Last updated on December 5th, 2019 at 08:57 pm
If you are starting on your public speaking dream, I want you to understand something about speech writing and how you can be a bad public speaker without realizing it–
If there’s no character and no conflict, then there’s no story presentation, and no one will remember you or your speech.
Read that sentence again.
Read it one more time.
In my career of being a top motivational speaker, coaching new public speakers and people in business how to present a story as a tool of impact, I see a common mistake.
Speakers present stories that aren’t really stories.
• A list of facts is not a story presentation.
• Telling me how you got started in business is not a story or an interesting presentation.
• Telling me the history of your organization does not make a story presentation.
Those are the facts.
Every speech story must present a character with conflict; a pain they want to get rid of, or a desire they want to achieve. It’s how you create connections and engagement with your audience and your potential customers.
If your speeches, your marketing materials, your website ‘About Me’ page, and business purpose doesn’t present a clear main character with a problem that gets solved, you don’t have a compelling story, and you won’t be a successful motivational speaker or successful in business.
Period.
That’s the end of today’s big dream lesson on how to avoid being bad at public speaking by presenting a better story.
Kelly Swanson
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Kelly Swanson is an award-winning storyteller, comedian, motivational speaker, Huffington Post Contributor, and cast member of The Fashion Hero television show airing on Amazon Prime. She is also the author of Who Hijacked My Fairy Tale, The Land of If Only, The Story Formula, and The Affirmation Journal for Positive Thinking. She was a featured entertainer for Holland America Cruise Lines, keynote speaker for the International Toastmasters Convention, and has keynoted major conferences and corporate events from coast to coast. She just launched her one-woman show Who Hijacked My Fairy Tale in theaters, and it is being booked all over the country. In July of 2022, she was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame.
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