ADV.14.5. MAKING A SPEECH

I. PLANNING A SPEECH

1. STRUCTURING A SPEECH

The opening

In the opening of your speech, remember to tell the audience what it's about. The reason we're here is to talk about our achievements and results. You also need a hook to grab their attention. Ask a thought-provoking question, make an interesting statement, recite a relevant quotation or even make a joke. We've had a great quarter, and I want to share it with you. The body       Plan the body of your speech as a series of points. For example: describe an achievement, talk about problems and solutions, then describe results. My first point is about our manufacturing achievements. It's a good idea to organize your points so that they logically build on each other. Having looked at our achievements in manufacturing, let's move on to talk about some issues we faced Some ways you can organize the points of your speech include comparing and contrasting, describing events chronologically, and presenting problems and solutions. I've told you about the issues; so, now the solutions. The closing     Use the closing of your speech to summarize what you've talked about. In closing, we've increased our profits and fixed some of our biggest issues this year. Try to leave your audience with a positive message, such as a compliment or an upbeat emotion. Before you go, I'd like to add that this was all possible because of you: our team.

2. DESCRIBING YOUR INTENT

Stating your intent
There are a number of ways to state your intent or requirements. You can do it quite directly: I want to highlight how much we help the community. We need to include information about our efforts to help others. Communicating like this makes what you want very clear, but can also be considered rude, especially if you don't know the other person well or if they are your boss. In these situations, it's often better to use a softer, more indirect approach: Would you like me to mention the Van Patten project? I could touch on the sales figures from last quarter. Notice, however, the downside: using this language might make people think that you lack authority or confidence. Softening your intent     One effective way to soften how you express your intent without losing authority is to use verbs like think, consider, see and imagine in the continuous form: I was thinking that I'd include something about the 'Green Prize.’ I'm considering highlighting how much we help the community.

Another way is to use modals like could, would and might:

It might be best if I provided some details about the new TV ad. It could be useful to cover the staff training program. It would be a great idea to talk about the product launch. Before you write or say something important, it's always best to consider who you are speaking to. Finding the right tone is always a balance.

3. DESCRIBING WHAT YOU'LL COVER

What will you mention?
Use expressions like these to describe what you might include in a speech: I think we should include something about the great response we got from Ray Corp. I'll try to cover the latest survey results toward the end. If you only want to talk about something for a short time or in little detail, use expressions like these: I'll briefly comment on the customer complaint case. I'll touch on the website after I've talked about the new phone app. I can mention the contract renewal process in passing. Here is one way to describe how you will connect ideas in a speech: I can transition from talking about the prime-logistics.com account to our new contract with Big Company.

II. DRAFTING AN ENGAGING SPEECH

1. AVOIDING REPETITION

Avoiding repetition

Try adding variety and interest to your speech by avoiding repetition. For example, if you need to refer to the same person, thing, or idea more than once, you can use synonyms.

We've never received so much attention from the media and the consumers.
Information about shoppers is what fertilizes our garden and keeps it growing.
Now we can also engage directly with our clients' concerns.

You can also add modifiers to create more engaging phrases.

The problem was our lack of insight into our valued customers' behaviors.

If you think it's obvious to the listener, you can use less specific words:

We've never had such detailed information about these people.

Or you can be more specific:

This one shopper gave us the most interesting ideas.

Another way you can add variety is to use relative clauses. Notice this phrase still refers to customers or consumers:

I'd like to share how we have addressed our poor understanding of the people who keep us in business.


2. USING METAPHOR

Creating impact with metaphor
Use metaphor to make a point more interesting or impactful. When you're making a speech, it's a good idea to use metaphors that have powerful associations with emotions, or that are easy for your audience to understand. Metaphors around fighting or journeys are very common: We will fight our competitors in every market and win the war. We are at a fork in the road, and we must make some difficult decisions. Be careful, however, about using such common metaphors. They can sound like cliches. Consistent metaphor     Choose a metaphor that you can extend across a whole speech. Using the same metaphor consistently makes the speech more engaging and effective. Let me begin with a story about our journey over the last year. When we started out on this road, we were moving very slowly. Our competitors overtook us with their new phone at the start of the year. However, we made up ground, and released an easy-to-drive, economical new model. It was a success. As a result, our sales went up dramatically, and before long we were cruising.

