The Secret to a Great Speech

A ten-minute speech is over one thousand words. That’s a lot of words for a short speech! The trick to writing a great speech is not to think of it as a speech.

It’s one idea. One phrase. That’s all an audience will remember.

As rhetorician Jay Heinrichs points out:

“Your most memorable words, just several of them, will serve as the takeaway. While few people remember Winston Churchill's 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri, everyone knows its central phrase, “iron curtain.” It became the metaphor for the Cold War.”

Once, I had to write remarks for a university leader about a bill that banned tuition hikes. It was a hot topic. I knew there would be lots of press at the hearing. Before I wrote the speech, I wrote the quote I wanted people to remember. In the end, that was the line that an important reporter tweeted.

The rest of the speech didn’t matter. Of course, it was important to show that the president understood the facts and political realities. But the speech was building to one point.

I could have stressed over all the details needed to fill that blank page. Instead, I anchored the speech around that line.

The most famous speeches are remembered for one phrase:

• “Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” - JFK, Address at Rice University (1962)

• “A shining city upon a hill.” - Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address to the Nation (1989)

• “There's not a liberal America and a conservative America. There's the United States of America.” - Barack Obama, DNC Keynote Address (2004)

• “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” - William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold (1896)

• “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” - Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)

Even the most epic speech is just one idea. Don’t make a speech. Make a point.