Many people who are called upon to speak at a public or private event write their own speech because they know a great deal about a particular topic. This is not necessarily a good route to take. An opportunity like this is a great time to look at hiring speech writing services, because the writer may not know everything about the topic, much like your audience, or may have a new perspective to present to industry professionals that you hadn’t considered. Read on to learn how speech writing services can turn your speech from a yawn to a yeah!
Different Strokes for Different Folks
You may have 20 years’ experience in construction, but that doesn’t mean your audience will have the knowledge to understand the difference between a joist and a rafter. There’s noting more frustrating—or boring—than having to sit through a speech when you don’t understand what the speaker is trying to convey or comprehend what the issues are he’s talking about. Hiring out speech writing services means that the writer will take into account what you’d like to get across and translate it into terms everyone can understand. They can also incorporate enough outside information to keep audience members engaged by telling them why your industry is important and relevant to them.
Keeping People in Your Industry Engaged
Speaking at an event that consists of industry professionals can be just as difficult. You’ve heard all the bad puns, jokes and jibes already, and so have they. Speech writing professionals can often come up with new humor that may fit the situation and will make your speech more memorable. They can also approach the speech from your customer’s viewpoint, making your listeners really think about the particular topic you are addressing in that specific industry.
Timing Is Everything
A speech writer is also able to properly time your speech. If you have a ten minute window to speak in, you won’t be able to present everything you sight read in that time, only what you can say in a clear, normal rate of speech.
A client asked me to write a doodle video script to last about two minutes. When I sent her a script of 350 words, she immediately came back and told me that she could read it in under a minute and that it wasn’t long enough. I had to point out that she had been sight reading, not reading aloud, and that most television content has a speaking rate of 120 to 180 words per minute. If she had used a script that was as long as she could read in two minutes by sight, reading it aloud in an understandable fashion would have taken around five minutes, over double the allotted time.
Speech writing has many qualities to it that are very different to everyday business and personal writing. Hiring a speech writer can make the difference between leaving the audience with a bomb or a bang!
Cathleen V is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
