How do you structure your speech to deliver a clear and persuasive message?

One thing I found helpful is to add vulnerability, particularly if It is a motivational speech. It provides a sense of relatability and connectedness.

Whatever the purpose of your speech, your audience will have four questions in mind: - WHY? Why should I listen to this? - WHAT? What is this all about? - HOW? How is this going to work in practice? - WHAT IF? What if this happens? Where could this be useful? Make sure your speech addresses all four questions.

One thing I think is helpful is to keep the speech to no more than 3-4 key points. Few points help the audience to remember and understand the main takeaways. It allows you to go into detail while not straying too far from the main topic.

In the words of Dr. Stephen R. Covey, “begin with the end in mind”. Determine the main idea or key takeaway you want your audience to remember and work backwards from that. I like to include: A compelling opening, ie: a stat, a thought-provoking quote or question. Summarise what you've been talking about Explain the context or subject you're talking about. Call to action, what do you want the audience to do or take away as a result of the speech?

I believe 'Ethos Pathos Logos' approach that Stephen Covey stresses at length in his '7 habits of highly effective people' works most of the time. While in the first minute of the speech, it is important to capture the attention and establish your credibility by positioning undisputable facts, the 'pathos' part plays a crucial role. For this we need to know the customers and restate with empathy their problem or issue or requirement that you try to address with your 'solution'. If you can explain customer's pain in your own words better than he/she can express by putting yourself in their shoes, half the battle is won. Then the actual logic of why your solution addresses their requirement will convincingly persuade the customer.

? Decide on a theme that will carry through your entire speech. ? Include actionable lessons your listener can implement. ? Keep to your topic and remove anything that doesn't support your main point. ? Stories help drive home a point in a very relatable manner. ? Summarize the main point/s you want listener to remember during your final minutes as you wrap up your speech. ? Most importantly- make eye contact with the crowd. Be personable. Don't talk too fast - and speak clearly. Good luck!

We're so bombarded with information these days, it's hard to take any more in. Even if you aren't a "motivational speaker," your audience wants you to motivate them and inspire them. Show them you understand their problem, paint word pictures and tell stories so that they feel it, then offer a great solution. Focus on the transformation, not the way to get there.

Here's how I outline my speeches: 1. State a problem/pain/challenge/goal - Then I Define the Solution - Finally I share a transformation. (for example, the goal is to learn how to ride a bike, the solution is to learn how to balance, steer, and power the bike, which leads to the transformation of cruising all over town having fun. 2. In your solution (body) of a speech, have three bullets for folks to latch onto; e.g., balancing, steering, and powering the bike. 3. One that I use a lot these days is a 5Ws&H (When I'm giving my talks on succeeding as a small business, I organize my thoughts by answering: Who, What, When, Why, Where & How.)

The WHAT WHY HOW pattern makes it easy to organize your main ideas when making a recommendation. WHAT is your suggestion (LEAD with this--too often, speakers don't get to the recommendation soon enough. Aim for explaining your idea FIRST. Next, share the three most compelling reasons WHY the decision makers should say, "Yes," to your idea. Finally, explain HOW your idea can be accomplished. WHAT, WHY, HOW provides a turnkey organizational pattern for you so you can spend your time practicing this presentation.

As they say in marketing - say your "message" in 1 line. To that add 3-4 details to elaborate the message. Make the details granular, making the MESSAGE come alive for that listener e.g. say purpose is to persuade them to try an experiment. 1-line message maybe-it can increase sales by 100%, the 4 details could be about how it will increase the sales, where you plan to implement it, how you want to mitigate the risk. So how to choose the details? based on your purpose. these 4 would "persuade" this person. For someone else the 4 details cud be different based on what persuades them e.g. this will make us a leader in innovation, bring us the edge to blast the competition. So Purpose - big idea in 1 line - details to accomplish the purpose

Practice is helpful and important. If you sound too rehearsed, your audience won't find you as relatable and trustworthy. Communication is only 10% the words you use. It's 20% your tone of voice, and a whopping 70% your body language and energy. Yet most speakers focus more on the words they say than their energy. Find a good coach who can show you how to use your energy to be more authentic, magnetic, and ultimately wow your audience.

Practicing a speech is for 'first-time' speakers. If you speak to what you know, then practice is not really necessary. Speak to your expertise. When you use a basic three bullet approach to what you want to talk about, you just start talking. Too often we give a speech that we think is professional and correct. Instead, we should just aim to share what we know. If I advise my 9-year-old sons on giving a speech, I start by telling them to talk about playing Minecraft instead of the Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire. When they give a speech about Rome, they're worried about getting things right, remembering information and facts. When they give a speech about Minecraft, their passion and energy comes out. You should do the same.

