A realization came to me as I wrote my Trust My Paper review: communication skills are essential not just in the academic world. Many gifted entrepreneurs and inventors ignored and refused to train their socialization and language skills to their detriment.
Many brilliant ideas died, locked in their owner’s head because said owner couldn’t pitch that idea to the right people. No matter how great you are and how well-made your product is, everyone will ignore you if you don’t have a strong pitch. Tesla is an example that comes to mind.
The ability to make a sell, inspire morale in employees, and convince people to support you is not optional. In this globalized market, the skill of writing an outstanding business speech has become obligatory.
Regardless of your field, you have too many competitors and cannot afford not to stand out. Here are some tips on how to write a more persuasive business speech:
Do some research on the listeners.
Your speech should have a direct line to both the listener’s emotions and their reason. This link cannot be achieved if it seems like just another canned, pre-packaged speech. It has to feel personal, aimed towards them and them alone.
If you pitch a product or service to a potential client company, make sure to reference their quarterly numbers and local distribution needs. Comb through their website, Wikipedia, social media reviews, and every other info source.
Show that you care by knowing what you are talking about.
If you are delivering a speech to your own team, note and mention every shred of progress made, and promise ascension to greater heights, should the trend continue.
As a capstone to this point, be sure to research other extrinsic factors. In our globalized world, it can be easy to offend cultural sensibilities. Be respectful towards other’s sensibilities, and they will appreciate that care.
Be precise in your arguments, not your conclusions
Ultimately, the idea of holding a speech is to pull at the heartstrings of listeners. If you just wanted to communicate information, it would have been much easier just to email everyone a graph or a pie chart.
Remember to maintain the classic 1-2-punch of rhetoric: argument, followed by a conclusion.
Your conclusions can get a little more abstract, such as community improvement, a brighter future for students, or an idealized production process.
However, your arguments should not be abstract. Cite stats early and often. Show people that the optimism in your tone is backed up by logic and reason. Each argument should be as precise and blunt as possible, letting it flow into a more fuzzy and abstract conclusion. An example would be:
“With current growth projections estimating a 3.4% increase in profits for the next quarter, our company’s ability to manufacture vital medicine and change lives will only improve.”
After a solid and measurable base of information is established, then you can wax poetic.
The intended vaguery of conclusions leaves room for the imagination and encourages optimism.
Create an outline
It is a very rare breed of human who can ramble and still make it sound professional. The odds are that most of us do not find ourselves in that category.
The necessity of having an outline can be taught to any type of writer. This is as true for a business speech as it is for a news article or fantasy novel.
Everything that you need to know is floating somewhere inside your head. Your company knows why it selected you to write that business speech. Most likely, you have the experience, language skills, and knowledge required to do the job.
However, making order out of the chaos inside our heads is easier said than done. For this reason, an outline is imperative.
In trying to plan out the contour of your speech, more ideas will come to you. Also, the presentation will seem intentional and organized.
Use buzzwords and short sentences
This is a lesson from Marketing 101. It is a very rare crowd that appreciates the intricacies of a well-constructed, eloquent speech. Especially in the digital age, people’s attention spans have shrunk severely due to the Internet.
You need to keep each sentence short. This not only cuts the content into bite-sized chunks, but it also makes it easier for you to remember your own speech. Of course, you can read it off a prompter or phone. Still, citing it from memory will be much more impressive.
You should also borrow tactics from our friends in marketing. Buzzwords, catchy phrases, witty lines are all worth millions of dollars.
We each have commercials and slogans that have imprinted themselves in our minds, and we remember them after a few decades.
If you can manage to create such staying power for your product or info, you will be worth five times your weight in gold.
Be very careful with humor.
Even though the business is a solemn undertaking, you don’t want to seem stiff-necked, distant, and humorless. Write your speech in a more friendly tone. It should seem like a conversation in a lunchroom and not a “this is it” moment.
A great way to break through excess stress, formality, and emotion is to use humor. Yet, in an age when the word “Offensive” is more common than “hello,” you should be very careful with your jokes.
Try and select the most inoffensive quips possible. Self-deprecating jokes work very well, depending on the context. Still, you’re trying to inspire and gather trust. Don’t go overboard with self-deprecation, but use it to break the ice.
Conclusion
I used to get nervous while writing business speeches. However, I started to change my mentality. A speech is a conversation that you can plan ahead, and nobody gets to interrupt you. It’s the best deal you can get!
When you start to think about speeches in those terms, conversations become much more intimidating.
This simple shift in perspective allowed me to write more persuasive speeches because it removed the scare factor. I learned to appeal to both factual arguments and more abstract conclusions. I also started to outline whatever I was going to say.
In terms of language, I keep the tone conversational, friendly, with slight touches of humor.
