What’s the Best Way to Make a Good Speech? Keep It Simple

The best way to make a good speech is to keep it simple — to build it on the foundation of a single, solid core message. The core message should be a useful idea. It should be something that your audience will recognize as true. Ideally, it should be based on the wisdom of your own personal experience so you can speak authoritatively about it. And it should serve as an anchor for anything else you talk about during the speech.

10 Ways to Make Your Speeches More Powerful and Persuasive

Speaking to groups of people — large and small — is unavoidable in business. No matter who you’re talking to, you want them to listen to you attentively, understand what you are saying, and remember the most important ideas that you are trying to convey. The ability to do this does not come naturally to most people.

However, anyone can learn to make unforgettable, persuasive, and inspiring speeches. The secret is in the preparation — the time you spend on your speech before the actual event.
As Muhammad Ali said about boxing, “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses — behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.”

Here, then, are the 10 best ways I know of to power up your next presentation:

1. Tell them something useful.

This is the most important rule in speechmaking. What you say must benefit your listeners. Many novice speakers see the podium as a place to show how smart they are or to demonstrate their latest thinking. Nothing could be less interesting to an audience. Unless you are a guru of sorts — in which case you are speaking not to an audience but to a fan club — your job is to help or enlighten.

Remember, these people have taken the time (and in some cases have spent money) to hear you. You owe them something valuable in return.

2. Tell them something they don’t already know.

It’s not enough to give your audience useful information. At least some of it has to be new to them.

How do you know what’s new to them? You don’t. But if it’s new to you, chances are it’s new to them as well.

My favorite trick for coming up with new and different ideas is to read what others with a contrary point of view have said on the same subject. Think: “In what way is this guy’s thinking wrong or specious (see “Word to the Wise,” below) or shallow?” Most of the best ideas I’ve had over the years have come from my using this simple tactic.

3. Unify your speech with a single, overarching theme

Ask yourself: “What is the overriding idea here? If I had to summarize my message in 12 words or less, what would it be?”

A group of solid ideas linked together by a single, strong theme will resonate in your audience’s memory. A list of disparate ideas will disappear almost as quickly as it was put together. A unifying theme makes all the facts and perspectives in your speech easier to understand. And by designing your speech around a single theme, you’ll find it easier to edit out all the fluff.

4. Follow the “Tell ‘Em Three Times” Rule

At the beginning of your presentation, tell them what you’re going to tell them . . . then tell it to them . . . and, finally, at the end of your speech, tell them what you just told them.

This is probably the oldest rule in speechmaking — and with good reason. Because it works. It makes it easier for your listeners to follow the details of your speech and easier for you to stick to the point.

5. Let the audience see how much you care about what you’re saying.

If you care about your message — and you should — you will be enthusiastic when talking about it. This is perhaps your greatest asset as a speaker. Let that spirit show. It will ignite interest in everyone who listens to you.

6. Stick to what you know is absolutely true.

The only way you can feel sure of the validity of your big idea is if it is one with which you’ve had experience. If, for example, you are talking about the best way to hire new employees, be sure your overriding theme is something you personally discovered — some interesting little trick you employ or some larger observation you’ve made. If you do so, your words will ring true. If your big idea is something you’ve only read about, you are setting yourself up for trouble.

7. Structure your speech in small “sound bites.”

According to Business Week magazine, the typical U.S. executive has an on-the-job attention span of six minutes. So, think of your presentation as six-minute “sound bites.” If you are using visual aids, make sure each one has its own headline. And always plant a verbal flag in each six-minute sound bite with a statement such as “Let me highlight this idea for you.” This signals the main idea of that particular section and grabs attention.

8. Create “the perfect moment.”

One goal of your presentation should be to create what Spalding Gray called “the perfect moment.” That’s the moment in a speech when your big idea is suddenly made to seem powerful, correct, and even brilliant. One way to do this — after you’ve introduced your idea, have shown how it works, and have provided data to support it — is to present it in the form of a metaphor. You might, for example compare your big idea on hiring with pitching in the World Series . . . or singing the blues.

By going at your big idea from a different direction — by using a metaphor, allegory, quotation, etc. — you can often give your audience a “Eureka!” moment. (“Yes! I get it! That’s right!”)

9. Speak to individuals, not the entire group.

Look at one person in your audience when you start your speech. It might be someone you know or just someone who seems friendly. Make eye contact. Smile. Try to get a reaction. Then move on to someone else and try, again, for a reaction. Build rapport with your audience one person at a time. As Ron Hoff says in his book “I Can See You Naked” [insert amazon code], act like a dog that’s glad to see its master — and convey that simple message clearly and unpretentiously.

