Small Groups and Meetings

1. ask specific questions.

Asking specific questions can be very helpful as you can use questions to lead your audience where you want them to go.

Asking small groups specific questions is a way to put everyone on the same page, and it is also an indicator of whether people are following along or not.

If people seem confused by your questions, and if they’re specific enough, you can easily tell what is confusing them and quickly circle back.

2. Call on Volunteers

When working with a small audience, the best way to keep people engaged is to get them involved. Volunteers can also help you demonstrate certain points or scenarios.

As you may have been on the other side of this tactic, it also helps your audience pay attention. No one wants to be the person who gets called out and doesn’t understand, so in a way, this can pressure your audience into being attentive.

3. Give Very Niche Examples

When you have a small group, they most likely are all there for the same, if not similar reasons. So, in these settings, make sure your examples are as tailored to them as possible.

These niche examples will show your audience that you know what you are talking about, and encourage them to be involved. They also will most likely be naturally interested in examples that cater to their interests.

Public Speaking Tips for a Larger Audience (10+ People)

1. participate with hand raises.

This is similar to calling on volunteers in small groups. In large groups, volunteers can take up time, and people may not be able to hear others in the audience, causing confusion and distraction.

Hand raising allows people to be involved, without having to be vocal, and this keeps the focus on you.

2. Utilize Relatable Anecdotes

Depending on your topic and the nature of your speech, anecdotes can have different purposes. However, as long as your audience can relate to them, they will most likely be very helpful.

Using anecdotes to relate to your audience makes them feel like you are talking directly to them, no matter how large the crowd is. If it is a joke, struggle, or even idea that they can relate to, they will feel more involved and invested.

3. Ask Rhetorical Questions

Asking questions naturally gets the attention of your audience as they will want to know the answer. But when you ask a question that they already know the answer to it helps them engage.

This gets the audience to think about their own situations and response, while also allowing you to emphasize points that you are making.

Lastly, it can also make your audience think about certain ideas for a bit, or even help you transition into new ideas.

Click here if you want to learn more techniques to wow your audience.

30 million PowerPoint presentations are made around the world daily. How many more bad ones should we have to sit through? Sitting through a long, boring, PowerPoint sales presentation that no person wants to listen to can be torture.

The much worse scenario is that you are the one giving that presentation. . .

Keep reading to find out how to avoid this!

1. Keep Your Slides Short and To The Point

Each slide should only be about one key point or takeaway. If you put too much information on one slide it will become confusing to the viewer.

Try to focus on putting one point and then some bullets explaining it on each slide.

2. Use Pictures and Visuals When They Add To The Presentation

Use visuals in your presentation that help get your point across. Know your audience.

Click here for more help on presentation ideas and PowerPoint examples.

3. Use Bullet Points Rather Than Paragraphs

When you use bullet points on your slides, it gives your audience key points from your presentation. It also gives you speaking cues, in case you lose your train of thought.

Don’t overload your slides with bullets. This will keep your audience engaged with you and not reading slides.

Your slides shouldn’t do the talking for you. Limit your words to 6 words per line, and 6 lines per slide.

4. Don’t Read Your Slides Word for Word

Elaborate on the information in your slides, don’t read them word for word.

Your presentation should help to supplement what you have to say and give key points. You are the presenter, use your slides to get your key points across and keep them simple.

With each point, if you are using bullets, you can then elaborate by telling an interesting story, or a joke.

Public speaking can be a great source of income. In fact, the typical compensation for a public speaking event is $4,500 to $7,500. Here’s a video I made recently about speaking in 69 countries and how I began public speaking.

Public speaking is also the most effective way to share your ideas with the world. It takes confidence, passion, and authenticity to share a message that influences and resonates with an audience.

How does one attract eager audiences around the world?

It starts with the commitment to make as many speaking engagements as you possibly can. Get your name out there.

1. Start Small

I have spoken in over 70 countries around the world in the last 30 years. I have been translated by about 50 different professional interpreters. Because of all that, I have been titled the most prolific speaker in the history of the world.

The first thing you want to do is start where you are. For the first 10-15 years of my speaking career, I was focused in North America.

Pick a subject that you really care about and that you think is important for people to know about. Become very knowledgeable in that subject.

Then, begin to offer speeches or small workshops to people within your circle, and at no charge.

2. Build Up Your Experience and Credibility

In my early beginnings, I would often ask if I could speak for free or at minimum cost to get experience and credibility. Sometimes if people don’t know you or your reputation, you have to start from the bottom and work your way up.

There is a basic rule that says, “Before you get paid for speaking, you have to give 300 free talks.”

It may actually take you 100 or 500. But the point is, keep offering free talks until somebody comes up and asks, “How much would you charge to give that talk to my people or my company?”

Professional motivational speakers have one central focus: We’re always thinking in terms of how to get more speaking engagements.

3. Always Ask for Opportunities

The future belongs to people who confidently ask for what they want. Especially those that ask to speak to an international company or organization.

You can call them up and explain that you specialize in a subject and that you’d love to speak to their organization.

Ask them for the opportunity. Ask them for more information. Ask them if they use speakers and when they will be using a speaker again.

The more you ask, the more answers you get. And eventually, the more you will get asked to speak for them.

85% or more of all speakers are hired because someone else recommended them.

Someone who heard them speak said, “This is a great speaker.” The more people who say that you did a great job when you spoke somewhere else, the faster and easier it is for them to hire you.

Word of mouth travels fast, especially when it is positive.

5. Stick Around After Your Speech

When you’ve given a speech or a talk, stay around after and offer to speak again to others, maybe even on different subjects.

It’s amazing how much business comes when you stick around, have coffee, and talk to people. Sometimes, this will cause people to tell you about their business and ask if your talk would be helpful to them.

Many speakers have developed this to the point that they get two bookings from every talk they give.

After making a name for yourself, if you want to get paid to speak around the world , the steps below should help you begin on your journey.

1. Focus on One Country Outside of The U.S.

Once I established myself in North America, I made a bridge to Germany. It was the starting point of my speaking internationally.

Put your stake in the ground of a country outside of the U.S. to kick off your international speaking career.

2. Learn the Language

Next, you should learn their language.

After my first few gigs in Germany, I immediately started taking German classes and tutoring. It was an opportunity to develop a tremendous business around my seminars, programs, and books.

3. Talk To International Colleagues

In your travels as a speaker, you will more than likely come across a few audience members or fellow speakers who are international. Develop those relationships and keep in touch with them.

You need to make sure that the message and purpose of your speeches are meaningful in their cultures, so these acquaintances can be very helpful down the line.

An enormous number of professional speakers start off the same way:

They start off speaking in their organization or in their company or sometimes will be asked to talk on their subject to a small group of people within their industry. They put together some notes and share what they know.

When people respond positively, the speaker will suddenly realize that they really enjoyed it too. And that is one of the main reasons people want to get into speaking.

Keep reading, I’m going to share some things I’ve learned during my public speaking career.

1. Always Be Willing to Learn

There are always new skills to be learned that can complement your public speaking or new resources that can help you see things in a different way.

As a person and a public speaker, you should always be open to learning new things no matter the level you reach. In a way, this is a skill as well, and all it takes is being hungry to learn.

In my 40-year public speaking career, this hunger and willingness to learn has been the one skill most crucial to my success.

2. Practice Makes Perfect

Practice makes perfect, and perfect practice makes it even more perfect.

If you practice consistently, you will find that your presentation skills have dramatically improved over time.

Whether it is practicing your eye contact or sharpening your memory to recite speeches word for word, repetition will help every aspect of your “performance”.

Remember, your ability to speak effectively in front of people can do more to advance your career and your life than perhaps any other skill you can develop.

3. Take Action!

Are you passionate about spreading your message, creating a lasting impact, and making more money through speaking and communicating effectively ?

This information is ONLY for professional or aspiring speakers. Becoming an accomplished, effective, sought-after speaker isn’t simple. It’s the result of putting together a careful, highly specialized plan.

And it’s not your fault you’re not as effective a communicator as you want to be.

Speaking doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and without experience and expertise, it’s difficult to know how to turn speaking into a successful business and spread your message effectively.

If you want to be your own boss, travel the world, and get paid for it, learn how you can join one of the highest-paid professions in the world by starting with this free 5-Minute Speech Formula.

Editor’s Note: This post was updated for 2023 with additional public speaking tips and more details on how to book speaking engagements, how to master stage presence, and how to start a professional speaking career. 

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About Brian Tracy — Brian is recognized as the top sales training and personal success authority in the world today. He has authored more than 60 books and has produced more than 500 audio and video learning programs on sales, management, business success and personal development, including worldwide bestseller The Psychology of Achievement. Brian's goal is to help you achieve your personal and business goals faster and easier than you ever imagined. You can follow him on Twitter , Facebook , Pinterest , Linkedin and Youtube .

