To deliver a great speech think : mini skirt ! Short enough to attract attention but long enough to cover the subject.
This is the humorous rule I apply when helping my clients write their speech! Indeed, in the age of zapping and social networks, pompous discourse with rhetorical and literary arabesque figures are no longer relevant. We need hooks, repetitive slogans, pitchs. The words are counted, the pace is rhythmic and even “rapped”.
Win people’s hearts in public speaking
You may have written the most beautiful score, if you don’t know how to play with passion your instrument, you won’t win people’s hearts!
I speak from experience: as an actress I have performed more than a thousand stages shows and I can tell you that those evenings I was not inspired, those evenings where the « God of the stage inspiration » had not visited me, I could declaim the most beautiful texts of the French literature,I wouldn’t affect anyone! Fortunately it did not happen to me often, I prayed a lot (:
The highlights
There are two moments in a speech, we must, as in life, succeed: the entrance and the ending. The beginning because it’s the first impression you will make on your audience and the finale as per the last image they will remember of you and it got to be great !
When I help my clients to compose their speech, I put a lot of care in these two major moments:
The start, the hook, is the exact moment where you’re going to get the attention or not ! That’s the crucial moment when people are going to decide whether or not it’s worth listening to. This is the magical moment when, I hope you will create the connection, stretching this silk thread between them and you!
And the second highlight of your speech, too often botched: is the conclusion. Remember the ending is the last memory that people will keep of you, this is the perfume that you will leave floating long after leaving the place. You need to exit with a « firework » literaly speaking!
The secret of great speakers
A very important skill is the ability to give life to the text, to play it, give it panach and wings.
As a young actress, I started out in the classical repertoire filled with pages of monologs that classical writers loved so much. My first appearances were not easy : I would utter an aimless stream of words as fast as I could to get out of it, and would end up in apnea having lost in the course, all the attention of the public…But I was fortunate enough to meet the great actor and director Sacha Pitoëff* who teached me how to deal with monologs. He showed me how a monolog should be breathed, rhythmical, in segments ; it shouldn’t be thought fo as a headlong flight, but as a living and breathing dialog.
Most of my clients are experiencing the same problem with their speech. They do not know how to start and try to wrap up their speech as quickly as possible. They forget to breathe and talk at full speed to finish as soon as possible.
This is not the right method!!! The way you pull off a dialog or a speech is to speak each dialog segment, one after the other and pause, as if you did not know what’s coming next. So you will give life to your text, you will create a dialog as well with your public, giving him a chance to understand what you are saying, react and breathe. You can as well, imagine that the public will answer you, and let some space for its reactions.
This wonderful advice applies to an actor as well as a speaker and anyone who needs to speak in public.
TO DEVELOP THIS TALENT TO KNOW HOW TO WRITE AND SAY A GOOD SPEECH REGISTER NOW :
-STORYTELLING: THE SECRET OF A MEMORABLE SPEECH
See you soon!
Carmela Valente
«Talent as well as competence and confidence, comes with practice, training and repetition»
This article is from Carmela Valente’s book “Bye Bye Stage Fright”– Become a great public speaker. Copyright © 2015 Carmela Valente. All right reserved.
*Sacha Pitoëff (11 March 1920 – 21 July 1990) was a famous film actor and theatre director. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Georges and Ludmilla Pitoëff.