The good news about informational speeches is that it's very, very easy to test whether it works or not. People like to have this idea that public speaking is a soft skill. It's like a little puppy and you don't really know what can happen. It's just a mystery. Now that's complete, utter garbage. Now, if you've done what I've asked so far, and you've really practiced on video, and you practice and you've gotten to the point where you really don't like a video, you say, and you haven't yet given your speech in real life, I want you to take that video that you've done that you're proud of that you like, send it to three or four people who are similar to the audience you'll be speaking to in real life, or maybe some of them actually are the audience.
Ask them to watch it once and to call you right away. Once you talk to them, ask them tell me what messages Do you remember from that speech? What do you take away? What information do you take away? Now whether they like Your speech, they could tell you they like your speech, you're great, You're charming, you're charismatic, completely irrelevant. You're simply trying to figure out, did they retain the information?
Now let's go back to that list of the five ideas to find five main pieces of information you wanted to convey in this speech. Call them up, ask them, what they remember. If they throw back in your face, those five ideas that were important to you, and I don't mean the same order, the same wording, but just basically at some conceptual level, did they throw back in your face, the five ideas you're trying to convey? If so, congratulations, you're 545 100% there's not a professional speaker in the entire world who can ever do better than that? That's perfect. However, if they're only getting one or two or three of those messages, or none of those messages.
They're just telling you, you're great, You're charming, you're fantastic. That means you fail. That means you now have empirical evidence that the way you convey this information in your presentation, didn't work. need to take your speech, tear it up, throw it away and start again. You can differ with me on my opinions of speaking and there's all sorts of theories about who can be right who can be wrong, but I'll tell you somebody who's never wrong, your audience. If they don't remember your messages, your information, it's not their fault.
It is your fault. So it's your job to go back. Start over if you have to. Let's come up with messages. Let's come up with information conveyed in a way that an audience member can listen. I have to write down everything word for word and remember your message.
Do that and you'll be in great shape.