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How to write a speech

• James Haynes
• October 6, 2022

Table of Contents

Introduction.

So you want to learn how to write a speech. Maybe it’s for a speech for work, or maybe it’s for a school project. You know that professional speakers don’t just make stuff up. They don’t write a few thoughts on a notecard and then shoot from the hip for an entire presentation. They take the time to write and carefully craft their material. And you’re ready to do that! You have an idea of what you want to speak about, but how do you actually create your talk? How do you give a speech? And what makes a talk “good”?

In this post, you can read answers to all of those questions. You’ll learn tips to go through the process to create a great speech from idea to completion. And you’ll learn how to write and give an inspiring speech. Ready to learn more? Read on!

Before you start to write your speech

A speech is simply a talk meant to get your audience to learn, understand or do something. 

The best speakers on the planet only have one or two talks they do and those talks are insanely good. Start by developing just one, really amazing talk that resonates deeply with your intended audience. The best marketing for your speaking business is a great talk, so it is worth it to put in the hours for this part. Yes, even if your first speaking gig is a free talk at a community center.

Keep in mind: Your audience is always going to be asking two questions: “so what?” and “now what?” So what means, what does this have to do with me? Now what is what you want the audience to do as a result of your talk. Give them action steps to implement what you taught them. If they hear you speak but literally don’t do anything differently, what’s the point?

Giving a speech is almost like mapping for a road trip. If you are going to go on a road trip, it’s easier to have a paper map or Google Maps to tell you where you’re going. But if you just get in the car and you start driving, and people are in the car asking you where we’re going, you’re in trouble! But by organizing and structuring your talk, you can lead the audience to your conclusions. And you can effectively answer those two questions: “so what?” and “now what?”

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Want to learn how to write a speech? Read on for 3 steps to make it unforgettable:

1. Begin with the end in mind and tell a story

Have you ever been left at the end of a speech wondering, “What was the point of this talk?” Don’t do that to your audience. When creating your talk, determine the destination that you want to take them to. Once you pick a point, then you can work backwards and reverse engineer how to get your audience to that place.

The best way to do the point of your talk is to find where your audience’s needs converge with your passions. Think about what problems you like to solve and what topics you want to talk about and look out into the world. Who is asking for solutions to those problems? Become the expert on that audience and commit yourself to meeting their needs. (for more on finding your big idea, check out this episode of The Speaker Lab podcast)

Okay, so now you have your topic, the idea you want to communicate. Now what? One of the best ways to create a memorable, relatable talk is by integrating first-person stories . You don’t have to have lost a limb or scaled Mount Everest. Keep an eye out in your everyday life for little moments that can contribute to your message. Write them down and integrate them into your talk. As you get more speaking gigs, you will very quickly learn which stories are a hit and which are total flops…which is all part of the process!

Humans relate to stories. We connect to stories. Funny stories. Sad stories. Inspirational stories. We love stories. So tell them. Lots of them. Stories will keep your audience engaged and are also easier for you to memorize. Telling stories that you lived and experienced generally makes the story better for you and the audience. For the audience, they can often times find themselves in your story. For you as the speaker, it’s much easier (and more powerful) to tell a story that you lived versus one you read in a book.

2. Write out your speech from beginning to end

As Grant Baldwin discusses in this video on preparing your talk , you want to write out your talk to have a basic structure: beginning, middle, and end.

In the beginning, you’re going to want to introduce the problem that your talk is going to solve and ultimately start to capture the audience’s attention. One thing that’s important to remember is there’s a difference between an audience that wants to be there and an audience that has to be there. When you get on stage, you want to be able to answer for the audience: Who are you? Why should I pay attention? Why does this matter? What am I supposed to do with this information? Can I trust you? You want to give the audience a reason to engage with you and where you’re going with the speech.

The next part of the process is the main body. This is where you will provide the solution to the problem or elaborate on the idea you’ve presented, and then share the action items that transform the audience. These action items should be specific, tangible, actionable, and realistic. You want to give something that the audience can leave with knowing exactly what to do now. So you want to make it specific, tangible, actionable, and realistic – not something that’s just vague or squishy, but something that they can actually understand.

The last part of the process is the closing. The purpose of the closing is to transition the audience to your main call to action. Remember, your audience is always asking themselves two questions: “So what?” and “Now what?” And this is where your closing comes in. Your closing is so important because the audience will remember what they learned and heard from you in the final minutes of your talk.

3. Structure your speech

Types of structures for writing your speech.

Another step Baldwin recommended on our podcast on creating your talk is to break your talk into sections beyond the beginning, middle, and end.  As you internalize your talk’s message, you can break the talk into sections that you either deliver in order or out of order.

But regardless of how you break it up, you should determine what the point of each section is. It may be to tell a story to illustrate some key thoughts. Practicing that section could include practicing telling the story aloud, delivering the punchline, and transitioning out of that story into the next point that you’re trying to make. This will make it easier to memorize your speech.

Each section should stack on to what you’ve already learned. So once you learn paragraph one, then you can practice paragraph two. Then you can go back and practice one and two together – again, everyone has their own technique, but oftentimes out loud is best! (Another tactic here is to record yourself and listen back to help you to not only learn the material, but to also help decide if the material works.)

Sequential structures

One method Grant Baldwin discusses in our podcast on how to write your speech is to use different types of structures. For example, a sequential structure for memorizing your talk can take the main themes you want to speak about and put them in a sequential form, so that it’s easier to remember the order. Grant gives the example of a talk he gave for college audiences called “Life is a Highway,” where he talked about an imaginary road trip. 

As Baldwin said, the way the talk was structured was to talk in the beginning about the past, and where the audience has been, then talk about the future, where they’re going, and to end by talking about where they are, right now. “It needs to almost happen in this certain sequence,” Baldwin said, “which also makes it easier for you to memorize because they need to go in this specific order.”

When you use this structure, you can deliver your speech in any order, Unlike a singer, whose audience may know all the lyrics to the song she sings, if a speaker goes out of order, it may be impossible for the audience to notice – after all, they don’t have a script!

Modular structures

Another type of structure you can use to write your speech is a modular structure. This allows you to go in order, but it also allows you to jump around. This could be especially helpful if you’ve got a couple of main thoughts or ideas and they don’t necessarily have to go in a certain order. You can kind of mix and match them around, similar to how a band at a concert can switch songs around in their setlist.

Baldwin gives the example of topics he covered in a book talk for high school students, answering questions such as, should I go to college? how do I pay for college? What classes do I take? What do I major in? Job interviews, resumes, internships, credit cards, budgets, taxes, etc.

Similar to the sequential structure, it may be helpful for you to think of the content as telling a story, so that you don’t leave anything out. If you have five key themes, for example, that you’d like to cover, they could be five elements of a story you would like to tell. Remember: stories will keep your audience engaged and also make it easier for you to write your speech.

By following these steps, you can set yourself up for success. Many external variables help make a speech go well. Beyond working these steps before giving a speech, you should try to put as many of those variables in your favor as possible. Don’t stay up late the night before at a reception. Don’t eat a massive pasta bowl before you go on stage. Try to avoid speaking during a slot when most of the audience will be distracted. If all the variables are stacked against you but you crush your talk, it can still come across as “meh” to the audience.

Keep in mind: Speaking is like playing jazz – you don’t have to give a talk the same way every time. You can improvise and mix it up sometimes, and you don’t need to plan out every hand gesture or movement or exact line you’ll use. Some of that is fine, but also be present enough with the audience that you can play jazz when the moment calls for it.

If you have a dream to inspire others with your message, you’ve probably considered taking your passion to the stage. Becoming a speaker might sound like a charmed life in many ways. And while it does take hard work, it totally is. 

Find Out Exactly How Much You Could Make As A Paid Speaker

Use The Official Speaker Fee Calculator™ to tell you what you should charge for your next (or first) speaking gig — virtual or in-person!

In the meantime, here are a few rapid fire FAQs about speeches. Happy speaking!

How much money can you make as a professional speaker?

The runway to a successful business is often slow. But many professional speakers make 6+ figures a year within a couple years of starting their speaking business!

What degree you need to become a professional speaker?

It does not matter! You can have no degree or a PhD in whatever field you like and still be a great speaker.

Can anyone become a professional speaker?

Absolutely.

How long does it take to become a professional speaker?

This may vary quite a bit, primarily based on your state in life.

• Last Updated: February 29, 2024

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Speech And Debate

Speech Writing

Last updated on: Feb 9, 2023

How to Write a Speech - Outline With Example

By: Cordon J.

Reviewed By: Rylee W.

Published on: Sep 8, 2020

Giving a speech for a class, event or work can be nerve-wracking. However, writing an effective speech can boost your confidence level.

A speech is an effective medium to communicate your message and speech writing is a skill that has its advantages even if you are a student or a professional.

With careful planning and paying attention to small details, you can write a speech that will inform, persuade, entertain or motivate the people you are writing for.

