Speech Writing Tips – Choosing What to Speak About
Sometimes you are told given a speech topic and other times the choice is left entirely up to you. This latter option can leave people feeling completely stuck. The purpose of this short post is to give you some practical guidance on how to choose the best speech topic of a presentation.
The key is to answer three questions
1) What do I know about?
2) What are my audience interested in
3) What am I passionate about?
What do you know about?
Obviously you want to talk about something that you know. The alternative is too horrible to comprehend! So make a list of all the things that you know about and that you are “qualified” to speak on.
What am I passionate about?
You have already looked at what you know about , now ask yourself which bits of what you know about are you most passionate about.? If you are speaking about something you are passionate about your presentations will automatically be more energetic and engaging.
What are your audience interested in?
In my experience this is the bit that most inexperienced presenters forget about. Think about who your audience are, what they do, the context within which you are addressing them, what their problems are, what they want.
Now the final step –
Choose a speech topic that fits all three areas.
In other words, speak about something that a) you know about, b) you are passionate about and c) something that the audience are interested in.
Tick all of these boxes and your can be sure that your speech topic and therefore your presentation is likely to be a success.
