There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank screen and wondering how you’ll begin to write a speech. Oh wait, there is something worse: Staring at a blank screen and wondering how to start your speech—while your deadline is hanging over your head. Add some pressure to a confused mind and a dreaded task and, well, you’re likely to throw something together, throw up your hands, or throw in the towel.

But don’t get mad—get strategic. In my work coaching busy people (from powerful Hollywood movie moguls to nervous maids of honor) to make speeches, I have found that following these three simple steps can quickly take you from ideation to oration.

Whenever you do any type of writing you need to consider who you are trying to reach with your writing. Speech Writing is no different. In general, the more you know about your target audience the more effective your writing will be in reaching them.

In the example above, you know that your audience is going to be the other members of the Chamber of Commerce--who are likely to be small business owners just like you are.

Once you've defined your audience, you can gear your speech towards them. To do this, ask yourself questions like:

What does this audience need?
What problem can I solve for them?
Is there anything else I need to consider about my listeners?
In the example we're using for this tutorial, most small businesses in your town will fit one of the following three situations:

They've got a website that works well.
They've got a website, but the design is outdated or doesn't work well.
They don't have a website.
Note that the small business owners who fit in the last two categories could potentially be your clients. It would be a good idea to get a list of the Chamber of Commerce members and look at their websites before you make your speech publicly. You might be able to identify some problems with their existing websites.


In this example your topic is already given, you've been invited to introduce your business. But you also know that the speech is going to be fairly short--only five minutes long. While it's always a good idea to keep a speech focused, this will be especially important for a short speech.

If I were writing the public speaking speech for the scenario we're working with, I'd narrow the topic down like this:

Create a list of the strengths of my business.
Compare the list of business strengths to the problems I observed with the other members' websites in the previous step.
Focus my presentation on the areas where my business strengths meet weaknesses (needs) of other Chamber of Commerce members.
Let's say that I noticed that quite a few members of the chamber have websites that use outdated fonts and the sites aren't mobile-friendly. Instead of listing everything my web design business could possibly do, I'd focus my short speech on those areas where I observed a need.

You can use a similar process to narrow the topic down any time you need to write a speech.

Avoid the temptation of trying to cover too much information. Most people are so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new data they receive each day that they can't keep up with it all. Your listeners are more likely to remember your public speaking speech if it's tightly focused on one or two points.

Caution: Don't call out the problems you might observe in another business publicly. Although you might be tempted to do so, that will likely result in embarrassing the business owner and will make it difficult for you to build a relationship with them later. It's best to have such discussions privately unless the business owner has specifically given you permission to use their problems as an example.