If this is your first speech. Take all the time you need.

Like other skills, you can learn speech writing too.

Give yourself enough time to write and practice it several times for the best possible results.

On this Page

You have a message that you want people to hear or you are preparing a speech for a particular situation such as a commemorative speech.

No matter what the case, it is important to ensure that the speech is well structured or else you will fail to deliver your effective message. And you don’t want that, do you?

You can also explore our complete guide to  write a commemorative speech . Make sure to give the article a thorough read.

How to Create a Speech Outline?

Want to write a speech your audience will remember? A speech outline is a thing you should start with.

‘How to write a speech outline?’

A speech outline is very important in helping you sound more authoritative and in control. As you write your speech outline you will have to focus on how you will introduce yourself, your topic, and the points that you will be going to cover.

A speech outline will save a lot of your time and will help you organize your thoughts. It will make sure the speech is following a proper structure and format.

Before you start writing your own speech you need to know:

• WHO you are writing the speech for
• WHAT the speech will be going to cover
• HOW long it needs to be e.g if it is a 5-minute speech (then how many words in a 5-minute speech)

These speech tips will help you get on the right track from the start. Here is an example of how you can craft a speech outline.

Preparation

• Choose your topic and the main points that your speech will cover. Know your audience and get to know what they are looking for. Pay attention to their needs
• Define the purpose of the speech and properly organize it

Introduction

• A strong statement to grab the reader’s attention
• Refine the thesis statement
• State something that establishes credibility
• Provide your main idea and include some supporting statements.
• Examples and further details (if needed)
• Summarize the main points of the speech
• Closing statement
• Call to action

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

How to Write an Effective Speech?

‘How to write a graduation speech?’

‘How to write a speech for school?’

‘How to write a speech about yourself?’

Get your answers in the below sections.

Just like essays, the speech also follows three sections: Introduction, the main body, and conclusion.

However, unlike essays, a speech must be written to be heard as opposed to just being read. It is important to write a speech in a way that can grab the reader’s attention and helps in painting a mental image.

It is the opening statement of a speech. It is important to know how to start a speech that can grab the attention of the audience.

‘How to write a speech introduction?’

It should include a hook-grabber statement about your topic. It should end with a strong transition from a big idea of the introduction to the main body of the essay. Some great ways to begin your speech are, to begin with, a rhetorical question, a quote, or another strong statement.

Make sure the introduction is not more than one paragraph. This will ensure you do not spend much time on the background before getting to the main idea of the topic.

The introduction is a great chance to make sure your opening is memorable as this is the point when your audience will make up their mind about you.

The Main body

The majority of the speech should be spent presenting your thesis statement and supporting ideas in an organized way.

Avoid rambling as it will immediately lose your audience’s attention. No need to share everything, instead pick some points and stick to them throughout your speech.

Organize your points in a logical manner so they support and build on each other. Add as many points as needed to support the overall message of your speech.

State each point clearly and provide all the required information, facts, statistics, and evidence, to clarify each of your points.

It is a good idea to include your personal experiences to make your speech more interesting and memorable.

Another important thing to be kept in mind is the use of transition. The purpose of adding transition words is to improve the overall flow of the information and help the reader to understand the speech structure. Words like next, then, after, before, at that moment, etc. are the most commonly used transition words to make the whole writing less choppy and more interesting.

The conclusion should restate and summarize all the main points of the speech. Because the audience will most likely remember what they have heard last. Beautifully wrap up the whole speech and give something for the audience to think about.

For an extra element, close your speech by restating the introduction statement so it feels like a complete package.

A good approach to conclude your speech is to introduce a call to action. Encourage your audience to participate in the solution to the problem that you are discussing. Give your audience some direction on how they can participate.

Practice and more practice is key to a great speech so it is important that you read your speech and listen to yourself. When writing, take care of the required length also.

Speech Topics - Engaging Topics to Choose From

You feel relief when your teacher says you are free to choose your speech topic. Feel free to write about anything you want. The problem is students still feel stuck in choosing an effective speech topic. If you are one of them, here is a list of the best speech ideas to help you get through the process.

• What role do cats play in human’s lives
• How to improve communication disorders
• World’s fastest-growing country
• Today’s world pollution rate
• How to improve interpersonal skills
• Are paper books better than e-books
• Should the death penalty be abolished
• Should prisoners be allowed to vote
• Should voting be made compulsory
• Is it better to live together before marriage

These are some of the interesting topics that you can consider. However, if you are still not sure about the topic of your speech, you can explore our article on  informative speech topics  and pick any of your choices.

Tough Essay Due? Hire Tough Writers!

Speech Example

Stressing over on how to write a good speech? Speech examples are sure to be your best friend for effective speech writing and its effortless delivery.

Here is a sample speech example to help you get through your own speech writing process. Explore this example and get the answer on how to give a good speech.

Get Professional Help for Your Speech

If you are good at public speaking but lack writing skills or you do not have enough time to follow the mentioned points and write a speech, don't worry.

You can always contact us at 5StarEssays.com.

We have a highly qualified and amazing team of expert writers who can help you if you want to buy speeches online with high-quality content.

Contact our " write my essay " service with your requirements. Our essay writer will provide you with quality material that your audience will remember for a long time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best introduction for a speech.

The best way to open a speech’s introduction is, to begin with, a story. Tell an inspiring story to your audience and connect it with your personal narrative.

What is the first step of speech writing?

The first step of writing a speech is to choose a topic. Choosing a good topic is important to have an engaging and great speech.

What are the five steps in speech writing?

Here are the five steps involved in writing a speech.

• Choose a topic.
• Investigate your audience.
• Built an outline.
• Rehearse the speech.
• Revise and finalize.

What are the types of speech delivery?

Here are the types of speech delivery.

• Extemporaneous

What are the two P’s required for good speech delivery?

The two P’s required for proper speech delivery are Preparation and Practice.

Cordon. is a published author and writing specialist. He has worked in the publishing industry for many years, providing writing services and digital content. His own writing career began with a focus on literature and linguistics, which he continues to pursue. Cordon is an engaging and professional individual, always looking to help others achieve their goals.

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• Commemorative Speech: Guide to Craft an Engaging Speech

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• 50+ Demonstration Speech Ideas for Your Next Great Speech

• Impromptu Speech Topics - 150+ Interesting Ideas

• Debate Topics (2024) - Top 200+ Compelling Topics

• 100+ Motivational Speech Topics for an Inspirational Speech

• Extemporaneous Speech - How to Write One Successfully?

• Graduation Speech - Write Your Best Graduation Speech

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How to Write a Speech to Engage your Audience

February 19, 2021 - Dom Barnard

In order to write a speech, you need to think about your audience, the required length, and the purpose or topic. This is true whether you are writing a wedding speech, conference presentation, investor pitch, or any other type of speech.

Being a great speech writer can help you get a promotion, motivate people, sell a business idea, persuade others and much more – it’s an essential skill in the modern world. In this article, we cover key tips for writing a speech.

Initial planning – Why? Who? What?

You should invest time strategically considering the speech. This will help you decide on the key message and content about your topic. Here are some points to consider.

• What do I want to achieve?
• When I achieve this, what will that do for me?
• Why am I speaking?
• What is the purpose of this speech?
• Who are the audience and who do they represent?
• Who do I represent?
• What do I know about them? (culture, language, level of expertise)
• How much influence do they have?
• What is the main message and key points?
• What specific action is implied?
• What level of information should I include?
• What is important to them?

Popular speech structure

You need to catch the audience attention early, very early (see section below). Deliver a memorable beginning, a clear middle and structured ending.

Popular speech structure:

• Explanation 1
• Explanation 2
• Explanation 3

Secondary Point (Optional: supports main)

Tertiary Point (Optional: supports secondary and main)

Attention span of your audience

Research shows that attention span is greatest at the beginning of a speech, reduces considerably during the middle of your speech and picks up again towards the end when your audience know you about to finish.

Don’t try to put too many ideas into your speech. Research shows that people remember very little from speeches, so just give them one or two ideas to hang onto.

These two articles explain audience attention span in more detail, and how to write a speech to extend it:

• How many minutes is the audience’s attention span?
• What to do when you’re losing your audience

Speech introduction

Make sure your opening few seconds are memorable as this is when your audience will make up their minds about you. Use a bold sentence to grab their attention, works best with numbers reinforcing your point.

An example sentence might be – “After this speech, I’m confident 50% of you will go out and buy a VR headset.” Follow these tips on how to write a speech intro:

Remember the INTRO model

This is more focused on presentations but sections can be applied broadly to other general speeches.

1. Interest

You: Introduce yourself confidently and clearly Audience: Why should I listen to you?

You: Remind the audience the reasons for this speech Audience: What’s in it for me?

You: State length of speech at beginning, “Over the next 15 minutes” Audience: How long until I can get a coffee?

4. Routemap

You: State the main points, “Today I’m going to cover 4 main points” Audience: Which sections of the speech are important to me?

