by Rick Baker
On Aug 5, 2010
‘How to Give a Damn Good Speech’…that’s the name of a book written by Philip R. Theibert.
When I find books like this, I like to create summaries so I can look at them when I am preparing a presentation. I find it helpful to look at different perspectives.
Here is a summary of some of the points made by the author
The Basics of a Good Speech
- Identify your topic and goal
- Write your opening line
- Identify a few key points
- Support your key thoughts
- Wrap it up with a summarizing conclusion
Beyond Basic – To a Damn Good Speech!
- Acknowledge your audience
- Take a moment to define your terms!
- Clarify your qualifications
- Address audience biases
- Tell them what you are going to talk about!
- Tell the audience why they should care
- Back up your points with stories
- Back up your points with facts
- Back up your points with history
- Build strong transitions
- Wrap it up
- Include a call to action
- Conclude with the beginning
A couple of thoughts..
Take a moment to define your terms! and Address audience biases: these are interesting facets. Under Take a moment to define your terms! we need to avoid industry jargon and keep our words simpler/straightforward. We can not assume others understand ‘our world’ or our train of thought. On the other hand we can excel if we are able to accurately discover and understand then Address audience biases.
We need to understand the audience…that takes preparation.
We need to do what we can to make sure the audience understands us…that takes preparation.
More on speeches and presentations in future blogs…