How To Structure An Important Speech

Hi. I'm Simon Bucknall and in 2008, I won the European Championship of Public Speaking. At the Art of Connection, we help ambitious professionals to connect with their audience and we do it by bringing world class communication expertise into the training room to enable our clients to persuade, influence and inspire others.

How to structure a speech? Well, it may not surprise you to hear this, but keep it simple. That's the best advice I can give and what you get in this talk is a simple process called the PSP process that you can use to structure any speech you have to give. Look here on the board, you'll see that we've got PSP down the left hand side.

We'll come to that in just a moment. But first you'll see at the top, it says 'opening'. Now, that's really important.

The opening is that first few seconds or maybe it's a minute or so at the very start of your presentation where you're not trying to communicate any important points but you are seeking to connect with your audience. Now, during that time, literally for the first few seconds or minute or so of the talk, all you're seeking to do is to establish common ground with the people listening to you. Maybe it's something about the location that you're in.

Maybe you want to acknowledge certain people in the audience or maybe it's something else. All that matters is that it's something that other people in the room can share and relate to. That way, you build a connection with the people listening to you and it will also give them an opportunity to settle in and get ready for what you're about to say.

Then we'll get into the real crux of the speech. PSP - what does that stand for? Well, first of all, here the 'P', all that stands for is 'Point'. What is the point of your talk? What is the message you want to get across if you like? Get really clear on what that is and make sure your audience knows what it is so they have a clear idea of where you're going.

'S' stands for 'Support'. What are the 1 - 2 - 3 supporting pieces of evidence, chunks if you like, that support the point you're trying to make. Now, depending on the length of your talk, each of these three supports might take a minute, it might be five minutes.

If you're giving a long presentation or speech, it might be ten or even fifteen minutes. Say for a key length talk. So, what are those three key supports? And then finally, 'P' - guess what - 'point' again.

Repeat the key point you made at the start. Point - Support – Point and in that way, you'll leave the audience with the key point you're seeking to get across at the very last. So, that's the structure that you can use for any speech.

Open to ground and think what my big point, what are the three supports that I can use and then finally wrap up by repeating your point. .