5. Objectives

You: Clearly state the objective, “By the end of this speech, I would like to…” Audience: So that’s what you want from me today…

Example: Great speech opening

This speech opening is by Jamie Oliver, giving a TED talk on teaching every child about food.

Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead through the food that they eat. My name’s Jamie Oliver. I’m 34 years old. I’m from Essex in England and for the last seven years I’ve worked fairly tirelessly to save lives in my own way. I’m not a doctor; I’m a chef, I don’t have expensive equipment or medicine. I use information, education. I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best bits of life. We have an awful, awful reality right now. America, you’re at the top of your game. This is one of the most unhealthy countries in the world.

How not to open your speech

Avoid the following opening comments:

• “ Apologies, I’m a little nervous about speaking ” – no need to make the audience aware of this, it will make them focus on how nervous you are instead of what you are saying
• “ I’ve got the graveyard shift ” – you are telling people not to expect much
• “ I’m what stands between you and lunch ” – even if people weren’t thinking it, after this comment, all they are thinking of is when will you finish so they can eat
• “ We are running late, so I’ll do my best to explain… ” – instead of this, state how long your speech will take so that people know when they will be leaving

Middle of the speech

The body of your speech is where the majority of the information is. The audience has been introduced to the subject and reasons for the speech. Now you need to present your arguments and examples, data, illustrations backing up your key message.

How to write a speech body can be difficult, the best way to build this section is to write down three points you are trying to convey in your speech, your main, secondary and tertiary points. Then write down three descriptions clarifying each of these points. The descriptions should be simple, memorable and meaningful.

The middle of your speech is where the audience start losing attention. Keep this in mind and ensure your message is clear. Use images, jokes and rhetoric questions to keep the audience engaged.

Don’t overwhelm your audience with many points. It is much more valuable to make a small number of points well, than to have too many points which aren’t made satisfactorily.

Obama and his speeches

Obama’s speeches are well prepared with a focus on powerful words “A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things“. His speeches use simple language and quotes from famous speeches his listeners can relate to.

For additional trademark Obama techniques, check out  How Barack Obama prepares his speeches.

How to end a speech

Similar to the opening, your closing statements should be impactful, re-stating the key message of your speech. We advise learning your ending few lines word for word. The ending is an opportunity to:

• Leave the audience with a lasting impression of your speech
• Summarise the main points
• Provide further ideas and discussion points for the audience to take away with them
• Thank the audience for taking the time to listen

Methods to end your speech

Quotation Close  – use a famous quote to get the audience’s attention and create a link to your speech.

Bookend Close  – refer back to an opening statement and repeat it or add a few extra words to elaborate on it.

Open Question  – ask the audience a provocative question or a call to action to perform some task on the back of your speech.

For additional tips on how to write a speech, in particular how to close your speech, read:

• 5 great ways to end a speech
• 10 ways to end your speech with a bang
• Presentations: language expert – signposting

Ideas for ending a speech

• Key message
• Refer to opening impact statement
• Objectives met
• Call to action
• End on an Up

Step-by-step process for writing a speech

Here’s how to write your speech from concept to completion.

• Outline your speech’s structure. What are the main ideas for each section?
• Write out the main ideas in your outline. Don’t worry about making it perfect – just write as much of it down as you can
• Edit and polish what you’ve written until you have a good first draft of your speech
• Now you need to practice and  memorize your speech . The more you practice, the more you’ll figure out which sections need changing. You’ll also get an idea of length and if you need to extend / shorten it.
• Update your speech, practice some more, and revise your speech until it has a great flow and you feel comfortable with it.

Classic speech transcripts

One of the best ways for learning how to write a speech is reading other well written ones. Here are a list of famous speeches to read and learn from:

• Bill Gates TED Talk Transcript from 2015: Warns of Pandemics, Epidemics
• Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg Commencement Speech at Harvard 2014
• Ronald Reagan Memorial Day Speech Transcript 1984
• I Have Been to the Mountaintop Speech Transcript – Martin Luther King Jr.

How to write a speech: 20 good and effective tips

• Filed under: Featured articles , Presentation anxiety , Public speaking articles , Public speaking tips and tricks , Speaking tips , Speech delivery , Speech preparation

Just about a moment ago, you found out that you need to make a speech at an important event in a few weeks, but you don’t have a clue what to do. The only clear question in your head is, „How to write a speech that the listeners will be interested in? What should I do?”

So, how to wrtite a speech? How to write a speech depends on many factors. For example, type of event (official or unofficial), listeners (acquaintances or strangers), time (short or long speech), etc.

In today’s blog post, I’ll highlight the most important elements to consider when writing a speech. If you mark these easy-to-follow tips, then speech writing should not terrify you anymore. On the contrary, you’ll be able to prepare something that your listeners will remember as a positive example.

Table of Contents

How to write a speech if I don’t know anything about making a presentation?

“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.”  – Dale Carnegie

Each great journey starts with the first step, so let’s first take a look at some of the things you can do to prepare for a speech.

1. Pick a topic you know

The best topic is always the one you are ready to passionately talk about for hours . However, it’s not always the topic your listeners like. Therefore, you should be able to find a balance between what’s exciting for both you and your listeners.

Sometimes, you have to talk about something that is as interesting as watching turtles run. Here, think about how you can add colour to the topic with exciting stories or examples.

For example: my high school history teacher was the one who would bring such brilliant examples and turn a history lesson in such an exciting class that I wanted to learn more in my free time. At university, our history lecturer was extremely boring as we could have read his PowerPoint slides at home.

Read more about how to gather information on your listeners’ background through audience analysis here.

2. Define a clear objective of your speech

Any person is as lazy as they’re allowed to be and, unfortunately, it also applies to speech preparation. Some overestimate their improvisation skills instead of thoroughly preparing their presentation plan.

Be sure to make it clear to yourself what you want to achieve with your speech . Try to avoid the two goals of the regular speaker, „I have to do it somehow“ and „As soon as possible“. This approach doesn’t offer anything to the listeners.

Make a decision whether you want to persuade the listeners or share information with them. Then, take a A4 paper and put down the clear purpose of your presentation . This will help you write a speech that better supports a particular thought.

You should be able to define your objective with one sentence that passes on the most important thing you want to achieve with your presentation. If you can’t sum up the objective with one sentence, your speech must be too long. Normally, I get the objective on paper thinking, „What do I want my listeners to do or think differently after my presentation?“

To learn more about how to prepare for a presentation properly, read these posts:

• 33 tips to improve your presentation skills
• 12 effective impromptu speech tips you should use

3. Put down the sub-topics you’re planning to talk about

There’s one common joke, how does one eat an elephant? The answer? Piece by piece. That’s exactly how you should think about your topic. Namely, researchers believe that people are able to focus on a maximum of one main and three secondary questions . There you have your main topic, so make sure to add two-three sub-topics.

Put down the sub-topics in as much detail as possible. I usually write them in short words or phrases, sometimes, in short sentences. This way, I’m going through the main idea of one or another sub-topic I want to convey.

Recommended books

How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World's Most Inspiring Presentations

Jeremy Donovan

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences

Nancy Duarte

Confessions of a Public Speaker

Scott Berkun

Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds

Carmine Gallo

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right

Atul Gawande

The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything... Fast!

Josh Kaufman

4. How to write a speech on a topic I know nothing about?

It may happen that you have to make a presentation on a topic you don’t know or know superficially. In this case, use the time you have wisely to prepare properly and explore the topic as much as possible.

If the topic is too complicated for you and you feel like not getting it at all, check out how to write a speech that makes this topic more suitable for you.

For example, if I had to give a 20-minute speech on maths, I’d be in trouble big time as I don’t really know much about it. Thus, I’d adjust the topic and focus on the aspect of maths I know very well. So, I’d tell a couple of stories about how I didn’t much like maths at school and that there’s one thing I’m really good at. I can calculate percentages by cross-multiplying. Then, I’d talk about how it really helped me and how the listeners could use it to their advantage.

How to write a speech that sparks interest?

I think around eight presentations in ten starts with the boring „Hello, my name is…“ and „I’m so lucky to be here“. Yes, this message is also important, but from the point of view of your presentation, an effective introduction must do a bit more.

5. Grabbing attention

Before the start of a presentation, the listeners usually do their own stuff: talk to each other, browse their computer or mobile, walk around, talk on the phone, etc. If you start your speech with the usual „Well, let’s start. I’m …“, people from the third row may not even notice you.

Therefore, attracting attention is important , so think carefully about how to do it. In short, I’ll say that, basically, you can do anything you want to draw attention. As long as it meets the two requirements below, everything is fine. These requirements are:

• The activity is related to the topic
• The activity is appropriate for the particular audience

If your plan doesn’t meet at least one of the two requirements, you have to come up with something different.

