7-7-7 speech development methodology

Opening:  How would you like to be able to create a great speech in 7 hours, that’s right, 7 hours!

You always have to develop speeches; here is a quick and easy way to do it.

Why 7 hours?

Winston Churchill followed a rule of thumb, 1 hour of preparation was needed for each minute of speech he was going to give.  Now following that rule of thumb, most of your speeches are 5-7 minutes, going to shoot to use all of that time, so take 7 hours to develop a 7 minute speech, and here is how you are going to do it:

1 hour of your time, and let your mind do the rest in the background.

Day 1	Think	Starts right after Toastmasters on Tuesday mornings, when you are motivated.  You are going to engage your brain and use that great instrument to do some multi-tasking in the background, as you go about your day.  Here is what you need to think about: v  - Topic:   Use this to define what you are going to talk about: Ø  Passion – a memory that you are passionate about: Ø  Passion – a life defining moment Ø  Passion – a life lesson learned v  Object of your speech – what do you want the listeners to get out of your speech.
Day 2	Outline	Write it down: v  Opening:  Ø  How will I get their attention v  Organization:  Ø  Start chronologically, list 3 items, list 5 items, etc. v  Conclusion: Ø  Making use of my objective that I have been thinking about for a day, what action item do I want they to take after hearing my speech
Day 3	Final organization	v  Review your organization: Ø  Add in quotes, Ø  Maybe determine mnemonics that will help your listeners more easily absorb your message v  Rewrite your outline, still not writing out all of your words
Day 4	Oral	Begin the oral practice of your speech.  You won’t be able to initially go all the way through your speech without stopping to want to add different content. v  Objective at this stage:  Ø  Are you getting the right message across?  Are you getting across the objective that you started out with Ø  Is it clear? Ø  By talking out loud, you will be able to hear this for yourself.  v  You will also get a rough idea of the timing of your speech, a mistake often made, you often go longer than you though. v  Add in quotes, perhaps mnemonics which will make it easier for your listeners to understand.  You want to start practicing early.
Day 5	Variety – vocal and had gestures	Begin your practice here, going all the way through your speech.  Practice in front of a mirror, I like to use the mirror closet doors in my bedroom so I can see what I am doing. Help you get a way from standing close to the lectern, or annoying habits, or are there any places where you can add in specific hand gestures that add to your speech.
Day 6	Review/ Front	Review in front of someone.  We often don’t do this because we feel not practiced enough, if you follow this methodology, you will be ready to show a well developed and practiced speech to someone that you will not be embarrassed to show them.  And you will get great and useful input from them. v  Think about their feedback and how you can incorporate it, where you can make improvements, put them in to your speech, v   practice it a couple of times and then show them again at the end of that hour.  v  Think about their last comments to you and how you can implement those changes; again let your mind do the work.
Day 7	Polish	Use the last day before your speech to polish up your presentation: In theory, in the course of 60 minutes, you can practice a 7 minute speech 8 times.  More realistically, with a little bit of thinking time in between, 6 times is a better number making any minor adjustments as you go along, with 3.5 minutes in between.  Time to drink some water, look at any possible minor tweaks. It may seem like a lot, but this is the time to make sure you are really going to hit your time frame

Conclusion:

7-days to a great speech:

-          you will see that the time from content development and oral practice is about split, you need to work on both of these areas to have a great speech

-          Trying to develop your speech at the last minute, trying to get all of this in to a very short time period, can also work, but we are not taking advantage of our brain and putting it to work for us, as much as we could.

Hand out by Emmy B. Gengler