10 keys to unlock speechwriting success

Regardless of your role, industry or objectives, here are 10 tips to ensure speechwriting success:

1. Find your why.

A speech about everything is a speech about nothing.

Anchor your remarks around a central value or message. Before you draft, think about what you want to say and the headline you’d like to see in the next day’s papers. You should be able to sum up your speech in one sentence. Ask yourself: so what? Why does this message matter and why now?

The sharper your answer to the “so what” question, the more compelling your speech will be. If you’re stuck, begin with the end. Good speeches take the audience on a journey; they resonate in the heart, not just the head. Knowing how you want to end the speech will help you shape its narrative arc. If you end on a note of optimism and hope, build momentum early by conveying a sense of urgency about the challenges. If you end on a note of personal reflection and growth, start with a time when your judgment was clouded.

2. Show, don’t tell.

The best definition of a speech that I ever heard was this one: “Tell the truth memorably.”