6. Your introduction should spark interest

I believe the main purpose of an introduction is to awaken interest . If your introduction leaves the listeners thinking, „Meh? I wonder what that’s about!“, you’ve slipped. But if you’re able to spark interest right from the start, it will be much easier to keep the audience hooked later.

Broadly speaking, the purpose of the introduction can be divided into three objectives:

• Grabbing attention
• Sparking interest
• Sharing background information and clarifying the „rules“

The regular speaker never follows these three objectives as they have other objectives. These are:

• „I must do it somehow .“ Note that the emphasis here is on the word „somehow“.
• „I must finish it as soon as possible.“ For the listener, this means a 30-minute speech made in 15 minutes.

These two anti-objectives have nothing to do with the interests, needs, and expectations of listeners. And so it happens that in addition to the introduction of such speaker, the whole presentation is quite boring. Your task is to be a better speaker.

Here are some thoughts on how to write a speech with an introduction that sparks interest: How to make a presentation? 10 short (but thorough) steps

Tell a personal story related to the topic

As I always say, „Make a point, tell a story“. Listeners love personal stories, and if you’re a good storyteller, it’s even more fun to listen to. If you can make a joke about yourself (say, how you screwed up in a similar situation), even better.

What is the purpose of your presentation?

Have a clear understanding of your message and why you have set this or that objective. A clear description of the purpose of your presentation gives a nice answer to the question („How can I benefit from this?“) going round and round in the listener’s mind (slightly swirling).

How is your presentation structured?

Here, you can highlight the main topics you’ll be talking about. Don’t forget to mention why you chose particular topics as you’ll emphasise in the beginning why they are important.

Why are you making a presentation on the topic? If you need it, introduce yourself, but do it briefly in a few sentences. Don’t start telling your biography, but explain briefly why you are the best person to talk about this topic.

How to write a speech that has strong content?

„Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people“ – Eleanor Roosevelt

The purpose of developing your topic is not to talk broadly about nothing for a long time, but to present your key points, explain, and, if necessary, justify them.

7. Choose an appropriate speech style

When it comes to how to write a speech that has a strong content, it’s worth thinking about which style to choose or which method you could use to structure it. Here are some key methods used to structure a speech.

Chronological order

Speeches made in chronological order are narrative, historical, autobiographical, or developmental. All elements of the narrative come in some sort of chronological order, e.g., „Born in 1977, graduated from high school in 1995. Then went to Stanford University…“

Deductive method

The deductive method is most commonly used. This means that, first of all, you tell the audience what the purpose of your speech is and you prove and justify it during your presentation. The reason why the deductive method is most commonly used is that the audience will know right from the start what is expected of them, which will make it easier for them to follow you.

Inductive method

It would be wise to use the inductive method if you know that the audience is obviously against you. If you start with telling them what the purpose of your speech is (e.g., „buy my product’), it’s likely that no-one will listen to you.

As much as you want them to just listen to your arguments, start with good explanations and arguments, and then say what you want to do next. This way, you’ll be able to convey your reasoning calmly.

Problem method

The problem method begins with a description of a problem or an analysis. To ensure it’s not just pure criticism and so that it’s easier for you to persuade people, make sure to provide possible solutions.

Comparative method

The comparative method compares similar or different things, e.g., US and Canadian hockey teams, US and UK tax systems, etc.

Narrative method

The narrative method is very good for speeches that consist of events and their vivid descriptions. Here, try to avoid dry storytelling and avoid clichés: „On my way here, a funny thing happened to me…“ and the like.

Remember that you can’t write a speech that works well in every situation. Therefore, you always have to consider which method would be best for a particular audience.

8. Don’t forget proper transitions

A clearly structured speech and proper transitions from one part to another help listeners perceive the structure and, therefore, better understand the content of the speech. Your presentation should feel like hovering down a good road. This means that the listener knows during your entire presentation, where you are moving, where you are at the moment, etc.

Some thoughts on how to write a speech that is easy to follow:

• Move from easy things to more complicated ones and always make a connection between new information and the information mentioned previously.
• If it is a product presentation, where the listeners can touch or do something themselves, it would be wise to use the explain-show-let do method . For example, if you distribute the products at the beginning of your presentation, the listeners may get distracted, testing the products. So, first, you explain and show, and only then let the audience have the products.
• Try transitioning from one part of your speech to the next smoothly, form a large and well-functioning whole.
• Different parts of your speech can be emphasised by pausing , numbering sub-topics („first“, „second“), using visual tools, etc. For the most important parts of your speech to be better remembered, make sure to repeat them.

If you want to know how to write a speech that is persuasive and well argumented read a blog post here:

• 11 tips how to write a great persuasive speech

How to write a speech that is exciting to follow?

At this point, it’s worth recalling the so-called “phone game” often played in childhood. Someone whispers something to the first player in line who would then pass it on to the next player, etc., until the end of the line. As a rule, the information that reaches the end of the line is significantly different from the original…

Have you ever thought that if, for example, the first in line could take notes and would be shown pictures or things to illustrate the original sentence, would the end result be better? Now, we’ll have a look at how to write a speech that is well-illustrated.

9. Use all the senses of your listeners

Using different tools helps listeners better focus on what you’re talking about. If you’re planning to use tools, try using a lot of them, and remember to use all the senses of your listeners when making a presentation (pictures, stories, examples, questions to the audience, engaging the audience, etc.). This way, your message will hit home more effectively.

Instead of a regular text slide, show a slide containing only one image and tell a relevant story related to this image and your topic. Deliver it in a cool, humorous way, making a joke about yourself, if possible.

10. Engage the audience to think and contribute

Engage the audience by encouraging them to express their thoughts , asking them questions and doing everything to encourage them to ask questions. The cooler environment you manage to create, the more the audience will listen to you.

If the format of you presentation allows it, do some group work and practical exercises. Don’t be afraid to do something unusual – it will be remembered.

11. Personal stories are better than vague examples

All of us have have great stories to tell that can be used when making a speech. If it’s a relevant and humorous story that happened to you, it’ll work well. Especially if it’s a story where you show, based on your own experience, how you failed at something and learned from your mistakes . Many people don’t like to be joked at – you’ll be making a joke about yourself in front of the audience, and believe me, it’s worth it.

Telling a story, try to make it more personal for the listeners. For example, instead of saying „I went to a city…“ say „Two weeks ago, I went to London and…“

Also, name places, people, objects, etc., that people know. The more true details (but don’t overdo it), the more powerful the story is. If the listeners can relate to your story, the message will hit home sooner.

12. Use your body language, facial expressions, and emotions effectively

Use your body language and facial expressions when telling stories. Give your story a different emotion , don’t speak monotonously. Show related humorous video clips. In other words, use all the senses of your listeners.

If you manage to make a colourful presentation like that, even a boring and uninteresting topic will absolutely wow the listeners. But if you perform as described in the first paragraph, be sure that even the world’s most interesting subject will appear so boring that the listeners will be wishing you death in a few minutes.

13. Use visual tools only if it adds something to the message

When writing your speech, think about whether and what kind of tool you need for your presentation. Do you plan to show slides?

You need to ask yourself an important question, „Will the visual material add anything to my presentation?“ Don’t do it if the answer is negative, it always has to have some sort of purpose.

Ask yourself how you will present the visual material . Timing is always important – remember not to do it too early or give it out to the listeners. I mentioned it in one of the chapters above.

Read more rom this blog post: 7 good public speaking tips you should use

How to write a speech that will be remembered?

„No matter what goes wrong, there is somebody who knew it would.“ – Evans and Bjorn’s Law

The structure of a presentation is similar to writing an essay: it must have an introduction, the body, and a summary. Many speakers manage the first two parts, but forget about summary, which unfortunately, ruins the overall impression.

Have you ever attended a presentation that starts out fine, works great, but ends so suddenly that you’re confused? Typically, it ends with a single phrase, „That’s all! Are there any questions?“ Do you think it’s the right way to end a presentation? Let’s talk about how to write a speech that the listeners will remember.

14. Avoid the abrupt summary

For example, I like to compare a proper presentation with a flight, in which introduction can be compared to take-off; topic development, to flying over the ocean; and summary, to touchdown. If all this is done smoothly, the travellers applaud sincerely.

Based on this example, think about what type of summary is „That’s all“? It’s like the pilot thinking, „Enough is enough“, abandoning the wheel, and telling the passengers, „That’s it!“

Not very funny, right? Because passengers (read: listeners), are panicking, „But what about the summary?“ When talking about presentations, some call this approach to making a summary „like a bolt out of the blue“. It was all going so well, what happened?

15. Bring out the main thing to keep in mind after your presentation

The story above is meant to show you that the purpose of a summary is not to say „That’s all!“, but to briefly summarise the main points of your speech. You should clearly state what’s most important and what you want the listeners to remember.

For example, if you’ve been making a presentation for an hour or two, full of complicated information, many listeners may not understand what’s important and what’s not. You, however, point out the most important parts of your presentation in the summary, so that everyone understands it.

