Giving a Successful Speech
Preparing your speech
There may be a time in your life when you are asked to give a speech in front of a large
crowd of people. Whether it be at your best friend’s wedding, a work meeting, or a charitable event, there are important aspects that you should take into consideration. When preparing your speech, you should first talk to the person who initially asked you to speak, your best friend, boss, organization leader. Ask them what points they want you to touch on, ask about the audience, and a time limit that they have in mind. These are very important questions to ask before writing your speech because they allow you to really know what to write.
Why ask those questions?
Knowing if there are certain aspects they want you to touch on is important because you have to know what to talk about. At your best friend’s wedding, there might be things they don’t want you to touch on, at a work meeting, your boss will tell you what the meeting is regarding, and at a charity event they may have certain numbers they want you to talk about, such as the amount they raise last year and their goal for this year. Knowing the audience is also very important. If the audience is a very serious group, you don’t want to incorporate jokes into your speech that may offend their serious tone of the event, and if they are a fun group, you don’t want to ruin the light atmosphere with a very serious speech. Time limit is also important because if there are other speeches you don’t want to drag on your speech for 10 minutes when they were planning on a minute long speech. Vise versa if they were planning for a 10 minute speech and you are completed in a minute.
Time to talk
When the time has come to actually give your speech try not to panic. If you’re like me, you hate talking infront of people. Have your cards if needed, but I’ve found it helpful to not write out every word, just the bullet points. This way it keeps you on track, but you don’t focus on every word and panic if you miss a word. You know what to talk about, but it is not exact. Read the room while you’re up there, you can always skip or add points depending on the rooms reactions. Click here for more tips on what to do right before a speech to help relieve stress.
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