10. Memorize the first and last lines of your presentation, but nothing else.

The speaker who reads his speech is sure to fail. He can’t make eye contact. He can’t become passionate about what he’s saying in any genuine way. He can’t light up his audience.

You need a strong opening and a strong close. But in between, you need to speak from the heart.

So, instead of using a script, prepare your speech on index cards. What you write on each card should be no more than a short phrase that will remind you of a story or an idea about which you can speak confidently.

By Brian Tracy, ETR

When I was 21 years old, a friend of mine and I decided to go off to see the world. Many of our friends were going to Europe and hitchhiking around with rucksacks. We decided to be different and go to Africa.

We had no idea how serious and how difficult this adventure was to be. As we drove south across the Sahara Desert, we encountered endless problems, any one of which could have finished our trip … or our lives.

The prospect of getting across that immense desert was so daunting, it could have stopped us dead in our tracks. Instead, we learned a lesson that turned out to be one that I have since applied to every aspect of my life.

The French, who had controlled Algeria for many years, had marked a path across the desert with 55-gallon oil drums spaced exactly five kilometers apart. As we came to an oil drum, the next drum would pop up on the horizon and the last oil drum would fall off the horizon, as if shot in a shooting gallery. Wherever we were, we could always see two oil drums – the one we had just left and the one we were headed toward. And it looked like our journey was never going to end.

We could have thrown up our hands and said, “This is impossible!” But we didn’t. We adopted a Positive Mental Attitude and realized that to achieve our goal, all we had to do was take it one step (one oil barrel) at a time.

A Positive Mental Attitude is indispensable to success. By focusing on doing what lies clearly at hand … by taking the step that appears immediately in front of you … that will automatically lead you to the next step, and the next, and so on. Eventually, you will find yourself where you want to be.

But there is much more to a Positive Mental Attitude than this. You can have a positive attitude that immediately disappears in the face of adversity … or you can have an attitude that is so strong, you are able to remain positive, cheerful, and optimistic, no matter what.

Of course, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Because we are all faced with four obstacles that tend to get in the way of our maintaining a Positive Mental Attitude: fear, worry, anger, and doubt.

We are afraid that we will lose our money, waste our effort, or forfeit our emotional or physical investment. If we are not careful, we start thinking of our potential losses rather than focusing on our potential gains.

Fear triggers worry, and we begin to use our power of imagination to create all sorts of negative images that interfere with our ability to perform effectively.

Fear and worry create anger and doubt. Instead of constantly moving forward in the direction of our dreams, we turn ourselves into victims and begin to blame other people and other situations for our problems.

There are six things you can do to eliminate these obstacles and develop a Positive Mental Attitude:

1. Instead of worrying about who did what and who is to blame, focus on where you want to be and what you want to do. Get a clear mental image of your ideal successful future, and then take whatever action you can to begin moving in that direction.

2. Focus on the solution instead of wasting time rehashing and reflecting on the problem. Solutions are inherently positive, whereas problems are inherently negative. The instant that you begin thinking in terms of solutions, you become a positive and constructive human being.

3. Assume that something good is hidden within each difficulty or challenge. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a major proponent of positive thinking, once said, “Whenever God wants to give us a gift, he wraps it up in a problem.” The bigger the gift you have coming, the bigger the problem you will receive. And if you look for the gift, you will always find it.

4. Assume that the situation you are facing at the moment is exactly the right situation you need to ultimately be successful. This situation has been sent to you to help you learn something, to help you become better, to help you expand and grow. One of the affirmations I have learned to use is this: “Every situation is a positive situation if I view it as an opportunity for growth and self-mastery.” You cannot say that without thinking positive thoughts, feeling positive emotions, and seeing positive actions that you can take.

5. Assume that every setback contains a lesson that is essential for you to learn. Only when you learn this lesson will you be smart enough and wise enough to go on to achieve the big goals that you have set for yourself. If you are busy looking for the lesson, you cannot simultaneously think about the difficulty or the obstacle. And you will always find the lesson.

6. Whenever you have a goal that is unachieved, a difficulty that is unresolved, or a problem that is blocking you from getting where you want to go, sit down with a pen and piece of paper and make a list of every single thing that you could possibly do to resolve the situation. As you write, all kinds of insights and ideas will pop into your head.

A Positive Mental Attitude is indispensable to your success. And all it takes is for you to always take these six actions that are consistent with achieving your goals rather than actions that make you feel the negative emotions of worry, doubt, anger, and fear.