A summary is like putting the last nail in the wall of a house before you move in. You know everything is ready, suitable for living. And when you finish your presentation with the last relevant bit, story, or a brilliant thought, it’s the „last nail in the wall“, leaving the listeners thinking, „Wow, this was fierce!“

How to write a speech that works out great when making it?

As mentioned above, people tend to get comfortable and lazy. This is also the main reason why most speakers prepare themselves for the presentation thinking, „I just made the slides ready and will now be waiting for the presentation“. Not the world’s best preparation method. Now it’s time to talk about how to write a speech that works out great already when making a presentation.

16. Practise your speech before making the actual presentation

Once you complete the first draft of your speech, you need to practise it in a loud voice already at home . This will help you get rid of the sentences that are too long and spot complex words that can break your tongue.

Even if you’re at home at your computer, practise when standing . This is how you get used to a situation where you can’t hide your trembling body parts from the listeners. In addition, you’ll be able to practise your hand moves . And most importantly – when standing, you appear more of an influencer than when sitting at the table.

17. Practise with the camera

The fastest – and surest – way to improve your body language is to record your presentation and watch it on a big screen later. Today, nothing could be easier thanks to smartphones, so I strongly recommend to record your presentation already at home. The camera reveals movements that we make uncontrollably.

Read more about how to be comfortable in front of a video camera here.

18. Don’t exceed the time scheduled for your presentation

One of the biggest sins is exceeding your scheduled time – the listeners become lazy, the general schedule shifts, etc. If something was left unsaid developing the topic, don’t add any new information in the concluding phase, as it only creates confusion. Keep that in mind and consider my recommendation next time.

Thus, if your presentation is limited time-wise or it’s a short speech, when practising at home, use a stopwatch and see how long it takes for one or another topic to go through. Also, check the total time of your presentation. If you tend to exceed the time, make sure to work on it.

19. Repeat as many times as it takes to make you grow tired

The more you practise, the more flawless your speech will be and the more confident you will become. It’s really helpful if you need to introduce changes to your presentation (for example, you need to leave something out). Knowing the content of your presentation throughout makes it easier.

Practise as many times as it takes to grow tired of your own presentation. Why is that good? Because it acts as a counterbalance to stress – so you can talk calmly and confidently. No, not expressing boredom, but in a confident way of a well-prepared person.

How to write a speech that takes into account the unexpected?

The military leaders know that even the best battle plan will expose a flaw after the first gunfire. Thus, it’s hardly possible to prepare yourself for all the unexpected things, but just like the military, think about what you can do if everything doesn’t go exactly as planned.

20. Answers to the question „What do I do if..?”

When writing your speech, it’s wise to ask yourself what to do if (…). Replace the dots with all the possible issues and then think of the possible solutions.

The main questions you might want to ask are:

• What do I do if I’m running out of time?
• What do I do if I have much time left?
• What do I do if the equipment doesn’t work?
• What do I do if the room isn’t suitable?
• What do I do if I get stuck?
• What do I do about the questions I can’t answer?

Bonus tip: After the presentation, adjust the schedule

When you’re done with your presentation, don’t bask in your success. Get back to your original schedule and write down how the presentation went and what should be changed . You will also see how your original schedule worked out in practice. Say, if chapter 1 took 25 minutes instead of the scheduled 15 minutes, adjust your schedule immediately.

Do you know why it’s good for you? Next time you need to make a presentation on a similar (or even the same) topic, you’ll have a ready-to-use schedule – all you need to do is adjust it to your audience.

Summary: How to write a speech the listeners can benefit from?

As you can see, writing a speech depends on many factors, but none of them should make you desperate. The more you prepare, the better the end result will be. Using the tips above, you’ll be able to write a great speech that your listeners will remember.

Related questions

What is elevator pitch? An elevator pitch is a well-thought, meaningful, and repeatedly practisced brief (about 30-60 seconds long) overview of who you are, what you offer, and how your partner can benefit from it ( full article here ).

What is persuasive speech? The main objective of a persuasive speech is to make your listeners do what you want them to do. For example, „buy my product“, „vote for me“, „believe what I’m talking about“, and so on. ( full article here )

What is an impromptu speech? An impromptu speech is a speech which given without any thorough preparation. It is five- to eight-minute speech with a characteristically short preparation time of couple of minutes. ( full article here )

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Writing a speech

Topic outline.

The purpose of a speech is often to inform or persuade an audience. 

Speeches are usually written to be spoken directly to an audience and can be used to entertain, influencing the listeners that the viewpoint of the speaker is correct. 

Speeches can also be used to encourage the audience to take action or to change their behaviour in some way; for example, to join a particular school club or society, or to recycle more. 

The ways you use language and vocabulary when writing the words of a speech will depend on the audience and the purpose you are writing for; for example, in a speech to a group of teachers and parents giving your views on a recent proposal, formal language is most appropriate.

• think about the audience that the speech is for  – are you giving your speech to a group of people you know, or do not know, or a mixture of both? If you know your audience well, you may be able to relax a little, but a speech is still a formal kind of talk and would usually not include slang
• whether your audience are likely to disagree with what you say – you will need to consider any possible objections and deal with them. Use language carefully to make objections seem less significant; for example, using phrases like ‘A few people may still think, however’
• the reason you are giving this speech and how you feel about this topic  – try to imagine the words of your speech as you would speak them out loud. Your tone of voice must match your message, so choose words that appeal to the emotions of your listeners. Focus on what you want your audience to know and feel by the end of your speech
• how to engage your listeners  – f or example, you might use inclusive words or phrases like ‘we’, ‘all of us’ and ‘our’ to make your listeners feel that you are all on the same side.
• Plan where you want to finish your speech and how you will get there before you start writing – t h e structure of a speech is usually in three parts. For example: 
• An opening that grabs your audience's attention and makes the overall topic of your speech clear  – for example, pose a question to the audience where you can predict the answer.
• A well-structured, supported and developed argument –  for example, to support your argument you might use real life examples or anecdotes.
• A powerful conclusion  –  for example, group your final words or ideas in threes to help make them memorable or end with a thought- provoking question or image and thank your audience for listening.
• Organise your ideas into paragraphs as appropriate – this will help you to develop and support your points convincingly, to build your argument and/or offer a full explanation of a particular point of view.
• S how the connectio ns between ideas in sentences and paragraphs  –  where a new point or idea follows on from what you have already said you might use linking words or phrases such as, ‘in addition’, ‘likewise’ or ‘similarly’.
• Example of a speech

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Republicans baffled by Katie Britt’s State of the Union response: ‘One of our biggest disasters’

The 42-year-old Alabama senator is a rising Republican star but her kitchen table speech did not land well even in her own party

• Joe Biden delivers feisty State of the Union address with vision for his second term
• ‘Not fair at all’: Sex trafficking victim says Britt distorted her story

Katie Britt’s Republican response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address drew reactions ranging from the baffled to the satirical to the appalled, even among fellow rightwingers.

“What the hell am I watching right now?” an unnamed Trump adviser told Rolling Stone.

“It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” another unnamed Republican strategist told the Daily Beast.

Delivering the official State of the Union response can be a thankless task, as the former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and the Florida senator Marco Rubio , deliverers of previously panned speeches, would ruefully attest.

Nonetheless, the 42-year-old Alabama senator is a rising Republican star, widely respected on Capitol Hill and her selection to respond to Biden was a golden opportunity to introduce herself to the wider American electorate.

In his address Biden used his bully pulpit effectively, attacking Republicans in a fiery speech and inviting a strong response . But Britt’s speech, delivered with overt theatricality, oscillating in tone between the wholesome and the wholly horrific, did not land well even in her own party.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the far-right Turning Point USA youth group, said : “I’m sure Katie Britt is a sweet mom and person, but this speech is not what we need. Joe Biden just declared war on the American right and Katie Britt is talking like she’s hosting a cooking show, whispering about how Democrats ‘dont get it’.”

That pointed to widespread confusion over the setting for such a figure to give such an important speech: a kitchen.

As a Gallup poll showed 57% of American voters think the US would be better off if more women were in elected office, Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump aide turned never-Trumper, said : “Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person … I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given.”

Speaking to CNN, Griffin added : “The staging of this was bizarre to me. Women can be both wives and mothers and also stateswomen, so to put her in a kitchen, not at a podium or in the Senate chamber where she was elected after running a hard-fought race, I think fell very flat and was completely confusing to some women watching it.”

Allie Beth Stuckey , host of the Relatable podcast, which “analyses culture, news and politics from a biblical perspective”, said : “Ok, GOP. Never again. I know y’all were going for the relatable mom speaking in her kitchen from her heart, but it didn’t work. Just a straight, strong speech will do in the future. Thanks.”