I couldn’t agree with this point more. Practice helps you build confidence and makes your speech come off more natural. Public speaking is not always easy but, practicing helps to take the edge off. So, give yourself an advantage and practice until it practically rolls off your tongue.

I'd be biased saying this of course but film yourself presenting the speech. Either as practice or when in front of an audience. In practice, you can always delete it and your phone has an obscene amount of storage space to use up! In presentation, having it filmed means you can share your message, expertise and demonstrates you're knowledgeable in your field. So it's for marketing purposes really! Plus you can clip up 30 / 60 second snippets for Shorts and social media for people to click through to wherever to see the full thing. The way I see it, you're presenting so you may as well get it filmed. A lot of cameras can have the red recording light turned off so you won't event notice it's there in the crowd. Hope this helps!

Practicing your speech is so important. In my experience, any time I'm putting together a presentation the practice has helped me get comfortable with the outline of my speech. Practicing also assists in cleaning up the speech for any areas that don't flow well. I make sure to know when to add a story, and facial expressions and when to get the audience involved with audience participation. Often, I'll ask a business friend to listen to my speech to offer feedback to ensure I put my best foot forward in my presentation.

In my experience, deciding NOT to use visual aids can be just as useful. If your speech will be overshadowed by the visual aid, definitely don't use any. This may look like having a blank slide, or simply using a logo or reoccurring picture throughout the presentation. This tactic will help to keep your audience focused on what you are saying rather than a distracting visual aid.

Death by Powerpoint is a real phenomenon! If you're going to use slides, have the image fill the slide, be interesting, and evoke emotion. Use few if any words so your audience doesn't have to decide whether to read the slide or listen to you. Videos and props can be fun and interesting if used sparingly. Use your body language and facial expressions to keep the focus on you and to engage the audience.

Visual aids like a PowerPoint provide a guide for the presenter. Many people think they’re for the audience (and many parts are), but mainly provide a guide for the presenter. Use bullet points you can expand on with lots of white space. The 7x7 rule says no more than 7 bullet points per slide with no more than 7 words each. Graphics help keep the audience interest.

Since most people are visual learners, adding visual aids in your speech can be beneficial in that they add another layer to your discussion and keep your audience engaged.

To further connect with the “tell a story” technique, everyone has a story to tell. Our stories are what lead us to expertise or passion in our chosen subject matter. Taking our audience on a journey through lived-experience is the ultimate engagement strategy. It’s not Googleable. Predictable. Or even expected. And this will draw an audience in to the ultimate objective of a speech.

In my experience, story is the best way to start a speech. Story helps people remember what you said. If we don't put what we are sharing in story format, much of it will be forgotten. Story offers an entry point to others to make it relate to their own life. In education, this can be called engaging preconceptions. I agree with Natalie, story is key for engagement with the audience. Vulnerability creates connection.

Wow, AI sucks. This tip about engaging audiences for confidence is crazy. I have given over a thousand speeches in my life. Confidence doesn't come from engaging an audience. Confidence comes from knowing your topic backwards and forwards. Audience engagement is a very tough skill to master. And it isn't really necessary. Most times, an audience is looking to learn from you. You don't need to be Tony Robbins saying "If you agree, say Aye!" :) That's when you start sliding away from being passionate and authentic to being machine-like. You know your on the wrong path when your notes have "wait for laughter here" in them. Better to wonder what you said that made them smile and laugh with you.

Add some dynamic delivery, especially on your main points, to more fully engage your audience. Vary your tone, pace, and volume to match the message. Are you building up excitement? Sharing an industry secret? Or emphasizing a key idea? Here’s a tip to immediately harness your audience’s attention: pause mid-sentence or before delivering an important point. The sudden break in your speech and the suspense it lends will greatly increase their interest in what you have to say next.

Please make it interactive! I am SO much more engaged if we're asked questions or do something during the presentation. Unless your delivery is high energy then that'll also hold my attention.

In addition to the great information provided above I suggest that you as the speaker become ready to accept challenges from others in the field as well as from the media on the main points in your presentation/speech. Today, so much information comes from so many sources that it frequently helps when a subject matter expert is prepared to be challenged off the podium and additionally this gives your speech or presentation more wide ranging venues and audiences to hear your message. Be cool, calm and precise in your answers when giving additional information on or about your topic and you soon find more positive opportunities to share your viewpoints.

We live in a digital era so you can bet most of the participants in your audience will have a mobile device. Create a catchy bit.ly link that will take the audience to a landing page where they can provide feedback. To direct them there, tell them how important they are and how you desired to deliver an impactful, educational or (whatever your goal is) speech. Make sure they understand that their opinion matters a lot then ask them to take out their phone, access the web link you give them and tell them to leave a comment, good or bad. If you have an incentive you can offer, make sure to mention it, too.