Create Winning Speech Habits: Don’t “Tell on Yourself”

After finishing his speech, the young man, a high school senior in his school’s senior speech contest, rolled his eyes, shook his head and pursed his lips in that self-loathing attitude that communicates to others “I’m a little disgusted with how my speech went.”  He clearly knew that he hadn’t given his best performance.  And, […]

Killer Keynote Speech Structure

Want a solid way to structure a keynote presentation that will be memorable and get you asked to come back?  Click this link for a pdf of the diagram below:  Killer Keynote Structure Do you need to create a presentation in a hurry? Do you want a repeatable method for presentation creation. Sign up for […]

Ending Your Speech with a Call-to-Action

When you give a speech, you want your audience to think, feel or do something differently than before, right? Even if your speech is primarily informative in nature, don’t you want your audience to do something with the new information? Don’t you want them to consider your ideas and apply them in some way? In […]

It’s a Wrap: Concluding Your Speech Completely

“Umm . . . I’m out of time.  So, I guess that’s all.  Thank you.” We’ve all heard conclusions like that.  Maybe you’ve even done it yourself.  I call it the “aborted conclusion.”  Maybe that phrase, “aborted conclusion,” makes you feel uncomfortable because of the usual connotations of the word, “aborted.”  Good.  If you terminate […]

Bookending Your Speech: Tying the Introduction to the Conclusion

Bookends are designed to “buttress, or to support an upright row of books.” Usually, bookends also are a matched, mirror image set, providing visual balance.  Bookending your speech means that your speech introduction and conclusion support your speech in a way that provides balance.  You “close the circle” for your audience, wrapping up your speech […]

Opening and Closing your Speech with Jokes

Wouldn’t you love to get your audience laughing at the start of your speech or leave them laughing at the end? Jokes can do the job, but use them with caution!  If you are using someone else’s material, you need to give credit.  The joke needs to be relevant to your presentation  (I hate it […]

Stories: Opening and Closing Your Speech with a Story

Stories are my personal favorite way to open a speech.  Stories touch our emotions and linger in our mind. Stories are a powerful way to captivate and connect. Stories captivate us because we think in stories.  We can’t help it! “Stories fill our lives in the way that water fills the lives of fish.”~Steve Denning […]

How to Use Quotes and Poems to Open and Close Your Speech

The audience gazed in anticipation as I stood before them holding a large black cloth draped over my arm.  Then I threw the black cloth over my head.  After a brief pause, I quoted the opening lines of an Emily Dickinson poem: “I’m nobody. Who are you? Are you nobody, too?” I then paused, and […]

How to Engage Your Audience with Questions

Why start and sometimes end your speech with questions? Questions engage your audience by causing them to think.   Questions can tap into prior knowledge.  Questions can challenge assumptions.  Questions can be used as a bridge to the next segment of your presentation. Questions take your audience from passive listeners to engaged participants. Here’s the top […]

How to Start and End Your Speeches

People remember best how you start and how you end! Do you know what parts of a presentation are best remembered? The interesting parts, right?  Well, yes! And some parts are remembered better because of their locations in the speech.  Numerous studies have shown (with lists of items) that people recall the items near the […]