How do you end a speech?

If you’re looking for a sure-fire way to end a speech, here’s some simple advice to keep in mind.

Have you ever attended a speech or presentation that ended like this?

“They’re telling me I’m out of time, so I’ll stop now. Thank you.”

Or how about this line?

“And that’s all I have for you today. Thank you.”

Or the worst:

“It looks like it’s time for lunch, so I’ll wrap it up. Thank you.”

You leave a lousy last impression – and appear inexperienced – when you end a speech with lines like these.

If you’re in the audience, how does this kind of an ending make you feel?

• Satisfied?
• Attracted to the speaker's Big Idea?
• Ready to act on what the speaker had to say?

No!

If the first thing you say matters, then the last thing you say matters even MORE.

But quite often, speakers who work hard on their opening fail to work just as hard – if not harder – on their closing. So they limp to the finish line.

If you need some ideas on how to end a speech, here are three questions to ask yourself:

• In the end, what do you want your audience to remember?
• How do you want them to feel about what you said?
• And why does it matter?

In a recent post on 10 big mistakes public speakers make on stage, I said it was important to work hard on a blockbuster ending that answers those three questions: what, how and why.

You can accomplish this goal in many ways: With an inspirational quote. The right anecdote. A challenging question. A quick summary. And of course, a compelling call to action.

A superb technique – which can be combined with any of the ending ideas just mentioned – is figuring out a clever and appropriate way to tie the closing of your speech to the opening.

This can be a little trickier, but it’s highly effective when you end a speech.

Here's why:

1. If you are attempting to persuade (and most speeches have some element of persuasion), tying the ending to the beginning can help you achieve that goal.
2. It signals to the audience in a savvy way that you are nearing the end of your speech without you having to say, “In closing, I’d like to tell you that …”
3. It is familiar, which is both reassuring and pleasing to the audience.
4. It reminds people about the journey you’ve just been on together, and how their thinking has changed from the beginning of the speech until now.
5. It is satisfying to people because it provides closure – and people like closure (as humans, we prefer to seek answers rather than struggle with ambiguity).
6. It brings your idea full circle and unifies your thinking.
7. It makes your Big Idea easier for the audience to recall – and act upon – in the future.

Tying your opening to your closing does not mean repeating verbatim what you said when you opened your speech. Instead?

When you end a speech, figure out a way to shine a different light on what you said in your opening. Connect those dots for the audience based on the new insights you just shared during your presentation.

Here's a good example from a client's keynote address delivered at a national trade association's executive summit in Washington, D.C.:

SPEECH OPENING

My wife, Jane, and I flew into town on Monday. And whenever we have an extra day or two in Washington, one of our favorite places to visit is about 3 miles from here: the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

We go there for a lot of reasons. For one, Jane and I have always loved aviation. It’s been a hobby of ours since we took flight training together back in the 1970s. Second, the two of us were raised in Dayton, Ohio – the Birthplace of Aviation. And third, whenever we go to the museum, we get to see our favorite exhibit of all time: the original 1903 Wright Flyer, the world’s first successful airplane.

If you’ve seen it, you know what it’s like to walk around that Flyer, go back in time and relive the story of the Wright Brothers. And when you do, you realize the magnitude of what they achieved.

They were ordinary young men: two humble, unassuming brothers who ran a printing business and a bicycle shop in Dayton. They had no training in aerodynamics, and they never went to college. But together, they invented modern flight.

SPEECH CLOSING

Signs like these make me believe the stars have finally aligned for reinventing free enterprise capitalism in America. So the time for all of us to act is now. For we cannot let our young people’s feelings of skepticism prevail.

We need them to believe and participate in a reinvented system. That’s because the younger generations among us – people in their 20s and 30s, just like Wilbur and Orville Wright, our Fathers of Flight – have always been at the forefront of change.

Back in December 1903, on the eve of that first powered flight, the stars aligned for the Wright Brothers. And on that next day, they made history.

Today, you can see this same star pattern: the one visible in Dayton the night before the Wright Brothers made their famous flight at Kitty Hawk. That’s because that star pattern is replicated perfectly on a beautiful domed ceiling inside the Schuster Performing Arts Center in downtown Dayton.

Every time I walk inside that concert hall to hear a symphony or enjoy a Broadway musical, I stop and look up at those bright silver stars. And every time I do, I’m reminded once again that the most ordinary people in America – given the freedom to develop their ideas – can reach new skies, and forever change our world. 

When you end a speech in this way – by connecting the opening to the closing – you will leave the right kind of lasting impression: one that does not disappoint.

A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start one, but to end it requires considerable skill. ~ Lord Mancroft