III. ADDING COHESION TO A SPEECH

1. TRANSITIONING BETWEEN POINTS

Recapping what you said

To remind an audience of what you've just said, use expressions like these: To briefly recap this section, we succeeded in reigniting our sales. Before we move on, allow me to quickly summarize: this year has been a mixed bag. Some success and some failure.

Let me quickly go over the key information again. We are well on our way to achieving our goals.

Transitioning to a new point

After recapping, you can transition smoothly to another point with these expressions: This brings me to my next point, which is about marketing. With this in mind, let's proceed to look at our production figures. Having examined how we secured the Prettle account, I want to look at new business in general. Now it's time to talk about the Green Business awards. I'm sure you're all excited.

2. REFERRING BACK TO PREVIOUS POINTS

Referring back
As a speech goes on, it's easy to forget what has already been mentioned. You can help people understand how points in a speech fit together by reminding them of what you said earlier. As you can see, we were influenced by the market, a point that was brought up earlier. This is connected to my point about customer information, which we were looking at just now. It's obvious that we can do better for our customers, which echoes the previous point about our poor sales performance.

3. REFERENCING WITH PRONOUNCE

Referencing with pronouns
You probably already know that you can avoid repetition by using personal pronouns like it, they and them: We had several issues with the proposal. They were the high price and high risk. And you can use this, that, these and those to refer back to something: Marketing has to be our number one priority. With this in mind … You can also refer forward to build interest, but remember to clarify what it is you're talking about. Notice how this is clarified in the sentence that comes after it: OK, this is what we're going to do. We're going to have the company party next week. Another way you can refer to what was recently mentioned is to use such: Addressing such issues has to be our number one priority.

IV. ADDING VISUAL SUPPORT

1. CREATING VISUAL AIDS

Concise language in visual aids

On visual aids, you can use titles, short sentences and fragments (fragments) to save on space. For example, you can use infinitives to describe plans, aims or action points:

Plans for next quarter –  To review the staff incentive program –  To implement a staff rewards and discount program –  To run a staff satisfaction survey

You can use gerunds for ongoing activities:

Better working habits –  Limiting duration of meetings –  Sending follow-up emails after meetings

And you can use past participles to indicate achievements:

Achievements –  Reduced overheads on inventory storage by 30% –  Maintained low refund rate at 2.5%

If you use fragments, use them consistently, and make sure they match the title of the slide.

2. PROOFREADING YOUR SLIDES

Proofreading

It's a good idea to proofread any piece of writing that you do. When you proofread, check for errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Being concise and consistent

For visual aids, check to make sure you're using text consistently. Make sure they are all in the same form and consistent in tense:

Company mission –  Supplying the best service –  Designing the best products –  Employing the best staff

Check that your punctuation is consistent. Use capital letters and periods for full sentences. Don't use periods for fragments. If you capitalize the first letter of one fragment, capitalize them all:

Company mission –  Supplying the best service –  Designing the best products –  Employing the best staff

Check to make sure you use the same style for your titles throughout your presentation:

Slide 1: To fix last month's issues –  Put a dedicated team on the project –  Ran daily meetings to fix the biggest blockers –  Researched and brainstormed issues as a team Slide 2: To prevent any problems this month –  Develop a monitoring system –  Purchase upgraded software

3. DIRECTING ATTENTION TO VISUAL AIDS

Directing your audience's attention

Use expressions like these when you want your audience to pay specific attention to your visual aids: If you could look at the graph, you'll see that we've been doing very well. Let me direct your attention to the slides and this graph at the top. If you direct your eyes to the screen, you'll notice a chart of shopper age groups. What we have here is a set of survey results. Explaining a visual   Once you've drawn the audience's attention to a visual, use expressions like these to help them interpret the information: What this tells us is that we should be doing more to reach younger shoppers. What we can take from this is that an increasing number of people buy things online.