Kirk asked followers if they liked the speech. Blue-ticked conservative verdicts included “Man, it was so disappointing”, “No, very babysitter-reading-a-bedtime story-like”, “way too dramatic”, and “the up and down emotion was bizarre”.

Among satirical responses, Tom Nichols, an anti-Trump conservative columnist, spoke for many when he said : “There is no way that this Katie Britt address does not end up as part of the Saturday Night Live cold open.”

Elsewhere, the gonzo filmmaker Tom Arnold said : “Katie Britt is so bad she couldn’t be in one of my movies.”

Julia Ioffe, Washington correspondent for Puck News, said : “Imagine you’re sleeping over at a friend’s house and you get up in the middle of the night to pee and you hear a weird sound so you follow it to the kitchen, where your friend’s mom is drunk, crying, and rambling about the national debt. Those are the vibes from Katie Britt right now.”

From the other side of the political spectrum, however, the gun control advocate Shannon Watts highlighted a darker side to Britt’s performance, as expressed in a particularly lurid passage.

With wavering voice, the senator described meeting a migrant woman who she said described being “sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12” and who, Britt said, spoke of being repeatedly raped “on a mattress in a shoebox of a room”.

Watts said : “Senator Katie Britt says sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman while encouraging Americans to vote for a convicted sexual predator.”

Last month, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was ordered to pay $83.3m in a civil defamation case arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”. Accused of sexual assault or misconduct by more than 20 other women, Trump also faces trial this month on 34 charges arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.

Britt endorsed Trump last December.

• State of the Union address
• US politics
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State of the Union highlights and key moments from Biden's 2024 address

By Stefan Becket, Kaia Hubbard, Melissa Quinn

Updated on: March 8, 2024 / 10:22 AM EST / CBS News

Washington — President Biden delivered his third State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, issuing a full-throated defense of his record in one of his most energetic and assertive speeches of his presidency.

He used the address to contrast his vision for the country with that of "my predecessor," a reference to former President Donald Trump, who has all but wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination. Without naming him, Mr. Biden criticized Trump for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, his economic record and his opposition to a bipartisan border security bill that stalled in Congress earlier this year.

The defiant speech came at a crucial time, when many voters are expressing doubts about Mr. Biden's age and his ability to do the job. He spoke for more than an hour, and took several interruptions in stride, responding to heckling lawmakers at some points. He lingered in the well of the House chamber long after the end of the speech, glad-handing and posing for photos with Democratic members.

Here are the highlights and key moments from Mr. Biden's 2024 State of the Union address:

"Freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas"

Mr. Biden began his speech with a quip: "If I were smart, I'd go home."

He then turned serious and immediately raised the stakes of the election, telling those assembled in the House chamber that Americans "face an unprecedented moment in the history of the union."

Mr. Biden said he came to the House chamber to "wake up this Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment."

The president warned that not since President Abraham Lincoln have freedom and democracy been under threat in the U.S. But, Mr. Biden continued, "what makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time."

He turned to foreign policy and urged lawmakers to pass assistance for Ukraine to help it defend itself from Russia. Mr. Biden took his first jab at Trump, criticizing his predecessor for his stance toward Russian President Vladimir Putin and accused him of bowing down to the Russian leader.

"It's outrageous. It's dangerous. It's unacceptable," the president said.

On Jan. 6: "You can't love your country only when you win"

Mr. Biden told lawmakers that "history is watching — just like history watched three years ago on Jan. 6, when an insurrection stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger to the throat of American democracy."

He noted that many of the assembled lawmakers were present on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of hundreds of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol and violently tried to prevent the transfer of power.

"Jan. 6 [and] lies about the 2020 election and the plots to steal the election posed the gravest threat to democracy since the Civil War. But they failed," he continued. "My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about Jan. 6. I will not do that. This is the moment to speak the truth, and to bury the lies. Here's the simple truth: You can't love your country only when you win."

A testy exchange on immigration: "Send me the border bill now!"

Arguably the most contentious moment of the night came when the president turned to the subject of immigration. He implored Republican lawmakers to support a bill that would strengthen security along the U.S.-Mexico border. The legislation stalled last month after Trump signaled he opposed it. Some Republicans have said they don't want to hand Mr. Biden a victory on the issue heading into the election.

"I'm told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the bill," Mr. Biden said. Congressional Republicans, the president said, "owe it to the American people" to pass the proposal.

"We can fight about the border or we can fix it," he said. "I'm ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now."

Mr. Biden noted that the legislation was endorsed by the Border Patrol Union and Chamber of Commerce, which sparked yelling from Republicans.

"Look at the facts," he said. "I know you know how to read."

Trump, Mr. Biden added, should implore lawmakers to back the compromise,"instead of playing politics."

His comments drew heckles from Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. The interruption prompted Mr. Biden to veer off script and express his condolences to the parents of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who was killed last month. The suspect in the case is a Venezuelan migrant who crossed the U.S. southern border illegally in September 2022. Republican lawmakers have highlighted the murder extensively.

Mr. Biden held up a button with Riley's name that Greene handed him when he walked into the Senate chamber. He referred to Riley as an "innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal," and said "my heart goes out to" her family.

On abortion and Roe v. Wade: "[Trump] the reason it was overturned, and he brags about it" 

The president spoke extensively about the issue of reproductive rights and abortion, one of Republicans' major political vulnerabilities heading into the general election race. He called attention to a mother from Alabama who was attending as a guest of first lady Jill Biden. He said she and her husband were undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos are legally considered children. Several IVF providers halted treatments in response. 

Mr. Biden tied that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 2022 overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that recognized a right to abortion nationwide. The 2022 ruling threw the issue of abortion back to the states. Trump appointed three of the justices who voted in favor of overturning Roe.

"My predecessor came into office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned. He's the reason it was overturned, and he brags about it. Look at the chaos that has resulted," he said, calling on lawmakers to protect access to IVF nationwide.

He then introduced Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was forced to travel out of state to obtain an abortion after learning her fetus had a fatal condition. Mr. Biden criticized Republicans who have pledged to pass a national ban on abortion.

"Those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women. But they found out. When reproductive freedom was on the ballot, we won in 2022 and 2023, and we'll win again in 2024," Mr. Biden said, prompting another enthusiastic round of cheers from Democrats, many of whom were wearing white to express support for reproductive rights.

He continued: "If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again."

A victory lap on the economy and infrastructure

The president touted his economic accomplishments, highlighting a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package meant to revitalize the nation's roads, bridges, waterways and public transit, and legislation that aims to boost domestic production of semiconductor chips.

Mr. Biden noted that some Republicans who opposed the infrastructure bill have been cheering investments in their districts.

"If any of you don't want that money in your district, just let me know," he said.

The president introduced Shawn Fain , president of the United Auto Workers, and Dawn Simms, a third-generation UAW worker in Belvidere, Illinois, to celebrate the end of the historic strike last year that resulted in a labor agreement with the Detroit Big 3 auto manufacturers. Mr. Biden became the first president to ever participate in a picket line amid that strike. 

"Wall Street didn't build this country. The middle class built this country, and unions built the middle class," he said. "When Americans get knocked down, we get back up!"

Obamacare: "Still a very big deal"

When he was vice president in 2010, Mr. Biden introduced President Barack Obama at the ceremony where Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. He was heard on a hot mic telling Obama, "This is a big f---ing deal."

Fourteen years later, in a section on prescription drugs and lowering health care costs in the State of the Union, the president harkened back to what became one of the most well-known lines of his career.

"Folks, the Affordable Care Act — the old Obamacare. It's still a very big deal," he said, eliciting a round of laughs and applause from Democratic lawmakers.

Shunning criticisms of his age and highlighting his experience

As he neared the end of his speech — even joking to Sen. Lindsey Graham that he has "a few more things" to say — Mr. Biden didn't shy away from his age, but instead said his years in public service have provided him clarity.

"I know it may not look like it, but I've been around a while. When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever before," he said. "I know the American story. Again and again I've seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation. Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future."

The president said he has learned to "embrace freedom and democracy, a future based on core values that have defined America: Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor."

Mr. Biden then drew contrasts to Trump, though again, he did not mention him by name.

"Other people my age see a different story. The American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution," he said. "That's not me."

Mr. Biden is 81 years old and Trump is 77 years old.

The president noted that during his long career, he has been told he's too young and too old. But he said that despite his age, he has "always known what endures. I've known our North Star."

"The very idea of America, that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives," he said.

In closing, the president insisted he has "never been more optimistic about our future than I am now."

"So let's build a future together," Mr. Biden said.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez and Leo Rocha contributed to this report.

Stefan Becket is managing editor, digital politics, for CBSNews.com. He helps oversee a team covering the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, immigration and federal law enforcement.

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State of the Union fact check: What President Joe Biden got wrong (and right)

Though President Joe Biden largely stuck to the facts during his third State of the Union address Thursday, on several occasions he overstated the truth, left out key context or was simply wrong.

In a wide-ranging speech on issues including inflation, border security and conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, Biden on multiple occasions attacked – but never identified by name – his Republican opponent in November, former President Donald Trump. But in contrasting himself with his challenger and making his case for a second term, Biden occasionally strayed from the truth.

For example, in addressing the economy, a crucial campaign issue, he touted the inflation rate in the U.S. as “the lowest in the world” – even though dozens of countries, including G7 nations Canada and France, have rates that are lower.

Here are the other claims the USA TODAY Fact Check Team dug into.

More : State of the Union replay: Joe Biden hits hard; Katie Britt gives intense response

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Claim: Trump told Putin ‘Do whatever the hell you want’

“Now my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, ‘Do whatever the hell you want.’ That’s a quote. A former president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader.”

Biden mischaracterized Trump’s remarks, which weren’t nearly as broad as this framing implies.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Conway, South Carolina, on Feb. 10, Trump suggested he might not come to the aid of NATO member states attacked by Russia if they weren't contributing enough money to the alliance, USA TODAY reported.

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’" Trump said, according to the article. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you.”

Trump added, “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”

– Andre Byik

Prior fact checks:

• Fact check : False claim Putin told Carlson it's 'amusing' that US protects foreign borders
• Fact check : False claim Putin told Carlson that Biden is a 'facade' for 'those in real power'

Claim: Gross domestic product is up since Biden took office

 “Since I’ve come to office, our GDP is up.”

Biden is correct that GDP has grown since he came to office in January 2021, but this is hardly a unique achievement. Every president since Harry Truman has experienced GDP growth from the beginning to the end of their presidency, according to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve .  

Herbert Hoover, who was president from 1929 to 1933 during the Great Depression, was the last president who saw GDP drop during his presidency, according to The Balance . 

GDP grew by about 22% from January 2021 to December 2023.

– Brad Sylvester

Fact check roundup : Gas tax, border and Social Security: These 2024 presidential candidate claims are misleading

Claim: US inflation rate is the lowest in the world

“Inflation has dropped from 9% to 3% – the lowest in the world!”

Biden is simply wrong here.

The inflation rate refers to the annual percent change in consumer prices compared with the previous year's prices. That number was 3.1% in the U.S. for the year ending in January 2024, a reduction from 3.4% the previous January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . 

But that’s not the lowest in the world.

The latest data from the International Monetary Fund shows the U.S. has a higher inflation rate than dozens of countries. Those with lower rates include G7 countries such as Canada and France (2.4% and 2.5% respectively) and other advanced economies such as New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland, Finland and China. The global average inflation rate is 5.8%, according to the IMF.

The U.S. inflation rate hit a four-decade peak of 9.1% in June 2022, the highest rate since 1981.

Claim: Biden administration cut the federal deficit by more than $1 trillion

"I’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion. "

Biden is correct that the federal deficit has gone down by more than $1 trillion during his time in office. But his description fails to acknowledge the decline is primarily a result of the unique post-pandemic landscape. 

The drop was largely a result of "shrinking or expiring COVID relief," according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget , a nonpartisan group that promotes fiscal responsibility.

The deficit stood at about $3.1 trillion in 2020 and $2.8 trillion in 2021 , then fell to $1.4 trillion in 2022 before slightly increasing to $1.7 trillion in 2023 , according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

That’s still well above where it was before the pandemic. In 2019 the deficit was $984 billion .

– Chris Mueller

• Fact check : Social Security does contribute to federal deficit and national debt
• Fact check : False claim Trump increased debt more than any president

Claim: Trump said to ‘get over’ school shooting

“After another school shooting in Iowa, he said we should just get over it.”

Trump did use this phrase in remarks on Jan. 5 , but not as abruptly as Biden’s citation implies.

Speaking a day after a sixth grader was killed and five people were injured in a shooting at a high school in Perry, Iowa, Trump offered the victims and their families “our support and our deepest sympathies” and asked for comfort “for the whole state.”

Then came the comment Biden referenced:

“We’re really with you as much as anybody can be,” Trump said. “It’s a very terrible thing that happened, and it’s just horrible to see that happening. That’s just horrible. So surprising to see it here, but have to get over it. We have to move forward.”

Trump then resumed his condolences, saying, “But to the relatives and to all of the people that are so devastated right now, to a point they can’t breathe, they can’t live, we are with you and we love you and cherish you.”

– Joedy McCreary

• Fact check : There is no growing 'trend' of transgender, nonbinary shooters, experts say
• Fact check roundup : The mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas

Claim: Pandemic tax credit caused cut child poverty in half

“The Child Tax Credit I passed during the pandemic … cut child poverty in half”

This is accurate, but it's only half the story.

The child poverty rate fell from 12.6% in 2019 to  9.7% in 2020 to 5.2% in 2021 – the latter drop being its largest on record, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy , a nonpartisan think tank. The organization attributes the change to the Biden-endorsed expansion of the Child Tax Credit in 2021.

But that measure ran out in 2022, after which the child poverty rate shot back up, to a three-year high of 12.4%. That rise was “due almost entirely to the expiration of the CTC enhancements” along with other components of Biden’s COVID-19 response package, ITEP concluded.

In his speech, Biden called for restoring the Child Tax Credit.

Claim: US-China trade deficit lowest in more than a decade

"Our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade."

In 2023, the U.S. trade deficit with China declined by more than $100 billion to $279.4 billion , the smallest total since 2010 , Bloomberg reported. A trade deficit occurs when the value of a country's imports exceeds the value of its exports.

But Biden is taking credit for a trend that also has ties to his predecessor and 2024 opponent, Trump. Chinese imports have faced higher tariffs since Trump imposed them in 2018 .

The Biden administration has kept most of the Trump administration tariffs in place, according to the Tax Foundation . Biden's administration has taken additional steps to reduce China's role in U.S. supply chains and sought to increase trade with strategic allies, according to Bloomberg .

Claim: Alabama court 'shut down' IVF treatments

"The Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments across the state."

In late February, Alabama's largest hospital paused in vitro fertilization after the state's Supreme Court ruled embryos created during the treatment should be legally treated as children.

In vitro fertilzation, or IVF, refers to a medical procedure that combines eggs and sperm in a lab dish before transferring the fertilized eggs into the uterus, according to Yale Medicine .

But Biden, who had called the ruling by Alabama's high court "outrageous and unacceptable," didn’t quite tell the whole story. He failed to mention that state lawmakers this week gave final approval to legislation protecting in vitro fertilization providers and patients.

Claim: Prescription drugs cost 40% more in the U.S. than in other nations

“I’m going to get in trouble for saying that, but anyone who wants to get in Air Force One with me and fly to Toronto, Berlin, Moscow – I mean, excuse me, well, even Moscow, probably – and bring your prescription with you and I promise you I’ll get it for you for 40% the cost you’re paying now.”

Biden is mostly right here.

A 2024 report from Rand , a global policy think tank, found prescription drug prices in the U.S. average 2.78 times those seen in 33 other nations. The report uses data through 2022.

“Put another way, prices in other countries were 36 percent – or a little more than one-third – of those in the United States,” Rand reported.

Prices for unbranded generic drugs, which account for 90% of prescription volume in the U.S., are about 67% of the average cost in the comparison nations, according to a Rand news release about the study. That means the U.S. pays less in this category.

“These findings provide further evidence that manufacturers’ gross prices for prescription drugs are higher in the United States than in comparison countries,” said Andrew Mulcahy , a senior health economist at Rand, in the news release. “We find that the gap is widening for name-brand drugs, while U.S. prices for generic drugs are now proportionally lower than our earlier analysis found.”

• Fact check : Experts say US doesn't use 87% of global prescriptions
• Fact check: Post falsely links antidepressant use to school shootings

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The Sunday Read: ‘Sure, It Won an Oscar. But Is It Criterion?’

How the criterion collection became the film world’s arbiter of taste..

Narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett

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By Joshua Hunt

Produced by Aaron Esposito and Jack D’Isidoro

Edited by John Woo

Original music by Aaron Esposito

Engineered by Daniel Farrell and Andrea Vancura

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In October 2022, amid a flurry of media appearances promoting their film “Tàr,” the director Todd Field and the star Cate Blanchett made time to visit a cramped closet in Manhattan. This closet, which has become a sacred space for movie buffs, was once a disused bathroom at the headquarters of the Criterion Collection, a 40-year-old company dedicated to “gathering the greatest films from around the world” and making high-quality editions available to the public on DVD and Blu-ray and, more recently, through its streaming service, the Criterion Channel. Today Criterion uses the closet as its stockroom, housing films by some 600 directors from more than 50 countries — a catalog so synonymous with cinematic achievement that it has come to function as a kind of film Hall of Fame. Through a combination of luck, obsession and good taste, this 55-person company has become the arbiter of what makes a great movie, more so than any Hollywood studio or awards ceremony.

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Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez and Krish Seenivasan.

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